“Take the long way around,” she said in Russian as the taxi driver started the meter. “Show them a little of what the city has to offer.”
“Gorky Park and the Kremlin?” he asked.
“Red Square, too. Try to get as close as you can to Saint Basil’s Cathedral.”
She had never been inside Moscow’s most famous church, but visitors couldn’t seem to get enough of the fanciful architecture.
“Who’s paying for this tour, you or them?”
He looked at her as if he didn’t think she could afford the fare.
“Don’t worry about it. You’ll get what’s coming to you.”
She flashed some of the money Mischa’s uncle had fronted her for cab fare. Even with the impromptu detour, the bills in her hand were way more than she needed for the drive from the airport to the office and the short jaunt from the office to the hotel. Perhaps she could conveniently forget to return what was left at the end of the day. No, being considered a thief would not only reflect badly on her but Mischa as well.
She wasn’t used to taking someone else’s feelings besides her own into account. No wonder she couldn’t manage to keep a girlfriend. She had thought it was because she was too open, but perhaps it was because she was too selfish.
Something to work on while I’m stuck in Godoroye.
Even though she couldn’t speak the language, Laramie seemed to sense something was amiss.
“Is there a problem?”
Anastasia turned to look at her.
“We have time before your meeting with Mr. Ivanov so I asked driver to show you some popular attractions,” she said in English. “Would you like to take tour now or see city on your own?”
Laramie and Shorty conferred with each other. He seemed keen on exploring Moscow after the meeting so he would have time to take it all in, but she said something about having to be at the airport at the butt crack of dawn and he changed his mind.
Anastasia made a mental note to do some research on common American colloquial expressions so she could figure out what they meant. If she couldn’t understand what Laramie was saying, how was she supposed to explain it to someone else?
“Now’s fine,” Laramie said.
Anastasia relayed the information to the taxi driver, who put the car in gear and pulled into traffic.
“Your friends have strange accents,” he said. “Where are they from?”
“Wyoming.”
The word was so exotic she said it slowly so she would be sure to pronounce it correctly.
“Where is that?”
“The American West.”
She hadn’t known anything about Wyoming until she’d gone on the internet and performed some research. The images she had come across were breathtaking. Wide grasslands with snow-capped mountains looming in the distance. Gorgeous waterfalls spilling into crystal clear rivers. And shaggy buffaloes roaming everywhere. The huge animals looked like yaks but were twice the size. She wondered if they looked as big in person as they did in the photographs she had seen. If so, what a sight they must be.
“Americans, huh?” The taxi driver switched to English as he looked back at his passengers. “Uncle Sam. Yankee Doodle Dandy.” He flashed a thumbs-up sign. “Yippee ki-yay, motherfucker.”
Laramie’s mouth fell open in shock. Her expression was so comical Anastasia had to force herself not to laugh. She knew doing so would make the situation worse instead of better.
Shorty certainly didn’t find the situation as amusing as she did. He looked so mad she thought he was about to climb over the seat.
“Do you care to repeat yourself, bub?” he asked.
The taxi driver shrugged.
“What did I say?” he asked in Russian. “Bruce Willis is an American movie star, no? The little man has never seen Die Hard? Ask him if he wants to watch my copy. I have a DVD he can borrow.”
“What’s he going on about?” Shorty asked. “If he’s trying to get smart, tell him to pull the car over so we can settle this man-to-man.”
“There’s no call for that,” Laramie said. “Calm down, Shorty. He didn’t mean any harm.”
“Could’ve fooled me.”
“He’s like a chicken with wet feathers,” the taxi driver said. “They should call him Rooster instead of Shorty.”
Anastasia shook her head at the absurdity of both men. She couldn’t decide the best way for them to settle their differences: resorting to their fists or splitting a bottle of vodka. Unfortunately, they didn’t have time for either.
“Forget the tour,” Laramie said. “We’ve got a meeting to get to. Just take us to the office.”
“As you wish.”
Anastasia wasn’t surprised to discover Shorty had a quick temper. Most men who were small in stature tried to use every means at their disposal to make themselves seem bigger than they actually were. Some bought fancy cars. Others, like Shorty, picked fights for no reason.
Laramie was evidently used to dealing with Shorty’s moods, though, because she had taken his outburst in stride. Her voice was soothing as she calmed him down. Like a mother soothing a restless child. Anastasia could have listened to her all day.
What did it take to make the stoic American’s pulse quicken, she wondered, and why was she so eager to find out?
Chapter Three
When the cab stopped in front of an office building in downtown Moscow, Laramie couldn’t get out of the car fast enough. The ride had been one of the most awkward journeys she had ever taken, and she was relieved it was over. While Anastasia paid the fare, she and Shorty retrieved their belongings from the trunk of the car.
“I thought you were supposed to be looking after me, not the other way around,” she said as she hefted her saddle onto her shoulder. Thankfully, her suitcase had wheels so she didn’t have to carry it, too. “This isn’t Broken Branch. There’s no Sheriff Billingsley willing to let you off with one night in the pokey when you get caught committing a minor offense. If you get in trouble here, no matter what the charge, you could spend the rest of your days in a gulag somewhere. If you think Wyoming’s cold, try Siberia.”
“I know.”
Shorty looked abashed, but Laramie wanted to make sure he truly got the point and wasn’t simply saying what she wanted to hear until she decided to let the matter drop. He was worse than a kid when it came to being reprimanded. He didn’t want to listen to the lecture. He just wanted it to be over.
“That man wasn’t trying to disrespect you. He was trying to make conversation. He barely speaks English and you don’t speak any Russian. There’s a language barrier, remember?”
“Yes, I do. And I slammed right into the obstacle. I don’t know what got into me. I guess I’m just tired and ornery from all this traveling. I’m gonna shake hands and make things right. I don’t want us to part ways with him thinking ill of me.” He set his saddle on his suitcase and hitched up his jeans. “If you’re still worried about whether you can do the job, don’t be. You’re as good as your mama when it comes to telling people what for.”
Shorty’s playful wink took some of the sting out of his words. Despite the manner in which it was delivered, Laramie was grateful for the vote of confidence he had given her. She had been questioning herself practically since she had accepted Sergei Ivanov’s job offer. She couldn’t let her doubts show, however. If she didn’t believe in herself, neither would the men she and Shorty had been hired to train.
She remembered how nervous she had been before her first barrel racing competition. How she had felt like throwing up when she tried to mount her horse. The stakes were higher this time—her family’s livelihood was on the line instead of a fancy blue ribbon and a tiny prize check—so the nausea she felt now was ten times worse than it was then.
“Mr. Ivanov is waiting,” Anastasia said after she helped Shorty make amends with the cab driver. “We go inside?”
“Yes, please.”
Laramie took a deep breath and followed Anastasia into the buil
ding. The gorgeous view of Anastasia’s jeans hugging her hips and thighs helped settle her nerves. It also helped spike her libido, which was something she hadn’t planned on happening.
She dragged her eyes away from the tantalizing sight. She was here to work, not make friends. And taking a lover was definitely out of the question. But three years was a long time to go completely without. Fueling a few fantasies couldn’t hurt anyone. She took another look. This time, Anastasia caught her staring.
Anastasia’s eyes betrayed a flicker of interest, but her expression hardened into a frown. Anastasia shook her head, but Laramie couldn’t tell if she was shutting her down completely or cautioning her to be more careful. Sometimes it was harder to read a woman’s mind than it was to rope a steer. Missing her mark with Anastasia could prove to be much more than a minor annoyance.
Laramie’s first impulse was to apologize, but she didn’t want to draw unwanted attention to the incident. If she did, she could be the one who ended up cooling her heels in jail tonight instead of Shorty.
Anastasia led them to an elevator that allowed them to see outside the building as they slowly ascended. They were in the car so long Laramie felt like they were making a trip to heaven instead of the building’s top floor. She admired the panoramic view of the city, taking in some of the sights she and Shorty had missed out on when they had been forced to pass up the tour Anastasia had proposed.
She spotted Red Square in the distance. She had seen it in an old Sean Connery movie, but it was even more breathtaking in person than it was on the TV screen. Colorful Saint Basil’s Cathedral looked like a large-scale gingerbread house. She was tempted to pinch herself to make sure she wasn’t trapped in a contemporary fairy tale.
“I haven’t been up this high since I took a trip to Jackson Hole a hundred years ago,” Shorty said.
“I didn’t know you liked to ski.”
“I don’t, but I like spending time with snow bunnies, if you catch my drift. When I retire, I’m thinking of buying a cabin and settling there. I can go hiking or whitewater rafting in the summer, and watch city folk try not to break their fool necks on the slopes in the winter.”
“I’ve never heard you talk about the future before.” His favorite subjects had always been the past and the present, not what was to come. “I always thought you’d be glued to your saddle until it was time to put you in the ground.”
“So did I.”
“What changed your mind?”
“You proved me right.”
“How did I do that?”
“I always knew Trey would never be level-headed enough to run the ranch when Thad finally decides he’s had enough, but I suspected you might be. Trey was born a dreamer. He still is. He’s a good man, he’s as tough as they come, and I love him like he was my own son, but he doesn’t have a head for business. He would rather play cowboy than be one. He spends his time competing on the rodeo circuit and chasing tail instead of putting in a hard day’s work. He’s not like you. You chase tail on occasion, too,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper, “but you’re smart enough to know that there’s a time and a place for such things. Even when you were a little girl, you never got too worked up whenever something went wrong. When the time comes for you to take over the day-to-day operations, you’ll be fine on your own. You won’t need me to wipe your ass for you.”
Laramie smiled to herself. Shorty had been treating her like one of the boys for so long he often forgot she wasn’t one. Coming from him, there was no greater compliment.
“If Chuck and Grant stay dedicated to the task of learning how things work,” Shorty continued, “they’ll be there to back you up.”
“What if they’ve moved on by then?”
“There’ll be someone else to take their place. There always is. We’ll get them trained up, too, just like we’re gonna do with these boys.”
Good ranch hands were hard to find. And even harder to keep. If the competition didn’t offer them more money to draw them away, they sometimes went into business for themselves. Laramie never held it against them when employees put in their notice. She liked when people showed ambition. When they reached for something more instead of settling for what they already had.
Were the hands on Sergei Ivanov’s ranch equally ambitious, or were they simply happy to have a job? She wanted workers with fire in their bellies, not clock-watchers who did as little as possible while they counted the minutes until they collected their next paycheck.
The elevator bounced to a stop and the doors slid open, revealing a large room filled with dozens of cubicles and an equal number of bustling employees. Sergei Ivanov’s empire encompassed many business interests besides ranching, and he apparently housed each of his various companies in the same building. The shared space cut down on each company’s operating costs, but how was anyone supposed to know who was responsible for what?
Laramie preferred organization, not chaos. She had spent some time in the ranch office the summer her mother had taught her how to keep the books, but she had never worked in a space like this one. A space filled with ringing phones, overlapping conversations, and so much background noise she was surprised anyone ever got anything done. Give her the mooing of cows, the neighing of horses, and the occasional distant howl of a wolf any day.
Anastasia walked up to what Laramie assumed was the receptionist’s desk and addressed the woman sitting behind it. As they conversed in their native tongue, Anastasia pointed to Laramie and Shorty. The receptionist nodded, picked up the phone on her desk, and spoke into the receiver. She listened for a moment, then ended the call.
“Mr. Ivanov will see you now,” Anastasia said.
She had barely gotten the words out before a portly middle-aged man wearing a tracksuit, designer cowboy boots, and a bad toupee came barreling out of the main office.
“Welcome, my friends.” He shook Laramie’s and Shorty’s hands with more enthusiasm than was probably warranted. “I am Sergei Ivanov. You must be Laramie Bowman and Pernell Johnson, yes?”
“Call me Shorty.”
When Ivanov smiled, his capped teeth were so white it looked like he had a mouthful of candy-coated chewing gum. “Call me Duke. I am big John Wayne fan. You?”
“I’ve always been more partial to Gary Cooper,” Shorty said.
Laramie didn’t have a dog in the fight. To her, a good movie was a good movie, no matter whose name appeared above the title.
“High Noon was great picture, pilgrim,” Duke said, “but The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance is better, no?”
Duke’s belly shook as he laughed, reminding Laramie of Santa Claus. In this case, though, the proverbial sack he was carrying was filled with money instead of toys.
He invited her and Shorty into his office so they could talk, but it was more of a monologue than a dialogue since he didn’t give them a chance to get a word in edgewise.
“How was your flight? Would you like something to drink? Water? Beer? Vodka? I have everything. Name it and it is yours.”
Laramie set her luggage in a corner of the room and took a seat at the small conference table positioned near the floor-to-ceiling window.
“Thank you, but I don’t drink on the job.”
“Drinking makes job more fun.”
Duke poured three shots of vodka. He handed one to Shorty, one to Anastasia, and kept one for himself.
“Don’t mind if I do,” Shorty said before he downed the shot.
Duke laughed again and refilled Shorty’s glass. “You are, as they say, man after my own heart.” He emptied his glass, then reached for the bottle. “Drink up, Ana. You’re falling behind.”
Anastasia rushed to catch up with Shorty and Duke. Laramie was getting a buzz just watching them.
“I speak English so we won’t need Ana’s services during our meeting,” Duke said. “Is shame, no? One less pretty thing to look at while we talk business. My nephew is lucky man, wouldn’t you say?”
“Your nephew?”
“Ana’s lover is my brother’s son Mischa. I used to think Vasily was too soft on him when he was growing up, but Mischa turned out to be good boy. A real man’s man.” Duke pounded his chest with his meaty fist. “He and Ana have been dating for five years now. Is long time to spend time together with no ring to show for it, but they are right to take their time to come to a decision. Nothing ruins love faster than marriage. Trust me. I have been married four times.”
“How many times have you been divorced?” Shorty asked.
“Three,” Duke said, “but the fourth could happen any day now. That is why I keep good lawyer on retainer.”
Shorty’s eyes listed to half-mast as he and Duke cackled at the joke. He could drink beer until the cows came home, but he had never been able to handle his liquor. If he downed one more shot, he’d probably snore his way through today’s meeting. If, that was, Duke ever got around to starting it.
Anastasia set her shot glass on the table and waved off Duke’s offer of another drink.
“I must check on hotel reservations to make sure everything is in order.”
When she turned to Laramie, her cheeks were flushed from either alcohol or embarrassment. Laramie felt for her. It couldn’t be easy working for a man who insisted on making her private life a public spectacle. She hated to think she might soon be subjected to the same treatment. She liked playing her cards close to the vest, not displaying them for all the world to see.
“I take you to hotel after meeting,” Anastasia said. “There is good international restaurant on first floor, but there are many other places to eat nearby if you would like to try local food.”
The only Russian dish Laramie was familiar with was borscht, and she wasn’t in the mood for beet soup.
“Will you be joining us for dinner?” she asked hopefully.
No matter where she decided to dine, she didn’t know if she would be able to navigate a menu without help. Having a familiar face around couldn’t hurt, either, even if it belonged to someone who was involved with someone else.
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