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  BRAXX

  Dakonian Alien Mail Order Brides 6

  Intergalactic Dating Agency

  Cara Bristol

  She’s given up on love, but love hasn’t given up on her…

  If there’s anything Holly Hansen has learned, it’s that falling for a persuasive charmer is a sure path to a broken heart. It happened when her fiancé abandoned her just when she needed him most. Everything about the smoking-hot alien, Braxx, reminds her of her ex: his good looks, his confidence, his persistence. He won’t take no for an answer and shows up night after night at the restaurant where she works. It’s enough to wear a girl down, make her doubt her convictions, maybe hope that love can conquer the heartbreak of the past…

  Dakonian Braxx is a simple man with simple needs: find a good woman and have a big family. With females in short supply on his planet, he heads for Earth through the Intergalactic Dating Agency. The instant he meets Holly Hansen, his horns begin to throb, and he realizes she’s the ONE. His Fated mate. He can’t wait to settle down with her and make beautiful babies together. Unfortunately, she doesn’t seem to recognize they’re meant to be together. But he didn’t come this far to give up easily, and he hopes that with patience and baby steps, he’ll win her heart.

  Just when it seems he’ll succeed, Holly’s past comes back to haunt them. Can a heartbreak be too deep for love to fix?

  Braxx: Dakonian Alien Mail Order Brides #6

  Copyright © November 2019 by Cara Bristol

  All rights reserved. This copy is intended for the original purchaser of this e-book ONLY. No part of this e-book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without prior written permission from the author. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  eISBN : 978-1-947203-13-6

  Editor: Kate Richards

  Copy Editor: Nanette Sipe

  Cover Artist: Croco Designs

  Formatting by Wizards in Publishing

  Published in the United States of America

  Cara Bristol

  http://www.carabristol.com

  This e-book is a work of fiction. While reference might be made to actual historical events or existing locations, the names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Epilogue

  Alien Mate

  Other Titles by Cara Bristol

  About Cara Bristol

  Chapter One

  Holly

  Balancing a huge tray of barbecue with all the fixin’s, Dixie veered my way. “Lover boy is here,” she sang in a loud whisper and chuckled.

  “He’s not my lover boy!” More like my stalker, except he’d never done anything but eat dinner, which the last time I checked wasn’t a crime. Unfortunately.

  “Whatever. Braxx is waiting for you at his usual table.”

  Table eight at 7:00 p.m. The dude had a standing reservation at Barbie Q’s and never failed to show. I could set my watch by his arrival. Would the man never give up? What would it take to get it through his horned alien head I wasn’t interested?

  If he’d been just any guy, any customer, I could have asked Barb, my boss, to ban him from the restaurant, except he happened to be her brother-in-law. If I had realized Kord had come with familial attachments, I might not have tried so hard to get them together. “I’ll deal with him.” I sighed.

  Dixie scooted away to deliver her meals to her customers. A slow burn heating in my neck spread up to my face as I stomped over to table eight.

  As soon as Braxx spotted me, he flashed a confident grin, like he expected a twitch of his full lips and a flash of white teeth to have some sort of effect. However, that grin acted like the measles. If you caught it and survived, you were immune. My ex-fiancé, Addison, used to smile in the same brash way. I’d fallen for it back when I was young and stupid, but I liked to think I’d matured.

  Thank goodness because, on Braxx, that smile could be lethal. Even though he left me stone cold, I had to admit he was the handsomest man I’d ever laid eyes on, and Dakonians as a whole were an attractive bunch. They defined tall, dark, and handsome. Seven feet tall, most of them. Mocha skin, near-black hair worn to the shoulders. Muscles to spare.

  In the genetic game of chance, the Dakonians had been dealt a royal flush—if you discounted the mutation causing female births to plummet, forcing the males to emigrate from their planet to find mates. Braxx and his brother Kord had come to Earth through the Intergalactic Dating Agency, which matched Earth girls with alien bachelors.

  “Same as usual?” I eased into the confrontation with a little chitchat.

  He nodded. “Dixie is bringing it.”

  He’d been here so often, he knew all the waitresses’s names. He always ordered the same thing—barbecue beef, no sauce. Barbie Q’s brisket drew a lot of Dakonians because the flavor reminded them of kel, some sort of animal on their home planet.

  Okay, enough small talk. “You need to stop coming here,” I said. “Go back to the IDA, reactivate your membership, and start dating.”

  “I can’t do that. You’re my mate,” he said.

  In another unfortunate happenstance, the first time he’d come into the restaurant, he’d imprinted on me like a baby duck and gotten it into his crazy horned head we were Fated mates.

  He scrutinized me now, his leathery dark horns swelling and twitching. His expectant expression stabbed me with guilt then pissed me off for making me feel guilty then heaped on more guilt for getting angry. My stomach fluttered in the oddest way. Almost a tugging sensation. Dealing with him always put me in a tizzy.

  “How many times do I have to tell you I’m not your woman? I will never be your woman.” I shoved my hands into my apron pockets.

  He quirked his mouth. “So you say, yet you keep coming to see me.”

  “To convince you to leave me alone!” I didn’t come that often, either! I dodged him whenever possible, avoided him like the plague, made myself scarce. Only bad luck caused our paths to cross as often as they did.

  He shrugged and spread his palms, drawing my attention to his hands. He had masculine hands, working man’s hands, big and broad but with long fingers, the pads slightly callused, the nails neatly trimmed but unmanicured. You could tell a lot about a man from his hands. In contrast, Addison’s fussy hands had put the man in manicure. “So stay away, then,” Braxx said.

  “Excuse me?” My fists came out of my pockets to land on my hips. “I work here.” I was the assistant manager of Barbie Q’s. I’d started with Barb back when the two of us slopped barbecue out of a food truck. She’d since grown it into the hottest restaurant in town.

  “I eat here,” he said. “Barb is family.” His ready grin dropped off his face. “Why do you dislike me?” Arrogance parted to reveal an unexpected naked vulnerability, reminding me of a little boy who’d learned the truth about San
ta Claus.

  Crap. I’d hurt his feelings. That shouldn’t bother me, but it did. I’d tried to be honest. I couldn’t be responsible for his infatuation. Love at first sight, soul mates sounded romantic in love songs, but they didn’t stand up to the test of real life. “I don’t dislike you; I just don’t like you the way you think you like me.” I skipped around the truth.

  I had disliked him on sight. He hadn’t done anything or said anything, but something about him had me grinding my teeth. Why? I dug through memories of my first impression when he’d come into the restaurant last year. What had I disliked about him so much anyway?

  The grin. The confidence. His refusal to take no for an answer.

  So much like Addison.

  Bingo. Braxx reminded me of my ex, Addison Rutherford Smythe III. The only things more pretentious than my ex’s name were the family and money he’d come from. I should have trusted my instincts. Addison of the winning grin carried the assurance of a man used to getting his way because no one denied a Smythe anything. His reputation had preceded him, so I’d shied away from getting involved. I turned him down when he asked me out the first time, and the second, and the third. After being surrounded by yes-men his entire life, encountering a no-woman had intrigued him. He’d pursued me relentlessly and worn me down. Doubting my own wariness, I caved. I went out with him.

  He created a fairy tale that swept me away. I fell in love. I believed in him. I trusted him. That’s when the train ran off the track.

  First impressions and gut certainty rarely erred. I learned that the hard way, and I had no desire to repeat the lesson. Braxx was even rich like Addison. Richer. His planet, Dakon, was covered with illuvian ore, a mineral easily converted to a source of cheap energy. The Dakonians didn’t own a gold mine—they lived on the equivalent of a gold planet. I’ll give you one guess what they did with the ore.

  Built stone huts.

  But in coming to Earth, they exchanged ore for currency, making them loaded. For them, a billion dollars amounted to pocket change.

  No, I didn’t need a sexy alien rich boy who considered himself the “Fates’” gift to women.

  “I don’t like you,” he said.

  I blinked. Well, uh…good. Maybe I’d gotten through to him.

  “Like is too tepid for what I feel for you. You’re my life mate.” He pressed a hand to his buckskin-covered chest. Most of the Dakonians wore tunics and leggings fashioned from kel skin. Wooden and clay beads adorned the sleeve cuffs and hem of his tunic. For a Dakonian, he was decked out to the max. Barb’s mate never dressed this fancy.

  Braxx looked hot.

  I disliked him, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t admire an attractive man who dressed well and paid attention to grooming.

  “I knew you were the female for me the moment I saw you. You fill my days with joy and my nights with sweet dreams. You make my horns throb and my heart race. I cannot imagine a life without—”

  “Stop!” In the name of love, stop. I thrust my hand out like Diana Ross. “Don’t say another word.” Didn’t every woman dream of capturing a man’s undying devotion? Once I’d longed for it. I should have been more specific in releasing my request into the universe. I should have specified the feeling had to be mutual. Coming from the right man, such a declaration would be thrilling; from him, it was painful. Definitely not thrilling. My heart raced out of consternation. The heat of embarrassment flooded my face. Dismay brought tears too close to the surface and clogged my throat.

  I had to end this, now. His behavior amounted to borderline stalking, maybe not even borderline. Whatever. It had gone on far too long. I had done nothing to encourage this guy. Nothing!

  Ignoring the problem hadn’t made him go away. He’d progressed from watching to speaking of his infatuation. I prided myself on solving my own problems. I shied away from involving other people, especially my boss. Of course, Barb was my best friend, too, but friendship complicated matters. She and this guy’s brother had mated and married, making this guy part of her family. But I’d reached my wit’s end. I’d run out of ideas. I would have to ask her to get Kord to talk to Braxx.

  I slapped my hands on the table right in a blob of ketchup. The table hadn’t been bused properly. Damn Raul. Worst busboy we’d ever had. Ignoring the stickiness, I leaned forward and forced myself to make eye contact.

  “Listen. To. Me. I don’t want to hurt you, but you have not been getting the message. I want you to stop coming here. You and I are not a couple. We never will be. Please find yourself a nice girl who will love you the way you deserve. I’m not her. Are we clear?”

  Dark eyes flashed and horns twitched. “Perfectly.”

  I straightened, held my head high, and marched out of the dining room into the hall, whereupon, out of sight, I sprinted for the women’s room, charged into a stall, and burst into tears.

  Why did it feel like my heart was breaking?

  Chapter Two

  Braxx

  Twenty-four chattering kits wearing colorful backpacks skipped along the wooded trail on a nature hike field trip. Mrs. Jennetta led the way, a couple of mothers guided the middle of the group, and I guarded the rear to ensure no one veered off and got lost.

  The last kit in the line stopped dead and peered back at me. “Mr. Braxx, can you tie my shoe, please?”

  He stuck his foot out to show the boot bindings had come loose, and the strings were hanging. “Aren’t you supposed to do that yourself?” I asked, having been advised not to do what the kits could do for themselves so they would learn.

  Mrs. Jennetta had covered string tying in one of her lessons—which was how I had figured out how to make knots and bows. We didn’t have boot strings on Dakon. Earth footwear, like most everything else on the planet, was complex.

  “I forgot how,” he said.

  “Well, I guess I can help you, then. I forget a lot of things, too. There’s a lot to remember.” I snuck a peak at the name tag stuck to his shirt. Ann…thon…eee. Silently I sounded out his name. I was learning to read and write along with the children. A translator implanted behind my ear allowed me to speak and understand Earth languages but not how to read or write them.

  Gilbert Avenue Elementary School had asked the Intergalactic Dating Agency if they could send aliens to speak to the kits. I had volunteered. The kits, teachers, and administrators had seemed fascinated by my descriptions of life on Dakon. Thereafter, I’d been offered employment as a teacher’s aide in Mrs. Jennetta’s kindergarten class. I enjoyed working with kits. Until the day came when I could have my own, I got to spend time with these.

  I knelt. Anthony’s canvas-and-rubber shoes appeared rather worn and dirty like they’d seen a lot of use. Holes in the material would not keep his feet dry. Fortunately it didn’t rain often in New Los Angeles. “Tell you what, Anthony, I’ll demonstrate, and then you can try.” I showed him how to cross the two ends, tuck one under, pull it tight, make a loop, wrap the other end around it, pull it through, and tighten again. “And then you’re done. Now you tie your shoe.” I undid the bow.

  I could have tied his boot in a fraction of the time that it took him, but his proud smile as he finished indicated Mrs. Jennetta’s advice had been wise. “Do you have shoelaces on Dakon?” he asked.

  “No. No buttons, snaps, zippers, or Velcro, either.” I stood up and tousled his hair.

  “No Velcro?” His eyes widened. “What do you use?”

  “Toggles.” I pointed to the pieces of kel bone fitting through the loops on my tunic. “But most of our clothing and footwear is made to be slipped on.”

  “That would be nice,” he said.

  “Come,” I said. “We’d better catch up with the others.” The rest of the group had disappeared around the trail bend.

  I expected him to jog on ahead, but he remained at my side, so I closed up my stride to accommodate his shorter one. “What are your clothes made of?” he asked.

  “Kel.”

/>   “An alien animal.”

  I grinned. “Yes.”

  “Do they have two heads and a stinger and shoot fire out their noses?”

  I laughed. “No. They resemble your Earth horse, only bigger and with horns.”

  He glanced up at me. “Like yours?”

  “Much bigger.” I held my forearms over my temples and spread my fingers. “Gigantic.”

  “Can you ride a kel?”

  No one would dare. “No, they’re too dangerous.”

  “Oh. I rode a horse once. My big brother took me to a stable. I got to pet the horses, feed them carrots and sugar cubes, and then ride one. It was a bestest day,” he said wistfully. “Then he moved away, so he’s not my brother anymore. I hope I can get a new big brother.”

  “How can you get a new big brother?” I understood how he could have a smaller brother, but he had to be at least five or six solar rotations, so he had a big head start in growth on any brother born now.

  “He wasn’t really my brother. It’s like a club. Older kids help little kids who don’t have dads.”

  “You don’t have a father?”

  He shook his head. “Or a mother. I have a foster mother, Minnie Maw we call her, but it’s not the same.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “You don’t have foster care on Dakon?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Foster care is for kids who don’t have parents, or whose parents don’t want them or can’t take care of them,” he said. “We live in other people’s homes.”

  The information and his matter-of-fact tone shocked me. Had Anthony’s parents died? Or had they rejected him?

  I couldn’t imagine anyone not wanting children. The concept was so…alien to me, but most things on Earth were. Perhaps Dakonians valued kits because we’d struggled so hard to have them. A few centuries ago, an asteroid hit Dakon and threw the planet into an ice age. A virus carried on the asteroid mutated our DNA, resulting in fewer and fewer female births. The situation had reached a crisis; our species would become extinct unless we could find females and produce offspring.