Married to Krampus - Marina Simcoe Page 0,52

I could do was just nod in reply.

She fixed my hair and adjusted my skirt for me.

“You look like you’ve just been ravaged by a wild beast,” she fussed.

She had no idea...

Chapter 14

GREVAR

With the boys coming home that weekend, Daisy appeared to be growing increasingly more anxious.

She had cleaned and decorated the twins’ room, insisting on doing most of the work herself and refusing his or Omni’s help. Even when everything was done and ready for them, she continued to act differently than before.

She’d been unusually quiet at mealtimes, going upstairs right after dinner. He knew she stayed up late, as he heard her moving about the bedroom until past his bedtime. Yet she wouldn’t stay downstairs with him, as if avoiding him on purpose.

He missed their time together.

He’d been trying to muster some patience to keep his hands off her since that one disastrous attempt at the beginning. Instead, he’d been learning to enjoy his new wife in other ways. There was so much more to being with a woman than just sex, he’d discovered.

Before her visit to the mall, he believed they’d been making a good progress. He loved coming home to her after a long day at work. Their conversations had grown longer, their arguments rare and far between. She’d agreed to stay for an entire year, and he’d even begun to hope that theirs might be a true marriage one day.

Now, it felt like there had been a setback, but he couldn’t figure out why.

Daisy had been talking about missing her family. He didn’t like her leaving the house on her own, but maybe she was getting lonely, staying home every day after her parenting class?

In an attempt to cheer her up, he’d decided to have a dinner party at his house the first evening the boys were home. It would be a very small event, pleasant without being overwhelming.

He’d invited Lievoa. Daisy seemed to be getting along well with her, which pleased him. He didn’t always understand his cousin’s thought process and disagreed with some of her actions, but Lievoa was family. She had a good heart, and he loved her.

The Governor and Shula had agreed to come for drinks after dinner, just before the boys would go to bed. After her latest delivery, Shula had started the customary recovery process between pregnancies and wasn’t leaving the house for long these first few weeks.

Instead of being excited, Daisy appeared even more flustered when he told her about their guests.

In addition to planning the dinner menu with Omni for tonight, she also woke up early in the morning to get everything ready for the desserts she wanted to make, using her recipes from Earth.

The two of them had taken the boys to the Museum of The Natural History of Neron that morning. Zun and Olvar had participated in every interactive exhibit they could find. They ran, climbed, and explored. As a result of all the activities, the twins could barely keep their eyes open in the aircraft on the way home.

As soon as the boys went down for a nap in the afternoon, Daisy dashed back to the kitchen. Despite her earlier claims, baking didn’t seem to be relaxing her today. Amazing smells wafted from the kitchen, mixed with clanking dishes and occasional swearing. Unlike Voranian women, she didn’t hold back in her choice of words when she was irritated or upset.

“Fuck!” came from the kitchen as he was watching a video on his tablet on the couch in the sitting room. “The chocolate isn’t really a chocolate if it doesn’t melt. Is it?”

He had no idea what that meant, but it bothered him that she sounded upset. He liked seeing that happy smile on her face. It reminded him of sunrise in its increasing brightness.

Her dress might’ve first attracted his attention to her application picture. But it was her sunny smile that had made him feel close to the strange alien woman in the photo before he’d even had a chance to meet her. From the moment he saw Daisy’s smile in that picture, he knew he wanted to have her in his life.

“Colonel.” Daisy walked into the sitting room, a red polka-dot apron tied over her blue-checkered dress—both dusted with white powder and smeared with pink, brown, and cream. “We’re going to have one dessert less today. The mousse turned out a disaster.”

He set his tablet aside. Her crestfallen expression made him want to hug her, and the smidge of pink icing he’d just