by D. A. Young
She barely came to his shoulder, but the mulish glint in her eyes and the way her jaw locked with determination told Tuck that he should tread lightly. Katerina Romankov was a spitfire, and he was completely fascinated with her. He’d never seen anyone ride the hell out of a horse like that. Tuck had looked up from his perch in the trees to see her galloping his way like an angel. The midday sun illuminated the lustrous sheen of her copper curls, making them appear ablaze all over her head. From her nice clothes and wildflower fragrance to the way she stood ramrod straight, speaking with perfect diction, tinged with a touch of southern honey, Katerina was a “proper-like little lady” as his mama would say.
More importantly, she was a connection that Tuck wanted to utilize. He longed for a conversation that didn’t revolve around weaponry, anti-government talk, or hunting. He wanted to know what else was going on in the world outside of the one his parents had delegated to their people.
“I ain’t mean to insult,” he muttered. “What were you doin’ out here anyway?”
Kat relaxed slightly, realizing it was as close to an apology that Tuck would give. “I wanted to ride Jazzy. I need to be getting back, though. Ms. Eustice is probably having a conniption. I tell you what; it was worth it! I don’t regret a single minute of it…except that pesky part about almost dying from a snake bite.”
She smiled at Tuck and he returned it, revealing a nice set of white teeth, a startling contrast to his dirty face. “Thanks for saving me, Tucker Rydell.”
“Don’t mention it,” he grumbled with a frown, put out that Kat was now leaving. “You wasn’t dyin’ on my watch. I woulda sucked the venom out.”
Hesitating at how crestfallen Tuck appeared but tried to conceal, Kat was undecided. He was the second kid she’d ever encountered that hadn’t hesitated to strike up a conversation with her. In school, her classmates were too scared and hypercritical to interact with Kat because of her family. Her family’s wealth and power intimidated the entire town and at school, gossip circulated about her missing mother and a trio of brothers who had the blood of a murderer swimming in their veins. Kat found Tuck’s company refreshing, and she wanted to do something nice for him. Impulsively, she reached into her pocket and extracted a crumpled twenty-dollar bill. She’d planned to go to The Dandy Candy Emporium this afternoon and go hog wild. Instead, Kat shyly held it out to him.
“That sounds…lovely? I wish that I could repay you with more, but this is all I have. Please take it.”
Tuck peered at it curiously. “Ain’t got much use for it. You’d best hold onto it.”
“I insist. Romankovs always pay their debts.”
Kat moved closer, holding her breath and trying not to gag at the pungent odor he emanated. Lordy, help her. Tucker Rydell needed Dial, Ivory, and Irish Spring collectively more than the Devil needed Jesus.
Tuck tugged at his left earlobe impatiently and regarded her through narrowed eyes. “Your money’s no good here. If you really want to pay a debt…”
His head dropped. Tuck pushed his big toe persistently into the moist ground and managed to flesh out an earthworm in the process. Kat nearly died when Tuck allowed it to weave through his toes. “I don’t suppose you got any books, magazines, or newspapers layin’ around that you ain’t in use of, do you?”
Kat felt mean-spirited for her diagnosis of his hygiene. Tucker’s lifestyle hadn’t been the one he’d chosen, and he’d adapted as best as he could. He’d already proven himself keenly intelligent and goodhearted.
“I’ll see what I can do. Let’s meet in three days?” she suggested. Delicately, Kat proposed, “And maybe you can leave your hunting cologne at home?”
“Cologne?” Tuck looked mystified for a moment before doubling over with laughter as he grasped Kat’s meaning and lifted his arm to sniff underneath it. With a grin, he dropped it. “Oh, shoot! Are you talkin’ about this dried manure –”
Hastily, Kat cut him off. “Spare me the formula details, please! Let’s make a deal. I’ll bring you books if you show me how to shoot and be ‘aware’ of my surroundings. Not necessarily with a real gun, though? Maybe with a BB gun? I know you have to have one lying around somewhere. Would you think about it, please?”
“Do what now?” Tuck’s mouth flapped open. He quickly shut it and curiously peered into her earnest face. “Why can’t your brothers or daddy teach you?”
Looking him square in the eye, Kat straightened her shoulders and answered honestly. “Because they think it’s their job to protect me all the dang time! I’m the baby of my family and the only girl. If my brothers knew I was out here alone with you, they’d skin you alive and never let me out of their sight! And my papa…” she shuddered dramatically and gave him a pitying look. “Let’s not even speak of him.”
Tuck believed her and thought about declining the offer. He’d seen the Russian a couple of times in town. He cut an imposing figure with his aloofly stern countenance. Refusing her offer would be the wisest scenario.
Then again, he did like a challenge.
More than that, Tucker also liked the thought of getting his hands on some worthy reading material. Pa didn’t believe in kids filling their heads with useless drivel. It made one weak and unfocused he’d belligerently argue.
Shouts could be heard heading in their direction.
“Ms. Katerina! Where are you?! This isn’t funny, young lady! Answer me! Ms. Katerina?!”
“Alright,” Tuck agreed, mind racing with the possibilities of their friendship. “How are we supposed to make it happen?”
“I’m allowed to hang out at my best friend Autumn’s house twice during the week and on Saturdays. Meet me in the woods Tuesday behind there at three in the afternoon.”
“Ms. Katerina!”
Kat rattled off the address to him, and Tuck nodded his confirmation. He’d do a little recon work tonight and find the house while the town slept.
“Thanks again, Tucker Rydell,” she whispered solemnly. With a thumbs-up, Kat disappeared.
Tuck felt a little bereft. She was his first friend of sorts that hadn’t grown up like him. He wanted to know everything about her world.
The one his parents forbade him from entering.
Tuesday couldn’t come soon enough.
Kat met a livid Ms. Eustice in the middle of the clearing.
“Just wait until your father hears of this, young lady!” Her crisp, British accent rang with outrage at being so blatantly defied. “I will spare no detail in your attempt to cuckold me!”
“You do that. And when you’re telling him everything, make sure the part about you checking out his butt every time he walks by is included. Or the way you sniff his shirts in the laundry room and lick the rim of the glass he drinks from when you think no one is looking,” Kat suggested with a cool nonchalance.
Flabbergasted, Mathilda Eustice could only gape at her ward as she passed her. “Well, I never!”
“There’s a first time for everything!” Kat tossed over her shoulder.
***
Tuck hovered in the woods, directly behind the house Kat had given him the address to. With his stomach twisted in sailor knots and breath bated, he waited to see if she’d keep her word. The back door opened, and Kat appeared with a medium-sized, white plastic bag. Today, she was dressed suitably in a plain black t-shirt, pink sweatpants, and black sneakers. Tuck’s lips curled into an enthusiastic grin at the determination radiating off her.
Katerina Romankov meant business.
“Hey, Tuck! Glad you made it!” she declared, breathless from excitement. “I was scared you would back out.”
Bouncing on the balls of her feet, she held her hand out, offering him the bag. Automatically, Tuck accepted it without looking at it.
“I forgot to ask what you like, so I grabbed some mysteries, sci-fi, and adventure books. There’s also a week’s worth of the Whiskey Row Chronicle, Sports Illustrated, and Time Magazine.”
Tuck wasn’t paying attention to her rambling or the b
ooks that he’d been on pins and needles to obtain. Everything else paled in comparison to the girl that had silently followed behind Kat. Just looking at her made his chest tighten.
She had a café au lait complexion, and her voluminous hair was pulled back in a large, espresso pouf on top of her head. It resembled the cotton candy Tuck had once sampled when a Christian group came to their settlement, recruiting on behalf of the Lord. The girl’s cautious eyes behind her lavender glasses reminded Tuck of melted chocolate. His staring was making her edgy, and she shifted side-to-side, nervously licking her lips, and drawing his attention to her mouth. Tuck had never seen lips that full and pink and perfect before. He wanted to reach out and touch them, to see if they were as soft as they looked.
He swallowed hard, wiping his suddenly clammy palms down his thighs. “Uh, yeah, thanks. That your best friend?”
Kat smiled proudly and pulled the reluctant girl forward. There was no need to mention that Autumn, who was very lively and outspoken with Kat, was unenthused and dreading this meeting.
“Gurl, what kind of crazy scheme do you have our behinds in now?! What do I look like meeting some wild white boy in the woods?” Autumn hissed, peeking out of the corner of her bedroom curtains. She gurgled her distress when she finally got a glimpse of Tuck standing underneath a sugar-maple buckeye just beyond the white picket fence. “He looks just like Donnie from The Wild Thornberrys!”
“Yup! This is Autumn Brady! She’s my bestest friend in the entire universe! I told her all about you and convinced her to take some lessons, too. Or at least watch.”
The two girls had bonded at Autumn’s grandmother’s beauty shop, where Alexei took Kat to occasionally get her hair trimmed. While waiting for her, he normally went to The Gentlemen’s Club for his own cut. It was Autumn’s job to sweep the floors and clean up the supplies and restock products. The girls were classmates and watched each other curiously. One day, Kat came to the shop and Autumn wasn’t there. The floor was a mess.
***
“Where’s Autumn, Ms. Mickey?” she asked the beauty shop owner.
“Oh, baby, she’s home bedridden with the flu. You’re my last customer today.”
“I hope she feels better.” Kat peered at her Hello Kitty wristwatch. “At ten in the morning? Is everything okay, Ms. Mickey?”
“I’m closing the shop up early to go take care of her. Autumn’s mama is working overtime at the Miramar.”
The beautician seemed distracted as she trimmed her hair, and there wasn’t a lot of chit chat that Kat had come to look forward to.
“Oh, shoot! I’m out of spray sheen! Honey, you sit still while I run out back to my car and grab it,” Ms. Mickey said when she finished trimming Kat’s hair.
While she was gone, Kat jumped out of the chair and went to the utility closet like she’d seen Autumn do, Retrieving the broom, Kat swept up the entire floor without a word. When Ms. Mickey returned, she hugged her gratefully.
“Chile, you didn’t have to do that! Thank you!”
“Yes, I did. You should be home with Autumn. Having the flu sucks.”
The following Monday, Kat was sitting alone at lunch when Autumn set her tray down across from her and sat down.
“My grandma told me what you did,” she announced. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” Kat was racking her brain for something cool to say.
“Don’t let them get to you. They don’t know what to make of you, so they make things up to feel better about themselves.”
“They’re good at it,” she mumbled darkly.
“So, be better,” Autumn challenged, reaching over to swipe a chicken nugget. “Be so good at being you that you realize their approval doesn’t matter. What are you doing on Saturday?”
“Nothing; hanging out around the house. Why?”
Autumn pulled an invitation out of her pocket and slid it across the table. “It’s my birthday, and I’m inviting you to my party.”
Kat stared covetously at the invitation that was designed like a circus ticket. She was the girl that lacked for nothing materialistic and was infinitely loved by every member of her family. Presently, Kat wanted that invitation more than anything. Her fingers were twitching with the restraint she was utilizing to not snatch it up and run away with it before Autumn could rescind the invitation.
“Are you sure? I don’t want to impose…”
“The way I see it, you have a choice to make,” Autumn shrugged. “Impose or be bored out of your freakin’ mind. You decide. Either way, I’m gonna live it up.”
***
Autumn offered Tuck a reserved wave, and he dipped his head in acknowledgment. With a delicate cough, she added, “Just so we’re clear, you only skin animals, right?”
Realizing the level of discomfort she was feeling, Tuck solemnly answered, “You have my word of honor that I won’t let a lick of harm come to either of y’all. What’s a man’s worth if he can’t stand by his word? Not a damn thing in my opinion.”
Satisfied that her bestie wasn’t going to take flight, Kat released her arm. “I’m ready, Rydell. Show me what you got.”
Immediately, Tuck understood that it was time to get down to business.
“Where do you want to start, Romankov?”
Kat’s playfulness was replaced with hardcore determination.
“At the beginning. I want you to teach me how to shoot and then use every weapon you know how to use. Let’s go! Come on, Autumn.”
Kat brushed past him and headed into the woods. Autumn glanced at her house with longing and back to her fearless friend. With resignation, she realized that she couldn’t let the homie go alone.
“Excuse me,” Autumn murmured, brushing by Tuck cautiously.
He got a whiff of wild blueberries and…coconut?
Whatever it was, it smelled heavenly.
“Bein’ the baby must really piss Kat off,” he offered, saying something, anything, to get her to relax.
She made a skeptical sound that Tuck committed to memory.
“You have no idea about the can of worms you’re opening, Tucker Rydell. I’d sure hate to be you if you didn’t do right by her,” Autumn warned.
Chapter Two
Present
Nashville, TN
Tuck pointed at the house behind them. “You may have gotten me the job interview, but my expertise is why I still have it! Don’t go changin’ the subject, Romankov! What in the blue blazes happened in there?!”
“You really wanna know?” Kat’s smile was humorless. “Karma came calling, Tuck. That’s what happened.”
Her answer was clipped and concise. Her face was a blank canvas devoid of emotion.
Kat was desensitizing.
The realization made Tuck’s stomach plummet.
No.
Hell. Fucking. No.
This could not be happening.
Especially not on his watch.
Vibrant and expressive, Kat’s face had always been an open book with her emotions worn on her sleeve. She felt too deeply to contain them. You always knew where you stood with her.
Princess Romankov couldn’t lose her sparkle to the dark side.
Tuck grasped her by the elbow and guided her into his arms. Kat was board-stiff, trying to resist the solid warmth and comfort being offered. He wasn’t what she wanted most— her papa or her brothers. But Tuck was a good friend. Gradually, Kat relaxed. Her arms came around his waist as she exhaustedly curled into him. They remained locked and silent as Tuck waited Kat out. Ten minutes later, he finally heard a sniffle. Tuck placed a brief kiss on the top of her head.
“I gotchu girl,” he drawled softly. “Start from the beginnin’…”
***
Asher Ludwig was on his shit, Kat surmised, discreetly observing the scholarly-looking, elderly gentleman surrounded by a well-dressed group clamoring for his attention. Currently, she was nursing a flute of champagne and standing just outside of the entrance to the spacious, formal dining room
, pretending to enjoy the three-piece band playing Vivaldi in the corner. Tonight’s event was a celebration to honor Ludwig, the international, bestselling author of “Stop and Look Around”. His book was dubbed the bible of self-motivation, encouraging people to get off their asses and make a difference in their communities. His teachings were based on the principles of selflessness, awareness of both the good and bad of their surroundings, and to work collectively to preserve the environment for current and future generations.
“Are you enjoying yourself, Ms. Romankov?”
The inquiry was expressed in a jovial manner that seemed to be the standard mood of tonight’s host, Charles McCray. He came to stand next to her and offered Kat a congenial smile. He was an attractive man with his wavy black hair, square jaw, strong nose, and green eyes. Throw in his empathy, charisma, and brilliance, and it made sense that he was a world-renowned philanthropist who was passionate about civil and human rights.
“I am. You have a lovely home, Mr. McCray.” Kat made a point of sweeping her eyes over the lavishly decorated room. Impressionist art by Degas, Sisley, and Monet adorned the mauve, Shantung silk-covered walls, and the twenty tables with towering arrangements of blush, white, and golden stargazer lilies. Tonight’s charity dinner, according to McCray’s website, had been twenty thousand dollars a plate.
“Nonsense!” He waved her answer off with a booming laugh. “And what’s with all this ‘Mr. McCray’ business? That’s for my father! Please call me Charlie!”
“Charlie it is,” Kat acquiesced.
“That’s more like it. Now, refresh my memory; what is it again that you do for a living?”
“I’m a jewelry designer and owner of Vixen Designs.”
“Do tell.” His eyes ran over Kat with less than subtle admiration from her russet coils, dangling, pearl-drop gold, knot-bar earrings, and matching necklace nestled in her cleavage to the spaghetti-strap, white satin, floor-length gown hugging her curves underneath her black velvet blazer. “And these are your designs that you’re wearing? If so, it’s all very…impressive. I’m sure the rest of my guests would be delighted to meet you.”
