Two Men for Piper [The Men of Space Station One #7] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) by Marla Monroe Read Free Book Online

after arriving. She shuddered.
    After taking care of the dishes and wiping down the kitchen, Piper decided to start cleaning the house from top to bottom. It wasn’t in bad shape at all, but she would feel better knowing that she had cleaned it. She started in the last bedroom and wiped everything down before moving to the next room.
    Piper stopped just in time to make sandwiches for lunch. She couldn’t believe she had almost forgotten them. By the time men made it inside, she had them on the table along with iced tea.
    “How are you doing out there?”
    “It’s slow going. We’ve mapped out where the fence is going, but digging the holes and setting the poles takes time. At this rate, it’s going take longer than we figured. Plus, the posts have to set for a couple of days. Once we get the posts all set, we’ll work on the garden.” Tripp took a bite out of his sandwich.
    “You won’t have to worry much about the garden for a week or so since it has to grow for you to tell what are weeds and what are plants,” Keith said.
    “Don’t I have to water it?”
    “We’ll worry about that later. Maybe we can do it before we leave or when we get back at night.” Tripp looked a little worried.
    She hated to bring up things that added burdens on the men, but she needed to make sure they were addressed. Their food source depended on taking good care of it.
    Once they finished eating, they returned to working on the fence. She cleaned up the kitchen once more and decided to cook a roast. She would start it in between cleaning. She set out the roast to thaw, hoping it would before she was ready to start it. She might have to put it in hot water to finish thawing it.
    Once all the bedrooms were finished, she returned to the kitchen and made the decision to soak the roast. Her mind kept drifting to the creature that had come after her. She decided to look through the pamphlet and identify it. She needed to refresh her memory on everything in it anyway. It was obvious they were going to have to deal with them fairly regularly.
    Everything was ready for dinner once the roast got ready. She set a timer to make sure she didn’t forget about it and walked into the living room where the men had left the little booklet.
    The first thing she realized was that she really hadn’t paid enough attention to the information in it. There were some hints on how to cook some of the native plants that they hadn’t been taught on the ship—shuttle. Currick had to be cooked a little longer than she thought. Posh cooked better on a lower temperature, and stone berries required more sweetener than recommended by her teachers.
    Then she focused on the animals on the planet and realized just how lucky she had been. The doglike creature was a called a dorrie and had two rows of sharp teeth along with saliva that would burn like acid. It didn’t appear to be afraid of man. They were loners and didn’t appear to run in packs, which was a good thing.
    There was a ratlike creature called a muskie that was as big as a cat. It also had acid saliva and was more often found in the cellars. They could squeeze through most any hole despite being so large. They were pack-like creatures.
    She read through the other animals before putting the book down. The pictures showing the animals were a bit blurry but good enough to make identifying them fairly easy.
    The bell on the timer rang, indicating it was time to pull the roast out of the oven. She would change the oven over to warm and put it back in once the temperature had dropped inside. The vegetables were essentially done. She turned the stove off and fixed the rolls she’d left to rise. They would go in once the men had returned and were washing up.
    She looked at the clock on the stove and figured there was about two hours of sun left with the extra hour they had on the planet. She was going to have a difficult time remembering that and getting used to it. The funky-looking clocks she had noticed