The Taste of Home. In Love and War, #14

Once, Anjali Patel and Mikhail Grikov were soldiers on opposing sides of an intergalactic war. They met, fell in love and decided to go on the run together. Now Anjali and Mikhail are trying to eke out a living on the independent worlds of the galactic rim, while attempting to stay under the radar of those pursuing them. Mikhail is on his way home, an anniversary present for Anjali in his pocket, when he suddenly finds himself irresistibly drawn towards an unremarkable storefront and comes face to face with his past. Meanwhile, Anjali is preparing a special anniversary dinner for Mikhail, only to find that he is late to come home. This is a novelette of 9300 words or approximately 32 print pages in the In Love and War series, but may be read as a standalone.