by Cait London
Willow grinned and said, “Oh, you’ll yell. I’d bet on it. Alexi isn’t the kind of man to let you bar him out of your life.”
“You know so much, do you? What’s the bet?”
“That you’ll take over my delivery and shuttle duties for the elderly here. I love them so much. But Mom is arranging a family get-together in Oregon. I want to go, but I can’t leave them stranded here needing their groceries and appointments.”
“I’d do that anyway—without the bet, Willow.” Jessica turned to the rough wood panel on the ceiling that was being pulled aside. A workman’s boot and then, in a flurry of sawdust, Alexi’s jeans-clad legs appeared at the wooden ladder as he came down into the main room.
“Nice butt,” Willow murmured with a grin. “Two nice butts, tight and hard,” she corrected as Jarek made his way down. Intent upon a discussion of proper roofing trusses and supports, the men continued to talk.
“To get enough pitch for that overhang on the deck, we’ll have to raise the roof.” Alexi said to Jarek, and drew the carpenter’s pencil from over his ear. He began marking on a fresh board propped against the wall.
Jarek pointed to the drawing. “Raise it only on one side. Run a row of windows beneath the high side, down to the lower one.”
As if Alexi sensed where Jessica was standing, he turned to her and instantly the air between them started to vibrate and sizzle. She could feel him moving over her, in her. She could taste his skin, his mouth, feel his hair slide across her stomach. A week of long, sweet, exhausting nights had only increased their hunger. Jessica had thought that heat and hunger would be eased, but instead it had simmered through the days and ignited at one touch, one look. Yesterday, while having tea at Fadey and Mary Jo’s, Alexi had looked at her with that dark intimate passion, and she’d heated immediately. Embarrassed by her need, her hands had trembled on the ornate metal holder for the glass, until Alexi had taken it from her. “We’re going,” he’d said abruptly.
His excuse that they wanted to work on Viktor’s house was barely believable, and they’d arrived, breathless with hunger, tumbling into bed….
Now Alexi’s darkened gaze swept possessively down Jessica’s body and then back up to lock with her eyes. He was still nettled that she had talked to Barney, but they hadn’t discussed it again.
There was something else disturbing Alexi. He tensed every time a car went by, when one of their cell phones rang—and he was never far away, or if he was, one of his relatives always appeared.
The two men continued talking as they walked out of the door into the enclosed outer room. The door closed, a power saw buzzed and Jessica sighed. At times she had gone to stand outside the building to make business calls on her cell phone. “Make a list of who needs what, Willow. I’ll see that everyone gets delivered and picked up.”
It wouldn’t—couldn’t—last, not that incredible passion, the quiet peace later lying close to Alexi….
Lost in her thoughts, Jessica frowned. She’d already given away too much of herself to Alexi, something she’d never given anyone else—including Robert. “What was that you were saying about Alexi?”
“I said, if you help Alexi, work part-time on the business and run a shuttle service, you’re going to be really tired.”
“I’ve been tired before. You do it, Willow, run a business and run errands. I run a corporation. That’s not easy, you know. Everything, business and life, can be scheduled.”
Willow smirked impishly. “Oh, really. Alexi can be scheduled? Does your schedule allow for extracurricular Alexi-activities?”
Then she frowned slightly and went to place her hand on Jessica’s arm. “Did you tell him that Howard has been threatening you?”
“Howard is just hot air. He’ll cool down. He has before.”
“If you say so, Jessica. I know how you feel about doing your best for him, about your promise to his father. But this is different—”
“Did Alexi say anything?”
Willow looked away, avoiding the question, and Jessica pressed, “Did Alexi say anything to you about Howard?”
Her friend shrugged. “Okay, we talked briefly outside this morning. I said you had handled Howard for seven years before you married Robert and after, and that you knew him well enough to protect yourself.”
“And?”
“And Alexi said things might be different this time. And this time, you wouldn’t be alone. I liked that. It’s a chick thing, maybe, but I know you’re safe with him. The Stepanov men are big on taking care of their own.”
Jessica stared at Willow. “I’m not helpless, you know. I take care of myself. I always have.”
“Uh-huh. Don’t get your nose out of joint. I’m not saying you’re bad at taking care of yourself, but you’ve never had a relationship before. And Alexi is one heck of a starting package—a total package.” Willow glanced at the door that had opened again as Ellie, heavy with child, entered the room. Tanya, bundled against the cold, leaned shyly against her. Leigh, slightly rounded in pregnancy and balancing Katerina on her hip, followed. “Alexi said to come right in, that you were expecting us. Is that all right?”
From the sunroom, Mikhail ordered loudly, “My wife needs to sit down.”
A moment later he peeked inside the door to see that Ellie had followed his orders. Satisfied to find her seated in a chair, he nodded and closed the door.
“Mr. Mother Hen, and I love him. I hope we’re not intruding,” Ellie said softly, and rubbed the small of her back.
Jarek came in carrying a box and Leigh pointed to the hutch. “Put it there, Pops.”
He beamed at her and carefully placed the cardboard box on the hutch. He peered inside and Leigh said, “Oh, no, you don’t. Not yet. Go get the other box.”
Before he left, Jarek bowed deeply, gallantly. “I live to serve, milady.”
“Please make yourself comfortable. I’d love the visit,” Jessica said as panic rose to tighten her throat. She’d never had any friends, except Robert and Willow! In her lifetime, she’d never hosted a comfortable informal friendly gathering! “All I can offer is coffee and tea. There are rolls from the bakery on the hutch. I’m afraid—”
“Good. Food. I need some now.” On her way to the sweet rolls, Leigh handed Katerina to Jessica. The toddler’s chubby body was warm and cuddly, and instantly the unexpected ache for her own child bloomed inside Jessica. The thought terrified her; she’d come from a background where children weren’t prized and she hadn’t dreamed of a child since she was that innocent teenage bride.
She watched Leigh place a plastic cake carrier on the table, then take paper plates and plastic forks from a sack. Bottles of juice followed. Then Jarek came in again carrying a bigger box to the table.
Ellie looked at Mikhail who had just carried in another box, framed in a wooden crate. “On the table, please, Mikie,” she purred and batted her eyelashes, evidently teasing him.
He slanted a mock-stern frown her way and hurried to open the door. Jarek and Alexi were muscling in a new apartment-size electric stove, and the three men set to installing it in one side of the large room. The women seemed comfortable amid the masculine discussion of electric codes and wiring and position.
“Open the boxes, Jessica,” Ellie said softly. “They were Alexi’s mother’s things. Viktor wanted you to be able to use them.”
In a daze, Jessica moved to the table and slowly opened the big box. Paper rattled as she withdrew a perfect china cup splashed with colorful flowers and trimmed in gold. She lifted another wrapping and a beautiful matching saucer appeared. The china was obviously old and precious to this family and Jessica felt her throat begin to close with emotion.
“Louise and Viktor’s samovar is in the other box,” Ellie said quietly, her expression soft and understanding as tears came to Jessica’s eyes. “It’s nice, having your own set, having a family to enjoy it with you.”
Touched by the warmth of this family, Jessica fought back tears. She hadn’t realized how
much richness her life had lacked, how brittle it now seemed.
Who was she really? How much had she missed? And finally, what if she failed?
She found Alexi staring at her, and turned away. She didn’t suit him, or this family. What was she thinking, involving herself with Alexi, a man who had already been hurt?
What was she doing?
Alexi wiped his hands on the rag and stood, studying the newly installed kitchen sink and counter. His cousins and uncle were already enjoying sweet rolls and coffee in the next room and Alexi couldn’t put off joining them any longer.
Jessica was clearly emotional and off-balance, uncomfortable amidst the sudden burst of Stepanovs. She’d seemed helpless and afraid, and yet she didn’t turn to him, preferring to keep her fears to herself.
So he was angry and frustrated, and wanted to hold her. But her head had gone up with pride and once again she’d cut him from her life, from what caused her to react so emotionally, almost stunned by family warmth.
He threw down the rag and, unable to prolong it any longer, walked into the living area. Once there he stopped, caught by the image of Jessica sitting on the floor. Her legs were folded, the toddler seated upon them. Her hair was down, waving around her face, and she seemed softly, warmly, stunned as she spoke with his family. She seemed locked in a discovery that pleased and frightened her.
Then Jessica met his gaze and tears shimmered in her eyes. Her lips opened and trembled, as if she were trying to speak.
Alexi moved quickly to her. He gently picked up the toddler and handed her to Jarek, then he lifted Jessica into his arms. Alexi sat in the big rocking chair that had just been brought from the shop and held Jessica, rocking her gently while his family continued to talk softly.
“I can’t do this,” Jessica whispered.
“I know,” he returned, challenging her. “It’s too easy. You like the fight, don’t you?”
“Rat.”
When they were alone, Alexi watched Jessica carefully place the china cups and saucers onto a huge hutch. Her fingers ran over the gleaming, ornate samovar as if treasuring it.
He placed the new secretary desk he had just carried inside on the floor. Jarek had left it in the sunroom and Alexi preferred to give his gift to Jessica in private. “Where do you want this?”
“What?” As if reluctant to leave the Stepanov gifts, Jessica turned slowly. “It’s beautiful, Alexi. But not necessary. You can take it back to the furniture display room, or the shop. The door will do nicely—”
She frowned and came closer. “I haven’t seen this design before. It’s beautiful, very feminine, almost sensual.”
In comparison to the emerald rings she wore, glittering as her hand swept across the desk, the walnut secretary was nothing—and it was everything, a gift of his heart to the woman he suspected he loved. “I made it for you. It’s my own design.”
Jessica frowned, clearly startled, her hand going over her heart. “You made it. For me,” she repeated.
Alexi swallowed the emotion in his throat. “I hope you like it. Now, where do you want it?”
“For me? Is that how you see me? Like the beauty in this?” she repeated once more, as if disbelieving. A tear dropped from her lashes and slid down her cheek. “No one has ever made me a gift before,” she added shakily.
“It is only a small thing, something a man does for a woman he—cherishes,” he finished unevenly. He placed the secretary on the floor and reached to cradle her face in his hand. His thumb stroked away the tear and he replaced it with a light kiss.
“It’s lovely. I—I don’t know what to say.” Jessica felt as if all the brittle pieces of armor she’d pasted around her through the years were coming apart.
She didn’t expect to see the pain in his face, or the tears. “Alexi, I am fine.”
“You say you’re always ‘fine,’ don’t you?” His deep voice was rough with emotion. “But you show me what you feel, behind that smoke screen you use to protect yourself.”
She couldn’t stop the tears flowing down her cheeks. “Why are you so angry?”
“Because my gift is so little, so simple, a man to a woman, and it terrifies you. You should have had presents before…made with—” He stopped and turned from her. “I want to take you someplace. If you want to go, put on your boots and jacket. It’s cold outside.”
“No. Not now.”
Alexi raised a dark brow. “You don’t trust me, even for that?”
“I just want to stay here…where it’s all so beautiful. I’m afraid if I leave, it will all disappear….”
His frown deepened. “This is a good house. It’s rough now, but it’s not going anywhere.”
How could she explain? “No, I’m afraid all the warmth and love will—”
Alexi tugged her into his arms and his light kisses dried her tears. “You think too much.”
“This is only temporary, you know. There’s a real world out there, and it isn’t going to wait. Just hold me tight, Alexi. I feel as if I’m coming apart.”
His body stiffened, but he held her tightly against him. Temporary with Jessica wasn’t a word he liked, yet it was better than nothing with her.
Layers of morning fog blurred the sight of Jessica walking along the beach in front of Alexi. Sandpipers zigzagged along the sand, picking at bits of food; seagulls cried like tiny white ghosts before settling upon piers circled by thick cables.
She had been unsettled throughout the night, walking out onto the deck to stare at the night, to listen to the crash of the waves. More than once, she had passed by the hutch holding his mother’s old china, touching the pieces almost reverently. She’d sat at the desk he’d made, running her hands over the smooth, oiled wood, rearranging her laptop and pencils and pads several times.
Alexi rubbed his chest, where the ache had started inside his heart and watched Jessica.
She began to walk toward the deserted pier that the summer would fill with tourists, browsing in the shops and sitting in lawn chairs with bait and tackle boxes at their sides, fishing lines in the water.
This is only temporary, she’d said, and the words had hurt him desperately. They closed the door to the future they could have, that he wanted.
Alexi reached down to pick up a smooth flat stone and sent it skipping across the dark waves. And what did he have to offer her?
Was she thinking of her late husband, the man she had loved?
Was Alexi so fragile that he needed her to say the words to him, to come after him, initiate lovemaking desperately, to give him a sign that she cared? How much time did they have before she went back to Seattle, to the elegant home and wealth he couldn’t give her?
Alexi watched her disappear into the fog lying over the tourists’ pier. How could he let her go?
How long could he dance around saying what he wanted, pushing for a commitment that might terrify her?
Alexi inhaled roughly, holding the cold, salt-scented air inside him before releasing it. He knew himself. He wasn’t a man to wait and he wasn’t a man to avoid the inevitable confrontation with the bully hounding her. Jessica’s independent nature wouldn’t like his interference.
By the last week of January, just two weeks since Alexi and she had first made love, Jessica had dug into her new role, not exactly a peaceful change, but definitely more exciting. Not only was she discovering how much she liked everyday life in Amoteh, the Stepanov family, but she felt energized. She wasn’t simply a mechanical body filling an office position. She wasn’t drained by mountains of responsibilities and paperwork, and then returning the next day for the endless tasks.
Instead she had found that life in Amoteh settled her into a peace she’d never known. She enjoyed the good times the Stepanov women shared, the way Ellie had settled into a quiet anticipation of her baby, which was due the first week of February.
She had carefully filtered her cell phone calls, not answering Howard’s. Because of business, she restricted him to e-mail contact, and he wa
s angry. Too bad. The newly installed land line also had a Caller ID attached and Howard was simply ignored.
Jessica was in her own perfect bubble, complete with a man who made her feel—really feel like she was alive and thriving. In Alexi’s arms, Jessica was all woman—and that held a beauty and power of its own, so deep and powerful that it glowed inside her.
Sometimes. There were times when she could shake him, as if that was possible.
Jessica stared at Alexi, who was above her repairing the roof. Through the makeshift hole, which would later become a skylight, he glared down at her. “I said, ‘roofing nails.’ This is a wood screw.”
“Listen, bud. Be glad. You got me up at the crack of dawn and you haven’t stopped pushing me since. I haven’t done anything right all day—according to you. And you’ve gotten sawdust all over the floor. I just used the shop vacuum on it.”
His smile wasn’t nice. “That happens when wood is sawed. It makes sawdust.”
“I’ve been up and down this ladder so much that my butt hurts.”
“I need roofing nails, not wood screws, and a claw hammer isn’t a crowbar.”
“First, I wasn’t holding my end of the replacement window high enough and you yelled at me.”
“Yell back. Go back to your office work. But get me the nails first, I’m losing daylight.”
Her temper rising, Jessica held back the shout almost ready to burst into the air between them. “You know I never yell,” she said unsteadily. “I’ll get your damn nails…. What did you just mutter?”
“Nothing.”
“You just said ‘women,’ like that, like—” Jessica realized she had just shouted. “Now look what you’ve made me do.”
Around the nail between his lips, Alexi said, “Sure. You yelled, and now you’re blaming your bad temper on me.”
He took the nail from his lips and began to hammer above her. Jessica wasn’t done with him. “You shouldn’t have started it, Stepanov.”
