Making Promises (50 page)

As if reading his thoughts she said, “Well, I think I’m going to have to take myself off ‘standby’. Your ‘one-chance heart’ is obviously very well taken care of.”

Shane turned to her sheepishly and shrugged. “He’s pretty awesome,” he said earnestly, and then he remembered he was trying not to be too much of a psychopath and pulled his social adjustment out of his socks. “How are you doing? Did you bring anybody today?” She shook her head and rolled her eyes self-deprecatingly. “Nobody I cared about enough to want to see this,” she said softly. “It was beautiful, wasn’t it? Like a painting or a poem or something?”

“Or a song,” Shane said with some enthusiasm. “Something by Springsteen or Journey or Nickelback or something like that.” Instead of laughing—as nearly anyone but Mikhail would do—Judy nodded. “Yes—exactly. I like Death Cab For Cutie myself, and I could almost hear ‘Marching Bands of Manhattan’ in the background, you know?”

“I was hearing ‘Gypsy Biker’ myself,” Shane confessed, and Crick’s old art teacher made a thoughtful “oooh” with her mouth.

“Nice one—or maybe ‘Faithfully’, by Journey, you think?”

“Or that one they just did on that show with the high school kids…”

“
Glee
?” she interrupted, and Shane nodded, enjoying the conversation a lot. It was the kind of conversation he might have with Mikhail, without all of the sexual tension and the distraction of wanting to get Mickey into bed.

“We love that show!” Shane told her. “Mickey and I don’t miss it—

you just have to root for those kids, you know? They’re so damned lost.” Judy’s eyes grew sober. “Tell me about it,” she murmured, darting eyes at Crick, and Shane caught the mood shift as well, and he remembered a question he’d had with nobody to ask.

“Hey—if a kid runs away and finds a way to make a living and pay rent and everything, how can they get back in school? What are their options?”

“You know a kid like that?” she asked with some curiosity.

Shane shrugged. “Know several. I got them jobs, places to sleep, that sort of thing, but they need to finish school, move on, you know? They just don’t have anyone to help, and they’re afraid to go to the school system because that would mean going home, and most of them would rather live on the streets.” He thought about Carly, a waif of a girl that Making Promises

he’d set up at the animal shelter, living in the back room and cleaning up animal crap for a minimum wage. She loved it there—but wouldn’t she love it more in an apartment with an Animal Health Tech certificate under her belt?

Judy nodded and widened her eyes. “Wow—that’s a tall order.

Unless the kid’s in some sort of shelter, social services usually get involved. It’s a lot harder for a minor to be emancipated than people think—and of course, by the time they’re old enough to not worry about the system….”

“They’re too damned old for the free education,” Shane finished grimly, and they both sighed together.

“Now a shelter is a good idea,” Deacon muttered, coming up and surprising them. “Shane keeps bringing me muckrakers, and I don’t have anywhere to put them. We’ve already got Andrew sleeping on the couch, and we’re thinking about building a mother-in-law cottage in the back of the property just for him so the muckrakers can sleep in that stall. Hi, Ms.

Thompson. It was nice of you to come.’

Judy Thompson wrapped her arm around Deacon’s waist and gave him a one-armed hug. “It was nice of you to invite me, Deacon. You know, I was never
your
art teacher—you graduated the year before I got there. Why do you keep calling me ‘Ms. Thompson’?” Deacon blushed, and Judy caught Shane’s eyes and arched her eyebrows. The man could be so strong—and unbelievably self-effacing.

“That’s how Crick knows you,” Deacon mumbled, and Judy laughed and said something about Crick’s wedding present to Deacon. Shane had seen it, but he hadn’t signed the big picture that Crick had drawn featuring everybody’s favorite horse-breaker being all of the things they loved him for.

Shane saw that Deacon would never talk to the nice lady if he was there, so he excused himself to go sign the sketch. He stood there looking at the fine detail work—Deacon breaking horses, Deacon asleep on an outstretched arm, Deacon nose to nose with a horse who seemed to adore him, every small sketch centered around a portrait of Deacon that Crick had sketched when Deacon had been maybe eighteen. He’d been still scrawny with adolescence but still beautiful, too, and had all of the strength and the vulnerability that his family had come to treasure.

“It’s a beautiful picture,” Mickey said, coming up beside him, and Shane took the offered felt-tipped pen and signed his name in the margins, and then gave the pen to Mikhail. Mikhail looked surprised a little, and then made his rough—and embarrassed—scrawl next to Shane’s.

“You can see all of Crick’s love in it,” Shane said, feeling silly, but it was the truth, and he didn’t know what else to say. There was something restless in Mikhail, and suddenly, when there had never been any awkwardness between the two of them, there was an awkward moment now.

“Here, guys,” Amy said, showing them the two other documents they were there to sign. One was to witness the common law property sharing that Deacon and Crick were doing, and the other was to give Deacon partial custody of Parry Angel. The county had tried to take Parry away from the family while Crick had been in Iraq, and Benny was determined that nobody would ever tell Deacon that he wasn’t that baby’s family ever again.

Shane signed the next one, then gave the pen to Mickey, and then they repeated the process. Amy heard the silence between the two of them and raised her eyebrows at Shane, and he shrugged back. He had no idea.

She shrugged again and jerked her chin to the other side of the table, and she moved off to give them some privacy, baby cradled on her hip as she did her part as the other half of Levins and Levins, the law firm she shared with her husband.

“She cannot have you,” Mikhail mumbled, his voice barely audible over the murmur of the wedding guests and shushing of the wind through the oak trees overhead.

“I’m sorry?” Shane was honestly puzzled.

Mikhail shook his head and then grabbed Shane’s hands and hauled him around to the other side of Promise Rock, the side uncomfortably in the sun where they were completely alone in the unapologetic April brightness.

“She cannot have you,” Mikhail repeated. He was gazing resolutely up at Shane with a stubborn jaw and a furrowed brow and a terrible import in his blue-gray eyes, and Shane had no fucking idea what he was talking about.

“Oooookay,” he said, nodding to calm his lover down, “she can’t have me.”

“I know she’s better than I am, but she can’t have you.”

“She is
not
better than you are, and she still can’t have me.”

“I’m
serious
here, dammit!” And Mikhail’s eyes were suddenly swimming in tears. He’d barely cried at his mother’s funeral, had barely shed a tear at her death, and now he was in tears, and Shane was completely unhinged by it. He wrapped his arms around this strong, wiry little man that he loved more than he loved breathing and tried to calm down the trembling that had taken over his self-possessed body.

“I get that you’re serious,” he muttered. “I don’t know what you’re serious about, but believe me, Mickey, I’m totally not taking it lightly.”

“You don’t understand,” Mickey muttered against his chest.

“I really don’t.”

“I was going to give you back.”

“You were going to
what
?” And this was surprising enough to have Shane grabbing his arms and thrusting him out and away so Shane could look at his expression again and see if he was
really
serious about what it sounded like he was.

Mikhail nodded back, not the least bit penitent. “You were on loan, you see? Until you found somebody better. I kept thinking, ‘Maybe this person will be better. Or maybe this one.’ But none of them were good enough, so I got to keep you. And then I broke up and you still wanted me, and I thought there was
nobody
good enough for you, so maybe I would keep you by… by….” He struggled with the next word, and since his accent was thicker as his voice became more clogged, Shane could hardly think of which word he was going to say next.

“Default?” he suggested, helpful and appalled at the same time.

“Yes!” Mikhail nodded, then wiped his eyes on the shoulder of his lovely blue linen shirt. “I got to keep you by default. There was nobody good enough for you, so you could be mine, but….” Mikhail’s look was naked and miserable and defiant, and Shane couldn’t think of a single way to comfort him without shaking him and asking,
What in the hell were you
thinking?

“She cannot have you!” Mikhail snapped, irritated—probably at the fact that he was crying, because heaven knew it didn’t sit easily on him.

“She cannot. She is perfect. She is funny, and I heard your conversation and she likes what you do, and you both have good ideas for what you love best and she is even beautiful,” he sniffed, a little of his usual disdain coming through, “if you like that sort of thing, but she cannot have you.” His jaw clenched, and his look of determination squared up, and he became fierce and formidable, which was how Shane loved him, so that was okay.

“She cannot have you. You are mine. I don’t care how perfect she is for you. You weren’t watching her when you spoke, you were watching
me
, and you are
mine
.”

And with that he launched himself back into Shane’s arms, and all Shane could do was hold onto him bemusedly, and whisper, “Of course I’m yours. Of course I am. Did you think I wanted to be anybody else’s?

Jesus, Mikhail, you couldn’t ditch me if you tried.” Mikhail sniffed and gave that snitty little shrug that Shane adored, then pulled back his head to scowl up into Shane’s eyes. “I did try. It didn’t take. I’ve learned my lesson, and I will never try to lose you again.” Something in Shane’s heart settled, something realigned itself. This had been the thing holding Mickey back, this had been the thing Shane had doubted. Mikhail hadn’t believed it, not until this very moment, that Shane was his and his alone, and that he wouldn’t go anywhere—

apparently not even if Mickey offered Shane a pretty girl on a silver platter and asked Shane to take her.

They stood there in the April bright sun, just holding each other until the music started on the other side of the rock. Journey’s “Open Arms” began to play, and they still held each other, but now they were dancing.

They got home as the sun was setting, after helping everybody (including Crick and Deacon, who had apparently spent all of their sentiment on the ceremony) clean up the “picnic.” They’d left the two men sitting on the rock in the twilight with a pickup truck and a bedroll for company—a workingman’s honeymoon if ever there was one.

Mikhail closed the cattle gate behind the GTO and said, “I cleaned up the dog shit this morning. There are no more chores to do. Go inside and shower, yes?” as Shane was getting out of the car.

“Come with me?” Shane asked hopefully.

“Nyet.” He used the Russian word purposefully—to be cute, Shane could tell.

“Nyet?”

“Nyet. I will take my shower when you are through. I can shower in two minutes—it takes you forever.”

“Now
that
is a lie!” Shane denied hotly, but when he got to the shower there was a brand new bath sponge and some sort of special eucalyptus-mint bath soap, and yes. It did take him a good fifteen minutes to finish. He had to admit that at least five minutes of that was just smelling the bath sponge with the soap.

“Hey, Mickey, what is this stuff?” he asked as he wrapped himself in a towel, and Mikhail deftly stepped into the shower and bypassed Shane’s groping hand.

“You like?” Mikhail was talking over the water, but he still sounded pleased.

“Yeah… something about it is really turning me on. Where did you get it?”

Mikhail made a pleased sound. “Crick took me shopping last week while you were at work.”

Shane opened the shower curtain and looked at him, he was so surprised. “Really? You didn’t tell me that!”

Mikhail had just finished soaping his hair, and he blinked through the water and gave a Cheshire-like grin. “Now go grab a towel and lay down on the bed and see what else I’ve got for you, now that you are clean.” Then he smacked Shane’s questing hand, because Shane couldn’t help himself. Mikhail had a little patch of gold, curly chest hair that fascinated him—and the rest of his stretched, defined, pretty muscles, the ones rippling in his abdomen and his thighs and across his compact chest did the same thing.

“I said go!” Mikhail said, laughing, and Shane sighed and went. He pulled back the covers and shook out a dry towel and laid down on it, pillowing his chin on his hands. He must have nodded off a little, because Mikhail’s thighs straddling his nude body came as a surprise. He shifted, and Mikhail put a hand on his back and soothed him.

“No, no… you stay where you are.” His hands—hard from the dancing and gymnastics that he did regularly—began to knead Shane’s shoulders, and Shane groaned and shuddered.

“Not a problem,” he muttered. “Staying. Not moving. God… that’s awesome.”

He could almost hear Mikhail’s purr. “Good. Then that is awesome, and you know my designs on your body are sinful and yet not painful. It is a good start.”