by H. E. Trent
Owen had gone all the way to the kitchen, and leaned against the counter, as if that few minutes of closeness to Ais had caused him to expend all the social energy he had.
She started braiding her now-detangled hair, sad for some reason.
“Can you send some dog food over with Amy?” Owen asked. “The puppy needs a leash, too, but we’ll probably have to fashion a collar that’s small enough for him, first.”
“That sounds like a project for Fastida. She loves arts and crafts.”
“Ask her, please.”
“I will, as soon as she gets up. I think she and Precious were up cackling half the night.”
“Fast friends, huh?”
“Yeah, but you know how Precious is. As long as she doesn’t hate you at first sight, she’s your best friend for life.”
Friends.
Ais tied a thong around the end of her braid and sighed. She wasn’t certain the concept of friendship existed in the Tyneali in the same way as for humans. The Tyneali cooperated, but that seemed more for the sake of practicality or reaching some common goal than for camaraderie. They’d made her live like them, with no friends or any interaction at all, really.
She twined her fingers together atop her lap and closed her eyes. She couldn’t see anything, anyway. Soon enough, she’d get a headache from trying to. Her vision was often worst in the mornings before she’d had a chance to eat and get her blood pressure up.
“I’ll be over there after the doctor leaves,” Owen said.
“Bring Ais when you come. I don’t trust her to find her way on her own. The path isn’t so bad, but it’s really slippery where the rocks run along the surface. I don’t want her to fall again.”
“We’ll see. Bye.” He ended the connection and, without another word, walked into the bathroom. He shut the door behind him. Moments later, the sound of water hitting the shower floor thrummed.
He hadn’t promised to take her to Courtney’s. Ais didn’t want to think that meant he really had no plans of letting her out of the cottage. She needed to be around people.
She refused to be abandoned to the silence, and she was going to be sure to tell him.
Or if she had to, show him.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Stupid.
Owen pressed his forehead against the stone of the shower wall and let the cold water beat down on his back.
He didn’t know where his head was at, or maybe he did and just didn’t like the location.
Combing the tangles out of Ais’s hair shouldn’t have been such an extraordinary thing. As a much younger man, he’d often been tasked with helping Courtney and Erin tame their hair so they could get out the door and to school. Learning how to work a comb in a certain way had become a practical venture—they were all able to leave sooner if he pitched in.
But wrestling his sisters’ tangles didn’t stir internal conflict about the propriety of touch, and his own power. Vanquishing knotted hair was about grooming, not about sex, and yet his brain seemed unable to discern the difference.
She’d been so trusting, and so…soft.
And her collar was too loose. Her bodice should have fitted snugly against her collarbone, but it didn’t. Every glimpse of rosy areola had him curling his toes into his boots and berating himself for glancing too long, too appreciatively.
Ignoring her femininity had been far easier when he’d bought into the lie that she was just an exotic object in need of safekeeping. It’d been easier when he could tell himself that she was just an ignorant, mulish child, but she wasn’t a child. She was a woman, and while she might have been ignorant, she wasn’t stupid, and he’d treated her like she was.
Michael had smacked him down verbally time and time again for behaving as though he were the smartest person in the room, and Owen had reverted to those old ways because they were easy and familiar.
But unfair.
He knew better. Pretending that he didn’t had simply been easier.
Turning slowly, he let the frigid water beat down on his hot flesh. He rubbed the tiredness from his eyes as he waited for the water to punish his arousal away. That should have taken no time at all, but evidently his subconscious mind and his body were in one accord. His erection endured, as did the pictures in his mind of pretty breasts, rosebud lips, and the way her pupils darkened her eyes whenever she was angry with him.
She was beautiful…and off limits. She wasn’t for him or any of the cynical assholes from Earth who lived nearby. Someday, some nice guy would come along and want to take care of her, and that’d be the best thing for everyone.
As always, Owen would make logic win.
He had to. There was no wisdom in getting attached to someone he was utterly wrong for. Michael would have been the first in line to tell him that.
___
Owen stepped out of the bathroom fully dressed just in time to hear the knock on the door. “That must be them,” he muttered.
Ais flinched. She sat primly on the edge of the made bed with her fingers twined atop her lap and feet dangling over the floor.
“It’s all right,” he said halfheartedly. He was getting used to being around Ais, but his day was shaping up to be far more social than he wanted to endure. He opened the door.
Dorro gave Owen a shallow bow of greeting and stepped inside. “Are you well?”
“Yeah. Can’t complain.”
“Nor would you even if you had reason to.”
“Maybe you’re right.”
Amy stepped in after him, her red hair done up in a high ponytail. She wore a Terran-style wrap shirt that seemed somehow familiar. It was probably Erin’s. The women on the farm were pretty casual about swapping clothing.
Owen shrugged and then kicked a tall crate in front of the door to keep the dog from leaping out. With the windows having been closed all night, the cabin was in need of some air.
As Dorro approached the bed, Ais crept back toward her corner.
Owen sighed and raked a hand through his damp hair. “Remember what I said? Everything’s all right. You know him. He’s examined you before.”
“Indeed.” Dorro put up a hand. “I won’t take offense, though. Perhaps I would if she behaved differently toward me than to the Jekhan men on the farm, but she seems equally mistrusting of all of us. I do need her a bit closer to the edge, however.”
Owen didn’t know if Dorro was waiting for Amy to coax Ais to the edge or for some miracle to happen, but he grew impatient standing and watching nothing.
He walked to the bed at sat demonstrably on the edge. “Come on. He’s just going to take a look at your eyes. That’s not so bad, right?”
She swallowed, blinking. Her unfocused gaze scanned the three of them, longest in Amy’s direction, before she looked back to Owen.
He patted the bed beside him. “Right here.”
“If we can do this in less than an hour, I’m still coming out far ahead of last visit’s length,” the doctor said with a chuckle. “We’ve got plenty of time.”
It had taken an hour then to get Ais to open her eyes for him.
“You know he’s not going to hurt you,” Owen said to her. “You might worry that something bad will happen, but you have to trust some people.”
“I think Courtney told me a similar thing once,” Amy said. “Right when the riots in Buinet started.”
“Yeah, every so often, the McGarrys are on one accord about the important things.” Owen reached to the corner, hand extended. The last thing he wanted to do was touch Ais, but she couldn’t stay in that corner—not when he knew damn well she wanted what Dorro was there to do. “Come on.”
She reached slowly for the hand and let him pull her closer to the doctor.
“There you go.”
Dorro set down his bag and held a small bottle of eye drops close to Ais’s face. “Do you remember this? The drops help me see deeper into your eyes. You can put the drops in or I can.”
After a small delay, Ais put out her hand.
Ais nodded and unscrewed the cap.
He turned to Amy. “You’re not aware of any eye deformities in your mother’s family, are you?”
“No, and I probably would have if there were any. Mother’s family wasn’t wealthy by any stretch of the imagination. If there’d been something wrong with her eyes as a child, there probably would have been a lot of fuss about having to get them fixed. There was an incredible shortage of eye specialists in Buinet, even when I was a child. I had a hard enough time getting a simple exam before I entered primary school.”
Dorro grunted and took back the bottle Ais thrust out.
Her eyes were watering, but the sleeves of her dress were too short to for her to wipe them with, though she tried. The next thing Owen knew, his sleeve was dabbing her cheeks.
Not his sleeve, but him. His sleeve hadn’t gotten there by itself.
Jesus, I’m turning into a nursemaid.
He tried to draw his arm away, but she gripped the fabric of his sleeve as if it were a handkerchief she planned to reuse. He let his hand remain on her lap where she’d put it.
Dorro grunted and turned on his penlight. “Well, of course there were no eye specialists. We’re supposed to be perfect physical specimens, are we not? When I was training in Welco thirty-five years ago, everyone I knew who was going into medicine was studying to be a generalist.”
“And you?” Owen asked.
Dorro chuckled. “I was one of the few who specialized in hormonal issues. I helped develop the last formula of Marscadrel that went to market.”
“Ah,” Amy said brightly. “No wonder you were able to get Esteben back on his feet so quickly. You knew the chemistry.”
Likely better than anyone. Marscadrel was the only drug available for regulating male sex hormones. Men of a certain age who hadn’t yet attached to mates were apparently the most common users, but the drug was hard to come by. Terrans had decimated the few facilities where the drug had been manufactured.
“None of the doctors in Buinet had been able to help him,” Amy said.
“They didn’t have the training. I made good money on that drug, not that the money lasted. I spent every penny renovating the meet-shop. The building was a cluttered mess when I acquired it.” He leaned in close to Ais.
She leaned away.
Sighing, Owen eased behind her and pressed his hands to her upper back. “Be still,” he whispered.
Dorro turned on the light.
Ais closed her eyes.
Owen gave her a squeeze, and whispered, “You know damn well that defeats the purpose.”
She opened them, but was blinking rapidly.
“She’s all right,” Dorro said soothingly. “The light is probably an irritant.” He glanced at Amy. “Anyhow, I always said that once conditions calmed on the planet that I’d set up some sort of institute for continuing education. I’ll probably be dead before things settle that much.”
Amy laughed. “Way to be an optimist, Doc.”
“Realist, my dear. I hope Mr. McGarry can help undo some of the social devastation here, but change will be slow. Rebuilding will be slow. Ah.” He tracked his light side to side and focused the beam into Ais’s right eye, and then the left. “I honestly can’t discern any good reason she wouldn’t respond well to surgery.”
“And what will the surgery correct?” Owen asked. “She’s not just nearsighted, is she?”
“Well, she’s incredibly nearsighted. Nearly off the charts.” Dorro turned off the light and straightened up. “But nearsightedness is the least of her problems. I can’t describe what she sees, not being poor-sighted myself, but I’d imagine that shapes meld together at any distance. If her color perception were less limited, she’d obviously be better off.”
“But you can fix her?” Amy asked.
“Yes, but not all at once. I believe working in stages would yield the best results.”
“When…start?” Ais asked.
Dorro scooped a small electronic tablet from his bag and took off his surgical loupes. “Geno’s been putting in my appointments. I do hope he hasn’t forgotten any.”
“Your grandson Geno?” Owen asked, leaning back onto his forearms.
Ais cast him a panicked stare over her shoulder, so he sat back up.
Easy, woman.
“Isn’t Geno, like, twelve?” he asked.
Dorro cleared his throat. “Thirteen. And his salary is just right. If my schedule as it appears here is correct, I could do surgery on the weaker eye tomorrow. That eye will need to be patched for at least two days. When that comes off, I’ll do the other eye. I’ll not worry about the color correction until she can see shapes clearly. I’m still perfecting the gene therapy. I can probably get the formula right in two tries, but I aim to be precise.”
“Tomorrow,” Ais said. Her body was tight as a stretched rubber band in front of Owen.
Grunting, he set his hands on her shoulders and rubbed. He realized that was probably a mistake. The skin between her collar and neck was so warm and soft, the feminine scoop of her neckline so enticing.
Idly, he trailed a fingertip along the back, across her spine.
The fingers of her left hand notched ever so slightly into his thigh.
Dorro put his tablet away. “We can do it here or I can meet you in the main house. Your choice.”
“Here’s probably better,” Owen said, perhaps too quickly.
Amy crooked an eyebrow.
He shrugged off the statement. “You know I’m right.”
“What, fewer lookie-loos?”
“Would you all be so interested?”
Amy seemed to be considering that, and Owen was glad she’d fallen for the distraction. Like other women at the main house, she had a knack for noticing things and questioning them. The last thing he wanted was to have a conversation with her about why Ais was at the cottage, anyway. She wouldn’t buy any reason he gave her. If push came to shove, everyone at the house would squeeze in tighter and make room. She knew that and so did he.
She tapped one long red nail against her jaw and narrowed her eyes. “People might be interested in the procedure, but not enough to actually watch. I don’t think most of the folks at the house have the stomachs for gore. In fact, that neck-wringing Courtney may be the only one who’d volunteer to watch.”
Chuckling, Dorro waved a dismissive hand at her and grabbed his bag straps by the handles. “Not gory at all. It’s microsurgery.”
“Still.” She shuddered. “You’re talking about eyeballs, and specifically about you putting things into eyeballs.”
“Duly noted. Well, then.” Dorro rocked on his heels and smiled Ais’s way.
She looked down and scooted backward a bit, putting Owen’s balls into something of a vice that made him wince.
He gave her side a nudge.
She didn’t move.
Dammit.
He rolled his gaze to the ceiling and counted cracks in it. He couldn’t move her without drawing attention to the suffering part of him.
“I’m actually ahead of schedule for once,” Dorro said, “so I think I’ll do a drop-in at the next closest farm and see how everyone is.”
“Tell them I said hello,” Amy said.
“I’m certain they’ll be pleased you thought of them.”
The doctor took his leave, and with his long legs, easily stepped over the crate at the door.
Amy wandered toward the kitchen.
Owen gave Ais another little squeeze.
She needed to either stay very still until he got a certain embarrassing situation with his cock managed, or let him up so he could flee before Amy turned around.
Unfortunately, either Ais was ignoring him or completely oblivious to his distress.
“Ais…” He wriggled back a couple of inches just to put a little air between them.
She grabbed his knee.
Shit.
“It’s funny
how you don’t notice resemblances until someone points them out.” Amy turned, having scooped up the puppy. She held him against her chest, patted his head for a silent minute, let him lick her chin, and then set him down.
Owen pulled his right leg slowly in, preparing to disengage from proximity to Ais.
“Eileen could see them, though,” Amy said. “Which I suppose makes sense. She’s spent more time with me than anyone else here, and lots of time with Ais on the ship she was on, too. Easy to get distracted by coloring, I guess.”
“I take it Ais’s mother doesn’t have red hair,” Owen said.
He’d managed to angle himself about thirty degrees from Ais’s backside. As long as he held that angle, Amy wouldn’t see his aroused state and ask one of those tactless, probing questions about the nature of people’s relationships. She’d done that to one of the farmhands. He’d turned a troubling shade of purple. Apparently, his brother had been interested in the same woman. Owen had left before seeing how the conversation resolved.
“She did have red hair,” Amy said. “That’s the distracting bit. I mean, Ais looks just like her mother, aside from the hair. I found some pictures in an old database. I should have brought them over. While I tend to think I look a little more like my father than my mother, Eileen says Ais and I have the same forehead and same eye shape.”
Owen looked from one woman to the other, an act requiring some interesting contortions due to his defensive seating strategy.
Ais raised both eyebrows at him, curious, and looking even more like a deer in headlights with her extremely dilated eyes than ever before.
Someone needed to tuck her under his arm and hide her from the world, and soon.
He groaned inwardly. “Same lips, too,” he muttered.
Ais’s were always red because she rolled them together whenever she was nervous. The color suited her. It made her look winsome and far too appealing.
And he couldn’t move any farther just yet. His back was already against the wall.
He draped his hand over his crotch to disguise the worst of his condition, but that added pressure only made him ache more.
If Amy could discern the extent of his discomfort, she didn’t say so.