Page 30 of Ford
She touched his arm.
He looked up.
“You call me sweetheart again,” she said with a smile that looked friendly enough, but—“and I’ll start referring to you as Sugar Pie. Maybe even Pumpkin. So, RJ is good. Not toots. Not even honey. Are we clear, shug?”
Wow. “Fine.” He shrugged off her touch. “Stay behind me, and don’t talk. We’re going to take the metro, get off a couple places, get back on, circle around, and end up on the north side of the city.”
Then she shocked the life out of him by responding with a “Nyet problemo, tovarish.”
He frowned.
“Ya gavaroo pa-ruski, svo ravno.”
She spoke Russian? And clearly knew the vernacular.
“Hatleechnya,” he said. Terrific.“Paidyom.” Let’s go.
He wanted to add abweestra, as inKeep up, but it felt a little petty.
“I’m not sure why you saved me if you’re so angry with me.”
Him either. He softened his voice. “I’m not angry. I’m just…just stay with me.”
She was on him like glue as they left the flat. A light buzzed, flickering in the darkness. She gripped the back of his jacket and followed him down the stairs.
They entered the street, the smells of Moscow rising up to fill his senses—garbage from the nearby dumpster, dust that layered the streets, and the finest hint of late-blooming lilacs. He took her hand to keep her from stumbling, gripped it hard, and strode into the darkness.
She kept up, no words spoken.
They walked out of the courtyard, down the sidewalk, passing ancient buildings with ornate cornices—orange plastered Stalin-built apartments, and the squatty cement flats of the Brezhnev years. As they neared the subway, the new Russian buildings, with gated entrances and high-tech designs revealed the new money flowing into the city.
He led them into the subway, scanned his ticket, waited as RJ scanned hers, and stepped through the turnstile. He took her hand again, and they rode the massive escalator down to the tunnels.
Built as bomb shelters, the tunnels—with statues of laborers, famous Russian icons, elaborate murals, and fancy chandeliers—always felt to York like he was entering the Cold War. And of course, echoing through the chambers of the underground caverns, he always heard Tasha’s voice.It’s like heaven underground.
Hardly, but she’d been a dreamer.
The kind of dreams that got people killed.
No,murdered.
“Vso normalna?” RJ asked, her voice soft next to his ear, her breath light on his skin. He glanced at her.
Nothing would ever be normal again, but he didn’t say that. Just nodded.
Swallowed against his tightening throat.
Clearly the woman didn’t have to look into his eyes to dismantle him.
He led her through the tunnels to the purple line that dissected the city east to west, and when the doors opened to the mostly-empty-at-this-time-of-night car, he pulled her in and stood with her at a pole.
Maybe he should have opted for rush hour to travel through the city, when they could blend into the crowd. Then again, with RJ’s picture still flashing on screens, that meant more eyes on her.
He turned to her. She was holding the pole, facing him, and he had this crazy urge to wrap his arm around her, tuck her in a little closer.
Old habits rising to haunt him.
The doors closed, and the car lurched forward, gathering speed, the velocity shaking the compartment. An elderly woman held her dog on her lap. A young couple sat on a bench, reading their phones. No cell reception down here, but maybe that didn’t matter.