“What about your emergency supplies?” my brother demanded.
“My big kit was in the trunk, along with all my Christmas presents for everybody. I’m sure we’ll never see most of that again, if any of it. I do keep a few spare things in my purse, though.”
My eyes flickered over to Nazarenko. He was sitting in an armchair across from me, wearing a formfitting T-shirt that showed off all the rippling muscle underneath and a pair of sweats that hugged his ass and thighs in impossibly perfect ways, but he had his nose buried in his phone and didn’t seem to be paying me any attention. He hadn’t said a single word to me since bringing in my wheelchair and setting it next to me on the couch.
Whether he was paying attention or not, I still didn’t want to say the word catheter out loud, let alone mention things like leg bags. In my experience, people tended to freak out about bodily functions, and my accident had caused me to lose control over most of mine. But honestly, I had my wheelchair, a few spare bits of that all-too-important tubing, and at least one spare bag. There was no reason to think I should need more than that for a few days—less if we were lucky.
Clothes, on the other hand, were going to be a bigger concern. I didn’t exactly go around with clean undies and spare jeans in my purse. I supposed I could steal a T-shirt from his closet, if it came down to it, and wash what I was wearing. Too late to worry about that now. We’d just have to figure it out.
“I’m going to be fine,” I repeated again, still trying to convince us both.
“As soon as the roads are clear, I’m coming to get you,” Gray said. Or was threatened a better word? Hard to be sure. Heck, it could have been a promise, and it might have been all of the above at once. When it came down to it, he was the best big brother a girl could hope to have, precisely because of that very ambiguity.
“I’d expect no less,” I said. “Tell the kids I’m sorry, and I’ll make it up to them once the roads are safe.” After all, I had the whole week off work, and the kids were out of school. We could have some fun once I escaped this temporary prison.
He gave me a grumbled promise and said he’d text me pictures of their snowman once the masterpiece was complete. I swore I’d contact him immediately if anything was wrong, even though there wasn’t a damned thing he could do about it but commiserate. Finally, we hung up.
I slipped my phone onto the coffee table in front of me and sighed, putting the back of my arm over my eyes as I leaned against the couch cushions. Getting through the drama of my morning and the phone calls had left me with a splitting headache.
“Bet you had no idea what you were getting yourself into when you went out for some gas, huh?” I said, peeking out for a moment.
“Should know by now.” He flashed his eyes up from his phone to meet mine. “Trouble always finds me.”
I burst out laughing. “That’s me. London Trouble Hawke. Can’t take me anywhere unless you’ve got bail money lined up.”
“Cops can’t help me now. Too much snow.”
“That’s right, Nazarenko. You kidnapped me, and now you’re stuck with me.” I straightened myself on the couch, trying to fight off the migraine that wanted to take root.
“Dima,” he said quietly.
“I’ll call you Dima if you’ll tell me about your tattoos.”
“Nothing to tell.”
“Liar. Maybe you forgot you already told me that your tattoos had meaning, but you did tell me. I want to know what they’re about.”
“Do you tell everyone about your accident?”
“If they want to know,” I said. “Why? Do you want to know?”
“Same kind of thing, is all.”
“I know about your accident,” I said, refusing to look away this time. “With Sergei.”
“Was all over news.”
I nodded. “It was. So was mine. Well, the local news, at least.” I’d been playing for the University of Minnesota at the time. There was enough coverage that the local hockey community had pulled together to help me out. Some of the women’s college programs had put on fund raisers to help pay for my medical expenses, and there’d been an anonymous donation from someone connected to the Wild. They’d never filled me in on who was behind it, but that money had paid for my car modifications—the hand controls, the electric control over the passenger seat so I could easily slide it forward and backward for getting my wheelchair in the back.
“I know,” he said.
“You do?” I blinked a couple of times. I didn’t know why, but it surprised me that he had any knowledge at all about my accident. When I’d crashed into the boards in that game, it hadn’t received anywhere near the kind of attention that it would have if I’d been a man, or especially if I’d been a pro, like he and Sergei had been. This was four years ago, when I’d been a twenty-year-old junior with my whole life ahead of me. For a time, I’d thought that my life might as well have ended, but I hadn’t let myself stay in the doldrums for too long. How could I when there were so many people who wanted to help me?
“Was playing for Minnesota then.”
The weight of his words hit me like a ton of bricks. For a moment, all I could do was stare at him, open-mouthed, while I tried to take it all in. “Did you send me money?” I demanded.
He stared back, silent and unwavering. Then he got up and headed for the stairs. “Need to change sheets.”
Damn it all if he wasn’t running away from me, and doing it in a way that I couldn’t chase him.
HOW THE HELL was I going to get through the next few days with this woman in my house? When I picked her up and she started playing with my beard, all I wanted to do was make her stop, even if it took kissing her senseless. Not a good direction for my thoughts to take since, due to the construction of the house, I was going to have to pick her up and carry her multiple times a day until the weather finally cleared and I could send her on her way.
The sooner that happened, the better, too, because then I’d started thinking about kissing her, and now I couldn’t stop—even though she drove me mad with all her probing questions. Goddamned, insufferable, prying woman.
I ripped the sheets off my bed and cursed myself for never having gotten around to furnishing any of the other bedrooms in this house. There’d been no need to. When Sergei came to visit, he always preferred to get a hotel room close by. He was the only person I ever had visit me, so I hadn’t been in any big rush. I often thought about offering up one of the rooms to a younger teammate or to someone who got traded mid-season, but I hadn’t ever done that. The rooms were still empty, so now I would be sleeping downstairs on my couch for a few nights.
If my instincts were right, London sensed my attraction and was using it against me. Why else would she have played with my hair like that? There wasn’t any other good explanation for it. She was trying to torture me.
That theory lined up well with all her other behavior since I’d first met her. She seemed to get off on poking and prodding my every wound. If she found a sore spot, she dug in until I couldn’t do anything but run away for some peace.
I finished putting clean bedding in place and carried the dirty sheets downstairs.
London raised a brow when she saw me. “Done running away yet?”
“Need to wash them.”
No way was I ready to face her again. I never knew what to expect from her, and that terrified the shit out of me. I headed down to the lower level and started the washer, taking my time to compose myself before returning to the living room to join her.
When I crossed in front of her, she tugged on the sleeve of my shirt, pulling me down next to her.
“What?” I demanded.
She dug into my right wrist and held my hand up in front of her, looking at the back side. Her fingers traced the Cyrillic lettering. “What does it say?”
I ground my jaw. “None of your business.”
“I’m making it my business.” She leaned in closer to me, resting her weight against my side.
“W
hy?” Why did she care? Why wouldn’t she leave me be? Everyone else in the world understood they needed to keep their distance, that I didn’t want to talk. Why did this woman have to be different from all the rest?
“Because we’re stuck in this house together for who knows how long. What else are we going to do? Stare at the walls?”
I tried to jerk my hand back, but she had an unexpectedly strong grip and refused to budge. “You’re obstinate. Anyone tell you that before?”
“My brother tells me that all the time,” she said. “So tell me.”
More frustrated by the moment, I bit off, “Says ya ne zabudu.”
She waited a beat and then scowled up at me. “Care to translate?”
“Means I won’t forget.”
“I doubt you could if you tried. Lord knows I can’t.”
Every bone in my body itched to get away from her. Because she was getting too close. Not just physically, either, although that alone was enough to send me to my wits’ end. Her limbs were long and lean and very firm, and I couldn’t get the memory of her wrapping her arm around my shoulders out of my mind. Or her scent, for that matter, which was currently wrapping its way around me and taking me captive. Citrus and vanilla. I wanted to bury my nose in her hair and breathe her in.
But it was the way she kept prying into my past, more than anything, that left me wanting to escape.
I stared down at the words on my hand. I’d had them tattooed there about six months after the wreck, after trying to bury the pain of the memory in as much alcohol as I could possibly consume. “I tried to forget,” I said.
“How?”
The memories washed over me like a flood. “Sergei found me one morning. I was on bathroom floor in a puddle of filth. He kicked me with his new leg until I woke up. ‘Wake up, you fucking son of a bitch,’ he said in Russian. Kick. Kick. Kick. ‘Wake up. I’m walking, for first time in forever, and you try to drink yourself to death. You should help me celebrate. Your papa wouldn’t be proud to see you this way, Dima.’”
“Did you drink a lot back then?”
“Too much. Always too much. Tried to make it stop hurting. Papa would have been more disappointed in me than I could stand, because I nearly killed Sergei. Once I finally cleaned myself, we decided to celebrate. Get tattoos.”
“And that’s when you got this?” London asked, still tracing the letters.
“Didn’t go for this. Sergei got a phoenix. Tribal phoenix on back of shoulder. I wanted tribal husky. Tribal to match Sergei. Husky for Papa.” I pointed to the curved lines on the right side of my neck that covered some of the worst scars left from the wreck and felt her gaze travel over the black ink. “He had husky named Anya. She came to Lake Baikal and jumped around on frozen lake while I skated.”
She’d also lain by his side as cancer killed him, following years of exposure to toxic chemicals at the paper mill. That damn dog hadn’t left him even after he was dead and in the ground. I’d tried to get her to come stay with me at Sergei’s house, but she’d always gone back to Papa’s grave.
I didn’t tell London that bit. Didn’t want her to see anything that was such a deep part of my soul.
“But that wasn’t only ink I got that day. I also got this on my hand. Made sure the words faced me. Drinking to forget doesn’t work. Drinking was what got me there—me with mountains of guilt, Sergei with no leg. Haven’t touched alcohol since.”
She was still staring at my neck—staring far more intently than she needed to in order to make out the design. It was big and bold, with the husky’s snout ending just before becoming part of my face. I didn’t like her scrutiny.
I really didn’t like it when she reached up and traced the lines etched into my skin. Her touch was soft and tender and all the things I didn’t deserve to feel. It burned through me. Ate me alive from the inside.
“I never realized you had a scar there until now,” she murmured. “Is that why you got it here? To hide the scars?”
Her touch was too much. With any other woman, as soon as she started getting this close, I pushed her away and moved on with my life, going back to my usual state of being alone with my guilt.
I couldn’t take any more, but I also couldn’t escape from her. From this. We were stuck together for the time being.
I bolted up from the couch and stomped into the kitchen, desperate to put at least some distance between us.
“Yeah, there you go again,” London called out after me. “Running away. You’re a big, tough, manly man, but the second anyone gets too close, you run and hide.”
“Need to eat,” I bit off, banging open the cupboard doors in frustration.
“You go right ahead, telling yourself those lies. But I don’t believe it. Not for a second.”
And that was what terrified me.
I LET DIMA bash things around in the kitchen for a while, but not for too long. After years of experience with poking at Gray, I knew it was best to keep poking until I got the results I wanted, as long as I gave him intermittent breaks like this. While Dima was busy, I sent my brother a text, reiterating that I was perfectly fine, and he shouldn’t worry…and that he should tell Mom to stop worrying, too. Even though my mother hadn’t called, I knew her well enough to know she was practically frantic with not knowing if I was all right, even though there was no good reason for her to be like that.
Once things quieted down somewhat in the other room, I knew it was time.
“Dima?” I called out. This time, I used the name he’d asked me to. After all, he had told me about the tattoo I’d asked about in return. I had to give on some things if I wanted him to do the same.
He said something I couldn’t understand. Then, “What?”
“I need to go to the bathroom.”
A loud clatter rang out, like he’d tossed something in the sink, but then he stalked back into the living room and picked me up, barely even glancing at me in the process.
“I need my purse.”
He closed his eyes and shook his head. Probably praying for patience. He might think I was PMSing or something. Whatever. He didn’t need to know the truth.
He carried me into the kitchen so I could grab my purse off the counter.
“What are you working on in here?” I asked.
“Lunch.” He turned around and headed straight for the stairs.
I rolled my eyes, not that he’d notice. “Sounds delicious. Care to elaborate?”
“No.”
Halfway up the flight, my irritation got the better of me. I grabbed a handful of his beard and jerked until he looked down at me, brown eyes blazing.
“What?” he demanded.
“Nothing.” I kept a firm grip on him, though. I liked seeing the fire in his eyes. I might like it a bit too much. A smile was threatening to claim my face, and I fought to clamp it down. “Just wanted to see what’s going on in your head, since you refuse to tell me.”
“Nothing to tell,” he grumbled, flipping on the bathroom light.
I took a quick glance around. Typical bathroom, not equipped for a handicapped person. It had the usual shower-and-tub combo, which might prove to be a bother when I needed to bathe. If he had a separate shower, I could roll myself in and not need his assistance, other than in bringing both me and my chair up here. But tubs were another matter, entirely.
I released my hold on him after taking it all in. “Just set me down on the toilet for now. Then I need you to bring me my chair.”
“Why you need wheelchair to piss?”
“Just do it, Dima.” I wasn’t in the mood to explain that I’d need to clean up some bits in the sink once I was done, and I wasn’t in the mood for him to see all the tubing and whatnot. I only had to insert the catheter every few hours so I could empty my bladder, but I couldn’t reach the sink from the toilet to clean everything off. That meant I needed to be mobile.
He set me down and glared at me, but he stalked out of the bathroom. A minute later, he returned with my chair and se
t it in front of me.
“Thank you,” I said, doing my best to remain civil. “I’ll handle it from here and yell when I’m done.”
He clomped out of the bathroom, slamming the door closed behind him. I quickly dealt with emptying my bladder and cleaning up all my supplies before stowing everything in my purse.
“Dima?” I called out, waiting for his response.
Nothing. Not even a bunch of banging.
Maybe he’d gone back downstairs.
I wheeled over and opened the door, poking my head out to look around. He wasn’t there, but I could hear a few sounds coming from the kitchen again. It seemed like the perfect opportunity to explore a bit on my own. If I could see how he lived, maybe I would understand him better. That was my hope.
To the right, I found his bedroom. Cream walls. Leather furniture. Soft brown fabrics on everything, like fur, that looked warm and comforting. It was Spartan and neat, with nothing out of place.
I backed out and opened the door to one of the other bedrooms. It was piled high with cardboard boxes. There wasn’t a single piece of furniture to be found, only boxes upon boxes. My fingers itched to open one and take a peek, but that might be too invasive. Leaving the room, I closed the door.
The other room must be the one where I’d be sleeping, then. I opened that door…and found nothing. White walls. Hardwood floors. And nothing at all inside the room.
“Looking for something?” he asked. Or growled. There was a definite surly flavor to his tone, and it turned me on in the best and worst sort of way.
I spun around, dropping my grip on the door handle. My heart was pounding so hard he had to be able to hear it. “I called for you. You didn’t answer or come to help me.”
Then I saw him, and it definitely turned me on.
This was bad. This was very, very bad. I bit down on the inside of my cheek, hoping the pain would help return me to my senses.
“Making lunch,” he said. He stood at the top of the stairs, arms crossed in what would have been an intimidating posture if not for the shoulder leaning against the wall.
Ghost Dance (Tulsa Thunderbirds Book 3) Page 6
