Chapter Ten
An outhouse rat…
Captain Zan followed me. “What are these special skills you possess?”
“I’m as crazy as an outhouse rat and just as hard to kill.”
“What is an outhouse rat?” Zan demanded.
Uncle Saul’s lips twitched.
Jaxor emitted a deep growl. “Go away. No like.”
“Such a smart boy.” Patting his back, I headed for my room and to my disgust Zan was right on my heels. “Stop following me or I will have Gita web you to a wall.”
“You would not dare!”
“Wanna bet? Leave me the hell alone.”
Zan snapped, “Not until you answer all my questions.”
He was warned “Gita.”
Splat! Splat! Splat! Splat!
Zan struggled wildly against the webbing. “Release me. Now!”
“Nope.” I entered my room and locked the door behind me.
“Him crazy,” Gita said.
“Him is.” I sat Jaxor on the bed and stared at the six NASA jumpsuits hanging in my closet.
I had swiped a bunch the last time I had borrowed a spacesuit.
So far Uncle Saul hasn’t said anything about the thefts, but he might now.
Since most of my clothes were on the space station Qa’a had acquired for us, I was out of options.
I grabbed one off the hanger. It was better than running around in my underwear.
I quickly pulled it on and stuffed my feet in old rubber work boots.
Jaxor chewed on the bedspread.
“No! Spit! That’s icky. We don’t eat icky.”
He spat it out and gave me a puzzled look.
“The only thing that goes in your mouth is food. Got it?” I quickly stuffed a bottle of milk into a side pocket.
“Kay.”
A mouse ran by the bed. I instinctively jumped back. “Sonovabitch!”
With a ferocious growl, Jaxor pounced on the mouse and stuffed it in his mouth. Crunch! Crunch! Crunch!
I grimaced as blood ran down his chin. Ugh. Technically, it was food and his dad would be ecstatic that he was hunting. Me not so much. My baby was turning into a predator right before my eyes.
Jaxor gave me a bloody smile. “Me eat. Protect Momma.”
“Yes, you did. Good baby.” My right eye twitched when he rubbed his bloody mouth on the bedspread. “No, no! Don’t wipe your mouth on the bedspread.”
Jaxor leaned over and wiped his mouth on my left hip. “Kay.”
I expelled a long breath and linked with Kaelen. “Is there a book on how to train a baby Askole?”
“No. If you have a question, ask Xyler.”
Pressing my fingers against my wildly twitching eye, I replied, “I was hoping to learn how a female Askole raises her children.”
“The fathers do most of the training,” Kaelen said.
Damn. “Okey-dokey. Find any Oath Defenders yet?”
“We found their Blackhawks and pilots. They have been disabled.”
I gave Kaelen a mental smooch. “Be careful.”
“I am always careful.” His mouth moved over mine, demanding, sensual and full of carnal need.
Dad barked, “Knock it off! Now!”
Kaelen vanished from my mind.
A shudder shook me. Every time Kaelen touched me, he turned me into a deranged nymphomaniac.
Once again Jaxor rubbed his face against my leg.
The joys of motherhood. “Let’s get dried off.” I grabbed my hair dryer and turned it on.
With a squeak of alarm, Gita shot straight to the ceiling.
Jaxor vanished under the bed.
“Damn!” I quickly turned the hairdryer off. “I’m so sorry, guys, I use this to dry my hair. It won’t hurt you.”
“Scary noise. No like,” Gita cried.
Jaxor peeked up at me. “Me no like.”
“Sorry! So sorry. I never meant to frighten you.” I ran a hand through my wet hair. Unbelievable! The tornado of death didn’t scare Jaxor, but the dryer did? “Let me show you how it works.” I turned it on and used a brush to dry my hair.
Gita dangled from the ceiling on a single strand of silk. “No hurt?”
“No.” I hurriedly put my hair into a ponytail and let the warm air blow on her. “See? Feels good.”
“Do more.” I fluffed her hair with the brush and added a little pink bow on the top of her head. “All pretty now.”
Jaxor crawled out from under the bed. “Me too.”
I blew air over him. “There you go.”
“Where my pretty?”
Dang. Xyler would have a meltdown if I put bows on him.
I chewed on my lower lip. Hmmm. Xyler wouldn’t want anything Coletti marking Jaxor either, but I did have some NASA Velcro patches which should stick to his scales.
I pressed one against his chest and to my relief it stuck. “There ya go, all pretty.”
“You decent Lexi?” Uncle Saul called.
I opened the door and peered into the hallway. “Yep. Please tell me you added Zan to the compost heap.”
Uncle Saul grinned at me. “No, I had a long talk with him and put him to work grilling steaks.”
“He’ll probably try to poison us.”
Gita landed on his shoulder. “Me pretty.”
“Very pretty,” Uncle Saul agreed.
Jaxor patted his patch. “Me special.”
“You are.” Uncle Saul eyed my jumpsuit. “You were the one who kept breaking into the engineering lab at Johnson Space Center and stealing space suits.”
I shot across the hallway and placed my hand on the elevator’s sensor pad. “I plead the fifth. Did you find out what Zan’s problem is?”
“I couldn’t sense any deceit in him, but Captain Zan truly believes women are not capable of fighting.” The elevator door opened with a grinding clank.
“Uncle Ben was supposed to fix that.” I reluctantly stepped into the car.
“I’ll have a mechanic take a look at it.”
“That would be great. The last time it made that noise, we got stuck between floors for hours.” The elevator door slid open and we stepped out. “So, what’s Zan’s problem? Does he think every woman should be kept barefoot and pregnant?”
Uncle Saul rubbed his chin. “Basically, yes, and he has trouble trusting the Coletti.”
“Uncle Zarek does have a tendency to take things that don’t belong to him.”
A cynical smile on his mouth, Uncle Saul nodded. “That he does and he has the power to accomplish whatever he sets his mind to.”
“Yep. He’s one scary dude.” The sweet, tangy smell of Uncle Ben’s secret barbecue sauce had my stomach growling. “God, I’m starving.”
Jaxor wriggled frantically. “Want! Want!”
“No!” I tightened my grip on him. “I’m not sure you can have human food. We need to ask your father first.”
“Hungry!”
I pulled the bottle of milk out of my side pocket and stuffed it in Jaxor’s mouth. “Here ya go.”
A growl rumbled in Jaxor’s chest.
“You do not growl at me. Ever,” I admonished.
Jaxor’s tentacles drooped sadly as he drank his milk.
“If your dad says you can eat buffalo steak, I’ll get you some, okay?”
“Kay.”
Gita made gagging noises . “Me no want. Stink.”
“We’ll get you some yummy bugs from the garden.”
The image of a centipede formed in my mind. “Me like.”
“Okey-dokey, let’s go find some.” I grabbed a basket and headed for the garden.
I waved at Uncle Ben as he flipped the burgers on his old gas barbecue grill.
“Don’t forget to get some okra,” he called.
“Will do.” I wasn’t a fan of fried okra.
A glass of Uncle Ben’s 120 proof moonshine in one hand, Captain Zan carefully brushed barbecue sauce over the steaks.
Huh? Zan was already blitzed.
“Your uncle has a mean streak,” Uncle Saul commented. “That moonshine has one hell of a kick.”
I snickered. “Uncle Ben might act mild mannered, but you don’t ever want to piss him off. Tomorrow, Zan is gonna have the hangover of the century.”
“That he will. I’m coming with you; the Oath Defenders usually have an advance scout.” Uncle Saul grabbed a basket.
I smiled at him. “Good. It’s been a while since we’ve talked about the ladies you’re dating. Rumor has it, Marilyn was expecting a ring on her finger and when it failed to materialize, she dumped a glass of Champagne on your head.”
Uncle Saul gave me his death stare. “None of your business.”
A laugh broke from me. “So, the scuttlebutt is true. God, I’d loved to have been there.”
“It wasn’t funny or remotely entertaining.”
“Oh, but it is. Then, there was that hot to trot twenty-year-old you took dancing and the MPs had to be called to break up the all-out brawl involving your harem.”
“I do not have a harem,” Uncle Saul growled.
I raised an eyebrow. “Julianna, Eva, Sarah, Katie, Darcie, Amanda and Marilyn. Should I go on?”
“A man has needs.”
God, I loved teasing him. Sploosh! I stepped in ankle-deep water. Dammit. The irrigation system had sprung a leak again, and the garden was one big mud puddle.
“I thought Ben fixed the watering system,” Uncle Saul snapped.
“So did I.”
Uncle Saul set his basket on a worktable. “You get the veggies and I’ll work on the leak.”
“That’s one way to get out of talking about your girlfriends.
“My love life is none of your business.”
Fighting back a grin, I snapped to attention and saluted him. “Yes, sir. You are permitted to sleep with as many women as you want.”
Shooting me a baleful glare, the general vanished into the shadows. His night vision rivaled a cat’s.
“I’m going to pick some veggies for dinner, and I need you to stay put.” I placed Jaxor on the table. “Do not move.”
He held up his empty bottle and yawned, exposing his sharp little teeth.
“I’ll be done in a jiffy.” I stuffed the bottle in my side pocket.
“Kay.” Jaxor climbed into the other basket and went to sleep.
Dang, I couldn’t have timed that better.
“Me hunt.” Gita jumped on a stalk of corn and snagged a grasshopper.
My old rubber work boots squished in the muddy water as I plucked ripe tomatoes off the vine, added corn, lettuce and okra to my basket. As much as I loved onions on my burgers, I wasn’t sticking my arm in that slimy muck. “ Can you fix the leak, Uncle Saul?”
“No, I shut the water off. I need to replace a couple of nozzles, and we need new emitter rods.”
My psychic senses went on red alert. We had incoming hostiles. “Do you sense them, Uncle Saul?”
“I do. Keep picking corn.”
I gave him a mental salute and linked with Dad and Kaelen . “Timmy and his Oath Defenders have found us.”
“Copy that, they disabled the sensor array with a multi-frequency jammer,” Dad responded. “ Our ETA is sixty seconds.”