Total pages in book: 22
Estimated words: 19577 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 98(@200wpm)___ 78(@250wpm)___ 65(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 19577 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 98(@200wpm)___ 78(@250wpm)___ 65(@300wpm)
In a way, the chaos here on the farm is a good thing. It shows that this person needs my help. I might not know a lot about meat-stock or crops, but neither do most of the humans transplanted here. I have a data pad I can look information up on. Better yet, I'm excellent at repairing machines, and I can get these bots working smoothly. I bring that to the table, at least.
I power down the broken bot and head to the front of the house. No one's come out to greet me, a stranger wandering their property. As I approach the door, my nostrils flare and my whiskers twitch as I try to pick up other scents. I smell a female. Just a female. Human. There's no scent mark on the door that would claim her as someone's mate. Mesakkah don't mark a home (which I find bizarre and insulting to their females), but it's more likely that she's alone.
I knock on the door.
"Coming," calls a female in a human dialect. My translator automatically interprets it for me, but after almost a year of working on this planet, I've grown used to the slight pause as my brain registers the translation.
So I wait at the door.
And wait.
It seems to take the female a very long time to come to the door, to the point that I wonder if she's not coming at all. But then the door opens and as it does, the wafting, delicate, tempting scent of my dreams comes over me.
I stare at the tiny blonde female I've dreamed about for months now. She holds a pile of laundry in her arms, so big it practically dwarfs her, but it's the same woman from that night in the cantina. A little more tired and drawn, a little disheveled, but it's her. I'd know that keffing scent anywhere.
She stares back at me, her eyes wide. "Oh my god, it's you."
I gape, both thrilled and surprised. It seems like the stars are paying attention to my wishes after all. "I'm...here about the job."
"What? Oh—oh no. It can't be you!" The human woman sounds panicked at the thought.
My pride is wounded at her response. I've dreamed of seeing her again, of reuniting, and this wasn't how I pictured it would go. "I don't see why not? I'm strong. My paperwork was vetted by the custodians and I'm willing to work. I want the chance to stay on Risda. You won't find a harder worker than me."
"I just...it can't be you." Her expression turns desperate. "You're the reason I'm in this situation in the first place."
"Situation?" I repeat, not following. "What situation?"
She throws aside the laundry she's got piled into her arms, revealing a huge, pregnant belly. "That night in town? You...me...what we did..."
I just stare.
"I'm having a litter."
And she bursts into tears.
Chapter
Two
PAYTON
Why is it that space is so very huge and yet the guy I'm trying to avoid is the one that showed up on my doorstep?
I try to keep from panicking, because panic makes me want to barf, and there are too many things that make me want to barf already. I have babies sitting on top of my organs, which is why everything feels just a breath away from being expelled from my body at any moment.
I can't stop crying, though. It's impossible once I get started, and it's not even his fault. It's just that I've been fighting against a rising tide for months now, and it feels as if it just closed over my head. So I sob and sob, and all the while, he stares at me with an increasingly panicked expression.
Well, he's right to panic. I've been panicking for months now.
When I got to Risda, I thought all my problems had been solved. Here I'd be safe from slavers, surrounded by other humans, and someone was even giving me a farm to boot. Not that I knew anything about farming, but I figured I'd learn by experience. Once I got the deed to my farm, I went to the cantina in Port to celebrate. I might have had a few too many alien beers and when I woke up, I was naked in a field, curled around an equally drunk cat-alien stranger that I'd been chatting with at the bar. I chalked it up to a celebratory drunken hook-up and didn't think anything of it...
Until I got violently ill in the mornings. Went to the medic here in Port, found out I was pregnant.
Not just pregnant. Pregnant with triplets.
At age thirty-six.
That was months ago. Ever since then, it's been a struggle to stay on top of things on my farm. The chores are endless, and my belly has grown massively in a short period. I'm exhausted all the time. Last week, the doctor didn't like how fatigued I was and suggested I go on bed rest for a while. Bed rest...ha. But I'm worried that I'll hurt the babies if I work too hard, so I've been doing the bare minimum and hoping that one of the Port custodians would find me someone willing to work in exchange for room and board.