by Donna Fasano
"We’d better check on her every hour.”
“Yes.”
He let the chickens into their outside yard and fed them, then milked the cows. She watched what he was doing.
When he was finished, they went inside to eat a quick breakfast.
"She might wait until tonight—when she’s alone," Beka said.
"I know," he answered.
After breakfast, he pointed to the comms units sitting on the desk. “We were going to open a line between us. Actually, there should be a line between these two units already, but I haven’t used it in years.”
He gestured for the connection, then saw a green light blink.
“I’ll go outside. You stay in here, and I’ll call you.”
“And then what do I do?”
“You can just say my name.”
“Okay.”
He went out to the side of the barn and flashed the unit. The cube opened up beside it, and a few moments later he saw Beka’s face.
“I guess it works.”
“We’ll get off, and you try to call me.”
“By holding it up and saying your name?”
“Yes.”
They did the reverse. “And now come on out, and we’ll muck out a bigger stall for Silla.”
“What an offer.”
She came back to the barn, and they donned masks, gloves and caps before cleaning the stall.
“We don’t waste anything,” he said. “The manure and the straw will go into the fields.”
When they’d collected the waste, they added fresh dry hay to the stall and led the mare inside. All the while, he spoke to Silla, telling her she was going to have a fine baby very soon.
He checked on the mare every hour, in between doing other chores that kept him around the farmyard—and showing Beka some of the things she needed to know, like what his code meant on the packages of meat in the freezer.
By that evening, Silla was pawing at the straw and pacing around in the stall. After a quick dinner, Caleb and Beka went back to the barn. Even though the chance of the mare’s developing problems was slight, he also knew that if something unexpected happened, he’d have to deal with it quickly.
He set out a kit of items he might need. But since a mare could stop her labor during the first stage if she was disturbed, he spread a blanket for himself on a pile of straw outside the stall.
He’d gotten very little sleep in the past couple of days, and he must have dozed off. The next thing he knew, a strangled exclamation woke him. Staggering up, he crossed to the stall and found Beka down on her knees beside the horse.
Silla was lying on her side, pushing, but when he looked between her legs, he saw what Beka had spotted—a red bag at the entrance to the birth canal. And he knew what it meant. Premature separation of the placenta.
Chapter 5
"Can you call a vet. . .?" Beka gasped.
"Nobody could get here in time," Caleb answered, knowing that immediate action was critical because the foal’s oxygen came from the placenta, and it was no longer attached to the uterus. If they didn’t get the baby out of his mother fast, it would suffocate.
There was no time to panic.
"Talk to Silla. Tell her everything’s going to be okay," Caleb directed, even when he knew it might be a lie.
Dashing out of the stall, he grabbed the scissors that he’d gotten ready—just in case. Beka was bending over the mare, speaking soothingly to her.
"What else can I do?” she murmured.
"Just keep her calm."
Beka answered with a tight nod, stroking Silla’s face as she bent to whisper soft words.
Feeling a kind of deadly composure, Caleb knelt down at the other end of the mare and used the scissors to open the placenta, being careful not to cut Silla or her baby.
"I’ll help her deliver if she needs me," Caleb murmured, keeping his voice low and even to avoid alarming the horse.
Beka nodded, and he felt the shared intimacy of what they were doing. His attention switched back to the horse when Silla pushed again. As he saw two feet emerge, he breathed a sigh of relief.
"The foal’s in the normal position," he said, then saw the head follow, with the ears slicked back against the skull.
"Thank the universe," Beka breathed.
As Caleb gently tugged, Silla pushed her baby into the world.
Both he and Beka breathed a sigh of relief as she turned and began to lick her colt. He raised his beautiful chestnut head and looked at his mother.
They kept working together, making sure the baby had no breathing problems and washing Silla’s udders.
By the time the foal stood and took his first drink of colostrum—the fluid in his mother’s udder before her milk came in—Caleb was exhausted.
Wearily, he turned to Beka. "Thank you. We made a good team.” They had worked together well, and it had felt good.
But now that the crisis was over, he could see Beka was wavering on her feet. "You need some sleep," he told her.
"I was about to say the same to you."
They both made it back to the house. In the bedroom, he saw Beka throw one of his old sheets over the bed. “We’re both filthy, but we both need to sleep,” she said in response to his questioning look.
“Yeah.”
He kicked off his boots and flopped onto the sheet. Beka did the same and lay down beside him. He was asleep almost instantly and didn’t wake until his usual time in the morning.
Turning his head, he looked at his wife. “That was a strange experience.”
“What?”
“Having help. I appreciated it.”
“I’m glad.”
“I’m going to go check on Silla and the foal.”
She nodded, then asked, “What are you going to name him?”
“Why don’t you pick a name?”
“Me?”
“Sure.”
“Okay. Let me think about it.”
He went out to the barn and checked on mom and baby before letting the chickens out, noting that Beka must have put them in for the night while he was busy.
When he came back to the house, she’d made a pot of coffee, and he took a mug.
“You probably want to take a shower,” she murmured.
“You can go first.”
“I’ll wait,” she said, and he thought he heard a strained quality to her voice.
He strode to the shower, turned on the hot water, and discarded his dirty clothes. He started to kick them to the side of the room. Instead he scooped them up and put them in the hamper.
The hot water felt wonderful after the grubby session in the barn. He had just rinsed his hair when he felt cool air invade the shower space. In the next moment, he realized Beka had stepped in behind him.
“What are you doing in here?”
“Taking a shower.”
“With me?”
“It’s practical.”
He kept his shoulders rigid and his back to her, wondering what he was going to do now. Especially since he was suddenly hard as a shovel handle.
“I was thinking about what we could do,” she said in a husky voice.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean instead of what we can’t do . . . Let’s try some other stuff.”
He knew she had lathered her hands when she stroked her slippery fingers over his butt. He had thought he was hard. Now his erection was almost painful.
He went absolutely still when she pressed her naked body against his back, and he felt her breasts against his wet skin. In the next second, she reached to his front and clasped her fist around his pole.
“Don’t,”
“Why not?”
“You’ll make me . . . come,” he managed to say.
She stroked her cheek against his back, ran her free hand along his ribs and his hips, making his body tighten even more.
Opening her mouth against his shoulder, she nibbled at his taut skin.
“You don’t want
to?”
Chapter 6
Caleb wanted to shout in frustration. Of course he wanted to come, but was it all right to do it that way? In the shower with her hand clasped around his aching cock. Like he’d do it himself when his frustration level got the better of him.
She took the decision away from him by stroking her slippery hand up and down his length, making him gasp.
He had stopped thinking about anything besides the maddening stroking and squeezing of her hand.
With his head thrown back against her shoulder, he absorbed the pleasure of what she was doing to him, going with it. He went off like a rocket blasting into space, bracing his hand against the shower wall to stay on his feet.
What she had done had embarrassed him, but he knew they had reached a decision point. He could take the coward’s way out and stay with his back to her, with his head down, or he could turn around.
He turned, raising his head and taking in the glory of her naked body, so different from his. Her breasts were small and high, crowned by rosy nipples. Her hips had a seductive lure, as did the triangle of blond hair at the top of her legs.
“Do you want to return the favor?” she asked.
It took a moment to realize what she was asking. When the meaning of the question finally registered, he answered, “Yeah.” Then “How?”
“It would feel good if you start with my breasts. I mean if you want to.”
“Yeah.”
“You could use the soap the way I did on you.”
He lathered his hands, stroking them over her breasts. They were soft, so soft, with a hardened tip that stabbed against his palms.
When his fingers brushed a rigid peak, she made a small sound.
“Sorry.”
“No. It’s good. I need more.”
“Like what?”
She brought her lips to his ear, tugging on the lobe with her teeth, and then murmuring, “Play with my nipples.”
“I don’t want to hurt you.”
“You won’t. Do anything you want.”
He drew circles around them with his soapy fingers, gasping at the way their tightness made his own body quiver. Quickly he washed off the soap so that he could tug and twist at them, watching her face, trying to judge her reaction.
Her breathing had accelerated. Her face flushed.
He felt the tension gathering in her. But he couldn’t make her come that way, could he?
“What do you need?” he asked.
Reaching for one of his hands, she tugged it down her body, into the moist, slippery folds of her furrow. She wedged his hand there, moving her hips urgently back and forth.
He watched her face, watched passion drench her features, then felt a small convulsion against his fingers.
She cried out, then anchored herself against him. They clung together under the cooling water.
“You’re hard again.”
“Yeah. Sorry.”
“No reason to be sorry. Touching me charged you up. That’s the way it’s supposed to be.” She laughed. “All good.”
She tipped her face toward him. “If we stay here, we’re not going to get much done.”
Caught between temptation and his work ethic, he reached behind her and turned off the water, then grabbed a towel and began to dry her off.
“Did you mind my getting in the shower?”
“I was embarrassed at first.”
Her answer was immediate. “Don’t be. Never be embarrassed with me.”
“I’ll try not to.” He swallowed hard and forced an admission from his lips. “But, there’s so much I don’t know.”
“There’s a lot I don’t know, either.”
“You know about sex.”
“Do you mind that?”
Maybe he minded, a little. What he said was, “I guess it’s an advantage. I mean better that one of us knows what they’re doing.”
She took his hand, folded it and spoke with her lips against his knuckles. “There’s a boatload of stuff you’re going to have to teach me. I still don’t really get the comms unit. And I need to know how to fly a hauler. How to shoot a beamer. And how to fight borgans and granlings.”
“I hope to hell you don’t have to do that last part.”
He looked down at her hand, then noticed the irregularity above the joint.”
“You broke your wrist.”
She went very still. “Yes.”
“And you didn’t have a medic set it.”
“Dad never paid for anything he thought he could do himself,” she answered quickly.
“It must have hurt like hell.”
“Yes.”
She pulled her hand away. “We should get going.”
Caleb watched her grab a towel and start to dry off. Apparently the wrist was something she didn’t want to talk about.
If left to his own devices, Caleb might have spent the whole day thinking about what they had done in the shower, or maybe getting Beka back into bed and playing with her breasts, running his hand into the folds of her sex, watching her face when he aroused her. He liked that he’d done that. Liked that she’d enjoyed what he was doing to her body. He knew she hadn’t faked an orgasm. He’d felt it against his hand.
He wanted to feel that again. Not just with his hand, with his cock.
“Cut it out,” he muttered to himself.
Nothing had changed at the homestead as far as the environment was concerned. There was still a lot of work to do. And now he wasn’t only responsible for himself. He had to take care of his wife—and keep her safe.
His wife.
It had been an abstract concept before they’d met. Now he was getting to know her, although he wasn’t sure that she entirely trusted him. Otherwise, wouldn’t she open up a little more about her background?
And was she rushing the sexual relationship? She could have skipped the shower with him. But she’d set it up so he’d be in there and naked when she stepped in.
Before he’d met her, he’d pictured how it would be. He’d thought a new bride would be shy and reticent. She wasn’t either of those things.
When he came in from checking on Silla and the foal, she was in the prep area, making breakfast. Brewed coffee was in the pot. She’d found cured meat in the cold box, and she’d fried it up, then scrambled eggs. She’d also taken slices of bread from the freezer and run them under the broiler. Beside them was a tub of butter and some of the preserves he’d bought for a treat.
She watched him eye the breakfast. “Is that okay?”
“It looks good.”
“Probably you don’t have so many things at once. But I thought we could celebrate . . . our marriage.”
Her saying that took his breath away. Their marriage. They hadn’t done everything a husband and wife did together, but he was sure they would.
Maybe she was embarrassed by having said that so boldly, because she flushed, then turned away and started dishing out the eggs.
“You want more coffee?”
“Yes. Thanks.”
He poured them both coffee and got out a crock of cream.
They both added it to the mugs, and she also spooned in some sugar.
He ate the eggs and cured meat along with some of the toast, butter and jam.
“Where did you learn to cook?”
“At home. On our farm.”
“What did your family raise?”
“Our cash crop was corn. We also had vegetables for our own use. We had pigs for meat and cows for meat and milk. And we also sent some to market.”
“Sounds like the right experience. But you didn’t learn to shoot.”
“Girls didn’t shoot. I guess you’d say there was stuff men did and stuff women did.”
“Well, here you need to be able to defend yourself.”
“From what?”
“Predators. And if someone invaded our property.”
“Would they?”
“I hope not, but you never know.”
She
was silent for a moment, then asked. “You lived here with your dad. And he died in a mining accident?”
“Yeah.”
She made a low sound. “And you still work the mine?”
“Yeah.”
“I don’t like that.”
“I’m careful,” he answered, knowing he was obligated to be more careful now. “And it’s a source of income most guys don’t have.”
She nodded, then asked, “How old were you when he died?”
“Nineteen.”
“You’ve been alone a long time.”
“I got used to it.”
“I hope you can get used to having company.”
“I already am.”
“Good.”
They both ate in silence for a few minutes.
When she cleared her throat, he looked up.
“Do you have time for a shooting lesson after I clean up here?”
“Yes. Good idea.”
“You made self-defense sound important.”
Not just on the homestead, he thought, as he flashed back to the awful moment when he’d seen Jerry Costa trying to take Beka away. What had the guy been thinking? That he could somehow get out of town with a gal who wasn’t his?
oOo
When Caleb went out to feed the stock and milk the cows, Beka turned on the comms unit and found the newscast.
This time there was nothing about the incident when the guy named Jerry had tried to kidnap her. And nothing about any other disturbances at the spaceport. But there was a general item about the brides arriving and going to the homesteads. And Selma Wayland had apparently already asked to break her contract.
Beka remembered Selma. She was a pretty girl who had complained about her life back in Morgan City. She’d been looking for something better, but she might not have understood that a homestead in the wilds of Palomar wasn’t the best place for her.
The observation made Beka glance around the house. She’d told herself not to have expectations, but now she thought she might have lucked out with Caleb Raider. So far, he seemed to be a good man. Competent and careful and eager to make a good start with his new wife. And she suspected he’d gone to a lot of trouble to fix up his home before she arrived. It wasn’t exactly up to city standards, but it was probably at the upper end of the scale when it came to Palomar homesteads.
