My Special Angel (4 page)

“If we’re all lucky, it won’t be the sheriff,” said Nadia. She was torn between her different, warring emotions. The woman inside her was delighted to see Owen again and was ready to run outside to greet him. The serious side of her nature was fearful that Owen had indeed brought the sheriff and warrants for everyone’s arrest. Only two days had passed since her uncles and father tried to hang the man.

Sofia smiled as Owen got out of the car, reached into the backseat, and pulled out a huge donkey made out of brightly colored paper. “See, the leaves were right.” She opened the door and stepped out onto the porch.

Owen struggled momentarily under the weight of the papier-mache donkey as he staggered toward the porch. When he had ordered the pinata from a novelty shop in Charlotte, he had requested that the donkey be packed with as much candy and small prizes as it would hold—he wanted Nadia’s family’s first experience with a pinata to be a memorable one. He was being rewarded for his efforts with a hernia and a jackass that was going to take a crane to be hoisted off the ground.

Nadia resisted the impulse to dash upstairs to change her clothes and run a brush through her hair. This morning she had taken IRS out for his daily run and hadn’t yet found the time to change out of her faded jeans and skimpy lavender top. Her hair had been neatly braided at one time this morning, but the exuberance of the run had surely left its mark. Nadia watched through the screen as the muscles in Owen’s forearms bulged under the strain of the colorful animal. She had no idea what Owen did all day, but whatever it was, he did more than sit behind some desk and push a pencil.

Owen carefully stood the three-foot-high donkey on the porch and took a deep breath. The papier-mache animal felt as if it were steel-reinforced. Maybe the kids could use a baseball bat and smash the sucker open on the porch. He didn’t think he had the strength to lift it again. He politely smiled at the woman standing on the porch and nodded his head: “Ma’am.” He turned his attention to the screen door and the woman standing behind it. She was standing in the shadows, but he would have recognized her silhouette anywhere. She had haunted his dreams for the past two nights and had been the object of at least two very exotic daydreams. The little Gypsy angel had caused him to have some very uncomfortable moments. “Are you coming out, Nadia, or do I have to haul the pinata inside?” His smile held the combined charm of a southern gentleman and little boy. “I have to warn you, though, when the kids smash it open, it will make a mess.”

Nadia opened the door and stepped onto the sundrenched porch. She frowned at the multicolored donkey. “Won’t he be ruined if you smash him open?”

“That’s the general idea. His insides are filled with candies and small prizes. When he breaks open, all the kids scramble for the gifts.”

“How do you open him?” questioned Nadia.

“You blindfold a child, give him a big stick, spin him around in a couple of circles to make him dizzy, and then let him try to smash the donkey.” Owen patted the donkey on top of its head. “If the first kid fails to split him open after a couple of tries, you blindfold the next kid. You keep going until someone eventually breaks him open. Then it’s a free-for-all on the goodies.”

Nadia bit her lower lip. “He would be ruined.”

“That’s the idea, Nadia.” Owen glanced between the donkey and her worried expression. “He’s only made out of paper and some gluey stuff. When all the candy is out of him, he’s toast.”

“Breakfast?” asked a horrified-looking Sofia.

“No, Sofia, he means the donkey will be trash. ‘Toast’ is also slang for ‘garbage.’” Nadia looked up at Owen. “Why would anyone want to smash a perfectly good donkey?” She ran her hand over the lumpy animals back and smiled. Chunks of red, blue, yellow, and purple paper tickled her fingers.

Owen shrugged his shoulders and frowned at the donkey. “That’s the fun of it.” He glanced at two of Nadia’s uncles, who were making their way toward the porch. He couldn’t tell by their expressions if he was about to become fish bait or be welcomed. His muscles tensed ready for action as they stepped onto the wooden porch.

Rupa and Yurik took off their hats and grinned at Owen. “Welcome, friend.” Both men held out their hands.

Owen cautiously shook the first man’s hand and glanced questioningly at Nadia. Someone had done some heavy-duty lecturing on American hospitality during the past two days.

“Hello, I am Rupa Kandratavich, and this is my wife, Sofia.” He nodded at the woman on the porch. “Welcome to our home, Mr. Prescott.”

“Thank you. Please call me Owen.” He released Rupa’s hand and shook the huge hand of the man who looked like he could wrestle Godzilla and win.

“I am Yurik Kandratavich, and I also have a wife and many fine sons and daughters. Welcome to our home.” He extended his hand.

Owen glanced at their clasped hands. This was not the gentle fist he remembered from Thursday. Was Yurik’s wife one of the women he had accused of swindling his aunt Verna? “How do you do, Yurik?”

“I do well.” Yurik beamed with pride at his mastery of the English language and shook Owen’s hand vigorously.

Owen withdrew his hand from Yurik’s overzealous handshake. “I can see that you do.” He absently flexed his aching fingers. “I brought a gift for all the children to enjoy.”

Both men glanced down at the gaudy donkey, nodded, and smiled pleasantly. “Thank you very much,” said Rupa.

“They will get many hours of viewing pleasure from it,” added Yurik.

Nadia chuckled at Owen’s confused expression and decided to help him out. “It’s a pinata, uncles. We need a place we can hang it from with plenty of room underneath.”

“Will the tree by the barn do?” questioned Rupa.

Owen glanced at the huge oak tree and grimaced.

Did the Kandratavich brothers have a thing for hanging things from oak trees? But he replied, “It’s perfect.” He bent to pick up the heavy beast of burden.

Yurik saw the muscles strain across Owen’s back and took the pinata from him.

Owen watched in astonishment as Yurik walked across the yard as if he were carrying a child’s toy. He chuckled softly and said, “I know someone who eats his Wheaties for breakfast.”

“Yes,” said Sofia as she stepped off the porch to follow Yurik and her husband, “Along with orange juice, coffee, and garbage.”

Nadia hid her laughter behind her hand and glanced at Owen from beneath lowered lashes. “I think she means toast.” She lightly vaulted down the steps and looked back over her shoulder at Owen. “Are you coming?”

At the sound of her voice Owen slid his gaze away from the sweet curve of her denim-clad bottom and up until he encountered her laughing dark eyes. His fantasies hadn’t done her justice. Nadia was even more irresistible than he had remembered. “I’m right behind you.”

Owen felt Nadia shudder with each crack of the stick. So far only the smallest of the children had a whack at cracking the donkey, and to no avail. The older children were circled around the swinging pinata, well out of harm’s way, ready to pounce in case a five-year-old boy named Zolly managed to succeed. Mothers were shouting encouragement, and fathers were placing bets on which child would smash the donkey open. Every member of the Kandratavich family had come to Sofia’s summons, rung on an old metal triangle dangling by the side of the barn. Owen had seen towns with fewer people than the Kandratavich Ranch. He leaned closer to Nadia and half-teasingly whispered, “Are you sure everyone is here?”

She glanced around at the smiling faces of her family. Everyone appeared totally captivated with Owen’s gift. “Of course everyone’s here. Did you think we would start without someone?”

“No,” chuckled Owen, “I was just wondering how you can tell.” He moved closer and tried to place the scent of her shampoo. Whatever it was, it was driving him crazy. He wanted to snap the rubber band holding the end of the braid together, run his fingers through the thick mass of silk, and bury his face in the heavenly softness until he could place that elusive scent.

She smiled as a little dark-haired girl was given her turn. “They’re family. When you grow up surrounded by them, you can tell when someone is missing.”

“Never lost a child?” Owen grimaced as the little girl swinging the stick connected with Yurik instead of the donkey. The big man laughed and swung the squealing girl up into his arms. A dark-eyed boy with a determined look took her place under the blindfold.

“Only Mikol, my brother, but he never counted.”

She nodded her head toward a young man in his mid-twenties who was dressed in a pair of jeans and a white T-shirt.

“Why didn’t he count?”

“Mikol could never be found. At first we thought he was playing with us when he used to disappear—you know, the kid’s game peekaboo.”

“You mean hide-and-seek.” Another boy, slightly older than the last one, got his turn. Owen knew it wouldn’t be long now before the pinata was smashed.

“Yes, that’s the one.” Nadia glanced at her brother with sadness and love. “He has the true heart of a Gypsy.”

Owen glanced around in confusion at the smiling faces of her family. “I thought you are all of Gypsy descent?”

“We are,” said Nadia proudly, “but Mikol wanders. When he was a little boy, he wandered away from the camp all the time. By the time he was fifteen, he had run away from home more times than we could count. When he turned sixteen, he headed out on his own for good. He only rejoined the family to make America his home.”

“Couldn’t your parents stop him?”

“It would be like trying to stop the wind. Mikol is who he is. We are each different from one another, and we must accept our individual fate.”

Owen could feel the excitement surrounding the game increase. The cheering and shouting were growing louder. The older boys were now getting their turns at the donkey. He ignored the furor and concentrated on the sadness lurking in Nadia’s dark eyes. His fingers reached out and gently brushed back a dark stream of her hair blowing lightly in the summer breeze. It was softer than he had imagined. His voice was barely a whisper as he asked faintly, “What are you made of, Nadia?”

“Music, responsibilities”—liquid darkness shimmered in the depths of her eyes as she gazed up at Owen—“and badness.”

His eyes opened fractionally in surprise as total pandemonium broke out. Someone had finally succeeded in breaking open the pinata. Brightly colored plastic-wrapped candies and small, inexpensive children’s toys flew in every direction from the wildly swinging donkey. The adults cheered as the kids dived for the goodies. Badness! Nadia had said she was made up of badness. What in the hell did that mean?

Nadia bent down and picked up a couple pieces of candy and a plastic-beaded necklace and handed them to her three-year-old cousin, who was having trouble getting around some of the older kids. “Here you go, sweetie.” She pointed to some candy that had landed farther out, which none of the other children had seen. The little girl grinned and toddled off. Nadia slowly stood back up and faced Owen.

He had followed her every motion with the child. If there was an ounce of badness in Nadia, he was Jack the Ripper. A smile teased the outside corner of his mouth. “That was a heartless thing to do, Nadia.”

He forced the smile down. “Helping a poor innocent child get some candy. Shame on you.”

“I didn’t say I was heartless.”

“Just bad, right?”

A touch of red darkened her face. “Right.”

Owen couldn’t help himself. He burst out laughing. “You couldn’t be bad if someone drew you a diagram and showed you how.” He admitted that he really didn’t know Nadia very well, but his instincts had never failed him yet. Nadia looked three-fourths angel, one-fourth temptress.

“You have no idea what you are talking about.” She quickly turned away, only to bump directly into her father.

Milosh steadied his daughter and grinned at Owen. “Hello, my new friend named Owen.”

Owen smiled and forced his gaze away from the lovely black-and-blue eye Milosh was sporting. A shiner he had given the man. “Hello, my new friend named Milosh.”

Milosh slapped him on the back. “You stay for dinner. We have much food.”

His smile turned into a full-blown grin as he saw Nadia stiffen. He had won over her family with the pinata, but for some reason she was trying to scare him away with a ridiculous story about badness. Hadn’t she realized that instead of scaring him she had made him more curious? His gaze locked directly with Nadia’s. “I will be honored to join you and the rest of the family, Milosh.”

Nadia glanced from beneath lowered lashes at the man silently walking beside her in the growing dusk. Owen was a paradox. He was a man of great wealth, obviously used to eating from tables draped in fine linen tablecloths and sporting expensive china and matching silverware. Yet tonight he had sat at a rough wooden table on crude wooden benches and fit right in with the rest of her family. He had cleared his plate twice, much to the delight of her mother and aunts, and had complimented them outrageously. Owen Prescott couldn’t have better won over her family if the heavens had opened up and deposited him smack in the middle of their camp.

She had expected him to be offended by the sight of the Kandratavich camp. Material possessions never dominated a Gypsy’s life. Her family enjoyed the freedom of their old life and saw no reason to change when they started over in America. Nadia had spent a small fortune to have the family’s four vardos shipped across the Atlantic and freighted to North Carolina. The brightly painted horse-drawn wagons now stood under giant oaks in a picturesque valley on the ranch. They were the center of the camp. She had also persuaded her family to allow her to purchase two secondhand mobile homes that provided them with heat, running water, and bathrooms. Life in the Kandratavich camp would be considered hard, if not primitive, by most people’s standards, but her family felt they were living in the lap of luxury.

“You’re awfully quiet,” said Owen. The fading light was making it difficult to see, but he could feel the tension radiating from her.