But the animal seemed delighted at my gift. It whinnied and came closer, nosing down at my palm.

“Ha! I’m a natural!” I said, relieved at the animal’s acceptance of me. It may have been acceptance bought with a bribe, but who cared?

“Do you have shuldu where you come from?”

“Shuldu? Is that what he’s called?”

“He is called Tarion.”

“Hello, Tarion. And no, not on Terratribe I. We had something similar called ‘horses’ on Old-Earth. They may still have some on Terratribe II. I’m not sure. Oh!” I yelped, then tried to stifle shaky giggles as Tarion’s lips dragged over my palm, sucking the treat up between his teeth. “That tickles!”

“Does it?” I would have thought Silar was making some sort of weird joke if it weren’t for his blankly confused stare.

“Yes!” I said with another laugh, rubbing my damp and tingly palm on the side of my leg.

“You must have very sensitive hands.” He stared, and I fought the urge to shove them behind my back. They probably looked so small and weak to him.

One month. He’s gotta keep me for one month, no matter how useless my stupid human hands look.

He wasn’t looking at my hands anymore now, but his own, raised palm-up in the sun. An impressive array of callouses had thickened the skin there.

“Hey, I used to do twelve-hour shifts in a shuttle engine factory. I’ve got some callouses, too,” I said, raising my hands and brandishing my palms and fingers before him as if pressing hard on an invisible wall between us. “Although, I did usually wear protective gloves at the factory. But I can work hard.” Not to mention the fact I can swing a cast iron pan like the best of them…

Silar didn’t respond to that, and I fretted that he wasn’t convinced, but I was saved from trying to fill the awkward silence by the sudden bump of a soft nose against my cheek. I squawked, grinning ear to ear, instinctively reaching up to pat Tarion’s neck. His hide was lovely to the touch, velvety and so warm.

“He likes you,” Silar observed.

Do you?

I almost said it out loud. But, rather pathetically, I wasn’t sure I could handle his truthful answer right now. And though he didn’t say much, Silar struck me as a cuttingly honest sort of person.

I can make him like me in a month. I hope.

“Well, that’s good,” I said, giving Tarion another pat, which was answered with a friendly, animal chortle. “So he’ll be alright with me riding him, then? Although, I should tell you that I don’t exactly have experience with this sort of thing.”

I glanced at the saddle, which seemed intimidatingly high off the ground.

Except it suddenly wasn’t so high. Because I was being lifted.

I gasped when strong hands settled around my waist. Strong warm hands. Silar boosted me as easily as he might lift a child, setting me down onto the saddle.

“Don’t need experience,” he said gruffly, immediately hoisting himself up onto Tarion’s back behind me. He reached around me from behind, grasping at brown reins, his arms enclosing me in an intimate circle “You’ve got me.”

“Oh. Alright,” I said, disoriented by his sudden nearness. I grabbed at a raised sort of ridge on the front of the saddle for stability. The last thing I needed right now was to fall off this giant shuldu and break my neck. Not that that would be possible now, with Silar’s thick, muscled arms around me, his chest warm and solid at my back.

Silar is as solid as they come.

I was beginning to think that the warden was right about that. I barely knew the man I’d married, but a strangely sudden feeling of tremulous comfort bloomed inside me. For the first time since I’d missed my loan payment, I felt…

Safe.

Which was crazy, considering I was about to go home with an alien male I’d only just met. But there it was. I felt so fucking safe I almost could have cried.

I gave a low laugh instead, shading my eyes against mid-day sun.

“I should have brought a hat!” I said, thinking with some longing of all the provisions I would have received from the program if I’d left on time with the others. I didn’t have a jacket, either, and I knew it would get cold here at night.

Oh well. I’d figure it out, even though I wasn’t much of a seamstress. I’d fixed a few buttons and split seams on my factory uniforms, but that was the extent of my skills. Maybe Silar had a blanket I could turn into a jacket or something.

Hmm. That’d probably be pushing it. A jacket might be beyond me.

Maybe a poncho, then. A nice, cozy poncho with ugly, uneven seams. I’d probably look goofy as all get-out, but Silar didn’t strike me as the sartorial type. And now that I thought about it, weren’t ponchos kind of a classic cowboy thing, at least among humans? I was fairly certain I remembered the image of a man in a hat wearing something similar in one of the films I’d watched with Mama. So maybe I wouldn’t look that silly. Maybe I’d –

My thoughts were deadened by a softly thudding darkness all around me. I jerked back, blinking hard, panic rising and telling me I’d just gone instantaneously blind.

Of course, I hadn’t. But it felt that way for a moment.

A heavy but deftly gentle hand fell to the top of my head, adjusting the hat I now wore until the brim was high enough that I could see again. Cautiously, I reached up, the tips of my fingers brushing the edge of the sun-warmed garment. The hat was far too big for me, but it cast enough shade that I was no longer in danger of getting a wicked sunburn on the way back and I didn’t have to squint.

I touched the brim of the hat again, stroking as if it were a living thing to be petted, suddenly fighting tears. It was such a small act. For Silar, he was probably just tossing a hat down on his whiny, unprepared wife so he didn’t have to hear her complain about the sun the whole way back.

But for me…

For me, it was the first time anyone had done anything even remotely caring for me since Mama had died. I didn’t realize how badly I had needed it.

Such a simple thing. A hat artlessly plonked down on top of my head. And now I was in danger of breaking down weeping.

Silar would think I was fucking certifiable, if he didn’t already.

With what felt like an astronomically mighty show of will, I inhaled deeply through my burning nose and blinked my tears away. When I was pretty sure my voice wouldn’t crack or falter, I said, “Thank you.” And then, letting my fingers fall away from the brim of the hat that had just about broken my little human heart, I said, “But what about you?”

He’d been wearing a hat. Same with the warden. I doubted it was for fashion’s sake. They obviously needed them out here as much as I did.

“Don’t worry about me,” came Silar’s gruff reply.

I chuckled softly. “Isn’t that what wives are for?”

“Is it?” He sounded entirely bewildered by that. I’d been mostly joking, but the surprised confusion in his response made me wonder…

Just why, exactly, had Silar participated in this mail-order-bride program? What was he looking for?

What did he want from me?

It wasn’t an alarming question. I didn’t feel afraid. Merely curious about this quiet, solid, blunt alien male who seemed so entirely and deeply unsentimental that I couldn’t imagine him even wanting a wife in the first place, at least not for romantic reasons.

Maybe he just needed a farmhand. But he could have had his pick of stronger alien races with citizens who’d be more than happy to come work in a place like this in return for food and lodging on a safe world.

Sex, then? But he’d bolted like a spooked animal when I’d kissed him. He’d barely touched me apart from getting me up on Tarion’s back. Even now, it seemed like he was putting some space between us. He sat up perfectly straight so his chest no longer brushed my back and he held the reins loose enough that his arms weren’t forming such a tight circle around me anymore. Experimentally, I leaned back in the saddle only for him to tense up and shift away.