Gail's Family: A SciFi Alien Romance Novella: Icehome Book 4

by Dixon, Ruby

  Gail's Family

  A SciFi Alien Romance Novella: Icehome Book 4

  Ruby Dixon

  www.rubydixon.com

  Copyright © 2018 by Ruby Dixon

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Cover Design — by Kati Wilde

  Edits — by Aquila Editing

  Created with Vellum

  GAIL’S FAMILY

  A SciFi Alien Romance Novella

  I’ve had a full life: wife, mom, divorcee…and then alien property. All of that’s changing now that I’m on the ice planet. Here, I’m free again, and I’ve found love once more. Vaza’s older and a widower, but he knows how to make a woman smile both in the furs and out of them.

  Everyone around me has a baby in their arms or in their belly, though, and it’s hard to be the only one without. I love nothing more than being a mama…and when I hear there’s an orphan at the Icehome camp, I want to adopt him. Vaza and I have so much love to give, but will an alien baby love us back?

  (Psst! This story does not stand alone. Start with LAUREN’S BARBARIAN! You’ll be glad you did!)

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Author’s Note

  The Icehome Series

  Want More?

  1

  GAIL

  “I know change is supposed to be good,” Summer babbles as she hands me a rolled-up blanket. “But I mean, I thought you’d stay here. Stick around, you know? I’m pregnant, and Kate is too, and Elly—heck, Elly’s just now bathing again, right? And I think that you might be thinking that we don’t need you around here, but you’d be wrong, Gail. You’re like the team mom…well, except there’s no team.” She rushes on, heedless of breathing or letting anyone else get a word in edgewise. “Not really. I mean, if there was a team, it’d be humans versus sa-khui and they’d win because of the obvious height advantage and—”

  “Summer,” I butt in. “Breathe, girl.”

  “Right,” she says, and takes in a shaky breath. “What I’m trying to say is that we’re going to miss you.” Her lower lip trembles.

  “I know, little mama,” I tell her as I stroke the soft fur blanket. It’s already been neatly rolled into a long tube so it can be carried efficiently on my backpack. Vaza told me not to pack too much, but I’m also a mom at heart, and I know that you travel prepared.

  My heart flutters. Mom. I’m going to be a mom again. Somewhere out there, there’s a baby with no mama and no daddy, just waiting to be smothered with love by a new mama. I’m going to be that mama. The thought fills me with so much joy I can scarcely breathe.

  Unfortunately, that means abandoning the new little family we’ve made here, and the girls aren’t thrilled. Summer and Kate and Elly are old enough to not need a mother, but I confess to stepping into the “mama” role around them more than I probably should. They’re sweet girls, but they’re also all half my age and it’s automatic for me. They’re all happy with their men, and Elly in particular has bloomed under Bek’s loving attention. Doesn’t mean it’s easy to leave them behind.

  “I’m going to miss you all, too,” I say, giving Summer a gentle smile. “Don’t you cry a single tear. If I can fly on a dragon’s back to the other beach, that means you can come and visit any time you like.”

  “It’s not exactly the same,” Kate says, stroking her kitten’s long, silky white fur as she sits down cross-legged on a mat in my hut. “You won’t be just a few huts away. We can’t call you to see how you’re doing or just to talk.”

  “I know. Trust me, I’ve thought about all of this.” I’ve thought of nothing else since Vektal and the others returned on dragon-back (of all things) and mentioned that there was an orphaned baby that had arrived with the island tribe. “Everything going through your mind, I’ve already thought about and thought about.”

  “But you’re still going,” Summer says, sniffling.

  “I am,” I say calmly. “Speaking of Elly, where is she? We’re leaving soon.”

  “She couldn’t come.” Summer takes a deep breath, a sure indicator that she’s about to launch into another torrent of words. I’m not entirely sure how her khui thought she should end up with the quietest guy in the tribe, but they’re happy together. I brace myself, waiting for Summer’s hurricane of speech, but all she says is, “Elly’s sad.”

  Oh. “I’m sad, too. I’m going to miss her.” And it’s going to hurt not to say goodbye. I understand it, though. Sometimes you can’t look at someone and tell them goodbye with joy in your heart. Makes things tricky to fake it, so you just don’t say anything at all.

  Or you don’t show up to say goodbye.

  I think of all the people back on Earth I’d have loved to say goodbye to. My ex-husband. My sisters. My friends. I’d have stopped by my boy’s grave to say one final goodbye there. I’m older, though, and I understand what it means to miss out on that sort of thing. Elly’s young, and she thinks differently.

  I look at the two girls who came to see me off. They’re both still so young in my eyes. I love Summer and Kate both, and they’re like my own daughters. At the same time, I still feel…alone. Different. I don’t fit in with them any more than I do with the older women of the sa-khui tribe. How do I explain to my girls that I feel like an outsider? That of all the humans that have shown up on this ice planet, I’m the only one with a gray hair? Everyone else that was taken from Earth to be a slave was of a similar age—early twenties. They wouldn’t understand. To them, we’re all in the same situation.

  To me, they’re all still babies. My son would be about their age, if he’d have lived.

  Thinking of Calvin is painful like it always is, the dull ache that settles in my chest and threatens to overwhelm. It’s been almost twelve years since he died and it still hurts to think of my smiling boy and the last time I saw him, proudly showing off the piece of paper that was his substitute driver’s license until the real one came in the mail. I hate that the real one came four days after his funeral. I hate that the man who swerved into my son’s car sobbed as hard as I did at Calvin’s funeral. I hate that there’s no one to blame except my sweet boy, who was so impatient he had to take his friends out for a spin only to run a red light because, as always, Calvin was impatient.

  Today, however, the ache’s a little less, I think, the pain more bittersweet. The past doesn’t go away, but now there’s more to look forward to. There’s a baby that needs me.

  “It’s hard to explain,” I say to the girls, because I know they won’t understand.

  “No, I get it,” Kate tells me in a soft voice. The kitten in her hands squirms and she sets it down. It’s no bigger than a small dog, all fur and whiskers, and it immediately pounces on a bit of cord and attacks the end. Kate pets its fluffy stub tail as she glances over at me. “You’re in a tribe full of pregnant women with no kids of your own. Vaza can’t have kids, and you said you can’t, either. I know you love children, so I can’t imagine this is easy for you, being around all of this. You smile and you’re happy, but I’ve seen the way you look at the babies.” She touches her own stomach. “This way, you get to start a family of your own. Is that what it is?”

  I steal the bit of cord back from her kitte
n. “I don’t remember this ridiculous little creature’s name,” I tell her with a laugh, trying to hide my emotions. “But yeah, I guess it’s something like that.”

  She hit the nail on the head. It’s not that I’m jealous. I’m truly happy for everyone here. There’s not an unkind soul in the village, and I’m especially close to my girls that I was rescued with—Elly, Summer, Brooke and Kate. But there was nothing I loved more than being a mama, and seeing so much joy on other faces makes me feel so empty sometimes.

  Seems cruel to end up on a planet full of babies when I can’t have one.

  If it was up to me, Shaun and I would have had a dozen babies and filled our home with love and smiles. But there was only ever Calvin, and when he was gone, it left a hole in my heart that never healed up. I went on with life, did my job, smiled, but my soul felt dead. I was a good wife to Shaun, and he was a good husband, but things were never the same between us. How could they be after the death of a child? Our only child? I wasn’t entirely surprised when, two years after Calvin’s death, Shaun wanted a divorce. He’d found someone else, someone that made him happy. In a way, it made me happy, too, because I didn’t have to pretend like my baby boy’s death hadn’t broken me. We divorced, and I kept existing.

  Life went on, and I went on with it.

  Up until I got captured by aliens, of course.

  “I get it,” Kate says. “You want to be a mama. I’m just sad that you’re moving away.”

  “I’m sad, too, baby girl,” I tell her and reach out to squeeze her hand. “But maybe we can start the first postal service here. You can send me messages and I’ll send them back every time Veronica and Ashtar come in this direction. And I’m not leaving all of you behind. Brooke’s there with her man.”

  Kate smiles faintly. “That’s right. Maybe I can talk Harrec into going for a visit once you’re all settled in and the weather lets up.”

  Summer just hands me another bundle, and for once she’s utterly silent, as if she’s afraid that if she starts talking, she’ll never stop.

  I smile back at Kate, but I don’t point out what we all know—the brutal season is beginning, and from what we’ve been told, the brutal season is one big long snow dump after another. I doubt there’ll be much travel back and forth until the worst of it is over, and that’ll be months and months from now. Veronica and her man—the strange gold dragon guy—have made noises that the weather’s getting worse by the day, and if we don’t travel today, we won’t be for the rest of the brutal season. It’s now or never.

  That doesn’t change my mind in the slightest, though. The tribe on the beach is new to this planet and full of young women who have no idea what’s going on. Just like I shepherded my young girls here into their first days on this planet, I can help those new girls out, too. I’m the only human woman old enough to have some life experience, so I know when to offer help and when to sit back and let them figure things out for themselves. My lover Vaza is from this place and he’s needed, too. There’ll be lots of hunting and hut-building and fire-making and so many new mouths to feed. We’re needed for sure.

  My motives aren’t completely altruistic, though. I’m aching for a baby. Kate’s not wrong. Surrounded by so many families and so much love? So many little smiles and women with rounded bellies? I feel a stab of envy every time someone celebrates a new resonance, or a baby cries in the night. I help out with the kids and with the schooling, and I’m there the moment someone needs a babysitter… but it’s not the same.

  I thought it was a cruel joke at first that a woman who just went through menopause in the last year or so would end up here. Now, I think I was brought to this planet for a different purpose. Maybe I don’t need to carry a baby because there was one waiting for me already.

  Vaza’s with me on that thought, too. The moment we heard there was a baby with the island tribe, we were on the same page. He immediately began to make plans to leave, and so did I.

  I only wish Elly would come to see me off.

  She’s…a bit more fragile than some of these other girls. Not in size, but in spirit. She’s been through so much. Kate and Summer were newly captured when I met them on the slave pens in the space station, waiting to be sold to my next master. Me, I’d already been a slave for a long time. If I had to guess, a couple of years, though it’s impossible to tell time anymore. I’d seen and experienced some shit I don’t like to think about again, ever. Poor Elly had it the worst, though. She’d been a slave since she was a child, and kept in cages. She struggles, but with Bek’s help, she’s doing better.

  I worry my leaving is going to set her off, but how can I stay when there’s a baby waiting for me on the shore?

  It seems like all too soon, my bag is full and there's no more reason to delay. I look around the tiny, stone hut. It has a toilet (kind of), a kitchen (kind of) and a nice, comfy area full of furs that's served as my bedroom for the last couple of months while we've been here. It's been home, and one that I've shared with Vaza. It's primitive but still cozy, and I realize I'm trading it out for a cave or a tent on the beach, both of which have no toilets or much privacy. I'm going to miss this place.

  But…I'm still going.

  I grab my pack and hug Kate and Summer a dozen times. Summer's openly weeping at this point, and Kate looks like she's trying to be strong and failing. She clutches her little puffball of a kitten against her chest and watches me with big, sad eyes. I don't change my mind, though. I smile and lift my pack and head out to say my goodbyes to the rest of the tribe. They'll understand. Maybe not today, but when they hold their own babies in their arms, they'll get it. They'll realize why I need to go so desperately.

  It's icy cold outside, a strong breeze whistling high above the canyon walls. I glance up, but there's no snow on the air as far as I can tell, which means we're flying out today. There won't be many more snow-free days during the brutal season, I'm told, so we're taking this window of opportunity. Vektal, the chief, and his mate Georgie stand with their daughters, talking to Vaza. My mate—I guess we're calling it that right now, though by their standards, we're just pleasure mates—is wearing a thick fur cloak and a long tunic, a hood pulled down to his horned brow. That's more clothing than I think I've ever seen on him, which means it's going to be a cold journey. I hope I dressed warmly enough. I'm wearing three layers of clothing and I have a big fur cloak, but I'm not sure it'll be sufficient. I'm human, and we're more susceptible to the cold despite our cooties. Vaza won’t let me freeze, though.

  I study the big alien man and do my best not to smile like an idiot. Of all the surprises this new world has had to offer, Vaza is one of the best. By the time I’d arrived here, I was done with men and their bullshit. Dating in my forties wasn’t fun. Men either wanted a midlife crisis trophy wife (preferably blonde and with implants) or a quick fuck. I wasn’t interested in either one. If I did find that rare guy that wanted a relationship, he wasn’t interested in my pain, and I wasn’t interested in letting it go. Then, of course, slavery happened, and I learned that there were some truly awful people out there in the universe. I had one slave master that was awful, and he made me learn new things about depravity every day. I was only with him for about two months before he sold me, though, and my next owner was just old and only somewhat perverted. After what I’d been through? Being groped by an old ooli creep was a blessing. He mostly wanted his feet rubbed and to be fawned over, which was easy enough to fake. But romance? Ha.

  Then I was sold again, and ended up on the station with Brooke, Elly, Summer and Kate. We were all purchased together and dropped here on this planet.

  And from the first moment he saw me, Vaza made me feel special.

  Even now, just thinking about it makes me feel warm and gooey inside. I remember him arriving and staring at me, agog. As a human amongst aliens, I’ve gotten used to such looks. I ignored it as best I could…and then he told everyone that I was the most beautiful creature he’d ever seen.

  How can you hate a ma
n that says that upon meeting you? I’m no one’s beauty. I’m older, with gray hair and no tits to speak of, and frown lines were forming around my mouth the last time I saw a mirror. Vaza’s no spring chicken himself. His body’s as hard as any other of these aliens, but there’s gray streaking his hair and the lines on his face are a little more pronounced, speaking of his age. Even so, he’s strong and outrageously good looking, and the way he devoured me with his eyes made me feel like a pretty young thing instead of a fifty-year-old woman tired of life.

  I flirted with him at first, making sure I was sweet and attentive whenever he spoke to me. It started out as insurance. If this was just another form of slavery and I was going to end up serving another master, I needed to hedge my bets. As days bled into nights and no one tried to rape me, whip me, or beat me, and no one enslaved me again, I started to think these people might be serious. That we might be just people here, instead of slaves.

  That’s when I allowed myself to hope. Maybe this planet was as different as it seemed, and the people here as authentic. Maybe Vaza’s heated looks and absurdly passionate words were truth and he really did find me beautiful and graceful and all that jazz. So I allowed him to court me.

  Well, let’s call a spade a spade—I started sleeping with him.

  It wasn’t as if I was some shy, blushing thing who’d never had a man before. After being a slave for a few years, sex was just another uncomfortable function a slave was expected to perform, kinda like popping a zit on your froggy master’s back that he couldn’t quite reach. If it sucked, you tried not to think about it too hard and went on with your life. I figured what the hell, it was more insurance.