by Cait London
Willow had called, serving him a warning that Jessica might be detained a bit by helping the elderly run errands—but Alexi was definitely on Jessica’s hit list.
Jessica hadn’t left Amoteh; her BMW had been collected by Willow. Mikhail had said that Willow had parked the expensive vehicle in the resort’s parking lot and had delivered her soap program to the ladies’ retreat group. Willow had been thrilled with the orders she had taken, and she had mentioned that Jessica was delivering the elderly to different appointments in Amoteh.
Alexi grimly pushed the sandpaper across the already-smooth top of the secretary desk. It couldn’t compare to Jessica’s elegant office desk, but he wanted to give her something unique, made by his own hands and heart.
The door to the furniture shop crashed open and Fadey walked in, grinning and bold, carrying a picnic basket. “My wife, your aunt, she worries for you, little boy. She sent you food.”
Jarek and Mikhail followed him inside, and the men placed the containers they carried onto the workbench. They stripped off their coats and began setting the food out.
“So you’re hiding out here. Jessica is hunting you,” Mikhail stated as he began to slice his wife’s freshly baked bread. “She came to the Amoteh and used the complimentary business suite to make calls.”
Alexi frowned slightly; he knew his cousin was baiting him and he wouldn’t be too anxious to ask about Jessica.
Would Jessica want to stay with Alexi? She was a powerful woman and he was asking her to stay with him, assist him and live in basic conditions. Maybe Jessica was right—he could be punishing her for the damage another woman had done.
Jarek opened the pie container and cut the pie, sliding a big piece onto a plate that Fadey had placed beside him. Fadey tapped another plate, indicating he wanted a piece of the pie. Mikhail took the slice that Jarek had placed onto a plate, and began eating.
“That is my wife’s cherry pie,” Jarek stated darkly.
With the air of an older brother challenging a younger one, Mikhail asked, “So?”
Jarek frowned at Mikhail and placed a slice onto another plate. “Jessica has been at the Seagull’s Perch and at Willow’s.”
Alexi breathed deeply; he knew his cousins well. One anxious word about Jessica and they would be teasing him.
Was Jessica saying her goodbyes to her friend? Alexi pretended he wasn’t listening. He tossed the sandpaper aside and picked up the pie pan, stuck a fork into the remainder of the cherry pie and started eating. “The house is coming along. I got a good section of the roof braced up. By the time the weather is better, we can shingle.”
“Shakes might be better for that house. It rambles on too much to be an upright saltbox design and it isn’t quite ranch style. But we have time to think about roofing. We could make the shakes here,” Mikhail noted, always the practical businessman.
“But did she like the bathroom? Women like kitchens and bathrooms,” Jarek stated with experience.
Alexi thought of Jessica soaking in her bubble bath, the way she leaned her head back against the rolled towel and closed her eyes—that little sigh of pleasure. His pleasure was in just looking at her. He placed the pie aside. “She liked it.”
“That’s what I heard from my wife. Jessica and Ellie talked briefly,” Mikhail said softly. Just another nudge in the cousins’ teasing, Alexi decided.
Then he gave in to his curiosity. He tried to shield his excitement. “Did she say anything, Mikie?”
“You know I don’t like that nickname.” Mikhail shrugged and answered obliquely, “Woman talk. Things.”
“Like what, specifically?” Then Alexi caught the knowing smiles passing between Mikhail and Jarek. “Stop,” Alexi ordered darkly. “There are things that I know about you, cousins, that your wives would like to know.”
He could still taste Jessica, still smell that exotic, feminine scent, still want her…. Was she gone? Would she think of him tonight as she lay in her luxurious bedroom in Seattle?
Fadey circled the little desk. “Good. Good, clean, sturdy. A woman would like this. You put the same hardware on it as what Mikhail used for Ellie’s sewing machine. A little touch to please a woman.”
“Jessica delivered groceries to Mrs. Maloney and took a prescription to Tiny Morales on Willow’s behalf. Looks like she’s keeping busy. Ryan had to help her jump-start Willow’s old van. She asked him about regular transportation services for the elderly or housebound in Amoteh.”
“Neighbors usually help. Willow seems to have taken charge of anyone who doesn’t have help.” Alexi slathered butter over a slice of warm, thick bread. “There’s nothing to keep Jessica here—”
The door swung open and Jessica, a worn, knitted scarf around her head, covered in mud, stepped inside. She slammed the door shut. Her eyes locked on Alexi and narrowed dangerously. “Stepanov, I’ve been looking all over for you—”
“Which one?” Jarek asked, smothering another smile.
“I smell food.” Jessica frowned and she sniffed delicately. Obviously her hunt had been sidetracked.
She stared at the container of stew that Fadey had just placed on the workbench. “Can I have some of that?”
While Mikhail gallantly helped her out of her coat and seated her, Jarek began placing food on the door across two sawhorses that served as a table. Alexi leaned back against the workbench and folded his arms across his chest. He didn’t like feeling vulnerable and uncertain.
He studied the tie-dyed T-shirt over her long-sleeved, expensive sweater and the love beads around her throat, an indication that she had visited Ed and Bliss. Willow had said Jessica knew about the deception and would be coming to question him. The option was Alexi’s: he could either deny that he knew Willow was faking danger to herself, or he could admit his suspicions.
When Jessica began devouring the food placed in front of her, Jarek waved his hand in a low, sweeping invitation for Alexi to sit next to her. Fadey, Mikhail and Jarek stood back against the workbench, leisurely enjoying their food. They watched Alexi ease into the chair next to Jessica.
Alexi frowned at the other men; they looked as if they were set to enjoy good theater. “So how was your day?” he asked Jessica as casually as he could. Are you staying here? With me?
He buttered the warm bread and placed it on her plate. Jessica was still eating quickly. Alexi ate a few bites from his plate and then asked, “Did you eat today?”
“No time,” she said around a mouthful of stew.
He unwound the long, knitted scarf from her throat and touched one of her braids. “That’s a new hairstyle.”
“Mrs. Olaf was showing me how she braided her daughter’s hair. I mentioned I had mine braided as a girl and, naturally… It’s called French braiding. It’s very tight. I may be squinting. There are little tight strands catching at the nape of my neck. I just haven’t had the time to undo it.” She turned her attention to the food. “Gee, this is good.”
Alexi eased away the elastic hair band from one braid; his fingers began to loosen Jessica’s hair from its confinement. At a sound, he turned to see his cousins and uncle all grinning.
“It is really tight,” Alexi stated defensively, because he wanted to tend Jessica, to hold her, and they knew exactly how he felt.
“Got to go,” Mikhail stated abruptly, as though Alexi’s gestures reminded him of a task he couldn’t wait to do. “Jessica, do you want the resort’s housekeeping staff to warm your suite a bit? Maybe ready the fireplace?”
The shop was suddenly heavy with silence. She stopped spooning stew into her mouth and looked blankly at Alexi. “I haven’t had time to think…. I might—”
In that heartbeat, Alexi had everything he’d needed all day—Jessica wanted to be close to him. She’d thought of him through her busy day and she’d needed him. She might want to sort out the facts with Alexi—but she wanted to be held close by him.
“I’ll take her home,” he said quietly.
Fadey clapped his hands and, w
ith his arm looped through Jarek’s, began a brief, stomping, circular dance. He clapped again and grinned. “That’s good. You make me happy. You take her home, boy.”
“Pop,” Mikhail warned quietly when Jessica put her head down, obviously shielding a blush.
“I am only joyful for my brother, Viktor, you know. Not for me,” Fadey stated adamantly. Then his eyes lit. It was an expression Alexi had seen when Fadey talked of the grandchildren he wanted. “Yes, I am joyful, too. So what, little boy?”
“We’re working on it, Pop. Less than two weeks and you’ll have another grandchild. Mom says Ellie is in her nesting mood.”
Fadey’s expression was concerned and almost comically contrite, his shoulders lifted, his hands outstretched in a plea. “But my brother, Viktor, you know. He is younger, but without little ones.”
“Uncle,” Alexi cautioned quietly. Jessica hadn’t seemed to notice the exchange, but Alexi’s body tightened almost fiercely as he thought of how they had made love, and the child that could be—a little girl with green eyes and braids. He’d heard of the primitive urge to hold his own child, but he hadn’t really experienced that deep need with one special woman.
When Heather was telling him how she had used him to mark time—“until someone better came along”—she’d also included a bare fact that she’d previously hidden. “I wouldn’t think of having children. It would ruin my figure.”
Alexi studied Jessica’s clean-cut profile. She might not want children, either. It didn’t really matter now. He knew little about her—except that he ached to hold her, to make love to her.
Mikhail sighed and said his goodbyes. Jessica was still looking down and Alexi couldn’t resist running his fingertip over her hot cheek, enjoying that delicious little shiver. “Tired?”
“Very. I have a surprise for you.”
“I can’t wait.”
Her hunger satisfied now, Jessica yawned. When Alexi finished loosening her other braid, her head nodded and her head drooped. She leaned slightly toward Alexi and all his unrest settled into a gentle flow of tenderness for her. He eased her from her chair and into her coat, wrapping the knitted scarf around her head. With a quiet look to Fadey and Jarek, Alexi guided Jessica toward the door.
Jessica awoke in Alexi’s bed. Alone, she lay in the heavy warmth of the quilts, inhaling his scent. She ran her hand over his pillow and remembered how he had carried her into the house. When he had placed her on her feet, Jessica had swayed and then leaned fully against him. Alexi had chuckled, the sound deep and rich against her cheek. “It must have been some day.”
“I had to jump-start Willow’s van. Then I drove it into the nearest garage and had them drop a battery in it. On the trips, someone was baby-sitting their grandchild and the girl was carsick and that wasn’t pleasant. Ed and Bliss and I chased their goat. I slid down a hill.”
“But did you get the goat?”
Alexi already knew Jessica’s answer. “Yes.”
She’d fumbled in her pocket, determined to give Alexi her present. “Here. A worry stone from Ed. Bliss is worried about your chakras. She said they have been out of alignment for too long. And I think you need this, too.”
Jessica watched the firelight flickering on the ceiling and remembered Alexi’s soft, pleased smile as she’d placed her love beads over his head. “Don’t worry anymore, Alexi. I’ve taken care of everything.”
“Have you?” he asked, amused as he gently washed her face with a cloth.
The wind howled outside and water dropped from the ceiling into the bucket, but Jessica never felt more safe. She remembered his big, callused, warm hands running gently over her nude body, a comforting gesture that told her she had come home—where she belonged, with Alexi.
Never in her life had she been so safe and cherished. After a childhood of uncertainty and neglect, an immature marriage and her second with Robert—because already ill, Robert had needed protection from his son’s greed and cruelty—Jessica had fought to keep him safe, to keep Robert’s dream safe.
She stretched and sighed and luxuriated in this tiny moment—before she would tell Alexi what she had done.
And ask him if he knew about Willow’s playacting.
Now, turning in his bed alone, Jessica frowned slightly. She realized that the cool sheets beside her body hadn’t been warmed by Alexi’s. She listened to the slight splashing sounds in the bathroom and reached for her wristwatch, which was lying on the table beside the bed. “Two o’clock is a strange time to be taking a…bath. Hmm. Alexi seems more like a shower man.”
She rose slowly and stretched, her whole body aching from the day before—and from Alexi’s possession. Her breasts were sensitized, her body aware that it had been shared intimately with Alexi.
He’d gently undressed her—completely—and now with the colder air hitting her naked body, Jessica smiled. Alexi had obviously had his own plans while putting her to bed, but waylaid them because of her exhaustion.
She wasn’t exhausted now and a rendezvous with Alexi in that enormous bathtub was too good to ignore. In her lifetime, Jessica never explored her sensuality, and it was now definitely awakening her hunting instincts to seduce a very fascinating man. She glanced in the mirror on the wall and frowned at the tiny waves the tight braids had created in her hair. She used her fingers to soothe the wild tigress-woman look, but nothing would change the way she felt or those shadows of a well-loved woman. It was a new look, softer, more feminine, almost shocking her—a woman who had never really explored her personal needs.
Jessica eased the bathroom door open to find Alexi in the tub, his head leaning back against the top, his eyes closed. His arms rested on the edges of the tub, his long legs extended past the other end. Jessica quietly closed the door and leaned against the wall, admiring Alexi—a ripcord-hard, muscled male, almost savage in his beauty—amid a bubble bath.
“Enjoying yourself?” he asked very softly.
“Yes. Definitely. Are you?”
He moved quickly to grab the edges of the tub and surge to his feet. Tall and tan, with water and soapsuds sliding down his body, he stood in the water, his eyes the shade of frost on the window, pinning Jessica. “You’ve been a busy girl.”
She stared at his fit body. “And you’re tan all over.”
“Skinny-dipping in a Wyoming creek on a hot day does that.” Alexi stepped out of the tub and briskly wiped himself dry. He wrapped a towel around his waist and slashed a cold look at Jessica. “So you thought you’d buy me a present, a nice little toy to keep me busy and happy? And I’m not talking about Ed’s worry stone.”
He walked out of the bathroom, leaving her breathless and shaken.
Alexi tossed away the towel and glanced at the bathroom door that had just slammed behind him. Apparently Jessica had decided to give herself thinking room.
He took a pair of folded jeans from the laundry basket and tugged them on. Jessica’s pale curves, those breasts and hips and long legs, the intriguing V between them, had already stoked the hunger in his body. Her hair had added a sexy new look; her eyes were shadowed and mysterious, almost absorbing him from head to toe. He’d known the taste of her lips, of her skin, of the nipples peaking upon those soft breasts and beneath the bathwater, and his body had stirred, aroused so fiercely that he didn’t bother to hide it as he stood.
Her gaze had taken him in, stroking his flesh with heat, even as the water cooled it. He’d almost tugged her to him, taken her as she wanted.
It would all be so easy, to step into what she wanted—to make love—but Alexi’s pride wouldn’t allow that—
A heartbeat later, the door slammed behind Jessica and she walked across the room toward him. The flannel shirt he’d hung in the bathroom earlier reached her midthigh as she walked to her luggage. She bent to open it, the sound of the zipper ripping through the quiet room. With a disdaining look at Alexi, she crouched to select clothing and then stood, her stare cool and hard.
They’d known each other int
imately; she was giving him notice that she could equal him on any level. When she started to walk to the bathroom, Alexi said quietly, “That isn’t necessary. I’ve seen everything.”
Jessica paused midstep and straightened her shoulders. With her back to him, she tossed her fresh clothing onto a dresser. She let his shirt fall to the floor and raised her arms to let a soft green lounging gown with long sleeves slide over her body. Then, with her arms folded across her breasts, Jessica said briskly, “Okay, let’s have it, Stepanov.”
“What, Mrs. Sterling? Sex or a discussion about why you are not buying the Seagull’s Perch for me?”
“I was going to tell you—”
But Alexi’s anger wouldn’t wait. “The notes you left on the table were interesting. Was the tavern some little gift of appreciation? A buy-off? What? I called Barney last night while you were sleeping. He said you were thinking of buying and if you did, that you wanted me to take the place on full-time, managing it. He wanted me to know, so I’d have time to get my finances up for a purchase price—he wants to know that his place is going to someone he knows will take care of it. And he prefers me.”
When Jessica flinched slightly, Alexi regretted his harshness, but pride drove him on. He lifted her notations on the tavern’s profit and loss statements, the amount of the owner’s asking price, and slapped the paper next to her laptop. “Let’s get this straight right now. You may buy presents for other men. You’re not buying me anything.”
Those green eyes glinted as she came to tap his chest with her fingertip. “How do you know it’s for you, Stepanov?”
Despite his leashed anger, Alexi couldn’t help admiring her spirit. “We’re lovers. You may call me Alexi. And because we are lovers, you are not buying that tavern. Do you think I’m going to work for you? Did you even think how that would look?”
Jessica’s hard stare flickered at that last charge. “No, I didn’t. I told you, I had quite the day, starting off with discovering that my best friend was wrangling my life. Willow intimated that she was in danger, knowing full well that I would be looking for ways to protect her—and, gee whiz, she knew me pretty well. I went straight for the best protection available—you.”