by Marla Monroe
“Says here it’s a plant like a squash that tastes nutty and is crunchy. Looks like you can cook with it a lot of different ways. Get ready, Tripp. We’re going to be having it a lot it looks like.”
“Well, we live on a cattle ranch. We should be able to have beef just about anytime we want it.” Tripp headed straight to the terminal to pick up their luggage and their wife. Keith could tell that he was ready to get this day over with, and they still had to unload everything before they could call it a day.
“There she is. You can’t miss her. God, she’s beautiful.” Keith pointed her out to Tripp.
Tripp grunted and parked the transport. Keith jumped down and went to meet their wife. She was obviously happy to see them because she pulled him in for a hug and a tonsil-teasing kiss before turning her attention to Tripp. Tripp was prepared and prolonged the kiss even longer. He grinned at the slightly drugged expression on Piper’s face when Tripp finally let her go.
“Um, I’ve got everything right here. You might want to count and be sure you have all your things. I had to get them to search for one of my trunks.” Piper indicated their luggage.
They each looked over their gear and found that it was all there. They hadn’t thought about losing any of it. He was glad Piper had warned them. Keith couldn’t help but admire her body once again. All those fascinating curves and he was anticipating his first feel of her breasts. He hoped like hell they were real. They looked real, but one never knew anymore. Implants were so well done now.
“Are you staring at my breasts? Grow up, Keith.” She laughed and shook her head as she waited for them to load up the luggage.
Tripp popped him on the back with a smile and grabbed a trunk. He grinned back like an idiot and handed him the next one to load on the transport. Twenty minutes later, they had everything loaded and locked down.
“Let’s get you on board, Piper. Remember, don’t get up or down from a transport unless the engine is off.”
“I remember.” She climbed up with Tripp’s help and sat down in the middle of the bench seat.
She started messing with the safety harness, and Keith took over, showing her how to strap in effectively. Several times while he was adjusting the straps, his hand scraped across her breasts. He fought to keep from smiling. They were real. He’d bet his belt buckle they were.
“What are you grinning about over there, Keith?” Tripp closed the doors on the transport and fired up the engine once again.
“Just thinking about what the place is going to look like. Do you have the GPS set on the coordinates?”
“All plugged in and ready to take us home.”
“I sure hope we have a real house. I’m not much good at housekeeping in a tent or a lean-to.” Piper spoke up.
“Supposed to be a brand-new house just built this year.” Keith hoped he was telling her right.
“Wonderful. No caked-on dirt or grungy mold and mildew to worry about.”
Keith frowned. He sure hoped she wasn’t going to be one of those neat freaks that couldn’t abide a speck of dust or dirt anywhere. They worked on a ranch for Christ’s sake. There was going to be dust and dirt everywhere they went.
Tripp had a worried expression on his face as well. He’d evidently picked up on the same thing that Keith had. The idea that the government would pair up a germophobe with two cowboys was ludicrous, but perfectly possible when you looked at how they had paired them up. Filling out a questionnaire and then feeding those answers into a computer couldn’t be perfect. Hell, it might even turn out to be a disaster. It wouldn’t be the first time the government had screwed up.
* * * *
How long will this ride take?” Piper asked, looking out the window at the strange but interesting landscape around them.
“We’re about three hours from the city by transport and around thirty minutes from our closest neighbors by horse. Don’t know who they are yet, but the main house is an hour from us by horse as well.” Tripp filled her in on the area.
“Our house and our nearest neighbors are the farthest point west for the ranch. We’ll be watching out for the west herd and meet up with the central ranch hands when it’s time for rounding them up for something like tagging or inoculations.” Keith picked up.
“Do you know if any of the other families have been here very long and if they have children? I’d really like to meet the others and see if I can learn anything.” She pulled out a pamphlet and held it up. “Did you two get one of these from one of the locals? It’s downright scary reading. I sure won’t be reading it right before bed.”
Keith looked at it and nodded, producing one of his own.
“It definitely isn’t comforting for new arrivals to get as they walk off the shuttle.”
“I’m glad they gave them to us so we know what to expect,” Tripp argued.
“Oh, I agree with you, Tripp. I just can’t help but wish they had shared that with us several months back so we would be prepared, and have some ideas on how to handle everything,” Piper quickly added.
She settled back against the seat and thought about her men. They were both tall, dark, and handsome in her book. Tripp’s shaggy hair barely brushed his shoulders. He had a small goatee that she was sure would tickle in various places on her skin. His generous mouth and tasty lips were sensuous to say the least. She loved his dark eyes. They were deep pools of obsidian. He stood around six feet five inches and was about thirty years old.
He appeared to be the more serious of the two with an intense stare that she was sure could see all the way inside to her heart. It was a little disconcerting. She figured he would be the one to put a stop to her more adventurous side. She frowned. They would have words on a regular basis if he tried to curb her equally strong opinions.
Keith could almost be Tripp’s twin, though she knew they weren’t related at all. He was about thirty years old as well and only an inch or so shorter than Tripp. Both men were muscular all over, especially through the chests and arms. Where Tripp’s dark eyes were jet-black, Keith’s appeared to have a backlight to them. They almost glowed. His face seemed to hold a perpetual five-o’clock shadow even at ten in the morning. His hair was much longer than Tripp’s. He had it tied back at the nape of his neck with something like string. Her fingers itched to turn it loose.
His warm smile and easy manner said that he would be the one to go for her antics. He would be a partner in crime if she managed to find a crime to get into in this godforsaken place.
Physically, they were perfect as far as she was concerned. It was how they were mentally and emotionally that worried her. She had no idea how they would see her carefree attitude and slightly oversexed libido. Would they be turned on or disgusted to have a wife like her?
She was so wrapped up in her thoughts that she nearly missed the strange-looking insect like creature that ran at them from the left.
“What the hell is that thing? Is it trying to hit us?” Tripp swerved out of the way, but not before it rammed into the passenger side door.
“It’s one of those fucking mantis creatures from the pamphlet. It didn’t mention that it would attack transports.”
“I don’t believe it. The thing is still coming!” Tripp swerved again and managed to miss it. “Hold on. I’m going to ramp up the amps on this thing.”
They shot forward, and the mantis slowly disappeared from sight. Piper could barely breathe around the thumping of her heart in her throat.
“Hey, are you okay, Piper?” Keith asked.
“Yeah, that was amazing. That thing was the ugliest-looking creature I’ve ever seen. It looked like an insect and a sloth or an anteater all mixed up.”
“That thing was fast! I don’t want it after us when we’re outside.” Tripp pushed back his hair.
“Well, we hurt it when it hit us, because he had goo oozing from him in places,” Piper said.
“We’re not far from the house now. Let’s hope it can’t track us. I’m not sure what sort of weapons will work
on something like that.” Tripp slowed the transport down.
“There had better be enough for me to have one. I’m an excellent shot.”
“We’ll see what we have once we get settled in.” Keith squeezed her knee.
She sighed and hoped that wasn’t a brush-off. She really was good with guns, and she wanted to be able to watch out for herself, especially when they were out working. She would have to be out in the garden most of the day once it was up and growing. Surely they wouldn’t leave her with no way to protect herself.
Piper leaned forward as the house came into view. It was large and looked like most of the older homes back on earth. It wasn’t all steel and metals. It was wood and brick. They had to have brought it with them on the shuttle. There was no way they already had trees here that looked like the ones on earth. All she had seen were funny-looking greens, blues, and yellow ones.
“There it is, our new home here on planet Alpha.” Tripp slowed the transport as they neared the front. “What do you think, Piper?”
“It looks normal. I like normal when so much about this place is so not normal. I guess what is inside will determine if it really is a normal house. I’ll be happy if we have indoor plumbing and a stove that works.”
“Yeah, I’m seriously bummed that the microwaves don’t work here. Neither do cell phones. They tried towers, and something in the atmosphere interferes with them.” Keith leaned forward to look at the area around the house as they rounded the corner to the back.
“How do we keep in touch with everyone?”
“Good, old-fashioned radios,” Tripp said. “Every house has a small base station and the radios for the family. You can talk radio to radio, but to talk to another family or to get in touch with the city, you have to be at the base station. Don’t worry, we’ll teach you all about it.”
“Good, because that wasn’t part of our Betty Crocker, homemaker training.”
Keith burst out laughing. She was glad he was amused, but she was growing more and more worried by the minute.
Chapter Three
Tripp set the transport down near the back door and turned off the engine. Keith began unfastening his harness then helped Piper remove hers. He helped her down, and they all three filed into the house with Piper between the two men. She looked around the kitchen and was impressed. It had up-to-date appliances and was a nice size for a family. The eat-in kitchen had a table with six chairs as well as a small bar that separated the kitchen from the eating area.
“Smells clean and new,” Keith pointed out.
“I was expecting it to have that musty, closed-up feeling.” Tripp walked farther into the house through a doorway. “Look at the living room, guys.”
Piper wanted to explore the kitchen some more and see where all the doors went. She sighed and resigned herself to following them around at first. When she walked into the living room, she was impressed. There was a giant fireplace along one wall with a couch and two recliners facing it in a sort of circular pattern. Since there was no TV, the only other things in the room were the end tables between the chairs and the couch.
There were empty shelves on either side of the massive brick fireplace. Piper could see them filled with books. They didn’t have very many yet, but she understood that books were being shipped there with other things that would be lost forever on earth like music. She was personally glad to know that. She’d brought her MP3 player and music with her, including the little docking station with speakers. She’d been told that there was no real entertainment there because they didn’t have time for entertainment. Well, everyone had time for music. You listened as you worked. She’d spent several days downloading songs onto as many flash drives as she could get hold of. She had a ton of music to choose from.
“What do you think of the living room, Piper?”
“Hmm? Oh, it’s nice. I suppose we’ll need to have fires for warmth in the winter, especially since the house is solar heated and cooled. When the sun isn’t out for several days at a time, we might end up without power.”
“Thank you for that educational lesson on solar energy pitfalls.”
“Screw you, Keith. I can’t help it that it was drilled into me over and over on that stupid ship.”
“Shuttle,” both men said.
“Whatever. Let’s go see the rest of the house.”
They walked around the living room to where a door obviously led outside, and another one beside the stairs led into an office. It was complete with the base station they had talked about and three desks. There weren’t any computers, but there were stacks of empty journals, cameras, a photo printer, binoculars, and several other observation devices. Yep, the government was serious about them keeping logs on what happened to them. She felt another twinge of worry settle in her stomach.
After leaving the office, they headed up the stairs to the rooms up there. Piper counted seven doors on either side of the long hall. Four turned out to be bedrooms, one was a linen closet, and two were bathrooms shared between the three bedrooms. They started with the first bedroom, which turned out to be the master suite. It was rather large with an attached bathroom. The bed took up the center of one entire wall with tables on either side. There was a double-wide dresser and two chests on opposite walls. A chair and a stool were sitting in the middle of the room.
The bathroom was also quite large with a massive whirlpool tub and an enormous walk-in shower. Both would easily hold all three of them. The triple-sink vanity was a dream come true for Piper, who hated sharing bathroom space.
They checked out each of the other bedrooms and bathrooms. They were all decent sized and could actually hold two children each, but Piper shushed them when they mentioned that part. Three children sounded fine to her. More than three would be a brood. She wasn’t a brood mare.
“Let’s go back downstairs and start unpacking.” Keith headed for the stairs.
“Piper, can you unpack all our things and put them away while we unpack the supplies and get them inside?
“Sure, do you have preferences of where I put whose clothes?”
“Naw, we wear each other’s anyway. Just as long as we both have enough in our drawers to wear,” Tripp said.
That was good to know. She wouldn’t get fussed at if she accidently put someone’s underwear in the wrong chest. She licked her lips thinking about underwear, which made her think about what was in the underwear. She risked a glance at their crotches and wasn’t disappointed to find that they were nicely built if they weren’t sporting socks in their pants.
She followed them down and back into the kitchen. She quickly checked out the washroom and the pantry. Both were well stocked with supplies. She pulled open the trapdoor that led down to a cellar. She thought she heard something down there when she opened the door, but decided it was just her ears playing tricks on her and closed it back. She would check down there another time. Right now, she had the luggage to unpack. She waited until they made it up the stairs with the first piece of luggage. It turned out to be one of hers. They teased her about how heavy it was when she knew in reality that one of theirs was even heavier than hers. She’d had to move them.
“What do you have in here? Shoes?” Tripp fussed as they set another one down.
“No, it’s probably purses,” Keith quipped.
“Like I have a use for a lot of purses and shoes here.” She smiled sweetly at them until they had disappeared down the stairs. Then she cringed.
Piper had actually packed five purses that she thought would be good for carrying things around when they went anywhere. She hadn’t packed any shoes other than those that were good for working outside or just walking around inside the house. She quickly unpacked the purses and shoved them in her walk-in closet. They were sharing the other one, so they had no reason to snoop around in hers.
“Look, she’s getting rid of the evidence.” Keith walked in carrying one end of a trunk.
“Smart-ass.” She grinned just the same.
Once they had everything upstairs, she began to unpack first her things and then theirs. She was surprised to find out that though they had plenty of thermal underwear for the winter, they didn’t have either boxers or briefs for the rest of the time. She let that sink in for a few seconds before she moved on to put away their jeans. She made sure they each had an equal number of them hanging in the closet along with long-sleeved and short-sleeved shirts and T-shirts. They were both wearing boots, but they had two more pairs apiece that she put in the closet along with tennis shoes.
By the time she had unpacked their things as well as hers, she was tired. All the bending and stooping had taken a toll on her. She hadn’t been this active since they had left earth. Most of their time had been spent in classrooms sitting down. She had used the shuttle gym when she had the chance, but it obviously hadn’t been nearly enough.
“Piper! You up there?”
“Yeah. I’m on my way down.” She ran the back of her arm across her forehead to wipe away the sweat beading there.
Once she made it down the stairs, she headed through the living room toward the kitchen. She found the men standing at the backdoor talking. They stopped and turned to look at her when she walked into the room. Instantly her panties grew damp at the obvious interest in their eyes. They looked her over from top to bottom and back up again. Keith’s eyes remained on her breasts while Tripp’s seemed to be interested in her pussy.
“Um, guys? Did you want me for something—other than sex?”
“Oh, yeah.” Tripp grinned and shook his head. “Sorry. We’re going to drive around a little bit before we park the transport to see what’s around us.”
“Okay, how long before you might be ready for dinner?”
They looked at each other for a second, then Keith said that they should be back within the next hour and a half.
“You’ll take a shower after that because you’re all hot and sweaty, so I’ll figure dinnertime to be about two and a half hours from now. Be careful.” She turned and headed for the pantry. She needed to figure out what to cook. She didn’t hear a sound from the men for several long seconds, and then the door opened and shut. She smiled. They figured she would throw a fit about wanting to go along with them. They didn’t know she was used to men since she had four brothers. It hadn’t taken her long to figure out how to work around them.
