by Fiona McGier
“There never was any you and me. I don’t ever want to see you again. You’re a waste of skin.”
Detective Jones pulled her back, holding both of her arms in a lock behind her.
“Miss Blackstone, you can’t abuse him. He’s under arrest. We can’t risk the case being thrown out due to claims of police violence.”
“You’re not being violent,” she snapped, “I am.”
The sounds of a helicopter drowned out the detective’s response as it landed in the yard. Two more EMTs entered the barn with a stretcher and moved Dmitri onto it for transport.
Alexandra turned back to the still-moaning Rich who had fallen to his knees but been pulled back up by two officers. She tried to shrug off the hold the detective had on her, but he was determined to keep her still.
“You’d better hope he doesn’t die, you piece of shit. Because if he does, I don’t care what kind of deep, dark hole they throw your worthless ass into. I’ll find you and kill you myself.”
As Dmitri was carried out of the barn, Alexandra struggled to move again.
“Can’t I go with him?” She asked the detective who held her immobile.
“You promise not to hit anyone again?”
She nodded. “Yes.”
He called to the EMTs, “Is there room in the helicopter for a passenger?”
“Probably,” one called out as they moved through the door.
“Go,” Detective Jones said as he released her arms. “We’ll bring your things to you at the hospital after we get him out of here.”
Alexandra took off at a sprint after Dmitri and ran to the helicopter. An officer helped her to climb up into it and once she sat by Dmitri’s head, out of the way of the busy med-techs, the pilot took them up into the air.
Alexandra smoothed back a lock of Dmitri’s black hair that had fallen on his forehead.
“Please, please, please, God,” she whispered, “Don’t take him away from me. I can be a better woman with him in my life. Please give me that chance…”
Chapter Sixteen
The next day in late afternoon, Emma knocked quietly on the hospital room door and when there was no answer, she pushed it open. The first thing she saw was Dmitri in the bed hooked up to various medical devices. She looked around further and saw Alexandra snoring softly on the chair next to the bed, still in the blood-covered clothes she’d worn in the barn, her head dropped down on her chest. She walked over to the chair, dropped a backpack on the floor and reached over to pat her friend on the side of the face.
“Alex?” she asked quietly. “Alex, honey, I brought you the stuff you asked for.”
Alexandra sighed as she opened her eyes and looked towards Dmitri, who still hadn’t moved.
“He’s not awake yet, is he?” Emma said with sympathy.
Alexandra shook her head, her eyes suddenly filled with the tears so uncommon to her.
“He’ll be fine. The nurse told me he’s pulling through okay. He’s just resting now. I’m more worried about you.”
“Why?” She had to cough to clear her throat, her voice harsh from the ordeal she’d been through, as well as sleeping in the dry environment of a hospital.
“You haven’t been eating or sleeping. You haven’t left his side for twenty-four hours. If you’re not going to work tomorrow, you need to call your office and let them know you won’t be in. I called your Dad like you asked me to and he’s coming here later tonight after he’s done golfing, according to your stepmother. At least take a shower and change into something that won’t fry your dad’s brain when he walks into the room.”
Alexandra turned to look at her friend and Emma was struck by how haunted and sad her friend’s eyes looked. The confidence and swagger that normally emanated from such a strong woman was replaced with worry and anxiety.
“I don’t care. I’m not leaving Dmitri until he wakes up and I know he’s okay.”
“I can sit here with him and wait while you shower and change,” Emma suggested.
“No!”
Emma shrugged. “Okay. I’m going downstairs to get you some coffee and something to eat. I’ll be back soon.”
She leaned over to give her friend a brief kiss on the cheek, then turned and left them alone again.
Alexandra moved her chair closer to the bed and patted Dmitri’s hand that was closest to her and didn’t have IV tubes attached to it.
She stared at his face, looking for any signs of returning consciousness.
Please, please, please come back to me! Give me the chance to tell you what I’ve never told any man!
She leaned her head over and rested her cheek against the back of his hand. Tears streamed silently out of her eyes as she tried to remember how to pray.
She thought she imagined the touch of an angel as a hand rested on her head, then gently stroked her hair, until she realized whose hand it was and lifted her head to look into his eyes.
“Dmitri! You’re awake!”
He nodded. “Yuh.” then coughed and lifted an eyebrow. “Water?”
She stood and picked up the paper cup with a straw in it from off the bedside table, and held the straw to his lips. He took a few sips, swallowed, then his eyes closed again. She studied his face until his eyes opened to look into hers.
“How long?”
“Twenty-four hours, give or take.”
“Rich?”
“In jail, accused of two murders.”
He nodded his head slightly. “Good.”
“Detective Jones said he wants to talk to you when you wake up, but that might not be until tomorrow. But my dad will be coming over later tonight.”
A flash of anxiety flitted across his face as he asked, “Are there guards outside the door?”
Alexandra blinked in surprise. “Uh, no. Should there be?”
“If my ID wasn’t good, there would be.” He smiled, closed his eyes again and sighed with satisfaction. “Good.”
She watched as a grimace of pain replaced the smile.
“Should I call for a nurse? You look like you’re in pain…”
“I am. But not just yet. Now I’m here legally, I want to ask you something.”
“You do?”
He nodded. “Can I have more water?”
She held the straw to his lips again and he swallowed a few more times.
He took a deep breath. “Alexandra Blackstone, will you do me the honor of becoming my wife?”
Alexandra coughed in surprise. “What? You almost died and that’s the first thing you want to ask me?”
His lips curved upwards. “Of course! Near-death experiences always make it clear what really matters. If you will be my wife, I’ll have everything I want to be a happy man. So, yes or no?”
“You ask me that now? While I look like hell? With my eyes all puffy from crying over you…and I smell bad from wearing these blood-covered clothes for too long?”
“My blood…from when you tried to save me,” he observed. “That makes it a badge of honor from one warrior to another.”
“I punched him after you passed out. The detective had to pull me off him. I punched him in the groin for Jim and in the throat for Tom.”
“Good. I’d expect nothing less from my fiery biker queen.”
“I told him if you died, I’d hunt him down and kill him myself.”
“I hope the police weren’t taping that part…” he said dryly.
“I didn’t care. All I could think of was how I would feel if I lost you. Tom and Jim died because I didn’t throw that piece of shit out of the gang when we all knew how violent he was. I actually thought about it a few times, but I figured that since his violence was really helpful when we got into it with other gangs, that it was okay to let him stay. And some of the gals kind of like some brutality with their sex, though that’s never been my thing.”
“Lots of guys are violent, given the opportunity. You couldn’t have known how much he was obsessing over you. He saw a chance to get you for himself by
making me take the blame.”
“But it’s my fault they’re dead! I thought I was bad-ass enough to keep all of the guys in line. The truth is, I don’t feel very bad-ass anymore. All I’ve been doing is crying for the past twenty-four hours…and begging God to let you live.”
Her words ended on a sob. She took several deep breaths trying to calm down.
Dmitri patted the hand that rested on his bed, while she wiped her eyes with the other one.
“This isn’t my first brush with death, Sashka,” he said gently. “God and I are on pretty good terms.”
“You got distracted when I went into the barn…so it’s my fault you got stabbed…” Her words ended on another sob, as if she was being crushed under the guilt.
“No, Sashka,” he corrected her, “I knew he had the knife. I was waiting for him to pull it and trying not to kill him because the cops were watching. But when I saw you walk in, all I thought of was getting you safely out of there. It’s my own fault for being so careless. Don’t blame yourself…I don’t.”
He watched her shudder as she tried to stop sobbing. He shook his head gently. “Don’t, Sashka. Don’t blame yourself for any of this. Or if you have to, let me absolve you of the guilt. Or go to confession…do anything you have to do to let yourself feel better.”
She looked up and tried to smile, “I’m not Catholic. We don’t do confession.”
“Then what are you?”
“Duh! I’m born and raised in Minnesota, so I’m a Lutheran, of course. Lapsed, but that’s what I was raised.”
Dmitri tried to shrug. “I guess I can convert…or you can. But honey, no one could have known he was going to act out his worst impulses. Most guys, even those with major power and violence issues, never take the final step to murder. I probably should have been more on my guard around all of your men, but my head wasn’t in the game the way it should be. I was too busy falling in love with their queen.”
She stopped crying and studied his face intently.
“Which reminds me, you haven’t answered my question yet. I’m not going to let you call for a nurse yet, even though I could really use the pain relief, until you do. So this literally is hurting me more than it’s hurting you, but I have to know.”
She opened her mouth but nothing came out.
“Sashka,” he began, “I’m a long way from where I was born. I’ve lived on almost all of the continents and done things even I don’t want to remember. I’ve been on the move for many, many years…and for most of them I’ve been happy to be that way. But now I’ve found a reason to want to stay in one place. That reason is you. I need to know if you feel the same about me. Or should I keep on moving?”
She swallowed hard, tears welling up in her eyes again.
“Look at me! I’m like a love-struck teenager who can’t stop crying. Dmitri, I don’t care about anything else. I want to have you with me, always. I guess I’ll have to give up having other men, since that’s a part of the whole marriage bargain thing, right?”
His lips curled upwards. “Um…yeah, that’s actually the most important part…to me, anyway.”
“Yes, I’ll marry you. I don’t care when or where. But I will because I…because…” She looked embarrassed, glancing around the room while he waited silently and patiently.
“Because I…I love you, Dmitri. I’ve never told any man that, ever. I’ve always been afraid of how much power that gives you over me. But I don’t care. I give you that power. I love you.”
He held out his free arm and she moved forward to put her arms around his shoulders and they held each other for a long moment made awkward by the hospital bed sides and the IV tubes inhibiting his movement. His free hand moved up and into her hair and he inhaled deeply, then exhaled on a long sigh. “Okay, now, Sashka? Could you please call for the nurse to bring me some pain meds now?”
She backed up to give him a lop-sided grin, “You mean my love isn’t all you need?”
He grimaced back at her. “It will be once my wound heals. But for now, it burns like a bitch and I’d really like some drugs.”
“Aren’t you supposed to kiss me now I’ve said yes? To seal the bargain and all?”
“Bring your lips back down here.”
She leaned over and their lips met, a gentle brush against each other. Then she stood up and pressed the button to call the nurse.
When the nurse walked in, she bustled around angrily, upset she hadn’t been summoned the instant he was awake and irritated that Alexandra still hadn’t changed out of the unsanitary blood-soaked clothing she’d been wearing for far too long.
While Dmitri’s vitals were checked, Emma came back into the room with the coffee and a bagel. The nurse shooed them both out of the room.
“Go on, get out of here, both of you! I need to change the dressing on his wound so you need to leave. And before you come back in here, young lady,” she said pointedly to Alexandra, “You need to get out of those filthy clothes.”
Meekly Alexandra nodded and picked up the backpack Emma had dropped on the floor. They went down the hall to find the shower room.
* * * *
The word gang was never used when they told Thomas Blackstone about his daughter’s friends being hunted by a man who committed murder, implicating Dmitri because he was jealous and wanted her to himself. He seemed dazed at the idea that his daughter, in whom he had invested so much time and energy to teach her how to run his business, had been in danger. When she made it clear Dmitri was willing to risk his life to bring the murderer to justice, Alexandra watched as her father beamed at the injured man.
Dmitri had eaten some bland food and had a cup of coffee, so he looked to be on his way to a full recovery. His voice sounded stronger, partly due to the drugs he had talked the nurse into adding to his IV. When there was a lull in the conversation, Dmitri cleared his throat.
“There’s a couple of things we need to tell you about, sir,” he addressed her father formally which made the man’s eyebrows raise in surprise.
“Please, Dmitri, there’s no need for such formality. You kept my daughter safe. There’s nothing you could ask that I would deny.”
“That’s actually a very good thing, since I’ve asked her to marry me. I don’t know if you want me to formally ask you for her hand, but if you do, I’m doing it now.”
Thomas turned to stare intently at his daughter, who was busy squirming in her seat over his scrutiny as she always had done since she was a child.
“Oh? And what did you answer him, Alex?”
“I said yes, Dad.”
He smiled broadly. “You did? Excellent! Then I can rest easy knowing there’s a man taking care of you.”
Alexandra bristled. “Now Dad, it’s the twenty-first century, you know. I can take care of myself.”
“Yes, I know you can. But still, it’s nice to know you’ve got such a big, strong man to guard your back.”
She stuck out her tongue at her father and he grinned back at her.
Dmitri cleared his throat again. “And that’s not all. I bring a wedding gift of business to the company. The conglomerate of Russian manufacturers I told you about has asked me to represent their interests introducing their products to this market, and I can’t think of a better firm to represent them than yours.”
“When you get out of the hospital, Dmitri, I insist on you two being my guests at a party I’ll throw for you at the club. I want to introduce you to all of my business contacts, to let them know the good news.”
“Aren’t you upset I’m going to be getting married, like any other woman?” Alexandra persisted. “You never treated me like I was a woman before.”
Her father stared at her. “How did I treat you?”
“Like some kind of neuter. Not quite a man, but not a woman, because you’ve never had much respect for them.”
He continued to look into her eyes for a long time before he sighed heavily.
“I know you were disappointed in me when I divorced
your mother to marry Abby. I didn’t realize how much it affected you until years later. And then it was too late to even bring it up with you. Yes, I treated you like the son I never had, because I wanted to leave my business to someone in the family. You took to marketing and sales like you had been born to do it. You also have a ruthless streak that makes you the best possible choice for leading my firm. But I never wanted that to stop you from having a life of your own. That’s why I never asked about your Harley hobby. I bought you your first one, if you remember.”
She nodded. “Yes, you did.”
“So, let me be happy for you. You’ve found yourself a good man who will take care of you when you need it.” He noticed her beginning to bristle again and quickly added, “And you’ll take care of him when he needs it, like you’re doing now. It’s a two-way street, Alex. I’ve learned there are times when a man needs to lean on someone too. It’s been a hard lesson for a stubborn old coot like me, but I’m trying to keep an open mind.”
“An open mind, huh?” Alexandra asked. “Then will you invite Mom to the engagement celebration party at the club?”
He looked into her eyes. “Will that make you happy?”
She nodded.
“Then yes. I’ll invite your sister and her brood as well. Hopefully she’ll be smart enough to hire a baby-sitter for the kids, but with her…who knows?”
They chatted comfortably for a while after that. When the nurse came in to announce that visiting hours were ending, Thomas Blackstone rose to leave.
“I’ll drop by your office tomorrow morning and let them know you’re not going to be in. You can decide when you want to return. Take your time. After all, other than a day or two to extend weekends here and there, you haven’t really taken any vacation time for years. And don’t argue with me. I have my sources. I still keep tabs on what’s going on. It’s just I haven’t had any complaints, so I never needed to let you know that. But the company won’t fail if you take a few days off to be with your man. You’ve hired good people to help you run it. Let them take over until you feel up to going back.”
“Thanks, Dad. I’m sure I’ll be back soon.”
Thomas Blackstone turned at the door to smile at them both, “And Dmitri? Welcome to the family…son.”