Wrangled by the Alien Rancher (Cowboy Colony Mail-Order Brides, #2)

by Ursa Dax

“You impose too much upon my wife,” my fellow Zabrian male growled at me from his brooding place in the corner of the kitchen as Cherry and I sat at the table he’d recently constructed.

“Chilling something is very nearly the opposite of simmering,” he said slowly.

Silar’s voice went taut with tenderness as he replied. “I can. I’d make you anything you want, Cherry. You need only tell me.” “This is good information,” she said, remaining practical and business-like while Silar appeared to be on the heartsick brink of collapsing under the weight of his love for her.

I stared dazedly – and perhaps even rather stupidly – at the sky, contemplating the fact that pink really did seem to be the best sort of colour.

Hopefully my alien husband wasn’t too romantic or excited about the prospect of marriage,

The first thing I noticed about Fallon the Zabrian was that he was super fucking tall.

The second thing I noticed about Fallon was that he was jaw-droppingly, gob-smackingly, good-God-what-have-I-gotten-myself-into gorgeous.

“Cherry told me all about ties. I figured this one would be better than the long and floppy sort. That just seems like it would get caught on something.” He hesitated. “Although I could unravel this one and make it into the long sort of tie, if that is what you prefer. It just might be a little… crumpled.”

“He is skulking because he does not wish to admit that he was wrong,” Fallon said.

Was this gorgeous, helpful, bowtie-wearing ding-dong expecting some kind of harem situation here?

“Fair?” I wailed. “You had time to win Cherry over before she found out the truth about you! You had days to talk and… Well, maybe not talk, because you couldn’t talk your way out of an empty room with open, unlocked doors… But even so! You had days to do whatever it was you did to make her love you!”

“I was angry,” Silar grunted. “I would not have done it. Probably…”

“Is it the sex? Do they have really weird alien dicks or something?” “Well… I mean…”

“Darcy,” he said again, slightly less loud this time but just as frantic. “I know that I have killed a man-” Well, there went the whole “maybe he was convicted of a lesser crime” thing. “-but it is not so big a problem, is it? It was a long time ago. A very, very long time ago. And really, what is one little, insignificant murder on my record? It only happened once.”

There is a very good chance I’m about to marry the biggest alien dope in this entire colony.

“Never, Darcy. Let me prove it to you. Let me prove what a good husband I can be.” I believed him. Maybe I was stupid or self-sabotaging or maybe I thought I just didn’t deserve any better. But I actually fucking believed him.

I was struck by the slightly disorienting desire to bite one of them. I wouldn’t, of course. Her skin was soft and my fangs were not.

I dragged myself from the dreamy idea of sucking on one of her shoulders instead of biting it.

Kiss. I knew about the kiss ritual. I’d read about it in the human manual I’d been given. Apparently, it was a sign of affection, and it was also used as a pre-cursor to mating.

I didn’t do up my belt, but nor did I continue undressing. Things no longer seemed to be going well enough to warrant the removal of my trousers.

“Oh, man. That fucking book,” she muttered. “First frostbite, now this.”

Only once, in the doorway, did she turn to look back at me, making sure I’d followed. She didn’t know me very well yet. Because if she did, she never would have needed to turn around and check.

“Seeing your man get all horny and discombobulated has cured me. Any time I’m feeling down from here on out, I’m just going to remember him with his hands on his belt asking if we were all going to stay to watch the next part.”

Yeah. There was a good chance I’d married a very nice, decent, dopey sort of ex-murderer alien who was apparently already halfway in love with me.

“The soft parts on their chests are not called udders,” he said. “Of course they aren’t,” I said, giving him an odd look. “I read the book! I know all about breests!”

“A man could read a thousand books on human women and never be any closer to actually understanding them. You’ll have to learn through trial and error and making a complete fool of yourself.”

When we reached Silar’s ranch, Silar dismounted and then hoisted himself up on my wagon’s running board. Cherry was still fast asleep. Without speaking or making any kind of noise, he placed a large hand upon the side of her throat, running his thumb along the bone of her jaw, back and forth, until her eyes fluttered open.

I eyed the wagon and the height of the running board critically.

I could not seem to stop myself. Could not seem to help it. This slow, subtle, roaming touch.

First my cock. Now my stupid thumbs. What other parts of my body was I going to lose control of around my wife?

The roaming thumb sickness seemed to be catching.

“It is already taken care of,” Fallon said breezily. Then, more seriously, he added “I can be a provider for you, Darcy. Let me.”

Even her feet were attractive. Cursed cattle, I wanted to lick her tiny human toes.

“And there you are not,” I said, looming over her frowning form. “I know you are not standing before me because I know my wife would not have ventured out into weather this bad on her own. My clever, pretty Darcy, whose safety matters more to me than my own life, would not have taken such a risk.”

That book. My jaw loosened enough for me to grit out, “Too cold… to… fuck you.”

“You think I’m cute?” she asked softly. And then, more loudly, “Hold on, skittish?”

I instantly resolved to burn myself more often.

My husband was about to die, and I was going to be a widow, because of a snakebite to the dick.

“No treatment required,” Fallon croaked. His voice sounded like someone had stomped on his windpipe. “Human grip… stronger… than I’d thought.”

“Please tell me,” I said, speaking very slowly and trying to keep the shaking out of my voice, “that I did not just mistake a part of your anatomy for a venomous serpent and try to rip it off.” “I believe,” Fallon panted, “that is exactly what just happened.”

“Thank you for trying to save me, anyway.” His smile faded and he winced. “But please never do that again. Especially if it’s a real ardu serpent! Empire, I don’t know what I’d do if you’d gotten bitten.”

“Maybe next time you could even call me ‘Husband.’”

“For the first time since I was a child, I look into my future and I see something worthwhile. I see something good.” He brushed his knuckles softly against my cheek. “And it’s you.”

“Can I,” he groaned against the top of my head, his fingers rubbing my ass needily, “touch your clitorosaurus?”

“Your clitorosaurus,”

“Your hair! It is growing in a different colour. Do you need more protein? Or sunlight? Or less sunlight? Why aren’t you wearing a hat?!”

“I wonder what happened to the puppy.” “Oh, I can tell you that,” Fallon said, his voice brightening. “The pup was Sora.”

Our Sora. The significance of the words only struck me after I’d said them.

Sometimes, I wondered if that was why I enjoyed sewing quilts for this place, or the reason I’d added on extra bedrooms to the original building of the ranch. I was trying to build a home I’d never really had. Until now. Until her.

wanted to go back in time and tell that kicked pup, that kicked boy, to wait. Just wait.