“It is all merely a hilarious misunderstanding.” Jaspar smiled to show how funny this all was. Liza returned a look of skepticism. “I was attempting to correct my brother’s poor English. He was the one who suggested that our first date would be sub-optimal. He was wrong, of course.”
Korl shrugged. “No roast glaar-beast and no slaying of the rivals? I did not lie. Your date will both siphon and suck.”
“You lost me several miles back,” Liza said. “Which is fine with me. I only came here to let you know that since you’ve got this place booked, I’m helping my grandparents move some of their stuff into our extra guest cottage next door. I’ll be sleeping there as well.”
Jaspar felt a stab of dismay. The human female belonged under the same roof as him.
He shook his head. “That is unacceptable,” he said to her. “We agreed that you would be staying here to provide for us for the next two weeks. It’s in the contract. Read it. And your grandparents must stay somewhere else.” He didn’t want her family getting underfoot and interfering with his seduction. His own clan was bad enough.
“The agreement only covered you staying in this building,” she said. “There’s a guest cottage right there in the back. That’s where we will all be staying. And we need to keep our business running up until Christmas day. Nothing in the contract prohibits that.”
Jaspar spluttered for a moment, but the female had temporarily outwitted him. She was wily, this one. She made a worthy opponent.
“You, however, must sleep in this building,” he said to her. When she started to protest, he added, “It is in the contract. Read it.” And he tried not to smirk too broadly.
She glared at him for a long moment, then shrugged. “Fine. I will sleep in my bedroom at night. Right now I need to help my grandparents, and also time’s a-wasting. Get your mechanic moving. That Santabot isn’t going to fix itself.”
She flounced off.
Jaspar turned to Loren, chief mechanic for the Balthazar clan, who nodded. “I shall attend to it immediately,” he said.
“Let me help you,” Jaspar’s mother said. “I’m bored.”
Jaspar glanced at her askance as she followed Loren out. His mother had a suspiciously happy gleam in her eye, and although he loved his dear matriarch, she whose scaly bottom had occasionally warmed his egg as it matured, he did not trust her any further than he could throw a meteor.
He glanced at Sterran.
“Opinion. Would our mother attempt to sabotage a mechanical being whose only purpose is to bring happiness to small children, if it suited her own selfish ends?”
“Question,” his brother retorted. “Is it necessary for you to query me on this matter, having known the matriarch your entire life?”
Sterran was right. Also, Loren, her youngest clutchling, was a little bit afraid of his matriarch and was overly eager to please her.
“Go watch her,” he ordered Sterran. “Do not let her do too much damage.”
She’d fry that Santabot’s circuits in a hot nanosecond if it meant getting her way.
* * * * *
It took a little longer than Jaspar had hoped, because some of the equipment necessary for repair was on their spaceship, which was in orbit around Far North. He had to send his hovercraft for the components they needed. However, by the end of the day, the Santabot seemed to be working, and Sterran and Loren were flying overhead doing some final testing.
Jaspar stood on the front porch, watching. He knew this was important to his mate, the future mother of his clutchlings, and therefore it was important to him.
As far as he could tell, the Santabot had been repaired properly and was functioning in an optimal fashion.
Liza walked up to him, wearing her red velvet outfit and black boots. She looked disgruntled. Her grandfather and grandmother were with her, looking much more cheerful, and the little female Srilaa was following along behind her.
“Pawpaw and Mawmaw insisted on being formally introduced to you,” she said with a scowl. “Jaspar, these are my grandparents. Grandparents, this is Jaspar, the jerk who’s buying our colony.”
Her grandmother’s soft, round face wrinkled in a frown. “That’s hardly in the Christmas spirit, dear. He’s a guest.”
“I am trying very hard to stay in the Christmas spirit, but the best I’m coming up with is not punching anybody,” Liza said. “Yet. The day isn’t over.” She scowled at Jaspar. “And I still don’t believe you had nothing to do with the fungus.”
“Now, now, Liza. We’re getting ready to go look for a new Christmas tree, and we would like to invite you,” her grandmother said cheerfully to Jaspar. “You can even pick out the tree and chop it down.”
“But it appears as if you already have a Christmas tree in your lobby,” he said, looking puzzled.
“You can never have too many Christmas trees,” her grandfather informed him. “We like to share the traditions of Christmas with all our guests.”
