Love, Always and Forever

by Alexis Morgan

  “Are you sure?”

  It was obvious he was strong enough to haul lumber and set fence posts, but that didn’t necessarily mean he knew how. It wouldn’t make for a good long-term relationship between neighbors if his efforts turned out to be substandard. Maybe she had somehow broadcast her doubts because he suddenly grinned at her, the big smile shaving years off his apparent age. She would’ve guessed he was well into his thirties, but now she figured him for at least five years younger than that.

  Meanwhile, Mikhail grabbed the top rail of the fence and gave it a sharp tug, maybe to see how rickety it actually was. He glanced back at her, that smile still firmly in place. “Did I forget to mention that my brothers and I used to spend summers working for our father’s construction company? My older brother took over the family business when Dad died a while back, but I was building fences like this long before I graduated from high school.”

  She put her hands on her hips and gave him a cocky look. “Next time you offer to build a girl’s fence for her, you might want to lead with that fact. I’m just saying.”

  “Noted.”

  “So what’s our next step?”

  “I call Jack and tell him to haul ass over here. If he’s already out on a job, I’ll find out when he can come. It won’t take long for him to measure it all out and then give us some hard numbers to work with.”

  “Sounds like a plan.” She’d removed her gloves while they were talking, because they were hot. Pulling them back on, she asked, “Can I get back to work now?”

  Her new best buddy sighed heavily. “Yeah, if you insist. This will go faster with two of us working. Can I bring you a beer or something cold to drink?”

  “I’m good, but thanks.”

  “Back in a sec.”

  She watched as he loped back toward his house. “Hey, Mikhail?”

  He stopped just short of his porch to look back in her direction. “Yeah?”

  “You might want to put on a shirt and shoes, too, while you’re at it.”

  His laughter rang out across the yard. “Also noted.”

  Then he disappeared inside, leaving her counting the seconds until he returned. She suddenly realized that she was staring at his door like a teenage girl in the throes of her first crush. The analogy was an apt one. She’d spent her teen years in and out of hospitals, her health a constant source of worry for her entire family. Mikhail was the first man she’d met in a long time who knew nothing of her past. She might not have much dating experience, but she was perfectly capable of telling when a man was interested in more than her ability to rip down a half-rotted board.

  Amy deliberately turned her attention to the fence and attacked the rest of the broken board to show that she wasn’t some helpless female dependent on a man to do all the work. And if that gave her handsome neighbor an excellent view of her backside on his way to rejoin her, well, that was just bonus points.

  Chapter 2

  “Uncle Mikhail, is it true that we’re all out here sweating on our day off to impress the lady next door?”

  Mikhail shoved the posthole digger down into the ground a little harder than absolutely necessary to get the job done. His brothers had been giving him grief for the past week. He didn’t need his teenage nephew to join the party. “No, that’s not true, Ricky.”

  Jack, the boy’s adoptive father and Mikhail’s oldest brother, immediately chimed in. “There’s no ‘we’ about it, kid. Mikhail is the only one trying to impress her. If this was a movie, he’d be the action star, and we’d all be cast as the lowly sidekicks.”

  Of course, Tino, their middle brother, just had to add his own two cents to the discussion. “Action star, my ass. Near as I can tell, all he’s doing is flexing his oversized muscles every time his new neighbor peeks out her window.”

  Ricky cracked up and immediately started flexing his own arms. Jack took one look at his son’s antics and joined right in, both of them laughing like crazy. Tino immediately followed suit with all three of the idiots taking turns striking all kinds of stupid poses, trying to outdo each other.

  It was tempting to punch both of his brothers, but that would be like leaking blood when the sharks were circling. They’d only ramp up the abuse. Instead, trying his best to channel their late father, Mikhail pointed out the obvious. “You know, if you kept working instead of screwing around so much, we’d be a lot further along on this fence.”

  To set a good example for the others, he finished digging the hole he’d started and moved down the line to start the next one. Grumbling good-naturedly, Jack mixed a batch of concrete and poured it into the hole while Ricky held the fence post in place. Tino made himself useful by building the matching gates that would offer access to Mikhail’s and Amy’s backyards. The man was an artist when it came to stuff like that, which would add to the curb appeal of both houses.

  Mikhail managed to stay focused on the hole he was digging when he heard Amy’s back door open. There was no use in giving his brothers any more ammunition to use against him.

  “Lunch is ready. Anyone want a cold drink to go with the sandwiches?”

  Ricky was the first to answer. “I’d love a beer.”

  Amy laughed while Jack reached over to cuff the back of his son’s head. The boy immediately changed his request. “But iced tea or even cold water would be great.”

  Once Tino and Jack echoed Ricky’s answer, Mikhail finally let himself meet Amy’s dark-eyed gaze. “I’d love a glass of ice water.”

  He’d like to think her smile was a little brighter for him, but that was probably wishful thinking. Since his brothers were both happily married and his nephew had just turned seventeen, none of them offered any real competition when it came to Amy’s attentions. She’d been nothing but friendly to all of them, him included, since he’d started the ball rolling on the fence. Unfortunately, she hadn’t given him any overt signal that she was interested in anything other than being good neighbors.

  Originally, Jack was just supposed to lay out the plans for the fence and order the materials. Once everything was delivered, Mikhail would work on the fence on his days off, between shifts at the fire department.

  That plan had lasted no longer than the time it had taken for Jack to dial Tino’s number. Neither of them thought Mikhail could manage to nail a bunch of cedar boards together without them there to supervise the project. After some loud discussion, they’d finally agreed to limit their help to the posts, gates, and rails. Once the framework for the fence around both yards was done, Mikhail would take over from there by himself.

  It wasn’t that he didn’t appreciate their willingness to pitch in or that he really minded the pleasure they took in giving him grief every chance they got. God knows he’d done his own fair share of hassling both of them over the years. As he shoved the posthole digger into the ground, Mikhail hid a grin. What was the use in having brothers or even a nephew if you couldn’t give them grief whenever possible?

  No, he wanted to build the fence by himself because buying this house was the first permanent home he could point to and claim as solely his own. Ever. Anywhere. He loved Marlene and Joe Lukash for taking him in and giving him a new family, one complete with two brothers. God knows, the three of them were bound together by ties far stronger than the usual common ancestry and DNA. Despite the obvious differences in coloring, size, and even last names, their connection went bone deep. Never for a second had he ever doubted they had his back, just like he had theirs.

  Over the past couple of years, though, things had changed. The shifting dynamics in their family had been set in motion the day their adoptive father had died from a massive heart attack. That god-awful phone call had directly led to Jack moving back home. He’d met his wife and future son shortly afterward. Now they were making noises about adding yet another lucky kid to their growing family.

  Tino had been the next one to leave the military behind and return home to live in the annex, their name for the apartment next to their mom’s hous
e in what used to be the garage. It hadn’t been long before he’d discovered a passion for working with at-risk kids and had gone back to school to pursue a degree in social work. He and his wife had recently moved in with Natalie’s beloved grandfather and seemed to be settling in nicely.

  They’d offered to rent him the house Natalie had inherited from her paternal grandmother dirt cheap. It was a generous offer, but he’d wanted a place of his own. He glanced back toward the small three-bedroom bungalow and felt a surge of pride. To his knowledge, no one in his birth mother’s small circle of acquaintances had ever owned a home. Most hadn’t even held down a steady job for more than a few months at a time.

  Not for the first time, he wondered if his mom would be proud of the man he’d become. He hoped so, but there was no way to know considering she’d died with a needle in her arm a decade and a half ago.

  “Isn’t that hole a lot deeper than it needs to be?”

  Ricky’s voice jerked Mikhail out of his downward spiral deep into the quagmire of dark memories from his past. It took him a second or two longer to make sense of the question.

  His nephew stared down at the crater Mikhail had dug. “Seriously, man, that will take twice as much concrete as all the others.”

  Well, shit.

  Mikhail rolled his shoulders, hoping to shed the weight of his past. “Guess I got carried away. Get me the shovel.”

  His nephew stared back at him with eyes that had seen too much of the uglier side of life for a kid his age. “I’ll take care of it. Why don’t you go help the nice lady carry that tray? It looks heavy.”

  Not a bad idea. Mikhail leaned the posthole digger against a nearby tree. “Thanks, kid.”

  Of course, the brat had to go and spoil the moment. “I’m just looking out for your best interests, Uncle Mikhail. It’s a chance to flex those muscles again.”

  Then the lanky teenager waggled his eyebrows in a cartoonish attempt to look lecherous. Maybe he shouldn’t encourage the kid by laughing, but Mikhail couldn’t help himself. If they could have ordered a nephew tailor-made to fit their family, they couldn’t have done any better than Ricky. Like Mikhail and his brothers, Ricky had taken the crappy cards life had dealt him and turned them into a winning hand.

  “Careful, kid. What goes around, comes around. Keep giving me grief, and I promise you I will get even.”

  Ricky danced back out of reach. “Ooh, I’m really scared.”

  “You should be. Now start shoveling before I use you to fill in that hole.”

  His nephew was still laughing as Mikhail walked away.

  —

  Amy managed to open her back door while juggling a tray laden with sandwiches and chips for the crew of unpaid laborers working on her fence. Granted, they were also working on Mikhail’s, but still. She hadn’t expected the gift of their time and effort to extend to her as well, a total stranger to everyone but Mikhail. Considering she’d only known him such a short time, it wasn’t as if they had a long-standing friendship that warranted such generosity.

  He’d promised her that the cost of having them do the fence would be considerably less than the bids she’d gotten from the other contractors. She’d almost choked when she’d seen the ridiculously low figure on the bottom line of the detailed proposal he and his brother had put together. Jack had provided all the materials at his cost, and the price they’d quoted for labor had turned out to be a bunch of cold drinks, sandwiches, and a few snacks.

  She still couldn’t believe it. The amount she was saving on the fence meant she could start on a few other projects far sooner than she’d expected.

  Mikhail stood at the bottom step with his hands out. “Let me take that for you.”

  Amy surrendered her burden without protest. “Thanks. I’ll be right back out with the second load.”

  When she returned with a heaping platter of brownies, he was waiting to take it from her. “Is there anything else?”

  Standing on the steps, she was at his level for once. Looking into those stunning blue eyes of his had her pulse picking up speed. “Just the drinks.”

  “Want me to get them?”

  “Sure. I’ll get everything else situated.”

  He walked up the steps as she came down, passing within inches of each other. She would’ve sworn that she felt the heat of his sun-kissed skin brush against hers even though they never came into actual contact. She almost stumbled as the sensation washed over her, but she was saved from falling when his big hand snapped out to steady her.

  “You okay?”

  His deep voice rumbled near her ear, having its own effect on her. “I’m fine. My foot slipped on the edge of the step.”

  As lies went, it was pretty weak, but he seemed to accept the explanation. “I’ll be right out with the drinks.”

  She swallowed hard and used the excuse of organizing all the food on the table buffet-style to buy herself enough time to gather her scattered wits. By the time the door opened again, she had everything arranged to her liking.

  “Okay, guys, lunch is served, so help yourselves. You can wash up inside first if you want to. The bathroom is straight through the kitchen on the right.”

  “They can use the hose.” Mikhail leaned in close as he set the drinks on the table. “I wouldn’t even let that crew inside my own house unsupervised. Ricky is the only one of the bunch who is even close to housebroken.”

  Jack and Tino countered with their own insults as they pulled off their work gloves and made use of the hose as Mikhail had suggested. The four of them kept her laughing through the entire procedure, reminding her of her own brothers’ antics. Heaven forbid any of them simply say how much they meant to one another instead of disguising their affection with insults and dire threats of physical harm.

  It actually made her a little homesick. Not enough to want to move back, but maybe she’d give her parents and youngest brother a call later, after the Lukash clan finished for the day. It had been Jack who had explained that he and Mikhail were related through adoption rather than by blood when she’d accidently called him Jack Wanjek. It made sense considering how different they all looked.

  Still, after spending five minutes in their company, no one would mistake them for anything but a close-knit family.

  Mikhail pulled out a chair and motioned for her to sit down. “Have a seat, Amy, and fill your plate before the food’s all gone.”

  At the same time, Jack glared at his son. “Ricky, what does your grandmother say about who gets served first?”

  The teenager had already piled his plate high with two sandwiches and potato chips. He had been in the process of dishing up some of the fruit salad when his hand froze with the loaded spoon halfway between his plate and the bowl. He stared at the juice dripping on the table, clearly unsure what to do next.

  Hoping to ease his embarrassment, Amy winked at him and stage-whispered, “That’s okay, Ricky, go ahead and dig in. I have four older brothers and learned at an early age to grab food quickly before they got to it. I wasn’t always successful, which is why they’re all half a foot taller and eighty pounds heavier than I am. They’ve always given me a bad time for being the runt of the litter.”

  To her surprise, Ricky cracked up and pointed at Tino. “That’s what my dad and Uncle Mikhail call Uncle Tino.”

  The man in question gave the kid a look that promised retribution. “I might be the runt, but better that than the baby of the family.”

  Mikhail shot him a dirty look. “How many times do I have to remind you two that there’s a grand total of ten months between the three of us? We’re all the same age.”

  Jack clearly wasn’t buying it. “Tino, help me remember. As I recall, you and I graduated at the same time, but blondie here graduated a year later.”

  “Yep, that’s how I remember it, too. You and I were both off having grown-up adventures while he was still doing homework and chasing cheerleaders. I still feel bad about that because that’s how he screwed up and enlisted in the
marines. If we’d been there, we would’ve made sure he picked the right door when he went to sign up.”

  Something in what Tino said perked Ricky right up. “Did you ever catch any, Uncle Mikhail? You know, any cheerleaders?”

  Mikhail actually blushed, giving away the answer without him speaking a single word. He glanced in Amy’s direction, looking a bit flustered—or maybe guilty—before turning his attention in another direction. “Jack, you might want to rein in your kid before I start sharing some stories from your past with him. I’m not saying I have pictures, but I’m not exactly saying I don’t.”

  By that point, Ricky’s eyes were round and his mouth was hanging open. Tino reached over to chuck his nephew on the chin. “Chew with your mouth closed.”

  “But I don’t have any food in my mouth.”

  Jack glared at him. “Then take a bite of something. Anything to keep you quiet for a few minutes.”

  Ricky picked up his sandwich, but before digging in, he grumbled, “You guys always shut up right when the conversation gets interesting.”

  It was hard not to laugh, but maybe she should change subjects. “It looks like you’ll finish installing all the fence posts today.”

  Mikhail nodded. “That’s the plan. If we get them all in place fast enough, we might even start hanging the rails. If we don’t, it’s no biggie. I can handle that much without them.”

  He paused to smile at her. “Don’t think I’ve forgotten that you want to help, though. I wouldn’t want the money you spent on that shiny new hammer and fancy pink tool belt to go to waste.”

  This time, she was the one blushing. “In my defense, I didn’t buy them. My youngest brother has a rotten sense of humor. He said he thought I might want to hang a picture or two once I moved in.”

  “Little did he know that you planned to demolish a fence single-handedly.”

  She managed a small laugh, but a flash of fear left her lunch feeling a little bit unsettled. The last thing she needed was for anyone in her family to find out what she’d been doing. She’d fudged a bit when she’d told her father that she was having her fence built by a contractor. Technically, she hadn’t actually lied. She just hadn’t told him the whole truth.