I snort. Busy growing a baby isn’t exactly a full-time job. “I can handle it. I want to do it myself. And everyone else is busy, too. Most of the girls already have babies. They don’t exactly have free time.”

“Tee-fah-ni does not have a kit yet. She is pregnant, like you.”

Tiff’s also obsessed with trying to grow her fruit trees despite the lack of sunlight in the gorge. And when she’s not busy with that, she’s busy with a million other things. “She already has a ton of projects. I doubt she’ll have time to hang out with me.”

“What about the sisters?”

Maddie and Lila? I like them, but I don’t know them as well as the others. “They’re still learning how to cope with day-to-day life. I don’t know that they’ll have time to help either. I can do this, I promise.” I clasp his hands. “I won’t over-exert myself.”

He thinks for a minute, then a wide smile crosses his face. “I know who can help you.”

I’m starting to grow annoyed with my mate’s ‘helpfulness.’ I don’t need help with this project, but it seems he’s determined to get me assistance. “Who?”

“Asha.”

“Asha?” If he’d have said ‘President Reagan,’ I couldn’t have been more surprised. Me and Asha aren’t buddies. Actually, I’m not even sure we’ve said more than two words to each other in the last month. When Asha does emerge to spend time with the tribe, she makes a beeline for the women with babies so she can hold them. I’m not interesting to her…yet. “Why on earth would I get Asha to help me?”

“Because she needs a friend.” His big hands are gentle as he places them on my belly once more. “I saw her yesterday and it made me think.”

I saw her yesterday, too. “Think about what?”

“About how lonely she has been since the human females arrived.” When I gesture for more information, he leans down and presses his ear to my stomach, resting his head against me in a picture of perfect contentment. “Look at things from her perspective, my mate. She has grown up desired and wanted by all the males in the tribe because there are so few females. She mates someone she is barely even friends with, and they lose their kit. Then, just when she is almost over her grieving, many new females arrive. They are all friends with each other and have their own customs. They share stories and talk and do chores together. They sit together by the fire. They are all friends. And it is something Asha has never had.”

I frown to myself. I don’t think anyone has been trying to deliberately exclude the prickly Asha, but now that he says it this way, I feel guilty. “What about Sevvah, Kemli and Maylak? Farli?” The tribe had females before we arrived.

“Sevvah and Kemli are both old enough to be Asha’s mother. Maylak has always been Asha’s rival for attention. They have never been close, and they drifted apart further when Maylak came into her healing powers and her kit lived and Asha’s did not. And Farli is too young.” He closes his eyes and rubs his hand on the swell of my stomach. “Do you think he will kick again?”

He’s trying to distract me, I think. I poke him with my finger. “So you think I should befriend Asha?”

“I do. She could use a friend. Not just someone that is trying to hand her a child to watch. Someone that will be her friend just to be her friend.”

“And you think I’m that person?”

Ereven opens his eyes and gives me another sweet smile. “Who would not want to be your friend, my Claire? You bring me such joy. I cannot imagine you doing any less for others.”

He really is the dearest man. And he’s got such a good heart, too. I wonder that anyone else would think about Asha’s feelings, but Ereven tries to make everyone happy in his own quiet way. God, I love him. “All right, I’ll go visit her and feel her out.”

In the next moment, the baby moves again, and we both forget all about the holiday and Asha, focusing on the baby doing somersaults in my belly.

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4

ASHA

Next Morning

I’m lying in bed, staring up at the ceiling. I don’t want to go eat the morning meal with the humans today, because I can smell eggs even from here, and the thought makes my stomach hurt. I would rather not eat than eat more eggs, but Stay-see’s feelings would be hurt if I turned them down. So I hide, and I contemplate the roof of the howse and watch the curls of smoke escape from our fire up to the hole at the center of the teepee.

Over in her furs, Farli’s shoving on her boots and getting ready to go out, her pet dancing around her legs eagerly. I do not know why she bothers with the animal. Since we have moved to the gorge and the vee-lage, taking care of her dvisti has eaten up many of her days. Farli takes him out every day the weather is clear to graze, and just getting him out of the gorge is a time-consuming process involving a set of ropes and a thing called a pull-ee that Har-loh created. Once the creature is hauled back to the top, Farli spends her day collecting dried stalks of plants to feed him on the days when the weather is bad, and taking the bundles back to the vee-lage. Taushen goes with her and checks his traplines, but I know it is a burden. She should give up and let the stupid animal go back into the wild.

She should give up on it like Hemalo gave up on you? I do not like the thought that immediately pops into my head, and focus on something else. What should I do this day? It will be quiet since the weather is fair and warm (well, for the brutal season) and the hunters are already out, making the most of the day. Rokan says the weather will be clear for two or more days, so most of the hunters will not return home until the last moment, taking every opportunity to gather food for the tribe.

I should do the same. I should get out of my furs and see what I can help with. Stay-see loves those terrible eggs, and they are easy enough to get; I could climb and pull some nests for fuel and get more eggs for the humans. Maybe I will. Soon. But it is hard to get out of the furs when you feel there is no reason. If I do not go get eggs for Stay-see, someone else will. I do not matter, not to anyone in my tribe.

Certainly not to Hemalo.

Farli bustles out of the howse, leaving me alone with my dark thoughts. I hear her boots crunching on the fine layer of snow dusting the stones, and then her low murmur as she pauses to speak to someone. Her pet bleats, drowning out her words. Then, a moment later, she sticks her head back into the hut. “Asha, you have a visitor.”

I sit up slowly, surprised. “I do?”

She nods. “I told her she could come in. I must go while the weather holds.” She gives me a cheery smile and then dashes off again, letting the leather flap covering the door fall once more.

I gather my furs close to me, curious, and I am surprised when the human Claire meekly peeks inside a moment later. “Can I come in?”

“Why?” I ask.

She blinks at me with big eyes and then moves inside the howse. I notice she is carrying several large rolled-up animal hides under her arm, and she wears a bright smile on her narrow face. “I wanted your help.”

I study her, trying not to scowl. I do not know Claire well. Of all the humans, she is one of the quietest of the lot, content to sit and listen when others like Jo-see would blurt all their thoughts out for all to hear. I remember that she was Bek’s pleasure-mate for a time, but things soured between them, and she resonated to Ereven days after moving back to the main tribal cave. I like Ereven. It is impossible not to. But I do not know his mate well enough to say whether or not I like her. “My help?” I ask. “In what?”