The Unwilling Bride

by Jennifer Greene

  She answered the phone on the fourth ring, but her voice sounded husky and breathless as if she’d been running. “Paige here.”

  “This is Stefan. I not bother you long. I guess you are working—”

  “Yes, I was, actually—”

  “Just one quick question. When you call police here, you don’t call police, right? You call 9-1-1? That’s how?”

  “Yes, for an emergency, that’s exactly h—”

  “Okeydoke. Not bother you further. Thank you for the neighborly help, my cupcake.” Gently he hung up the receiver and waited. He counted to ten in English, then French, then started in Russian with aden, dva, tree, chaterrie…the telephone jangled next to him.

  As innocent as a virgin, he picked it up. “Stefan here,” he barked, adopting her method of answering.

  Her words gushed out like water tumbling from a faucet. “Stefan, for heaven’s sake, are you in some kind of trouble? Do you need help?”

  He stroked his beard, thinking he should probably be feeling big guilt for trying such a ruse. Perhaps the guilt would come. Momentarily he was captured by the sound of her voice. “You would help if I were in trouble? You barely know me?”

  “We’re neighbors. In America, neighbors help each other.”

  “This is wonderful quality,” he said. “We need to spread this American quality of kindness across the world. It would make a difference.”

  He heard her release a quick sigh. A lustily, loud impatient sigh. Full of passion. “Stefan, we can talk about philosophy another time. I was worried why you wanted to dial 911. Did you have a break-in?”

  “Break-in? I don’t know this phrase.”

  “Did you have a robbery? A thief?”

  “No, no. No break-in. I am just figuring out how to do things. Not easy. I had much trouble in the grocery store today. Nothing is the same here. I like everything, you understand, this is my country now. But being able to read fluently and talk fluently is not the same, and I seem to be culturally gapped big-time.”

  He heard her make another sound—the chortling hint of a chuckle.

  “You would laugh at my problem?” he asked her.

  “Oh, no.” She sobered quickly. “No, Stefan, I wasn’t laughing at you—”

  “I worry fiercely about offending by saying wrong things, doing wrong things. But this is truth—I am utter confusion.” He didn’t have to work to make his tone sound mournful. A little talent for drama was in his Russian genes. “How kind, your neighborly offer to help. Much welcomed.”

  “Ummmm…”

  “I am close to desperate in this confusion, so your offer to help could not arrive at better time. I feel relief. Big relief. Be over in five minutes to accept this help, maybe quicker.”

  Actually it didn’t take him four minutes to burrow into a jacket, hike the snowy road, leap her fence and exuberantly knock on her door. When she opened it, her face had an expression of bewilderment as if she had no idea how this impromptu visit came to be.

  Stefan stomped the snow off his boots and closed the door—biting winter wind was gusting in the foyer. Then he smiled at her. Her forehead had a dusty smudge. Her thick brown braid had wisps escaping in a halo around her cheeks. Her black sweater had a hole, as did her jeans, and she was wearing socks, no shoes. But beneath all that was a breathtakingly beautiful woman, and it was a luxury to just look into those velvet brown eyes. “You still working so late, and here, I come and interrupt you. How about I make you something to drink while you keep working, so you not mind this interruption so bad?”

  “It’s okay,” she said.

  “You’re not thirsty? Not hungry?”

  Paige had no chance to consider whether she was hungry or thirsty. She wasn’t sure if she was coming or going, by the time Stefan had been there an hour.

  She vaguely recalled his exuberantly insisting that she continue working as if he weren’t there. What a joke. Stefan was an impossible man to ignore. He’d raided her kitchen for a simple glass of water and emerged with a pot of hot coffee, a bottle of vodka under his arm, two mugs and a six-inch-high sandwich—for her. “You forgot to eat, yes?”

  It was true—she had forgotten dinner—and because there was no convenient place to set up the snack in her work studio, they’d ended up in the living room.

  There’d been no lights on. He’d switched on her grandmother’s ruby thumbnail globe lamp. There’d been no fire in the fieldstone hearth, but he’d fixed that, too—stacked the wood, checked the flue and then lit a match to the kindling. He’d tossed her some couch pillows, pushed a claw-foot stool under her feet and had tipped the vodka bottle into her coffee mug a couple of times now.

  “Cold tonight,” he kept saying. “As cold as Petersburg in a blizzard. Need to warm your toes.”

  Her toes were cold, not from temperature but from nerves. Stefan seemed to have settled in as solidly as an oak tree taking root. It wasn’t exactly as if he were pushy. It was more like being stuck with a big, effusively friendly bear. Somewhere in that gnarly, wild beard was a boyish grin, a winsomeness—he was clearly trying to help her, to please. It was just…those weren’t a boy’s eyes looking her over by the lap of firelight.

  Paige kept telling herself to bury the silly nerves. She’d been working all day, looked like something the cat would refuse to bring home. There was no reason to think he was attracted, no reason not to share a companionable drink with a neighbor. Stefan had thrown himself in the overstuffed blue recliner, a nice three feet away. He hadn’t said one word on any other subject but the reason he came—and heaven knew, he did need help with the language.

  “…so I pay this woman, and I say ‘thank you, we hit the sack anytime, chick.’” Stefan shrugged. “Something clearly wrong with what I say. I meant compliment. But she turned color of roses, real quick, real red, and started talking so fast I couldn’t follow. I don’t know what went wrong.”

  “Oh, Stefan.” Paige shook her head. “Who taught you English?”

  “I learned in school, from early days. But that was always reading more than speaking. In university years, I met Ivan. A friend, a physicist, thirty years older than me, but he had actually lived in America. He knew the real English, the kind people spoke every day. Nothing like textbooks. I studied with him, hard.”

  “Um…Stefan,” she said tactfully, “he taught you a lot of slang.”

  “Yes, slang, thank God. I discovered on instant arrival that no one here speaks with grammar. Learning all that grammar useless. I am relieved to know slang. I not want to stick out like sore toe.”

  “Sore thumb.” Paige corrected him automatically, and then hesitated, unsure how to approach his language misconceptions without hurting his feelings. “About your friend…I’m sure he was a really wonderful friend, and I certainly don’t mean to criticize him…but I’m afraid he taught you some slang expressions that aren’t used anymore. Especially some of the phrases referring to women.”

  “Yeah?” Stefan was clearly one of those highenergy, physical men who couldn’t sit still for more than two seconds. Not for the first time, he sprang from the recliner, checked her mug, noted it was empty and splashed in another double dose of vodka and coffee. More coffee than vodka this -time, she hoped. “Explain to me some examples, okay?”

  “Well, the thing is, Stefan, if your friend lived here a long time ago, he just wouldn’t have any reason to know that we’ve had a strong political women’s movement in this country over the last couple of decades. There was a time it was okay to call a woman cupcake or chick or doll. In another time, those were terms of endearment or affection—”

  Stefan’s shaggy eyebrows shot up in surprise. “Endearments are now forbidden? American women no longer want affection?”

  “No, no. It’s not that. It’s just that certain terms have become symbols of women being oppressed.”

  “Paige, you are throwing me for a rope. I know about oppression. Oppression has nothing in common with word meaning of affection, not that I
understand. You American women seek to oppress affection?”

  “No. No, I…” She shook her head, starting to feel utterly confused herself. “The point is that some of those words and phrases became symbols. Symbols of the ways women had been treated like sex objects.”

  “Ah. I get you. Much clearer now.” He hesitated. “I think. What is sex object?”

  Paige grabbed her mug. She’d been wrong. No matter what proportion of vodka he’d splashed into the coffee, it wasn’t enough. Not nearly enough to be comfortable with the unexpected turn this conversation was taking. She slugged down a gulp of the brew and grappled to explain. “A sex object is when someone is treated like a thing instead of a person. Women wanted to be valued for more than just their bodies or looks. They wanted to be valued and loved for their minds.”

  “Yeah? So what is the news here? This is automatic. What man with brain would love half the woman? Why waste time loving less than body, soul, mind, whole caboodle? How else would you love?”

  “Um, maybe we’d better try this language lesson another time,” Paige said desperately. Her conscience shot her slivers of guilt for copping out. Before he went to town again—for his sake—he really needed to understand that it wasn’t wise to call strange women “cupcake” or warmly suggest that they “get it on” or “hit the sack.” But to summarize the whole history of feminist philosophy and politically correct language in a short conversation—it just wasn’t that easy. There was clearly a whole difference in cultures.

  Or there was a difference in him. An image flashed through her mind of Stefan, making love, inhaling a woman’s mind, body, soul, “whole caboodle.” Blood charged through her veins in an embarrassing rush. He had sounded so matter-of-fact. Maybe loving “whole caboodle” was status quo for him, but it wasn’t anything she was familiar with. And she was utterly confounded how the subject had veered in such an intimately personal direction. They’d started out in the nice, cool North Pole—how had they ended up in the hot climate of Tahiti?

  “You are probably frustrated with me. I learn too slow,” he said morosely.

  “No, no, you learn very fast. It’s just that learning certain things about any language probably takes a lot of time.”

  “Yes, exactly true. But it helps much having someone to explain. I hope we can talk like this again?”

  “Sure,” Paige said. What else could she say? She had a bad feeling she’d only further confused him about the language instead of helping him this time. Still, she carefully added, “I’m afraid I don’t have a lot of free time, though, Stefan. I work long hours.”

  “I understand. I saw your workroom, your cameos. Maybe you could show me something about your art another time, too, okeydoke?”

  “Okeydoke.” When he surged to his feet, Paige abruptly realized that he was leaving—without having to be asked, which was a huge relief—and she swiftly uncurled from the couch and popped to her feet, too. She opened her mouth, intending to say something cordial about his stopping by. Instead a giggle bubbled from her throat and escaped. A giggle. Her. A plain old girlish, giddy, happy giggle. How appallingly silly.

  Stefan threw back his head and laughed. “You sleep good tonight, babe. Vodka good for you. Nothing to worry, lyubemaya. Great medicine for the soul.”

  Paige didn’t know what that lyubemaya meant, but knowing his fondness for affectionate terms, she figured it was too dangerous to ask. Temporarily her reaction to a couple of spiked coffees was embarrassing her to death. At five foot seven and a sturdy one hundred and thirty pounds, she certainly should have been able to handle a little alcohol. For that matter, she’d never been a sissy drinker, had always taken her brandy in straight shots anytime she had a cold. It just belatedly occurred to her that she hadn’t had a cold in three or four years. “I’m afraid I haven’t had much experience with vodka,” she admitted.

  “And I bet you never had borscht? Caviar? Solyanka? We will have to fix all those missing experiences in your life very soon.”

  Food, he was talking about. Not love. Not sex. It had to be the hundred-proof liquid sloshing in her mind that made her suddenly think of “missed experiences” in a context with Stefan.

  Vodka might be medicine for the soul in Russia, but it wasn’t for her. Positively she was never touching the stuff again if it made her feel this…goofy.

  Stefan had been nothing but friendly. A lonely man in a strange country, seeking some basic companionship. Even now, as he yanked on his alpaca jacket, the front hall sconce light illuminated his genial smile, the crinkle of laugh lines around his eyes. It was just his powerful stature that made her five-seven seem defenselessly small. Maybe he was hopelessly gregarious, but he hadn’t done or said one thing to make her worry that he was anything but a kind man. A safe man. A good guy.

  “Snowing again,” he noted, as he pulled worn leather gloves from his pockets.

  “We’ll probably have a couple more inches by morning.” She hugged her arms under her chest. The front hall was drafty cold. He was obviously ready to leave, so she thought he was just turning toward her to say goodbye. And she saw him bend his head, but she also saw his kind, safe almost-familiar-now smile.

  It never occurred to her that a kiss was coming.

  It never occurred to her that he wanted to kiss her.

  Her mind scrabbled to recall if she’d sent him any come-on body language signals. But of course she hadn’t. Paige hadn’t sent any men those willing body language signals since she was sixteen. And lightning storms weren’t supposed to happen in the blizzard month of January.

  She wasn’t prepared, never even got her arms unfolded before they were trapped between his body and hers. A big hand cupped her head. His lips touched hers, more gentle than a whisper, his mouth unbearably soft against the tickle of his rough, wiry beard.

  The taste of him was foreign. Alien. Drugging sweet and disturbing. Her pulse zoomed like a skater on the ice for the first time, unpredictable and unsteady and flying way too fast.

  That first skimming kiss turned deeper. His mouth rubbed against hers, testing, exploring the texture of her lips, savoring the taste of her. You’d think he hadn’t kissed a woman in the last hundred years. You’d think he just discovered a secret treasure, and her senses wrapped around the smell of leather and alpaca wool and the male warmth radiating from his body.

  The speed of light was fast, but not half as fast as the speed of darkness. It had been so long since she’d kissed anyone. She’d forgotten. The exhilaration sweeping through her pulse was more frightening than any danger. She’d forgotten what it was like to feel that innocent burst of yearning, to feel that lusty dizzy spring-fever high, to feel that heady excitement of wanting. Or maybe she’d never known. She’d kissed boys, not men. Never a man who knew how to kiss like he did. Never him.

  She meant to bolt, not close her eyes. She meant to push him away, not stand stock-still as if she were caught up in a spell of enchantment. She wasn’t wild anymore. She’d slayed and buried every hint of wildness in her heart, years and years ago, yet it was as if she’d frozen those emotions instead of truly killing them off, because they seeped through her now, billowing loose like a parachute in the wind.

  It was his fault. If she could just get a lungful of oxygen, she knew she could catch control again. Yet his thumb grazed the line of her jaw, in a caressing gesture as potent as tenderness. And his kiss turned openmouthed, claiming her response as if it already belonged to him, making her li’ps ache and her head feel thrumming dizzy.

  She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. And then, she didn’t have to. He lifted his head. There was a fire in his eyes that hadn’t been there before, sharp and black and hot, yet he pushed back a strand of her hair with a gentle touch. His gaze scored her face, studying her eyes, her mouth, the flush burned in her cheeks that he’d put there. And then he smiled.

  “Paige…” He dropped his hand and stepped toward the door, as if nothing but leaving had ever been on his mind. The sudden glint
of humor in his eyes, in fact, had the devil’s own mischief. “So you know. That was not about oppression or sex object. That was just Russian way of saying thank you, good night.”

  That was it. When he opened the door, a harsh sting of snow blasted in, but then he was gone.

  She threw the latch and hooked the chain bolt, unsure whether she wanted to shoot him—or laugh. It would seem she’d gotten one language lesson through to him, if he understood the concepts of “oppression” and “sex object” well enough to joke about them.

  She couldn’t seem to laugh, though. Her heart was still slamming too hard. Even when he’d completely disappeared out of sight down the driveway, her pulse was still bouncing off the walls.

  That Russian didn’t need language to communicate a damn thing.

  Abruptly she realized how late it was. She gathered up the dishes from the living room, then started turning off lights through the house. The last room was her workshop, and when she switched off the overhead from the doorway, her eyes instinctively flew to the jade cameo.

  The light couldn’t help but draw her. She’d stashed the jade cameo on a shelf, still unsure what she was going to do with it. But even with the whole downstairs dark, the bright snowy night caught the soft iridescent glow of the stone. It was the nature of jade to appear lit from within, and she found herself staring at the carved woman in profile, frowning hard, not really seeing her but simply thinking.

  She used to be wild and impulsive, once upon a time. She used to be reckless, giddy on life and her newly developing powers as a woman, teasing every boy she could attract. And it was never far from her conscience, that a sixteen-year-old boy had once paid the cost for her thoughtlessness and insensitivity.

  She’d changed. Completely. Her life was selfdiscipline, work, responsibility. Possibly she was a teensy bit absentminded—hey, there was no way to wipe every single flaw from her character—but she felt good about the woman she’d turned into. She hadn’t hurt anyone. She’d been very careful of that. Her sisters said she was too tough on herself, but Paige stood on her own two feet, strong and sturdy.