Smoke Signals (13 page)

Tori had on one of my Thunderbirds T-shirts, long legs stretching out from the hem that ended mid-thigh, and her dark hair was still sleek and wet from the shower. She held a towel in one hand, clutching it to her chest as she had so often clung to her purse.

“You said I’d get green card. You said marry you, and I won’t go back to Russia.” The fear and pain in her voice was going to kill me.

“Tori—”

“No. You said—”

“I know what I said.” Fuck, I just wanted to reach for her, wrap her up in my arms, and hold her until she listened. That wasn’t an option. Not with Tori. The instant she sensed I wanted to touch her, she would retreat. I was going to have to do this with words—not good, since words tended to land me in trouble. “I’ve got my agent working on it. He’s going to figure it out.”

“They want me go to Russia. Don’t they? No more visa. Now no green card. Have to go back.” Tears filled her eyes, on the verge of spilling over. She took a step back even though I hadn’t made a move toward her. “Marrying you, it’s not enough. Is it?”

I didn’t know what to say, but I sure as hell wasn’t going to lie to her. “There might be some problems I didn’t know about. My agent is looking into it.”

“What problems?”

“Apparently, you can’t marry for the sole purpose of obtaining a green card.”

“What… What does it mean?”

I shook my head, letting out a sigh. “I wish I knew.”

The doorbell rang. Bad timing. Really fucking bad timing.

“That’s probably Tallie,” I said, my jaw grinding over the words. “You should go put some clothes on. She’s probably going to run you ragged with shopping.”

The tears finally won out, racing down her cheeks. “But…”

I smiled, trying to ease her worries, even though I knew it wasn’t close to enough. “Go on. There’s nothing we can do until my agent calls me back, anyway. No point in changing our plans or acting like anything’s wrong. For all we know, we’ll be able to make this all work out the way we initially planned.”

Tori pursed her lips and dried her tears with the towel. I pushed away from the fridge and headed for the door. Before I opened it, I turned to see Tori scurrying down the hall. Too bad I couldn’t tell from her body language if she was hurrying away to get dressed, like I’d suggested, or if she just wanted to hide.

After she was gone, I realized I should have filled her in about the potential for immigration officials to question people in our lives, so we were going to have to put on a hell of a show around everyone we came into contact with. That had to start now. It had to start with convincing Tallie. I needed to get that across to her before she left, but without letting Tallie in on the ruse.

Tori and I might both be speaking English, but I felt as if we were constantly on different pages. I’d give my left nut to really understand her. Something told me I might have to do it, too.

I WAS STILL
trying to tug my skirt down, subconsciously glancing at Tallie to gauge her reaction to my clothes, when Razor drew me into his arms and kissed me in a way that stole my breath. It was sweet and tender, his lips gliding softly over mine. My knees almost buckled beneath me, and I had to cling to his shirt to prevent myself from going down.

What game was he playing? I’d just found out that everything he’d told me about being safe after we married was a lie—whether intentional or not—and now he wanted to kiss me like no man had ever done before? I allowed his sensual assault, because even if I couldn’t get a green card through marrying him, he was at least buying me some time before deportation. And frankly, I owed him for that in a big way, and the only means I had of returning the favor was through the use of my body. He hadn’t tried to get me to pay up since we’d come back from Las Vegas. In fact, he’d rejected all my efforts to level things out between us. Until now. Maybe now, we could begin to even the score.

One of his hands lay firm against the small of my back, arching me toward him. The other rested against my cheek, a caress so tender it might crush me. With gentle pressure, he tilted my head to the side and moved his lips toward my ear.

“You have to make Tallie think we got married because we love each other,” he whispered, the words so quiet I could barely make them out. “Understand? If there’s an investigation, they’ll question people we know. No one can think we did it just to get you a green card.”

This was getting worse and worse. I nodded my understanding. After another brief kiss, Razor backed away from me. He reached in his wallet and took out a credit card, passing it over to me. I tucked it in a zippered pocket of my purse where it would be safe. When I looked up again, Razor winked at me.

“Y’all are just too cute together,” Tallie gushed, bouncing up on her toes.

“You know how it is,” Razor said. “You meet someone and you just know. Like with you and Hunter.”

Tallie nodded. “You know, sometimes I think it’s better when you jump in without looking. No time for second-guessing. No questioning if you should or you shouldn’t. You just do it, and then find a way to make it work. That’s not to say it’s easy, but I think it’s worth it in the end.”

Razor chuckled. “What’s Hunter up to today while you two have girl time?”

“Putting together the nursery with his brother. He and Kade said it was the perfect time to deal with painting and constructing the crib and all—because I’ll be out of their hair for hours.”

“Hours?” I repeated, trying not to cringe.

Tallie gave me a you-can’t-be-serious look. “Of course! Oh, I made an appointment for us to get manis and pedis this afternoon, too. I hope you don’t mind. But if we’re going to shop the way I haven’t done in months, my feet are gonna need it.”

I shot a look in Razor’s direction, pleading with my eyes. “You could come with?”

“Oh, that’d be perfect!” Tallie said. “You could carry all our bags, and—”

“I can’t,” Razor interrupted. He gave me an apologetic shrug. “There are a few things I need to take care of while you’re gone. Besides, I’m sure you two could both use a little girl time.”

I didn’t want girl time. Being around Tallie for too long was sure to leave me feeling overwhelmed, and I was stressed enough as it was. Everything was shifting all around me, and my feet couldn’t find solid purchase.

But Tallie said, “Aw, that’s too bad. But we’d probably drive you up the wall in no time anyway.” She pouted a bit, but she hooked her arm through mine and tugged.

I trudged beside her, glancing over my shoulder at Razor for reassurance. He gave me a smile, but it didn’t do much to ease the panic that had a death-grip on my heart. All I wanted was to go home. But where was that? I wasn’t sure I knew anymore. For now, I supposed it was here, at Razor’s house. But for how long?

I got into Tallie’s car with the utter certainty that sooner, rather than later, I would be deported turning my stomach to stone. Because I knew exactly what awaited me when I returned to Russia. And it was worse than all that I’d been through since I’d left.

“OH MY GOD
, that’s so good.” Tallie’s words came out in a half moan, half sigh. She leaned back in the pedicure chair with her feet in the bubbling water, letting her head fall back in pure bliss. She peeked at me through a single slitted eye. “Don’t get me wrong. I love shopping like nobody’s business, and I am tickled pink with all the adorable stuff we got you, but I needed this. My feet are killing me.”

I was still in awe of her shopping prowess. We’d been gone for six hours. In that time, we’d been to two malls and a shopping strip, bought clothing and shoes from at least eight separate stores—I’d honestly lost count—spent more money than I could have made in a month of porn shoots, eaten lunch at an expensive restaurant, and now we were getting manicures and pedicures together.

I took off my shoes, hoping to get my feet in the water as quickly as possible. As a ballerina, I was always self-conscious about my feet. All those years in pointe shoes had left so many calluses and cuts that my feet were nothing short of hideous to look at.

“You’re a dancer?” Tallie said, her eyes popping open wide as she struggled to sit upright.

Embarrassed, I dunked my feet into the water before I’d properly rolled up the hem of my new jeans, drenching them. I’d worn them and some of my other new clothes out of the store because I didn’t want Tallie to feel embarrassed about being seen with me. When I’d left school with the intention of becoming a prostitute, I’d sold all of my
normal
clothes to a resale shop. I knew I’d need every penny I could get, and my new profession had certain wardrobe requirements that they just wouldn’t suit.

“You have to be,” Tallie said. “One of my girlfriends—a sorority sister—she had feet that looked just like yours. Ballet? I would have loved to take ballet. Mama pushed me into jazz. Said it was better for the pageant world.” She rolled her eyes.

“I’m ballerina,” I forced out as two women rolled over on tiny stools and started working on us.

“Why didn’t you say something? Do you still dance? Even if you haven’t in a while, you should take it up again. It’ll give you something to do while Razor’s busy. There’s a lot of time to fill when the guys go on the road. We should go get you what you need for that before I take you home. Some of the other guys and their families will start coming back to Tulsa soon, too, so I can introduce you around. Granted, some of them, you’re better off not knowing at all, but I’ll be sure to point them out to you. Oh, do you like frozen yogurt? There’s this place we can stop by on our way home, and I’ve been having these serious cravings, but Hunter’s trying to keep in shape for the season so I don’t like having it around the house to tempt him…”

She kept prattling, apparently content for me to occasionally nod or make a humming sound. I didn’t pay much attention. My mind was going a hundred miles an hour, trying to figure out how much time my marriage to Razor might buy me before the immigration people wanted to send me back to Russia. And then there were all the implications involved with trying to fool people into believing that we married for love. Not only would we have to get to know each other well enough to put on a convincing show, but we would have to display the same kinds of physical intimacy that Tallie and Hunter did. I’d watched them during the wedding reception. They truly belonged together, and it was clear from more than just the way they’d teased each other, more than their playful banter. They’d touched often, in small, seemingly inconsequential ways. He’d kissed her on the cheek, on the forehead, on her knuckles. She’d rested her hand on his thigh. He’d draped an arm around the back of her chair. When her baby had kicked, she’d reached for his hand and pressed it to her belly. And through it all, it had seemed both natural and
wanted
on both their parts.

I wasn’t sure I could behave like that around Razor. He was already trying to do his part to pull off this scheme. The way he’d kissed me in the hall before Tallie and I left was proof enough of that.

But that small amount of contact had made everything inside me go haywire.

Sex, I could do. It might not be what I wanted. I might not enjoy it. It would likely even be painful. But it was what I knew. Sex was the way I communicated. Tender touches and loving kisses were not part of my vocabulary.

The women finished our pedicures and cleared all their supplies out of the way, leaving us in the chairs while our toenails dried.

Tallie wiggled her toes and grinned at me. “Do you think that coral shade is good on me? I worry that it’s too orange with my skin.”

I shook my head. “Not too orange. It’s good.” It was bright and vibrant, much like her personality.

“That grayish-blue is almost an exact match of your eyes,” she said. “Too bad it’s so far away from them. I bet Razor’ll like that.”

I let out a hum. The distance wouldn’t matter. I had no intention of letting anyone see my feet any more than absolutely necessary.

She waggled her brows at me, much like she’d done with her toes a moment before. “You don’t think he’ll notice? I’d bet he notices everything about you.”