by Selena Scott
He scanned her outfit, which he was beginning to recognize as her usual. Tight-fitting jeans, a silky, low cut shirt and her bomber jacket. But today it was set off by a pair of small heels. Which she’d probably worn because she’d known they were gonna be sitting in a coffee shop all day.
“You weren’t staking out the street, were you?” Danil guessed, the puzzle pieces clicking into place.
“Hmmmm?” she asked, staring forward, evading his question.
“At first I thought you took the seat by the window to be able to watch for something on the street. But now I realize it was for another reason.”
Dora flicked her eyes toward Danil as she made a left at the corner toward her car. She’d driven them today.
“You sat there because you knew that was the zone that the waiter, Kip, served. You expected him earlier, which means you knew his schedule. And you waited for him all day. So you must have really wanted to talk to him.”
Dora unlocked the car, revealing nothing. They slid in.
“And you knew he worked a second job. At some kind of warehouse. And they received a late shipment last night. Which must have been what you wanted to know. Because we left right afterwards.”
Dora turned on the car. “Interesting theory, counselor.”
“So where does he work?”
Dora said nothing as she started to drive and Danil swallowed down his frustration.
“At a package sorting facility,” she answered tersely. “But I was too late. Because all the packages were already delivered this morning. So I missed my chance and I won’t get another one for another week.”
Her knuckles were white on the steering wheel.
“Well,” Danil said, leaning over at a stoplight to nuzzle behind her ear. “You were very busy this morning.”
He felt, rather than saw, her smile.
“And no,” Danil continued. “You must not wear this to my parents’ house. Mama and Papa would not care. But if any of my brothers see you in that silky little shirt I’ll be forced to commit fratricide.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
It was really silly to be nervous, Dora knew. She’d been held at gunpoint before and hadn’t broken a sweat. Literally. Except her father had been by her side at that point.
She looked at Danil as they walked up his parents’ driveway together. And now she had Danil at her side. Which was a very different feeling. But one that was filled with a very inexplicable trust. And that wasn’t something she’d felt since her dad died. She knew that no matter what happened in there, Danil had her. He’d made that point very clear when they’d gone home to change. In fact, he’d made that point twice. Once against the front door of his house and once in the guest bedroom while she’d been searching through her things for something to wear.
“I’m your home,” he’d chanted in her ear as he’d bent her over the desk in the guest room, pumping into her from behind. He’d made her say it twice before he’d let her come. And she’d be damned but this whole repeating-it-until-it’s-true thing he had going on was working. Must be the power of suggestion.
Or maybe it was just that he was so fucking yummy. Dora tore her eyes from the way his button-up shirt was rolled up over his massive arms. He looked like he could burst from the shirt at any moment. And she wouldn’t have minded at all.
She turned her face forward again. She was about to be a guest in his mother’s home. She could not be having those thoughts right now.
And she was back to being nervous.
Danil took her hand, squeezed it gently, as they bounded up the porch together.
No sooner had he reached for the doorknob did the door come clattering open.
“Danishka!” Maxim yelled, throwing out one hand while he crunched an apple in his mouth.
The two brothers leaned forward to kiss one another’s cheeks and embrace in a way that Dora found deeply charming.
“Maxim,” Danil said a little stiffly. “I didn’t know you were going to be here. I thought it would just be Mama and Papa.”
“Nonsense,” Maxim said, his huge, jovial presence immediately chasing his butterflies away. “We heard you were bringing this beautiful woman here and we all decided to join you.”
“All?” Danil echoed and groaned as Emin and Anton appeared over Maxim’s shoulders.
Maxim’s eyes dropped to Dora’s hand, clasped so tightly in Danil’s.
“You,” Maxim said, pointing his apple at Dora. “You’ve broken my heart. I’ll never be the same.”
“Ah, well,” Dora said, leaning forward to kiss him on the cheek. “Nothing’s final until I’m dead.”
Emin hooted and Anton grinned at the look on Danil’s face.
“I like her,” Anton said, drawing Dora’s eyes to him. He was the quietest brother, dark and sad. But right now his smile was making him brighter than any of them. She was a little stunned by his unexpected beauty, actually.
And Emin. Jeez, don’t even get her started on Emin. The guy had movie star written all over him.
“What are you looking at?” Danil asked, tugging her hand back into his as Maxim tried valiantly to kiss it.
“At how good-looking all the Malashoviks are,” she replied, to the general puffing of chests and slapping of shoulders. She pointed at Emin. “You ever quit painting, you could have a real career in movies.”
“I am terrible actor,” he replied, his crooked grin firmly in place.
“Porn, then?” Dora said and the brothers exploded into laughter again. But she went quite pink when she realized that Ilya was standing behind his sons. Luckily he was laughing as well.
“So,” Ilya said, taking her free hand and pulling her through the roadblock of all his sons. “You know of Emin. He’s very talented.”
Ilya leaned forward to kiss her cheeks, one and then the other. And after a brief pause, landed one right on her mouth.
“Papa!” Danil hissed, but Dora merely laughed.
“I know of Emin’s work very well. I own one, actually.”
Emin’s eyes flashed up to hers, a pleased but humble look crossing his face. “Which?”
“It’s a blue sky with just a slash of red in the corner. From a distance you can tell it’s a cardinal. Close up, it’s just a blur, maybe a momentary flash of passion from the artist.”
Now, Emin’s eyes showed true pleasure. “Da. An early painting. We were in America not two years yet.”
“How did you come by it?” Ilya asked, his hands still gripping hers.
Something flashed in her eyes that neither Danil nor Ilya missed. “My father gave it to me. He said it reminded him of me.”
“He was right,” Emin said. “You are ptuška, just like the cardinal.”
Emin reached up and quickly rearranged her hair over her forehead in the familiar, artful way of someone quite comfortable with touch.
“Alright,” Danil growled, coming back to stand by Dora’s side. She was staring up at him, a question on her lips.
“Give air!” a woman’s voice came through the group. “Give air to girl.”
And then Katya Malashovik materialized out of the living room. Looking more beautiful than a woman over sixty had any right to be. Her salt and pepper hair was swept back into a bun and she dried her hands on her apron as she handily shoved her sons aside.
“Come, girl,” she said holding her hand out to Dora.
Dora couldn’t help but meet Katya’s smile and place her hand in the woman’s smooth palm. Dora immediately discovered that Katya didn’t have a particularly gentle touch as she yanked her through the crowd of men and down the hall to the kitchen.
Before she could blink, Dora had an apron secured around her and two oven mitts jammed on her hand.
“Put babka out of oven,” Katya said, gesturing for Dora to do it. “It is Danishka’s favorite food.”
Dora immediately did as she was asked and soon found herself stirring something called machanka. Next came the chopping. Carrots and onions and enough potat
oes to feed an army. Danil caught Dora’s eye from where he sat with his brothers in the living room. They each had a beer, their feet up on the coffee table. The kitchen overlooked both the living and the dining room. Dora stuck her tongue out at Danil and went back to chopping.
“Sorry I’m late everyone!” the blonde woman from the other night bounded into the living room. Dora remembered that her name was AJ.
“Hi,” she said coming up to Dora and holding out her hand and going slightly rosy with a blush. “We met the other night, um, in the driveway.”
“When Danil was trying to decide if I was worth kissing or not. I remember.”
Maxim turned to his brother in horror. “You had to decide?” Then he turned to Dora. “My love. You are wasted on him. Wasted.”
AJ kissed Katya on the cheek. “I brought dessert, Mama.” She put a pie and a plate of cookies on the counter that she’d been balancing on her hip. “What can I do to help?”
“No. Your cooking is done,” Katya said, nodding toward the desserts. “Go play with my lazy boys.”
Dora grinned and went back to her chopping as AJ melted into the crowd of brothers.
“So. You are people watcher,” Katya said after a few minutes of companionable silence.
Dora cocked her head to one side and considered the question. “I guess you could say that. I’m a journalist. So I definitely have to pay attention to people to get a story straight. But my dad was a private investigator.”
Katya looked up in confusion.
“Like a detective,” Dora clarified.
“Ah. Sherlock. Cumberbatch,” Katya said.
Dora grinned. “I love that show. And yeah. He was kind of like that. But nicer.” The two women smiled at each other.
“He was good papa to you.”
“He was the best papa,” Dora said, blinking her tears away before Katya could see. But with 36 years of motherhood under her belt, Katya didn’t need to see a tear to know it was there. “And he was really good at reading people. I guess he taught me how.”
Katya considered her answer. “So what do you see here?” She nodded her head toward her family: The boys lazily sprawled out. AJ and Emin sitting on the floor, working on a puzzle that looked complicated enough to have been around for years. Ilya reclined in a La-Z-Boy, taking Anton by the chin, turning his son’s head one way and then the other to inspect his haircut. And then Danil, leaning on Maxim’s shoulder as the two men flipped through channels on the TV, arguing over where to stop.
Dora pursed her lips, considering. “Hmmm,” she said. “Where to start?” Judging that with the TV on and the food percolating on the stove, none of them would be able to hear her assessment of them, so Dora plunged in.
“Well, there’s Ilya. He’s easy. He loves his boys to distraction. And you. He touches all of you when he doesn’t have to. Just for the joy of it. He’s so proud. Of his boys. And of himself for making them.” Katya grinned. Dora kept on. “Your family as a whole seems very tight. It’s there because you’re good parents. But also because you’ve come through something together. Something hard. Maybe the immigration to America? But no. It’s something harder than that. Something that I think has to do with Anton.”
If Dora would have looked up, she’d have seen Katya studying her, an interesting look on her face. But she didn’t look up. She was caught in the game. So she explained her reasoning. “And I think Anton is the one because, well, maybe it’s easier to start with Maxim.”
Katya outright grinned at that. It was, in fact, always easiest to start with Maxim. She thanked God he’d been her first child.
“Maxim is the heart of your family,” Dora said. “You can see it in his big, puppy dog eyes. He’s all happy and loving and just wants everyone to be as kind as he is. I imagine it surprised him when girls started chasing him but I’m willing to bet he took to it pretty quickly.
“And then there’s Emin. The next oldest, right? He’s obviously the passionate artist. There’s something very primal about him. And those looks. Well, I’m sure he’s developed quite the… skill when it comes to women. But I think he sees more than his brothers. In other people. In the world. He makes it his duty to make sure his brothers see it, too.”
Katya had stopped chopping altogether at this point. She was simply staring at Dora’s face. Studying her as Dora was studying the people in front of her.
“So, Anton. He’s so quiet. So sad. There’s something… injured about him but I can’t quite put my finger on it. It’s less about how he acts and more about how the family acts around him. They all glance at him. Gravitate around him like they’re protecting him at every moment. And,” Dora cocked her head to one side, studied Anton’s irritated glance at Emin over some comment she hadn’t quite caught. “He hates that. He just wants to be quiet. Left alone. Not the center of attention.” Dora studied for another moment. Noted the way that Anton’s eyes flicked to AJ. To the mere two inches of distance between her and Emin’s bodies as they worked on the puzzle together. “Yeah. And I’m willing to bet that he probably loves her.” She pointed with her chin toward AJ.
“And her I can’t tell yet because she’s so shy. But I’ll keep you posted.”
Smart girl, Katya thought to herself. The only one who was smarter than her Danishka. This girl saw much. Almost as much as Katya herself saw. And Katya was the one who’d made this family.
“And Danil?” Katya asked, noting the way that Dora’s hands stilled for a moment over the knife.
“Danil is… intelligent.” Dora thought hard. Choosing her words incredibly carefully. This was Danil’s mother, after all. “And, um, very nice.”
“Don’t start to lie now,” Katya said and made Dora laugh. She’d seen right through her.
“Alright, well, if we’re being honest. He’s bossy as hell. And arrogant. And thinks he knows what’s best for everybody.” She was on a roll now, learning about Danil even as she was talking about him, going back through all of her moments with him.
“And he’s fierce. And persistent. And domineering. But all of that is probably because he’s so protective. He cares very much for his family. Home is very important to him,” Dora finished, her cheeks deeply pink for a reason that she desperately hoped Katya could not guess.
So, the woman was in love with her son. Whatever part of herself that she’d been holding back - and it hadn’t been large - Katya let out of the cage. She’d seen women come and go in all of her boys’ lives. But she’d never seen Danil’s eyes as they had been when he’d held her hand in her entryway. And If Dora wasn’t able to see it all yet, what was there, ripe for the picking, between she and Danil, well, love was hard. The beginning especially. But Dora was trying to see him. Katya supposed that was just about the most a mother could hope for in a mate for her child. That she tried to see him. And blushed when she looked at him. Good signs. These were very good signs.
CHAPTER NINE
Twenty minutes later they all sat crammed around his parents’ dinner table. They were sitting so close that Dora’s knee was jammed into Danil’s leg. But he didn’t mind. He reached under the table and rearranged her so that her leg draped over his instead.
She gave him a little glance, like not at your mother’s table, which he heartily ignored. This was not something his mother would mind. Not with a woman like Dora. With one of the bimbos that Maxim or Emin brought around, maybe. But not with Dora.
Food was passed around the cramped table in big, steaming bowls and Ilya filled each person’s glass with a ‘healthy’ dose of beer while Emin lit candles.
The family held hands while Katya said a quick Belarusian prayer over the food. And then the brothers dug in, eating like it was their last meal. As they always had.
“Wow, you boys can eat!” Dora noted as she looked around at the men, Ilya included, all inhaling their food.
“We need much fuel,” Emin said, practically swallowing a slice of babka whole.
“Is that because of the whole bear sh
ifter thing?” Dora asked, effectively freezing everyone at the table.
Each head turned, not to look at Dora. But to stare at Danil. He was the only one looking at Dora, his face absolutely slack with shock.
“What did you say?” he asked her, his voice quiet and strong.
Dora cleared her throat and wiped her mouth with her napkin. “I asked if you all needed to eat so much because you’re all bear shifters. Well, the men at least.”
You could have heard a feather drop in the next county for how quiet the table was. Danil’s mind worked a mile a minute, through what felt like a foot of molasses. How was that possible? How could she have possibly known?
Suddenly, Katya’s laugh rang out around the table. She surveyed all the stunned faces. “You have smart one here, Danishka,” she said, heaping another serving of stew onto her husband’s plate.
“How?” Danil asked, the only word he could seem to form at this particular minute.
Dora waved her hand through the air. “The signs are everywhere. Starting with this one.” Dora pointed her chin toward AJ. “You claimed to have been rescued from a mountain lion by a grizzly bear with a white streak. That’s a matter of public record. It ran in the newspaper and was corroborated by the police report you gave. A bear that’s been seen over ten times in the last decade. And actually, this area has had an unusually large number of bear sightings. For a place with exactly zero bear attacks. Or female bears. Or baby bears. Also, these bears don’t rummage through trash. They don’t hunt the local pets. They never get hit by cars or guard their young. All things that normal bears do. No,” Dora said as she clapped her hands together. “When I came to Spokane, I recognized the signs immediately. I knew I had a family of bear shifters on my hands.”
“You tracked us to Spokane?” Danil asked, a strangled note in his voice. He felt as if a hand were squeezing his stomach.
“No,” Dora answered, again waving a hand through the air. “I didn’t even know you guys existed. I tracked Navuka here and figured you were here because of them.”
