Hearts of Ishira (Hearts of Ishira Saga) (73 page)

Jace was just finishing up with the last of the women when Hunter arrived with Arianna. For a long moment, the three looked at one another, their expressions showing their hope and assurance that it would not make a difference in their relationship. Then Jace took her shawl from her and gently lifted her up onto the scanning bed. Before he performed the scan, he and Hunter both gave her encouraging smiles.

“If not now, then later,” Jace said quietly, squeezing her hand. “I would not be sad if we had you all to ourselves a bit longer.”

“Nor would I,” Hunter said huskily, making her heart speed up a bit. She nodded, then took in a deep breath and lay back onto the scanner’s bed. Jace started the scanning cycle.

A minute passed before the scan was complete. Jace had been running scans for awhile, and because the sun was down, he’d had to go to a lower power setting to be able to check all the women. He helped her down and Hunter wrapped the shawl around her shoulders as they waited silently for the results. It seemed to take forever, but finally, the machine beeped completion and Arianna squeezed her eyes shut, strangely afraid of the diagnosis.

They popped open again when Hunter dropped to his knees in front of her and pressed a worshipful kiss to her lower belly. When she looked up in surprise at Jace, he had tears in his eyes. She let out a soft cry as he turned the screen and showed her the tiny mass that meant she was pregnant.

The party got a bit more raucous after the announcement of Ri’s pregnancy, but wound down surprisingly early. The compound became curiously quiet as the family groups settled in to celebrate in their own intimate ways, or to try again for a baby, now that they knew it was possible.

Hunter and Jace sat beside Arianna on the couch in the living area, taking turns talking about what needed to be done before their babe arrived, who would do what, how they would break down their responsibilities and share the load as Arianna became less able to handle the more physical chores.

“Guys,” she finally said on a sigh when they had enthusiastically discussed who would deliver the baby and who would get to cut the cord, since both men had experience at both. “I appreciate your happiness over this-”

“Elation, really,” Hunter mused, grinning.

“Joy. Pure, raw joy.” Jace agreed. Arianna couldn’t help but smile at their enthusiasm, but doggedly continued.

“We should probably wait to be sure I can carry it to term, shouldn’t we?”

For a moment the men simply looked at her, as though she’d said something strange.

“What? Miscarriages happen.” No one knew that better than she did, unfortunately.

“We have medical knowledge that prevents such things,” Jace assured her firmly, “And we are very careful with our women, to be sure that nothing happens to harm them or the babes.”

“Oh.”

Comforted by that, Arianna finally allowed herself to dream about the little life growing in her.

“I guess we’re a family now, huh?” she asked shyly, her eyes shining with hope.

Arianna’s pregnancy halted plans for more experiments, at least until she was further along and Jace could monitor the baby as well as Ri during the testing. Both men felt that they would be better off postponing the research until after the babe arrived. Arianna sighed at their over-protective attitude, but agreed with them. She didn’t want anything happening to this baby, either, and would do everything in her power to ensure that.

But the cessation of the experiments also meant that the all-too-brief distraction from the summer heat and her injured hand was over with.

Life moved along fairly smoothly for another month or so. Arianna’s hand was healing nicely, enough that she was able to discard the bandage after a week, and within two she was back to her crafts, though she was still a little stiff and the new skin was definitely tender. She had to be careful with it, but she was determined to make sure that the skin healed as elastic as possible, so that she could continue her crafts. One of her favorite books was about a young musician who’d cut her hand by accident but the healing had been purposefully mangled so that she wouldn’t be able to play her instruments again. Arianna thought of that young heroine and her struggles to learn to use her hand for what she loved again, every time Ri had to force herself past the point of comfort to accomplish something with her hand.

She would definitely carry scarring from it for quite awhile, though. The plant had destroyed a lot of the flesh, and even with nanos and the remarkable salve Jace slathered on it day and night, the flesh would take awhile to build back up. On Earth, she would have been scarred for life. Here, with Jace’s medical knowledge and advanced treatments, she would merely have to worry about the scarring for several years, possibly. But that was infinitely better than a lifetime.

Visits to the falls and lake became a frequent occurrence. Unless the weather was stormy, a few groups at a time went to cool off and relax in the darkness of the waterfall’s cave once or twice a week. Some of the girls who hadn’t signed up for the duty roster wanted to go every day, but their men wouldn’t allow it, simply because it would take too much time from the necessary chores and construction that needed to happen before winter set in, especially with a refugee ship coming in. Though it was hard to imagine the epic snowfalls and bitter cold that the men spoke of when she was sweating through two or three outfits a day, Arianna acknowledged that the men would know best, in this case, what needed to be done. She encouraged the idle women to sew more summer-like clothing, which they did, but it wasn’t enough. When some of the girls threatened to simply go without an escort, Arianna snapped and called a meeting.

“Look,” she snarled once all the women were gathered in the courtyard. “It’s hot, yes. And some of you don’t seem to have anything better to do than sit around and moan about it. But we’ve been here for almost three months now, most of us are settling in nicely, and while it’s wonderful that the guys are taking care of us, some of you need to get serious about our circumstances. We are marooned here, though ‘here’’ is turning out to be a damn sight better than Earth, in my opinion.”

She threw a helpless grin at Hunter and Jace, who’d joined her to lend support to her meeting, though they had promised not to speak up unless it looked like they needed to. Arianna was a bit peeved that even alien men held more sway in some of these young women’s minds than she did, but whatever. At her grin, Hunter’s eyes warmed and the lines at their corners deepened ever so slightly. Jace rolled his eyes at their exchange, but grinned as well. The dimples at the corners of his smile made her heart speed up a bit, as always. Between the two of them, she was melting, but not from the heat. She was such a sucker for laugh lines and dimples.

“The bottom line,” she said, turning back to the ladies, “Is that those who aren’t already doing something need to start helping out a bit more. If we do that, perhaps the guys will see that they don’t have to do all the work all the time, and will be more willing to take time off when we want them to go swimming or just to relax a little.”

“But what can we do?” Amy asked with a sneer, shaking off Rian’s cautioning hand. “I was in college for hotel management and entertainment. Not a lot of call for that here. I’m certainly not going to dig in the garden like some Mexican immigrant.”

Arianna sucked in her breath at the racial slur, even as one of the other girls smacked Amy none too gently upside the head. She would have retaliated, but two of her men were with her and each grabbed an arm to keep her from flying at Christy. One word from Rian and Amy’s face paled and she quieted.

“I happen to like gardening,” Chelsea snapped at Amy. “And those Mexicans make it possible for us to afford to eat healthy back home. So shut your hole.”

“One,” Ri bit out, “
We
are the immigrants here, so maybe you ought to think about who
is
doing the gardening and hunting and be thankful. Two… maybe we should institute rules addressing folks who don’t do the work. Perhaps they shouldn’t share in the spoils.”

The girls who constantly contributed to the compound murmured assent to that and Arianna felt Hunter’s warm approval bolstering her. Straightening her spine, she nodded once. “Yes, I think that’s fair. Hunter? What would you suggest as a way of keeping track?”

“I don’t know,” he said slowly, stepping to her side. “In our society, only the very young, the very old, or the injured or infirm are excused from the work that benefits the community. We never had to keep track, because our children are raised knowing what they need to do, and that they need to help out if everyone is to be taken care of. Also, with everyone helping, there is less work to do, so we tend to share the work, get it done, and then enjoy our rest time without worry.”

“Many hands make light work,” Ri said softly, nodding at him. He thought about it, then grinned and nodded. “Right. So, unless you have a good reason not to be helping, I suggest you all learn a skill or three.”

“I can’t really bend a lot to work in the gardens,” Kim said, reminding Ri of the issues she’d had with her back since early childhood. Arianna cocked her head to the side, then shrugged.

“You’re already a vital part of the medical team, so you don’t need to do much else beyond that. But if you want to do something else… you like spinning and weaving, don’t you?” she asked. Kim nodded eagerly. “Those are necessary tasks, as well. I think what we should do is sit down with the men, find out exactly what it was that the women did in their society, how they contributed if they didn’t have kids to look after, and then come up with a plan based on their needs and expectations and our own abilities. Does that sound fair? And this measure is just for those who haven’t found a ‘job’ already. If you’re helping out, none of this applies to you.”

The women nodded, murmuring among themselves and Arianna sighed and released them from the meeting. She then turned to Hunter and Jace, relaxing when it was just the three of them once more. Not too far away, Bev, Trey, and Rom were talking. Arianna knew she had no worries there. Bev had already proved invaluable to the entire group, helping to expand the database and interpret items that the men’s computers couldn’t translate. Most of the women had begun helping out more around the compound, just out of sheer boredom, but there were still enough girls that were at loose ends and capable of making trouble for everyone else if they weren’t given a job to occupy them.

“Your ladies are adapting rather well, to be honest,” Hunter observed, watching the various family groups gathering together to discuss what had happened at the women’s meeting.

“They are,” Arianna said proudly, “But believe me. I know girls this age back on Earth. They have become rather demanding and expectant of certain freedoms. Some of these girls just don’t understand what we need to do here, and I’m afraid that they are going to have to learn the hard way that they’re not on Earth anymore.”

“Their men will help them,” Jace pointed out. “We have waited so long for companions, our men will be much more patient than I think they would back on Thorsan. Your people are still exotic enough to us that the men are somewhat dazzled by you.”

Arianna made a rude noise, scoffing at the thought of being dazzling to anyone. Hunter, sensing her self-doubt, captured her around the waist and, before she realized what he was doing, had her backed up against a nearby tree, pinned there by his body. His mouth crashed down on hers with the passion that never seemed to ebb. She made a startled sound deep in her throat. It changed to a happy moan as he deepened the kiss and pressed his hips to her belly, showing her just how much he wanted her.

When he stopped kissing her, he had to hold her up for a minute, since her bones had liquefied and didn’t want to support her. Jace was chuckling beside them, leaning easily against the tree, caging her on the left as Hunter pressed in from the right. Instead of feeling trapped by them, she felt safe and loved. She grinned up at them, happiness shining in her eyes.

“Okay, so I’m dazzling,” she laughed, letting her head fall forward until her cheek rested against Hunter’s chest. Beside her, Jace reached up to trace a path down her cheek and the side of her neck with the backs of his fingers. She shivered in delight as his touch whispered over her collarbone, lingering just long enough to make her want more.

Shaking herself, recalling that they were in the middle of the courtyard, in the middle of the day, she chuckled and shook her head.

“You guys spoil me,” she said, kissing first Hunter’s chest, then Jace’s hand. “I hope you never stop.”

“We don’t intend to,” Jace assured her softly, leaning down to steal a kiss from her lips before straightening back up. “But, I need to go check on a few things in medical. I hate to leave, but we’ll talk more about the tasks the bored women could be doing when I get home tonight.”

“That will work,” Arianna murmured as he walked away. Hunter sighed and pulled back from her, as well, but then he took her hand and started walking with her toward the gate. She sensed his growing excitement. “Where are we going?”

“I found some plants that I thought you might want to test for your fiber experiments,” he told her, smiling down at her. “A few of the specialty teams will accompany us to the areas I’ve found, and will help us gather and retrieve any specimens you decide you’d like to try.”

“Oh, Hunter!” she breathed, hugging his waist and bouncing excitedly. “That’s wonderful! Where?”