by Lauren Dane
Delight stole over his face and she resolved to compliment him more.
“Is that so, tigryonak?”
She nodded, indicating the width of his shoulders, only accentuated by the sleek and form-fitting shirt he wore beneath a for-real red plaid flannel shirt. “The clothes. Your beard is particularly strokable just now.” Rachel allowed herself the sensory delight of a few pets. “A super hot Paul Bunyan. Yeah.”
He took her hands and kissed each one. “I’m on board with whatever works for you. Are we skiing or snowboarding today?”
“I haven’t been here before, so I’m all up for suggestions from you,” she told him. “I’d say my skill level is intermediate at both. I love both so if we do one today let’s do the other tomorrow.”
* * *
“INTERMEDIATE MY ASS,” he told her as they snuggled up on the couch several hours later. A fire crackled beyond the hearth and the stars wheeled overhead, brilliant against the deep evening darkness.
Her muscles hurt from hard physical activity but it was a good kind of ache. The kind the whiskey in her hand and the man at her side would make better.
“You totally overstate my skill. It’s why I find you so adorable,” she said. “And yet, compared to you I’m barely adequate.”
He’d been a badass on a snowboard. That surprising grace of his meant he powered over the snow, ate up the slopes, glee on his handsome face as they fed off one another’s energy.
In him she had someone who enjoyed being out there as much as she did. They had a competitive vibe, one that had them each zooming ahead of the other, only to watch as the other shot into first place.
It was unexpectedly hot that they could share a love of the outdoors. She bet he looked super sexy in the summertime, all slick with water as he walked out of the surf.
Yum.
“You’re really quite good, so stop that,” he said, pressing a kiss to her temple. “It’s probably out for this season, but we should do Whistler next winter.”
“I’ve been wanting to go, so I’m in. Cora’s family has a house there and she’s always talking about how we should use it. Naturally that means there’s a chance she’d be there and if she’s there, chances are Maybe will want to be included.”
Vic’s laugh rumbled through his chest, the wave of it vibrating through her bones. “And naturally where there is Maybe, there will be Alexsei. I think Gregori has a mansion of some type up there. They both ski.”
“It’s a handy thing that we share pretty much the same group of friends because they seem to follow us everywhere.”
“Maybe is your protector. I am your protector. Where you go, we go,” Vic said with such confident ease she believed it.
The why of it she didn’t understand. So she found herself asking him.
“Why am I your protector?” he attempted to clarify.
“Why do you see it that way,” Rachel attempted to box it in a safer way.
He just looked at her, his expression blank but for one slightly arched brow. Her silent treatment game was excellent. But his was world class.
Finally she exhaled and said, “Fine. Fine. You know what I’m asking.”
“I do. But I want you to say it. I want you to ask it yourself. It matters to me that you say it, Rachel,” he added.
“The question isn’t why you, Vic. The question is why me?”
Confusion washed over his face.
She moved so she could face him, tucking up onto the easy chair opposite. Then she pointed at him. “Look at you. I mean, take a good long look. Go on. You should because have you looked at yourself lately? You’re like art. How on Earth did you get so fucking gorgeous? You’re funny and sensitive and you’re smart. Oh, and super fit and your body is like, well it’s ridiculous and I should hate you because come on. But as you quite often put all those things to my service, I give you my blessing to keep on being a superior physical and mental specimen.” She rolled her wrist, urging him forward.
His smile told her he was not unaware of his appeal. “Thank you. But if I’m so wonderful, how can you be confused?”
Rachel wasn’t sure if he knew what she meant or not, but she was going to have to suck it up, be brave and be specific.
“Dude. Your family. Look at you all. You and Evie are first-generation American success stories. You have a business. You pull together when things get rough. Even the worst sort of rough imaginable. And you’re spending your time with a chick who is so messed up she has to put her own alarms on the outside of a condo in a gated community with a fairly decent security presence. Your father left so much behind when he fled Russia with your mother at his side. They came halfway across the world to build a life from nothing and they did! I just look at you and them and wonder what the hell you’re doing with a fuckup like me.”
He sucked in a breath but instead of getting in her physical space, he remained where he was. And yet, the enormity of him began to seep her way.
“I’ve told you what happened to my brother. It didn’t just show up one day out of the blue. His troubles were long-term. Fraught. Full of recriminations. Fights. Saying of things that couldn’t be unsaid. My parents—maybe even to this day—wanted to downplay just how bad things had gotten. Who my brother really was. And maybe I’m a selfish fucking asshole, but between you and me, Rachel, by the time he turned sixteen or so Danil was a piece of shit. They see how he was at six or seven, but they don’t remember how he was even at that early age. How selfish and petty he was.”
Vic was lost in something that had happened long ago but had left a very deep mark.
Rachel wanted to fix the rift she’d stirred to life between them. What a dick she’d been to say what she had the way she had. Of course he knew what it meant to deal with tragedy.
“The last year of his life wasn’t that bad. Not for me,” he told her. “I was beginning the process to work for the county sheriff’s office. To continue search and rescue and focus on more rural areas of King County. I knew he wasn’t clean, Rachel. I knew it. I told my parents. More than once and they didn’t want to believe it and I just got tired. So. Tired. And it was just... I pushed him away because I knew he was going to do something else terrible and then he assaulted his girlfriend. Nearly killed her because he found out she’d bought drugs without him. He was a criminal and he spoiled every fucking holiday. We all waited around for him to show up and if he did at all he was late and he still complained and my mom just wanted him to be glad. To see how much they loved him and I just wanted to be away from it. Nothing I said mattered to my parents because they saw my brother in a way I’d stopped trying to see.”
“I’m an asshole. I’m sorry,” she told him.
He snorted. “You’re not an asshole. Your question though, the original one about why you? It’s laden with a bunch of bullshit assumptions.”
“I know. It’s beyond entitled of me to imagine I’m the only one struggling with darkness and pain. Especially when you’d already shared the story of your brother,” she said.
“Oh fuck that. I don’t want it. Don’t need it. However.” His dark brows winged down as he frowned at her. “Do you not... Surely you can’t miss the fact that you’re exceptionally successful at pretty much everything. You’re beautiful, a talented tattoo artist, intuitive about people—even if you are being surprisingly stubborn about not seeing all your positive traits. You asked why you? Because there’s nothing and no one else for me but you.”
He wanted to tell her that he loved her. Wanted to let the words free. But he knew it wasn’t time. Knew she’d fight it and run the other way. So, he had to keep being smart. Patient. Easy. Stay cool and calm. Charm and woo. When it was too late for her to do anything else but know she loved him too. Then he’d tell her.
“Oh,” she said. She blushed slightly.
“Yes, oh. I told you those things about Danil to illus
trate my point. Not your silly attempt at a point.” He frowned and it made her snicker. “We are both fucked up and broken. We both carry baggage. Where you are worn thin, let me be strong. This is what it means to be with someone and fit, isn’t it?”
She stretched a hand out to take his. “I don’t want to weigh you down. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
“I hear the words you use. I acknowledge you have arranged them into sentences you think make sense. And they do not. Because you’re coming at this like you’re some blight-faced old hag covered in boils.”
She snorted and then started to laugh, which went on until she got the hiccups.
“Okay fine. I’m amazing,” she gasped at last. “Of course you want to be around me all the time,” she said as she launched herself into his lap.
“I’m glad we could finally come to an understanding,” he told her as he snuggled her close. “This won’t always be easy and full of delicious sexy chemistry. But I’m patient and steadfast, my mother says so. I will help you through the hard times and you will do the same for me.”
She just hugged him tight without a word. Agreeing.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
MAYBE PLOPPED INTO her seat across the small, rickety table from where Rachel had settled with her sketchbooks.
Cora wouldn’t be at their weekly lunch date because she was visiting her boyfriend down in Portland so that day it was just the two sisters.
“Are you going to let me look yet?” Maybe asked as she cracked open her orange soda.
Rachel had been working on the pieces for her calendar project proposal for the last three weeks. Maybe had been trying to sneak a peek pretty much that entire time because that’s how she was.
Of course Vic was equally bad. Especially as he was so used to women falling over themselves to give him whatever he asked for. Normally she was on board with that too, as he had a fantastically dirty mind and asked for all sorts of filthy sex stuff.
But her art was different. No one saw her first draft.
“Probably. I think I’m done with the twelve pages for the project.”
She slapped Maybe’s grabby hands away.
“These aren’t the originals. They’re just sketches and you can’t see them. Also? We’re in a restaurant where there’s food and drinks all over the place. Sheesh. And you want to know why I’m so touchy.”
Maybe rolled her eyes as she forked up some of the potato salad that came with the sandwiches.
Cora rushed in with a flurry of scarves, coat sleeves and several layers of clothing she got rid of before sitting with a sigh.
“Uh, hi,” Rachel said. “I thought you were in Portland.”
“I was. I broke up with Stephen so now I’m here in Seattle.”
“Wait. What?” Rachel spun on her friend. Cora’s boyfriend was doing his medical residency in Portland and over the last year their relationship had been long-distance.
As far as Rachel was concerned, it was always doomed for failure because he was all about Stephen. The way he spoke about art—which was an integral part of Cora’s life both professional and personal—had been a long-term sore spot. He had naturally assumed Cora would move to Portland when he’d begun his residency because her job was just art.
Though he worked incredibly long hours and even when he wasn’t working he was either sleeping or doing something with the other residents. Cora, by contrast, had a life in Seattle. Not just one job, but several. A big family who loved her and who she was connected to.
He always made it seem like his life was more important and Cora should fit into it.
But Rachel and Maybe, while disliking him, certainly wanted Cora to be happy and in love.
“You never liked him anyway.”
“That’s not the point,” Maybe said. “We like you. And you seemed to like him. So that’s what counted. What happened?”
“He told me I should institutionalize my mother. Oh, and he has a girlfriend now. I mean, other than me.”
“How the hell does he get the time? I thought residents were supposed to be working all the time? How does he have the place in his schedule to cheat on you?” Rachel threw her hands up a moment. “Also, fuck all the stuff he says about your mother.”
Walda was kooky and unpredictable in many ways, but she was Cora’s mother. And Cora loved her family. Eccentric artist instability wasn’t the same as put-her-in-an-institution instability.
“Is it weird I’m more offended that he’d tell Cora to put her mom in a mental institution?” Maybe asked. “I mean, look, I’m not surprised he cheated. But I did think he cared about you in his way. And he has to know how you feel about that sort of stuff about your mom.”
Rachel sighed and leaned back in her chair. “What a gross, awful creep. How did he tell you both things?”
“Well, you both know I drove all the way down there because he had two days in a row off and we had plans. But I get there and he’s not even there and he makes me wait another half an hour before he shows up and then he picked a fight. I guess cheating was fraying his precious nerves. Anyway, we’re sitting in his apartment and talking about his life and he’s saying I should move and I’m like dude we’ve had this talk, you still have years left and you may not even end up in Portland. I remind him I’ve got a job here and all the same stuff and suddenly he’s saying my mother is crazy and dangerous and how she should be in a home and how she manipulates us all and I was like, no dick is worth this bullshit and then he’s trying to say let’s have sex and make up and dude there were a pair of panties in his bed. Not mine.”
“For fuck’s sake. He didn’t even change the sheets between girlfriends? Ew. Not sanitary,” Maybe said with an offended sniff.
It was the right thing to say because Cora started to laugh.
“Anyway. I’m single again and I’ll be spending way less money on gas and way less time on I-5. Don’t tell Finley about the stuff with my mom. My family doesn’t like him either and there’s enough tension between everyone without bringing more to the table.”
“That’s all on him. Your sister knows that. But I’ll keep it to myself,” Rachel said.
* * *
VIC WAS TIRED. So tired he should have turned left to walk up his own front steps. Instead he turned and at the sight of her light on in her room, he asked and was invited over.
“Hi.” She opened the door to admit him, her hair held back from a face clean of makeup that only emphasized the size and beauty of her eyes.
He was so fucking glad he’d chosen this over his own bed. “Good evening, tigryonak. I would very much like to share a cup of tea with you and to take you up on the offer of looking at your pieces for the project.”
“I just finished making a pot of tea. Come up to my room and after you look at the drawings, you can have a cup. Your mother sent over salmon if you want some.”
As he found out when he poked in the fridge, his mother had also sent over cucumber salad and pickled veggies as well.
“I need to talk with her about not giving you all this food without me. I like to be useful to you in procuring all the delightful things she makes.”
She laughed, a hip propped against the counter as she watched him make plates for them both.
“How is everyone?” she asked.
He’d been at the pub with his buddies, thinking about her the whole time. They were all curious about her so he ended up talking about her the whole time too.
They wanted to meet her and he realized she was someone he could bring into that crew pretty easily. They were all about the outdoors and often hiked, biked, camped, boated, kayaked and the like together. She had the strength and stamina to fit right in with even the most extreme of their group.
“All still full of shit,” he told her, following her to her room, she with the tea and him with food. “Trying to talk me into
doing the STP next year.”
“The bicycle ride from Seattle to Portland?” she asked, toeing her door open for their entry.
“Yes. I want to see your art first. Then we’ll have tea and food.”
The smile she gave him made him glad he’d shown his impatience to see her work.
But the work. Jesus.
It wasn’t just that she liked birds. That much was apparent from the way it was featured in so much of her life. Not just on her body, but in the art she created. On her coffee mugs and soap dishes, on sheets and the pillows on her couch.
There was such a sense of intimacy in the way she saw them. And the way she drew them. Movement of wings, a flash of gold and black as a goldfinch left a branch and burst into flight. He wasn’t sure how, but she’d been able to give real sass to its eyes.
The Northern flicker’s flash of red at the back of its head against the white snow and evergreen bark. The fat little Western bluebird sitting on a branch next to a black-capped chickadee looked like a grumpy old man.
A few lines about each bird helped give a sense of why they were chosen for whatever month she’d assigned them.
Beautiful.
The entirety of the project was stunning. Life breathed into every line she’d put on the paper. There was so much of Rachel’s heart and soul in it he found himself—yet again—humbled that she shared it.
He turned to her, touched that she tried to react as if she hadn’t been nervously watching him. “This is fantastic. If they don’t choose you there’s clearly something wrong with them.”
“I don’t even know if this is what they really want or if I’m off base and missed the point. But it was what I was compelled to do. I’m proud of how it all turned out,” she said.
“You should be proud. You’re amazing and I’m so impressed. Beauty and brains. I’m lucky.” He gave her a grin and she blushed again.
“Thank you. I’m taking my submission down before I go in to work tomorrow. I’m nervous. Drink your tea.” She pointed at his mug.
He wasn’t sure if she was nervous about him or the process. He guessed the latter, but oftentimes when she revealed some deep personal thing—as he’d realized her art usually was—she’d get a little shy.