Page 102 of Roping Her Alien Ranchers

“The distance between our worlds is... significant. The energy requirements for interstellar travel are extreme. Our mission directives do not include provisions for return journeys to non-essential survey locations.”

Non-essential survey locations. That’s what Earth was to their people. That’s what I was.

“I see,” I said, though I didn’t. Not really. I couldn’t see anything beyond the growing hollowness in my chest, the pressure building behind my eyes.

“We will depart from the field behind this structure,” Vantor said, gesturing toward the supply barn. “At eleven-thirty Earth time, if you wish to... if you would like to be present.”

If I wanted to say goodbye. That’s what he meant but couldn’t bring himself to say.

I nodded stiffly, not trusting my voice. The joy of the twin foals seemed distant now, a spark of light overwhelmed by the darkness spreading through me. Without another word, I turned and walked away, each step heavier than the last. My shoulders slumped forward as if physically bearing the weight of what I was losing.

Behind me, I heard Kalith make a strange, bubbling sound. It toed the line between a sigh and a sob. I didn’t look back. I couldn’t bear to see what emotions might be rippling across their skin, what colors might be flashing beneath their human disguises.

I kept walking, alone, the golden Kansas sunlight now seeming like a cruel mockery of the happiness I’d felt just minutes before.

38

TAMMY

Well, the E.T.s phoned home… and left me.

The sunlight abandoned me so quickly, hurrying forward the time when they’d leave me. And I’d wasted precious hours, hiding in my room, watching the world grow darker through the window. Crying until my eyes burned and my throat ached.

I stared at the ceiling, trying to find the will to stand up and go find them. Trying to cherish the little bit of time we had left.

But I couldn’t move.

As if sensing my distress, someone knocked on the door. When I didn’t answer, it opened, and Kalith slipped inside. Tentative, sweet. Half man, half alien. His tentacles slipped beneath the sheets and whispered over them, touching me gently. I didn’t move. I couldn’t move. My heart screamed at me to enjoy the precious remaining hours with them, but my brain wouldn’t work to move my body. Not even a twitch. A lift of a finger. A smile. Just more tears, which Kalith gently gathered with tentacle tips.

Cyro and Vantor came into the room together. When they saw me, their light communication began blinking across their skins.

Finally, the concern in their eyes, the downturn of their mouths, the realization that they too must be grieving, unfroze me. I sat up slowly, Kalith’s tentacles automatically curling around my back to support me.

“I don’t want you to leave,” I whispered, choking back fresh sobs. “I hate that you’re leaving,” I said with more force.

My words hung in the air, thick and suffocating. I pulled my knees to my chest, feeling smaller than ever, as I stared at their silvery eyes. Every part of them looked so normal to me now… so them. The human faces, the arms and legs transitioning to tentacles at the joints. They were beautiful to me now. Not terrifying, as they had been those first encounters. I could look back on being inked with a laugh. It was the best meet-cute, even if I couldn’t tell anyone about it.

How did you meet your Alphas?

Oh, you know, it’s the same old story.

UFO crash-lands in girl’s backyard. Girl gets inked by squid aliens, then protects her horse with a pitchfork. After a while, they were invading more than just my ranch. If you know what I mean. And then I’d wink suggestively. The listener would giggle.

But I wasn’t going to get the happily ever after that follows the meeting, the courting, the kinship. Any delusion I had that this could be forever was about to fly off into outer space. So far out of reach, I might as well try to touch the moon.

They hadn’t said anything, and I felt sullen. I pulled away from Kalith’s embrace, shuffling on the bed to put space between us.

“I wish you’d never come here. I was doing fine. I was pathetic, but I was used to that. Hell, maybe I would have failed and run back to Derek, but I wouldn’t know any better.” I blinked back hot tears, feeling anger wash away my grief. “But you did come, and now I don’t know if I can live without you!”

I was nearly shouting at them by the last few words.

None of them looked irritated with me, or disgusted with my mottled, tear-stained face.

“Tammy,” Kalith’s voice broke through the haze of my despair, soft yet insistent. He leaned closer, the warm glow of his skin illuminating the shadows on my face. “If we don’t finish our mission, we fail our entire world. We can’t⁠—”

“I know, Kalith,” I growled, “You can’t pick me over your planet. One me, weighed against millions. Can you just pretend—” I moved my gaze from his warm, brown eyes backlit with that alien, platinum quality, to Cyro’s lavender, to Vantor's deep burgundy— “that you’re not leaving. Just for another hour or two. You’re not leaving, we’re bound by a trick of cosmic fate and our own markings.” I lifted my wrists, showing the sucker impressions circling them; then I lifted one hand to touch the ones on my neck.

The three aliens mimicked my movements, tentacles grazing across my bite marks.