Chapter 37
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Aiden insisted that Evelyn eat lunch before she started experimenting with plant matter.
“I knew you’d figure it out,” he said, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. “Feeling okay? No zoomies?”
She laughed, and some of the tension brewing in his gut eased. He’d been on high alert since Tariel told the crew about Pearl’s comm call. Rationally he knew they were as safe as could be expected, but anxiety wasn’t a rational mistress.
Forewarned is forearmed. We’re both.
“I feel fine. No jitters at all.” She placed the egg timer back on the table and stood up. “Sorry if I scared you.”
“You have nothing to apologize for,” he said, reaching out and grabbing her hand. Their fingers laced together as he led them toward the kitchen. Soup. Soup was soothing. They would have soup, and he would tell her about the latest developments.
“Aiden, I was a disaster. I feel so dense. My family may have not done me any favors encouraging me to completely cut off this line of psychic talent, but they did drill into my head that control of my abilities is not negotiable.”
He grunted. Going on a tirade about the multitude of ways her family had done her wrong would serve no purpose. Evelyn was not who he wanted to vent that anger to.
“Seems to me like you’ve got plenty of control,” he managed.
That was diplomatic.
“I have plenty of control when it comes to not siphoning. Now I need to learn how to control the action itself.”
"Speaking as a verified control freak, I think you’re going to be able to transfer that skillset just fine, dollface. It’s just practice now.”
Aiden’s thumb traced a lazy line back and forth against Evelyn’s finger as they entered the kitchen. He reluctantly released her hand so he could pull out a chair for her.
“I’m thinking soup,” he said and headed toward the freezer. “Lillian makes this incredible squash soup.”
“As long as there’s bread.” She sat down and rested her elbows on the table, cradling her face in her hands. “Soup is a bread conduit. I will not be taking questions at this time.”
He grinned and grabbed soup and crusty rolls from the freezer.
Aiden popped them into their respective warming devices and brought out spoons and bowls for them.
When he turned around, he found Evelyn digging in the refrigerator for the pitcher of iced tea.
She was focused on the task at hand, maneuvering objects around inside the cool box, a scene of perfectly mundane domesticity.
She squinted at the contents of the fridge, muttering about Tetris and efficient space management under her breath.
He realized he could listen to her rummaging around inside the refrigerator indefinitely with perfect happiness and almost dropped the bowls on the floor. He set them on the counter and placed the spoons inside, focusing on the menial task as his mind silently ran emotional equations.
Aiden knew he wanted Evelyn. He couldn’t be near her without reaching out to touch the softness of her skin, to tuck her golden waves behind her ear.
He knew she was brave and beautiful. Wickedly smart, entirely too self-sacrificing for her own good.
He knew that he wanted to know everything there was to know about the woman, unlock every slammed door in her psyche, and kiss better every wound.
Catalogue every slight touch that made her shiver and use them to reduce her to a shaking, moaning mess.
It had just taken him a minute to realize that he was falling in love with her.
And she felt dense.
He suddenly felt very hot. He loosened the tie at his throat and unbuttoned the top of his shirt. His pulse was racing.
“Aiden?”
“Hmm?”
Be cool.
“Who stocked this fridge? It makes no sense. There’s no semblance of order in here.”
“I think Veselko emptied the last load of groceries. It never makes much sense in there when he’s done with them.”
Aiden crossed to the fridge and extricated the jug of tea for Evelyn.
She took the jug to the table and started opening cabinets, looking for glasses.
Beeping alerted him that their lunch was ready.
He decanted soup into bowls, a task made more difficult by the stiffness in his shoulders, and brought their meal to the table and sat down next to Evelyn.
“So, you ready to tell me what Tariel had to say that has you all freaked out?” She quirked an eyebrow. “What? You’re all tense.”
Aiden took a sip of tea to compose himself.
He was grateful that she assumed the comm call was the reason he was acting like an evasive weirdo instead of his sudden revelation about his own feelings.
“He received a comm call from a mercenary named Pearl Locke. She didn’t admit to it, but we suspect that Emil has hired her outfit to search for us. ”
“I take it she’s very good at her job?” Evelyn blew on a spoonful of soup.
“She is. She and her partner are very . . . tenacious.” Aiden started ripping up chunks of a roll and dropping them into his bowl.
Pearl and Ivan were some of the most efficient mercenaries the Dawn had ever encountered.
The times they’d worked together had been as dangerous as they had been lucrative.
The dread he was feeling at Pearl and Ivan being on their trail made more sense to him now that he realized the seriousness of his feelings for Evelyn.
Great timing, Aiden. He stirred his soup around, crusty bread soaking up silky broth.
“Tenacious. That’s a word,” Veronique said as she entered the kitchen. “Bloodthirsty is one I like better. Cold-blooded, that works too. Disloyal. I could go on. The Twins are menaces.”
“You seem to know a lot about them,” Evelyn said. She took a mouthful of soup and made an appreciative noise that stirred Aiden in ways that were inappropriate for lunchtime intelligence sessions.
“We did a few jobs with them a few years back. The last one didn’t go well,” he said.
“We had a difference of opinion.” Aiden didn’t like thinking about how far Pearl had been willing to go to complete the final contract that had severed their working relationship.
The thought of her focus being on Evelyn chilled his blood.
“To say the absolute least,” Veronique said. “We have different philosophies governing our behavior.”
“Which is why you’re . . . Oh, what was it? ‘Acquisitions specialists and facilitators?’” Evelyn made finger quotes and grinned.
“We have lines. We don’t like to cross them. We’re willing to sacrifice a payday if the job feels wrong, or is going to go south. The Twins . . . They’re only focused on completing their contracts,” Aiden said grimly. “We had a disagreement.”
“But clearly not too big a disagreement to refuse a comm call?” Evelyn dipped a chunk of roll in the soup. “Lillian is a wizard. I didn’t even know I liked squash.”
“There’s a reason she called Tariel. He’s the most reasonable of us,” Veronique said. She walked to the stove and turned the kettle on. “Tea?”
Evelyn nodded and took another spoonful of soup. Aiden shook his head. If he took in any more liquid, he’d start to slosh.
“So do we freak out now or proceed as planned? Is this panic soup?”
“Proceed as planned. If they knew where we were, they wouldn’t have called, they’d have attempted to board the ship,” Aiden said. “We’re just going to have to be more cautious than normal — which is pretty cautious. We are discreet facilitators.”
Evelyn lifted her eyebrows. “Your cover is a party vessel.”
“A discreet party vessel.”
Evelyn smiled, shook her head, and scraped up the last of her soup with a chunk of crusty roll as Veronique set a mug of tea in front of her.
“Lillian and I have a strategy in mind for the dissemination of our material,” Veronique said.
“She’s looking into the servers that distribute media on planet and within the sister system, picking the best places to drop our videos.
We want to do a few teasers, for lack of a better term, before we go with the loop of your declaration.
I want to get some of your favorite things about Tanalia on tape. ”
“All my favorite things about Tanalia are about a century out of date,” Evelyn said, biting her bottom lip. “Won’t that be sort of out of touch?”
“Not out of touch, more of a throwback to yesteryear. You can speak to the planet that many of the current inhabitants can’t even fathom anymore after so many decades of occupation.”
“You’re thinking highlighting the way the planet used to be will give them something real to focus on?”
“Exactly. It’s different when you can get a living history lesson.” Veronique held up her communicator. “Can I just set this to record? Just talk about the Tanalia you remember?”
Evelyn nodded. Veronique pressed the button on the communicator screen. Evelyn blew on her tea and took a sip. And then, she started to speak.
She spoke about the opera house in the capital of Tanalia, where actors performed traditional plays, where poets read their work, and orchestras played concertos.
She spoke about watching her father walk through farms, seeing the crops flourish under his touch, the joy in farmer’s faces when they explained their new cross breeds of apples.
How much it thrilled them to experiment with growing conditions and fertilization factors, a creative aspect of agriculture Aiden had never considered.
She spoke about the debates scientists would have on the quad of the university, and how their family would Amplify their research to settle questions that raised still more questions and sparked further discoveries.
She spoke with pride about the fact that no Tanalian was raised to think that they didn’t have a place in the universe, that everyone had their own spark that was essential to life and happiness, and that nurturing it was the whole point of their society.
Evelyn spoke long after her mug was empty. When her voice started to crack, she said, “That’s all I can think of right now,” and rubbed at her throat.
Veronique patted her hand and stopped recording. “Thank you. For what it’s worth, it sounds to me like a planet worth fighting for.”
Evelyn smiled. “I think so.”
Aiden was determined to get it back for her. What was ending a hundred years of enemy occupation? Surely people had done harder things for love.