Ghost Dance (Tulsa Thunderbirds Book 3) (6 page)

Before long, her fussing stopped and she fell asleep in my arms as she so often did. I didn’t stop talking, though. If I put her back in her crib, I’d have to go out and join the others. London’s voice was still ringing out through the house every now and then, so clearly Hunter hadn’t done a thing to help me on that front.

Not just her voice. Her laughter. All three of them seemed to be enjoying themselves out there. I didn’t have to step into the kitchen to realize Tallie had already pulled London into the fold, the way she tended to do.

Frankly, I wasn’t ready to face her again. That woman irritated me like no one had done in so long I’d almost forgotten I could get this worked up over something. Someone. I hated that she had that kind of power. I hated that I gave in to it. The easiest thing would be to simply never do anything again that would mean running into this woman, but now that I’d been stupid enough to bring her here…

Her eyes shut tight, Harper let out a huge, sleepy sigh.

“I feel the same way,” I said softly. “Help me find my way out of this mess,
kukolka
. And promise me you’ll grow up to be much smarter than your Dima.”

“Well, this is an image I never expected to see,” London said, wheeling into Harper’s nursery.

My irritation shot straight up to high again in the space of an instant.

“Quiet,” I grumbled. “Don’t wake the baby.”

“If talking was going to wake her up, she wouldn’t have fallen asleep with you griping at her the way she did.”

“I don’t gripe at Harper.”

“Nope, you only gripe at me. So I expect you were griping
about
me to her.”

There was more truth to that statement than I wanted to concede, even if it hadn’t
only
been about her.

“What do you want?” I demanded.

“In life? Or right at this moment?”

I glared in response.

“Tallie says dinner’s ready, and she wants to know if you’re willing to put the baby in her crib so she can feed you. She says it’s a Southern woman’s responsibility to feed everyone who comes to visit, even if they’re growly bears.” London gave me a pointed look. “She only added that part because I told her how grumpy you’ve been all day.”

“Only reason I’m grumpy is you.”

“That may be the case, but somehow I doubt it.” Then she backed her wheelchair out into the hall. “Whether you come or not, we’re eating. You should probably join us. All that caffeine you had is going to wreak havoc on your system without some food. And you could use some protein after working your arms the way you did in the game today. I doubt espresso fits that bill.”

“Make me another promise,” I said to Harper, once more speaking in Russian. “Promise me you’ll never grow up to be a mouthy woman like her.”

HARPER WAS STILL
sleeping after we finished dinner. I helped Tallie clean the kitchen while Hunter and London talked hockey in the living room, half hoping the baby would wake up and start screaming her head off. That would give me a good excuse to slip back into her bedroom and rock her until—hopefully—London took the hint and left without me. To my chagrin, the baby was still sleeping like a rock once every dish had been washed, dried, and put away.

Tallie wiped her hands on a dish towel and took off her apron, giving me the sort of look she always gave people before convincing them to spill their guts to her.

“Don’t start,” I said.

“I started while you were rocking my baby.”

“Then stop now.”

“Fat chance of that happening.” She tossed her apron on the counter and crossed her arms, hitching her hip against the sink. “So you seem to have your knickers in a knot around London. What’s that about?”

It didn’t take too much to understand what she was asking me, even though I didn’t have a clue what knickers were. “Don’t like her.”

“Yeah. Sure.” She rolled her eyes. “Next time, remember to load your brain before you go shootin’ your mouth off around me.”

That sounded like another insult. I wished Tallie would speak regular English around me, but it wasn’t likely to happen any time soon. “Don’t like her,” I repeated.

“Well, I do. And I think you do, too, even if you don’t want to admit it. So why’d you bring her over, anyway?”

“She drove me.”
Crazy
, I thought to myself. She drove me absolutely crazy. Admittedly, my usual state wasn’t too very far from there, but still.

“Where’s your car?”

“At BOK Center.”

“So you left your car behind to go somewhere with someone you don’t like, huh? Yeah, sounds real smart to me.” She crossed over to take a glass down from the cabinet and fill it with water from the refrigerator. “I may not know you very well, Dima, but I do know you’re not an utter moron. Why’d you go out for coffee with her?”

Without thinking, I said the first thing that popped into my head. “She kidnapped me.”

“Oh, that’s rich. A woman in a wheelchair kidnapped you.” She eyed me up and down, as if I didn’t understand how much stronger I was than a woman, let alone a woman who was paralyzed. “Wait till that gets around the locker room.” She took a sip and then gave me a pitying stare, followed by a gale of laughter that completely undid any seriousness she was trying to convey. “Maybe you don’t want to like her, but I don’t believe there’s much you can do to stop it.”

“We’re oil and water. Never mix.”

“Maybe you need a bit of vinegar thrown in, then. Something to shake it up. Something to shake
you
up.”

I feared that was already happening.

“Something tells me you might be more like matches and gasoline,” she said, heading back into the living room with her glass.

Lovely. So one of us was ready to blow the other up. Tallie might not be too far off the mark with that one, although I wasn’t certain which was the explosive and which was the spark.

AFTER WAITING ANOTHER
hour with the hope that Harper would wake up and need me to calm her down, London and I left together so she could drive me back to my car. All my arguments had fallen on deaf ears. Hunter hadn’t seen any good reason to leave and drive me up to the arena when London was perfectly willing, and he and Tallie had gently but firmly pushed me out the front door.

“That wasn’t so hard, was it?” London asked after several minutes passing in silence.

I’d preferred the silence.

“What wasn’t hard?” I groused.

“Having a polite meal together. Sitting and talking like normal human beings without biting each other’s heads off.”

“Think half my tongue is gone. Bit it too hard to stop myself from biting you.”

The streetlights lit up her face when she faced me with a wicked grin. “Do you bite hard?”

“Hard enough.” I tried not to watch her, but I couldn’t stop myself from focusing in on her neck and thinking about biting her there, just over her pulse point. “Why you have to make it come across like sexy?” I demanded, getting frustrated with myself—even more frustrated than I was with her.

“You did that yourself.”

“Can do plenty more myself, too.”

“I have no doubt your hand gets a good workout, too. At least if you treat all the women in your life this way.”

“Most women are happy to help with that, thanks,” I said, and immediately wished I’d kept my mouth shut.

“Are they?” She stopped at a red light and gave me an appraising stare. “Good thing I’m not like most women, then, isn’t it?”

“Why you say that?” Again, should’ve kept my mouth shut. The smart thing to do would be to zip it and sit in silence the rest of the way to my car, because nothing I said was helping the situation any. In fact, everything either of us said was only making the gears spin in my head and all the blood in my body shoot straight to my groin. This was
not
the way I wanted to respond to this woman.

London gave me a coy smile. “Just because I have no interest in using my hand on you. Not when there are much better things I could do.”

Holy hell. Matches and gasoline. Tallie might be onto something.

The light changed. She returned her focus to driving, and I shifted in my seat, tugging my jacket over my lap to do what I could to hide the raging hard-on I was sporting. I caught her looking over and down, and she chuckled. I should’ve just stayed still.

She didn’t say anything else the rest of the way back to my car, and I was perfectly content to maintain the silence and try to think calm, boring thoughts in the hopes they’d act like a chill pill for my boner. There weren’t any other cars in the lot outside the BOK Center when we arrived. Not a big surprise since the charity game had ended hours ago. She drove up alongside my car and put hers in park before turning to face me again.

“Hey, Nazarenko?”

“What?” I grumbled, trying hard not to look up at her laughing eyes. I couldn’t stop myself, though, meeting her gaze head on. Her eyes were brown, like her sleek hair. Not just any brown, though. More like smooth, melting chocolate glistening in the garish parking lot lighting.

“Tell Sergei I tried, but there’s only so much I can do. I’m not Wonder Woman.”

“Tried what?” I demanded.

“He’ll know.”

I nodded that I’d tell him, not that I was sure I’d follow through with that. Why should I pass on messages for this woman, whose sole life purpose seemed to be to drive me insane in every conceivable way? Then I climbed out of her car and into mine.

Once my engine started, London drove away.

Good riddance, if you asked me.

I took out my phone and sent Sergei a text message, asking him where he was. He responded a few minutes later, while I was still sitting in the BOK Center parking lot.

At some bar with a few of the other sledge players. You can join us. I can get the address for you.

He made the offer even though he knew there was no chance in hell I’d take him up on it. I didn’t go to bars anymore. I didn’t drink.

Although, after the day I’d had, the temptation was strong.

My phone buzzed with another message, but this time it was from someone named Sasha. No last name. That meant she had to be one of the girls I’d gone home with at some point along the line. She hadn’t been important enough for me to put in her last name, but apparently I’d liked her well enough to keep her phone number stored in my cell.