Vee bit back tears, sticking doggedly to her planned agenda. “Jack Frost won’t let you get away with that. You’ll be leaping from one frying pan into another.”
“This I accept. I never said I wished to retire. A man must work. And the world’s underbelly is what I know.” He broke his grim stance with a flashing Tokarev grin. “We have both, no? Job with Jack and house in suburbs? In America anything is possible.”
He held out his arms, and Vee plunged into his embrace. Five thousand miles from the U S of A, and she was home at last.
Epilogue
Eight days later.
The wedding in Moscow was a civil ceremony, made solemn and binding by the attendance of Sergei’s extended family—his mother Nataliya, Misha and his wife and children, their sister Irina, her husband and children. And the ghost of Ivan Sergeievich Zhukov.
The wedding at a beachfront resort on St. John’s was more elaborate, complete with a genuine black-robed minister, a long white gown, elaborate flower arrangements, and the Frost family, together for the first time in many years. Jack, Elena, Jilian, and Jason.
Sergei endured it all. As grooms were supposed to do. Then, finally, all was quiet. He and Vee were alone, just the two of them. As newlyweds were supposed to be.
Sergei looked around the large, elegant room, out the broad expanse of windows at the magnificent panorama of palm trees, sand, and ocean, then back to the closed bathroom door. Until now, nothing had seemed real. Not the balmy breezes of a tropical island, not the long, long flight from Moscow. Not the last fourteen years since he’d graduated from college. Limbo wasn’t solely the place he’d been trapped in when he woke up in Bellvue, a man with no name and no past. A man, he eventually discovered, he didn’t really like.
Limbo. The realm next door to Hell. He’d been living in it since his death-bed promise to his father. His vow to find and destroy each and every bomb. To atone for the only dishonorable stain on General Ivan Zhukov’s outstanding military career.
Yet hadn’t his father already paid for that sin? His ebullient personality fading to sullen, his giant frame wasting to skin and bones, dying while still wrapped in an agony of guilt?
Retrieving the bombs was his father’s obsession, the shrinks had told him. Passing the quest to his younger son, an unfair burden. The maundering fantasy of a dying man.
He’d resisted their words every time. Dug in his heels and hung on to his illusions.
Until this last time, when he knew he could never have Valentina if he didn’t let go.
The bathroom door opened. Vee was wearing the nightgown he’d bought in Atlantic City. The one so sheer even lace and embroidery couldn’t cover the goodies underneath.
But he was even more exposed. In his eagerness to officially inaugurate a long and happy marriage, he wasn’t wearing anything at all.
Vee sauntered across the room, stopping a foot away. “That’s quite a barricade you’ve got there. Planning on using that as a lethal weapon?” She wrapped her hand around his jutting penis.
Seryozha gulped, jerked her toward him. “The only weapon I have left.” he breathed into her ear. “Is good, no?”
Heaven help her, at this moment even his reversion to Sergei couldn’t deflate her desire. Good boy, bad boy, he was hers, whatever was to come.
The moon cut a path across the water, sparks twinkling with each lap of the waves. Palms rustled. Night creatures scuttled through the sand.
Inside, improved Russian-American relations took on a whole new meaning.
~ *** ~
Author’s Note:
For any nuclear physicists among my readers: although I did a staggering amount of research for this book, I’m sure I got the mechanics all wrong - and, given the topic, that’s probably just as well. The bombs, however, are real. Ten nuclear bombs did go missing during the chaos after the fall of the Soviet Union. At the time I heard the story, three had been found, providing the nucleus of this story.
About the Author:
Believing variety is the spice of life, I also write traditional Regency, Romantic Suspense, Mystery, and Futuristic. (Below is a list of books currently available.) Others, including my first steampunk, Airborne - The Hanover Restoration, will be coming soon. The Golden Beach books are not a classic series. Some have connected characters; others, only a connected setting, a very real Florida Gulf Coast resort and retirement community whose name has been changed because the residents would like to keep its uniqueness a deep, dark secret.
I am always delighted to hear from my readers. I can be contacted at [email protected]. My website is http://www.blairbancroft.com/. My blog: http://mosaicmoments.blogspot.com/
Twitter: @blairbancroft
Blair’s books currently online:
Limbo Man
O’Rourke’s Heiress
Love At Your Own Risk
Mistletoe Moment
The Sometime Bride
The Captive Heiress
The Courtesan’s Letters
The Temporary Earl
The Harem Bride
A Season for Love
A Gamble on Love
Lady Silence
Steeplechase
Tarleton’s Wife
The Golden Beach Suspense
& Mystery Books:
Orange Blossoms & Mayhem
Paradise Burning
Shadowed Paradise
Limbo Man Page 28
