Outcast (21 page)

Bonnie tried to visualize vicious enocks and rotten peaches and anything else she could think of to kill her desire, but it was probably already too late. Her only hope was that he might assume it was some sort of residual scent and not drop her like a hot potato. Even knowing the risks, Bonnie couldn't seem to stop herself and shifted closer to him, her ear pressed against his chest. She listened to his heart — still beating rapidly, but slowing down as he relaxed. Bonnie fought the urge to sigh and forced her hands to remain where they were, though this wasn't too much of a hardship, since one of them lay across his outstretched thigh.

Lynx began to whisper, but she couldn't understand him. It could have been Zetithian or Paemayan, for all she knew. Bonnie didn't know which one would come more naturally to him, but it didn't matter. The fact that she couldn't understand him left her free to imagine what he might be saying.

He could have been whispering words of love — his voice certainly sounded soft and tender — or he could have been beseeching whatever god he worshiped to deliver him from the evil that was womankind.

Bonnie was finding it difficult to pretend to be out cold while trying very hard not to cry, but her tears gave her away as they ran down his chest. She knew the moment he realized it, for his heart rate quickened abruptly, and she let out a sob, knowing that her moment of peace and joy had come to an end.

"Are you okay now?" she asked, surprised that she was able to move her jaw enough to speak — and also that her voice sounded reasonably normal.

"I should be the one asking you that," he said. "You are the one who was hurt — not I."

"Not really," Bonnie disagreed. "You've already been hurt more in your lifetime than I could possibly imagine."

"I have rarely been injured," he said stiffly.

No, Bonnie thought grimly, just practically fucked to death. "Yeah, well, pain isn't always physical."

Lynx shifted his weight behind her, and Bonnie knew her little respite was over. Bowing to the inevitable, she sat up. She felt slightly light-headed, and her jaw ached like an enock had kicked her, but she stood up anyway. Turning around, she looked down at him, sitting there in the grass.

"I am sorry you were hurt," he said, his voice slightly softer. "It was not... intentional."

"I know that," Bonnie sighed. Looking over at the pen she noticed that the enocks had eaten nearly all the rabasha fruit. "Thanks again for the enocks," she said lightly. "I'll pay you that bonus as soon as I can."

He nodded but didn't look up. "Whatever you wish," he said in a wooden voice. "It does not matter to me."

Bonnie didn't think much of anything mattered to him, and she wondered why he'd gone to all that trouble and built all those fences. Was it only because she'd asked? Or because he wanted to prove something? God only knows, she thought wearily. I certainly never will.

When Bonnie returned to the house, Ulla was awake and screaming her hungry little head off.

Bonnie picked her up, gave her a big hug and a smooch, got a charming chuckle out of her when she tickled Ulla's tummy, changed her diaper, and then sat down to feed her. That was one nice thing about breast-feeding: it gave her plenty of time to ponder just about anything.

Poor Lynx! She'd already told him she loved him, and now she'd kissed him! She rubbed her jaw, wondering if it was truly worth the pain, and came to the conclusion that it probably was. First her right arm, and now a few loose teeth — not to mention the nearly continuous heartache. The old sages hadn't been kidding when they said love hurts. They knew exactly what they were talking about.

Sylor had hurt her, too, but at least he'd left her Ulla. Gazing down at her daughter's adorable little face, Bonnie felt all the motherly love a woman was capable of and knew that Lynx looked at Ulla in almost the same way. Lucky little Ulla, she thought. You've got two of us to love you. Too bad it can't all be hearts and flowers.

Romance. When was the last time Bonnie had had a little romance? Upon reflection she decided that she probably never had. She'd had boyfriends and lovers, but had never been showered with gifts or wined and dined — possibly because she was too practical. She only wanted things she could use, like — Her thoughts broke off there as realization slammed her upside the head with as much force as Lynx's arm. Things she could use — like a whole pen full of enocks! Lynx had given her a gift, and a terribly useful one at that.

Bonnie tried to remember what she'd said to him. Had she been properly appreciative? Or had she been the one to say the wrong thing and spoil it? No, she decided, that wasn't how it happened; it was Lynx's change of expression that ruined everything. Then she'd offered to pay him a bonus. And what had he done but make some sort of incoherent protest? Had he seen the birds as a gift? And if so, why?

Any answers Bonnie could come up with were unsatisfactory at best. Lynx might have been trying to get a raise, or might have been trying to butter her up for something, but she had no idea what.

Bonnie knew that he could have asked her for anything, and she'd have given it to him; she already owed him more than she could ever repay. She already loved him, too — had even told him it didn't matter that they could never be lovers in the usual sense.

It hurt her to think that the only thing Lynx might have wanted from her would be for her to stop loving him. But if that was what he'd truly wanted, he'd certainly picked a strange way to go about doing it. When Bonnie looked out a bit later, she noticed that the male enocks had already been thinned out of the flock and were now outside the pen, eating the rabasha fruit. Was there anything that man couldn't do? He was inventive, resourceful, and wasn't above doing a little hard work. In Bonnie's opinion, he was darn near perfect.

This was also Lynx's opinion of Bonnie. How many women would have asked him how he felt after they'd been knocked senseless? Very few, he was certain, and now he owed her again — for so many things. She'd enabled him to see himself as a normal man at last. Not now, perhaps, but he had been at one time. He cursed himself for never realizing the implant's purpose. How could he have been so stupid?

Throwing himself into his work, he tried to silence his mind, but the torment was unrelenting. He had to repay her again... somehow.

With the enocks safe in the feeding area, he cleaned the pen and then spread the manure on the garden and under the fruit trees. The sun was hot, and it was hard work, but he didn't care. The pain in his muscles might help to drive out the pain in his heart but it couldn't stop the words that kept running through his mind. I could have fathered children. I could have, once — but no more.

By day's end, Lynx was exhausted but no closer to a solution, nor could he feel any peace returning to his mind. He dreaded the coming night, knowing that even if he did sleep — which was unlikely — it wouldn't ease his pain; his nightmares would haunt him.

That was when he smelled the smoke.

For Bonnie, the day had dragged on, oppressive in its heat. She did all the normal, ordinary things she would have done on any given day, yet all the time knowing that nothing would ever be the same again.

The wind had begun to pick up, blowing in gusts out of the northwest, and Bonnie could see the dust whipping around in the original enock pen. It hadn't rained in over a month, and the rainy season was about to start — with a big bang, apparently. She could rest easy knowing that they'd gotten the crops in before it rained — though she would have been happier with the grain delivered and the money in the bank at Nimbaza. She'd be able to pay Lynx that bonus too.

It was getting near dark when her comlink began beeping. The regional weather control in Nimbaza was issuing a warning about a fire headed their way. Looking out, Bonnie could see that the entire northwestern horizon was ablaze — and the wind was whipping it right toward her.

Bonnie's first thought was that at least her crop was in storage behind the firebreak and not still out in the field. Lynx had tilled the firebreak right after the harvest and there was now only stubble in the fields so, with any luck, the fire should go around them.

But Bonnie couldn't afford to count on luck. Tucking Ulla into her crib, she ran out, shouting for Lynx. The wind was blowing so hard, she could barely move forward against it — and it was blowing straight at the house. The air was already scented with smoke, and she screamed again for Lynx, who was nowhere in sight.

It was possible that the rain might catch up with the fire and put it out, but Bonnie knew she couldn't count on that, either. The firebreak was the regulation width plus a little more, but did those guys really know what they were talking about when they'd made that regulation? Had they tested it in a real fire, with a fierce wind blowing it on?

She doubted it. They'd done a great job getting things started on Terra Minor, but there were always mistakes and oversights, and theory didn't always work well in practice.

She spotted Lynx over by the water tower, which she knew was nearly empty. The dry season had been even drier than usual, and they'd had to irrigate the fields more often than she would have liked. The pond by the shed was still reasonably full, and Lynx had been mulching the trees with enock dung, which had some remarkable water-holding properties, so they'd had to water them less.

Maybe we should make a study of it, Bonnie thought, as her mind took a strange turn. Publish a treatise on the virtues of enock dung and then make a mint selling it. She let out a cynical laugh, thinking about the odd things that come to mind when you know you're about to lose everything.

"Lynx!" she yelled. "What are you doing?"

"I pumped more water into the tower after the last crops came in," he said, shouting to make himself heard above the wind. "There should be enough to flood the field. I thought about this when I worked on the firebreak. With this much wind, it will not be enough to stop the fire from reaching the house."

"That's what I thought too," Bonnie yelled back. "How are you planning to do it?"

"I disconnected the irrigation lines to the field," he shouted. "The water will pool about twenty meters out."

Bonnie looked across the field as the fire raced toward them. "You think of everything, don't you?"

she remarked almost absently.

Lynx didn't reply but switched on the pumps. "We can pump more water into the tank, but that might take too long. Get the line that goes to the garden and get ready to soak anything that catches fire on this side of the firebreak."

The buildings were made of materials treated with a flame retardant — another regulation for living on the savanna — but it was only a retardant and wasn't completely foolproof — or fireproof. Given time and enough heat, it would burn just like anything else.

"So this is what you do out there in the shed all alone at night? Think up things like how to catch enocks and put out fires?"

"Yes," he said shortly. "Now, move!"

Running to the garden, she uncoupled the heavy hose from the lines to the plants and put on a smaller line that she used for other parts of the yard. It would blow up in her hands if the pressure was too high, but she switched the pump full on and dragged the hose out toward the enock pen.

The enocks were agitated, flapping their wings and running back and forth in the pen. If the fire got too close, she would have to let them go. Fortunately, aside from the fence that surrounded them, there wasn't much in the pen that would burn, except the birds, and Bonnie didn't care to watch them get roasted alive, not even the big male that had nearly taken her arm off. Well, maybe / would sacrifice him, she thought grimly, but not the females.

Kipper was racing around like a madman, barking his head off. The chickens were in the henhouse, which was small comfort, since it would go up like a pile of kindling if the fire ever reached it — as would the grain, and as much as there was in the shed, it would probably smolder for months.

Bonnie fought the urge to hose down the shed, knowing that water wasted now would mean there might be none to put out the sparks that would surely fly on the wind ahead of the fire.

The flames drew nearer, sending smoke billowing into the sky. Lynx stood still for a moment, staring out at the fire, before suddenly jumping down from his perch on the tower to run through the field of stubble.

"What are you doing?" Bonnie screamed. The fire was almost on him. Something must have been jammed, because she could see him swinging an ax to chop through the line. Then the water burst out like a fountain, and she couldn't see him anymore.

Sparks were flying everywhere, carried toward her on the wind. The smoke burned her lungs and enveloped the entire compound in a hot, dense cloud. She couldn't see Lynx at all and could barely see the house. Then she saw flames and aimed her hose. The fire went out immediately, only to be replaced by another, and another. My God, they're everywhere! Bonnie kept on spraying; trying to see, trying to breathe. She had no clue as to where she was, let alone the direction she was facing.

The enocks were going wild; Bonnie could hear them, squawking like a bunch of dying chickens.

Turning toward the sound, she could see that some of their feathers must have caught fire, and she was heading toward them when she caught sight of Lynx inside the pen, hitting them with his shirt to smother the flames. She let out a scream, terrified that the enocks would turn on him. Bonnie ran to the gate, dragging her hose.

"Get out of there!" she screamed at him. "They'll kill you!"

In that moment, the air seemed to clear as the fire began to pass around them. Lynx ran toward the gate with the big male at his heels. Bonnie shot the bird with a stream of water, diverting his attention long enough for Lynx to escape.

Slamming the gate closed, Bonnie screamed again as lightning struck and the sky opened up, deluging them with rain. In the glare of the lightning and the roll of thunder that followed, she could see Lynx standing there with rivulets of water coursing down his bare, heaving chest. As she stood gulping the cool, moist air into her burning lungs, her only thought was that Lynx was hers. I damn near gave my right arm for him, I've fought fire and enocks for him, and he is mine! Running to him, she flung her arms around his neck, and, pulling him down, kissed him fiercely.