by JoAnn Ross
She wiped at the moisture streaming down her blackened cheeks with the backs of her hands. “Do you have any idea how funny you looked, charging in to rescue me?”
It was a direct hit to his ego. Mitch was not accustomed to women laughing at him. But as he thought back on how he had played hotshot, leaving the rest of the crew and kicking in his own door, he could see the humor in their situation.
“Funny? I looked funny?” His smile took the objection from his words.
“Funny,” she agreed. “But also very dashing.”
“That’s better.” He put a palm against her cheek. “You are,” he said with a deep, low chuckle, “the only woman I have ever known who uses a smoke alarm as a cooking timer.”
Her laughter reminded him of sunshine. Champagne. Music. “I wanted to surprise you.”
His chuckle deepened as he dove his hands into her hair and tilted her grinning smoke-stained face up to his. “Well, darlin’, if that was your goal, you sure as hell succeeded.”
They were both laughing as their lips met and clung.
“Sorry,” Jake drawled as he entered the kitchen, “looks as if you two newlyweds don’t need any help here.”
Immersed in their blissful, smoky kiss, neither Mitch nor Sasha answered.
Neither did they notice the man who’d entered the kitchen behind Jake.
“What the hell is going on here?” the all-too-familiar voice demanded.
Sasha and Mitch turned, observed a rigidly angry Donald O. Potter standing amid the foam covering the floor, and burst out laughing.
10
AFTER MITCH HAD LEFT with the firemen, and Potter had returned to whatever rock he spent his time away from the office lurking beneath, Sasha got busy with buckets and mops and sponges and cleaned up the mess she’d made.
Although the task was not the least bit pleasant, she couldn’t stop smiling. The sweet kiss she and Mitch had shared lingered in her mind and on her lips. Even Mr. Donald O. Potter’s unexpected arrival could not dampen the happiness that lighthearted moment had instilled.
After muttering something about the government not having a policy about inviting firebugs into the country, Potter had stomped off in a snit. At the time, Mitch claimed he was undoubtedly angry about having stumbled into their lives at a particularly romantic moment. Now he’d have difficulty reporting back to his superiors that their marriage was a scam.
Which, of course, it was. But the more Sasha thought about it, the more she knew that they belonged together. She could make Mitch happy.
“So long as I do not burn down his house first,” she amended as she stood beneath the streaming shower, washing the foam and soot down the drain.
By the time she finally crawled into bed, she was exhausted. Hugging Mitch’s pillow, which carried his scent, she drifted off into a deep sleep resplendent with romantic dreams of her dashing husband.
ALTHOUGH SASHA’S BRIDAL shower might be after the fact, and the only guests were Mitch’s mother and sister and Glory, who closed the diner early for the festivities—she’d never had a more wonderful time.
The conversation flowed easily and unsurprisingly centered mostly around men. As the night grew later and the champagne continued to flow, the stories grew more intimate and the jokes more bawdy, making Sasha feel as if she must be the only twenty-four-year-old virgin left in the world.
“Are you sure it was the right thing to do?” she asked Margaret for the umpteenth time that evening. “Agreeing to tell my story on television?”
“It couldn’t hurt,” Margaret assured her. “And who knows, perhaps someone who sees the newscast will know your father.”
Since her quest had been fruitless so far, Sasha wasn’t holding out a lot of hope for this latest effort. “I should have asked Mitch.” Ever since Meredith had left with her cameraman, Sasba’s doubts had grown like billowing smoke from a forest fire.
“I don’t know how marriages work in Russia,” Katie said, “but here in America, women don’t need to get permission from their husbands for every little thing they do.”
Sasha had liked Mitch’s sister on first sight. Part of that, she realized, was due to the woman’s striking resemblance to her brother, but mostly she liked her because she was warm and outgoing. And seemed genuinely interested in Sasha’s dilemma.
“Appearing on television is more than a little thing,” Sasha argued. Especially since...” Her worried voice drifted off as she realized she’d been about to reveal the status of their marriage.
“Especially since your marriage to my son is supposed to be only one of convenience?” Margaret asked, slanting her a sideways glance as she cut the white-tiered wedding cake Sasha had been deprived of by eloping.
Sasha could feel the damning color flooding into her face. “You know about that?”
“It wasn’t that difficult to figure out,” Katie said. “My brother has specialized in hit-and-run relationships since he was fifteen. Then he suddenly runs off and gets married to a woman who just happens to be embroiled in immigration problems. And we’re expected to buy that story?”
“That’s the same thing Mr. Donald O. Potter said,” Sasha admitted. “You must think I’m a terrible person to be part of such a deceitful scheme.”
“Of course we don’t think you’re a terrible person,” Margaret said.
“But that may be because we also know something that hateful Mr. Potter doesn’t,” Katie added.
“What is that?”
“That Mitch is in love with you, of course,” Margaret answered mildly.
If only that were true! Sasha sighed and decided she must be totally honest with this kindhearted woman. “I am afraid you’re mistaken.”
“Not according to Jake,” Katie said, rising from the couch when the baby, Megan, started whimpering in the bedroom. “He says he’s never seen Mitch so distracted as he’s been since you two got back from Laughlin.”
Sasha was surprised. And pleased. “I distract Mitch?” she asked when Katie returned with Mitch’s two-month-old niece.
“I think his exact words were ‘bothered and bewildered.’” Katie grinned as she unbuttoned her blouse and put her daughter to her breast.
As she watched the infant’s rosebud mouth begin to suckle, Sasha felt an unexpected maternal tug deep inside her.
“That’s the same way I feel about Mitch.”
“There, you see?” Margaret began passing out the pieces of cake. “You’re made for each other. Because believe me, Sasha, my son has never let any woman get under his skin. Or into his heart, until you.”
Sasha thought about that a moment. “He says it is just physical attraction.”
“That’s what he’d like to believe,” Katie said with an amused laugh that shook her chest and made the baby complain for a moment. “And although I love my brother to pieces, for a bright guy, when it comes to love and romance, he’s as dense as every other male on the planet. So, it’s going to be up to you to prove him wrong.”
The idea was enormously appealing. “How do I do that?”
“Seduce him,” the other three women in the room said at the same time. They laughed at Sasha’s expression, which was equal parts shock, embarrassment and interest.
“Mitch’s father was a confirmed bachelor,” Margaret revealed. “But the moment I met him, I knew he was the man for me. Poor Garrett didn’t know what hit him.” Mitch’s mother’s smile was warmly reminiscent. “We were married two weeks after we met.”
“I tried the same thing with Jake,” Katie said. “Of course, either he was more resistant than Pops, or I was more impatient. Because after three months, when he still hadn’t caved in, I proposed to him.”
“You asked Jake to marry you?”
Katie shrugged off Sasha’s incredulous response. “I loved him. He loved me. Marriage seemed the next logical step.”
“My son may have gotten the order a bit reversed, Sasha,” Margaret allowed, “by getting married, then falling in love. But that d
oesn’t change the fact that Mitch is in love with you, dear. Anyone can tell by the way he looks at you and by the way his voice changes when he talks to you. Or about you.”
“And the way he threatened to beat up Jake for suggesting that any other man might want you,” Katie added.
“Mitch threatened to hit Jake? Because of me?”
“After he mentioned wanting to personally murder a bunch of Shriners.”
The idea was incredible. And wonderful.
“There is one problem,” Sasha said reluctantly.
“What’s that?” Margaret asked.
“I don’t have any idea how to seduce a man. Especially one as experienced as Mitch.”
“Don’t worry about that,” Katie said. “You’ve put yourself in the hands of experts.”
“And the first thing any woman needs going into battle,” Glory said with a deep, knowing chuckle as she handed Sasha the box wrapped in white paper embossed with silver bows, “is the appropriate artillery.”
It seemed that all the women had had the same idea. Every one of the gifts were frothy bits of satin and lace designed to appeal to a man’s sexual fantasies.
“I don’t think I have the nerve to wear this,” Sasha murmured, taking a sheer black lace catsuit from a layer of tissue paper wrapping.
“Sure you do,” Katie assured her. “Just make certain you have a lot of protection handy. It’s because of an outfit just like that one that Jake and I have Megan.”
Once again Sasha blushed as the others laughed. Despite the raised voices, after being burped, little Megan fell back to sleep, happily satiated.
A short time later, a few minutes after midnight, a knock came on the door. Sasha opened the door and was terrified to see a uniformed policeman standing there.
“Sorry, ma’am,” he said, his stern expression reminding her of every policeman she’d ever feared back in Russia, “but we’ve received a complaint of noise coming from this apartment.”
“I’m sorry,” she managed to get out through lips that had gone as dry as dust. “We did not mean to be too loud. I promise we will be more quiet.” Although the other day’s encounter with the police had not been unpleasant she didn’t think she would ever outgrow the instinctive fear such a uniform instilled.
“I’m afraid that’s not good enough, ma’am,” he said, stepping past her into the apartment. The others watched expectantly as he crossed the room to the stereo. Sasha was surprised when he turned the volume even louder.
She was flabbergasted when he suddenly ripped off his uniform, revealing an amazingly tanned and toned body clad only in a skimpy pair of underwear adorned with a gleaming badge in a most inappropriate place. As he began to gyrate his hips, the women—Margaret Cudahy included—roared at Sasha’s shocked expression and began to clap in time to the driving beat of the music.
AT FIRST, a night on the town after his shift ended had seemed like a good idea. After all, Mitch assured himself, since Sasha was having her own party, she wouldn’t be expecting him home anytime soon. Besides, the idea of facing his mother, sister and Glory—who’d be watching him like a wiggling bug stuck to a corkboard with a pin, to ensure he was treating his new bride properly—was enough to make him want to run off and join the French foreign legion the way Gary Cooper had in Beau Geste, which still showed up on late night cable every once in a while.
Even if his and Sasha’s marriage wasn’t real, a bachelor party was a time-honored American tradition. That being the case, who was he to deprive the guys at the firehouse of an opportunity to party?
The only problem, Mitch realized as he sat at a table at the French Cabaret—a Club for Gentlemen—nursing his first beer of the night was that he wasn’t having a good time. The platinum-blond stripper lying on her back on the stage peeling black mesh stockings down her long, long legs was undeniably gorgeous. And her remarkable breast enhancement alone must have paid for some local plastic surgeon’s new boat.
Although she was doing her best to entertain, with sultry looks, bold smiles and saucy tosses of her long spiral curls, he couldn’t help thinking about how sexy Sasha had looked, sitting at the roulette table in that ridiculously short denim skirt. And how her breasts, beneath the virginal white cotton nightgown had felt so soft, so inviting.
The stripper’s seductive smile didn’t fade in the slightest when a drunk down at the end of the bar began shouting raucous suggestions as she dispensed with the second stocking. But when she stood up again, she moved a little bit closer to the table occupied by Mitch, Jake, and three other firemen from Ladder Company No. 13.
Unfortunately, when she leaned forward, meeting Mitch’s eyes, and licked her glossy crimson lips with her tongue, it was Sasha’s mouth Mitch immediately imagined tasting. It was Sasha’s kiss he found himself fantasizing about yet again.
“Damn.”
Jake shot him a look. “So, which is it? Are you regretting the fact that you shouldn’t go home with the luscious Miss April Luv? Or are you were wishing you were home with your bride?”
“She’s not my bride,” Mitch muttered as one of the fire fighters, rising to the sensual invitation in those heavily lashed, kohl-lined eyes, slipped a five dollar bill in the woman’s sequined G-string. Mitch took a long pull on the brown beer bottle. “Not really.”
Before Jake could argue, the stripper leaned down toward him. “How about you, bachelor boy?” she cooed, revealing that she’d overheard the earlier table conversation about the impromptu party. Although he’d like to think she found him irresistible, Mitch figured April Luv’s real interest was that such occasions were undoubtedly good for a big tip.
She gave her silicone marvels an enthusiastic shimmy that sent her tassels swirling. “How about your own private table dance?” She was so close he could detect the faint odor of perspiration underlying the cloyingly sweet perfume. Her breasts were waving in his face like Old Glory on the Fourth of July. “So you’ll have something to remember when you’ve settled into safe, boring domesticity.”
As unpalatable as he found the idea of settling down, Mitch still found himself unmoved by Miss April’s charms. He was just about to hand over the dough and forego the private attention, when the obnoxious drunk suddenly pushed his way between Mitch and the stripper to grab fistfuls of those voluptuous, offered breasts.
April Luv let loose with a stream of swear words that could have made a longshoreman blush. The drunk, angered by the invective tried to climb onto the stage while the stripper attempted to discourage him by stomping on his hairy-backed hands with her high heels.
Mitch quickly glanced around looking for the bouncer who’d been standing guard at the door when they’d arrived. Unfortunately the muscle-bound giant was nowhere to be seen.
Which left Mitch no other choice. Acting on instinct, cursing ripely, he leapt up, tipping over his wooden chair, and threw himself onto the drunken assailant’s back.
The cretin’s buddies staggered to their feet, fists flailing, and naturally, the other members of Ladder Company No. 13 rose to the challenge.
It took less than thirty seconds for the attraction between the drunk, the stripper and Mitch to turn into a full-fledged brawl. By the time Mitch heard the familiar sound of sirens, four chairs had been broken, six noses bloodied and the drunk who had started all the fun lay on the floor below the stage, the victim of a well-placed punch, a shimmering tassel clutched in one fist.
11
MITCH ARRIVED HOME with a rapidly swelling eye, in a rotten mood from having had to talk his way out of being arrested. He was not at all pleased to discover Sasha handcuffed to a buffed-up guy with a tanning salon bronzed body who was the male equivalent of Miss April Luv.
Fortunately, his mother efficiently herded everyone from the apartment, leaving Mitch and Sasha alone.
“Well,” Mitch said finally, “I guess your party, at least, was a success.”
“I had a very good time.” Her worried gaze swept over his face, lingering on the horrid disco
loration circling his right eye. “It seems you did not.”
“No.” That, he decided, had to be the understatement of the year. “I didn’t.”
“Did you get hurt fighting a fire?”
“No.” His answer was brusque, discouraging further discussion.
Sasha waited for Mitch to elaborate. When he didn’t, she glanced down at his hands and said, “We must tend to your wounds.”
Amazingly, the discomfort of facing his mother, sister and wife with the evidence of the brawl on his face and hands had made Mitch forget all about his scraped knuckles. “It’s no big deal.”
“Mitch.” Her tone was soft, but surprisingly firm. “I am a nurse. I’m also your wife. It is my duty to take care of your injuries.”
The issue settled as far as she was concerned, Sasha headed toward the bathroom where she’d seen a bottle of hydrogen peroxide in the medicine chest.
Mitch shrugged, then followed her. He leaned against the doorjamb and watched as she lined up the bottle, some soap and a stack of gauze squares with an intensity that suggested she was preparing to perform open heart surgery right on that faux marble countertop.
“I’ve never heard you talk like that.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know.” He hesitated. “Kind of bossy, I guess.”
“I’m sorry if you don’t like it, but—”
“Actually, I think I do.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.” The more he thought about it, the more he found this new aspect of Sasha’s personality interesting. “I guess I’ve been thinking of you as poor, beleaguered little Sasha for so long, I never considered the fact that you might have had a different sort of life in Russia.”
The portrait he painted was far from flattering. And regrettably true. Sasha decided that it was time she stopped behaving like a victim. She’d graduated at the head of her class and had been a highly respected surgical nurse. She’d overcome miles of red tape to come to this country. As nice as it was to have Mitch coming to her rescue every time she turned around, it was time for her to begin fighting her own battles.