Outcast (10 page)

Unfortunately, on Terra Minor you weren't allowed to simply exist. This had been the only drawback to immigrating there, but he had worked in mines before and was certain that if he worked hard, he would be able to buy a place of his own eventually. Then he could work in the mines and retreat each night to his own home — built somewhere well away from other people — and find the solitude he craved. He might have to hike a long way as a result, but it would have been worth it.

Worth it, because then he would never again have to inhale the scent of a woman's desire — an aroma that still lingered even after Bonnie had left him.

As Bonnie expected, she never saw those clothes again. Lynx seemed to stay clean enough, but then she realized that he must have been washing his own clothes late at night and hanging them up in the shed to dry while he slept. She hoped she never had to go out there at night for any reason, because she had a feeling it would absolutely mortify him to be caught without his pants, and she had no intention of ever letting him know that Lynx with his pants off was a sight that she'd very much like to see.

Bonnie felt her nipples tingle as the fantasy struck her again. She'd vowed not to become interested in another man, and the realization that she was beginning to feel a strong attraction to Lynx was disturbing. She fought against it, biting her lip and telling herself that it was only a side effect of their close proximity, or because she was already becoming accustomed to his ways, or, what was more likely, her pregnancy made her more susceptible. But whatever the reason, Lynx was looking better to her all the time. The odd thing was she couldn't even say she liked him — and he clearly didn't like her.

Bonnie assured herself that she wasn't falling in love with Lynx, but she caught herself watching him more and more, her thoughtful gaze lingering on him long after it should have moved on to something less... disturbing.

Because he was disturbing, and her woman's eye couldn't help but be attracted to him. Looking at him evoked erotic fantasies that sent her mind delving into areas best left unexplored. Drummond had said that Jack might have to lock Cat up to keep him from being stolen if his abilities became known. What made Zetithians so different from the males of any other species? Was it just the purring? Bonnie had no idea, but the need to discover for herself just what that difference was grew stronger by the hour.

She tried to convince herself that it was what he was rather than who he was that intrigued her. Even excluding the comments from Zuannis and Drummond, the other Zetithians were still attractive in the extreme, and if they hadn't been married, Bonnie was honest enough with herself to admit that she would have been interested. She told herself that she might have felt the same way about Lynx initially — especially if he'd smiled at her or at least been civil — because he was a handsome man and moved with the same feline grace that Cat and Leo possessed.

But while his alien features intrigued her, if Lynx had ever smiled at her, she hadn't seen it, nor was he in any way flirtatious; in fact, Bonnie had never received less encouragement from a man in her life. But there was still something about him that tugged at her psyche, causing her to ponder what she might be missing.

She had more dreams — and since all of them involved Lynx and tended to wake her up in midorgasm, they made quite an impression on her. In those dreams, he held her close while he purred, loving her like no other had ever done; making her feel alive and strong, but also cherished and desired. She had no firsthand experience with a Zetithian lover, but in her dreams they were among the best in the galaxy. When she awoke, she could still imagine him purring while he made love to her; his eyes glowing with desire, his hot, hard body penetrating her, filling her with his heat...

But perhaps the purring wasn't sexual — after all, the only time Bonnie had ever heard Lynx purr had been for the enocks, so it might have had nothing to do with sex, but the more she thought about it, the more the idea of making love with such a man nearly drove her insane with desire.

Unfortunately, with this newly discovered interest, the object of that interest became more elusive and secretive than ever. Lynx now knew what Bonnie expected of him and could therefore go about his chores with very little need for discussion. The chores always got done — he never shirked them — but they rarely did anything together. To Bonnie, it was like living with a ghost.

One evening, Lynx didn't answer her call to dinner, and, not seeing him around anywhere, Bonnie went out to the shed, struck with a sudden, irrational fear that he was gone — gone for good, and without a word, just like Sylor. He wasn't there, but his pack still lay on the makeshift table, along with the clothes she'd given him. No, she thought, taking a steadying breath, he wouldn't have left without his things; if he'd carried them this far, he wouldn't leave them behind now.

Standing there staring at his meager belongings, Bonnie suddenly forgot all about her decision to avoid invading his privacy; the need to know what was precious to him was so overwhelming, she couldn't fight it any longer. With trembling hands, she carefully checked inside his pack. There she found a medallion with an unfamiliar emblem embossed upon it, some strips of leather (presumably to repair his sandals), a slingshot (which was undoubtedly how he was catching the rats) and two very stale chocolate chip cookies.

Emotions flooded through her, and she felt the blood drain from her head as tears began to flow even before her mind could register what it meant.

He'd been hoarding food — but why? Was he afraid she wouldn't feed him, or were the cookies just so tasty that he wanted to save them for later? Had he seen the cookies as payment for saving her life? Bonnie tried to come up with all sorts of reasons why he might have kept them so long, even thinking that they might have made good rat bait, but nothing could stop her from crying like a baby.

No, he wouldn't leave these things behind, she decided, and there were no credits in his pack.

Unless he carried them in his pocket, he had nothing but what Bonnie owed him — and she hadn't paid him yet. Surely he wouldn't leave before he had money! Her mind went wild, trying desperately to make sense of it all, until the baby kicked her into motion. Fighting back tears, she put everything back just the way she'd found it and ran out into the yard, screaming his name.

Bonnie was understandably upset, but when she finally saw Lynx coming out from behind the shed, presumably having been answering the call of nature, she was unnecessarily dramatic.

"Where were you?" she shouted at him. "I couldn't find you anywhere!" She was still crying, still wrestling with emotions she had thought were completely dead. "I thought you were gone!"

Lynx looked at her as though she'd lost her mind completely, but all he said was, "I am still here. I would not leave without telling you."

His frank tone brought her up short, because she believed him. No, he wouldn't leave without a word; he was far too honest for that. But Bonnie was speaking her mind at last, and she wasn't about to stop yet.

"But I never see you, Lynx!" she wailed. "The work gets done, the food disappears, but you aren't there!" She took a deep breath in an effort to steady herself before adding. "You avoid me like the plague. Would you mind telling me why?"

She could see his feline eyes glowing in the twilight and had a feeling this was another of those questions he wouldn't answer, but, to her surprise, he did.

"It is because you smell of desire," he replied.

Bonnie could scarcely believe her ears. "Excuse me?" she said. "You don't like the way I smell?"

This was completely ridiculous; she used the same soap he did — and probably more often!

"It is your desire," he said. "I can smell it."

Bonnie was bewildered on two points. "You don't like being desired, or you don't like the smell of it?"

"I do not like being desired by a woman," he replied.

"Would you rather be desired by a man?" she asked, groping desperately for an explanation.

He shook his head. "I would not."

"But you don't like women at all, do you?"

"No."

The irony of her predicament struck her then, and Bonnie began laughing through her tears. She had finally found her decent, honest, moral man: one who wouldn't take anything she hadn't given him and who wouldn't leave without telling her — and she'd almost given her right arm to get him, too — but he would never love her, and not because of her, specifically, but on principle! She'd never met a true misogynist before and had certainly never been attracted to one. Obviously she should have been more careful about what she wished for.

Bonnie's laughter soon gave way to anger and then shame. She hadn't said anything to him or treated him any differently, but even trying to hide her feelings wouldn't work if he could actually smell them. She could try to mask it with another scent, perhaps, but if his nose was that good, what hope did she have?

"Well," she said bitterly, "your dinner is getting cold. Better hurry up and eat it." Avoiding his eyes, she turned on her heel and went back to her empty house.

Lynx stared after her, her aroma wafting back toward him on the wind. There had been a time when a scent like that would have had him running after her, his cock as hard as diamonds and dripping with eagerness to mate. He would have let her run, then gone after her, pouncing on her playfully out of the darkness and ripping her clothes in his haste to bury himself in her body. But there was nothing; no matter what his senses told him, his body ignored the signals and would not respond. Lynx returned to his refuge to eat the food she'd left for him, but for once, it seemed to have no flavor.

That night, sleep eluded him long after he would normally have slept, but when he finally drifted off, he slept fitfully. It was nearly dawn when he awoke, drenched in sweat and trembling with fear and anger. In his dream, Bonnie had seen him — naked and exposed — and, realizing his failing, had laughed.

Staring at her dinner sitting there on the table, Bonnie felt an overwhelming urge to throw it against the wall. What was wrong with her? Why was he affecting her this way, and why had she let it happen? Worse still, how could she hide her desire for a man when he could actually smell it?

The answer to that was to do the same thing he was doing: avoid him — and since he was already avoiding her, it wouldn't take much effort. If she never saw him, she couldn't feel desire and couldn't ever actually love him, could she?

The answer to that was probably that, yes, she could still love him — if that was, indeed, what she was feeling. It might only have been lust, but she couldn't recall unrequited lust ever making her feel like her heart had been ripped out — despite numerous failed romances. She'd felt bad enough before, but now, she felt even worse, and it seemed impossible to stop crying; as soon as she would dry her tears, believing she was over it, she would remember the things he'd said to her and start all over again.

Bonnie had never felt so helpless. Lynx wouldn't love her no matter what she did. She could pay him, feed him, clothe him, love him, even hand over the deed to her land, and it wouldn't make any difference. She couldn't make him love her, and if she even got close enough to him to speak, he'd just catch a whiff of her desire and be repulsed all over again. Bonnie was normally pretty tough, but just then, all she wanted to do was crawl under a rock and die. His rejection of her was so complete, so all-encompassing; he not only despised her, but her entire gender!

Unfortunately, they still needed one another. Bonnie knew that one call to Drummond might get Lynx a different job, or even deported, but that was one of those things that only a woman scorned would do. Bonnie wasn't about to have him kicked off the planet just because he didn't like women.

She would get over him. She knew she could. She always did.

Sleep was a long time coming that night, but when it finally crept over her, Bonnie had another dream about Lynx. In it, he was walking away from her, and she was calling to him, but he never looked back and never even slowed down.

Awakening with cold tears on her cheeks and feeling a despair that went far beyond what she should have been feeling, the rational part of her mind knew that the whole thing was just plain silly. He couldn't possibly mean so much to her after such a short time. He might have saved her life and helped her out a great deal, but he'd never been nice to her. She'd never even seen him smile. It was illogical; she should have grown to hate him, not love him! Still, it was impossible for Bonnie to imagine ever truly hating Lynx. The man had been a slave; at the very least, he deserved her compassion.

She was doing her best to understand him, but it was hard to understand a man who wouldn't talk.

He must have had some bad experiences with women, but what kind? Bonnie hadn't had much luck with men, either, but she had always managed to come through the hard times reasonably unscathed.

Or had she? It was possible that the chip on her shoulder was every bit as big as the one Lynx carried. Running her fingers through her cropped locks, Bonnie remembered feeling just as much enmity toward men as he seemed to have toward women. Lynx had changed that by possessing all of the attributes Bonnie was searching for in a man — with the possible exception of the most important one.

In an attempt to divert her mind, Bonnie took the worn speeder parts, went through the catalog, and ordered new ones. Lynx might never love her, but if he could get that speeder running, he would be worth his weight in gold.

As her pregnancy progressed, Bonnie was so exhausted each evening that even if Lynx had come seeking her company, it wouldn't have been very enjoyable — for either of them. Each market day she went walking into Nimbaza with her wares. She made a lot of money, chiefly due to Lynx's help. With more time to devote to tilling and planting, she was now able to grow more vegetables and herbs, and with Lynx providing a steady supply of rats, the enock egg production had doubled.