Chapter 3
Mariska
“How did you end up here?” An innocent sort of question on its own, but it felt like judgment anyway.
Damn it, I’d picked him because he was rude and didn’t seem to have that uncanny ability to sense what I was feeling.
That question was definitely the prying kind, and I really didn’t want to answer.
He stared at me from his tall height, his black eyes fathomless black mirrors I could read nothing in.
That long braid of his, dangling over one brawny shoulder, was a better focus point.
It had intriguing bands of gold at intervals and looked so neat and smooth it had to be soft to the touch. Like silk.
“Fine,” Jeltom said, a gruff edge to his voice.
“Don’t tell me. We all have secrets, even on Aderia.
” He turned his back to me, and I drew in a relieved breath.
So he wasn’t going to continue that line of questioning, good.
See, I knew I’d liked him for a reason; it just got a hell of a lot more complicated when he was so damn appealing to look at.
I shuffled back a few steps, uncertain what to do with myself.
This whole ordeal had already eaten up so much of my time, and I had a list of chores a mile long waiting for me.
If he didn’t need me here… Of course, he did have questions related to the job—starting with: “Where are your tools?” I should have realized he’d want to use what I had on hand; he’d come here wearing only the clothes on his back.
It was a very nice back, but with elbow grease alone, the pressing machine wouldn’t be fixed.
I had plenty of that myself, and I hadn’t made a difference.
Silently, I went to the cabinet against one wall, barely reachable between the frustratingly stacked barrels of failed wine.
Pulling it open, I hauled out the heavy toolbox and began dragging it his way.
He met me halfway, bent at the knees, and effortlessly picked the heavy box up.
I was pretty sure I heard a muffled sort of laugh—a husky little noise—but when I looked at his face in a mortified rush, he appeared deadly serious: not a muscle out of place, not so much as a sparkle in his mirror-smooth black eyes.
He plunked the toolbox down beside the pressing machine and opened it, then swore loudly.
“These aren’t tools. Is this all you have?
” I felt heat wash over me, climbing high in my cheeks.
Okay, perhaps there was something to be said for the kind, polite Aderian empaths.
Jeltom, he was definitely not being nice.
Rude was what I’d bargained for, so I could hardly complain about getting exactly what I’d wanted now.
I’d used them yesterday to fix up one section of fence, but it was hard to keep up when there was just so much fence to deal with.
They worked, even if they weren’t top-notch.
“Fine. I already took a look, and I’ll need to get some things.
Let me finish my inspection, and then I’ll walk back to town to get my own tools.
” He was already out of the barn before I could agree or disagree.
I trailed after him in confusion, wondering what else he needed to inspect.
My fences, as it turned out, and that shield generator I’d worried about, along with the crooked S-curve of my chimney and the ancient harvesting machine I had parked beneath a carport-like area on the side of the barn—were all scrutinized.
He’d tssk and hum but say nothing else, while his frown deepened.
I was a nervous wreck by the time he headed down the path back to town with a final nod of his head.
Fuck, he didn’t pry with questions, but damn if those eyes of his didn’t notice everything.
I felt like he’d peered at me under a lens for hours.
I needed a shower, and then I wanted to curl up under my blankets and hide for a few weeks.
How did my homestead look to his eyes? Abysmal, a failure?
I knew the fences were bad, and I’d been working to fix a section every day ever since I got here.
I’d focused on those furthest out, and even though I’d been at it for months already, it still felt like I hadn’t made a difference.
Then there were the crooked vines, the rusty harvester, and…
I knew the hole in the roof needed fixing, too, but I had no clue how to do that either.
It was very tempting to sit down on my porch and cry.
I was going to lose this place; there was no way I could ever make it turn a profit.
Then what? I’d have to go back to Ker and that dreary gray compound, or accept a job in an Aderian city, crammed together with a million empaths prying into my business.
I struggled to breathe just thinking about it.
No! I rose resolutely and got back to work.
No, there was no way I was going to let that happen.
So I tackled some of the million chores waiting for me: weeding the vegetable patch, fixing another section of fence, scrubbing another mass of rust off the harvester so its moving parts could move freely.
That’s what I was doing when Jeltom showed up again, even though I wouldn’t have blamed him if he’d declined the job after seeing the state of my poor farm.
He made a deep harrumphing noise to announce his presence.
I waved at him but didn’t approach, and he didn’t seem to need me to.
He ducked into the barn, and that was that.
I noticed no tools or supplies on him, but that didn’t register until much later—when I was kneading dough for pastries and stirring a pot of simmering stew for the filling.
He had gone for supplies, but where were they?
The barn… Had he put his toolbox down in it first, before he came to let me know he was back? Was that it? Turning the dial on my weird alien stove off, I washed my hands and dried them. Only one way to find out.