Colonel Seeders' Mail Order Bride, Hank

7 Rachelle

Rachelle:

"Rachelle, open those pretty green eyes for me."

"Dad?" She had to be dreaming. They told her he died with her mother and sister.

"I would love to be your daddy, but I have two nymphs that would cut off my balls if I played house with anyone else."

Definitely not her father. She blinked her eyes open and squinted against the harsh over head light. Something beeped and then the light dimmed enough for her to open her eyes completely.

"We can turn it back up as soon as your eyes adjust. I need you to sit up and tell me if you're still hurt. I did what I could to patch you up."

The man's face came into focus. He pushed his short brown hair out of his handsome face, but it fell back to curl around his ears. The kindest, brightest blue eyes smiled down at her. Familiar eyes, but it lacked the deep scar that ran from the general's eyebrow to his chin.

"You're the general's son. Colonel Seeders." Rachelle said.

"Just Sebastian is fine. Now, do you need help sitting up?" he asked.

She gritted her teeth against the pain in her side and back, but managed to sit up against the stack of pillows behind her. The bed readjusted to her new form so that she could relax without keeping herself upright.

"I love this bed. It's one of two demo beds. It actually saved your life, so I give it a full ten out of ten," Sebastian said.

"What do you mean it saved my life? I passed out from the pain in my ribs, but I wasn't dying," Rachelle said a bit harshly, when she remembered slamming into the steps after Bridgette stunned her.

"Actually, you had two broken ribs, a broken arm and ankle, a broken jaw, more bruises on your body than skin, but what almost killed you was the blood pouring from a hole in your head. I'm surprised you were able to stand on your own two feet." He got up from the side of the bed and held up a square remote with different pictures on each button. "This bed is designed for a hospital. The second one like it, is being delivered to an old friend. Now according to the manual, it does some really crazy things like heal broken bones, it has thermal heating strips to defrost people caught in blizzards and apparently administer injections to those smelly old people that can't get out of bed. It will also cleans aforementioned smelly old people."

"You should watch what you say. You could be one of those old people one day yourself and then you will need this bed to clean your dirty rear, because no one will be there to help you," Rachelle said.

"Oh, no darling. I have enough money saved up that I can keep myself looking like this for a long time and when my organs start failing, I'll get a really hot little shifter to bite me so that I can live for at least another thousand years."

She remembered him from her time in the mailing office. Eddie agreed to take a letter that he needed sent urgently to one of the other space stations. He'd been a pompous ass then too, but he did ask nicely and Eddie was headed that way.

"So why are you wasting your money on me if you need it for all your reconstructive surgeries? You could have left me to die or rot in jail."

"I couldn't leave you in jail because I can't allow my father to keep torturing innocent woman, and you my dear are innocent even if you do not believe so yourself. Others, like the Frebasch family, would disagree, but I couldn't care less what they think. All I care about is that they now think you are dead. As for wasting my money on you, I didn't. You were the perfect candidate to test out how well this baby works. Your eyes are no longer swollen shut, you don't have any broken bones or blood seeping out of holes and it doubled your blood cells so you didn't need a blood transfusion. Unfortunately, you're still a bit bruised, but it should heal up in a few days. Which brings me to why I helped you," Sebastian said.

"I thought you covered that. You didn't want your father torturing me," Rachelle said, not really believing it.

"That's one part of it. Part two is that I need you to be an ambassador for my new services-"

"Hold up one minute. Services? What kind of services."

"If you give me a chance, I'll tell you! It's not... sexual services, if that is what you are thinking. I might as well have left you to my father then. I'm trying to help all the women that have been wrongly accused. I've started a mail order bride service." He paused as though he wanted the information to sink in. She'd read many books, romance novels, about men seeking wives through a newspaper or setting up online adds. They usually worked out well for the brides, but real life always dealt her a hand from a loaded deck, so she would not put her trust in fairy tales.

"My friend needs a childminder for his son and I know you have some experience with kids, so you will be perfect for the position," he continued. "He will marry you so that you can legally use his money for things that Hawk will need, and you will have your own room."

Most planets had a legal system in place. No unmarried female could access an account of her boyfriend or fiance. Coral had the same problem when they went on a short vacation before their wedding. It would have been easier if he left money at the house for her to use, instead.

"I haven't discussed anything with him, since I don't know what you want him to know or if you would want to help him with his son. Hawk is... different. Deformed is a cruel word and I love that boy as my own, so never, ever tell him I said that. I just do not know how else to explain it. I don't know if he has hands, since he always keeps them covered and his hip didn't form properly, or maybe it's his leg. I just know he walks differently and he hardly eats. He also gets fevers in winter, and since you have a degree in nursing, you will know how to help him."

Rachelle remembered her own little sister that only ate when Rachelle fed her or cried out for her at night when she had bad nightmares. When she started getting sick every few weeks, Rachelle took a course in nursing, but then she'd been offered the position at the space station and had to go away to study. She never got a chance to find out what made Ticky sick.

"What happens if I don't become an ambassador for your new services?" Rachelle asked even though she had already decided to accept.

"Well, you don't really have another option. You do have an option to choose your future husband, but I don't have any other applicants at the moment. Look," Sabastian held onto her hand and gave it a little squeeze. "Hank is a good man, but he's had a tough time. Hawk's mother left him with a newborn son and he's kind of closed off to all women, but he needs help since he needs to travel a lot. He would never treat you badly or force you to do anything you wouldn't want to do, but he can be really grumpy. Let him be and do what you are there to do and you will both live happy lives. Who knows, he might even come to like you as his wife. One can only hope."

Sebastian pulled out two forms and passed it to her. "The first is Hank's requirements. The second is one I would like you to fill out. Please note that you are meant to be dead, so I had to give you a new name. I would have asked you for your choice in name, but you were out for over a day and this woman is apparently deceased, so I chose your new name for you."

Hank was a Tractarian, something she has never heard of. His requirements for a wife seemed simple enough. Looking after a ten year old would be much better than watching over a baby. Depending on the size of the house, she could keep him occupied in three rooms so that she didn't need to clean every day. He needed someone that could fly, though.

"Will I have to change straight away, or will he give me a chance to heal up and forget this nightmare?" she asked.

"I'll ask him to give you a few days. He's not unreasonable. I think the flying part is more for Hawk's benefit. He likes going out to set traps for his food. He can't hunt the way everyone else does."

She read the second form and filled in her requirements for her future husband. "This is what I would have put down if Hawk did not need a minder."

Description of potential mate: Provider, family man, a man willing to gain my trust without using it to his own benefit, kind and loyal, must accept me as I am in every way.

Rachelle Spencer just became Michelle Steyner.