Mario smiled. "Something like that, but you don't have to tell them where Mommy and Daddy hooked up, and a two-year-old won't ask. Or you can say Mommy sleeps with Daddy and that starts a baby. Either way, you're not lying, and when they're old enough to start asking questions, you get out Ken and Barbie and show them how it's done."
"Are you serious?"
Mario laughed. "No, Ken's missing a crucial part, but that's when you get out a book on human anatomy for kids, and a book on farm animals, and get into the whole male part going into the female part to deposit sperm for the female's eggs."
"And when little Johnny asks how the male part gets into the female part?"
"You tell him you'll talk about it when the time's right, and to keep it in his pants until then."
"Was that your father's approach?" Julia asked.
"Basically, yes," Mario replied. "Roberta was a little more graphic when I turned thirteen and she was in charge."
"Okay, I won't ask for details," Julia said, "but what about the Easter bunny? Are you for destroying that myth too? I personally like the idea of a big bunny hiding chocolate eggs."
"So do the candy manufacturers," Mario replied, "which means, when Easter comes, millions of kids across the country are on sugar highs."
"Then you are against it," Julia said.
Mario laughed. "No, but maybe Daddy can dress up like a big bunny, with his face showing, so little Johnny knows it's Daddy, then Johnny has to go inside while Daddy Bunny hides the granola bars and little plastic eggs filled with nuts and dried fruit."
"You really are serious," Julia said.
"Sure. Are you opposed to healthy food? Or do you think it's okay to stuff kids with cookies, candy, and other sugary sweets?"
"Okay, I give up. You're partially right on all counts, but what about tonight? This is our first time as Mr. and Mrs. Santa Claus, and I'd really like to hold onto the myth a little longer. Besides, we didn't tell Sergei and Irina the lie. We're only putting gifts under the tree, and the kids can draw their own conclusions."
Mario reached over and took Julia's hand and kissed it, and said, "I'm giving you a bad time. I'm not that big a Scrooge. Maybe we could put out a couple of notes with their names on them, and I might even make sleigh tracks in the snow outside."
"Are you always like this?" Julia asked.
"I like getting you fired up, if that's want you mean," Mario replied. "But I am serious about not lying to kids. It's a mixed message."
Julia leaned over and kissed him lightly, and said, "I know, and I won't argue with you because you're right. So you're still stuck with being my white knight."
"Then we need to cut this short and put out the gifts because right now we're behind the locked door of a bedroom, and you just kissed me, and my thoughts are becoming increasingly more graphic, and talking about condoms, and connecting Ken and Barbie, and male parts going into female parts is raising more than just havoc."
"You're the one who brought all that up," Julia pointed out.
"But you brought up talking to kids about sex, so it must be on your mind."
"Maybe," Julia said. "And you're right. It's time to play Mr. and Mrs. Santa Claus."
"Yeah, and I'm getting a very different picture about how they play, and it isn't about putting gifts under trees." And somehow he'd have to keep a tighter rein because earlier in the day Julia invited him to share her bed, and although that wouldn't happen tonight, tomorrow night wasn't all that far away, and his resolve was breaking down quickly.
CHAPTER 14
"Marbles!" Sergei yelped, as he spotted the game of Chinese Checkers propped under the Christmas tree. "You can teach me more games," he said to Mario.
Mario laughed. "Okay, finish looking at all your stuff, then we'll find a box and play archboard, which is a game you play by shooting marbles through mouse holes cut into the side of a box. It's also a good way to practice your aim."
"Awesome!" Sergei exclaimed. He set the game aside and reached for a book about rockets.
Julia crouched beside Irina, who was on the floor by her gifts, with her legs bent back and her feet splayed, while turning the pages of the animal book. "It's yours to keep," Julia signed.
Irina looked at her, and signed back, "Everything?"
"Yes, everything here," Julia signed, while sweeping her hand over the gifts.
Irina set the book aside and picked up the game, Candy Land, and signed, "Can we play?"
"Yes, we'll all play," Julia signed. She took the game from Irina and set it on the coffee table in front of Mario, who gave her a look as if saying, you've got to be kidding, and said to him, "It's Christmas, and Irina made a simple request. You too, Sergei," she added.
Mario looked a little sheepish, and when Sergei was hesitant to set aside his book on rockets, Mario said to him, "Remember what I told you about keeping the women happy, so get your buns over here and let's figure out what this game is all about."
"It's a no-brainer," Sergei said. "Daddy used to play it with Irina. All you do is turn cards over and move plastic people to the color of the card on the board."
Mario shifted forward on the couch, and said, "Then let's get started."
As the game progressed, Julia glanced across the table at Mario, who frowned while moving a green plastic figure around the board. With his face so serious, he reminded her of an overgrown boy playing his first game. Catching his eye, after he'd made his move, she said, "I take it you didn't play games much when you were a kid."
Mario gave her a wry smile. "Only two. Roberta decided if she kept me playing Pinocchio or Parcheesi, I wouldn't stray off and play Roulette or Poker."
"But you did anyway," Julia said.
"Yeah, on occasion, when Roberta was asleep and I could sneak out," Mario replied.
Sergei looked over at Mario, and said, "You did that?"
Mario sobered at once, and replied, "I did, before the people who took me in straightened me out. I was on a bad track, which can happen if you don't pick a noble goal, like winning a marbles tournament, or getting involved in a sport, and stay focused on it."
"I'll do that," Sergei said, then turned over the top card on the stack and made his move.
Julia glanced at both kids, Sergei looking at Mario like he was the answer to every boy's dream of a father, and Irina, looking at him with sadness, as if she was thinking of her own father, and maybe felt guilty for wanting to replace him with another. It was a complicated situation, with a little girl who'd stopped talking because the world had not been good to her, and Julia began to wonder if she could adopt the kids, like Mario suggested.
She'd be forced to get out and go places because the kids would have sports and after-school activities, and she'd face the challenge of being in crowds at sports events, and going to the grocery, and even driving in heavy traffic at times. But she wouldn't have Mario to help her through those dark moments. As she contemplated life without him, she looked over to find him staring at her, as if he'd read her thoughts. It was odd how that happened, or at least she had the perception that they picked up each other's thoughts. She'd read it was common with soulmates, who had a mental connection like twins, picking up the phone to call each other at the exact same time, finishing each other's sentences. And even though life may keep them apart, the minds of soulmates always stayed tuned.
Mario held her gaze a few moments, then looked down at the board when Irina tugged on his arm to play. He smiled at her and picked a card, then made his move.
As soon as the game was over, Sergei said to Mario, "Now can we play that marble game?"
"Sure," Mario replied. "The way it works, each hole in the box has a number above it, and when your marble goes through a hole, you score that number of points. When all the marbles are inside the box, whoever has the highest score wins the marbles if we play keepsies, or wins the game if we play for fair."
"If we play keepsies you'll win all the marbles," Sergei said, "so let's play for fair."
; "Good enough," Mario replied. "But we still need a box."
"There's one in the mudroom," Julia said, then promptly fetched a box she'd seen, and handed it to Mario, who took out his pocket knife, cut out four mouse holes, about two inches in diameter, and with a crayon, wrote a number on top of each. But while he was showing Sergei how to get down low and aim a marble for the hole, Irina, who had moved over to crouch on her knees near Mario, picked up a marble, looked at Mario's hand, and attempted to position her hand the way Mario was doing.
Sergei, looking at Irina, said to Mario, "Irina wants to play too."
Mario looked up from what he was doing, and seeing Irina with the marble, sat up on his heels, and taking her hand, positioned it correctly, and said, while gesturing, "Go ahead. Shoot."
Irina shot the marble, and although it didn't go through a hole, it hit the box, which brought a smile to her lips. Mario handed her another marble, and this time he got down on his belly and patted the floor beside him for her to do the same, and when she did, she smiled even broader than before, and her eyes lit up with eagerness.
After Mario had both kids lying prone on the floor, practicing shooting, he moved to sit on the couch beside Julia, and said, "Irina's hands are small, and holding her shooter is a little awkward, but she's a natural. She could make that tournament too."
"If she had a father to show her the way," Julia replied.
Mario said nothing, but Julia knew she'd gotten her point across, that whereas Mario was convinced Irina needed a mother, she was all but certain the reason Irina stopped talking was because a father was missing from her life, and although she felt Irina missed her mother too, for some reason, her father had played a more dominant role in her life, and Julia wondered how that came about, because it could be the key that opened the lock that kept Irina silent.
***
When Mario entered the cabin after tending the horses, he noticed at once the special effort Julia had taken to make the cabin into a home away from home for Christmas, with a tree trimmed with paper ornaments, and a table set for dinner with paper napkins edged in scallops she cut by hand, and tent-folded name place cards edged in red crayon. She also made a pair of doves from cut and folded paper, which she'd placed on top of the frosted pinecones in her center-piece. And with the aroma of ham, beans, and yams wafting from the wood stove, and a fire crackling on the hearth, he couldn't help feeling the love of a woman he could imagine being the hub of a home and family.
He liked the womanly touches. They were something he'd never experienced. Roberta had never been a girly girl, but Julia was. Yet, she could punch the hell out of her bag, and with as much force and energy as any rookie boxer. He could also imagine a whole lot of pent-up passion and energy put to good use in bed. He was beginning to imagine a lot of things, like a void in his life, he'd never given much thought to, being filled by a blond, blue-eyed, woman as shapely as any Barbie doll, but far more beautiful.
"What do you think?" Julia asked, as she stepped back to admire her table.
Mario glanced around, and seeing Sergei on his knees at the coffee table, with his back to them, and a pencil in his hand while attempting to copy a picture of one of the rockets in his book, and Irina on the floor on her stomach, absorbed with one of her coloring books, he was tempted to walk over to Julia and kiss her. Instead, he went to where she was standing, and said in a hushed voice, "I'm thinking there really is a Santa."
Julia tipped her head back and looked at him, her big blue eyes bright with curiosity. "What are you talking about?"
His gaze dropped to her lips, which were parted in anticipation, and the urge to kiss her long and hard was pushing his will to the limits. Shoving that thought aside, he said, "He brought me Christmas. If I hadn't come to the ranch I'd be at the café with a bunch of single guys and a couple of bar maids, instead of spending Christmas with my own live Barbie doll."
Julia laughed. "And if you hadn't come, I would have been holed up in my cabin instead of spending Christmas with my white knight, and two very special kids."
"I'm no white knight," Mario said, "but I'll go with the special kids." He looked to where Irina and Sergei were still involved in what they were doing, and taking the opportunity, gave Julia a quick kiss on the lips, and added, "Thanks for getting through to this old Scrooge."
Julia leaned to the side and looked around him at the kids, and bracing her hand on his arm, kissed him quickly, also on the lips, and said, "That floor must be getting pretty hard, so my offer to share my bed still stands."
Mario drew in a long breath. "Right now I need another cooling down, so after we finish eating, the kids and I are going to build an eight-foot-high snow house, so maybe by bedtime, I'll be too exhausted to do anything but sack out on my two sleeping bags and shut out all the explicit thoughts. There's definitely a down side to sharing a cabin with a life-size Barbie doll."
Julia smiled and said nothing, but that smile was like lighting a fire below his belt.
Less than an half-hour later, while seated at a dinner table as festive as any mountaintop cabin table could be, Mario looked at Julia, who was leaning over Irina's plate while cutting her slice of ham into bite-size pieces. The more he was around Julia, the harder it was to take his eyes off her. He didn't know when it all started, maybe when she came at him with knotted fists when they were snowshoeing, or it could have been the following day, when he had to drag her away from the punching bag, or during the long, slow kiss that followed, but it was as if she'd invaded his body and taken over his mind, like it was her domain too, because she was with him in spirit every minute of every day, even when they were apart.
He'd once heard one of the marshals talking about his new wife, saying the person who has your heart also has access to your mind in a way that no one else has. Love makes you crazy, he'd claimed, that a brain in a state of love, and a brain in a state of mental illness, overlapped. He'd also said his wife was like a drug—he couldn't get enough of her—and that he wanted to protect her from the world. At the time, Mario laughed it off as the ramblings of a romantic newlywed. He understood now. But with all those love chemicals pumping away in his system, things were getting physical, keeping his senses on high alert with the urge to attach and bond.
"Are we really going to build a snow house?" Sergei asked, while spearing a piece of ham with his fork.
"Yes, and it's called a quinzhee," Mario replied, "which is like an igloo, but instead of cutting blocks from packed snow and stacking them in a circle, a quinzhee's made by piling snow into a mound and hollowing it out inside, so it's faster to build."
"That's so cool," Sergei said.
"It's more than cool," Mario replied. "Knowing how to build a quinzhee could save your life someday, if you find yourself stranded like we are now, but there's no cabin stocked with food, and with a porch piled high with split wood. We just got lucky."
"How do we start building it?" Sergei asked.
"We start by shoveling snow into a mound taller than me, and wide enough around so we can crawl inside and sit," Mario replied.
"So it won't take very long?" Sergei asked, with enthusiasm.
"It won't take long to make our mound," Mario replied, "but then it has to sit a couple of hours to harden, but once the mound feels solid, we'll start to hollow it out with a small shovel, and when we're done, the walls will be about a foot thick."
While Mario was explaining it to Sergei, Julia attempted to tell Irina what they'd be doing by making a mound of mashed yams and digging a little entrance into the mound, then pointing outside, and Irina understood, because she was smiling, and looking off through the window.
After they'd finished a dessert of blueberry cobbler, Mario shoved his chair back, went over to where Julia was sitting, and putting his hands on her shoulders, gave her a kiss on the cheek, and said, "This was the best Christmas meal I've ever had."
Julia looked up at him and smiled. "It wasn't exactly home cooked," she said, "but maybe someday—" She cu
t her thought off, but when she looked wistfully at Irina, then at Sergei, he could almost hear her unspoken words, we'll do it again as a family.
The problem was, that scenario was becoming increasingly unlikely because, the morning he got the information about a potential promotion to Supervisory Deputy, he also got word that if he was passed over for that promotion, his next witness would be a ruthless man who'd done a flip against his own brother, and after wearing a wiretap for over a year, was turning state's evidence against one of the biggest crime families in Philadelphia, and overseeing that wiseguy was definitely not compatible with having a wife and family.
Not wanting to put a damper on Christmas for Julia or the kids, he gave Julia's shoulders a little squeeze, and said, "When we get off this mountain, you can do home cooked. Meanwhile, the kids and I have a quinzhee to build, so let's get bundled up."
***
Late that afternoon, after completing the quinzhee, the kids came in with their faces flushed from the cold, and their eyes sparkling with enthusiasm, and they wanted Julia to come see the project. So she slipped on her jacket, and taking Irina's hand, they followed Sergei to where Mario was standing, and holding a shovel, in front of a mound of compact snow, about five feet high and six feet around, and which had an entrance leading into a hollowed-out interior.
Irina immediately released Julia's hand and darted through the entrance, which projected a little ways in front of the quinzhee, making a short passageway, and she sat against the far wall.
When Julia stood looking at the narrow opening into the interior, and didn't go in, Sergei said, "Come on. It's like a house in there. We made the inside really smooth." He ducked through the entrance and sat beside Irina.
Julia bent down, and peering inside, she said, "I can see, and it's very nice."
"But it's different if you come in," Sergei said. "You can sit back against the wall and there's a hole in top that you can look through. It's really cool."
Finding Justice (Dancing Moon Ranch Book 12) Page 17