Instinctive Male (17 page)

Mikhail tensed; he knew what her hair felt like, rich and silky in his hands, dragging along his bare skin.

The movie star liked preparation, and was checking out the Amoteh’s golf course before entering the tournament there in June. Russell Ward had everything a woman could want, including charm. His arm around Ellie’s shoulders wasn’t rebuffed and her head lifted with a burst of laughter. They stopped again at the door to the Amoteh’s indoor pool, talking intimately, and Russell smiled as he flicked the earring she wore.

Mikhail’s gift to her.

At least she was still wearing them, even if she was furious with him.

Mikhail rammed his hand through his hair. He’d wanted to protect her….

Russell bent to kiss her cheek, and Mikhail found himself moving toward them. If the door had been locked, he might have torn it from its hinges. “Russell, I hope you’re enjoying the Amoteh.”

“I truly am. I like to check out the layout before entering any celeb tournament. I usually plan my moves.” Russell’s gaze was warm and appreciative as he looked at Ellie. “Where’s the best place to eat around here?”

“Our restaurant is very good.”

Russell’s smile at Ellie was intimate. “Something more private?”

Ellie’s stare at Mikhail revealed nothing, and he could have grabbed her and carried her away. Just that lift of her chin, that slash of her eyes, told him that she was furious with him. “You can always order up to your room,” she offered.

Russell’s devastating and cosmetically perfect smile widened. “I’ll do that.”

“Yes, do,” Mikhail said too sharply, and decided he had better remove himself from the temptation of smashing Russell’s expensive teeth.

Hours later, Jarek eased down into the chair next to Mikhail’s at the Seagull’s Perch. “You look like you’ve had a hard day. It’s been a long time since you’ve brooded in a corner like this, looking as if you could kill someone.”

“Lay off. I just asked Ellie to marry me, and she’s at the hotel with Russell Ward, having a nice ‘intimate’ dinner.”

“Okay. So why is she headed this way and looking as if she could wring your neck?”

Mikhail looked up just in time to be hit by a balled piece of paper. It bounced into his glass, floating in the beer.

“Hi, Jarek. You might not want to stay. Mikhail just pulled his big brother protector act with me and I’m not having it…. There’s your note, Mikhail, telling me to take the day off,” Ellie said flatly. She hitched up the straps to her tote bag to her shoulder. “I missed it on the table this morning, but then I slept late and was in a hurry to get to work.”

She looked at Jarek and shifted the Amoteh tote bag she was carrying to her other hand. “By the way, Jarek, did you know that Danya and Alexi were hauled in to muscle Lars out of here?”

Jarek looked at Ellie and then at Mikhail. “Mmm. I had an idea. Lars isn’t a friendly sort of guy to the Stepanovs, and Hillary had paid him a lot of money. He needed a vacation from Amoteh.”

“I see. A conveniently arranged vacation. Mikhail likes to arrange things, doesn’t he? Where exactly is Lars taking this vacation?”

“Um… I think he’s learning how to be a cowboy somewhere in Wyoming. Well, it’s been nice. I’d better get home.”

Neither Mikhail nor Ellie replied or watched Jarek leave. “So how is Russell?” Mikhail said finally.

“Gorgeous. Charming. We got along fine. He’s entering the tournament, encouraging his buddies to come. We’ll be packed with celebrities and the PR opportunities will be more than we hoped. I’m arranging a special party for Russell in his suite. We need that golf pro on site to help us. Did you check out Drue’s résumé?”

“And are there going to be more than two at this special party? Or just you and Russell?”

Elle’s eyes narrowed at him. Rita came to ask if Ellie wanted a drink; she stopped when she noted Mikhail’s scowl and Ellie’s frown. The waitress turned and walked back to the bar.

Ellie put her hands on the table and scanned the various men who were watching with interest. She looked back at Mikhail. “This place is a cave where men hang out to avoid what’s coming to them. Do you want this public, or private?”

Mikhail felt very fragile. Ellie’s eyes said she had been crying, and now she was mad. He wasn’t certain if he should try to comfort her—if she would let him—or let her just have at him. To be uncomfortable with his actions, to realize that he could be a jealous man, and one uncertain of his beloved’s next move caused Mikhail to be wary. One wrong move and she’d… “Are you going to throw things?”

“I might. But then, you’re a big strong hero. You can fix it, can’t you? Just like you want to fix everything in my life.”

On their way to the cabin, Ellie walked ahead of Mikhail, her hips swaying, and he tried not to think of making love to her.

The forbidding look over her shoulder said this might not be a good time.

“Do you think I like being compared to your ex-wife?” Ellie asked as she pivoted to face Mikhail, her body taut.
She tossed the tote bag filled with material and thread onto the table. “The package from your mother came today. She has lovely taste in fabric and patterns.”

He closed the door slowly, the merry tinkling of the wind chimes in contrast to the storm brewing within the cabin. “There is no comparison between my ex-wife and you.”

“She played you, didn’t she? Used you? Tried to make you jealous with other men? I saw that today, when you…bristled at Russell. JoAnna certainly did a neat knife job on you. You can’t trust me.
You can’t trust me to make my own decisions.
I’ve handled men like him all my life—especially those who wanted Paul’s money through me. I’m not a business. I’m a woman who has been on her own for a long time. Don’t try to fix my life, Mikhail. It’s too late. Don’t you ever try to pull something like you did with Paul today. I’ve fought him all my life and—”

“And you’re not alone anymore, Ellie. I wanted to help.”

Pain went careening through her. “I love you. I trusted you and you hurt me.”

“I am sorry.”

He’d tried to help and had just opened up the painful past that she had worked so hard to forget. “Don’t you invite Nora here. If you do, I’ll leave, no matter what the situation. I’ll go to Texas and get Tanya and—”

“Ellie…”

His soft tone sliced through her fear. She’d protected herself for years and now Mikhail wanted to bridge the years-old distance of a mother and daughter. “I can’t call Nora, Mikhail. You don’t understand. My family isn’t like yours.”

“She isn’t the woman you think, Ellie, and she’s paid a high price to protect her family, just as you have.”

Ellie brushed the tears from her face. “What do you mean?”

“Talk with her first. Listen. And then make up your mind.”

She felt herself spinning, old pain mixed with new fears. “I’m coming apart, Mikhail. First you and Paul, and then—”

“I meant well. I love you and I know how frightened you are.”

Frightened? She was terrified. “And you want to marry me. You want to marry me, wasn’t that what you said? I’ve lived with what Paul wanted—not asked, mind you, but wanted—most of my life. I was right. You are alike.”

“That was a mistake,” Mikhail admitted slowly. “My plans were different. I meant to ask you at the right moment, but with the same end result.”

He looked out of the window. “Do you really think that I want you because of the Lathrop fortune, or to engineer a takeover of your father’s holdings?”

“Of course not…but you’ll end up hating me, Mikhail. And I don’t think I could bear that.”

When Mikhail studied her, he smiled tenderly, sadly. “Do you have so little trust in me, that I do not know my own heart? That I do not recognize how you make me feel as if I can’t wait for each heartbeat, for the excitement and comfort you bring me?”

How could he humble himself so much, lay himself open to pain? she thought, loving him, as he gently took her into his arms. “Trust me, Ellie,” he whispered unevenly. “Just trust me.”

He was asking her to face her past, to open up all the old pain and bitterness of a child left behind by an unloving mother. “I’m an emotional mess. I’m going to cry—and I
never
cry.”

His hand stroked her hair, easing her head to his shoulder. “Maybe it’s time you did.”

Her closed hand beat lightly on his chest, her emotions tangled with his tenderness and what he was asking of her.
“I suppose you’ve already gotten the plane tickets for my visit with Nora.”

“
Our
visit. We leave tomorrow. Jarek can handle any problems that might come up here in the next three days.”

“You sure know how to whisk a girl off her feet, bud,” Ellie whispered unevenly.

“I thought you might want to do that before Tanya comes back, or before Paul decides to act. Are you angry with me?” he asked so rawly that she knew he feared her reaction.

“Yes, but just don’t stop holding me.”

“I never will,” Mikhail said as he picked her up and sat in the big rocking chair, holding her.

“I’m a little old for this, Mikie,” she whispered in a voice filled with tears.

“Shh. You give me comfort, just holding you. You’re brave, Ellie. Not every woman would face what she fears most. You have and fought every step of the way.”

“You’ve fought your own battles.” She thought of how Mikhail must have felt, the child he wanted very much taken away.

He kissed her forehead. “Well, then, together, I guess we can face anything. Right?”

She didn’t answer, awash with memories of a child, rejected by her mother. “I can’t promise to be nice. It’s not in my genes.”

“Sometimes ‘nice’ just covers what should be uncovered.”

In the rental car seat beside him, Ellie sat stiffly, her face expressionless and pale and shadowed just as it had been on the plane.

Mikhail had gambled on Ellie’s father and now her mother, and he could lose Ellie forever.

On the windswept coast of Maine, the tiny picturesque town’s shops boasted of fresh lobster, hauled by the boats on the wharf, and handcrafted knitted goods. As Mikhail
pulled the car to a stop across from a weathered general store, an elderly woman rode by, her bicycle’s basket filled with a grocery sack.

Ellie inhaled and seemed to freeze as an older woman came from the store, out onto the porch. She talked to a man with a cane as she poured potatoes from the cup of her apron into a straw basket. The wind caught her hair, more gray than blond, but there was no mistaking the clear-cut features, or the lift of her chin as she scanned the clear spring day, raising her hand to wave at passersby. She paused to straighten a tower of wooden lobster traps and then pulled open the old door and entered the building. The sign overhead read, Taggert General Store, 1909.

“Let’s leave.” Ellie’s voice was hushed, fearful.

Mikhail understood. He’d moved too quickly, but then when a man wants all of a woman, unclouded by her past—or his, he could make mistakes. “Okay.”

When he started the car, Ellie’s hand slid over his. “No, wait. We’ve come this far.”

“You’ve come this far,” he corrected, aching for her, and praying he hadn’t misjudged Nora.

“I…I want to meet her. I’ve thought so much about what I would tell her, what I think of her,” Ellie stated quietly. “Don’t you leave us alone, Mikhail Stepanov.”

Inside the cluttered general store, Nora was working behind the old counter, using a large scoop to pour beans into a paper sack. She weighed it on huge ancient scale and smiled at the striking couple entering the store.

Her hand went over her heart, and for a moment, she stood still as Ellie stared at her, gray eyes mirroring gray eyes, the shape of her face. In the next minute, Nora rounded the corner, quickly removing the large apron from her blouse and loose slacks and tossing it onto a basket of apples. “Hugh,” she said to the elderly man sweeping the board floors, “watch the store for a minute, will you?”

Ellie couldn’t move, her hand tight within Mikhail’s big one.
This was her mother….

“Hello, Ellie,” Nora said gently, love shining in her eyes. “Would you like to have a cup of tea upstairs in my apartment?”

When Ellie couldn’t speak, the past’s pain merging with the present, Mikhail said gently, “She’s tired.”

“She’s beautiful,” Nora whispered, and her hand raised slightly as if she wanted to stroke Ellie’s hair.

Her mother had deserted her…. Ellie moved her head away from Nora’s hand. She wanted to run and hide and never face the next few minutes. One look up at Mikhail told her that he worried, that he waited for her decision. “Let’s just get this over with,” she said briskly.

Nora frowned slightly but asked about the drive to the remote community. Mikhail answered for Ellie.

The stairs were old and worn, sagging and creaking as Ellie followed Nora. The tiny apartment overlooked the wharves, the boats bobbing on the waves.

Nora set a hot water kettle on the little stove. “I hope this is all right with you. I have a house, but—”

“This is fine, Nora,” Mikhail said as Ellie stood stiffly in the center of the room, chilled despite her navy blue sweater and slacks.

Ellie’s voice surprised her, a froth of anger pouring from her. “How could you leave your own child?”

Nora’s hands stopped and fluttered over the tray she’d been preparing. She inhaled, straightened, and turned slowly. “I was forced to—”

“I don’t believe that. You didn’t want the responsibility of being a mother. Paul told me so.”

“Paul lies.” Nora’s tone was bitter, her gray eyes flashing like steel.

“You should have come back for me—”

Mikhail’s hand smoothed Ellie’s rigid back, warming her. “Let her talk, Ellie.”

Nora’s head went up, as proud as Ellie’s. “There’s no easy way to do this, but I am so sorry.”

“
Sorry? Sorry? You abandoned me.
”

Nora’s mouth, so like Ellie’s, firmed, and she squared her body, as if bracing herself against the past. “I was born right here, in this little apartment. My parents struggled all their lives to preserve what Dad’s parents had left him. Paul came into port one day and I loved him desperately. What Paul wants, he gets. We were married, and when you came along, he was tired of me, a small-town girl with values that didn’t match his. I wasn’t up to his social needs and he already had another woman more to his taste by the time you were born. I wouldn’t think of leaving you, and fought for all I could, and then he began to threaten that he’d ruin my parents.”