Ursa Major, Ursa Minor

Chapter Fourteen:

Mal learned that the Bull Mastiff’s name was Bruce when the dog climbed into his lap during an after-dinner drink out on the porch. Bruce thought he was a lap dog. Bruce weighed about as much as Jayne did.

Ma Cobb sipped at her hot toddy and smiled at the picture the captain painted. Her sons were out bringing a few of the horses back in for the night and Katie was busy setting up the empty rooms in the house for their guests.

“So, Mal, what happened, exactly?” Ma Cobb plopped down beside the captain and watched Bruce’s tail pummel the steps.

“What else,” Mal groused and sipped at his beer. “We got double-crossed by a client.”
Ma Cobb sighed and laid a mothering hand on the younger man’s shoulder. “Jayne said somethin’ about a high falutin’ shindig that he had to shave his goatee off for. You get paid fer that?”

“Yep,” Mal nodded. “He mention the dancin’ he had to do?” Mal asked.

Jayne’s mother grinned widely. “I told that boy he’d need those lessons one day. He dance with that pretty little brunette?”

“River?”

Ma Cobb performed what Mal was beginning to call the “Cobb Smack” against the base of his skull. “’Course, River, who else?”

“Jayne get his trackin’ skills from you, Ma?”

She grinned and smoothed the hair she’d mussed on Mal’s head. “You’re a sweet boy, Malcolm Reynolds. But don’t think I won’t put you to work while yer stayin’ here.”

*

River managed to sneak barefoot through the pasture and watch in twilight as Jayne and Matty rounded up a few of the wilder horses. Jayne sat astride a sandy-coated mare with black mane and he looked like a proper cowboy with his gun slung low on his hip and his hat tilted up. He whistled through his teeth and helped his younger brother guide the herd right past River.

She thought she got away with watching him, but he yanked on the mare’s reins and pulled to a stop.

“What the di yu are you doin’ out here, xuan ni?”
River didn’t really have an answer to that besides one that she felt would embarrass her. So she buttoned her lip and stared resolutely at the disappearing tails of the herd.

Jayne sighed and nudged his horse a bit closer to her. He reached one arm down and dragged her up into his lap. There wasn’t much free room on the saddle and the leather creaked at the added burden. River let out a squeak when Jayne banded one arm around her middle.

“Gonna answer me?” he huffed into her ear.

River shuddered. “Wanted to watch you,” she admitted.

Jayne clicked his tongue on the roof of his mouth and kicked to get the horse trotting again. Involuntarily, River reached down and grabbed his thighs.

Ai ya, ta ma de… Woman’s gonna kill me.

River blushed hotly as his quick thought swam into her brain and his arousal sailed along the base of her spine. “I like watching you,” she revealed. Her hands didn’t leave his thighs.

“Jayne?”

He cleared his throat. “Yeah, River?”

“The night you watched the cortex for me so I could sleep… I…”

“You were havin’ a good dream or somethin’,” Jayne interrupted.

River tilted her chin to catch his eyes in the dwindling light. “I have never had my own dream like that before. Did you—”

Jayne blurted it out. “I kissed ya, River.”

He literally felt the heat of her face (as well as his own) as she leaned further into him. “I…”

Jayne shifted on the saddle and slowed the horse down a bit. He was actually more red in the face than she was. “Weren’t right,” he said, “doin’ that while you were asleep ‘n all.”

River squeezed his thighs.

Oh, go se… I’m in for it…

“What about when I’m awake?”

Jayne dropped his forehead against the top of River’s head and he breathed in the smell of her. She leaned back against him as if she was trying to burrow inside him. His arm automatically tightened further around her belly and the fist he’d been making opened. His fingertips traced the seam of her dress and he felt River tremble at the light touch.

“My own feelings…” she murmured. “Haven’t felt my own feelings…”

Jayne felt her sigh contentedly. “Ya haven’t felt your own feelings fer a while now, have you?”

“Too long…”

The mare whinnied and shook her head in irritation, causing Jayne to break out of the semi-trance he was in. He looked up to see the porch lights just a few yards away. His teasing hand ceased it’s guitar play on River’s side.

“You tired?” he asked.

She managed to pull herself back to the here and now and nodded against Jayne’s chest. He kept a steadying hand on her waist when he dismounted then motioned for her to do the same. Instead of hopping to the dirt like he’d hoped she would, River leapt into Jayne’s arms with a giggle.

“Yer stayin’ in Amber’s old room.”

“Older sister, married to the blacksmith John Yan.”

“That’s Amber.”

“Her room is right next to yours.”

Jayne swallowed hard.

*

Matty was late getting back from the barn and rather peeved at the thoughtlessness of his big brother when he’d left Sunshine (the dun mare) saddled and looking bored out on the front lawn. Well, he was peeved until Kaylee came bounding outside to greet the animal.

She may have been attached to that Simon fellow, but Matty didn’t think looking ever hurt anyone. And Kaylee sure was a bit of shiny wrapped in pretty.

He tugged on Sunshine’s reins to get her head out of the grass and drew Kaylee’s attention away from the horse. She smiled that supernova grin at him—all dimples and sweetness—and rubbed her palm against Sunshine’s soft nose.

“Matty, right?” she asked.

Matty nodded and cursed under his breath as his hair flopped into his Cobb blue eyes (Ma always said that was the Cobb boy’s best weapon against the ladies). “Yer Kaylee?”

If it was possible, her dimpled grin grew wider. “Yep,” she rubbed at Sunshine’s chin one last time before turning her honey brown eyes to Matty. “You look tons like yer ge ge. Almost as tall as ‘im, too,” she paused. “So, what’s the mystery ‘bout Jayne anyhow?”

Matty was thrown for a loop and decided to distract himself by taking all the gear off poor Sunshine. She chewed at her bit in irritation. “Mystery? What’s mystifyin’ ‘bout my big brother?”

Kaylee helped him remove the saddle. “Well, I didn’t know the fella could do much but shoot good, punch hard, and play a decent tune on the guitar till recent. Now here I find he can dance real fancy-like.”

Matty snorted and shooed her hands away from helping him. “Jayne’s always been like that. Ma made him take the dance lessons to get him more ‘cultured’ an’ he just picked up the guitar on his own. In high school he tried to cover all that go se up by joinin’ the football team.”

He finished getting the gear off the mare and brushed her sweaty sides with a leather-gloved hand.

“Pa died ‘fore Jayne could finish his schoolin’ so the big ben dan left for the Black. Said he could make us plenty o’ cashy money doin’ mercenary work. Did, too. Ma’s just mad she don’t get to see him often enough.”

Kaylee got an awful thoughtful look on her face.

*

Night on planet side was so quiet compared to night in the Black. Despite the chirp of crickets (and a few frogs), it was silence unlike the whirring of a mid-bulk transport ship engine, air circulation, and Mal’s snoring that all echoed throughout the Firefly class ship.

Jayne was out like a light as soon as he flopped face-first into his old bed.

Home-smell and home-feel surrounded him in a blanket of comfort that (even across the hall) River burrowed herself into without thinking. She focused on only Jayne and fell asleep with him on her mind. And, without realizing it, him in her mind. Or the other way around.


TBC