Chapter 7
SUSANNA
After their snack, the kids ran back to their rooms to change and play, or whatever it was kids their age did on this planet.
Stefan left for the day, and the captain seemed to be starting dinner in the kitchen. I followed Stefan’s advice to keep out of his way and headed out of the kitchen.
“Where are you going?” he stopped me.
“Um, unpack?”
“Haven’t you done that already? And if you haven’t, you can always do it later. Yours was the smallest suitcase of the three, anyway.”
I hesitated by the exit. “I thought you preferred working alone.”
His dark eyes narrowed. He appeared to be lost for words for a moment.
“Do you like wine?” he asked unexpectedly.
That was sudden. Was it a trick question?
“Sometimes,'' I replied tentatively.
He produced two clay goblets from a shelf above the water feature and put them on the counter next to the grill.
“Here.” He got two jugs from the cold room under the hill. “This one is Voranian wine.” He splashed some dark purple liquid into one goblet, then used his teeth to pull the cork from the second jug. “And this one is Aldraian.” He poured magenta pink liquid into the other goblet. “Which one do you like better?”
I sat on a high bar stool on the other side of the counter.
“Let’s see.” I took a small sip of the first one. The Voranian wine was dry and slightly bitter, but it had a bouquet of sophisticated flavors and a nice aftertaste. “It’s good.” I took a taste from the other goblet. The Aldraian wine was milder and sweeter. The bouquet of flavors was not nearly as complex.
If all the fancy wine tastings I’d been to had taught me anything, the Voranian wine would appeal to more sophisticated tastes. But the Aldraian wine was easier to drink.
Lately, I far preferred ease to sophistication.
“This one.” I took another sip of the pink wine.
Once again, the crooked grin made an appearance on his normally stern face. He filled my goblet with the Aldraian wine, then emptied the other goblet in one gulp.
“I knew it! Stefan likes our wine too. You humans like sweet things, don’t you?”
“Generally, yes,” I agreed, thinking of candy and chocolate.
He poured himself some Aldraian wine, too, before recorking the jug.
“I also know you do this on Earth.” He clinked the edge of his goblet against mine. “Welcome to Aldrai.”
The alien man just toasted me. I laughed. This entire experience felt surreal. I still couldn’t believe I was actually on another planet.
“Thank you.” I took a sip of my wine. “Did Stefan show you how we toast?”
“No.” His lips glistened in the light of the setting sun, stained by wine as mine must be. “This was in the videos I watched during my research about Earth and humans.”
He knew so much about my world, even though he’d never been there. And here I was in a world I knew absolutely nothing about.
I decided to ask Stefan tomorrow where I could read or watch something about Aldrai and Diria, the small town where we were.
As the sky grew darker, soft yellow lights flicked on along the top of the hedges and in the canopy of the tall tree in the corner of the kitchen. A woven seat with cushions hung from a thick branch of the tree, and I wondered if that was the place where the captain liked to sit after dinner sometimes. I most definitely would if I had that in my house.
He uncovered the grill and turned it on, then brought a huge black cauldron from the cold room.
“Is this dinner?” I asked.
“Hm.” He nodded, heaving the cauldron onto the grill and centering it over the fire. “Will be ready in about an hour.”
I didn’t bother asking what was in the cauldron. The local names and terms weren’t translatable by my device, anyway. It was best to wait and find out.
“That’s it? That’s all you have to do to make dinner?” I took a swig of my wine. Sweet fuzziness was slowly spreading through my insides. Weariness drained from my muscles. Any lingering awkwardness dissipated too. “You make cooking look easy,” I teased.
He laughed. The sound reverberated through his wide chest with a growl so low it resonated in my chest with a pleasant tingling sensation.
“I fished the ingredients for this dish out of the lake two days ago,” he said. “I cleaned them, then marinated in the sauce that took hours to mix and weeks to ferment. But yes, the cooking part is easy.”
“Impressive.” I nodded with appreciation. “Did you say you fished? Are we having fish for dinner?”
“Sort of.” He fixed the lid over the grill, enclosing the cauldron, then walked over to my side of the counter with his wine goblet.
“Did you work as a nanny back on Earth?” he asked casually, taking a seat on the barstool next to me.
No one had asked me about any previous nanny experience before. Would he send me back home if he found out I had none?
I could lie. It was unlikely he would want to check my references at this point. But I resolved to avoid lying at all costs. This was my new start.
“No. This is my first job as a nanny,” I confessed. “I worked in a clothing store before.”
Now, I was glad to have any working experience at all. Had he asked me just two months ago, I would’ve had to admit that I’d made it to the ripe age of thirty without having to work a day in my life.
“Do you think you’ll manage?” There was concern in his voice.
“I’m a fast learner,” I assured him. “I have the patience and determination to succeed.”
Not to mention a whole lot of motivation not to go back to Earth.
“If you need anything to make it easier for you, just ask.”
“Thank you,” I replied with genuine gratitude.
“Personally, I think my children are the best in the world.” He smirked. “But I know they can be a handful. Stefan would tell you.”
“They’re adorable. I hope we’ll get along.” I meant it with all my heart.
He took a drink from his goblet. “Your family name is different from that of your sister’s. What does it mean?”
“It’s my husband’s last name. I took it after we got married.”
His dark gaze flicked to mine. “You’re married?”
For a man who Stefan claimed rarely spoke, the captain seemed to be rather talkative with me.
I stared at the shimmering pink of the wine in my goblet.
“Was. I was married. I’m a widow now,” I said slowly.
A widow.The word sounded strange and heartbreakingly sad. Never in a million years would I have believed it’d apply to me so soon.
He leaned onto his elbow propped on the counter. His expression grew even more somber, his stare unmoving on me.
“Do you have more family?” he asked, thankfully, not one of the questions I feared. I wasn’t ready to speak about Tom’s death.
I shook my head. “Mara is the only close relative I have.”
“Are your parents gone, too?”
“Yes. They died in a plane crash. Six years ago.”
My father was the owner and the pilot of that plane. Having a private jet with a crew available to take him anywhere he wished hadn’t been enough for him. He’d wanted to learn how to fly too. He had bought a turboprop plane, taken some flying lessons, then crashed it with him and my mother on board.