Page 61 of Brutal Secrets

“You’re in with Kesera and Nadia. It’s the family room. Number 243. We’re right next door.”

“Family room?”

“Yep. There are three beds. You can watch the girls. I'll bunk next door, and one of us will take a turn on watch. Got Nona a separate room.” He turns toward the other car, throwing his next words over his shoulder. “Safer that way.”

As if there is anything safe about me playing daddy in a family I’ve got no right to be part of.

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Ishouldn’t flee to the bathroom, but I need to wash off this day and compose myself before I spend the night in a room with Vadim. “I’m going to take a quick shower.” I look over my shoulder, and Nadia quirks a grin at me.

“S’okay. I’ve brushed my teeth. Dad will read me a story.”

Vadim looks like Nadia has pulled a gun on him; the expression of panic on his handsome face is so stark I choke back a laugh. The whole thing is surreal, and I can’t catch up with all the ways my world has changed since this morning.

“Nadia, you can snuggle up and start reading to yourself. You’re plenty big enough to read your own book,” I say. “I’ll be out in about five minutes.”

“Don’t rush,” she says, walking over to her father, taking his hand, and pulling him toward the bed. I’m glad she had the good sense to grab his uninjured arm. She nervously fingers the dog-eared copy of Winnie the Pooh, but her smile is bright.

“We had Winnie the Pooh cartoons when I was a kid in Russia,” Vadim says.

“Really?” she says as I pull the door to behind me and step toward the shower.

As the water pours down on my shoulders, I let the heat soften the fear and anxiety that cluster in knots along my vertebrae. I wash off the stress of the day, and my body loosens in the steam as I inhale the chemical scent of cheap soap. It reminds me of my childhood and a time when hopes and dreams came easier.

But Vadim is here with me, so a tendril of something bright and sweet unwinds in my chest as I step out of the shower and dry myself with the threadbare towel. He’s distant. Difficult. But he’s here with us, and that’s enough for hope to bud inside me, despite my better judgement.

They’re lying together on the pull-out child’s bed when I step out of the bathroom, toweling my hair in the doorway. I stand and watch them for a minute with a sharp pang in my heart. Vadim’s feet hang off the end of the narrow child’s bed. He lies next to Nadia with his hands behind his head, smiling down at her as they compare notes on their favorite Pooh stories.

“I like the one where they have the balloons and they float into the sky.” Vadim’s deep voice rolls through the shabby room.

“My favorite is when he’s a bear wedged in great tightness.” Nadia’s voice vibrates with excitement.

“What does it mean? To be wedged? How did you say it?”

Nadia snorts with laughter. “Pooh goes to Rabbit’s house, and he eats too much honey, so he gets stuck in the door because he’s too fat to move.”

Vadim concentrates on his daughter, even though she’s talking nonsense, and I wonder what it would have been like to have him in our lives. Would he have brought disaster with him like he said in the car? Or would there have been more nights like this?

“The shooting balloons out of the sky and the bees are my favorites.” He leans toward his daughter and gently rests his hand on her shoulder, waiting to see what she’ll do.

Nadia giggles. “Is that because you like guns?”

I perch on the end of the bed, next to Vadim’s huge feet, and look over at the pained expression on his face. I take hold of his instep and grip his foot, and he looks over at me and nods. It’s an innocuous enough gesture, but it makes me imagine what it would be like if his body was mine to touch. If we were a real family.

“You’re off the hook. I can take it from here,” I say.

Vadim shifts to get up, but Nadia pulls him down again. He collapses onto her pillow.

“It’s okay. Daddy said he will stay till I fall asleep.”

I raise my eyebrows in question but he doesn’t get up, so I pad over to his head and put a hand on his shoulder as I reach to turn out the light. Each innocent touch cracks my wounded heart open a little wider.

Vadim lays his hand over mine and I smile at him. He looks so right lying next to his daughter as she curls against his side. The sharp yearning for more thrums through me like a heartbeat. I grip his fingers, letting my fingertips slide against the warmth of his skin as I pull away.

“Tell me the bear story, Mama.” My little girl’s voice threads through the darkness.

“Bears are the national animal of Russia,” Vadim says. The depth of his voice and his slight accent make everything sound better. Sexier. More laden with meaning.