“Funds will be transferred to your account in three business days. You keep the money even if you opt to divorce.”
“You get asked that a lot?”
Ms. Sallus gave her a withering glare. “Enough. Here is your ticket. Have a safe flight.”
***
Sophia left two days later, just in time to avoid being evicted.
Space aboard the shuttle limited luggage to two bags, the ticket read. Sophia packed accordingly. She didn’t need her battered old furniture or all the pots and pans in the kitchen. Or her shoes. Okay, she’d miss her shoes a whole lot more than pots, pans and some dishes, but she’d survive. Besides, all those things reminded her of Derek.
Frankie helped her sort through which items to keep, which to sell and which to toss into recycling. Her friend babbled brightly the entire time but Sophia could tell she was unhappy.
“But why do you have to leave?” she asked.
“Because you don’t want me living on your couch.”
Frankie rolled her eyes. “So you’re having a rough patch. Something will turn up. That’s no reason to go to the edge of the known universe.”
“Corra is not that far.”
More eye rolling. Okay, so Corra was that far away but it was a fresh start and Sophia was in desperate need of a fresh start.
Sophia made room for her favorite pair of handmade, brown leather lace up boots. Handmade. You don’t simply toss that into recycling, after all. Sophia packed a sensible wardrobe, squeezing in as many practical items as possible for life on the frontier planet Corra. The one luxury item she packed was her mother’s painting. Too large to take whole, Sophia disassembled the frame and rolled up the smart-flex canvas. As hard up for credit as she was, jobless and on the brink of eviction, selling the painting was abhorrent to her. The painting was one of the few sentimental items she brought from Earth to Aldrin One, and her mother created it. It was priceless to her, worth far more than a few more months’ rent.
She reduced her life to two duffel bags. Her heart rejoiced in the liberation. All those old grubby things which reminded her of Derek were gone. Soon she would be gone, too.
Sophia and Frankie worked their way through the gigantic station, bags hovering behind them on a cart. It was so strange to think she wouldn't be on Aldrin One in a few hours. She lived and worked on the station for years. Being back on a planet’s surface, even an alien planet, seemed odd. She’d miss the open-all-hours shops and cafes, the crowds of people, the constant bustle and sense of purpose that filled the station.
The harsh neon lights of a gambling parlor flickered an invitation, a promise of loose slots.
Sophia kept her eyes straight ahead. There was plenty about Aldrin One she wouldn’t miss at all.
She didn’t have any other friends to say goodbye to beyond Frankie. She used to have friends: work friends and friend-friends. But Derek slowly pulled her away and those friends disappeared. In retrospect, the isolation was a classic abuser technique. He was nothing but trouble from the start and she should have seen it coming.
What if Alton Zan was worse than Derek?
The Cosmic Connections rep assured Sophia that all the candidates were screened. If he was an abuser, she didn’t have to stay. She’d send an emergency call and a shuttle would collect her. The promise of safety reassured her but Sophia could not tolerate the same controlling behavior in her new husband. She’d have her own friends. She’d have her own job and her own money.
And Alton Zan would be honest with her. No more lies about money, gambling, other women and staying out. No more of any of that.
“Looks like you’re going somewhere,” a familiar voice said, oozing alongside her. Derek moved to drape an arm around her shoulders.
Sophia flinched away.
“Get lost. We have a strict no asshat policy here.” Frankie stepped between Sophia and Derek. He was a good foot taller than her and twice her size but she planted her hands on her hips and stood resolute on the no-asshat policy.
“You’re not talking to me, sweetheart?” Derek craned his head, totally ignoring Frankie.
“Go to hell, Derek,” Sophia said.
“You say things like that and people will think you’re not my girl anymore.”
Sophia spotted her gate. Passengers milled in the seating area. The blue and black of Aldrin Security uniforms mingled in the crowd. She headed straight for security. “Go away or I’ll call security.”
“Where you goin’, Soph? Seems like you’re packed for a vacation.” His voice grew dark, “It’s not with sweaty old Harry Salt? I told him you were my girl.”
“No,” Sophia said quickly. “I’m being evicted. Because I can’t pay my rent. Because I can’t keep a job.”
“Sounds like you’re having a rough patch. Why don’t you crash at my place until you get back on your feet?”
Oh, pigs would fly and all the stars would vanish from the sky before she did anything so foolish. “No thank you,” she said, moving to the boarding area.
Derek grabbed her arm, pulling her back. “You don’t get to just leave me sweetheart.”
Something cold and dead in his voice made her pause. He didn’t threaten her, in so many words, but his intent was clear. She couldn’t escape him.
“Everything okay, miss?”
Frankie appeared with security in hand. She pointed to Derek. “That’s the one.”
Sophia smiled at the security guard and pulled free from Derek. “I’m great. Thanks.” She flashed her ticket and moved into the boarding area.
Derek followed but the security guard held up a hand. “Ticket holders only.”
Sophia gave Frankie a bone-crushing hug. “I’m going to miss you,” she said.
“It’s only the other side of the universe,” Frankie said, forced cheerfulness in her voice. “You should go before the asshat returns.”
Smiling gratefully at the guard, Sophia made her way to the ship and settled into her cabin. The journey to Corra took a solid week. She opened the packet of information about her new home and husband and flipped through the pages. She searched for a photo of her new husband but the only images included were of an old stone farmhouse, a barn and lots of fields of cows. Well, they looked like Earth cows, but they had six legs. Alien cows. Poring over the images did not reveal any clues about the man she married sight unseen, but told her a lot about alien cows and ranching.
Promotional material encouraged settlement on Corra, touting the planet’s gentle climate, fertile farmland and relaxed immigration policy. Dated more than a decade ago, Sophia wondered about the stability of a planet desperate for settlers. Or maybe Corra didn’t need to push so hard for population growth. She’d find out soon enough.
***
One Week Later
No one met her at the orbital station above Corra’s surface. Disappointed, Sophia picked up her bags and headed away from the gate into the milling crowd. She wanted to meet the man who thought the most important information to send a mail-order bride was a dozen images of his herd of six-legged cattle. A quick retina scan indicated that Alton Zan had hired a shuttle to take her to the surface. Fancy.
As the auto-shuttle descended in the atmosphere, Sophia studied the landmass as it came into focus. They were above a continent. Mountains ran north-to-south on the eastern edge. Silvery-blue waterways cut through verdant green fields. Dark structures grew into towns. No major town or city disturbed the rolling plains.
The auto-shuttle descended rapidly, flew low over a cluster of small buildings within a massive wall before swinging wide and heading out to the empty prairies. Crop fields formed irregular patterns, colors alternating between a vivid green and deep gold. The setting sun cast a warm golden wash over the prairie.
The shuttle circled a miserable looking stone house and red barn. Sophia recognized it from the info packet Cosmic Connection supplied her. The last of the warm golden light from the sunset quickly faded, leaving the house appearing cold and lonely. One e
xternal light glowed on the porch. No one was home. Hardly the welcome she hoped for.
Sophia took her bags and climbed the front steps. The shuttle lifted off behind her. While empty, the wide porch was perfect for a set of chairs to enjoy the cool of the evening after a hard day’s work.
Taped to the door, Sophia found a paper note. How old fashioned. “Make yourself comfortable.” Signed, “AZ”.
A small silver box next to the door was an ancient retina scanner. Sophia leaned forward into a brief flash of light, and the door unlocked. Lights flickered on automatically.
While the stone house appeared cold and lonely from the outside, it was abundantly clear that a bachelor lived there. Well, made a nest might be more accurate. The air was stale, like no one had bothered to open a window and air the place out in ages. The furniture was sparse and dingy, as if her husband didn’t bother to clean after coming in from the fields and collapsed directly on the sofa with a beer. Empty bottles gathered dust on every available surface. Everything was brown or a brown-gold plaid. Heavy curtains blocked the sunlight. No rugs. No art on the walls. Nothing that said this was anything more than a place to eat and sleep.
Alton Zan desperately needed a maid. If he expected his mail-order bride to be a live-in-maid with sex benefits, he had another thing coming.
Beyond the living room was a room filled with monitoring equipment and weapons. The information packet said Alton Zan was a Guardian. He defended the local settlement. The tidy room was in better condition than any other area of the house. If only the rest of the house had the same military discipline.
Unimpressed, Sophia picked up her bags and went upstairs in search of a bedroom. She wanted a shower with real water and then sleep in a bed that did not vibrate with the hum from the ship’s engines.
All she had to do was stick it out for a year. She’d get a divorce and use the money to go anywhere.
Upstairs she found two bedrooms. The smaller was empty. The other held two large beds rested side by side but apart. Nice. Separate beds. No pressure for sex. Her absent husband was already proving to be thoughtful.
Sophia opened panels in the walls, revealing a wall of weapons. So many weapons. A rack held swords, various rifles, pistols and ammo, and a bo stick. She spotted a baseball bat propped up in a corner, the black paint worn at the grip. So Mr. Alien Husband liked Earth sports. Or beating things with a bat, judging by the small arsenal.
She stripped down to her tee shirt and climbed into the bed furthest from the door. The baseball bat rested next to her pillow, just in case Mr. Alien Husband came in drunk or tried to grab her.
A girl had to take care of herself in the big, bad universe, after all.
Chapter Four
Sophia
Clanking pans in the kitchen woke Sophia. What the hell? Did her husband finally decide to make an appearance? Was it a burglar?
Wearing only a t-shirt, she grabbed the baseball bat and headed toward the noise. She crept down the stairs, the steps squeaking. Stupid old house. Fortunately the noise in the kitchen was louder than her furtive approach. The scent of bacon and eggs wafted through the air. What was the burglar doing in there? Making breakfast before robbing the place?
As it turned out, yes, he was making breakfast.
A tall, lean man stood at the stove, spatula in hand. His tail swished lazily from side to side. He wore a crisp white button up shirt tucked in to the slim waistband of his worn jeans. His complexion was a tawny honey tone that looked good enough to lick up. The morning light through the window highlighted the contrast between his flaxen hair and the darker bronze of his horns.
Her eyes kept bouncing between the tail and the horns. Yup, totally an alien.
The tail appeared cat-like with a tuft of hair at the end. She wondered if it was covered in a downy fuzz or smooth like skin. It was probably incredibly rude to walk up to a strange male and grab his tail. Or incredibly forward. She saw a film once...
And those horns. Were they hard? Did they have sensation? Her fingers itched to touch his horns. Again, very forward according to that one film, Debbie Does Corra.
And Sophia still hadn’t seen an ugly Corravian. The universe just didn’t make them that way, apparently.
“Have a seat,” he said in Universal. “I made coffee. I assume you eat toast, unless you’re one of those fancy city girls who doesn’t do gluten.”
Sophia did not lower the bat. “Who are you? What are you doing here?” She scanned the kitchen. Two mugs of coffee waited on the wooden kitchen table, alongside a handful of creamer and sugar packets. Such a strange burglary.
“Alton,” he said, still not turning around. “And you’re in my house, so how about you put the bat down?”
“You’re my husband?”
He nodded.
“Why did you just leave me at the spaceport?” Anger bubbled to the surface. She’d had it with inconsiderate men. “You go through the trouble of a mail order bride but you can’t even be bothered to come and get me? I had to figure out how to get here on my own, which isn’t easy, by the way. I don’t speak Corravian.” She didn’t pay the closest of attention to the contract, but picking up the bride at the spaceport seemed obvious. It was what you did.
“How do you take your eggs?”
She stood there, flabbergasted. She was having a nice little temper tantrum and he completely negated the issue of leaving her stranded on an alien planet with eggs.
“Sunny side up, it is.” Alton used the spatula to slide a perfect sunny side up egg onto a plate. A wave of appreciation for the hot and capable cook nearly replaced her righteous indignation.
“You have five seconds to explain why you left me stranded,” Sophia said. She wasn’t sure what she would do in five seconds other than stomp her foot and be grumpy. What was she going to do? Go back to Aldrin One? She was stuck here, like it or not.
Stay cool. He didn’t know that. For all he knew, Sophia was a sophisticated, independently wealthy woman of the universe, who married a stranger on a lark. Not desperate at all.
Dammit, she wasn’t wearing pants, panties or a bra. So much for the sophisticated woman of the universe approach.
She got the sense he was laughing at her. His shoulder hunched a little and the tail swished from side to side in mirth. “I apologize for leaving you in the lurch. The flight was delayed and I had some unavoidable business.” He set down the spatula and turned around slowly. The first thing Sophia thought was how unreal his bright blue eyes were. They pierced the dim morning light in the kitchen. The second thing she thought was how much she’d like those eyes to greet her in the kitchen every morning.
“I knew you were smart enough to figure out the autotransports,” he said.
Yes, he was laughing at her. A smirk played on his face as his eyes swept over her curvy form. She wanted to punch his stupid, handsome face for his unavoidable business. That sounded dodgy as all get out. She said, “You didn’t have a friend? Relative? Anyone to send?”
“Like I said, it was unavoidable. And unplanned. How about you set the bat down, have some toast and coffee, and I’ll explain.”
The smell of fresh cooked breakfast was intoxicating. Yesterday all Sophia had was a frozen vegetable mush on the flight. It had the minimum required nutrients and calories to sustain life but it was not food.
“Fine,” she said, pulling up a chair. “But you have explaining to do.”
“Food first,” Alton said, setting a plate of bacon and perfect sunny side up eggs in front of her. Her stomach growled. He cocked an eyebrow at her.
Rolling her eyes, Sophia grabbed a piece of toast and shoved it in her mouth. “Happy now?”
“You learn that in finishing school, city girl?” Alton asked, adding a generous amount of red spicy sauce to the eggs. He tilted the bottle toward her, offering it. Sophia shook her head. The aroma wafting off the plate was strong enough to water her eyes.
“I have a name,” she said.
“Sophia Barber
, chemistry teacher but otherwise unemployable, new in town.”
Her heart sank. Did her reputation follow her? So much for a fresh start.
Alton laughed. “The agency sent me your profile,” he said. He must have seen her face and needed to explain. “Food first. Then we talk.”
Sophia ate. Not only did the eggs look like they belonged on the cover of a cookbook, but they tasted amazing. Perhaps hunger and physical exhaustion elevated the meal into remarkable. Perhaps she didn’t care. Hunger’s edge removed, Sophia mopped up the last of the yolk with her toast. “Can you talk to me now?”
“You still mad about yesterday?”
“Breakfast was good but it wasn’t that good. You left me stranded at the spaceport.” It would take more than coffee, eggs and toast to wipe away that memory.
He shook his head, that damn smirk back on his lips. “Just taking your temperature. I figured you’d be worn out after your trip and could use some hospitality.”
The way his eyes flickered over her chest made Sophia sit up in her chair immediately and fold her arms over her chest. Nothing in that smoldering expression said he wanted to give her hospitality. Sophia was acutely aware that she was not wearing any panties. And they were legally married.
“Thank you for the meal,” she said. “That was... neighborly? Do people actually say that?”
“Only the old folks. Anyway, I need to discuss business with you.”
“I’m listening.” Time to discuss the contract. Should she tell him she intended to divorce after a year? That this was temporary situation for her? She wasn’t anticipating a romantic relationship with him. No matter how hot he was.
“Do you know anything about Corra?”
She shook her head.
“First thing, don’t wander off. The planet is infested with mornclaws.”
“What?”
“It’s an insect. Big. Dumb. Mean. Quick lifecycle, breed like they’re trying to conquer the galaxy, and invasive.”
“Native to Corra?”
Delivered to the Aliens: Cosmic Connections Page 2
