Ekaterina (9 page)

“I don’t think we’ll have to go that far.” He strode over, picked up her backpack, and shoved it into her arms. “But, rules are rules.”

He bent down, grabbed her around the knees, and threw her over his shoulder.

-

Ilyitch stepped off the train and turned up his collar against the crisp Moscow wind. The train belched and smoke clogged the already polluted sky. Ilyitch lit a cigarette, then crossed the street where a shiny
Moscovitz
waited. He threw the bag in first, then climbed into the back seat.

The driver didn’t even turn around. Ilyitch let a smile tweak his cheek as he watched Moscow hustle by. Twelve hours in Pskov had turned his stomach raw. Wooden huts, sunken by time and the shifting earth, ringed the town like a barricade of slums. Only six hours by car from Moscow, the city—the grand Pskov where Czar Nikolai had abdicated the throne—made Ilyitch burn with shame. With her outhouses, central water pumps, and coal smoke spiraling from hovels built in the Lenin era, Pskov embodied the sudden halt of progress. Thankfully, Moscow had marched on. As had Ilyitch. Capitalism wasn’t just for the West. Wasn’t it Gorbachev who said, “Sell anything, sell it all!”?

He’d taken the old boss at his word.

The car ground to a halt, snared in traffic. Ilyitch considered hoofing it, but he didn’t need to ignite any suspicions. He sat back in the seat, cracked the window, and flicked out the cigarette. Spasonov would be boarding the train by now. By tonight, Ekaterina Moore would be back in the city. His city.

A city he’d just as gladly kiss good-bye as decrepit Pskov. No more drizzly Moscow days where the cold dug into his bones. No more traffic, no more press of crowds. No more apartments the size of an American bathroom.

He’d get the key. Get Grazovich’s hidden treasure. And get out of Russia.

-

Kat folded her hands across her chest and tried to figure out where her life had begun to unravel. Twenty-four hours earlier, she teetered on the edge of her past. Today she was drowning in confusion and fury. No thanks to her not-in-this-lifetime, former hero, who had her under virtual arrest on the commuter train. She crossed her arms over her chest and glared at him.

He had tilted his head back, his eyes all but closed, as if he were exhausted. Served him right. She was no lightweight and he didn’t have to carry her halfway back to the hotel or hold her hand like a flighty preschooler all the way to the train. She comprehended his meaning about two-point-three seconds after he picked her up like a sack of grain.

She was going home. Quest over. Door to the past slammed shut.

Tears burned her eyes and she gnawed her lower lip to keep it from trembling. She could claw his eyes out for stealing from her the only dream she ever had. A thousand descriptive words rose unbidden and she forced them back, deep inside, fighting instead to accept her future.
God, she moaned, don’t send me home without answers.

Fulfill the promise.
What did Timofea mean? The question made her cry aloud.

She clamped her hand over her mouth, horrified.

Captain Spasonov roused and looked at her.

She blinked back her tears and stared down at her new hiking boots, now scuffed and dirty, feeling mortified.

“I’m sorry, Kat. But you have to trust me.” He spoke quietly, an unwelcome balm on her razed emotions. “I’m only trying to keep you safe.”

“You can’t possibly know what you’re destroying.” Her own tone made the tears spill in a hot flow down her face.

To make it worse, he scooted over to face her, his knees bumping hers. He handed her a handkerchief, and when she refused it, he dabbed the tears from her cheeks himself. She flinched and pulled away.

Hurt flickered across his face, as if her feelings actually
meant
something to him. She wanted to slap him.

He sighed. “Tell me what is so important that you’d risk your life.”

“Is that what I’m doing?” She forced her chin to remain steady, and met his eyes.

They seemed genuinely concerned for her. “I believe Grazovich wants something from you. If he didn’t, he wouldn’t have spoken to you, or pressed his luck at customs, much less try to pass off as coincidence your reunion on the train.”

“I still can’t believe you think that nice professor is a terrorist.” She swallowed hard, seeing Spasonov’s face harden. Anger streaked through his expression. She winced. Then she remembered Taynov’s eyes. Old, battle-weary eyes.
Maybe
.

“It doesn’t matter what you believe. What matters is what I know. And I don’t want you hurt.”

His gentle words hit her in a soft place. Her heart lodged in her throat, and she struggled to speak. “You don’t?” she squeaked.

He smiled, and an unfamiliar tenderness gathered around his eyes. “Absolutely not.” Then he ran a finger down the side of her face and scooped up a tear.

The kind gesture made her freeze. He must have read her body language, for he immediately withdrew his hand. “Are you hungry?” He tried to hide his embarrassment, but she saw it creep into his face.

She sat up, wiped her eyes. “Maybe. Thank you, Captain.” Perhaps he wasn’t such a hard-hearted creep after all. He did have blue eyes that looked like the ocean at dusk, eyes that were deep and mysterious, hiding a multitude of secrets—maybe even treasures.

“Call me Vadeem.” He smiled, and seemed nearly boyish, charm and innocence wrapped together in a heartwarming package. “What you would like?”

She rubbed her arms, feeling goose bumps. “Maybe some M&M’s?”

He laughed. “For lunch? C’mon, Miss Moore. You need to eat better than that. I bet I can scrounge up some fruit juice from the food cart, maybe some peanuts.”

“M&M’s. Plain. I don’t do peanuts with my chocolate.

He smiled, her first glimpse into a true friendship, and shook his head. “You Americans. You don’t know how to eat right. You live on carbs and chocolate—”

“And soda, don’t forget that.” She only half-hated the fact she’d warmed to his teasing.

“America has turned Russia into a land of junk food.” He signaled to a woman pushing a cart down the aisle. “I need to teach you how to eat, I can see.” He pointed to two cartons of apple juice, a banana, and a bag of plain M&M’s. Kat reached for the bag, but he snatched it back, burying it in his lap while he paid the vendor.

“Not until you have some real food.” He opened the apple juice and handed it over. Kat made a face, but liked the way he waggled his eyebrows at her. She drank the liquid down.

“Now some potassium.” When he held out the banana, she snatched the M&M’s from his lap. He frowned.

“Gimme the banana. I’ll show you how Americans eat fruit.” She opened the bag of candy. Vadeem eyed her with suspicion as he handed over the fruit. Kat peeled the banana, then carefully put one M&M candy in the center. “Chocolate has protein, you know. It’s made from beans.” Then she bit off the banana, taking the candy with it.

Vadeem’s blue eyes widened. “That can’t taste good.”

“Try it.” She handed over the fruit, and the bag of candy.

Vadeem had strong hands, fingers that were clean. He tore off a piece of banana and made his own treat. She laughed at the grimace he made as he swallowed it down.

“Oh, it’s been putrated!” He gulped down a healthy swig of apple juice. “How do you stay all trim and leggy with this kind of diet?”

His compliment left her speechless.

His smile dimmed and he held up a hand. “No, don’t answer that.”

Kat wrinkled her nose at him, hoping to reclaim the light moment, desperately needing it after the last twenty-four hours. “I supplement with Diet Coke. It cancels out the calories due to fruit.”

His deep, melodic laughter filled the train, turning heads. Kat let it absorb her and soothe her fraying nerves.

“I’ve met a true junk-food junkie,” he said, shaking his head.

“What? Do I look like a potato chip?”

He studied her with a smirk and tease in his eyes. “Not in the least.”

Her heart thumped hard against her chest as his gaze held hers, reached out, and drew her in.

“I would never mistake you for a Pringle.”

Oh, her heart fell down to her knees. She forced herself to breathe, and found a smile. “No, just an M&M, huh?”

He shrugged. “Maybe. Hard and crusty on the outside, sweet on the inside?”

She fought another smile. The last thing she wanted to do was truly enjoy this man’s company. He stood between her and her past. . . and she had serious plans to ditch him the second they got off the train. She couldn’t afford to leave behind a piece of her heart—

What was she thinking? She‘d known the man for less than twenty-four hours.

It seemed like a decade.

Kat shifted on the hard bench seat, suddenly weary to her bones. The smell of diesel, churned up from the wheels and drifted through the open windows of the train. She sat facing the rear of the car, watching wooded scenery stretch out as they traveled east. The low sun sent streams through the windows, across the bench seats in shafts of golden-orange light.

Vadeem finished off his juice. “Done with that?” He gestured to her crumpled box. Kat nodded mutely and handed him the trash. He took both cartons in one hand and stood up, in search of the garbage can.

Kat took the chance and really looked at the man who had protected her from bullets, helped her dig for answers at the monastery, dragged her like a sack of potatoes to the train, and finally made her laugh. The wind ruffled his chocolate brown hair, which curled deliciously at the nape of his neck. He had good balance in the swaying train, his presence filled the compartment like someone who knew how to walk into a room, grasp the situation, and take immediate command. He tossed the juice cartons in the trash, turned, and started back. A five o’clock shadow had begun to accrue on his face, adding a hint of rogue to his already powerful aura. Dressed in a black leather jacket, a black shirt, and dark pants, he reminded her of a gangster, something out of an “Escape from New York“ movie. He sat down, his feet planted, his powerful hands on his knees, as if ready to pounce. She knew, from first hand experience, he could—and would—spring to action like a panther. The memory of his chest, rock hard and tense as he protected her from bullets, shuddered through her mind. He didn’t have the build of a man who spent off-hours at the gym, but of one who worked hard, his muscles lean and solid. She wondered what he did in his time off. Biked maybe, or even swam.

Captain Vadeem Spasonov emanated strength and confidence. He wore it in his stride, in his hands, in his eyes that didn’t back down despite her tears.

Then why had he nearly crumbled at the monastery? Something had turned him inside out, and left him ragged. Something roamed around his memory like a lion, waiting to devour.

Perhaps it already had.

She put out a hand and touched him on the knee. He startled. “Vadeem, what happened at the monastery? You looked like you’d seen a ghost.”

His eyes widened, and the raw look that entered his face swiped the breath clean out of her chest. “I. . .I can’t talk about it.” He drew in a deep breath and looked away. She could have sworn she heard a door slam. “I won’t.”

Oh, how she suddenly longed to do what he’d done to her—throw him over her shoulder and muscle him into telling her what he was running from. Instead, she sat back, took a breath, and settled into her role as an adoption coordinator. “So, where did you grow up?” She kept her voice light, not wanting him to know she was digging. She added a smile to her question, sweet and concerned.

He instantly relaxed. For the briefest moment, she wondered if his walls-up response had been her imagination. But she saw the way he played with his fists when he spoke, cracking the knuckles one by painful one. “There isn’t much to tell. My parents died when I was eight. I grew up in an orphanage.”

“Ouch,” she said, “I’m sorry.” She squirmed under the thought of him without someone who loved him, someone like her grandfather. How had he survived? She knew what loss was all about, had buried her own parents. But at least Grandfather Neumann never let her feel the full brunt of that pain. “How did they die?”

He looked away, his face taut.

Kat backpedaled, found a new course. “How did you get to be a police officer?”

He drew a deep breath, as if exorcising some nightmare, then he leaned forward, hands clasped, elbows across his knees, and looked up at her. “You’re pretty curious.”

“I want to know the man who risked his life for me.”

A definite blush crept into his face, and it made her smile. She didn’t soften the compliment any with a giggle, just let it sink into the budding relationship.

He looked away and she thought she’d lost him when he suddenly replied, “Actually I’m not a cop. I’m a part of a counter-terrorist unit in the Russian secret service, part of the FSB.”

She wanted to stop him there, wrap her brain around that information and the questions that rose like an inferno, but Vadeem continued, as if she met spies every day. “I guess it started when I went into the military—right after high school. Most kids from the orphanage don’t have the chance to go to college. But that was okay. I liked the military life. It wasn’t so different from what I’d grown up with.”