“No. I wanted to meet you in person first.”
I didn’t blame him for wanting to protect his children.
“Do they know that I’m here, at all?”
“No. I was going to tell them later, after—” He stopped himself. “Well, after you would’ve settled.”
But I hadn’t. I hadn’t settled into my role of his wife and his children’s stepmom as the whole world had expected me to do. At this point, I wasn’t even their nanny. As far as the children would ever know, I was a nobody—a random visitor from another planet, who would be gone from their lives by the time of their dad’s next visit here.
All of it felt so excruciatingly sad.
Yes, my husband was...difficult at times. Not counting that initial burst of lust, the only feelings he’d expressed toward me had been those of duty and obligation. This marriage was nothing more than a status symbol to him and empty misguided hopes for me. But I wondered what would’ve happened had we tried hard enough to make it work.
Right now, it felt like we hadn’t tried at all.
“It’s fine,” I said to him. “I understand. You have nothing to worry about. I’m just visiting here.”
He watched me carefully for another moment, then opened his mouth as if about to say something.
The wide sliding doors on the opposite end of the dome finally opened, and several columns of little Voranians marched out. Arranged by height, from the shortest to the tallest, a few hundred children filled the grassy space under the dome.
Walking in sync, they maintained perfect order, like a true military parade. Until about halfway through. Once the kids started spotting their dads in the crowd of parents, the rows and columns wavered then broke apart.
“Dad! Daddy!” seemed to come from everywhere at once, as children ran to their parents.
“There they are!” The Colonel grinned, stepping forward then taking off in a jog toward the approaching children.
Two little fur balls in gray uniforms separated from the crowd, dashing his way.
“Daddy!”
He caught them, each in one arm, then took them for a spin a few times. Their little arms wrapped around his thick neck, they giggled and covered his face with kisses.
My heart melted and ached at seeing them together like that, and I pressed my hands to my chest, struggling to hold it together.
“I’ve brought someone who wants to meet you.” He set the boys down on the ground, tilting his horns my way.
The kids let go of him, staring at me with two pairs of wide-open eyes.
“What’s this?” one asked, taking a tentative step my way.
“Not what! Olvar, where are your manners?” The Colonel looked mortified, and I laughed.
“My name is Daisy.” I crouched down to bring myself to their eye level.
“Are you a girl?” The other one shifted hoof to hoof next to his brother. Their little uniforms were almost identical to that of their father, gray with gold-and-red trim. Instead of his impressive epaulettes, however, they had narrow stripes of gold on their shoulders.
“A woman,” the Colonel corrected. “And I demand you two treat Daisy with respect.”
“Yes, father,” they said in unison.
Being an identical copy of each other, they would be impossible to tell apart. However, I noticed that their eye color was different. Olvar’s eyes were bright red, just like their dad’s. Zun’s were vivid orange, which was the mix of the Colonel’s red with the golden-yellow of their mother’s.
“I’m so happy your dad brought me along today.” I smiled, offering my hand to Olvar, who happened to be a little closer to me. He appeared to be a bit more daring than his brother. “It’s very nice to meet you.”
With a serious expression on his face, the boy took my hand in both of his, lowering his head in a perfectly executed formal bow.
“It’s nice to meet you too, Madam...” He gave his father a questioning look, as if enquiring about the proper form of addressing me.
“Daisy,” I rushed out. “Just call me Daisy, please.”
“What’s a daisy?”
“It’s the name of a flower from Earth, the planet I come from. But it’s also my first name.”
“Are you a grownup? Because it’s not proper to address a grownup by their first name, unless they’re a family. Are you a family?”
The Colonel’s brief cough sounded from the side.
“I’m a friend,” I said to Olvar quickly. “Friends call each other by their first names, don’t they? You’ll call me Daisy, and I’ll call you Olvar. Deal?”
He blinked, glancing at his father then back at me again.
“Deal.” He nodded somberly, shaking my hand between his two.
“And you must be Zun?” I offered my hand to the second boy, who lingered behind his brother.
“Yeah...” He scratched his shoulder.
“Zun.” Olvar shoved an elbow into his brother’s side.
“Oh, um.” Zun came closer to me, grabbing my hand with both of his in the Voranian greeting. “I am very pleased to meet you...Daisy.”
“Great.” I fluffed the fur on the back of his hand with my other hand. Zun’s fur was much finer than his father’s. It stood up on top of his head and curled above his ears in the same fashion as his brother’s. “Guess what we’re going to do, now?”
“What?” Zun tilted his head to the side, pulling at his ear. Curiosity shone in his bright orange eyes.
“We’re going outside.” I smiled.
“Where outside?” Olvar hopped closer. So close, I had to shuffle backwards in my crouch, lest he stab me with his little horns in excitement.
“You’ll see.” Compared to the Colonel’s, their horns were tiny, barely three inches long, if that. I noticed a ring of characters carved on Olvar’s right horn. His brother had a similar design, too. “What does the writing on your horn mean?”
“Olvar Shula Kyradus. Cadet #397576-H of the Voran Military Academy,” he recited proudly, without tripping over the long number.
“Dad has more,” Zun pointed out.
With a kind expression in his eyes, the Colonel ruffled the fuzzy fur on his son’s head.
“Those chosen for a military career get their first carving shortly after birth.” He took Zun’s hand in his right hand, catching Olvar’s with his left, then led all of us toward the parking hangar. “As the career and rank advance, the record expands.”
Walking next to him, I studied the long spiral of carvings on his right horn. It started from about three inches from the top, swirling down to the base, with barely a sliver of clean space visible above the fur on his head.
“What happens if you run out of space?”
“The horns grow. Much slower with age, though. The trick is to rise through the ranks at the same rate as the horns grow, I guess.” He laughed. The deep sound pleasantly resonated through my chest.
“Could there be some electronic records, instead?” I asked.
“There are. This is just an old tradition to publicly display one’s accomplishments,” he said, then added casually, “And a good way to identify a dead body of a soldier fallen on a battlefield. Especially if the rest of him has been destroyed beyond recognition.”
“Dead?” I gaped at him then glanced at the children.
He intercepted my gaze.
“My sons are future soldiers, Daisy. They’re aware of the risks that come with their occupation.”
“Are you okay with that?”
“If there is an untimely death in their future, I can only hope it’ll come with honor and dignity. We all die, sooner or later. An honorable death on a battlefield is better than many others.”
“OH NO!” I DUCKED, AVOIDING a snow ball thrown my way. “I need a break.”
Panting hard from running through snowdrifts in the deserted outdoor park, I plopped on my butt into the nearest snowbank. I’d laughed so much this morning, my facial muscles started cramping.
“Da
isy!” The boys crushed into me at full speed, knocking me backwards. “We’re not done yet.”
“Ten minutes, guys, please,” I begged. “I’ll come finish your fort with you right after I catch my breath. Promise.”
“Come, gentlemen.” The Colonel ripped them both off me. “We’ll start another wall for the fort while the lady regains her strength.”
As soon as their father set them down, Olvar kicked his hoof up, spraying his brother with snow.
“Hey!” Zun leaped aside, adjusting his hat that kept sliding over his eyes, even though it was held by his horns sticking through the holes in the top. Zun stuck his tongue out at his brother. “Maaah.”
My jaw dropped. “Wow!”
Dark-red and tapered at the end, his tongue must’ve been at least twice as long as mine.
“That is quite a tongue you have there, mister—” I stopped myself quickly, realizing that wasn’t what I should be focusing on. “That’s not the way to treat your brother, by the way.”
“I have a tongue like that, too!” Olvar jumped in, opening his mouth and rolling his tongue out. I never knew that Voranians typically had those organs that long.
“Show us yours!” The boys hopped around me. “Show us!”
“Well, it’s not really polite to stick your tongue out at people.”
“Please! Please!”
“Okay, just this once.” I swallowed, then opened my mouth to display my inadequate organ to them. I stretched it down as far as I could, wiggling the end.
“It’s pink!” Olvar gasped.
“And so short.” Zun gazed at it then at me, compassion spreading on his cute little face. “Did somebody cut it for you?”
“No!” I laughed. “I was born like this. All people on Earth have shorter tongues than Voranians, it seems.”
“Daddy’s tongue is the longest,” Olvar proudly informed me. “Show her, Dad.”
Obviously discomfited by the request, the Colonel cleared his throat.
“Oh, it’s fine...” I started to protest.
But he’d already opened his mouth, rolling out the tongue that actually reached his chest.
“See? See?” The boys elbowed me. “Isn’t Dad’s the longest tongue ever?”
“Well, yes, that’s...” The smile slipped off my face as the thought of what it would feel like to kiss him unexpectedly entered my mind.
It went downhill from there. Way, way down. I shifted in the snow, forcing myself not to think about all the wonderful things he could probably do with that tongue of his.
“All right, boys.” The Colonel shoo-ed them toward the snow-covered area that we had barely touched yet. A good part of the park had already been covered with snow angels and snowmen.
“I’ll hold them off for ten minutes. Be ready, they’ll come for you, then,” he told me before leaving to follow his sons.
I watched the three of them stomp out the snow along the perimeter of the new section of the fort we’d started building together. They then began erecting the walls from snow balls that they rolled around to make bigger. The Colonel propped two huge ones on each end of the wall. He then started carefully arranging the much smaller ones that his children made for him.
He had infinite patience when dealing with his sons, explaining and showing them how to do things as many times as was needed until they got it right.
Knowing his explosive temper, I was shocked he hadn’t once raised his voice at the boys. Not that he needed to. His kids seemed to read him well. They would stop their horsing around the moment he’d give them a stern look.
“Ten minutes are up!” Olvar ran back, collapsing into the snow in front of me. His brother tumbled right over him.
“Shall we go, then?” I clapped my hands, shaking off the snow from my mittens. “Get that fort done?”
“No, I’m tired of fort building.” Zun rolled to his back, spreading his arms wide to make another snow angel.
“Come on.” Olvar nudged his brother with his horns. “I’ll roll you into a ball!” He grabbed Zun and rolled him in the snow. “I’ll make you into a tower for our fort.”
“Um...” I moved to intervene.
“He’ll be fine.” The Colonel stopped me with his hand on my shoulder.
“Are you sure?” I watched the two of them tumble down a small hill, giggling and kicking their hooves.
“Absolutely.” He sat in the snow next to me. “What’s the worst that can happen?”
“Well—”
“That was a rhetorical question,” he stopped me from replying. “As a parent, I have a list as long as my tail of all the horrible things that could possibly happen to my children at any given minute. I just try not to fret over that or project my fears onto them. Let them be kids.”
I settled back into the snow, folding my hands in my lap.
“What is the mother’s role in the upbringing of her children in Voran?” I asked.
“A minimal one. Unless they’re the children of her husband.” He placed his forearms on his bent knees. “All parental rights go to the father if he is not married to the mother. It enables a woman to have more children if fewer responsibilities are attached with each of them.”
“I see.”
I brushed some snow off my white coat over my knee.
“Colonel...” I started, feeling a need to apologize. “I’m sorry I’ve accused you of being a bad parent.”
He huffed a laugh.
“That hasn’t been the only thing you’ve accused me of.”
I cast a furtive glance his way, relieved to see he didn’t seem offended. His expression remained relaxed, happy even.
“Well, some of that has been true. Don’t you agree?” I lifted an eyebrow. “Admit it, Omni had to clean an insane amount of broken glass in the first couple of days.”
“True.” He had the decency to look ashamed. “I’m sorry, too.”
“I love hearing this word from you.” I turned my face to him with a smile. “It’s music to my ears.”
Tipping his head back, he laughed out loud. A deep and hearty sound. It proved highly contagious as I couldn’t hold back a laugh, too.
After sitting in the snow for a while, I felt the cold sneaking under my warm clothes. I took my mitts off, rubbing my hands to warm them up.
“Cold?” he asked, taking his gloves off, too.
“A little.”
“Come here.” He shifted closer, taking my chilled hands in his big and still surprisingly warm ones.
“Thank you. I wish I had some fur on the back of my hands, too. It must keep your hands warm, in addition to the gloves?”
He appeared distracted, not replying right away.
“Daisy,” he said, rubbing my hands between his. “Would you reconsider leaving when the month is up? You said earlier that you might.”
“Well, I...” His request caught me off guard.
A lot had changed since I’d first negotiated with him the conditions of my leaving Voran. Living under the same roof with the Colonel had certainly become less stressful. Could I stay longer than a month? A year, like I had planned?
Who could say what the upcoming year would bring, though?
I retrieved my hands from him and slid the mitts back on.
“My work doesn’t allow me to have the boys home every weekend,” the Colonel continued before I could come up with an answer.
“You told me it was also because of their educational plan.”
“That, too.” He nodded. “However, some families obtain permission to take their children home every weekend.”
“How?”
“Parents can take a course on the nutritional and educational requirements for their children. As long as they pass the exam and take the regular refresher courses to ensure they maintain the school’s standards at home, they’re allowed to take their children every weekend.”
“Why didn’t you take the course, then?”
“I did. But it’s much harder for me to obtain per
mission. In my position, I can be called to work or even picked up from home, in case of an emergency, any minute of the day. The law doesn’t allow leaving small children unattended, not that I would do that anyway.”
“I understand.” It was illegal in many countries on Earth, too.
It sounded like the Colonel could really benefit from having a live-in nanny. Except that the Voranian law didn’t permit that.
He turned to me, searching my eyes.
“Daisy, would you agree to take the course and stay for the entire year?” he said in one breath.
With the children now being in the picture, my staying here made more sense.
The Colonel no longer scared me. However, a certain type of tension remained between us.
I no longer felt frightened or uncomfortable in his presence, but I couldn’t fully relax either. Whenever he entered a room, my awareness would shift to him, attuning to his every word or movement.
Having him as my employer should clear things up, though, as we both would finally have clear roles to define our relationship. From now on, I’d be his nanny, and he’d be my boss.
I watched the boys chase each other through the snow, their short little tails whipping behind them, their laughter ringing through the chilly air.
“I most definitely could take the course.” I nodded, staring at the kids playing in the snow, two pairs of horns glistening in the midday sun. “I’d love to help you look after these two.”
The Colonel released a long breath.
“I can’t believe my children have just succeeded where I have failed,” he said with a smile in his deep voice.
I slid a suspicious glance at him. “Did you just use your kids to make me stay?”
“And it was worth it!” He grinned at me without a hint of remorse. “Hey boys! Olvar, Zun, guess what?”
“What?” They bounced our way.
“Daisy is staying for an entire year with us,” he announced brightly, giving me a wink.
“A year!” They turned to me.
“Minus the two weeks that have passed,” I added quickly.
The Colonel ignored my statement. “We’ll be bringing you home every weekend.”
The kids’ jewel-colored eyes shone with delight that warmed my heart.
Married to Krampus (My Holiday Tails) Page 11
