“It doesn’t matter what you believe. What matters is what I know. And I don’t want you hurt.”
His gentle words hit her in a soft place. Her heart lodged in her throat, and she struggled to speak. “You don’t?” she squeaked.
He smiled, and an unfamiliar tenderness gathered around his eyes. “Absolutely not.” Then he ran a finger down the side of her face and scooped up a tear.
The kind gesture made her freeze. He must have read her body language, for he immediately withdrew his hand. “Are you hungry?” He tried to hide his embarrassment, but she saw it creep into his face.
She sat up, wiped her eyes. “Maybe. Thank you, Captain.” Perhaps he wasn’t such a hard-hearted creep after all. He did have blue eyes that looked like the ocean at dusk, eyes that were deep and mysterious, hiding a multitude of secrets—maybe even treasures.
“Call me Vadeem.” He smiled, and seemed nearly boyish, charm and innocence wrapped together in a heartwarming package. “What you would like?”
She rubbed her arms, feeling goose bumps. “Maybe some M&M’s?”
He laughed. “For lunch? C’mon, Miss Moore. You need to eat better than that. I bet I can scrounge up some fruit juice from the food cart, maybe some peanuts.”
“M&M’s. Plain. I don’t do peanuts with my chocolate.
He smiled, her first glimpse into a true friendship, and shook his head. “You Americans. You don’t know how to eat right. You live on carbs and chocolate—”
“And soda, don’t forget that.” She only half-hated the fact she’d warmed to his teasing.
“America has turned Russia into a land of junk food.” He signaled to a woman pushing a cart down the aisle. “I need to teach you how to eat, I can see.” He pointed to two cartons of apple juice, a banana, and a bag of plain M&M’s. Kat reached for the bag, but he snatched it back, burying it in his lap while he paid the vendor.
“Not until you have some real food.” He opened the apple juice and handed it over. Kat made a face, but liked the way he waggled his eyebrows at her. She drank the liquid down.
“Now some potassium.” When he held out the banana, she snatched the M&M’s from his lap. He frowned.
“Gimme the banana. I’ll show you how Americans eat fruit.” She opened the bag of candy. Vadeem eyed her with suspicion as he handed over the fruit. Kat peeled the banana, then carefully put one M&M candy in the center. “Chocolate has protein, you know. It’s made from beans.” Then she bit off the banana, taking the candy with it.
Vadeem’s blue eyes widened. “That can’t taste good.”
“Try it.” She handed over the fruit, and the bag of candy.
Vadeem had strong hands, fingers that were clean. He tore off a piece of banana and made his own treat. She laughed at the grimace he made as he swallowed it down.
“Oh, it’s been putrated!” He gulped down a healthy swig of apple juice. “How do you stay all trim and leggy with this kind of diet?”
His compliment left her speechless.
His smile dimmed and he held up a hand. “No, don’t answer that.”
Kat wrinkled her nose at him, hoping to reclaim the light moment, desperately needing it after the last twenty-four hours. “I supplement with Diet Coke. It cancels out the calories due to fruit.”
His deep, melodic laughter filled the train, turning heads. Kat let it absorb her and soothe her fraying nerves.
“I’ve met a true junk-food junkie,” he said, shaking his head.
“What? Do I look like a potato chip?”
He studied her with a smirk and tease in his eyes. “Not in the least.”
Her heart thumped hard against her chest as his gaze held hers, reached out, and drew her in.
“I would never mistake you for a Pringle.”
Oh, her heart fell down to her knees. She forced herself to breathe, and found a smile. “No, just an M&M, huh?”
He shrugged. “Maybe. Hard and crusty on the outside, sweet on the inside?”
She fought another smile. The last thing she wanted to do was truly enjoy this man’s company. He stood between her and her past. . . and she had serious plans to ditch him the second they got off the train. She couldn’t afford to leave behind a piece of her heart—
What was she thinking? She‘d known the man for less than twenty-four hours.
It seemed like a decade.
Kat shifted on the hard bench seat, suddenly weary to her bones. The smell of diesel, churned up from the wheels and drifted through the open windows of the train. She sat facing the rear of the car, watching wooded scenery stretch out as they traveled east. The low sun sent streams through the windows, across the bench seats in shafts of golden-orange light.
Vadeem finished off his juice. “Done with that?” He gestured to her crumpled box. Kat nodded mutely and handed him the trash. He took both cartons in one hand and stood up, in search of the garbage can.
Kat took the chance and really looked at the man who had protected her from bullets, helped her dig for answers at the monastery, dragged her like a sack of potatoes to the train, and finally made her laugh. The wind ruffled his chocolate brown hair, which curled deliciously at the nape of his neck. He had good balance in the swaying train, his presence filled the compartment like someone who knew how to walk into a room, grasp the situation, and take immediate command. He tossed the juice cartons in the trash, turned, and started back. A five o’clock shadow had begun to accrue on his face, adding a hint of rogue to his already powerful aura. Dressed in a black leather jacket, a black shirt, and dark pants, he reminded her of a gangster, something out of an “Escape from New York“ movie. He sat down, his feet planted, his powerful hands on his knees, as if ready to pounce. She knew, from first hand experience, he could—and would—spring to action like a panther. The memory of his chest, rock hard and tense as he protected her from bullets, shuddered through her mind. He didn’t have the build of a man who spent off-hours at the gym, but of one who worked hard, his muscles lean and solid. She wondered what he did in his time off. Biked maybe, or even swam.
Captain Vadeem Spasonov emanated strength and confidence. He wore it in his stride, in his hands, in his eyes that didn’t back down despite her tears.
Then why had he nearly crumbled at the monastery? Something had turned him inside out, and left him ragged. Something roamed around his memory like a lion, waiting to devour.
Perhaps it already had.
She put out a hand and touched him on the knee. He startled. “Vadeem, what happened at the monastery? You looked like you’d seen a ghost.”
His eyes widened, and the raw look that entered his face swiped the breath clean out of her chest. “I. . .I can’t talk about it.” He drew in a deep breath and looked away. She could have sworn she heard a door slam. “I won’t.”
Oh, how she suddenly longed to do what he’d done to her—throw him over her shoulder and muscle him into telling her what he was running from. Instead, she sat back, took a breath, and settled into her role as an adoption coordinator. “So, where did you grow up?” She kept her voice light, not wanting him to know she was digging. She added a smile to her question, sweet and concerned.
He instantly relaxed. For the briefest moment, she wondered if his walls-up response had been her imagination. But she saw the way he played with his fists when he spoke, cracking the knuckles one by painful one. “There isn’t much to tell. My parents died when I was eight. I grew up in an orphanage.”
“Ouch,” she said, “I’m sorry.” She squirmed under the thought of him without someone who loved him, someone like her grandfather. How had he survived? She knew what loss was all about, had buried her own parents. But at least Grandfather Neumann never let her feel the full brunt of that pain. “How did they die?”
He looked away, his face taut.
Kat backpedaled, found a new course. “How did you get to be a police officer?”
He drew a deep breath, as if exorcising some nightmare, then he leaned forward, hands cla
sped, elbows across his knees, and looked up at her. “You’re pretty curious.”
“I want to know the man who risked his life for me.”
A definite blush crept into his face, and it made her smile. She didn’t soften the compliment any with a giggle, just let it sink into the budding relationship.
He looked away and she thought she’d lost him when he suddenly replied, “Actually I’m not a cop. I’m a part of a counter-terrorist unit in the Russian secret service, part of the FSB.”
She wanted to stop him there, wrap her brain around that information and the questions that rose like an inferno, but Vadeem continued, as if she met spies every day. “I guess it started when I went into the military—right after high school. Most kids from the orphanage don’t have the chance to go to college. But that was okay. I liked the military life. It wasn’t so different from what I’d grown up with.”
She tried to imagine him spit poor, owning nothing but the clothes on his back, lining up for bowls of food with big eyes like the children she’d seen on the adoption tapes their field workers sent in. She ached for what he’d been forced to overcome. No wonder he was such a health-food fanatic.
“The military and I got along well enough that I was promoted and asked to join the Red Berets.”
“Red Berets?” Kat echoed.
“They are similar to your Army’s Green Berets. We were the elite, trained for special operations.”
Her eyes widened at the image of him dressed in fatigues, holding an AK-47, black grease smeared across his rugged face. No wonder he carried himself like a soldier. She had no doubt he’d been one of the best. “Did you see any action?”
He shook his head, his smile crooked, his eyes etched in secrets when they caught hers.
Okay, so maybe she didn’t need to know that. “So how did you get into the FSB?”
“This I can answer.” He leaned back, settling both arms across the seatback, visibly relaxed. The gesture made her smile. “I was in special ops for ten years. It was good work, but I just felt like it was time to. . .get out.” He ducked his head. “I thought I might want to find someone to, uh, maybe, settle down with. And you can’t do it when you travel all over the planet two hundred and eighty days of the year.”
Settle down. Was he. . . her heart wobbled on the edge of a surprisingly painful fall. “And, did you?” she squeaked, horrified at her tone.
Those eyes saw right through her question. He looked at her, a grin that looked downright dangerous tugging at his face. “Not yet. I’m still looking for the right girl.”
“Oh.” A lump the size of Niagara Falls lodged in her throat. She fought to swallow it down, aware that her face had turned hot and that he was now openly grinning at her obvious discomfort. Where was her wit when she needed it? Her mind went blank.
“And what about you, Kat Moore? Have you found the right man to settle down with back in New York? Do you have anyone who waits for you there, who makes you laugh, who calls you maya doragaya?”
His soft endearment sent warmth in a wave to her toes. But she blinked at him, afraid of what she saw written in his eyes. “I,” she swallowed hard, “thought we were talking about you.”
A shadow crossed his face, his expression wary. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I guess we were.”
“It’s okay,” she murmured, but something heavy settled on her chest. She hadn’t traveled to Russia to find anything but her past. But she’d seen, very clearly, her future traced in the gaze of the FSB cop, and something about it sent a tingle of fear up her spine.
She liked it way too much.
Chapter 7
The Moscow sky glittered like a cache of diamonds poured out on velvet, a perfect canopy of romance as Vadeem walked Kat to the Hotel Rossia. He carried, rather than dragged, her suitcase behind him. Kat had balled her fists at her sides, her jaw tight. Anger rimmed her eyes.
So much for romance. Not that any cop in his right mind would consider it after Kat’s dash-and-dodge at the train station.
The sneaky vixen had tried to ditch him. As they’d climbed down from the train, he conveniently wrestling with her suitcase, she’d started wheeling through the crowd like an American football player. It felt like a knife in the gut. Especially after he’d actually begun to trust her, well, at least he cultivated the desire to trust her. Especially when she dug up his past, then acted as if she cared. Her soft words, her tender expression—they unearthed his long buried feelings and made him feel. . .safe.
His throat grew raw just thinking about it. A guy with his past should have an ironclad heart. Instead he’d let Kat’s laughter and counterfeit honesty in her eyes creep under his guard. He’d even started flirting with her. Flirting! More than that, he’d spent about a hundred kilometers cataloguing ideas on how to ease her pain over sending her packing. A fancy dinner had been at the top of the list.
Her fifty-meter dash put a foot through those budding hopes. He’d caught up to her halfway through the train station, and their seedling friendship died an ugly death. Even with an accent, the words “bully” and “creep” stung. And when he’d reminded her that she could easily be wearing handcuffs, she gave him a look that might melt nuclear waste.
Oh yeah, she’d yanked up by the roots all tendrils of trust.
Life would improve about three-thousand percent when he shoved her on an airplane for America.
Despite the June air, Vadeem shivered. Beside him, Miss Catch-Me-If-You-Can didn’t even acknowledge his presence. Or the fact that he hauled her bag through Moscow like an underpaid porter.
Egoistaya Americanka.
He wasn’t going to give into her tears either, although he felt nearly pummeled by her sobs—Plan B on her list of crafty escape methods. But he wouldn’t even consider pulling her into his arms—to lift his weapon, or perhaps worse. And, gauging from her white-faced response to the Russian endearment he’d murmured on the train, even if she wasn’t an international con artist, and that was a big if, she’d obviously rather suffer alone than let a Russian cop soothe her pain.
If only for a moment under the soft canopy of the train lights, he thought he’d met the one person who could understand his demons. “You can’t possibly know what you are destroying,” she’d said. Oh yes, he knew. Better than she could imagine. He knew all about the longing to belong. To have a family. He understood how it felt to stare at the ceiling, conjuring up parents. Conjuring up love. Pain coiled around his chest and squeezed as he glanced at her, stomping along, her frustration audible in occasional gut-wrenching sighs. Oh, he knew exactly what he was making her give up…destroying, as she put it. If she was, truly, simply an American on a personal mission, he understood exactly why she’d tried to ditch him, twice. If he wasn’t tied up thwarting an international thug, he might even help her shake the truth out of the skinny monk.
Who was Timofea, indeed? And what exactly did Kat’s key unlock?
More than that, if she was innocent, what did Ivan Grazovich want with a beautiful Americanka from New York state?
Some questions would have to remain unanswered.
The last thing Vadeem needed right now was a distraction with caramel colored hair and eyes that dug a hole through a man’s walls. It pained him more than he wanted to admit that, when he’d called her “my dear one,” somewhere deep inside he wanted to mean it.
Down, boy. Vadeem drew in a calming breath. He kept his eyes ahead, off her profile, off the way she walked beside him, resolute, waves of anger rolling off her shoulders.
For the first time in two days, he wished his instincts were dead wrong.
The din of evening traffic had settled to a low murmur. The clang of trolley cars occasionally dented the air and mingled with the rumble of late night buses. The smell of baking bread wafted out of a nearby factory and found a hole in his stomach. It groaned, and he grimaced. She must be starved as well.
“Would you like to stop and get something to eat?”
She shook her hea
d.
So she wouldn’t even look at him now. He clenched his jaw.
Red Square loomed ahead. The walls of the Kremlin, a fortress from the past, rose shadowed and jagged against the navy sky. On the other side of the square, Hotel Rossia sparkled like a casino. He’d called ahead and reserved a deluxe room. He was still debating whether he should post a guard.
“Do you think I can trust you to stay put until morning?”
She pursed her lips.
Yes, definitely a guard. Maybe two.
They stopped at the streetlight. Ahead stood Lenin’s museum, dark and foreboding with its grandiose czarist architecture. The brick building cast a bulky shadow across the street, through puddles of streetlights. Vadeem took Kat’s arm. She tensed, but he pulled her across the street into the envelope of shadow, towards the hotel.
He stepped onto the sidewalk, and released his grip.
He heard a crack as pain exploded in his head. Hitting the ground, knees first, he caught himself on his palms. He felt like the top of his head had come off. The world swirled in darkness and light.
Somewhere distant he heard screaming.
The next blow drove his chin into the cement. Darkness crashed. Swallowed. Took him deep, flooding him with memory. And nightmare.
-
The wind howled like a spirit, moaning, clawing at the house as snow piled against the door. Vadick felt no fear. The two-room shack radiated warmth—in love and in temperature. Fumes and heat crept out like watchmen from the coal furnace in the center of the room to every corner of the house, playing sentry against the frigid Siberian blizzard.
“Borscht tonight, Mama?” Vadick slid onto a bench, his woolen valenki boots now touching the floor. He’d grown three centimeters just this fall, and was proud to see the chip on the door that marked his progress edging closer to Max’s tally.
“Shee, Vasha. Meat is for Sundays.” Mama ladled out four bowls and set them on the rough-hewn table. The smell curled off the top like fingers, clawing at his empty stomach. “Go, wash for dinner.”
Ekaterina (Heirs of Anton) Page 7