Her Russian Brute: 50 Loving States, Idaho (14 page)

T
he first thing
Sola did when she got back to the home she hadn’t seen in weeks was check in at the main house.

“Want to come with me to meet Eddie and Vanessa or wait at my place?” she asked, holding out her keys to the hulking man who’d exited the limo with her. She already knew how he’d answer, but wanted to give him a choice…

He glanced at her. Glanced at the little house she’d happily occupied for the last few years.

“Your place,” he answered.

Ivan looked tired, his eyes more hooded than usual, his half-burned face drawn. Too much socializing, she guessed. He’d been alone for so long, and now he’d had a lengthy, drama-filled day. And he couldn’t even decompress in his own surroundings.

It was on the tip of Sola’s tongue to thank him. Yet again. Honestly, she didn’t know if she’d ever be able to thank him enough. But he was already on his way to the guesthouse. Like a cold winter bearing down on the quiet little California cottage. She couldn’t help but note that he seemed out of place in her world. Almost as out of place as she’d been in his Idaho manor.

Sola sighed and headed into the main house. Eddie was in the kitchen, sunken down in his wheelchair at the room’s round wooden table. When Brian first introduced his new T.A. to his husband, he’d been a big and burly actor with a booming voice. He’d been known for playing thugs in nineties comedies until he aged out. And like most actors who were really good at playing villains, he’d turned out to be kind and warm, welcoming Brian’s protégée into their lives with open arms.

But today, he sat bent and painfully thin, mouth partially hanging open. He needed a haircut, Sola noted, scraping the hair out of his eyes, and pressing a kiss to his papery forehead.

“Hi, Eddie,” she whispered. He only stared into the distance, his eyes unfocused and dull, which meant he was having a catatonic Christmas day. It was sad but it was also a blessing compared to the days when he would rage from his chair, accusing anyone who came through the kitchen of being ghosts from his past. Men who had hurt him. Women who had said cruel things to him. And vice versa. Sometimes apologizing to her, Brian, and Vanessa with tears in his eyes.

Looking at Eddie now, Sola felt better about pushing Brian to get help. No, he didn’t want to be away from his husband. But the three-month break he’d get from his role as a part-time caregiver on top of holding down a full-time job would certainly do him good.

“Merry Christmas, Sola! Did Mr. Brian make it to New Promises okay?” a voice asked behind her.

Sola looked over her shoulder to see Vanessa come in with a basket of laundry. Apparently Ivan had been so sure about Brian accepting his proposal, he’d already had his lawyer explain the situation to her. Vanessa was clearly excited about expanding her hours, and told Sola she had a cousin who was eager to work alongside her as Eddie’s assistant aide.

“I’m so sorry you had to take care of Eddie all by yourself on Christmas Day,” Sola apologized.

As they’d agreed in the beginning, they spoke only English in Eddie’s presence, both deeply aware he was still listening, despite the limitations of his body and brain.

“Oh, it is no problem,” Vanessa assured her with a wave of her hand. “Big bonus your boyfriend give me more than made up for it.”

Her boyfriend
…

Sola let the word bounce around in her mind.
Boyfriend
. But no, not really. Strange…Ivan felt like so much more than a boyfriend. Her lover. Her savior. Her friend. Her man. Her confessor. So many words to describe his relationship to her, but nothing that completely summed it up.

“I saw him through the window,” Vanessa confessed, setting the hamper on the table. “He’s big, and maybe you don’t mind his face so much, no?”

Sola half smiled, thinking of how many times he’d accused her of not liking him because of his face. “No, I’m fine with his face,” she answered.

But his attitude—that still needed some work, she thought as she walked across the back lawn and into her guesthouse for the first time since early December.

Something inside her went a little cold when she found him in the living room. His black pea coat still on, like he was getting ready to leave at any minute.

“I need his name,” he said, before Sola could so much as say hello. “I need the name of the man who hit you.”

“Why don’t you take your coat off?” she asked, coming to stand in front of him.

But when she started to unfasten the large silver buttons, he grabbed both her hands in his. “I need his name, Sola. I can’t leave you here, knowing he’s still out there.”

“Who says you have to leave me here at all?” she asked him, putting a lot of effort into keeping her tone soft and teasing.

“This is no joke.”

“I know that,” she answered in a more serious tone. “But Ivan…you’re talking about leaving already.”

He stopped then. Breathed. “Sola, I cannot be here in this place with you. Little houses in small towns are not my way of life. And my face—”

“I don’t care about your face,” she reminded him.

“You are only one who does not care. Everyone else stares.” He shook his head. “I must go soon—I cannot be here.”

She let out a sad breath. “Okay, I understand. I’ve got school, and you’ve got your life as a recluse to get back to.”

“Good, you understand,” he said. Either not getting or choosing to just plain ignore her dig. “Then you will give me his name, and I will make sure he does not bother you again.”

“I also understand we don’t have much time left together, and I don’t want to waste it.”

“It would not be a waste,” he insisted, tone harsh as the Idaho mountain he lived on. “Protecting you could never be waste of time, Sola.”

“Ivan, please,” she said, her heart breaking at the prospect of him leaving. Like what they’d had in Idaho meant nothing to him. Like
she
meant nothing to him.

Sola began unbuttoning his coat with frantic urgency.

“It’s been a long day, and I don’t want to argue about this anymore. I want you.” She kissed him. Once, twice, with all the desperate passion in her heart. “All I want is you. Can it just be you and me again? Just for tonight? And then we’ll figure out all that other stuff in the morning?”

Ivan looked away, and she could almost see something ticking in the mottled skin that covered his jaw.

Then, as if making a decision, he took her in his arms and kissed her with what felt like a year’s worth of pent up passion. Even though they’d been together only that morning.

But the kiss—and the sex that followed in her relatively tiny bed—felt like a good-bye. And it was all Sola could do to keep from crying as his large body rolled over hers.

Giving her his passion but reserving his heart.

S
ola fell
asleep holding on to Ivan tightly, but was surprised to find him still there when she woke the next morning.

She looked down at the large man taking up most of the space in her tiny bed with wonder. He kept his room at the manor the very opposite of hers. Dim and in shadows, so it was nearly impossible to see his face.

But she could see it clearly now in her brightly lit bedroom. One side was mottled and red. The other side…less interesting, but even more beautiful somehow for its contrast with the other.

She pondered, not for the first time, his life before the car bomb that had killed his family and ruined half of what looked like a very handsome face. How many women had there been? Obviously a lot. He knew how to please a woman, and you didn’t get those kind of moves without a lot of practice.

Looking down at him, she resisted the urge to touch the smooth side of his face and whisper, “Mine,” to any would be takers.

Crazy. Not just because it was too soon to feel so strongly about him, but because he’d pretty much already told her he’d be leaving any minute now.

Breakfast
, she decided. That was exactly what this situation needed. Something, anything, to keep him there a little while longer. As much as she’d hated this man two weeks ago. She was nowhere near ready to let him go now.

Of course everything but the cereal in her kitchen would be long expired by now. But shopping for groceries was one of Vanessa’s duties, and she always had the staples lying around.

Thinking about the authentic Guatemalan breakfast she could make for Ivan this morning, Sola pulled on a robe and gingerly jogged in her bare feet across the concrete carport driveway that separated her guesthouse from the main house. Sola edged around Brian’s Lexus, which Brian had taught her to drive, even though she couldn’t technically apply for a license. She shook her head at the car, barely able to imagine going back to her life at ValArts to finish her year after everything that had happened.

“Hey Vanessa!” she called out as she entered through the back of the house and headed toward the kitchen. “I need to borrow some milk and eggs for…”

She stopped in the kitchen doorway when she saw who was seated at the kitchen table across from a catatonic Eddie.

It was Scott.

And Vanessa was sprawled across the kitchen floor behind the table, obviously having been knocked out by the butt of Scott’s gun. But he had the point of his gun trained on Eddie.

Until he spotted Sola standing in the doorway. At which point he swung the gun away from Eddie, aiming it directly at her.

“Hey, Sola,” he said. Scott’s words were friendly enough, but his tone was as sinister as anything she’d ever heard. “I was wondering when you’d join us.”

S
cott was
no longer attractive to Sola. Not now that she’d been found and thoroughly seduced by Ivan Rustanov.

But he
really
didn’t look good this morning. His perpetually clean-shaven square chin had been overtaken by patchy stubble. His clothes were rumpled, and she could smell him all the way from the door.

She was reminded of the version of Ivan she’d first encountered in Idaho. But only a little. Ivan had been like a wounded beast, one who hadn’t quite figured out how to start taking care of himself again. But Scott just looked crazed, his brown eyes glittering with obvious madness.

“Scott,” she said as calmly as she could. “Put down the gun. Let’s talk about this.”

“No, I think the time for talking is over, Sola,” he answered, knocking over the chair as he stood up. “I wanted to talk three weeks ago. I came back the very next day after our fight to talk to you, to try to make you see reason. But you weren’t there. So I waited and waited for you to get back, only to find out you’ve moved on to some other guy. Who is he? What’s his name?”

Suddenly she had that not-quite déjà vu feeling. Another man asking her for a name. But for a completely different reason.

“It doesn’t matter,” she answered.

He huffed out a bitter laugh. “There you go again, Sola. Talking back...” His face twisted into a condescending sneer. “Of course it matters. I had a plan. Use my charges against that drunk professor of yours to smoke you out, then offer to drop them if you came back to Omaha with me.”

So much crazy in three sentences, Sola had to struggle to find her next words.

“That was you? You’re the one who pressed charges against Brian for hitting you? But you’re so big and he’s so small!”

“I did it for you,” Scott answered, his voice little more than a thin whine. “I did it to make sure we could be together.”

She covered her mouth, struck by what Scott had done and how little remorse he had to show for it. She wanted to punch him for what he’d put Brian through, making him spend the night in jail.

But he was the one with the gun, and she was the one with everything to lose if he started shooting. Including Eddie and Vanessa.

So she asked him in low, trembling voice, “What do you want, Scott. Whatever you want, I’ll do it. Just please put down the gun.”

Scott frowned, like her sudden acquiescence was distasteful to him. “What I wanted was for us to be together in Omaha. Husband and wife. What I got was a faithless slut who hopped into another man’s bed as soon as I turned my back on her.”

“We broke up,” she reminded him. “We were over—”

“We’re not over until I say we’re over!” he screamed at her.

He broke off, seeming to put immense effort into calming himself. And when he spoke again, he once again sounded like the oh-shucks farm boy she’d thought he was when they first started dating. “But that’s alright, Sola. This too shall pass, and I’m glad I’m finding out about your slut proclivities now. We can get past this. I’ll train you…after you come home with me.”

The thought of going anywhere with this lunatic curdled her stomach, but she grabbed on to his demand like a lifeline.

“Okay, fine, I’ll come with you. Anywhere you want to go. Let’s get out of here. Right now.”

Saying the words felt like the worse betrayal. Of her values, of the man lying in her bed, but the thought of Eddie or Vanessa getting hurt by Scott scared her way more than anything else.

“You’ll have to pack a bag, and that…” Scott face once again screwed up into a disgusted grimace. “…that
other man
is still at your house.”

“No, I don’t need to take anything with me,” she assured him quickly. “And I’ve got my phone. I’ll call him,” Sola offered, pulling her phone out of the pocket of her robe and waving it like a white flag at Scott.

“Do it,” Scott said. “Call him off, and we’ll talk about letting you and your friends live.”

Sola punched in the number to the landline at her guesthouse. Thank goodness Brian had never gotten around to taking the old phone line out, even though she never used it.

“
Da
, hello…” a gruff, sleep-worn voice answered after a few rings.

“Hi, it’s Sola,” she said, doing everything in her power to keep her voice from shaking. “I hate to do this to you, but I decided to go visit my family in San Francisco for a few days.”

A pause, then came a very flat, “You continue to be full of surprises, Sola. Why would you do that?”

“Because this obviously isn’t going to work out between us,” she answered. “And I’d rather just rip off the Band-Aid now and save us both a lot of pain later. Thank you for everything, but when I get back, I’m thinking you shouldn’t be here.”

Another long pause, then, “Fine, Sola.” And he hung up.

Her heart clenched at the thought of him ending the call so coldly. It was what she wanted. What would keep him safe, but still…

She blinked the tears out of her eyes and turned to Scott. “I did it,” she told him, holding back a small sniff.

Scott weighed her words, lowering the gun a little as he did so. Then he said, “Okay, let’s go. We’ll take the fag’s car so you can drive.” He indicated why it was necessary for her to drive with a shake of his gun.

“We’ll get you something to wear on the way to the airport. Just don’t try anything funny, Sola,” he warned. “If you do, I’ll come back here and kill Eddie and that nurse, and anyone else who gets in my way.”

Sola nodded quickly. “I get it. Just please, let’s go.”

Quickly
, she added to herself,
before Ivan’s car gets here to pick him up
.

The last thing she wanted was for Ivan to get caught up in any of this. And she let out a sigh of relief when Scott pointed his gun toward the back door, indicating she should go out first.

Sola walked towards the door, happy to get Scott away from Eddie and Vanessa. Only to suddenly hear Scott yell behind her, “No, get back! Stay away!”

She stopped short and that’s when she saw someone coming through the back door.

“No!” she screamed, knowing who it was, even before she could see him. Scott would kill Ivan, she knew. Kill him without blinking, and think it was totally within his rights to do so. Without thinking, she turned and sped toward Scott, who already had his gun raised.

She pushed him back into the kitchen, taking him by surprise. He dropped the gun and stumbled backwards.

The weapon skittered across the floor and Sola dived for it, desperate to get to it before Scott could.

But just before she could hook it with her fingers, a hand grabbed on to the back of her jeans. Scott pulled her back with all his football player muscle and flung her against the kitchen wall like a ragdoll before going after the fallen gun.

However, just as Scott grabbed the gun, something large rushed passed her.

“What the—!” Scott yelled, raising his gun to shoot.

Ivan moved so fast. His hand was around Scott’s neck and the gun was clattering to the floor again before the two words were even fully out of the football player’s mouth.

“Ivan!” Sola gasped, pushing herself off the wall.

Scott’s breath cut off with an ugly hitch. “Sola!” he choked out, trying to appeal to her for help.

“No, do not talk to her. Do not even look at her.” Ivan squeezed Scott’s throat harder. “You do not get to have her in these last moments. My voice will be last you hear. My face the last you see.”

Ivan was right about that. A few moments later, Scott fell to the floor beside Vanessa, his windpipe crushed and his life ended under the force of Ivan’s one-handed chokehold.

Ivan came to stand over the fallen football player. Breathing hard, and looking like he wanted nothing more than to pick up the gun Scott had dropped and kill the dead man some more.

“Ivan,” Sola whispered.

He looked at her, eyes intense. This was the killer she’d been afraid of unleashing, Sola realized, staring at him wide-eyed. But now that killer had just saved her life.

“You see the real me now,” Ivan said. “You understand what lies beneath.”

“No, no,” she assured him. “I only see the man who just saved my life and their lives too.” She gestured at Eddie and the still prone Vanessa. “Please don’t think I’m judging you at all now.”

She reached up to touch him, but he grabbed her hand before she could. “You are too kind, Sola. So kind, you are surrounded by broken people who take advantage of you.”

“No,” she answered, hating that he saw her like that.

But Ivan shook his head, insisting. “I am not the man you deserve.”

“Well, I wouldn’t say that!” another voice suddenly said. “I wouldn’t say that at all.”

They both turned, startled to see an alert Eddie at the kitchen table, his face lit up, his eyes vibrant again despite his body’s sunken demeanor.

“I never did like that boy, Marisol,” he informed Sola. And to Ivan he said. “But you—tall, blonde, and scarred—seem like a keeper. Russian, right?”

“
Da
…yes,” Ivan replied, squinting at him. “And you are Eddie. Sola has told me much about you.”

“Did she tell you I performed in a play in Russia once?”

An awkward beat. “No,” Ivan confessed. “She did not tell me this.”

“Chekov. A dazzling production. I ended up fucking the director after the run was done. He had a rather large dick. I’m thinking you might, too. Am I right?”

Ivan looked over at Sola, obviously not knowing how to respond. “So this is the dementia stage of his illness?” he asked her.

“No, actually, this is Eddie,” Sola answered, stepping forward with a huge smile. “The real Eddie. He’s always like this.”

She bent down and greeted her long lost friend, “Hi, Eddie.”

“Hi, Marisol,” Eddie answered with a smile. “I heard you and your boyfriend finally got Brian some help yesterday. Thank you for that, sweetie.”

“He’s not my…” Sola started. But then knowing how fleeting her time with Eddie might be, she settled for, “You’re welcome.”

“Now tell me all about him. Does he have a big dick like the Russian director?” He stage whispered. “He doesn’t want to tell me, but I bet he does!”

Which was how Sola came to find herself giggling with Eddie while Ivan made the first of several calls to clean up the body of her dead boyfriend.