But hope could be dangerous. Too many times over the years with Wade, I’d allowed myself to hope he was finally turning the corner with his PTSD. Too many times, I’d been wrong. The weight of improperly placed hope was enough to crush me, so I was always cautious where I set mine.
Maybe I was too cautious.
But maybe I wasn’t.
The only way I could know for sure was to be patient and stick to my plan.
“AUNT LONDON!” ERIN shouted the second I wheeled into Gray’s house. She leaped onto my lap and took my face between both of her hands, holding me still so I couldn’t look anywhere but at her. “It’s my birfday.”
“I know it is, silly goose. Why do you think I’m here?”
She grinned, looking down at the box she’d dislodged in her anticipation to get to me, twirling the silver-and-teal curling ribbon with her chubby fingers. “Is this my present?”
“It is. But you have to wait to open it until everyone’s together and you’re opening all your presents.”
“Exactly, munchkin,” Gray said, lifting her off my lap. “You know the rules. All the birthday presents get opened at the party.”
“Can I shake it?” she asked, giving me a devious grin.
I passed the box over. “Shake away. I doubt it’ll tell you anything.”
Gray put her on the ground and playfully swatted her on the bottom. “Go on. Take it to add to the pile.” Once she ran off, he turned to me. “Please tell me you didn’t spend a fortune.”
“It’s an aunt’s prerogative to spoil her nieces and nephews rotten.”
“Which means you got her something that cost more than you should’ve spent on her in a full year.”
“It means I got her what she wanted. It’s an Elsa doll. Not too expensive.”
He rolled his eyes, but Sierra came into the room with the baby in her arms. She saw me, stopping cold. She’d had a huge, welcoming smile on her face, but it fizzled into the less-than-enthusiastic expression she usually bore when I was around. There might have even been a hint of stink eye attached.
“Oh,” she said. “It’s you.”
“Yes, it’s me.”
Without another word, she turned and headed back into the kitchen.
“Don’t mind her,” Gray said.
“I never do.” My brother knew Sierra and I weren’t all buddy-buddy, but I sometimes wondered if he saw how she really felt about me, or if he was blind to it because he loved us both. Daddy saw the truth, but there wasn’t much he could do about it. I doubted Gray could really make a difference with Sierra’s jealousy, but it’d be nice if he could acknowledge that there was an issue.
The kids were all gathered in the playroom, along with a few of their friends. The mothers seemed to be congregating in the kitchen, where Sierra had gone. That made my choice easy. I wheeled myself into the playroom.
Gray followed me and flopped down on the beanbag chair. “You seem out of sorts,” he said, his voice almost completely covered up by the squeals and giggles coming from the kids.
“I am out of sorts.”
“Wanna tell me what’s going on?”
I gave him a do-you-really-want-to-know look.
“Want me to guess instead? I think it has to do with Dmitri Nazarenko. And maybe Wade Miller, too, since he’s not here with you like he usually is for the kids’ birthdays.” He shifted so he was looking at me full on. “And maybe most of all, it has to do with the fact that you’re pregnant. And not totally with the baby’s father, even if you’re not exactly not with him, either. And you’re scared.”
My jaw dropped. “How do you know all of that?”
“Dad,” he said matter-of-factly. “He let it spill last weekend when we were FaceTiming. Didn’t mean to, but it came out. I notice you’re not denying you’re scared.”
Gray was going to have to know eventually, but I’d hoped to have things a bit more settled before I started filling in the rest of my family.
“To death,” I admitted. There wasn’t any point trying to hide the truth from my brother. He knew me too well. “So Sierra knows, too?” I asked.
“She heard.”
“That explains her reaction when I came in today.”
Gray rolled his eyes. “Don’t make this into more than it is.”
“Oh, come off it. She’s never liked me, but she’s been jealous of the attention I get since my accident. She thinks she should get more attention than me because she’s been providing our parents with grandkids and I haven’t, but now she probably thinks my baby’s going to steal attention away from her kids.”
“Maybe she does. That doesn’t mean anyone else agrees with her.”
I shrugged.
“Dad said you weren’t sure what you were going to do yet.”
“I’m not.”
Gray raised a brow in question.
“Trying to work things out with Dima. If we can find a way forward, then we’ll decide what to do together. But I’m not going to jump into a long-term relationship with a man who’s got issues just because I’m pregnant. If we couldn’t make things work when there wasn’t a baby involved, what reason is there to believe that’ll change once you add another complication to the equation?”
“He’s not the only one with issues.”
I rolled my eyes. “His are bigger than mine.” Weren’t they?
“You ever stop to think that maybe you’re expecting too much?”
“I just want to see some effort.”
“You just want to be in control,” Gray said, rolling his eyes. “Of everything.”
“I like to be in control because there are so many things I have no control over.”
“You don’t have control over anything. You just want to think you do.”
I pouted, hating when my brother was right. “Maybe.”
He laughed. “But he knows?”
“He knows.”
“And what’s he doing about it?”
“Trying to figure things out. The ball’s in his court.”
Which meant it was out of my control.
No wonder I was out of sorts.
SVETKA HAD THE biggest smile I’d ever seen when I met her at the airport. She reached up with both hands and took my face between them, kissing me on each cheek like I’d seen her do with Sergei so many times before.
My heart lodged somewhere in my throat when she did that.
“Your beard,” she said, Russian words rolling thick from her tongue. “Dmitri, I never thought I’d see you without that beard again. You make a mama proud to see your handsome face. Did you shave it for me?”
I winked. “If you want it to be for you, it’s for you, Svetka.”
“I wish you’d call me Mama. Or at least Matushka.”
She’d been trying to get me to call her something more familiar for over a decade, but I’d never been able to bring myself to do it. Especially not since the wreck. I could have killed her one true son that night, so why should I have the honor of calling her Mama? She would never listen to my arguments, telling me she might as well be my mama, so I should just give in and call her what she wants.
I took her bag from her and led her out to my car.
“So warm,” she said in awe.
“Just wait until we get to California.” I loaded her bag into the trunk and helped her into the passenger seat before getting behind the wheel. “It already feels like summer there. No snow. No need for your coat. You’ll love it.”
“I already love it because you wanted to share it with me,” she said, patting my knee. Then she gave me another once-over. “Much too skinny. Just like Sergei. I’ll bake you some good bread.”
RAZOR AND VIKTORIYA came over for dinner the first night Svetka was in town. Svetka shooed me and Razor out of the kitchen, but she allowed Viktoriya to stay and help her, loudly complaining in Russian that my American house was so confusing since it didn’t have doors on every room. She’d never allowed me and Sergei to get in her way in the k
itchen, kicking us out to do our schoolwork and closing the door so she could have peace while she worked her magic.
Viktoriya was allowed to stay, though, because she was a woman. Svetka still held on to very traditional views of gender roles, and I doubted she would ever let them go.
I heard their voices coming from the kitchen, but I did my best not to pay too much attention to what they were saying. At least not until I heard London’s name. Then I sat up a bit straighter.
“Dmitri has a girlfriend?” Svetka asked, a hint of awe in her tone. “A real girlfriend?”
“I think so. She’s not making it easy on him, though.”
“He won’t make it easy on himself, you mean.”
They both laughed, but there was a lot of truth in Svetka’s words, even if I didn’t want to hear it. London wanted things of me, and I wasn’t sure she was wrong for wanting them.
I’d thought I was ready to give her way a try, but I’d chickened out at the last minute, and I hadn’t done a damned thing since then in terms of meeting her needs. The only thing I knew I needed, though, was her.
FOR THE NEXT two days, Viktoriya spent as much time as possible with Svetka so she wouldn’t be alone. I still had to go to practices and team meetings, so I couldn’t be with her nonstop. The two of them had hit it off right away, though. Before we left for the California road trip, Viktoriya and Tallie even took Svetka to a garage sale.
My Svetka came back to my house with a stuffed white tiger that was almost as big as I was. She set it on the coffee table in my living room and pushed it around until it was positioned exactly how she wanted it.
“You need a pet, Dmitri,” she said when I asked her why on earth she’d bought it.
“It’s not alive,” I pointed out.
“So you can’t kill it.” She nudged it one more time, then nodded and headed for the kitchen to brew more tea and bake more bread.
She was still dealing with jet lag, so she went to bed very early that night. I stayed downstairs to call London, since I hadn’t heard her voice since Svetka had arrived, and I missed her with the kind of hollow ache that had filled me after my father had passed away.
“Hey, stranger,” London answered.
“Miss you.”
“Whatever. You’re too busy taking Sergei’s mom around town to have time to miss me.”
“You’re wrong.”
She paused for a moment, but then she said, “Okay. I’m wrong.”
“What’s wrong with you?” I demanded. London never admitted to being wrong. She never gave in. Not on anything.
“Nothing’s wrong.”
“Is it the baby? I’m coming over.” I was already out of my chair and halfway to the door.
“Nothing’s wrong,” London repeated. “I just… My brother made sure to point out to me that I have a bad habit of always needing to be in control of things, and I’ve been thinking about it. And I think I’ve been that way with you. Maybe too much so.”
I didn’t have the first clue where she was headed with this, but I liked it even if it left me feeling hesitant. “So baby’s fine?” I asked, just for further reassurance.
“The baby’s fine.”
“And you’re still wrong?” I asked, not attempting to hide the doubt filling my tone.
“I’m still wrong. So, you’ve been missing me?”
“So much my stomach hurts.”
“But it makes your head hurt when we’re together.”
“Only because you always poke at me.”
“I do. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry,” I said.
“Why not?”
“Seem to remember you saying guilt is bad.”
She laughed, and the sound warmed me up from the bottoms of my toes. “So I did.”
“So don’t be sorry. Besides, I’d rather argue with you.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because it’s how we are.”
“It is.” I could picture the smile coming over her lips. I wished I was seeing it in person.
“You look hot when you grab my beard and drag me around.”
“You don’t have a beard left for me to grab.”
“Growing it back. It’ll take a while.”
“Don’t grow it all the way back,” she pleaded. “You look hot with it how it is now. I like a little scruff. Besides, I can still grab your hair and direct you where I want you.”
“Not if you couldn’t use your hands.” As soon as I said it, I wished I hadn’t. Everything had been light and flirtatious until then, but London already couldn’t use her legs. Threatening to take away use of her hands was crossing the line. I started to apologize, but she cut me off.
“You’re right. Maybe sometime we can try that.”
“I… What?” I had to have misheard her.
“My brother pointed out that it’s always my way or the highway with me. In everything. He seems to think I try to control things, and he suggested I might need to let go of that need to have everything go my way all the time. So that’s something I’m willing to try. With you. If you want.”
My mouth went dry. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying that I’m trying to compromise with you, Dima. I’m trying to meet you in the middle. I want to give up some control. I want to let you be in charge sometimes. I want to let you be right and not constantly push to be the one dictating how everything between us has to be.”
I shook my head to clear it. “Why you want this?”
“Because I think maybe you want it. And maybe it’ll help me to be what you need. Who knows? Maybe it’ll be good for me to give up some control every now and then.”
“But why you want to compromise now?” I asked.
“Because I can tell you’re trying. Maybe you’re not getting into counseling. Maybe you’re not going to group sessions or whatever. But you’re talking to me even though I’m not letting you get me naked—”
“Or see you,” I cut in.
“Or even see me. You’re starting to let me in. So I need to start to let my own guard down with you.”
I could hardly catch my breath, trying to keep up with all London was throwing at me. Things between us had slowed to a glacial pace for so long, but now they were moving too fast.
“When can I see you?” I asked. Because I didn’t know how much longer I could go without touching her.
“How soon do you leave for the road trip?”
“Tomorrow morning.”
“Then maybe you should come over tonight.”
TEN MINUTES AFTER we hung up, Dima was ringing my bell. Good grief, the man didn’t waste any time, did he? I’d been anxious to see him, too, but he had to have driven at twice the legal speed limit the whole way here.
I opened the door, and he came straight through. Hovering over me. Staring through me. He closed the door and locked the deadbolt before facing me again. I allowed myself a moment to take him in—dark, intense eyes that bored through me; scruffy jaw; chest rising and falling with his breath.
My breaths were just as ragged as his. I still couldn’t quite believe that I’d suggested letting him have control in this way. Or that I’d asked him to come over now. Let alone that he was already here. I’d barely had time to freshen up in the bathroom before he was standing in front of me.
But Gray was right. I did always try to keep my finger on everything that happened in every aspect of my life. I wanted to be the boss. I wanted things to go my way, even when my way didn’t make any sense. I had a need to be in control and for people to do what I wanted them to do, whether it was best for them or not. I seemed to think I was the only one who could figure out the right way to go about life.
That kind of thinking wasn’t just arrogant of me; it was dead wrong, and I had to learn to accept that fact.
So now I was going to give up some control to Dima. I only hoped I didn’t freak out too badly when it became clear I had almost none.
“You’re sure?” he a
sked, his gaze taking in every inch of me in a way that had my nipples puckering.
I bit down on my lower lip, reveling in the fact that his gaze followed the slight movement. I wasn’t sure at all. If anything, I was terrified. If Dima didn’t get on with it, I might chicken out. “Positive,” I said, though.
“You’re not drunk?”
I felt drunk from the way he was looking at me, but I hadn’t had a drop of wine since that night when I’d had entirely too much. “I’m completely sober. I’m pregnant, Dima. I’m not going to get drunk now that I know.”
“Was a joke,” he said. “Maybe not funny.”
I laughed, because he was completely serious about thinking it was a joke. Some things definitely got lost in translation.
“Not going to change your mind? Say it was a mistake?”
“It’s not a mistake. I want this.” And it killed me that he had to question my motives so much. That only proved that I was making the right call this time. I hadn’t been fair to Dima. Not at all. “I want you,” I added, since he was still just standing there and passing his eyes over me in a caress, when I wanted it to be his hands caressing my skin.
But still, he just stood there. Staring. Raking over my body with eyes that appeared to see everything. I’d never felt more self-conscious, more exposed, than I did in that moment. I wished he still had that damned beard, because then I could grab him by it and drag him down to me so we could get on with things.
Except, that would defeat the purpose of what we were doing.
So I sat and waited, barely breathing from the anticipation.
Finally, Dima closed the distance between us. In a single move, he picked me up and wrapped my legs around his waist, holding me by my thighs so I had to put both arms on his shoulders for balance.
I couldn’t stop myself. I had to kiss him. He let out an animalistic growl when our lips touched, his tongue immediately pressing against my seam and demanding entrance. He tasted as dark and needy as I felt.
“Should spank you for keeping me away so long,” he said, his mouth mere inches from mine.
Ghost Dance (Tulsa Thunderbirds Book 3) Page 21
