My even expression turned to one of genuine confusion as I attempted to translate his meaning. “You use the word as averb, but I do not understand how male bovine excrement could become an action.”
Leigh arrived just in time to stop her father from attacking me.
“Dad, Leave T’raat alone.” She threw herself between us, keeping Harrison back.
“He destroyed Libby’s rosebushes!”
“You don’t know that, Dad.” Leigh grunted as she struggled with the larger man. “He’s been out here all morning. He hasn’t even been to the house. How could he have done that?”
Harrison broke free from her grip, but he stopped his advance. He ran a shaky hand through his hair and drew a shuddering breath. “If I find out he’s the culprit, there won’t be anywhere here or on Xalan or anywhere in between that he can hide from me. I’ll rip off his scaly hide and feed it to him.”
I shrunk back from his piercing gaze. I did not need to lie about the fear I felt at his rampage. That emotion was true enough.
Before Harrison could further accuse me, the crunch of tires on gravel came from outside the barn, along with a screeching sound as the mystery vehicle came to a halt. Both Harrison and Leigh froze, and I noticed mirrored expressions of shock on their faces. Harrison rushed to the barn doors, hauling them shut, while Leigh hurriedly pushed me towards the ladder to the loft. I did not understand what was happening.
“Hide. Stay low, don’t come out.”
Leigh left me with those instructions, but she did not elaborate. I crouched down out of sight from below, my hearts thumping in my chest as she vanished out the barn door.
Chapter 5
Leigh
The twins showed up at the worst possible time. I had completely forgotten they’d be back today, and, judging by Dad’s reaction to their truck pulling up outside, so had he. As we scrambled to close the barn and get T’raat hidden, the boys got out of the truck and headed over to us.
Jim and Tim had been working on our farm since they were teenagers. The identical twins were tall and lanky, with dark brown hair and piercing green eyes. I’d had a crush on both of them in the past, but they’d always considered me to be like a younger sister. They each rejected me when I made advances on them. Their words were gentle, but the hurt remained for months. When they took the summer off to visit family, it had given me a chance to grow up and realize I didn’t have a shot with either of them.
T’raat’s arrival helped soothe the sting of rejection from the twins, so much so that I forgot they were due back any day. Itwouldn’t have been a problem except we had an alien spaceship hidden on the farm, and we were harboring an illegal visitor from another planet.
“Jim! Tim! Hey, guys!” I shouted as I slammed the barn door behind me. If they caught sight of T’raat or his ship, my aunt was gonna kill me.
“Hey, squirt.” Jim ruffled my hair affectionately as he headed for the barn. I grabbed his hand and pulled him around, making him do an about-face.
“No working in this barn today. A, uh, coyote got hold of one of the barn cats. Nasty fight. Cat lost. We haven’t cleaned it up yet.” God, that was a lame excuse. I realized it was a good thing Dad already knew about T’raat, because I was a terrible liar. No way I could’ve hidden him from my dad like this.
“Well, then, I’ll start cleaning.” Tim started to push past me, but Dad stopped him with a palm on his chest.
“No, Tim. Leigh’s the one who left the barn open last night, so it’s her responsibility to clean up the mess. She’ll never learn if you take care of it for her.”
Dad took the twins away, muttering something about needing them to check out the tractor and figure out why it was making a weird noise. Since they fancied themselves mechanically inclined, the ruse should keep them occupied for a good while—especially since there wasn’t any weird noise to be found.
I ducked back into the barn and barred the door behind me. A hand on my head startled me, and I whipped around to see T’raat right behind me. He wore a confused frown, and he kept petting me.
“What are you doing? I told you to stay put. You could’ve been seen!”
“The duplicate human disturbed your hairs.”
I removed his hand from my head and smoothed my hair back. “There. Better?”
He cocked his head. “Yes. Not that I didn’t like your hairs that way, but I’d rather I was the one disturbing them. I did not like seeing him touch you.”
“You were watching? Dude, what if they’d seen you?”
T’raat blinked at me, his brows drawing together. “I did not know who had approached. I had to be certain they weren’t a threat.”
Oh, geez. “T’raat, the two of them work on the farm. They’re not a threat.”
He grumbled and crossed his arms over his broad chest. “I did not know that.”
