Her Russian Brute: 50 Loving States, Idaho (20 page)

E
VA’S father
called just as she was finishing up the paperwork from the Rodriguez’s home study. After years of trying for a third child, the two Drummond Oil employees were hoping to complete their family through adoption, which meant a qualified professional had to assure the Dallas-based adoption agency they’d chosen to work with that they were responsible people, with steady jobs, and the ability to take on another mouth at their dinner table.

In a big city like Dallas, this kind of thing would be handled by someone affiliated with either an adoption agency or a formal home study service. But in a town that only existed because it was where the Drummond Oil headquarters was located, Eva had to take on home studies along with her many other duties. These duties included handling all counseling for the local school district, following up on any domestic disturbance calls reported by the police, providing any child protective services needed, and handing out social security checks to the folks who preferred to pick them up at Drummond’s one-woman Social Service & Welfare office.

That day she was particularly rushed because she needed to get the Rodriguez’s paperwork in the mail by three o’clock to meet their adoption agency’s cut off date, or else she’d have to drive all the way to Dallas to hand deliver it. It was already two forty-five. Luckily the post office, like every other civil service in Drummond, was on Main Street, albeit at the opposite end as her building. If she walked really fast, she could get there in under ten minutes.

She thought about not answering when the phone rang just as she was getting out of her chair to leave. But when she saw her father’s extension pop up in the caller ID box, she knew she would have to. The mayor’s office was only two doors down from hers. He knew she was in the building, and if she didn’t pick up, he’d just make the small walk to talk to her in person, delaying her even further.

“Hey, Daddy,” she said, picking up the phone. “I can’t really talk right now. I’m handling some important paperwork.”

“That can wait. I need to see you in my office.” Cleveland St. James’s voice rung through the phone line with austere authority.

Eva rolled her eyes, resenting how her father always made it seem like she should drop everything at her “little social work job” and come running whenever he called.

“It can’t wait. It’s adoption paperwork, and if I don’t get it in the mail by three, it won’t get to Dallas on time.”

“Finish it up after we meet, then I’ll have Berta overnight it for you.”

“You’re going to let me overnight it?” Now he really had Eva’s attention. Her father was notoriously stingy about allowing anyone who worked for the town to overnight anything on Drummond’s dime. “That’s why all these small towns are going broke,” he’d said the last time she had asked to overnight something, as if every small town fiscal crisis had less to do with businesses closing down or moving away and more to do with frivolous local employees.

“Is everything okay?” she asked him. She dropped her voice to a whisper. “Daddy, do you think you’ve had a stroke and just don’t know it? I hear that can happen.”

An irritated beat. “Eva Janelle St. James, get in my office. Now.”

Less than a minute later, Eva dropped into one of the brown, leather guest chairs in her father’s office. Just like the home they lived in, Cleveland’s office was large and stuffed to the gills with leather furniture, hunting trophies, and framed commendations from political, social, and community organizations.

He scanned her outfit of jeans and a neon-pink T-shirt with frank disapproval but didn’t say anything. They’d already had many discussions about her refusal to wear a suit or even business casual in her position as Drummond’s only social worker, until they had both agreed to let the issue lie. Eva liked to be comfortable and she wasn’t going to budge. Still that didn’t keep her father from wearing his blatant disapproval all over his face every time they met during the course of a work day.

“Are you sure you’re all right, Daddy? I mean what could be so important that you’d be willing to break out Drummond’s dusty FedEx account?”

Cleveland heaved a long-suffering sigh. “I keep on hoping one day you’ll grow up and realize not everything’s a joke, but it just doesn’t look like that’s going to happen any time soon. Thank goodness we had your brother first, or you would be too much of a trial to bear.”

She tried to keep the hurt his words caused her from showing. She didn’t know why his low opinion of her still bothered her so much. It had always been this way between them, him wondering out loud why she couldn’t be more like her brother, Steve. For a short time, she had actually managed to gain his approval when she decided to get her M.S. in Social Work in order to take over the Social Services & Welfare Office post from her mother, who had been doing the job for over thirty years. The summer before she started the master’s program, he had told anyone who would listen about his son who was in the Foreign Service program and his daughter who had decided to follow in her mother’s footsteps.

But that had been before their three-year estrangement and before the birth of his only illegitimate grandchild.

“I’m a social worker. I do realize everything’s not a joke,” she said. “But you’ve kind of got to have a sense of humor to do what I do.”

“Your mother always took her duties very seriously. None of this waiting until the last minute to get important forms in the mail, no asking if I had a stroke when I told her I needed to meet with her about something important.”

Only respect for her father kept her from rolling her eyes. Yes, the horror that her parents, two of the most serious people on the planet, had given birth to one equally serious son and a big-mouthed, bright-color loving daughter, who had a son out of wedlock but still never knew when to stop joking. She wondered if she and her father couldn’t just once have a meeting during which he didn’t compare her to her super-organized and efficient saint of a mother.

“Daddy, is there something I can help you with? Because I’ve still got to get the social security checks ready for tomorrow.”

His lips thinned. “Yes, there is something you could help me with. Maybe you can help me understand why you’ve been messing around with Alexei Rustanov again?”

Eva broke into a cold sweat at just the mention of his name. “I haven’t been messing around with—“ She couldn’t even say his name out loud. “Can I ask where all this is coming from?”

“If you haven’t been messing around with him, why did his company just decide to buy Drummond Oil out of the blue?”

Her heart clenched. He wouldn’t. Not because of one kiss and five minutes of dry humping. But a certain dread was already starting to pool in her stomach, even as she said, “I’m sure that doesn’t have anything to do with me.”

He father lifted his thick eyebrows. “Really? Because when I tried to set up a meeting with his people in regards to the future of Drummond’s main business, and the source of seventy-percent of our town’s funding, I received an interesting call back from his executive assistant. He said Rustanov himself would take the meeting, but only if it’s with you.”

Eva shook her head. “No, I can’t. I can’t meet with him.”

Her father leaned forward, his face all business. “The taxes Drummond Oil and their employees pay are what funds both your salary and mine. They employ the vast majority of the adults who live here, and they’re responsible for eighty-percent of all charitable donations. If Rustanov decides to suddenly withdraw his support or, heaven forbid, move the Drummond Oil headquarters somewhere else, this town will die.“

Her throat had gone completely dry. Though she wanted more than anything to say she couldn’t face Alexei again, she knew she would have to. Her father wasn’t exaggerating. Drummond Oil really was the life-blood of the town, providing its sole industry. If Rustanov moved the Drummond Oil headquarters, the majority of her neighbors, many of whom she also counted as friends, would be out of a job. This included both Rodriguezes, who would have to put off their adoption quest until they could find another source of income.

Eva herself could always find a position as a social worker somewhere else, in fact she had been thinking about doing just that for a couple of years now that she had enough money in savings for her and Aaron to live comfortably until she found another job.

But Drummond Oil had always been a friends-and-family kind of business. Many of the people who worked there had inherited their jobs from their parents, just like she’d inherited hers from her mother. But unlike her, many of them hadn’t even bothered to get a degree in order to take on the administrative work of running the offices of a company that hosted wells in several parts of the state. Drummond’s own well had gone dry a couple of decades ago, but back then the company’s namesake family had decided to keep their headquarters in Drummond because it was central to all their other wells, and also because the family still had a home in the area. One of the reasons her father was such a local hero was because after the family sold Drummond Oil to a larger oil company, he had convinced that company to keep the headquarters in Drummond with a mix of tax breaks, business savvy, and one good-old boy, booze-filled weekend.

But now Alexei Rustanov owned Drummond Oil. And he wanted to meet with her.

“I’m no good at business meetings,” she said, her voice little more than a whisper.

“I know you aren’t,” he answered. “But in this case, it’s real simple. You’ve got to convince Rustanov to keep the Drummond Oil headquarters here. Tell him we’ll do whatever it takes, give him whatever incentives he wants to keep the business here. If you have to grovel at his feet, do it. Now is not the time to finally grow a sense of pride, little girl.”

Despite the circumstances, Eva found herself more irritated with her father than her manipulative ex-boyfriend. “It’s not about pride, it’s about my son. I can’t let him find out about Aaron.”

Her father sat up, his head tilting to the side in angry confusion. “What do you mean, find out? You said you told him and he didn’t want anything to do with Aaron. I thought that was why you left his name off the birth certificate and didn’t seek him out for child support.”

She winced. “It’s a little more like I figured he wouldn’t want anything to do with Aaron, so I kind of didn’t tell him.”

“You kind of didn’t tell him.” Her father’s posture had become rigid with anger. “So let me get this straight, little girl. First you moved in with this Russian boy against my wishes. Then you got pregnant. Then you didn’t even tell him he had a baby coming and it was his. Then you put yourself in his sights again. And now he’s bought Drummond Oil, not even knowing you and him have a seven-year-old son?”

When her father summarized the story that way, it did sound really, really bad. “I know I’ve put Drummond in a really terrible position, Daddy. And I’m really sorry. But he cannot find out about Aaron.”

“He sure as hell can’t,” her father agreed. “If he finds out you’ve been hiding a son from him, Lord knows what he’ll do. I don’t know what happened between you two that has him suddenly buying up Drummond Oil and wanting to meet with you, and to tell you the truth, I don’t want to know, because my blood pressure is high enough as it is. But whatever you did, you need to get on that plane tomorrow, and go to New York to fix it.”

“Tomorrow!” she said. “I can’t just drop everything and drive all the way to Dallas to go to New York.”

Her father gave her a small, tart smile. “Eva, I warned you against getting mixed up with this boy, and now look where it’s gotten us. You can and will drop everything. And you will do whatever it takes to save our town, which we’ve both pledged to serve to the best of our abilities.”

“Okay, Daddy, I’m just going to point out that you warned me to stay away from him because he was in your words, ‘fresh off the boat,’ ‘couldn’t even speak English,’ and ‘would never amount to anything.’ I have no idea if he’s officially got his citizenship or how his English is coming along, but you were definitely wrong on at least one of those accounts. He’s made something of himself and now he’s got you, me, and this whole town under his thumb.”

To her surprise, Eva actually felt a bit of pride in Alexei welling up inside her. Who would have thought the Russian security guard who could barely afford a rundown efficiency would own her hometown one day?

Her father glared at her. “This is all your fault, young lady. If you had kept your legs closed or at least chosen a black boy—” He broke off, obviously too angry to continue down that road. “Your mama and me didn’t raise you like that. ”

Once again, a volcano of regret erupted inside her. He was right, they hadn’t raised her like that and she had been a dutiful daughter up until she met Alexei, but he had awakened her until-then latent wild child. Funny Eva had morphed into crazy-in-love Eva and nothing her father said or did had gotten through to her. She had only been with Alexei for six months, but now her short affair was once again coming back to bite her in the butt. And this time it wouldn’t be just her father’s good name that would suffer. This time, everyone in Drummond might lose their jobs because of her.

“Fine, I’ll go,” she said, not wishing to argue with her father, who was at least half-right about the foolishness of her past actions. “I’ll do it for Drummond and I’ll do it for Aaron. If I don’t go, he might get nosy and start poking around for other things to manipulate me with.”

Perhaps feeling a modicum of remorse for sending his daughter into a known dragon’s den, her father relaxed his stiff posture and said, “You won’t have to drive to Dallas. He’s sending a private plane to the Drummond airfield to pick you up.”

Eva stood, feeling too guilty to look her father in the eye. “Just have Berta email me the details. I’ll be there. Now I’ve got a lot of work to do before I leave.”

She made a hasty exit then, but peeked over her shoulder at her father as she walked out the door. He looked like she felt. Grim and sad.