An Alien for Her Heart (A New Home #2)

6. Catherine

6

CATHERINE

T he ride back is quiet. Silent even. The only sound being the soft hum of the engine.

I keep my gaze forward, even though I’m completely aware of the alien beside me. He leans back in his seat, a slight frown on his brow as he faces the curved windscreen before us. He hasn’t looked at me since he returned to the vehicle. Hasn’t said a word. And even though it’s what I want, what I need , some part of me is disappointed. As if I’ve been reduced to wanting the attention I’ve gotten from him so far. As if I crave it even more than I’d like to admit.

I release a slow silent breath, allowing my back to rest on the leather as the hover truck speeds along. It’s smooth. Much smoother than riding in a car on a freshly paved highway. Almost like riding on the wind itself, and, I suppose, that’s exactly what we’re doing. I would ask how it all works—but it just doesn’t seem like the right thing to say.

Glancing over my shoulder, something twists deep inside me at the crate of fruits I can see resting there in the trunk. A whole crate. The same fruits I was looking at and wanted to buy. I want to think that he bought them for himself. No way he purchased an entire crate full of the things for me. They were like ten credits each, which is a considerable amount for a single fruit, but I still wonder. He never paid any attention to them when we were on the street. Could he have really…no. Why would he? He’s already doing so much for me, that would be going above and beyond for a stranger he’s only just met.

One who climbed him like he was a tree .

I want to groan and cover my face with my hands. Possibly scream into the vastness of the plains. But Varek is here. He would see me. Hear me. Stand witness to my mortification.

He lifted me out of the way like I weighed nothing. And my response? Climb him.

It was instinctual.

The moment he lifted me, my body reacted on its own, seeking safety in the strong, solid presence of him. Why in the name of all that is good, did I do that? I haven’t—when was the last time I—

I don’t even have an excuse. I just did it. And that has me quite unsure of what the hell happened out there. I’ve always been able to keep my composure. Back on Earth, it was one of my strong points. Can’t be a weakling prone to one’s emotions when the Richmond name depended on every single thing you did.

That ingrained steel will is what got me through waking up surrounded by aliens and realizing the entire life I lived before was over. It’s what got me through the pains and struggles of human existence back on Earth. Yet there I was, clinging to Varek like a lifeline, my heart racing as if my lawyers had discovered a devastating piece of information that could torpedo the entire family name.

Crackers on a stick. His hold on me was steady. He lifted me as if it was so…natural, and I clung to him, images of the war and those horrid aliens that took me from Earth swimming right back into my memory as if it was just yesterday. It’s done, it’s all finished now, and I thought I was over it. Over the trauma those Tasqals created within me. And yet, the moment that huge alien stumbled our way, all I could see were his teeth and the fact he was coming right at us. I became an object again. Something to be pushed, pulled, beaten, bred, and abused, with no regard for my will or input.

I overreacted.

Now, as we glide over the landscape, I can’t stop replaying the moment in my head, over and over again. I didn’t have to climb into his arms like that. It wasn’t a drastic situation. If I’d just allowed Varek to move me out of the way like he intended, it wouldn’t have been a big deal. And Varek? He’d gone like stone. Hard, unmoving, I couldn’t even feel him breathing.

I try to ignore the weight of his presence beside me now and the way his scent fills the cab of the truck and makes my head spin. It’s even stronger now than before. Colognes fade over time, but this sweet scent only seems to be increasing. He smells good. So good. I want to chide myself for acknowledging even that. It takes everything within me not to berate myself for paying attention to something so simple. Something so masculine it reminds me I’m a woman.

I’m a woman.

One that wants to be touched, even though she says she doesn’t. One that wants to be held, even though I push the thought away. One that wants to be loved, even though I know the time for such things has passed. Such thoughts belong where I’ve hidden them away because they make my chest tighten. My heart ache.

Am I even the same person? The same Catherine Rose Richmond that was living that life on Earth? The one that had a family, a nice home…a husband?

That last one holds me still.

He’d died years before I was even abducted. I’ve already mourned. Already picked up myself and moved on. It all feels like a distant dream now. And yet, the guilt remains. The sense that having been granted this new life I’m somehow betraying the memory of all those I’ve left behind.

As if they didn’t even exist.

We arrive at the farm just as the sun is reaching its midpoint in the sky. A slight breeze is still blowing, sending the grass swaying as the oogas in the field graze calmly. It’s distinctly out of sorts to the turmoil suddenly raging inside me.

Varek hops out of the truck, heading around to my side and I realize he’s going to open the door for me. The thought of being so close again makes me try to open the door myself, but there’s no lever or button. It opens a short moment later as Varek saves me the embarrassment of fumbling with the thing and I hop out beside him.

“Well then,” I start, forcing a smile to chase away the thoughts that feel like dark wisps of smoke threatening to pull me under.

“I’ll unload the supplies and get to work.” His directness makes my mouth fall shut and I press another smile on my face. Giving him a nod, my gaze shifts to the trunk of the vehicle.

“Need help?”

Varek’s expression is unreadable. When he turns to look at my cottage, I realize I’d missed that the Raki had arrived for work and is tending to the roof.

Varek makes a sound in his throat that’s awfully close to a growl. One you’d expect something like a lion or bear to make. His gaze could cut steel as he glares at the Raki.

“No, thank you, soft female. That pilkra will only hinder me.”

I open my mouth to tell him I was referring to me helping him, not the Raki, but my mouth slams shut again at how easily he just called me a ‘soft’ female. At how easily I’m reminded of how hard he was against me. He was like muscle and steel.

He shuts the truck door, still glaring at the Raki as I force my thoughts away.

“Alright, I’ll just go change and I’ll be right out to help you.” I duck away before he can say a thing, and even with my focus forward as I head to my cottage, I can feel his gaze burning into my back. A tense smile at the Raki on my roof and I hurry into the cover my cottage provides. Once inside, I release a breath that had been paused in my chest.

I don’t even allow myself to think. To unravel whatever is causing these new emotions. I head to my room and I change. I tie my hair up again, I set down my very empty tote bag, and I square my shoulders.

Taking a deep breath, I step back outside, blinking in the bright sunlight. The Raki is still on the roof, carefully mending the damaged sections, while Varek has already begun unloading the supplies from the truck with an intensity that borders on aggression. His muscles flex with each movement, and I can see the strain in his jaw. Even from a distance, the tension radiates off him like heat from a furnace.

He’s angry. Probably because of what happened in the town. I crossed a line, even one of my own lines, clinging on to him like that. He said he doesn’t have a mate, but that really is no excuse for what I did. Only, how do I apologize for something we both seem intent on ignoring.

“Where do you want me to start?” I call out, walking towards the truck.

Varek glances over at me, his expression unreadable. For a moment, I think he’s going to tell me to go back inside, to leave the heavy lifting to him. But then he nods towards a stack of smaller boards.

“You can start by carrying those over to the perimeter,” he says, his voice gruff. “I’ll need them to patch up the holes.”

I blink at him, but he’s already heading to the barn with a massive beam balanced on his shoulders.

The perimeter? As in the perimeter fence? I thought he was only helping with the barn. My focus shifts to the Raki. I’d intended to ask him to do all the repairs, but he’s so slow. Maybe it would be better for me to pay Varek to do it instead. That is, if I can smoothen things out between us.

“Look, Varek.” His name on my lips seems to make him freeze. Bracing the large beam on his shoulder, he turns to look at me and I’m forced to continue down the track I started on. “About what happened in town—”

“It won’t happen again.” He heaves the beam, balancing it across his shoulders with an ease that makes my eyebrows rise. “I will not touch you again unless you ask me to, Catherine.”

What now?

I’m silenced, his words turning over in my head as he walks toward the barn to set the beam down.

“It was my mistake.” It comes out as a whisper I’m not sure he hears because he’s almost at the barn now. With a sigh, I take in a deep breath as I reach for the small boards. They’re light, easy to carry and I get to work, grateful for the distraction. Grateful for something to do with my hands, something to keep my mind from wandering down dangerous paths.

We work in silence for a while, the only sounds being the grunting of the oogas in the field and the occasional hammer strike from the Raki on the roof. It’s hot, sweaty work, and before long I can feel my tunic sticking to my back, my hair plastered to my head. My back aches even though the planks aren’t heavy, and

I might be permanently folded at a right angle from my waist. But it feels good, too. Feels good to be doing something physical, something real. Feels good to be working alongside Varek, even if we’re not speaking, even if the tension between us is thick enough to cut with a knife.

By the time I finish unloading the planks, he’s already done moving the beams and the roof fiber. Only the box of fruit is left and I look at it wistfully, my mouth watering a little before I turn away. The barn roof is about three times as high as the cottage’s and Varek uses a black square similar to the Raki’s to get on top of it. I watch him work for a bit. Watch as he begins measuring things…or maybe I’m just watching how the sunlight plays on his scales.

I have to pull myself away. There’s not much left for me to do out here. I might as well go tidy the house. So I focus on that. I head back inside and I don’t allow myself to think. I focus on the house. I wipe. I clean. I make the interior of the little cottage as good as I can make it. It’s my home now and, as the only thing I have control of on this farm, I focus on trying to personalize it as much as I can. The New Horizons Representative, Xarion, had been kind enough to ask what color of linen I preferred for my curtains and sheets. So now, the whole place is purple. My favorite color.

As the day wears on, as the sun begins to sink towards the horizon and the shadows lengthen across the grass, I find myself stealing glances out the window. Not at the view. Not at the work going on outside. At him. I find myself watching the alien with the iridescent scales, something strange yet deeply familiar swirling in the depths of my gut. Something I don’t want to even acknowledge.

He works fast. Much faster than the Raki, stripping the entire roof in the little time he’s been out there. Another lump forms in my throat as I watch the way his body moves, the way his hands grip the tools with sure, steady strength.

Each hammer that he lays down, my body jerks a little with the force of that strength. A man like him could do real damage to a woman like me in bed. I blush at the thought, partially horrified I’m even thinking it. Even more horrified that it’s risen in my mind at all.

And when Varek catches me looking, when his gaze meets mine across the yard and holds, I don’t have the shame to duck away from the window. Like a deer caught in headlights, I stare back at him, a skitter going straight through the center of my chest like an electric thread. Something hot and hungry and alive, something that makes my breath catch in my throat and my heart stutter in my chest alight.

That stutter in my chest scares me enough that I look away. Force myself to break the moment and shift away from the window. He lifted me and for the first time in a long while, I felt the real strength of a male. The real hardness of one.

That’s all this is.

That’s all it can be.

Hours later, when he knocks and says that he’s leaving, it’s long after the Raki had already gone. It’s dark, the sun hiding on the other side of the planet, and by the time I reach the door, Varek is already in his hover truck.

I catch his eyes before he leaves. Catch the respectful dip of his head, chin to chest, before he pulls away.

Watching the hover truck go, something tightens in my chest. I pull my shawl closer across my shoulders, frowning at myself as I take a deep breath.

Well, this day was a disaster. I’m about to close the door, lock myself in for the night, when I almost miss the crate of fruit sitting on my doorstep.

That same thing that tightened in my chest grows tenser, as if it’s going to strangle my heartstrings.

Lifting the crate, I bring them inside, setting them at the center of the table. I stare at them now and my throat clenches. I swallow hard.

The fruits glisten in the dim light as if calling to me and I lick my lips at the temptation. Because that’s what they are. A temptation. Like a tangible manifestation of…something I can’t even put into words. It’s silly, but it takes great will to turn away.

It feels like the heaviness of the world is on my shoulders as I head to the bedroom, letting my body plop into the bed, face-down, my nose scrunched against the purple linen.

Tomorrow will be better. It always is. It always gets easier.