Riggs: Stargazer Alien Mail Order Brides (Book 15)

by Black, Tasha

  She wasn’t apologizing with it exactly. She had meant every word she said last night. And she certainly was relieved that the men had disabused her of the notion that they could operate properly in the regular Earth world before she ended up mated to Riggs and it was too late.

  Her regret centered on her wish that she had been gentler, or reprimanded Riggs privately. Because even if he was an ignorant alien man-child, he was a nice ignorant alien man-child.

  An image of him leaning down to kiss her invaded her mind and she had to bite her lip hard to stop the surge of need that nearly carried her off.

  Just cook.

  Preparing a big meal was something constructive to do with her hands and mind. Sage had always used cooking to cope. She and Otis had that in common, as much as she hated to admit it.

  She had just gotten into the swing of it with biscuit dough rising and a jar of apple preserves brought up from the cellar when the doorbell rang.

  Stunned, Sage checked the clock over the kitchen sink.

  It wasn’t even six yet.

  She wondered if it might be Otis. She didn’t think he rang the bell each morning - surely that would wake everyone.

  She wiped her hands on the apron and went to the door.

  She was stunned to see a newscaster and crew on the other side.

  “Hi there, I’m Arlene Wiggins from Channel Eight News,” the reporter said. “Are you Sage or Tansy Martin?”

  “I’m Sage,” Sage said. “What- what’s going on?”

  But Arlene turned to the cameraman.

  “This is Arlene Wiggins from Channel Eight News, here with Sage Martin of Martin’s Bounty,” she said brightly, then turned to Sage. “Ms. Martin, Channel Eight News received a call on our tip line alerting us to non-disclosed use of GMOs in your peach trees. What do you say to this accusation?”

  “GMOs?” Sage echoed, confused.

  “Genetically modified organisms,” Arlene said slowly. “As you already know, being a farmer.”

  For a golden instant Sage allowed herself to celebrate the fact that the reporter wasn’t here because someone had spotted three hot aliens without a license in a borrowed vehicle returning to the farm last night. Then she came to her senses and shot back at Arlene.

  “I’m confused as to why you would even broach this topic in relation to my grandparents’ farm,” Sage retorted. “If you did your homework, you would know those trees are cuttings of the original peaches planted by my grandfather decades ago. These peaches have been growing on this land since before you knew how to spell GMO.”

  Tansy wandered into the room looking sleepy and then stunned when she noticed who was outside.

  “According to my research, peach trees only produce for twelve years,” Arlene said. But her voice was less certain.

  “These are non-GMO peaches, Arlene,” Sage said. “Go and Google ‘cuttings’.”

  “So you won’t have any objection to Channel Eight News independently verifying that?” Arlene shot back.

  “Of course not,” Sage said. “We have nothing to hide.”

  “You heard it here first,” Arlene said to the camera. “We’re heading up to the Martin’s Bounty peach orchard to obtain a sample and we’ll make sure to keep you up with the test results, every step of the way. For Channel Eight News, I’m Arlene Wiggins.”

  The cameraman unshouldered his rig and gave her a thumbs-up.

  “Thanks, hon’, that’s great TV,” Arlene said to Sage, suddenly sounding friendly now that the cameras were off. “We’ll ring the bell again when we have test results. Keep the apron - that’s a nice touch, but eighty-six the ponytail. Viewers want women to look feminine.”

  “Get out,” Sage said, clenching her jaw to keep herself from saying more.

  “But I can take my sample, right?” Arlene asked.

  Sage nodded.

  Wiggins and her crew headed toward the peaches.

  Tansy put a hand on Sage’s shoulder. They watched as Arlene snagged a peach from one of the trees and held it up to Sage, as if in toast. One of the crew handed her a ziplock bag and she tucked it in the bag in her purse.

  The crew trailed her down the hillside and into the news van that was parked on the gravel drive.

  The whole thing was surreal.

  They were still standing there when Arden sprinted toward the house, Drago and Riggs in her wake.

  “What was that about?” Arden asked, panting, her eyes wide.

  “Oh, nothing about the men,” Sage said. “Some idiot called their tip line and said our peaches were genetically modified.”

  “What did you tell them?” Arden asked.

  “I told them the peaches were not genetically modified,” Sage said slowly, wondering what she was missing.

  “Why did they take one?” Drago asked.

  “Oh, they wanted to test it,” Sage said with a shrug. “They won’t find anything. Can you believe the nerve of them? Coming here with cameras rolling and literally nothing but a bad tip?”

  “Sage, Tansy, I think you should sit down,” Arden said.

  Sage felt a wash of ice water through her veins, though she had no idea what Arden could possibly say that would make things worse.

  She sat and Tansy sat beside her.

  “You know how the trees weren’t blooming?” Arden asked.

  “Yes, and you realized there was poison in their water supply,” Sage said.

  “Did you notice how quickly the trees bounced back?” Arden asked.

  Sage blinked.

  “Yes,” Tansy said quietly.

  “Would you have expected them to bloom so quickly?” Arden asked.

  Sage turned to Tansy.

  Tansy bit her lip and shook her head. “The fruit always comes early and ripens quickly, though this year it happened exceptionally quickly. But I’ve definitely never seen the trees blossom suddenly like that. I thought it might have something to do with the water.”

  “Oh god, you think she’ll find traces of the chemical in the peaches?” Sage asked.

  “No,” Arden said. “Thankfully that’s not an issue, or we wouldn’t be selling the peaches at all. There’s something else… special about these peaches.”

  Riggs began to pace in front of the window, she’d never seen him so anxious about anything.

  Arden looked to Drago, who nodded solemnly. Burton placed a hand on Tansy’s shoulder.

  “Something you don’t know yet about these men is that they each have a little something extra,” Arden said. “A gift - maybe a remnant of their old life on Aerie.”

  “What do you mean a gift?” Sage asked.

  “Drago’s gift has to do with plants,” Arden said. “He can commune with plant life.”

  “You mean he has a green thumb?” Sage asked.

  “I’ll show you,” Drago offered. “It will be easier than trying to explain.”

  He moved to the window and took down a small pot with an African violet in it. It was a tiny thing, a few fuzzy leaves, fuller on the side that faced the exterior than on the other. It had been in the window ever since Sage could remember.

  Drago knelt in front of Sage, holding the little plant out between them.

  He closed his eyes.

  At first nothing happened. A slight breeze in the room moved the curtains.

  Then the plant transformed before Sage’s eyes.

  The leaves unfurled, a deep, lush green. Buds appeared and burst into bloom, a glorious purple against the background of fuzzy green leaves.

  Drago opened his eyes and smiled down at the little plant.

  “Y-you made it grow,” Sage stammered.

  “No,” he said, shaking his head. “I asked it to grow.”

  Sage looked to Arden in question.

  Arden nodded.

  “This is why the peaches bloomed,” Tansy said to Drago, nodding her head slowly, a look of dawning admiration on her face. “You did this.”

  “We did it,” he said, glancing over at Arden.


  “How exactly does it work?” Tansy asked. “Scientifically, I mean.”

  “We don’t know,” Arden said. “This is why I don’t like that they’re testing the fruit.”

  “But you didn’t put anything into it,” Tansy said.

  “True,” Arden agreed. “But communicating with a plant at this level, supporting it, pushing it to bloom, surely there could be chemical changes at some level. Maybe even something that would raise a red flag on the tests they are about to do.”

  Sage leapt up from the sofa.

  Her sudden movement sent Drago sprawling backward, and he nearly dropped the violet.

  “Tansy,” she said, turning to her sister.

  But Tansy’s expression was one of wonder and excitement.

  Sage was reeling. Yet her sister sat there, calmly taking it all in without a single question.

  “Tansy, this isn’t normal,” she heard herself say, her voice higher pitched than usual.

  Tansy nodded up at her. Concern drew down the corners of her lips, but it was clear as day to Sage that she was more worried about her than about the madness she had just witnessed.

  Then it hit Sage. Tansy was mated to Burton. She was already in too deep. If these things that looked like men could make plants obey them…

  “What have we gotten ourselves into?” Sage moaned.

  Her stomach clenched and she pushed past Arden and ran out the front door.

  18

  Riggs

  Riggs bolted out the front door and ran after Sage, his heart pounding with dread.

  He caught up to her under the sycamore that overlooked the berry fields.

  “Sage,” he called to her.

  “No,” she said, walking faster. “I can’t.”

  “Wait, please,” he said. “Can we just talk for a minute?”

  She spun around, fixing him with her dark eyes.

  “There’s no point, Riggs,” she said. “What’s done is done.”

  “Whatever that test result shows, we can still sell the peaches,” Riggs said, reaching for a solution. “Maybe we sell them to scientists instead of tourists if there’s something unusual about them.”

  “It’s not just the peaches, Riggs, and you know it,” she countered.

  “You mean our relationship,” he said sadly. “Dr. Bhimani warned us not to demonstrate our gifts until after we had a mate bond. She said it would make us seem more alien to humans.”

  “She’s right, it does make you seem more alien,” Sage said. “It never occurred to any of you that it would only be fair to share that with us before we were mated to you forever?”

  “I, uh, never thought about that,” Riggs admitted.

  “Do you all have gifts?” Sage asked. “Burton and… you?”

  He nodded.

  He was ready to tell her about his gift, to tell her anything she wanted to know. He would gladly rip open his chest and show her his aching heart if she wanted to see it.

  But she merely nodded, lips buttoned tightly.

  “I care about you, Sage,” he said. “Please don’t push me out of your life.”

  “I’m true to my word. We won’t kick you off the farm,” she said.

  “That’s not what I meant,” he told her gently.

  “I won’t be involved with you on a personal level,” she said. “And as far as the farm, we’re going to have to sell soon anyway, with or without the stupid peaches.”

  “You won’t have to sell the farm,” Riggs told her. “I’ll work harder. We all will.”

  “I’ve done the math, Riggs,” she said simply. “Even if we had our best year ever, the tourists would have to pay twice what the fruit is worth for us to catch up enough to be ready for next year. And we’d be lucky to get half the traffic the farm usually gets. The only thing anyone in this town wants to visit is aliens.”

  He nodded. Sage was an accountant. If she said the farm wouldn’t work, then it wouldn’t. He did not envy her having to break this news to Tansy.

  “I really just want a few minutes alone to get some fresh air,” Sage said softly.

  “I’ll be right inside if you need me,” Riggs said.

  She nodded but he heard her thoughts as clearly as if she had said them out loud.

  I won’t.

  19

  Clem

  Clement Peterson stood in a cramped hallway in the Channel Eight news building in Stargazer.

  The newsroom always looked so fancy on the air. He’d never really pictured threadbare carpets, fluorescent lights and people running around with styrofoam coffee cups backstage.

  “You the one waiting for Arlene?” a guy with a clipboard and an anxious look asked him.

  Clem nodded.

  “Follow me,” the guy said.

  Clem followed him about ten feet down the hallway and then the guy knocked on a door.

  “Come in,” Arlene sang out. Her rural Pennsylvania twang made her sound like one of Clem’s aunts. He didn’t know why he’d assumed the way she talked on the news was how she really talked.

  “Hey, uh, I’m the guy who sent in the tip about the peaches at Martin’s Bounty,” he said.

  “Oh shit, yeah, come on in,” Arlene said.

  The door opened and he almost took a step back.

  Arlene’s face was covered in some white substance. Her hair was twisted in foam curlers. She looked kind of like Medusa in the comic books Clem read when he was a kid.

  He entered the small room. There were two stools in front of a make-up mirror and a rack of women’s suits in every color of the rainbow.

  “Sit if you want,” Arlene said. “But this won’t take long.”

  Clem sat on the stool next to hers. It was on wheels. It took enormous effort on his part not to spin it around.

  “Did you test the peaches?” he asked.

  “We did,” she said. “They’re super high in vitamin C, like off the charts. But otherwise they’re completely normal. Your tip was useless.”

  “But that’s impossible,” he said.

  “What makes you think they’re genetically modified trees?” Arlene asked, making a strange face in the mirror as she used a sponge to rub the white stuff into her skin.

  “I was there two weeks ago and there were no blooms on the trees,” Clem said. “And now there are ripe peaches.”

  Arlene sat up straight and lowered her sponge.

  “Now that’s something,” she said. “Can anyone corroborate that?”

  “Uh, my sister,” he said.

  “Not family,” Arlene said, shaking her head.

  Clem thought of Otis, but there was no way the guy would inform on the Martins. He was practically their butler these days.

  “Wait,” Clem said.

  Arlene raised an eyebrow.

  “The cops can,” he said. “They got called in when the Martins’s bees went missing.”

  “You think they’d have pictures?” Arlene asked, her eyes sparkling.

  “They might,” Clem said hopefully.

  “We’ll check it out.” Arlene nodded enthusiastically, her curlers bobbing along with her.

  Clem headed out, hoping for the first time in his life that the Stargazer cops had actually done their jobs.

  20

  Sage

  Sage spent the rest of the day avoiding Riggs.

  When the men were in the field with the horses, she picked berries. When they moved to the pond for lunch, she went up to the peach orchard and organized the bushel baskets and fruit pickers. When they arrived at the orchard to lay extra gravel on the paths, she headed to the kitchen to prepare dinner.

  Sage had wanted to make chicken stew and Otis was pulling for apple pie. They compromised on a menu of chicken pot pie and cold apple cider. Otis was pulling the pies out of the oven when the men came back from swimming in the pond.

  Sage was just washing up at the sink. She tried hard and failed not to stare as the three dripping and gorgeous aliens walked past the window in front of her
.

  Riggs was resplendent, shirtless and unselfconscious. The afternoon sun set the drops of water running down his muscled chest flashing like diamonds. His dark hair hung low over his blue eyes.

  When he glanced up at the window, she dropped the glass measuring cup she was holding into the sink with a clatter.

  “Shoot,” she exclaimed.

  “You okay?” Otis asked.

  “I’m fine,” she said too fast.

  He eyed her suspiciously.

  “What?” she asked lightly, turning back to the sink.

  “Oh, I don’t know,” he said politely. “You’re just kind of quieter than usual today.”

  What he meant was that she wasn’t carping after him constantly about which utensil to use or how he stirred the broth.

  “I’m just tired,” she said.

  “Okay, I hope you feel… more rested soon,” he said. His voice was a bit deeper than usual. He was actually concerned.

  She turned and gave him a genuine smile.

  For all that he had conspired against her family, he really did feel bad about what he had done.

  She allowed herself five seconds to wish she had the good sense to fall in love with someone as refreshingly normal and reassuringly goofy as Otis Rogers. He was a real help in the kitchen.

  Unfortunately she didn’t want to think about spending time with him in any other room.

  The image of wet, half-naked Riggs flashed in her memory and she bit her lip and forced herself to remember what he really was. He might be attractive, but he was an alien. And his judgment was terrible.

  The pretty ones are never the sharpest, she heard Howard Gillespie from the print shop say again.

  Maybe Howard was right after all.

  Arden poked her head into the kitchen.

  “Hey Sage,” Arden said. “I was going to turn on the news if that’s okay?”

  “Sure,” Sage said. Channel Eight’s evening news had started a few minutes ago.

  She didn’t really want to see herself on camera, but it was important to know what was going out to the public.

  She arrived in the living room and joined Arden on the sofa as Arlene Wiggins’s face filled the television screen. She was already talking about Martin’s Bounty. They must have made the lead story somehow.