Chapter 16
SUSANNA
“Daddy! Daddy is calling!” Illal burst into the kitchen where I was making dinner.
She carried her communication device in her outstretched hands. Plopping the device on the table, she hit a blob on the screen. A 3D hologram of Xavran’s figure appeared over it.
It had been two weeks since he’d left. And he’d been calling almost every day, unless sandstorms made communication impossible.
“Hi Dad!” The other three children ran in, then climbed on the chairs around the table.
I remained behind the counter, kneading the dough I was about to bake into rolls. Despite all my advancements in the kitchen, the dough recipe was too complicated for me to even attempt to make from scratch. Xavran had made it in advance, separated it into the batches of appropriate size, and frozen them for me to use while he was gone.
My hands kept pressing and squeezing as my attention was glued to the man on the screen.
Xavran was sitting in a chair, one ankle crossed over a knee. Dressed in dusty coveralls the color of terracotta, he appeared to have just come in from working outside.
He grinned. “How are you doing today, guys?”
“My tree sapling measured the tallest in the school garden today!” Xilvo declared proudly.
Ivex scoffed. “Mine is soooo going to beat it in a day or two.”
“Maybe it will, maybe it won’t.” Xilvo made a face at his brother. “Mine is still growing too.”
Illal rolled her eyes with a long-suffering look on her face.
“I won the pollination contest,” she bragged to her dad. “My osa bush has the most fruit out of the entire school, even though it didn’t have the most flowers. Do you know what pollinators I’ve selected?”
“Oh boy,” I muttered under my breath, bracing myself for her long list of pollinators.
“No.” Xavran laughed. “But I’m sure you’ll tell me.”
That was the only invitation Illal needed to list all twenty-three species of bugs she’d used for her project. I knew there were exactly twenty-three because she’d already named them all for me on the flight home from school and made me count them with her.
The kids jostled for space closer to the device with the image of their smiling father. Even Ene seemed to be in a good mood. She fetched from her room the picture she painted in school that day to show it to Xavran.
From my hiding spot out of the camera view, I watched him, taking in every familiar line of his face and noting all the new ones.
He looked tired. From our conversations during his calls, I’d learned his workdays started early and often stretched late into the night. Being the captain of the crew didn’t shield Xavran from getting his hands dirty. Some days, he appeared in the hologram dressed in the white and gray uniform of an officer. Other days, like today, he’d be wearing the work coveralls, which meant he’d been working down in the dirt and grease of the bowls of the giant machinery that crozan was.
“Where’s Susanna?” Xavran’s question snapped me out of my ogling him.
“I’m here.” I wiped my hands on the kitchen towel and stepped into the view of the camera.
His smile changed, his expression smoldering.
“There you are,” he murmured. The rumble of his voice resonated inside me. “I missed you.”
Oh, I missed him too. Every night before going to bed, I imagined his arms around me. That had become my one true happy place, and I desperately wished for more of his hugs.
The children glanced from the screen to me as I just stood there, silent and smiling.
“It’s nice to see you again,” was all I really could say in their presence.
“How have you been?” he asked in the same low, rumbling voice of his that rolled over me with another swell of heat.
“Good,” I cleared my throat. “I’ve been good. Thank you.”
He didn’t ask about Mara. Just as she never asked about him, either. She wasn’t at home, anyway. She went on a trip to Arqa three days ago. It had been the third time in two weeks she’d gone to the capital city. I didn’t mind. She seemed in a much better mood after those trips.
“Bye, Dad!” Xilvo jumped off the chair, obviously growing bored with the conversation.
Ivex hopped off too. “I’ll race you to your room!”
“We’re leaving for your swimming lessons in forty minutes!” I yelled after them as all four ran out of the kitchen.
“You know I dream about you every night,” Xavran’s voice sounded from behind me.
I whipped around to face his hologram.
“You do?”
Normally, we spoke about his work, or the kids, or how my day went. However, Xavran always managed to slip something sweet and sexy into our conversation when we were alone.
He leaned back in his chair. “Do you ever think about me?”
Every. Freaking. Minute.
“Sometimes.” I stepped closer to the table, clasping my hands in front of me.
He roamed his gaze over my body with the hunger in his eyes I’d never seen in any other man before him.
“Take me to your room,” he suddenly demanded.
“Um... I’m making buns... For dinner. To go with the stew.”
“The vehnun buns?”
“Yes. From the dough you had in the freezer.”
“Put them in the grill on the lowest setting. They’ll be done by the time you come back from swimming.”
That was my plan all along. Except that seeing that smolder of his had made all my plans flutter out of my head.
I did as he said, putting the tray with the rolls onto the grill, covering it with the lid, and adjusting the setting to low.
Then I grabbed the device from the table. His hologram ended up at my eye level. Xavran leaned closer into the camera. The 3D effect of the image was so realistic, it appeared I could touch his face if I reached out.
His dark eyes stared into mine. “Being away from you is torture, Susanna. Let me tell you what you and I did in my dream last night—”
“Xavran, no!” I slapped my hand over his mouth. It went through the image, breaking it into white glowing dots for a few seconds. “Oops, sorry. It’s just that the kids may be in earshot, you know?”
He grinned, leaning back in his chair. “Take me to your room, then.”