Resisting the Alien Rider (Cowboy Colony Mail-Order Brides, #3)

by Ursa Dax

Garrek was going to be bugged. A lot. The man gave me major stressed-out-dad-who-regrets-bringing-his-kids-camping energy.

I’d just gotten a glimpse into how much this big, surly rider actually cared about Killian. Despite Garrek’s grouchiness, his habit of barking orders, the way he complained about Killian lighting something, everything on fire… He wanted to protect Killian’s feelings.

I tried to ignore the fact that I was now rather pathetically envious of Killian, disappointed that Magnolia had not also referred to me as sweetened piss.

Screaming

Being with Magnolia was making new males of us both. I wondered if we’d even recognize each other, or ourselves, when she was gone. Who were we becoming with her? Who would we be without her?

I could tell her how when I first saw her on Fallon’s ranch, I felt every single particle of my being shift, minutely, but enough to tell me nothing would ever be the same.

“If you’re ready to give me any useful suggestions instead of saying nonsense words like cucumboner, I’m listening.” “That isn’t even what I said!” I cried, face flaming. Cucumboner? Fucking really?

“I don’t want to leave you!” Killian said in a broken little voice that damn near broke my heart. “You have to,” Garrek replied, undoing the last knot of Killian’s tail on his hook. “If I don’t stay here and take care of this, it will only follow us down. I won’t have it touching you. Or Magnolia.”

I looked down to see that it wasn’t just a random scrap but the shredded remnants of the vest’s pocket. And from that ruined pocket tumbled a little pink half-moon. Soap. It was soap. The one I’d made for him. “Like I said,” Garrek grunted, bending to retrieve it. He snatched up the soap and left the leather on the ground. “I saved what I wanted.”

That little quirk in his mouth stretched and stretched until, holy cannoli, it morphed into a legitimate, bonafide, 100% authentic Garrek smile.

“Your cousin,” I repeated, my mind scrambling to catch up “killed your father?” “No. That is what I am trying to tell you. Oaken did not kill my father.” Garrek stared grimly down at me. “I did.”

I’ve never seen anything like the landscapes here. It all feels so untamed and wild.” I could show you more of the wild places of this world. I could take you anywhere you wanted.

“You think that I am happy?” I snarled. “You think that I want to give her up? When I said no to the bride program, I had no idea it could be her. If she were any other woman – any other woman, Killian! – I would not feel like my heart is being ripped up and out of my throat every time I so much as look at her!”

“I did not know someone like Magnolia could even exist out there! Had I been tasked with bringing Darcy to Oaken, or Cherry, I would not be falling apart right now. I’d be able to deliver her safely and move on with my life. But now, I just look around and think, what life? What’s left after she goes? I can’t even ask to be granted my own bride now, because it won’t be her and no one else will ever be enough. You think that I don’t feel regret? Some days, it’s all I feel. Some days, it’s like I’m drowning in it.”

Oaken deserved a wife whose heart was free to love him. Mine wasn’t. Not anymore. Because mine, it turned out, belonged to a quiet, white-eyed child and the hard-jawed, scar-backed rider who took care of him.

“Because if I had remained one moment longer in that tent with you, Magnolia, I would have mated you,” I snapped.

“I’m sure that Oaken is a good man. And maybe, if I’d met him first, things would be different.” Her eyes were so serene. “But you’re a good man too, Garrek. And you’re the one I fell in love with. You and Killian both. I look at you two, and I see my family. I see my future.”

“Magnolia,” I moaned against her mouth, one hand still clamped around her plait, the other palming the pulse of her throat. “I love you. I love you so much. You don’t know how I’ve-”

And she loves us, too! At least, she loves me,” he said stubbornly. “She told me that I could have her shit in a bottle.” “Ship in a bottle, Killian,” I groaned.

“I did not think, ‘Oh, what a beautiful female. How I desire her!’ Of course, she is beautiful. But I noticed it in such a distant sort of way. Because the only thing I could really think when I saw her was, ‘This is someone beloved by Garrek. This is someone precious to the only family I have left. This is the wife of the person who saved me.’ And I loved her then, instantly, as I would love your wife and nothing else.

When he finally did pull away, the room seemed darker than it should have been. Astounded, I suddenly realized why. Killian’s eyes were not bright white. For the very first time, I got to see their true colour, something inside him finally soothed enough to let it show. His eyes were a deep, rich brown. The precise shade that the brown parts of Magnolia’s eyes took on when the sun hit them. The central veins gleamed with clear and vivid gold.

“You’re here,” I whispered. Even though Oaken had said he was, a paranoid part of me hadn’t truly believed him. A part of me still couldn’t disentangle my memories from dreams. “Of course I am.” He swallowed, thick throat bobbing. “I heard your voice. I ran.”

“I love you, Magnolia,” he rasped against my mouth. “I have since that very first night I met you.”

“I want to marry you,” he said. “I want to build a life with you. Family. With you and Killian both.” My battered heart took flight. “I’m not Oaken. I’m not the man you came here for. But I can be the man you need. And I’ll work every day to be the man who deserves you.” His jaw flexed. His eyes searched mine. “If… If you’ll have me.”

“You never need to beg me for anything, Magnolia.” It was a stoic, sacred vow. “Never.”

You are a worrier, through and through.” “I will blame it on you,” he retorted darkly. “You and Killian. I never felt as if my heart was going to give out on a daily basis before I met the two of you.”

“You know we plan to marry, don’t you? I’ve told you this.” “That doesn’t mean you should be sleeping with her!” Killian cried, as if shocked to the very core of his being at the idea. “And… Are you naked?!” The mere possibility sounded deeply repugnant to him.

But it was not just love, was not just care she felt. She wanted me on a base, primitive level. She wanted me as a man. As a husband. As a mate.

That first night when he came to our place and he got those big white goo goo gaga eyeballs THE SECOND HE SAW YOU!!!!

Garrek wasn’t looking at me, but at the round-bodied beaver sitting its fat little butt in the curve of his upturned palm. Then, he lifted it higher, placing it in the front pocket of the white vest. His jaw ticked as he looked down at his pocket, and he reached in, rearranging, until the beaver’s big, shiny eyes were poking out. “There,” Garrek said. I perked up, thinking he was about to say something else to me, but then just about dissolved into a puddle of goo when I realized he wasn’t talking to me at all. “You’ll be able to see the wedding better like this.”

“These are the same flowers that…” “That saved your life,” Oaken confirmed. My heart nearly stopped. They looked just like… Magnolias.