Her Russian Beast: 50 Loving States, New Mexico (22 page)

“
M
ERRY Christmas
, Auntie Thel!” the now fourteen year old boy that lived a few doors down from them yelled out his window as she passed by on the walk around the block she’d decided to take with her little baby Chrysanthemum.

“Happy Hanukkah!” she called back to Roger. Roger’s two Asian-American moms had both been adopted by Jewish families in different parts of the county, only to meet at a San Francisco meditation center, after they both individually decided to convert to Buddhism. So now her reincarnated younger brother, was growing up to be quite the adorable Jewbu.

“Hanukkah was over a few days ago,” he told her with a laugh.

“Sorry!”

“That’s okay.” Then he leaned a little further out the window out the window and whispered, “Are we still on for later? I finally convinced my moms to let me come over without them.”

“Yes,” she whispered back, just as dramatically, “And boy, you should see the sugar cookies Tasha baked for us this year. You’ll be lucky if there’s any left by the time you get there.”

Roger’s face fell.

“Just kidding, sweetie,” she said with a teasing laugh. “You know I already set some aside for you.”

They talked for a few more minutes, before Thel finally forced herself to walk back to her own house. The house where her husband was currently losing his mind.

A year after agreeing to be his wife, Thel was kind of wishing she hadn’t agreed to marry Bair Rustanov as she walked back through the door of their Georgian mansion.

“I’m back,” she called out, transferring the poor little baby girl she’d brought into this mess from the front baby carrier to her hip.

No one answered, and she walked through the house’s large foyer, looking for her husband. Her heart sank when she found him in the sunny dining room. Gathered around the long wood table with Nikolai, Alexei, and Suro, making an intent study of all the resumes spread out on top of it.

“This one served in the Israeli forces.”

“Yes, but no martial arts training.”

“How about this one? Knows jujitsu and is retired from armed forces.”

“Hmm,” Bair said, frowning as he took the resume from Nikolai.

However, his frown turned into a smile, when he saw Thel standing in the doorway with their baby girl. “What do you think, my little siren?” he asked, pulling her, along with Chrys, into his side.

“I don’t think weapons training should be at the top of the list for qualities we want in a nanny,” she grumbled.

“She’s right,” Suro said quietly.

“Thank you, Suro!” At least one of these men saw how crazy Bair was being about this.

“You probably want to hire a nanny
and
a bodyguard. That way, if there’s anything she’s missing, he’ll make up for it.”

“I am upset I did not think of this for my little Layla,” Alexei said with a thoughtful scowl.

“Wait, Layla’s nanny has weapons training?” Thel asked.

“And martial arts, but that combination is very hard to find,” Alexei answered with an apologetic look toward his younger brother.

“Does she have sister?” Bair asked him.

And the crazy train just kept on rolling along.

“Are they still at it?” Eva asked when she and Tasha came back from checking on the boys, who were wrapped up in
Ninja Shifters
, the newest release from their favorite videogame company, She-Wolf Industries. They’d all begged for and gotten a copy for Christmas. And now they were holed up in the mansion’s entertainment room, playing the game over Facetime with Trevor, who’d stayed on the East Coast to celebrate Christmas with Sawyer’s side of the family this year.

“Yeah, they’re still at it,” Thel answered, not bothering to hide her aggravation as she came out from under Bair’s arm to join Eva and Tasha in the dining room doorway. Bair had actually transitioned into fatherhood well, thanks to his meds, his regular exercise and eating regimen, and just plain wanting this third chance of theirs to work out. Well, at least she’d thought he was doing okay, until Sam had innocently asked them if they started looking into nannies yet over Christmas breakfast. Now, four hours later….

“It looks like I’ll be going into my Pittsburgh
Chrysanthemum
run with an assassin thinly disguised as a nanny,” she told Eva and Tasha.

“Well, at least you didn’t have to deal with Ivan again, this year,” Tasha said, giving Thel’s back a sympathetic rub as Eva tutted and shifted Alma, her seven-month-old, to her hip.

Thel considered herself the forgiving sort, but she couldn’t say she was upset Ivan wasn’t here. After all, he’d answered her heartfelt email to let bygones be bygones and please join them for Christmas with a terse,
“No.”

“Perhaps it is for the best he stays away for these holidays,”
Bair wrote after she forwarded the reply to him.
“He is not good man right now.”

He might not be a good man ever, Thel had thought but not replied.

But she mustered up enough Christmas goodwill toward the ridiculous Russian man to ask Eva, “How is Ivan these days. Heard anything?”

“Not much,” Eva answered with a sad shake of her head. “He moved to some mountain town in Idaho, and nobody’s seen him since. So he’s pretty much an official recluse now. Lexie’s worried sick about him, but there’s not a lot he can do. I mean after what happened, you know that poor boy’s going to be messed up for a long time coming, bless his heart.”

“Bless his heart,” Thel repeated, nodding right along with Eva in fellow southern girl sympathy.

At least they were all sympathetic until a certain yucky smell filled the room, and both Chrys and Alma started fussing in her mothers’ arms.

“Chrys and Alma have poop!” Nikolai called to his wife who was in the family room, indulging little Layla in a tea party, while The Twins furiously worked on their next opera on the mansion’s grand piano—purchased specifically because they knew the stepsibling composers would be visiting for Christmas.

“How is little Ruthie?” Nikolai asked when she came into the room with their daughter.

“We’ve got poop here, too,” Sam answered with an indulgent smile.

The three girls weren’t triplets, but they’d all had been born in the same month, and over the past Thanksgiving, the three families had discovered that their baby girls were shockingly consistent about pooping simultaneously whenever they were in proximity to each other. Some would find this detail mildly amusing or even uninteresting.

The three Rustanov men saw it as an opportunity.

Five minutes later, each father stood in front of his respective daughter. The babies rested on changing pads placed on a table in a neat row. As per the rules, the men kept their hands planted on either side of their baby, waiting for Suro’s signal. Suro, Thel had quickly found out, could be the most ridiculous of enablers when it came to the Rustanovs. He’d even had a trophy made, so these fools could pass it back and forth between wins. Well, at least Nikolai and Alexei could. Thanks to each of them being one kid ahead, Bair—the undefeated underground fighter—had found it impossible to win this particular competition so far.

“And…go!” Suro called out, pressing down on his stopwatch.

The three wives shook their heads as they watched their husbands sling their beloved babies’ bottoms up and down in a determined rush to be declared the winner.

Well, at least Thel shook her head until something miraculous happened. Bair raised his hand above his head, and yelled, “
Ya zakonchil
!” which she’d learned the previous Thanksgiving meant “Finished” in Russian.

At that point, Thel’s former cheerleader self kicked in and a minute later, she was holding Chrys up in the air like Simba with his cub at the end of the
Lion King
while her husband waved the huge trophy above their heads.

“Team Rustanov B for the win, baby!” she crowed at the other two defeated Russians. “Act like you know! You just got BEASTED, sons. What! What!”

“It used to be you who did not like me,” Alexei informed her quite seriously. “Now it is I who do not like you.”

“Totally don’t care, loser!” Thel volleyed back, waving a giggling Chrys in the air.

But then she had to stop with the trash talk, because her man was pulling her into her arms. He kissed her silly while Chrys cooed happily between them. “I love you, Siren.”

“I love you, Beast.”

The words were easy to say these days, flowing out of their mouths as naturally as their love. And as they kissed, that Natalie Cole song she’d sung at her sister’s wedding filled up her chest. His everlasting obsession had gentled into an everlasting love, and now both the Real Thel and the siren were happy to call him her Russian Beast.

The electronic chirp of Alexei’s phone interrupted their tender moment.

“It is Ivan,” he told the room with a smile, when he saw the caller ID.

But the smile fell right off his face and was replaced by a knitted brow as soon as he answered. Apparently Ivan gave Alexei no time to say hello, just started talking. After a few terse exchanges in Russian, her brother-in-law got off the phone, looking beyond baffled.

Nonetheless, he turned to Suro and said quite calmly, “Ivan needs a helicopter sent to his home in Idaho.”

“That can easily be arranged,” Suro assured him.

“Is he coming here?” Bair asked, his hopeful tone telling Thel that despite his earlier words, he wanted this to be the case. She might still be bitter about what happened last Christmas Eve, but Bair just wanted his younger cousin to get better.

“No, I don’t think so,” Alexei said. “He wants it for a girl.”

The whole room went silent with the question only Thel was bold enough to ask.

“What girl? Who the hell would get with Ivan?”

P
.S
. – I know, I know. What the heck does Ivan need with a helicopter???? Girl, I’m dying to tell you all about it in 2016. Until then, subscribe to either the
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or the
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to get a free copy of Alexei’s and Chloe’s Story, HER RUSSIAN BILLIONAIRE. And oh my gosh, is this Nikolai and Sam’s story, HER RUSSIAN SURRENDER, in its entirety after the swipe for the folks who pre-ordered and jumped on the new release? It sure is! Mwah!

C
opyright
© 2014 by Theodora Taylor

ISBN: #978-1-942167-00-6

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