Page 74 of Rescued By the Alien Bull Rider

“I am.”

Silence stretched until I finally asked, “What is it? Why are you calling me?”

“Sal told me about Magnolia Jones, and where she ended up,” Pa said. “Told me that you left that very night to run off after her.”

“So?” I asked, my tone rising with anger. “It’s not like I had much choice.”

“I never thought…”

“Never thought what?”

“Never thought that I’d never see you again.”

“You kicked me out!” I cried. “And you waited months to contact me!”

My heart slamming, my back sweating, I stomped over to Autumn’s cradle and picked her up so that he could see her. “This is my daughter, Autumn. She’s nearly three months old already!”

Autumn smiled, reaching excitedly for the screen, which I held out of her pudgy reach.

“Christ,” Pa croaked, his face grey, like he’d just seen a ghost. “She looks just like you did at that age.” He ripped off his hat – a hat just like the ones Zohro and I were wearing now – and scrubbed a hand through his hair. “I’m no good at this shit, Jolene. But I’ve had a lot of time to think and…” He met my eyes through the screen. “I wanted to say that I’m sorry. And that I want you to come back. You and the baby both.”

As surely as if he’d slapped me, I reeled.

They were the words I’d longed to hear for so long. I’d always wanted him to choose me. To tell me my home was with him. That I was his family. That I was welcome.

“No,” said a furious voice.

My husband’s voice.

Zohro snatched the tablet from my hand. “‘No,” he said again. He raised the screen so that he was in the frame now.

“Who the hell are you?” Pa asked.

“I am Jolene’shusband.” Zohro emphasized that last word, a terrible, possessive growl that made the hairs on my neck and arms stand on end.

“Zohro, it’s alright. I-”

“It is not alright!” He barely restrained the words from coming out as a bellow. He turned his enraged attention to the screen once more. “How dare you? How dare you abandon my wife, whom you should have raised as dearly as a daughter, and then come calling for her now?”

“Now, hold on-” Pa sputtered.

“I will not hold on!” Zohro jerked his tail towards me. “Largely due to you, the perfect woman I have married fails to see her own worth, and therefore she will not defend herself, will not say what you must hear. But Idoknow her worth. And I am bound by no such compunction to be kind to you.” He bared his fangs. “You have no honour. You have failed her. You have no right to lay claim upon my wife’s love now. Nor that of my daughter.”

My wife.

My daughter.

My breath caught. I reached a trembling hand for him. He caught it without even looking at it, interlacing the fingers of his left hand with mine while his right hand squeezed my tablet so hard I was surprised it didn’t snap in two.

“You failed her,” he said again. “But I did not. I saved her from the bull. I saved her from the genka. I saved her from the labour that could have killed her and our daughter both. And she has saved me from myself. Tell him,” he growled, his gaze suddenly tearing to mine. “Tell him that you will stay with me!”

There was something so terribly raw and searching in the white of those eyes.

He wasn’t commanding me. My God, my husband wasbegging.

He had done nothing but choose me. Over and over again.

But he still wasn’t sure if I’d choose him.

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