Red Heat

by Nina Bruhns

  Family.

  “I was ordered not to tell you. But I thought you deserved to know the truth.”

  He didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. To be furious, or more grateful for anything in his life. To yell at the woman next to him for waiting so long to tell him, or to kiss her to within an inch of her life for telling him at all.

  His mother had been a spy.

  Shot down on a street in Moscow.

  He stared up at the blue sky, only just beginning to dim with the approaching evening twilight, and watched a flock of gulls wheel and cry overhead. They swam out of focus.

  He had family in America. People who’d known her. People whose blood ran in his veins.

  People who might give a damn about him.

  If they’d known he existed.

  His life might have been so different. If only he’d known they existed.

  Anger filled him to the very brim of his soul. Because there was no doubt in his mind who did know they existed. Who had known all along about his mother, and had threatened and manipulated him with that knowledge. Had kept Nikolai in the dark about his heritage for his own twisted political purposes.

  Comrade Leonid Cherenkov.

  Сволочь!

  Псина чертова.

  “Nikolai?” Julie whispered. “What are you thinking?”

  Too much. Nothing good. What to do? What not to do?

  “I’m thinking,” he said at length, “that this changes everything.”

  “What about us?” she asked, her voice trembling with emotion. “Does it change us?”

  “Oh, yes,” he said.

  She waited for a long time for him to say something more. But he couldn’t. His mind was too busy with the task of reordering his life. Of pulling puzzle pieces apart and putting them together in a whole new way.

  So busy sorting through the chaos that he didn’t hear the whop-whop-whop of helicopter rotors in the distance.

  “Nikolai,” Julie said with quiet urgency, “they’re coming! They’re coming to pick me up!” She grabbed his hand again and pressed it to her heart. “Come with me. Please.”

  He gazed at her, meeting her beautiful, desperate eyes. Her auburn hair whipped around her face, lit up by the golden rays of the evening summer sun, making her look like an angel.

  The helicopter was getting closer. Louder.

  “Liesha,” he whispered. His heart and soul filled with conflicting emotions.

  “Please, Nikolai.”

  He wanted to. God knew he loved her. But—

  She leaned down to kiss him. A sweet, pleading kiss filled with sincerity and hope for a wonderful future together. “I love you, Nikolai Kirillovich Romanov,” she whispered, her eyes brimming over with tears.

  The helicopter swept over Ostrov, its blades whipping the air around them into a frenzy.

  “I love you, too, Liesha. To my very soul,” he said, though he knew she couldn’t hear his words over the roar of the helo. “But I—”

  He looked up, and his heart sank to the pit of his stomach.

  “I can’t,” he said.

  Because it wasn’t the Americans coming for Julie at all.

  The helicopter was Russian.

  34

  WASHINGTON, D.C. TWELVE DAYS LATER

  Julie strolled into the Four Seasons Hotel Lounge in Georgetown, paused just inside the door to readjust her black silk suit jacket and her red Christian Louboutins, took a deep breath, and breezed over to the bar.

  “Tequila this time, straight up,” she said to the bartender with a smile that didn’t even feel forced. Progress. He nodded and smiled, and she turned toward her table. Then stopped and turned back again. “Make that vodka instead,” she said.

  The bartender smiled wider and nodded again. He already had the bottle of Russian Standard in his hand. “Sure thing, Julie,” he said, plunking seven shot glasses on a small round tray.

  She looked from him to the bottle and deflated. “That obvious, eh?”

  “Over a week since you started coming in. Not once have you ordered anything but vodka,” he said affably, starting to pour.

  She grimaced, weaving a tad in her high heels. Every once in a while the deck rolled under her feet, as though she were still at sea. And it had nothing to do with the vodka. Fucking Russian sub driver. This was what he’d done to her.

  She glanced up at the TV set mounted in the wood paneling. The news was playing with the sound muted. Some poor, hapless cargo ship had been hijacked by pirates and the incident had been all over the news for days. Naturally it had happened off the coast of Alaska in—wait for it—the Aleutian Islands. Like she ever—in real life or on TV—wanted to see that place again. Or another damn chunk of sea ice. Or another freaking submarine or its goddamn captain.

  But she digressed.

  She took another deep breath. “I can take those. Just put them on my tab, Kev.”

  “Sure thing, Julie.”

  She picked up the round tray.

  “He set up his Facebook page yet?” he asked conversationally, leaving the bottle conspicuously on the counter.

  She clamped her teeth. “Haven’t checked,” she said evenly and walked back to the table, doing her best not to weave. She probably shouldn’t have this third shot, but she found it easier to get to sleep at night after two or three. And she didn’t dream as much.

  “Last round’s on me!” she announced as she slid into her seat next to Dr. Josh with a flourish.

  “Dang, girl. We thought you fell in,” Josh said, distributing the shot glasses to a rousing cheer from the four others around the table.

  “You know how I feel about bodies of water,” she said with a wry grin. Hell, sometimes a girl just needed to excuse herself for a good cry. But she was all better now.

  Really.

  She lifted her shot glass and they all yelled, “Za lyublov!” Well, everyone but her. The last thing she wanted to toast to was love. Especially not in Russian. Thank you, Dr. Josh.

  “Don’t worry, Julie,” her friend Linda said with a wink when she saw her shut her mouth at the toast. “There’s more than one fish in the sea. If you like navy guys, I know this amazingly hunky—”

  Julie held up her hands. “Hell, no. But thanks.” Who knew the mousy blond in the next cubicle had such an extensive little black book? This was the fourth guy Linda had offered to hook her up with. And that was just tonight.

  Josh leaned over and gave Julie a hug. “Forget him, honey. I knew that man was trouble the first time I laid eyes on him.”

  Julie kissed him on the cheek. “You’re sweet. I’m so glad you decided to stop over on your way back to Toronto and say hi.”

  “Yes, well,” he said, eyeing a cute young congressional type who’d been flirting with him outrageously all evening, “I do love the Fourth of July. I can’t wait for the fireworks.” He waggled his eyebrows.

  She choked on her beer chaser. “Looks like they might be happening a day early.”

  Josh grinned and lifted up a napkin with a room number written on it. “Got this delivered under a dirty martini while you were powdering your nose.”

  She laughed through a stab of envy. “Wow. Go for it.”

  “You think?”

  “Absolutely. Don’t let a chance for happiness slip through your fingers. You never know who’ll turn out to be Mr. Right.”

  He gazed back at her with far too much understanding in those youthful blue eyes. “You got that right. Life’s too short for missed opportunities.”

  Amen.

  She took a sip of beer to keep her smile intact. “Anyway. I was glad the expedition didn’t get canceled after the Ostrov fiasco.” See? She could even say the name without bursting into tears. More progress.

  He nodded, instantly cheerful again. “Yeah. Who’d have thought the U.S. Coast Guard would come through with a cutter so we could carry on with our work?”

  “They got some great publicity out of it when you scientists were stranded a
nd they came to your aid. I’ll bet their recruitment jumps by twenty percent this year.”

  “Unlike the Russian navy,” he said with a snort. “Cripes. I’m shocked that rust bucket submarine didn’t sink years ago. Not surprised they scuttled it on the spot.”

  “Yeah,” she agreed, a wistful lump forming in her throat. She’d had the best days of her life on that rust bucket. And the worst, she reminded herself.

  “That Coast Guard cutter was insane,” Josh said dreamily. “Although, the captain wasn’t nearly as hot as—”

  She turned her head and gave him a look.

  He winced. “Sorry.” He sighed. “Jules, he probably just hasn’t been able to—”

  “Josh. Stop,” she said. “The American helicopter got there two minutes after the Russians. I begged him to come with me. Begged him."

  She closed her eyes at the gut-wrenching memory. “I even offered to go with him, Josh. To Russia. Can you imagine how pathetic I felt when he told me no?”

  That was what had hurt the most. She’d been willing to give up everything to be with him. Everything. Give up her country and her family, just as his mother had done years before. But this time for love.

  He hadn’t even hesitated before saying no, he didn’t want her in Russia, that she must go back to the States without him.

  Seeing her in distress now, Josh gave her a hug. “Oh, hon. The man was about to have his career taken away, and God knows what else happen to him. He was probably just thinking of you, getting stuck there and—”

  “No,” she interrupted. She couldn’t listen to the straws Josh was grasping at. She’d done it all herself. “I found out through channels that after he got out of the hospital he didn’t get fired by the navy. In fact, they’ve sent him on some special posh assignment.”

  “I still say they must have threatened him so he couldn’t get in touch with you,” Josh insisted. “Or tortured him with bamboo splinters under his—”

  She shook her head firmly, pushing back with all her might the tears that stung anew. If only she’d told Nikolai sooner about his mother. That was what he hadn’t been able to forgive her for.

  Or . . . maybe that hadn’t mattered at all.

  “No,” she told herself as well as Josh. “Nikolai got what he wanted all along. He never made any secret his career was the most important thing in his life. Trust me, he flew off in that helicopter and when they offered it back to him, he forgot all about me.”

  Her own fault for not listening.

  She stared very hard across at the TV on the wall and took a steadying breath. The pirate story was still going on. There must have been some big development. They were showing previous footage of the captured ship. But now a photo of a man was superimposed over it.

  “My God,” Josh exclaimed, “is that Clint Walker?”

  She blinked in surprise and looked closer. “Good Lord. I think you’re right.” What the heck was he—

  But before they could speculate, a cultured masculine voice sounded behind her.

  “Excuse me,” it said. Her heart leapt. Nikolai?

  She jerked her gaze away from the TV and up to his face. But it wasn’t him. Again. It was the cute young congressional type. And he wasn’t looking at her.

  “Did you, by any chance, lose this?” he asked Josh, holding up a Four Seasons key card.

  Josh’s mouth parted, and he darted a nonplussed look at her. She shifted gears.

  “It is yours!” she said without missing a beat. “Dr. Stedman, you need to be more careful with your room key. No telling what you might find when you go up there.”

  He blinked. And smiled shyly. “You’re right. Gosh, maybe I’d better go up and check.”

  “Oh, I definitely think you should,” she agreed.

  “You’ll be all right?” He looked at her earnestly. She nodded, and, after a slight hesitation, he kissed her cheek. “Okay. See you tomorrow.”

  “Sleep in. It’s a holiday.”

  She watched him go, then Linda said something to her and she was drawn back into the lively conversation around the table.

  It was good to have friends. She supposed that was the silver lining in the whole disaster with Nikolai. After being with him, she’d changed. She realized she didn’t like her isolated life anymore and had started reaching out to her friends at work, and also to her family. She and her mother talked on the phone nearly every day now. She was really glad about that. Both of them were.

  She had Nikolai to thank for that. In a sort of freakish, backward way. She missed him so much it took two dozen friends and family to fill the void.

  Ho-boy. Not what she should be thinking about.

  It was getting late, nearly midnight, and the others started drifting off home. She’d better, too. But since she was taking a taxi back to her apartment anyway, she decided to have one more for the road. For some reason she still felt completely clearheaded and able to think. And remember. Which she’d just as soon not.

  She sauntered up to the bar and took a seat on one of the stools, peeling off her jacket and dropping it onto the open seat next to her so she could say she was waiting for someone if she needed to. She really didn’t feel like dealing with drunken come-ons tonight. Or sober ones, either, for that matter. Tonight, or for the rest of her life.

  “One more, Kev,” she told the bartender.

  “Make that two, Kev,” said a deep, accented voice behind her. A Russian accent.

  God, it sounded so much like Nikolai that she had to grip the edge of the bar to keep from crumbling.

  Just what she needed. Not.

  “Fuck off, sailor,” she told him in perfect Russian. The only whole Russian phrase she knew, but, oh, so appropriate. She’d learned it from one of her colleagues before . . . Well, before.

  She didn’t bother to look at the man as she said it. She didn’t want to be disappointed.

  For the hundredth time in less than two weeks.

  The man tutted. And said something back to her in Russian. What. Ever.

  The drinks arrived. A twenty floated onto the table. A strong, masculine hand reached out and lifted the shot glass. The fingers were long and tan and calloused. Something stirred deep within her. She forced herself not to look at their owner, but her pulse quickened anyway.

  A moment later the glass came back down empty.

  Then a room key card clattered lightly onto the bar beside it.

  Her heart took off at a gallop. No. Freaking. Way.

  The hand grasped the other shot glass and raised it, too.

  “Hey!” she exclaimed. The man had some nerve!

  “Sorry, but—”

  She spun to accuse the jerk of—

  She froze.

  “—one is just never enough. Don’t you agree?”

  And then he smiled at her. A blindingly sensual, heat-filled smile.

  “Nikolai!”

  “Except,” he said, “when it comes to lovers. Then one is exactly right.” He tilted his head at her questioningly. “Da . . . ?”

  He looked amazing. Fit and healthy, and handsome as sin in his black Russian captain’s uniform with all its gold braid and colorful ribbons and medals pinned across his chest. Even that goofy wide hat tucked under his arm was agonizingly sexy.

  So not fair.

  She managed to recover her voice, but not her composure. She’d started to tremble. She wanted to hit him. Hard. She wanted to hug him. Desperately. She wanted to know where the hell he’d been and why he hadn’t contacted her for all this time.

  What was he doing here?

  She shouldn’t care. He’d made his choice.

  “Sometimes,” she said, turning away, “one is too many.” She couldn’t look at him. Not and keep herself from falling apart.

  His finger toyed with the edge of the key card. “Would you like to test that theory?” he quietly asked.

  She got to her feet and grabbed her jacket, then turned to look him straight in the eyes. “No,” she said and walke
d away.

  God, that felt good.

  So why did her heart feel like it was in a meat grinder?

  He followed her out of the bar. “At least talk to me, Leisha. Let me explain.”

  “No!”

  “Why not?” he asked, his voice so earnest she wanted to shake him until his teeth rattled.

  She rounded on him, fists clenched.

  “You left me, Nikolai. You left me standing there on the deck of that goddamn submarine all by myself, like a fool, pleading with you to forgive me, to choose me and let me be with you no matter what I had to give up to do it. And crying my eyes out when you heartlessly said no and climbed onto that goddamn helicopter and flew away without another word.”

  “Hoisted.”

  “What?”

  “I was hoisted. In a harness. Like a sack of potatoes.”

  She snorted. “Yeah, well, so was I. That’s beside the point.”

  “I was crying, too,” he said.

  She stared at him and weakened for a moment. Then remembered he’d been shot. “I hope it hurt like hell.” She whirled and headed for the door. He couldn’t have hurt even half as much as she had. Did. Still did.

  “It did hurt,” he said, and he caught her arm, bringing her to a halt in the hall next to the elevators. “It hurt a lot. But not my wound. It was my heart that hurt.”

  “Join the club,” she muttered, and to her mortification she started to cry. Again.

  Damn.

  “Liesha. Dorogaya,” he murmured and pulled her into his arms. His hat fell to the floor. She tried to push him away, but he wouldn’t let her. He pressed his cheek to the top of her head and held her as she cried, whispering all the things she needed to hear.

  “You have no idea how much I wanted to go with you. And when you offered to come with me . . . Ah, Liesha, my heart nearly shattered with joy.”

  She swiped at her cheeks. “Then why? Why did you turn me away?”

  “What you told me,” he murmured softly, “about my mother, you surprised me. I had suspected it for a long time, but had never expected to hear the truth. When I did . . .” He put his lips to hers. “Forgive me, my love. There was no time to explain. And there was no way I could let you come with me. Because I knew there was something I must do, or it would haunt me for the rest of my life.”