Longing for the Alien Lawman (Cowboy Colony Mail-Order Brides #8)

Chapter 1 - Lualhati

LUALHATI

Do you know anyone who might want to come work on a prison planet?

I frowned down at the text, understanding the words in a literal sense but otherwise uncomprehending.

It had come from Tasha Wallace – or her comms tablet, anyway.

Maybe she’d been spoofed or hacked. I quite liked Tasha, and had found her to be kind, professional, and competent when I’d answered a few questions for her last year when she’d been writing up a document that had a large section on human health.

I didn’t think she was the type to ask nonsensical questions out of the blue.

“Dr. Ortiz!”

I glanced up from my comms tablet to see one of the med bay nurses, Annie, standing in front of me with a grin on her face and a tall transparent cup in her hand. The cup was filled to the top with dense layers of creamy white, purple, and yellow.

“You can call me Lualhati. I don’t work here anymore,” I said, gesturing with my comms tablet towards the entrance into the med bay I’d just left. Annie no doubt was just about to start her shift. “Is that halo-halo?”

“Yes!” Her grin widened, and she held out the cup. “I finally visited that dessert place on floor 812 that you recommended. The one with all the Old-Earth Filipino food. It’s incredible. Anyway, this is for you! A treat for your last day. I’m so glad I caught you!”

Blinking back unexpected tears, I smiled shakily and took the cup. I hadn’t exactly loved working at the busy, windowless med bay on Elora Station. I’d much preferred the small clinic I’d run on Terratribe II. The one that had sunlight spilling into every room.

But Bryson had gotten a job on Elora station two years ago. And when he’d sensed my hesitation in coming with him, he’d promptly proposed. I’d said yes to both – him and the move.

I still sometimes wondered if I’d really made the right choice.

“Thank you so much,” I said. “I love halo-halo.”

Annie produced a spoon and opened its package, dipping it into the cup for me.

“When’s the wedding again?” she asked.

My smile turned to a grimace. I caught myself and smoothed the expression.

Lualhati, you cannot make that weird-ass face every time asks about what should be the happiest day of your life!

“In a month,” I replied. I dipped my spoon deeper into the halo-halo, letting it sift through sweet layers of shaved ice, evaporated milk, coconut, ube, and mango.

My chest clenched with what was becoming a scarily familiar feeling of dread at the prospect of our wedding.

I suddenly wasn’t sure whether I could actually eat this beautiful dessert anymore.

And I truly fucking loved halo-halo, so that was saying something.

It’s just stress.

Wasn’t that what Bryson kept telling me? It was why I was taking a break from work to begin with. To focus on the wedding and on our relationship. And not long after that, hopefully I’d be focusing on babies…

My own this time, instead of my patients’.

“Congratulations again,” Annie breathed, leaning in to give me a swift hug, making sure not to jostle my melting halo-halo. “We’ll miss you.”

I was too choked up to say I’d miss them, too.

I squeezed her tightly with my free arm, then disentangled myself before I could burst into blubbery tears.

As I walked away, I had a few bites of the halo-halo, letting the cold sweetness soothe me a little.

I focused on the taste, not wanting to think about the job I’d just left or the apartment waiting for me.

So instead, I thought about the message. The words came back to me without any real effort at all on my part. Like they’d been waiting quietly in some corner of my brain, ready to leap back to the forefront at the first chance.

Do you know anyone who might want to come work on a prison planet?

Most of the businesses on this floor of Elora Station were medical in some capacity. I’d just come to the little food court area that served them. I found an empty table and put my halo-halo down and looked at the message again.

Yup. Still there. Still making no sense whatsoever.

She’d sent it just a few minutes before I’d looked at my tablet.

Screw it. I’ll call her.

Somewhat surprisingly, she answered immediately with video function engaged. It really was her who’d sent the message.

“Hi, Dr. Ortiz!” she said, brushing a strand of blonde hair away from her face. Though she appeared to be inside a room, her hair and skin gleamed with what looked like natural sunlight pouring in from somewhere nearby. “Did you see my message?”

“I did,” I confirmed. “Though I have to admit that I found it kind of confusing. Do I know anyone who wants to work on a prison planet? Is that right?”

Tasha laughed tiredly and rubbed at her temples.

“Yeah,” she sighed. “I left out a lot of context, I guess. Sorry. We are just feeling a little stressed right now. I sent that in a bit of a rush.”

“We?”

Before Tasha could respond, a large, masculine face joined hers in the screen.

Vivid orange eyes peered out of a face the precise purple shade of the ube ice cream scoop at the top of my halo-halo cup.

A broad-brimmed hat sat atop his head, a shiny badge glinting in the same light that currently illuminated Tasha.

“This is Warden Tenn,” Tasha said.

“I’m also her husband,” he added at once, almost sternly, as if being Tasha’s spouse was the far more important role and he needed to make sure I knew it.

It was extremely fucking cute.

“Oh, congrats!” I said, keeping my voice bright and cheery and not letting stress about my own impending nuptials dampen the moment.

“Nice to meet you, Warden…” I paused, feeling my brows pucker.

“Like, a prison warden?” My gaze flicked back to Tasha.

“So is that where you work now? I thought you were doing some interstellar-liaison-cum-matchmaker thing.”

“I am,” she assured me quickly. “It’s both.”

At my blank look, she launched into a rapid-fire summary of everything that had happened since we’d last spoken.

How she’d discovered the true nature of the planet she’d been tasked with sending brides to.

How she’d travelled there immediately, only to fall in love with the warden and the planet itself.

“They really are the nicest bunch of convicted murderers you could ever meet,” Tasha said cheerily.

“Well, that’s a sentence I never thought I’d hear in my lifetime,” I said, half-joking, half-horrified. Tasha seemed so sincere about it too.

“I know. I have WTF moments like that daily,” Tasha replied.

“What is a double you…what?” Warden Tenn said, his silvery eyebrows coming down hard over his eyes.

“Don’t worry about it,” Tasha said sweetly, patting him on the broad, beefy chest. She turned her attention back to the screen.

“Anyway, one of the recent arrivals, Jolene, was pregnant when she came here. Luckily, her husband Zohro is a trained surgeon, and everything turned out just fine for her. But now Darcy, one of the first women to join the bride program, is pregnant. It’s the first human-Zabrian pregnancy we’ve had.

Probably the first human-Zabrian pregnancy ever.

We need an OBGYN to come work on-world. And we’re having a heck of a time with that. ”

Whoa. The first pregnancy of its kind? What an opportunity, to work on a case like that. It would be absolutely fascinating.

“Turns out most decent doctors don’t want to up and leave everything behind to come work on a prison planet surrounded by convicted murderers,” Tasha said. “Even if those murderers are of the, er, sweet and slightly dopey variety.”

I snorted. “Yeah. Fair enough. I can’t say any colleagues who’d jump at this chance are currently springing to mind.” I gave my melty halo-halo a quick stir. “I can think about it, though. Put some feelers out for you.”

“Oh, would you?” Tasha looked like she was about to kiss the screen, and I couldn’t help but smile. “Thank you so much. That would be amazing. I really want to make sure Darcy and anyone else who needs human medical treatment is well taken care of.”

There it was. The same thing I’d noticed in her when we’d spoken last. That intense commitment to her work.

And not just a professional commitment. It was obvious to me that she truly cared about the people on this prison planet she’d found herself on.

She wanted to ensure they were happy and healthy.

I recognized it easily, because it was a characteristic that we shared. My patients were my life.

Had been my life.

I didn’t have any patients now.

Just a fiancé.

“It’s no problem,” I said, fighting a sudden bout of envy for Tasha. Which was ridiculous, considering she now lived in a literal prison. “I’ll let you know if I get any bites.”

“Thank you so much,” she said.

Even the serious-faced Warden Tenn looked pleased, or maybe relieved, by my response.

I found myself really hoping that I could help them, even though I doubted that I could.

Tasha was right. Getting an established physician to give up their current position to go live and work on some remote prison planet would be a very tough sell.

After ending the call with them, I finished my halo-halo. Once that was done, I didn’t really have any reason to linger around the food court area. Med bay management had let me go a little early on my last day, and I now found myself at loose ends.

I should probably just head home. Catch up on laundry, tidy a bit.

Bryson was always bugging me about taming my mess. Though, really, I didn’t consider it a mess at all. It was just my stuff. I loved stuff. Decorative pillows and millions of mugs and house plants I could never seem to keep alive for more than two weeks.

Maybe, if I straightened up a bit, I’d reward myself by buying a new throw blanket to add to my cozy collection. Cheered by that thought, I tossed my empty cup and headed back to our Elora Station apartment.

As soon as I opened the door, I heard it.

Moaning. Panting. Grunting.