“Oh.” He flashes me a reckless grin. “As if you didn’t know already. As if you couldn’t tell by what happened not that long ago in this here bed.”
“What happened here?” I ask, feigning ignorance.
He pulls me closer to him. “We made love.”
“Yes, we did,” I murmur.
“And I’m serious. I don’t care if you’re infertile. The overlord won’t be happy with me, but I don’t care. It’s not up to him how I live my life.”
“Um, I thought that was exactly the case considering he is your overlord,” I say dryly.
“Technically, yes,” Tox admits, “but I’m not going to give you up.”
“You’ll never desert me?” I giggle.
“Of course not.” Tox has no idea what I’m referring to.
My mom used to listen to a lot of oldies music. I haven’t thought about her in years. She died when I was still a teenager. I don’t think most ordinary people become bounty hunters. I got roped into it because of a fluke thing. Someone wanted something done—namely, the identity of the person who hit his car. I did some digging, figured out who the guy was, and delivered him. The car owner paid me, called it a bounty, and I realized there was money to be had in that line of work.
“You don’t have to worry about that,” I assure Tox. “I’m not infertile.”
“Just because you can have kids doesn’t mean you want to, though,” he points out.
“I do,” I say honestly. “I do. I don’t know about enough to fill six rooms.”
“Well, one of the rooms will be ours, so we only have to fill five rooms.”
“Because five is so much less than six.”
“It is.” He winks.
I bite my lower lip.
“What is it?” he asks.
“You’re so nosy.”
“Not really. I just want to know what my pretty lady is thinking.”
I stare into his slightly neon blue eyes. “I’m thirty-three. In two years, I’ll be at advanced maternal age. If we’re going to have kids, we should start trying now.”
He places a hand on my flat stomach. “I’d love to think that one is growing already.”
“I don’t think it works quite that quickly,” I tell him dryly.
“Maybe not, but still. We can get back to trying right now if you want.”
He goes to kiss me, but I laugh and push him away.
“You asked about what I want for the future,” I say slowly.
He nods.
“Well, I had a thought not that long ago about wanting to have a lot of land…”
“Fifteen acres good?”
“Maybe.” I grin at him. “I know we’ve gone out to eat a lot, but I actually enjoy cooking a lot. I was thinking about how I wouldn’t mind be able to grow my own food. Maybe having some animals. A barn. A farm.”
“So why haven’t you done all of this?”
“No time. I’ve been working too hard as a bounty hunter.”
"Hmm. I'm figuring that once we get married and you become pregnant, you should retire from bounty hunting."
“If you want to continue bounty hunting or being a mercenary,” I start, but he shakes his head.
“I’m not going to bounty hunt without a partner, and I won’t if that partner isn’t you. I can figure something else out. Maybe even being a farmer.”
“Are you sure you will want that? It’s a lot of manual labor—”
He flexes his impressive bicep. “I think I can handle labor,” he points out.
“Long hours—”
“You’ll have to let me sleep some,” he says, nudging me.
“You really will do that? Give up the adrenaline, the adventure, and be a farmer?”
He nods.
“You came to Earth, why?” I ask.
“Because I didn’t feel like I belonged on Kuria, and now I know why. I wasn’t meant to live there forever. My place is here, with you.”
I’m melting. “You always know just what to say.”
“Yes, well, being a farmer is better than being a soldier.”
“You can’t say that. You haven’t spent a day on a farm.”
“Have you?”
"Yes. One of my friends growing up lived on one. She was the most laid back girl I knew, even though her day was very structured. She didn't go to school like I did. Her mom taught her in between all of the chores, but she was as smart as a whip, and she knew a little bit about everything."
“You helped her with chores?”
“I did a few times. More with the animals than the crops, but I think we should start there, with the crops. The animals will take time to learn as far as what they need for upkeep, and if we’ll want to sell them or eat them or…”
Tox begins to laugh.
“What’s so funny?”
“Just wondering what my friends will think when I tell them I’m a farmer.”
“You think they’ll laugh?”
“Oh, definitely. Without a doubt. They won’t believe me at first, I bet.”
“Why?”
“I didn’t want to be a driver, a builder, an officer or captain like my dad. I didn’t want to be a scientist, a doctor, none of that. I just couldn’t find anything out that I wanted to be.”
“There aren’t any farmers on Kuria, is there? I heard it’s very dry, red rock everywhere you look.”
“That’s right. There’s water, but it’s underground. They’re trying to change that, but change takes time.”
“A lot of things take time,” I murmur.
“We have all the time in the world.” He starts to rub my back, sending shivers down my spine.
“We have until tomorrow morning,” I inform him.
"Then, that's plenty of time."
“For what?”
“For us to try to get you pregnant.”
I start to laugh, but his lips press against mine, and I give into him, give into love, give into hope. Thankfully, the job we’re going to do tomorrow should be a short one. Who knows? Maybe it’ll be the last job we do before we get married, get settled at the new house, start our farming efforts…
Yes, I’m mesmerized by my alien mercenary, but I’m even more mesmerized just thinking about what the future has in store for us. I won’t be alone ever again, and if we have our way, we won’t be a family of two for
