Moscow, Russia
Eight months ago
Alexei Markov stared at his partner, Ivan, his mind not quite processing the news.
“We leave for America tomorrow,” Ivan said. He slapped at the small table they sat at, nearly disrupting the vodka shots in front of them.
“America?” He said the word, tasting it on his tongue. It was bittersweet. Even all these years later, he could still remember his brother, Mikhail, talking about how their lives would be when they made it to America. Back then, Alexei had dreams of becoming a professional hockey player. Those dreams died when Dimitri Pushkin had his brother killed. A new dream had been born that day. A dark dream.
“Don’t you see? This means we’re moving up. If Pushkin trusts us to handle his American business, it won’t be long before we’re his right-hand men.” Ivan was grinning, though no amount of mirth could make the man look happy. Ivan looked like what he was—a stone-cold killer.
Is that what he would look like years from now, after he’d had his revenge? The longer he pursued this path, the more he questioned himself.
No. He was too close to his goal. He would not give it up because he had suddenly developed a conscience. Ivan was right. It was good that they had been selected to go to America. It meant he was one step closer to standing in a room with Pushkin and delivering his brother’s revenge.
“What are we supposed to do?” Pushkin had many business interests in the United States. He had dealings with mobsters, drug lords, politicians. All of the disgusting bottom-feeders.
Ivan snorted. “We have to pick up a painting and bring it back. We’re supposed to meet with someone in Dallas. How funny is that? We can go and be cowboys.”
Pick up a painting? That sounded far too simple. “Something sounds wrong.”
“You worry too much, Alexei. Nothing is wrong. The boss likes paintings. He’s always trying to impress people. I don’t understand it. I wouldn’t pay for a painting a child could do. Have you seen the man who puts paints on his pig’s feet? He has the pig run across the canvas and then sells it as art? Most of the pig’s work is better than the stuff the boss collects.”
Alexei had to force himself not to roll his eyes. Ivan wasn’t the most cultured of men. “Is this painting by someone famous?”
“How am I supposed to know? All that matters is that Pushkin wants the painting. We’re to get it and deliver it to him ourselves.” He slapped at the table again. “I’m telling you, Alexei. This is our time. We will meet with the man himself. A private interview. You’re good with people. I’ll handle the killing. You can handle Pushkin.”
Alexei leaned forward. So far he had managed to work his way up in the organization with fairly clean hands. He’d killed mobsters, of course. Many. Each one had been a killer in his own right. He worried that to move into the inner circle, he would have to take innocent blood. The thought brought bile to his throat. “Why would there be killing when all we have to do is pick up a painting?”
“There is always killing, my friend.” Ivan hoisted his glass. “Drink with me, Alexei. To America, where our dreams come true.”
His dreams had died long ago. The need for revenge was the only thing that pushed Alexei Markov forward now. He picked up his glass. Long ago, he and his brother had talked about the women they would marry in America. He’d been young, but he’d dreamed of a lovely American bride, with a sweet smile and soft, feminine ways. Silly dreams. He wouldn’t have that woman.
America wasn’t his home. He no longer had one.
Chapter One
The lights of the party seemed to flare and focus like a spotlight on the man in front of him. Like he needed anything to highlight the disaster happening right in front of his face. He felt his heart seize, a cardiac episode just waiting to happen. Acute myocardial infarction. Yep. That was what was happening. He was about to have a fucking heart attack, and he knew just who to blame.
“No.” He said the word. He said it a lot, but this time he really, really meant it. Caleb Burke watched as that big Russian stood over sweet Holly, his dark eyes promising all manner of comfort, and he just knew he wasn’t ready to let her go.
Of course, he also wasn’t ready to take her.
Fuck.
“No?” Alexei turned to him, seeming to notice for the first time that he wasn’t alone with Holly. The Russian had walked into the reception hall where Stefan Talbot and his new wife, Jennifer, were hosting their wedding party. He’d marched in like he owned the place and zeroed in on Holly.
Alexei looked the same as he had months before, but it was easy to tell he had changed. There was a relaxed set to his shoulders he hadn’t had the last time he was in Bliss. But then the last time Alexei Markov had been in Bliss, it had been as a member of the Russian mob.
“Get your hands off her.”
“My hands are entirely to myself.” And Alexei still had trouble with English.
“Caleb, what’s wrong?” Holly asked, her face turning to him. Wide green eyes stared up at him in confusion. She was so gorgeous. Every time she looked at him, he felt it straight in his gut. And his cock. Damn it. He had to turn away from her.
“You shouldn’t be here.” Caleb couldn’t take his eyes off the Russian. It was nothing less than the truth, though he had selfish reasons for pointing it out. “You’re supposed to be in witness protection.”
Alexei shrugged, his eyes going back to Holly as though her very presence was a magnet he couldn’t avoid. “I told you. The trials are over. All the men who worked with Pushkin have been put in the proper jails. I finish my testimony last week. I am here today. I am free man.”
Free? After everything he’d done? Alexei Markov had blown into town eight months before as a mobster. Just because he’d turned state’s witness and saved Jennifer Waters and Callie Hollister-Wright didn’t give him a free pass. He tried not to think about the fact that the Russian had saved Holly, too. He’d thrown his own body over hers, taking the bullet that would have ended her life. It didn’t erase the crimes he’d committed before. “You killed a bunch of people, and they just let you go free?”
“He only killed them to save me, Caleb. And Stef got a couple, too. No one’s talking about putting him in jail.” Holly was already reaching for the Russian’s hands, her face turning upward in greeting. “I’m so happy for you, Alexei. I’m happy they let you come back to Bliss.”
A little cloud crossed Alexei’s face telling Caleb everything he needed to know.
“They didn’t let you come back, did they?” Caleb asked. “You’re on the run.”
“No running. I take taxi and then train and then bus. Bus drop off at the Trading Post. It was closed, but Ms. Teeny was kind enough to leave note on door telling me about the wedding.” After his quick explanation, Alexei turned back to Holly. “You look like beautiful doll, Holly.”
Caleb grabbed at his tie. He loosened it. The damn thing was a noose around his neck. Why had he come to this thing? He should have done what he always did. He should have stayed at home until someone needed him. He should have barricaded himself in his office and stared at medical books until his eyes wouldn’t stay open one second more and he was forced to fall into that hell he called sleep. Yeah, that would have made for a great night. But no, he’d gotten on this monkey suit and headed to the Feed Store Church to attend a wedding, all because he’d wanted to watch Holly walk down the aisle. He’d wanted to see her in a beautiful dress and imagine just for one second that she was walking toward him and he was normal. That he was twenty-two again, marrying the right woman this time with his whole life ahead of him.
Not once in that little daydream had he included a second man in the scenario, though given where he lived, he should have known that would happen whether he liked it or not.
“Thanks,” Holly said to Alexei, her face lighting up.
Caleb flushed. He hadn’t told her she was beautiful. He’d just nodded at her. Why couldn’t he talk to her? He’d been good at this once. He’d gone to
parties and balls. Why couldn’t he talk to one small-town waitress?
Because she was the one, but he was too fucked up to deal with it.
“You do look really pretty.” He forced the words out of his mouth. He didn’t say the ones that were locked inside. She didn’t look pretty. She was beautiful. Inside and out. Holly Lang practically glowed in Caleb’s mind. With auburn hair that curled and caressed her porcelain shoulders, Holly was a vision of everything feminine. She stirred his cock and his mind. He thought about her all the time.
Yeah. He wasn’t going to say any of that.
Holly turned toward him, a vibrant smile on her lips. When she smiled that sunshine-goddess, center-of-his-whole-fucking-world smile, he always thought he would just turn into a puddle of goo at her feet. Yeah. That would be really sexy, Burke.
“Tell her more, Caleb. You do well.” Alexei was smiling at him like he was a toddler who’d just managed to walk.
What the hell was that about?
“Alexei!” Stefan Talbot strode forward looking resplendent in his tux. He wore a broad smile on his face.
Alexei turned and smiled back, his face opening in a way that belied his years. Caleb knew that Alexei was twenty-eight years old, but when he smiled, he looked barely twenty.
“I’m so glad to see you, my friend. Did the paperwork get pushed through?” Stef pumped Alexei’s hand in greeting.
“The papers are all pushed. I soon will be as American as the pie with many apples. I will pass my test. I know all of American history. Ask me anything. I love the Constitution and Bill of Rights. I can sing whole preamble to Constitution.”
“I sent him a copy of Schoolhouse Rock to help out,” Jen Talbot said, sliding her hand into her husband’s. “I bet he can sing all about lonely bills, too.”
“Indeed, I can.” Alexei bowed slightly to the bride.
“Stef, you helped Alexei get his citizenship?” Holly asked.
“You must have paid through the nose for that, Talbot,” Caleb said, well aware bitterness was dripping from every word. “There’s a nice long wait usually.”
“The government was very happy with all the help Alexei gave them with organized crime,” Stef explained. “I only had to grease the wheels a little.”
“Well, hell,” a new voice said. “Alexei. Did the aliens finally let you go? They kept you for an awfully long time.”
Mel Hughes stood in the middle of the dance floor looking utterly incongruous in a white polyester tux that had to have been handed down from the Bee Gees. Of course, he couldn’t be without his lucky trucker hat and the tinfoil that kept the aliens from attacking his brain. Mel was a kook, but a lovable one. He only went slightly insane a couple of times a year, and Caleb had tranquilizer darts perfectly dosed for Mel’s height and weight. He kept them in his truck. He’d thought about using them on Max Harper from time to time, but he worried it would take more than horse tranquilizer to change Max’s attitude.
“No aliens, sir. Only Federal Marshals.” Alexei moved closer to Holly, stepping in like he was her date. “They were very kind to me.”
Mel’s face crinkled, but he shook his head and patted Alexei on the back. “I’m real glad to hear that, son. Now, can I talk to you, Doc? We got an emergency.”
Caleb felt a part of him relax. Thank god. Someone was dying, so he didn’t have to deal with his suddenly out-of-control love life. He looked over at Holly.
“Go,” she urged him. “I’ll be fine.”
He nodded and started to walk away with Mel. He grabbed his bag from the table he’d been assigned to. He never went anywhere without the small leather bag his father had given him when he’d graduated from Johns Hopkins University.
He glanced back to where Holly stood, surrounded by friends. Of course Holly would be fine. What did she really need with him? For the last week, she’d needed him. Bliss had played host to a serial killer, and no woman in town had been left alone. Caleb had spent several sleepless nights on Holly’s sofa thinking about the fact that he could have been in her bed if he wasn’t such a complete freak. He had seen it in her eyes when she’d told him good night. She would have accepted him. Hell, she’d been hurt that he didn’t make a move on her. That had made his heart ache.
How would Holly have taken it if she’d made love with him only to discover he couldn’t sleep in a bed? The list of things he couldn’t do had driven him out of Chicago. It would cost him Holly, too.
“Poor bastard,” Mel said, shaking his head as he looked back at Alexei. “He doesn’t even know he got taken. It happens that way sometimes. You should check him out, Doc. I got a very distressing memo about some new experiments the Reticulan Grays are performing concerning male pregnancy. We wouldn’t want that poor Russian fellow to find himself incubating an alien.”
He wondered if Holly would reject Alexei if he became the first of a crop of male mothers. Probably not. She was an awfully tolerant girl. “What’s the emergency?”
Mel frowned. “It’s Cassidy.”
Nope. No one was dying. Cassidy Meyer was a classic hypochondriac with a bit of Chicken Little syndrome. And she believed in aliens. Cassidy was a one-stop mental disorder shop. And she was a very nice lady.
“Hemorrhagic fever or bird flu?” Cassidy had gotten over the plague several weeks before. It shouldn’t come up again so soon.
“Oh, it’s the Ebola again. It’s the third time she’s had it, Doc.” Mel shook his head. “The aliens just ruined her immune system, I guess.”
Caleb knew that if his colleagues were in his position, Cassidy Meyer would find herself on a seventy-two-hour mental health hold, but Caleb had long ago learned that sometimes tolerance best served his patients. Cassidy wasn’t a risk to herself, and the sweet lady wouldn’t hurt a fly. She simply believed she’d had a couple of alien babies and routinely got some of the world’s worst infectious diseases. As the CDC had stopped coming out when she called, Caleb was the last line of defense between Cassidy Meyer and the brutally cold world.
Besides, he owed her son his life. In more ways than one.
Wolf sat next to his mother, his large hand holding hers. He patted her back with his free hand, an amused look on his face. “Doc, we’re glad you’re here. Ma’s organs are liquefying as we speak.”
Cassidy looked up at Caleb, her hands shaking just a bit. “My hands are numb, Doc. I’m afraid my son is right. It’s going to get me this time. I think my liver just went. I feel it.”
Caleb took her pulse. It was strong. “Let me get something ready for you, sweetheart. I can fix you right up.”
“You can stop the Ebola?”
Caleb smiled. “I can stop the Ebola, no trouble. And what I’m going to give you has the added effect of keeping aliens away for a while, but you need to come in once a week. Can you do that for me?”
Cassidy’s eyes lit up, a sure sign that no hemorrhagic fever had invaded Bliss. “I sure can, Doc.”
Caleb stepped away, allowing Mel to lean down and hold her hand while Caleb gestured to Wolf to join him.
Wolf Meyer was a big, bad Navy SEAL, or he had been until a few months before when he’d been forcibly discharged after injuries taken in battle. He was a rough son of a bitch, but he was also a loving son.
“Has she been taking the B-12 I gave her?”
“Not unless she took it with her into the bomb shelter she and Mel have been holed up in. On the plus side, she managed to knit caps for everyone in town and a baby blanket for Paige Harper. Oh, and she perfected her Crock-Pot stew. Expect to get a big batch next week,” Wolf said.
Cassidy Meyer tried to take care of the people around her. It was only right that someone looked out for her, too.
“Her blood work showed she’s anemic. The numbness in her hands is a function of her vitamin deficiency. Injections will be easy for her to absorb. Once a week should do it. If she forgets, I’ll find her. Don’t worry about it, Wolf. She’s really quite healthy.”
Caleb reached into his bag.
He’d known this was probably coming. Bliss had been up in arms for a week over the Marquis de Sade case. It had been a good bet Cassidy had been ignoring her health. He kept a good supply of B-12 on hand not only for Cassidy, but also for the vegans.
Wolf shook his head. “You’re the most frustrating man I know.”
Caleb measured out the proper dose of B-12 in a hypodermic needle. “I’m not known for my bedside manner.”
He was actually. He was known for having a perfectly horrific bedside manner. He couldn’t even blame it on the PTSD. He’d been a gruff bastard before his world had turned upside down.
Wolf groaned. “That wasn’t what I was talking about, Doc. I was talking about how you’re handling the train wreck occurring right in front of our eyes. Are you really going to let that man waltz away with your girl?”
Caleb pulled the needle back out, squirting up to make sure all the air was out. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Holly isn’t mine.”
“But she could be. You can’t tell me you don’t want her.”
What he wanted didn’t matter. Did it? Could he do it? He closed his eyes for a moment. He didn’t want to have this conversation, but it was hard to ignore Wolf. “I think it’s for the best. I can’t have a normal relationship with her.”
When Caleb opened his eyes, Wolf was staring at him in that “dumbass just said what?” way of his. “Normal doesn’t mean a damn thing here. No one is going to ask you to leave here, Doc. Bliss is your home. The people here love you for everything you do for them. And they don’t give a crap about your bedside manner. Do you know how many doctors have tried to get me to put my mother in a home?”
Caleb glanced back where Mel was hugging Cassidy’s small body to his, his lips kissing her forehead. “She doesn’t need to be in a home. She just needs a little understanding.”
“Yes, and you’re the only doctor who is willing to give it to her. Those two are happy because Bliss lets them be. Why can’t you be the same?”
Frustration welled up. “Damn it, Wolf. I can’t even sleep in a fucking bed. How is Holly going to handle it when I fuck her and then go sleep in her closet because I can’t stand to sleep in the open?”