HER RUSSIAN SURRENDER

by Theodora Taylor

  The little boy clamped his lips together and nodded.

  “The other Russians came through the door. They were yelling really loud, but I kept on hiding like you told me, even after I heard some loud popping sounds.” His eyes filled up with tears. “They were gunshots, weren’t they? Like on TV? Papa… he’s dead, isn’t he?”

  Sam had to fight off her own tears, her heart was hurting so bad for Pavel. Memories of her own mother’s body lying lifeless on the floor flooded her mind and it took her a few tries before she could say, “I’m really sorry about what happened to your papa.” Then she said, “Looks like he was an Indiana Polar fan, too.”

  The boy nodded. “Papa says I’m going to be a great hockey player when I grow up. It’s in our blood.”

  “No way! That’s so cool!” Sam replied, even though she didn’t know all that much about hockey beyond the pushy player she’d met at tonight’s party and one viewing of The Mighty Ducks when she was around Pavel’s age. “Maybe we should get out of here and go somewhere we can talk some more about hockey.”

  He peeped over her shoulder again. “The bad guys aren’t out there any more?”

  “Nope,” Sam answered. At least not for now. But Sam continued to keep it casual, like she wasn’t afraid for both his life and her own. “I’m starving. Are you hungry? We should go get something to eat.”

  It must have been a while since Pavel had last eaten, because he rubbed his stomach at the suggestion, even though his expression remained wary.

  “You want me to come out?” he asked.

  “Yes, I really want you to come out,” she answered. “My knees are starting to hurt a little in this squat and all I had to eat for dinner were party appetizers. I could really use a good meal.”

  Pavel frowned, seeming to mull Sam’s invitation over. Then he said, “If she really wants to lick me, I guess she can.”

  It took a moment for Sam to realize they were now talking about Back Up. Though really, she sensed, it was more about Pavel wanting to make sure Sam could be trusted. He was testing what she told him, to make sure she wasn’t a liar. He wanted her to prove Back Up didn’t intend to do him any harm.

  Thankfully, unlike her story about starving when she’d actually wolfed down a sandwich on the way to the Hockey Ices Cancer event, this claim was true. She reached out behind her and motioned to Back Up. “Here girl, Pavel wants to meet you.”

  Back Up didn’t need to be told twice. She jogged right on over and pushed her square nose into Pavel, slobbering the dirt off the boy’s face with such enthusiasm that he started to giggle.

  “Calm down, Back Up,” Sam told the dog, tugging on her collar and pulling her back. “Don’t overwhelm him with the love!”

  But Pavel didn’t seem to mind at all. He crawled out of the cabinet and hugged Back Up around the neck in the way of a child who loved dogs but didn’t have one. He petted her large head and got several more face licks as a thank you.

  Sam watched him interact with Back Up, her heart continuing to break for the traumatized child who actually looked like a carefree little boy when he was with her dog.

  Pavel looked up at her and said, “Can I hold her leash when we leave here?”

  Normally Sam would have said no. Back Up was a lot of dog to handle, even for a full grown adult like herself. But in this case…

  “Sure, sweetie, just hold it right here,” she said, placing Pavel on her left side, squeezed between her and Back Up. She placed his smaller hand in the middle of the leash and took the upper part for herself in her left hand. Then she began to walk them out of the apartment, using her body to block the sight of the boy’s father as they walked by the couch.

  Pavel didn’t have to be told not to look. He kept his eyes on Back Up, stroking her short fur as they walked out of the house, leaving the body of his dead father behind.

  6

  “What’s this I hear about you taking custody of a kid in some dead meth head case?” Marco demanded two days later when she opened the door to her cottage.

  Sam looked over her shoulder at Pavel who was on the couch, with Back Up’s large head in his lap, watching an episode of Peg + Cat on her small flat screen.

  She was officially his guardian now and it looked like someone had finally gotten around to telling Marco Gutierrez, the cop who’d been flirting with her since she’d opened Ruth’s House Indiana which happened to be located right on his beat.

  Kismet, he’d said when they’d had their first takeout date a couple of Saturdays ago. He often had to work weird hours for his beat, and she often did the same for Ruth’s House. They were kind of a no-brainer, he’d told her with an endearing smile. He also had dimples. Just like her. Just like the good cop from Veronica Mars.

  But he didn’t look all that happy with her right now, and there was no trace of dimple action to be seen on his face.

  Sam winced and stepped outside to talk to him.

  “Please keep your voice down,” she said as she closed the door behind her.

  “Why the hell did you bring the kid home with you? And why am I just now hearing about this from the station social worker and not from you?”

  “Marco, don’t get mad,” she said. “But yeah, I’ve signed on as his guardian until further notice.”

  “This isn’t a shelter case,” Marco pointed out. “The social worker said there was maybe some neglect but no domestic violence.”

  “I know that,” she said. “But I’ve decided to help him as much as I can.”

  “What, by teaching him to meditate and do yoga whenever he’s feeling sad about his addict dad getting shot?” Marco asked, his voice incredulous.

  Sam decided not to take that question personally. She’d read all the research on how much a good mindfulness practice and yoga could help traumatized kids, but she was well-aware it might sound like a bunch of woo-woo nonsense to people who didn’t spend a lot of their spare time looking for ways to further help women and kids coming out of bad situations.

  She was also aware how Marco felt about drug dealers of any kind. He’d been nothing but kind to the women he’d referred to Ruth’s House, but if any of them had a boyfriend or husband into the bad stuff, he’d come down hard as an anvil, especially if they came by the shelter making threats.

  “I get why this would look crazy to you,” she told him. “But Pavel needs a stable home and counseling and, yeah, a good mindfulness practice wouldn’t hurt the situation at all. And I can give him all of that.”

  “Do you know how many kids need that and don’t get it every year?” He frowned, worry creasing his boyishly handsome face. “Look I know you have a thing for rescue situations. The fact that you have the world’s dumbest pit bull tells me that.”

  “Hey! Back Up is a Staffordshire Bull Terrier,” she corrected. “And she isn’t dumb.”

  “She jumped up on me and literally tried to eat my gun the last time I was here,” Marco reminded her. “She’s either dumb or suicidal.”

  He rushed on before Sam could argue with him further. “The point is this kid is not Back Up, or even a victim of domestic abuse. He’s eight years old, and he was in a cabinet the whole time his dad was getting snuffed.” Marco shook his head. “Look, I don’t want to be mean here, but I’ve got to at least try to talk you out of this. Witsec’s already taken a pass. You should, too.”

  Sam shook her own head, knowing exactly where Marco was going with this. The same place the other police officers at his station had when she’d decided to use her social worker’s license in order to assume custody of Pavel until further notice.

  “There’s nothing to be talked out of,” she told Marco, just like she’d told those officers. She considered Marco a friend with potential to become more than that, but right about now, she was finding it hard not to get frustrated with him.

  “Pavel’s scared out of his mind and for good reason. He won’t leave Back Up’s side. He would have slept in her dog bed if I hadn’t let them both bunk down with me.�
��

  “Even more reason why we should get Child Protective Services involved. Let them handle it.”

  Sam shook her head. “I don’t want him handled. I want him taken care of.”

  “Yeah, but…” Marco reached out to take her hand. “Why’s it got to be you?”

  Sam froze. The answer to that was so complicated. Marco was a nice guy and she’d welcomed his interest in her. Working as many hours as she did, it wasn’t like she met a ton of guys just dying to start a relationship with someone whose biggest dream was to open “a different kind of domestic abuse shelter” in all fifty states.

  Nevertheless, there were parts of her past he wasn’t privy to, parts that made it impossible for her to abandon Pavel when he needed not just anyone, but someone who absolutely understood what he was going through.

  “So what are you suggesting?” Sam asked, taking her hand back from him. “That I further traumatize him by passing him off to strangers?”

  Marco opened his mouth to answer just as a knock sounded on the other side of the door.

  “Hold on a minute,” Marco called out.

  “Come on out, Pavel,” she said at the same time.

  The door opened and Pavel stuck his head outside. She could hear Back Up panting behind him and smiled because the dog had stuck to Pavel’s side for the last few days, as if sensing the little boy needed her.

  “Hi, Pavel,” Sam said with a bright smile.

  “Hey, little man. What’s up? Settling in okay?” Marco asked with a dimpled smile of his own. Usually Sam liked how well the officer got along with children and the rest of the women at her shelter, effortlessly putting everyone he met at ease with his outgoing and affable nature. But in this case, it struck Sam as a little fake, considering he’d just been trying to convince her to pass him off to Indiana’s Department of Child Services.

  Pavel, who might have heard more than she would have wished, didn’t even spare him a look.

  “Tonight is Mount Nik’s last game. May I watch it?” he asked politely, without any acknowledgment of Marco whatsoever.

  “Sure, feel free to change it,” Sam answered. “I’ve got some paperwork I can finish up while you do that, then it’s time for bed.”

  “I’m a big Indiana Polar fan myself,” Marco told the kid. “And I’m off duty now.” He smiled at Sam. “You got any beer? Maybe I could come in and watch.”

  “Ah…” Sam said.

  “Mama, I’d like to watch it alone if you don’t mind,” Pavel said in the doorway.

  Pavel, Sam had discovered over the last forty-eight hours, was actually a very polite little boy. At least to her. Everybody else was a different story, and he seemed even less enthusiastic to watch the game with Marco than she was to invite him in after his Child Services pitch.

  “That’s okay,” Marco said, throwing Sam a puzzled look. “I’ve got some buddies I can watch it with at the bar. Go Polar!”

  Pavel just disappeared back inside, shutting the door behind him.

  Apparently he did not feel any solidarity with Marco whatsoever just because he was also a Polar fan.

  “Wow,” Marco said, running a hand over his spiky black hair.

  “He’s adjusting,” Sam said. “And he probably didn’t get much social training growing up the way he did.”

  “Yeah, but… Did I hear him call you Mama? You said you just met this kid, what? Forty-eight hours ago?”

  Sam cringed. She’d been hoping he wouldn’t ask her about that. Pavel had been calling her “mama” ever since they’d arrived at her apartment two nights ago, almost as if they’d formally agreed to the title change on the car ride over from the police station.

  “He’s not your kid,” Marco told her now.

  “I know that,” she answered, even as her heart kicked up a mutinous rebellion, pumping harder, as if to say, That’s a lie! Pavel is my son and I’m his mother. Obviously it was meant to be!

  But she brutally suppressed those thoughts and repeated, “I know, obviously he’s not my son. This is just a temporary arrangement.”

  “Then why is he calling you mama? You’ve made enough calls in these domestic abuse situations to know the deal. You’re not supposed to get too involved here. You pass these kids along to the foster system and that’s supposed to be the end of it.”

  “I know that, too.”

  “Is it because the shelter’s empty right now? Maybe you’re feeling like you need a project, and that’s why you took the kid into your custody?”

  “No,” Sam answered. Though she had to admit she’d been bored lately. The number of domestic abuse cases coming through Ruth’s House had severely dipped after the Super Bowl, but March Madness was right around the corner and the NBA playoffs after that. Sadly, the one thing Sam could guarantee was that the shelter wouldn’t be empty come spring.

  “No, that’s not it,” she assured Marco. “I’ve got plenty of paperwork and grant applications to keep me busy.”

  “Then why are we having this conversation? Why won’t you let me put this kid in the back of my car and take him over to DCS?”

  Sam couldn’t answer that without coming off as even more insane than Marco probably already suspected. She knew it wasn’t wise or healthy to let Pavel call her mama, but she couldn’t shake the feeling he was doing so because she needed to step up and be his mother now. At least until an appropriate one could be found for him.

  Sam chewed on her lip. “Okay, fine, I’ll sign off on Pavel leaving my custody as soon as you find a set of suitable parents and give me at least two weeks to thoroughly vet them with supervised visits.” She put a friendly hand to his back and started escorting him to his car, which she could see parked right next to the shelter in one of the intake spaces for Ruth’s House. “You have my word.”

  “Fine, I’ll get going. But don’t think I don’t know what you’re doing, Sam.”

  “Of course you know what I’m doing,” Sam answered, coming to a stop beside his car. “I’m doing what’s in Pavel’s best interest.”

  Marco folded his arms. “Let me finish, Sam. I know what you’re doing, but I’m not going to force the issue because you’re sort of right.” He rubbed a hand over the back of his neck. “The kid’s been through a lot, so I’m going to call in some favors and see if we can’t find some parents who meet your criteria. Until then, I guess this is as good a place as any for him. At least Ruth’s House is secure.” He threw a disparaging look toward the slender windows on either side of her door. “If you don’t count those break-in windows on your cottage. I’ll come by this weekend and maybe see about boarding them up—just until we get a bead on whoever killed the kid’s father.”

  Her heart warmed at his words and many of the bad feelings she’d been having about him began to evaporate.

  “Thanks, Marco,” she said. “Thanks for your understanding.”

  He unfolded his arms and came closer in a move that brought to mind the hockey player who had kissed her two days ago.

  “So I’m doing you a solid…” He flashed his dimpled smile. “Maybe you should reward me with a kiss?”

  Unease crawled its way up Sam’s back, and she had no idea why. Marco was a good guy. A good, solid guy who didn’t send emissaries with balcony invites, who’d never hit her with a lewd double entendre, or even try to steal a kiss from a woman he’d just met.

  Sure, he could stand to be more open-minded about the alternative healing therapies she was using at Ruth’s House, and sure she didn’t love that he was acting like he deserved a gold star for agreeing to let her show a little boy some compassion—

  Sam stopped herself with an inner ugh of disgust. Why did she always have to psychoanalyze the guys who showed any interest in her? That was probably why she was still single at the age of thirty-four. Single and childless. Two things she needed to focus on correcting sooner rather than later, if she ever wanted her dreams of finally being a part of a loving family to come true.

  She pasted a smile on and s
aid, “One kiss coming right up.”

  Standing on her tiptoes, she pressed her lips to his.

  The kiss was… nice. Really nice. Just like Marco.

  He grinned at her when it was finished, “I’m gonna get started on finding some great parents for Pavel first thing tomorrow morning.”

  She grinned back and waved as he got in the car.

  Marco was a terrific guy, she thought as she watched him ease around the shelter’s corner and drive away. A really terrific guy.

  So why had she been thinking of the Russian hockey player the entire time she’d been kissing him?

  7

  “Mount, wait, wait! Don’t—”

  But it was too late, Brian Atwood’s back hit the plexiglas wall so hard, it rattled the entire structure surrounding the ice at the Polar training facility. Introduction courtesy of Nikolai “Mount Nik” Rustanov.

  “What were saying about wanting special treatment?”

  Brian panted, trying to catch his breath after that hit. “We went pretty hard at your last game party last night. I was just making a suggestion…”

  “You suggest we end practice early so you can sleep away your bad decisions. You think easier to ask permission for naptime now I am owner?”

  “C’mon Mount, man, that’s not nearly what I was trying to say,” Brian said, looking both hurt and offended by Nikolai’s assessment of the situation. “I’m just saying—”

  Nikolai slammed the blond player into the wall again, wishing that the hockey uniforms weren’t so well padded. But from the grimace on their star left winger’s face, he needn’t have worried. He’d most certainly felt that.

  “All right, all right, I get it,” Brian said through the pain. “We’re not leaving early.”

  “No, we are not,” Nikolai agreed. “In fact, we will stay extra twenty minutes because you wasted our time with your request.” He all but spat out the last word before letting the entitled hockey player go with one last shove into the plexiglas.

  Behind him, Gary Burton, the Indiana Polar’s head coach, blew his whistle. “All right, line em up right over here. Side-to-side drills, starting now!”