Page 15 of The Alien Reindeer's Bounty
He had eliminated enough problems to know his fate if he stayed on Reilen. His mate bond to a human already marked him as defective. He did not need to paint a larger target on his back.
He typed a reply. “Earth has a population of nearly eight billion and the scientist in question does not want to be found. I will check his last known location and report my findings.”
The rogue scientist was his uncle, Karl. His research dragged Mads and his father to Earth all those years ago. He had a bounty on his head for a decade, but no one wanted to collect due to the Earth’s distance and primitive reputation. Officially, Karl was a wanted criminal. Unofficially, everyone had been content to forget the bull.
Mads hadn’t forgotten him, though. He contacted Svallin to pressure the right people to assign him the bounty. He knew the planet, the customs of its people, and spoke the language fluently. There was no one more qualified to bring Karl back. All he needed was transportation.
Bureaucracy moved slowly but Mads ultimately got his ticket home.
He removed a second communication hub from a duffle bag. The older model sat next to the new Council-issued device. Paint had worn away from years of handling, giving the device a grubby appearance, but it operated on frequencies no longer used by the Council, thus it was unmonitored.
“We need to talk.” He hit send, not expecting Karl to respond. The bull had yet to reply to any of Mads’ messages.
He had no intention of sending Karl back to Reilen, but he needed to meet with the male and evaluate his threat level. Perhaps Karl was a danger to reilendeer and human alike. Most likely, the old bull wanted to be left alone and forgotten.
Mads sympathized. He needed Reilen to forget about him, too.
Chapter 5
Odessa
Odessa woke with the sensation that she was not alone—spoiler, she was—and with a low-grade headache that hung around all day. The overhead lighting and the noise in the store didn’t help but she kept it at bay with coffee and an over-the-counter painkiller. The forecast called for snow and storm fronts rolling in triggered her headaches. Barometric pressure headaches, her doctor called them, and consoled her that there wasn’t much to be done but cope until they passed.
Easier said than done. Thanksgiving was days away, which meant her work and personal life were about to be kicked into overdrive. The store had grown increasingly crowded since the weekend rush and she couldn’t keep the canned organic pumpkin on the shelves. The locally grown sugar pumpkins were long gone.
“Mommy!” Ruby crashed into Odessa’s legs, backpack and coat falling to the ground. “I was good at school and Grandpa let me have cereal and now can we pick out our tree? Please?”
“Thanks, Dad,” Odessa said to her father, Gerald. Her work schedule allowed her to drop Ruby off at school in the morning and her parents handled the afternoon pick-up. They entertained the little goblin until Odessa’s shift ended at five.
“We’re gonna get the biggest tree,” Ruby announced.
“How big should it be?” Odessa asked.
“This big.” Ruby held up a hand above her head and stretched on her tiptoes.
About three and a half feet, then.
Gerald frowned. “You shouldn’t get such a large tree. The ceiling is high but you don’t have the floorspace.”
“I know, Dad.”
“You got that big spruce and we couldn’t even get it in the door.”
“Ten years ago, Dad. I know what size tree to get.” Odessa did not appreciate being spoken to like she was still a child. Sure, the first year her parents trusted her to pick out a tree, she got a big seven-foot spruce, confident it would clear the ceiling, and forgot about how big around a seven-foot tree would be. She hadn’t made that mistake since.
“I’ll take the truck,” Gerald said with a nod, the issue already settled in his mind.
“I have plenty of space in my Hyundai.”
Gerald snorted. “That dinky thing?”
That dinky thing was an all-wheel-drive SUV and plenty big enough for the modest tree Odessa had in mind. She bought it used and took excellent care of it. Despite her car getting her around town in the snow for years, Gerald didn’t trust it because he hadn’t gone with her to the dealership when she bought it. He still expected the transmission to drop to the ground or all the wheels to fall off.
Her father treated her like she was still a kid and it wore on her nerves.
One condom breaks and suddenly your parents think you’re incapable of making any responsible decisions.
Odessa had been twenty-two, not sixteen, when she became pregnant, not that she would have been happier with her parents’ behavior had she been a teen pregnancy. She’d understand it more, though.
