“If talking was going to wake her up, she wouldn’t have fallen asleep with you griping at her the way she did.”
“I don’t gripe at Harper.”
“Nope, you only gripe at me. So I expect you were griping about me to her.”
There was more truth to that statement than I wanted to concede, even if it hadn’t only been about her.
“What do you want?” I demanded.
“In life? Or right at this moment?”
I glared in response.
“Tallie says dinner’s ready, and she wants to know if you’re willing to put the baby in her crib so she can feed you. She says it’s a Southern woman’s responsibility to feed everyone who comes to visit, even if they’re growly bears.” London gave me a pointed look. “She only added that part because I told her how grumpy you’ve been all day.”
“Only reason I’m grumpy is you.”
“That may be the case, but somehow I doubt it.” Then she backed her wheelchair out into the hall. “Whether you come or not, we’re eating. You should probably join us. All that caffeine you had is going to wreak havoc on your system without some food. And you could use some protein after working your arms the way you did in the game today. I doubt espresso fits that bill.”
“Make me another promise,” I said to Harper, once more speaking in Russian. “Promise me you’ll never grow up to be a mouthy woman like her.”
HARPER WAS STILL sleeping after we finished dinner. I helped Tallie clean the kitchen while Hunter and London talked hockey in the living room, half hoping the baby would wake up and start screaming her head off. That would give me a good excuse to slip back into her bedroom and rock her until—hopefully—London took the hint and left without me. To my chagrin, the baby was still sleeping like a rock once every dish had been washed, dried, and put away.
Tallie wiped her hands on a dish towel and took off her apron, giving me the sort of look she always gave people before convincing them to spill their guts to her.
“Don’t start,” I said.
“I started while you were rocking my baby.”
“Then stop now.”
“Fat chance of that happening.” She tossed her apron on the counter and crossed her arms, hitching her hip against the sink. “So you seem to have your knickers in a knot around London. What’s that about?”
It didn’t take too much to understand what she was asking me, even though I didn’t have a clue what knickers were. “Don’t like her.”
“Yeah. Sure.” She rolled her eyes. “Next time, remember to load your brain before you go shootin’ your mouth off around me.”
That sounded like another insult. I wished Tallie would speak regular English around me, but it wasn’t likely to happen any time soon. “Don’t like her,” I repeated.
“Well, I do. And I think you do, too, even if you don’t want to admit it. So why’d you bring her over, anyway?”
“She drove me.” Crazy, I thought to myself. She drove me absolutely crazy. Admittedly, my usual state wasn’t too very far from there, but still.
“Where’s your car?”
“At BOK Center.”
“So you left your car behind to go somewhere with someone you don’t like, huh? Yeah, sounds real smart to me.” She crossed over to take a glass down from the cabinet and fill it with water from the refrigerator. “I may not know you very well, Dima, but I do know you’re not an utter moron. Why’d you go out for coffee with her?”
Without thinking, I said the first thing that popped into my head. “She kidnapped me.”
“Oh, that’s rich. A woman in a wheelchair kidnapped you.” She eyed me up and down, as if I didn’t understand how much stronger I was than a woman, let alone a woman who was paralyzed. “Wait till that gets around the locker room.” She took a sip and then gave me a pitying stare, followed by a gale of laughter that completely undid any seriousness she was trying to convey. “Maybe you don’t want to like her, but I don’t believe there’s much you can do to stop it.”
“We’re oil and water. Never mix.”
“Maybe you need a bit of vinegar thrown in, then. Something to shake it up. Something to shake you up.”
I feared that was already happening.
“Something tells me you might be more like matches and gasoline,” she said, heading back into the living room with her glass.
Lovely. So one of us was ready to blow the other up. Tallie might not be too far off the mark with that one, although I wasn’t certain which was the explosive and which was the spark.
AFTER WAITING ANOTHER hour with the hope that Harper would wake up and need me to calm her down, London and I left together so she could drive me back to my car. All my arguments had fallen on deaf ears. Hunter hadn’t seen any good reason to leave and drive me up to the arena when London was perfectly willing, and he and Tallie had gently but firmly pushed me out the front door.
“That wasn’t so hard, was it?” London asked after several minutes passing in silence.
I’d preferred the silence.
“What wasn’t hard?” I groused.
“Having a polite meal together. Sitting and talking like normal human beings without biting each other’s heads off.”
“Think half my tongue is gone. Bit it too hard to stop myself from biting you.”
The streetlights lit up her face when she faced me with a wicked grin. “Do you bite hard?”
“Hard enough.” I tried not to watch her, but I couldn’t stop myself from focusing in on her neck and thinking about biting her there, just over her pulse point. “Why you have to make it come across like sexy?” I demanded, getting frustrated with myself—even more frustrated than I was with her.
“You did that yourself.”
“Can do plenty more myself, too.”
“I have no doubt your hand gets a good workout, too. At least if you treat all the women in your life this way.”
“Most women are happy to help with that, thanks,” I said, and immediately wished I’d kept my mouth shut.
“Are they?” She stopped at a red light and gave me an appraising stare. “Good thing I’m not like most women, then, isn’t it?”
“Why you say that?” Again, should’ve kept my mouth shut. The smart thing to do would be to zip it and sit in silence the rest of the way to my car, because nothing I said was helping the situation any. In fact, everything either of us said was only making the gears spin in my head and all the blood in my body shoot straight to my groin. This was not the way I wanted to respond to this woman.
London gave me a coy smile. “Just because I have no interest in using my hand on you. Not when there are much better things I could do.”
Holy hell. Matches and gasoline. Tallie might be onto something.
The light changed. She returned her focus to driving, and I shifted in my seat, tugging my jacket over my lap to do what I could to hide the raging hard-on I was sporting. I caught her looking over and down, and she chuckled. I should’ve just stayed still.
She didn’t say anything else the rest of the way back to my car, and I was perfectly content to maintain the silence and try to think calm, boring thoughts in the hopes they’d act like a chill pill for my boner. There weren’t any other cars in the lot outside the BOK Center when we arrived. Not a big surprise since the charity game had ended hours ago. She drove up alongside my car and put hers in park before turning to face me again.
“Hey, Nazarenko?”
“What?” I grumbled, trying hard not to look up at her laughing eyes. I couldn’t stop myself, though, meeting her gaze head on. Her eyes were brown, like her sleek hair. Not just any brown, though. More like smooth, melting chocolate glistening in the garish parking lot lighting.
“Tell Sergei I tried, but there’s only so much I can do. I’m not Wonder Woman.”
“Tried what?” I demanded.
“He’ll know.”
I nodded that I’d tell him, not that I was sure I’d follow through with that. Why should
I pass on messages for this woman, whose sole life purpose seemed to be to drive me insane in every conceivable way? Then I climbed out of her car and into mine.
Once my engine started, London drove away.
Good riddance, if you asked me.
I took out my phone and sent Sergei a text message, asking him where he was. He responded a few minutes later, while I was still sitting in the BOK Center parking lot.
At some bar with a few of the other sledge players. You can join us. I can get the address for you.
He made the offer even though he knew there was no chance in hell I’d take him up on it. I didn’t go to bars anymore. I didn’t drink.
Although, after the day I’d had, the temptation was strong.
My phone buzzed with another message, but this time it was from someone named Sasha. No last name. That meant she had to be one of the girls I’d gone home with at some point along the line. She hadn’t been important enough for me to put in her last name, but apparently I’d liked her well enough to keep her phone number stored in my cell.
It’s a cold night tonight. I sure could use you in my bed to warm me up.
My fingers started to type in a response, asking for her address. That would be one surefire way of easing the bother of my boner. But for some reason, I typed in something entirely different.
Not tonight. Not interested.
After sending the message, I started my engine and drove myself home. That was probably the smartest thing to do, anyway. We had a game to play tomorrow.
SOMEONE RANG MY doorbell. It was still dark out, and I definitely hadn’t rolled over yet, if it was even morning. I glared at the alarm clock on my nightstand, trying to make the bright red numbers come into focus. Not an easy proposition, since it was still dark, I was still half asleep, and I hadn’t had a drop of coffee.
The clock read 6:43.
In the morning.
On a freaking Saturday, when I didn’t have any plans for the day.
Whoever was outside my door had better be prepared to duck for cover, because I was sure as hell arming myself with something to throw at their head for waking me up so damned early.
The last couple of weeks had been crammed full of activities—work, the charity sled game last weekend, and a Christmas party with the other Para-Pythons. My time hadn’t been my own, even on my weekends off. But for the next ten days, my office was closed for the holidays, and I was supposed to get to sleep as late as I wanted.
I threw off the covers and transferred myself into my chair, remembering at the last second to drape a throw blanket across my legs. On my way to the front door, I grabbed a big jar candle and set it on my lap for easy access. It was more than heavy enough to do some damage, and I had some serious upper body strength—not just for a woman, either. The last few years of getting around in a wheelchair and a hockey sled had left my arms as strong as most men’s.
I left the chain locked, only undoing the deadbolt, and whipped the door open so I could peek through the crack.
Two sets of brown eyes twinkled at me—staring from about the same height as me.
“Do you wanna build a snowman?” my niece, Kennedy, said, in a perfect imitation of Anna from Frozen, with her older brother, Logan, at her side. My brother, Gray, stood behind his oldest two children. Logan was the eldest at eight. Kennedy, with her frizzy brown curls, was six.
“What are you doing here before the butt crack of dawn?” I demanded, still not undoing the chain. I was feeling way too grouchy due to my sleep being disturbed to give in to the cuteness. Yet. It’d happen soon, but I’d always had a hard time shaking off my sleep to join the waking world.
“It’s snowing,” Logan said, as if that explained everything.
I peeked past my brother and saw that, yes, indeed, there was some white stuff falling from the sky. “And?”
Gray laughed. “Maybe you’ve forgotten, since we’ve only lived in Tulsa for a few years, but in this part of the world, snow is still a rarity. Which means the kids want to get out and enjoy it while it’s still snow and not ice.”
“You three go right ahead,” I grumbled, wishing I’d stopped to put on a pot of coffee before answering the door. “Go grab your baby sister, while you’re at it. Three’s plenty old enough to get out and enjoy some snow, I think. I, on the other hand, have every intention of dragging myself back into bed and sleeping until a normal hour for a Saturday.”
“Aunt London,” Kennedy said dramatically. “You have to help us build a snowman.”
“Wheelchairs and piles of snow aren’t a good combination,” I groused. I could just see it now, trying to wheel out on the powder and sinking like a crate full of treasure.
“The bigger concern,” Gray said, redirecting the conversation, “is that since Tulsa doesn’t have snowplows and whatnot ready to go, the roads are going to be nasty in no time, and it would be suicide for anyone to get out in it. It’s not like when we lived in Wyoming.”
As much as I hated to ever admit my brother was right, this was one time I’d let him win. Last winter, the entire city had shut down for about four days when snow had blown in, because the temperature had warmed up so much during the day that it’d started to melt, but then it’d all frozen again overnight, leaving behind a solid sheet of black ice covering everything. I could drive in snowy conditions, but ice was another beast entirely.
I shook my head. “All the more reason for me to crawl back under the covers.”
“Except they’re predicting this storm is going to keep everything shut down for at least three or four days, just like last year,” my brother said. “Maybe longer.”
“Most likely longer,” I agreed, peeking again to see how much had already fallen. Looked like a bunch more was in store for us.
“So you’ll miss Christmas if you don’t come home with us!” Kennedy added, throwing up her hands.
Gray gave me his trademarked big-brother look. “You’re not missing Christmas. Mom and Dad are already at the house. The kids want to build a snowman as soon as there’s enough powder on the ground to try it. You can watch from inside and warm them up with hot chocolate once they come in. Just come on so I don’t have to be a jerk and carry you over my shoulder to the car.”
“I’d like to see you try it.”
“Oh, I’ll try it, all right. And I’ll manage it.”
I rolled my eyes and, sighing, undid the chain so they could come in.
Kennedy jumped onto my lap, singing “Do You Want to Build a Snowman” and picking up the jar candle. She held it up and stopped singing long enough to ask, “Whatcha doing with this?”
I wheeled us into the kitchen so I could finally get my coffee going. “Using it as a weapon.”
She snickered. “You gonna burn us?”
“Nope. I intended to bonk your daddy in the head with that for daring to wake me up this early on my day off.”
She nodded like that made perfect sense.
Logan headed straight for the living room and opened all the blinds to watch the snow.
“So why don’t I pack up a bag for you while you get yourself ready?” Gray asked, following us into the kitchen.
I shook my head. “Why don’t you get these two home so they’re safe from whatever idiots around here think they know how to drive in snow when they really don’t, and I’ll follow you in just a bit once I’ve had time to wake up and sort out what I need to do on my own?”
“There’s no reason you couldn’t just come with us. I specifically left Erin and Finn at home with Sierra so there’d be plenty of room for you and your chair.”
“Except I want to have my own car so I can escape as soon as it’s safe to do so.”
Kennedy giggled. “We’re gonna kidnap you.”
“I know you are,” I said, nodding vigorously. “So I need a way to unkidnap myself after a few days. Right?” I tickled her ribs until she climbed down and darted off to join her brother. The coffeemaker finished brewing, so I poured Gray a cup—in
a travel mug, as a hint—before fixing one for myself. “I started my laundry last night and forgot about it. I can’t leave wet clothes sitting around for days, so I need to run them again and transfer them to the dryer. I need to figure out what to do with any food I’ve got in the fridge, in case I’m gone for several days. There are things I need to do before coming over, Gray. Besides”—I dropped my voice—“I’ve got all their Christmas presents in my trunk, all wrapped. I’ve got to bring my car with me, regardless of when I leave. So you might as well just load them back into your car and go.”
“You swear you’ll head over before too long?”
“I know how to drive in snow,” I said, rolling my eyes.
“It’s not you I’m worried about. It’s all the other idiots out there.”
“I’ll be on my way in two hours, tops. Pinky swear.” I held out my hand with the pinky hooked.
“Anything I can take out for you now? Need your trash hauled to the dumpster? Got an emergency bag with your medical supplies ready to go?”
“Emergency supplies are already in my purse, and more in the car.” I wheeled over to the trash can and pulled the bag out, tying it off. “Take this if it’ll make you happy.”
Within minutes, I had him and the kids heading out the front door, leaving me in peace so I could figure out what I still needed to do.
I hadn’t intended to move in with the family for Christmas. I’d thought I’d go over for most of Christmas Eve and return for Christmas Day, but otherwise, I’d hoped to enjoy my alone time.
Thanks to the weather gods, now all my plans were shot.
I wheeled myself to my laundry room and added more detergent to the washer so I could run that load again, then headed into my bedroom to see what I could get started packing. Good thing I loved my family—or at least most of them. My sister-in-law wasn’t exactly my favorite person in the world, but I put up with her because she gave me my awesome nieces and nephews. This was going to be a long few days with all of us in close quarters.
Ghost Dance (Tulsa Thunderbirds Book 3) Page 4