CHAPTER 12
The two of us do get better at our cross-species communication. Days pass pleasantly with hard work, inside and outside the shanty.
“Becky?” I call, making my way to the porch.
Paco rushes past me and takes the steps at a leap. He’s fortunate that the porch holds his weight. “ReeeEEEEEE!” he cries, his ears up high, his mouth held proudly in the air as he calls to her too.
The screen door bangs against the frame as Becky steps out on the porch. “Shoo,” she automatically tells Paco, who, instead of obeying her order, turns his massive head and grabs her skirt in his mouth. To further the impression that he has a boundless penchant for jackanapery, he tugs on it.
Becky gasps and tries to snatch her skirt hem from him.
Looking delighted, Paco’s ears lower as he settles in for the ensuing struggle. Shifting his weight to his rear hooves, he has more power as he yanks on her this time.
Becky squeaks and slides forward.
“PACO!” I bark. He may be playing, but he could have unbalanced her and caused her and our tadpole harm.
The beast ignores me.
Although his withers barely come up as high as my mate’s elbow, he’s sturdy as a wagon full of railroad ties (and nearly as heavy) and determined to wreak havoc. Everywhere his mouth is touching the fabric of her garment, he’s leaving green grass froth. As the foam slicks her formerly clean clothing and her hands, Becky makes a cry of dismay .
I’ve reached them. Sighing, I stalk up the steps and do the expedient thing—I lift the whole ass into the air, which startles him into releasing her dress.
He even makes a reverse bray, nearly squealing as he sucks in air, and his tail slaps from flank to flank, the bristles hitting my arm, little stings.
“Stop harassing my mate,” I warn him sternly.
Falling still, he gives a sullen honk.
Determining that he's contrite, I set him securely on his four hooves. On the ground. Where he belongs. Snorting, shaking his brushy mane out, his grumbling subsides to disgruntled-sounding snorts.
My mouth twisting into a reluctant smile, I pat him. To my surprise, under my hand, his hair peels from his skin and comes away in a clump.
I stare at it as it drifts to the ground. “Oh no…”
“It’s okay,” Becky allays, accurately ascertaining why I’m concerned. “He’s shedding. It happens to the horses too, before the summer heat hits.”
I blink. “Say again?”
Becky gestures at Paco. “He’ll become sleek as summer hits.”
My brows have reached my hairline. I can literally feel them lifting up my hair. “This isn’t summer?”
Becky tries to hide a wince, but I see it.
I swallow. “You mean to say the sun will get CLOSER to the planet surface?”
One of her shoulders rises in an uncomfortable shrug. “That is how summer happens, I guess. So yeah.”
Refocusing, choosing to ignore the horror of her statement—for now—I return to the matter at hand. I move for the steps again, but stop at the foot of the first one so that Becky and I are near enough in height for our eyes to be mostly level with one another .
Becky eyes me with curiosity. “You rang?”
My brow puckers. “What?”
She waves her hand. “Nothing. What is it you need?”
I gesture behind me, at the barn. “I can’t find where the other poles and wire are.”
She frowns. “What do you mean?”
I ascend another step and lean into her space to plant a kiss of affection on her forehead. “I used the supplies that were available, but now those are gone. I have many oxyokes left to do—where are the rest of the posts and fence you’d like me to erect?”
Her eyes are wide. It takes her several blinks before she draws her gaze off of my mouth. “You went through everything that was piled in the barn?”
I nod.
Gaze moving past me, she shakes her head, tone full of something like wonder. “That was fifty oxyokes’ worth of fencing, Will. Everyone told us it’d take two days per oxyoke—and that was if we hired help.” She looks at me now, eyes assessing. “You fence inhumanly fast.”
“You shortened my name,” I breathe.
She pauses, looking uncertain. “Is that okay? Would you rather I call you—”
“No,” I rush to say. “I was under the impression that shortening a name tends to signify friendship. Or so I have seen in vids. Is this true of real life too? Of… you and me?”
Becky glances away in a manner that I’ve heard vids describe as bashful. “Yes.”
My heart swells. “Would you like the remaining acreage fenced as well?” I ask.
She blinks and her mouth opens and closes once before she’s able to marshal the ability to reply. “Yeah. I mean, we can’t afford to do it all right away, but ideally we’ll be able to buy the supplies to set up a couple more grazing pastures so we can rotate the horses. To do that, we’re going to have to make a trip into town.”
I drag my gaze up from where I’d been admiring the too-comely curves of her body. “We should be able to make a good-sized purchase.” I don’t say it aloud, but we still have the saddlebag tender, after all. Although we’ve never spoken of it, I get the impression Becky feels both justified at claiming the money, while simultaneously hating it. “When would you like to go? My friend,” I add, touched.
Lips curving, she tosses the dishtowel she’d been holding onto her shoulder. “We can go now.” She looks tremendously fetching standing before me, even with Paco’s spittle staining her clothing.
Acting on my impulse to show her more affection, I swoop down, the brim of my beaver felt hat turning up as it drags over Becky’s blouse before I reach Becky’s belly, and plant a kiss on it. “ Hello, little Tad,” I say, shortening Tadpole’s name. “My other friend.”
Becky sucks in a startled breath as her stomach bumps my mouth. Her hands fly up, coming to rest on my shoulders—but she doesn’t push me away. “The baby’s moving.”
I feel my lips curve up in pleasure.
Curious, I give Becky’s belly another brush of my lips.
The tadpole moves again, brushing me back, making me smile wider in wonder.
Not content to be ignored, Paco stretches his neck out and snatches my hat off my head.
Becky stifles a smile—then outright laughs.
I ignore the jackass, and smile in response to my mate’s laughter as I mount another step, eyes locked with hers. “Can we schedule one activity before we leave?”
She blinks. Then her gaze drops to my groin. “You… Right now?”
My hands land on her hips, and slide up her back. “I want to make love. If you do.” I search her face. “What do you want?”
Planting her hands on my chest, she tips her head back and gives me a look that strikes me as being too solemn. She says, “We’ll make love, Will.”
***
Our foray into town is made possible because we affix a wagon behind Joel’s buttermilk horse, who is trained to drive.
As we roll out of the barnyard, Paco, secured behind a fence (for now) calls after us so forlornly that Becky suggests we tie him behind the wagon and take him along with us.
I’m tempted to agree to this, but Becky, situated with pillows beneath and behind her, is already uncomfortable, and to return for Paco and affix him to the rear of the wagon will only prolong her discomfort. Plus Paco’s shorter legs could mean our pace would be slowed as well.
Eyeing the sun rising ever higher in the sky, already intent on burning us alive, I adjust my donkey-chewed hat (I mistakenly allowed Paco to play with it while I lovingly serviced Becky) and shake my head. “He will be fine here.”
I don’t miss that my mate’s mouth purses with unhappiness.
Unfortunately, the ride does nothing to improve her outlook. Even with the pillows, the jostling wagon seat is rough for my Becky. She was massaging her lower back before our journey started—and she’s outright gripping it and grimacing now.
“Riding a donkey would have been gentler!” she claims when we hit a particularly deep rut and the wheels jump.
“How do you figure?” I ask, my eyes roving over her, outfitted in the periwinkle calico dress she changed into after our lovemaking. It’s ridden up enough that her legs are bared to my gaze and it's a pleasant distraction.
I’m wearing a brushed cotton vest the color of raw coal, cotton trousers in the same color, and a frontier work shirt the color of a poppy flower. “I look mighty fine,” I’d declared before we left. “Almost as fine as you,” I’d told Becky, and watched several areas in her brain flutter with color.
“Jesus’s mom did it,” she points out. “And Paco wanted to go to town.”
“Even if you weren’t gravid, for your safety we will need to secure a more trustworthy ass for you than Paco,” I murmur thoughtfully.
Becky looks up at me sharply. “‘Will’ need to? As in, you’re considering it for real?”
I give her a steady look. “If you express a need, it is my duty as your mate to provide what you require.”
She searches my eyes for a moment, her expression strange. “I don’t need a donkey. I’m uncomfortable, so I’m complaining.”
“From my vantage, you have legitimate cause for complaint.”
We hit another bump and she stiffens, grimacing.
I feel my expression harden. “I think it might be a need after all.”
Unexpectedly, Becky places her hand on my arm. When I only look down at her in confusion, she exhales in a huff, reaches up and catches me behind the neck—and pulls me down.
To her mouth.
She kisses me.
Just a brush of lips, and then she is attempting to pull away.
Catching her by her mane, I feel the gnawed brim of my hat rise as it presses against her forehead as I deepen our kiss.
…Until we hit another bump, making her yelp into my mouth.
“That’s it!” I growl, bringing my nose beside her cheek so that I don’t harm her face cartilage. Then I haul her and her pillows onto my lap.
Gasping, Becky moves to catch herself as if she’s falling.
“I’ve got you,” I reassure her, petting my hand along her side. I situate her so that her back is to my front and my arm is braced carefully around her stomach. My other is anchored over her hip .
She quiets. And on the next bump, although my legs are hard metal, between the pillows and my frame taking the brunt of the impact, Becky isn’t jostled as badly.
“Thank you,” she whispers. And to my surprise, she taps me on the arm until I crane around her to look at her face. “You did good, William Frederick Cody.”
Stunned, I tell her, “I’m so gratified you’ve praised me. Thank you.”
Twisting to more fully meet my eyes, Becky tells me solemnly, “You really are a good man, you know.”
“I do now,” I tell her.
“HEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!”
Becky and I both jump. But excitedly Becky pats my hand and asks, “Is that Paco?”
“If it isn’t, we’re being followed by a crazed donkey who has a brain bent on mischief just like him,” I inform her, head turned to take the measure of the animal braying at us. “He’s moving surprisingly fast. He’ll reach us in just a moment.”
And he does.
He comes up alongside the wagon and reaches his velvety muzzle toward us inquiringly.
Becky obligingly reaches down and brushes his nose affectionately. “You’re the cutest,” she tells him.
I’m not convinced. “Don’t you think we need to see more donkeys before you can decide which is the cutest?”
“You’re right!” Becky declares, straightening and beginning to settle herself in my lap again. “We should look at lots of them.”
As she wriggles to get comfortable, my thoughts go blank and I find myself agreeing as I struggle with a flood of inappropriately-timed arousal. “We will look at lots of them. If that is what you wish.”
“You are a very good man, Will,” Becky tells me softly.
And for reasons I cannot fathom, my eyes sting and my chest gets warm and tight. “Thank you, Becky. You are the very best mate. ”
Becky goes quiet, and I’m immediately alarmed when it seems as if she attempts to pull away from me—but then our wagon strikes a large rock and she falls against my chest.
Tightening my arms around her, ever careful of the pressure I apply over her stomach, I kiss the top of her head.
She hugs my arm to herself and buries her face against it for the rest of the ride to town.