Her Russian Beast: 50 Loving States, New Mexico (18 page)

“
W
HY didn’t
you tell me?!?!” Willa screeched as she gathered Thel in a hug, practically smothering Eve, her nearly one-year-old baby girl, between them.

“I would have mentioned it,” their mother answered Willa airily as she, too, came out of the house. “But I thought it would make a better plot point if you were surprised.

“Is this why you flew us all out here for Christmas?” Sawyer asked, walking straight up to Bair.

“Congratulations, man.”

“Thank you…man,” Bair answered, looking like he didn’t quite know what to do when Sawyer pulled him in for a bro hug.

Thel’s eyes widened. So this was what he’d meant by this being a gift not a threat. He’d not only brought her to meet his family. He’d brought hers to meet his.

Her eyes connected with Bair’s as each of her family members gathered around her to give him a hug. And she had to wonder why he’d gone through the trouble to do this for her. What was his endgame in all of this? Because she knew he had to have one.

“Thank you,” she said to him nonetheless after all the hugging was done. “Bringing my family here is an amazing Christmas gift.”

His shoulders lowered with relief. “Good, you see it was gift. You know that I didn’t…”

“Yeah, I do,” she answered with a careful tilt of her head. “But I’m wondering about the why of all of this. Why you want me to know your family and why you suddenly want to know mine.”

He opened his mouth to answer, but before he could, Alexei the Awful came out of the house, filling up the front porch with his obnoxiously huge presence.

“Welcome to Rustanov Acres, Boris and Sirena,” he said, spreading his arms expansively. “I will show you around the original house, which used to be our own home before the rest of the compound was finished.”

Thel had to wonder if Alexei had actually lived in this guest house long, because it was nothing like the cold modern apartment he’d bought for her and Bair in Berlin. To Thel, walking through the door of his old home felt like stepping into a 70s painting, with colorful retro furniture filling each room. In fact the only thing that wasn’t brightly colored in the open plan downstairs was the upright piano tucked against the wall.

“You and Boris will have our old bedroom,” Alexei said, escorting them into a large bright room with a huge bed and a hanging retro bubble chair.

“Cute chair,” she couldn’t help but say, liking Alexei’s house, if not the man himself.

“
Da
, it is,” Alexei agreed, but then he cast his eyes down to her stomach. “Just in case you are as stubborn as my Eva, it goes without saying you are not allowed in chair,
da
?”

She was too busy nervously eyeing the large bed in the middle of the room to take too much offense at his patronizing directive. “Actually maybe I could sleep on that couch in the study you showed us downstairs. Bair and I aren’t exactly…”

“I will sleep on the couch. You can have room,” Bair said.

“But—”

“How is Ivan,” Bair asked Alexei before she could finish her protest.

“Not so good,” Alexei answered, his face becoming grim as he guided them back down the stairs to the open front room that made up the majority of the downstairs area. “He is in other guest house, even though we have invited him to stay with us. He is very angry. He wants to…”

Alexei started speaking in rapid Russian. Only to suddenly cut himself off. “Look at me. It is rude to speak Russian in front of someone who does not understand our language.” A knowing smile lifted his lips. “My wife would be yelling at me about good Texas manners if she had overheard. I apologize, Sirena.”

Thel could only lift her eyebrows. What the hell? The Alexei she remembered only spoke to Bair in English if he had something really insulting to say about her and wanted to make sure she understood.

And who was this wife of his anyway? This Eva who’d not only gotten Alexei to marry her, but also act like he had some damn manners where others were concerned. Maybe she was a dominatrix? A hypnotist? Possibly someone who’d been an army general in a past life? In any case, she had to wonder what kind of harridan would prove a match for Alexei Rustanov—

“Siiiiiistahhhhh!” sang an off-key but super enthusiastic voice behind her, interrupting her musings.

Thel turned and very nearly dropped dead of shock when she found a pregnant black woman waddling toward her screeching “Miss Celie’s Blues (Sister)” from the movie version of
The Color Purple
at the top of her lungs.

If not for the two mixed-raced children trailing behind her, Thel might have asked the poor woman if maybe she needed a ride back to the local psych ward. But the tall boy standing beside her with an embarrassed grimace looked so much like Alexei, the Russian might as well have spit him out. And the little girl ran across the room screaming “Daddy! Daddy!” straight into Alexei’s arms.

Alexei the Awful scooped the little girl up just as her mother finished the verse with a warbling “Yoooooou!!!”

“Oh my gosh! Look at us!” she cried, taking Thel by the hands. “And Nikki’s wife, Sam, is pregnant again, too? Girl, we are going to have all these Rustanovs waiting on us hand and foot this Christmas! But look at me, where are my manners? My name is Eva. I’m the mayor of this fine town, and Alexei’s wife, which I’m hearing means we’re sister-in-laws now. But even if I’m just now finding out about your existence from my brother-in-law who never once—I tell you not even once— came to visit us here in Texas...”

She threw Bair an angry glare before turning back to Thel with a dazzling smile.

“…I am so happy to meet you, Sirena! I just wish I could give you a big ol’ Texas hug, but you know what, girl? I really don’t think we could manage it with these two big ol’ Rustanov babies we’re carrying. That’s why I sang the song instead. Word of advice, schedule the C-section now. Sam’s the only one over thirty I know who’s managed to squeeze one of these suckers out of her hoo-hah, and I’m pretty sure that’s only because she and Pavvy do yoga every single day. Did anybody show you to your room yet?”

“Of course I did this,
koteh
,” Alexei answered proudly.

But Thel was too busy looking between her and Alexei to nod. “I don’t understand,” she said to Eva quite frankly. “Is he holding you hostage? Blackmailing you?”

Eva tilted her head in confusion, but then burst out laughing. “Oh, you are funny! Boris, I never pegged you as somebody who’d choose a funny girl!”

“I’m not funny,” Thel assured Eva. “I’m seriously asking…” She lowered her voice to whisper, “Do you need help getting out of here with your children? Because I will figure out a way to save you!”

Now Eva threw Alexei a disapproving look. “Lexie…what’s this all about? What did you do to piss her off so bad she thinks I need saving from you?”

“She met me in the between years after you,” Alexei answered soberly. “As you know, I was not so nice for a time.”

“Well, that’s all over now,” Eva assured her, like the true bastard Alexei used to be was just water under the bridge. “Believe me when I tell you Lexie is the best husband a girl could ever wish for, even if his babies are overly big.”

“Ah…” Thel started.

Before she could contradict that declaration, Eva grabbed her by the arm and started leading her to the door. “Now, you and me are going to go over to my house and talk and talk and talk. And before you know it, we’ll be best friends. I can already tell.”

“That’s true,” her mother said from the couch in the front room, where she’d already settled down with a book. Probably stolen from the house’s library.

Thel looked over her shoulder helplessly at Bair as Eva dragged her away, but he remained where he was, as if he was making a concerted effort to let her leave and not follow.

And no, Thel didn’t regret leaving her knife in the car, but for as much talking as they done on the way over here, she still didn’t understand. Why had he brought her here, and how did he expect this whole combined family holiday thing to end?

T
HE rest
of the night and the next day passed in a surreal flurry. The Twins arrived early in the morning the day before Christmas with their parents, adopted brother, and little sister. While their black mother, Tasha, talked on and on about how much she’d enjoyed Sirena’s performance in The Twins’ magnum opus, her mostly silent husband, Suro, continuously scanned the house, as if doing further security checks. Because the whole slew of security out front obviously wasn’t enough for this guy. Meanwhile, The Twins announced they would also have to stay in the guesthouse because Alexei’s house didn’t have a piano, and according to Kenji, “Sparkle and I cannot stay in a house without a piano for a whole week. We don’t have enough emotional training to survive that.”

So things had to be rearranged. With Trevor happily rooming with Alexei’s son, Aaron, who her nephew had already decided—in that completely serious way kids have—was a superhero because he had all three versions of Viking Shifters, and was in the sixth grade. Plus, there was a skylight in his bedroom.

Her mother also had to move to the big house so Kenji and Sparkle could have separate rooms, which brought on a lot of grousing. “It’s so new, there aren’t any spirits to commune with over there,” Marilyn complained.

Thel, however, sent up a silent prayer of thank you for the lack of spirits, as a grumbling Marian and Sawyer went over to the main house with her things. So far, Marian had only gotten a few strange looks from Bair and his family. Maybe they’d make it through the entire holiday without everyone finding out the extent of her crazy.

“Yeah, right,” Willa snorted when Thel spoke her thoughts aloud. “If we make it to Christmas morning without her telling somebody what their dead ancestors said about them, it will be a Christmas miracle.”

The last of Bair’s family arrived later in the afternoon. Nikolai, the Russian cousin, who lived in Indiana and owned a hockey team, and his very pregnant black wife, Sam, who’d apparently met Nikolai when she tried to take in his dead brother’s half-black son.

“
Very
dramatic story,” Marian said behind her hand to Thel after the new arrivals departed to put their gifts under the massive Christmas tree in the compound’s main house. “Almost as dramatic as you and your Beast.”

“Not that I’m one to talk, but are
all
Alexei’s friends and family married to black women?” Willa whisper-asked when Thel and Marian came to hang out with her in the guest bedroom she was sharing with Sawyer. Sawyer had wandered over to the main house with a vague plan to play
Viking Shifters
with the boys, since none of the other male guests seemed all that interested in watching anything other than hockey on TV. Willa had stayed behind. Ostensibly to breastfeed little Eve, but now Thel was wondering if she’d really meant “gossip” when she’d invited Thel and Marian to “keep her company” while she did so.

Breastfeeding wouldn’t be something Thel could ever do after her double mastectomy, and she watched Willa nurse her youngest child with a wistful heart. But that thought only made her look even more forward to holding the baby growing inside her. In all ways this daughter felt like nothing less than a miracle to her, even if Thel still didn’t know where things would end up with her father. The one who’d been holed up in the study all day and still hadn’t told her exactly why he’d orchestrated this combined family Christmas.

“No, not all of them,” Marian answered Willa. “That cousin Ivan of theirs is still single, though his playboy days are certainly over.”

She threw Thel a sly look over the Lumida Ulitskaya novel she’d borrowed from Alexei’s library at the main house. “They call your Bair a beast, but that cousin of his—well, let’s just say he’s certainly a
brute
. I, for one, can’t wait for the big dinner tonight.”

Ignoring yet another one of their mother’s purposefully cryptic allusions, Willa asked Thel, “So are you going to ask him why the Rustanovs are so down with the sisters?”

Before she could answer, a knock sounded on the door.

“It’s for you, oldest daughter,” Marian said. She put a bookmark in her Russian novel, but made no move to get up to answer the door herself.

“Sure, I’ll get it, Mama. It’s not like I’m pregnant or anything,” Thel said with a roll of her eyes as she heaved herself out of her chair.

“It wouldn’t be as fun if I answered the door,” Marian answered, as if that much were obvious.

“Bair!” Thel said when she opened the door to find him on the other side, , dressed in a black suit with a red v-neck tee straining across his wide chest and biceps.

Maybe it was because she hadn’t seen him all day, but he looked very, very good.
He smelled good, too,
Thel thought, fighting the urge to openly sniff his cologne. It was the same Tom Ford scent he always wore, but somehow he smelled even better than usual to her. Could it be the pregnancy?

Whatever it was, Thel, who hadn’t had sex in months, found she had to clear her throat before she could ask, “What are you doing here?”

“He’s here to walk you to dinner,” Marian answered from the guest chair. “He’s trying to be more romantic so you won’t hate him so much anymore.”

“I don’t hate him,” Thel said to her mother over her shoulder. Then she turned back to Bair to say, “I know with the knife and that last big argument, it probably seems like I do…did…but I don’t. I don’t hate you.”

Bair gave her an inscrutable look and then carefully answered, “I don’t hate you either.”

“Good,” she said.

“Good,” he repeated, neck bent as he stared down at her.

And she stared up at him.

And they got lost staring at each other.

“Would you like to walk over with me?” he eventually asked.

Thel looked over her shoulder at her sister who was still breastfeeding her daughter. “Do you mind waiting until Willa gets done?”

“Oh, don’t wait for me,” Willa said. “I’ll walk over with Mom after we’re done here.” She shot a meaningful glance at her Marian. “That means sit down, Mama.”

Marian, who was already halfway out of her seat with her book tucked under her arm, glared at her daughter.

“You never let me have any fun,” she whined. But she plopped herself back down, grumbling, “Well, at least I have that big scene at dinner to look forward to.”

“Okay, c’mon,” Thel said to Bair, before her mother could drop any more Delphic red herrings into what was already promising to be a weird evening.

“
S
o I guess
this is when I ask what all of this is about,” she said as they walked over to the main house together.

“I have told you it is about your family meeting me and you getting to know the some of my family.”

“Yeah, and the rest of your family outside of Alexei has pretty great so far. But it feels like you’re so busy bringing our families together, we haven’t had the chance to talk much about the baby.”

He frowned sideways at her. “As I said before. I do not have the English to talk about this subject.”

She sucked on her teeth. “Well, you’re going to have to get the English. Because we’ve only got two more days before we’re supposed to be meeting with this mediator, and you’ve got me down here in Texas, showing off this belly and wearing your ring. I can’t figure out if you’re trying to butter me up for something, or set me up so I don’t see some nasty curveball you plan to throw my way.”

Another heavy frown. “I do not like how you think of me. How you speak of me like I am beast who hurts women and babies. During this holiday. I want…” He stopped, seeming to struggle to find the right words. “I want you to try to think of me different way. As man who can give you and this baby what is needed. I want you to see me as different from my father. I want you to see I will not let you down anymore. If you stay with me, it will not be like it was in Germany. I am different now. I am trying. For you. I am trying. For you I will try my hardest.”

She could only stare at him for a few moments. Beyond shocked. It sounded like…

“You want us to be a family? You, me, and our daughter?”

He let out a shuddering breath. “Yes. That is what I am trying for. With you, I feel better. You feel like home to me. Not like my home in Russia, but like home I always wish I had. I do not want to lose that again, so I am doing what it takes to make this work. I hope you can see that.”

She could see that, and she had to admit she liked the sound of what he was proposing. Of him trying with her, like he tried in New Mexico. And she understood what he meant about home. He felt like home to her, too. And he honestly seemed better now. Still intense and dark, but way more in control of it.

“Think about what I am proposing for our future today and tomorrow. That is all I am asking,” he said.

“Okay,” she said quietly. “I’ll think about it.”

She wished she could just say yes. Wished that the odd Solange song chewing on her chest would give over to something happier as opposed to making her want to demand,
“Tell me the truth, boy…”

But it was still there, ominous as a rain cloud. To the point that she had to switch to a lighter topic to keep from singing the words inside her chest.

“Willa thinks Alexei only lets men who’ve married black women into his inner circle,” she said with a teasing smile. “Is that why you’re suddenly so interested in trying out this family life with me?”

She chuckled as she said this, but not so much as a ghost of a smile crossed Bair’s face.

No,” he answered after a long, stiff while. “I can tell you it is a coincidence. Most of the men in our family who live in Russia are married to Russian women.”

However, his eyes then lit up with a little bit of amusement. “But maybe you are right about the men who are here for this Christmas celebration. We do seem to have like of difficult black American women.”

She lifted her eyebrows at him. “Okay, difficult? I’ve never met a group of women as nice as Eva, Sam, and Tasha. They have me down here thinking I’m not volunteering nearly as much as I need to be. And Tasha’s so friendly, I can’t even imagine her ever giving that super quiet husband of hers a hard time.”

Bair grunted and said, “Tell this to Suro, Nikolai, and Alexei. It will give them big laugh.”