His annoyed look made her feel annoyed in turn, yet she couldn’t look away from him. Why did he have to be so damn beautiful? There was something almost magnetic about his face, with all its chiseled angles and its long, sharp nose. Sam was surprised by how hard it was not to stare. Stare at him like he was currently staring at her.
“You know you don’t have to stay with Mount Nik…” Marco’s words broke the spell Nikolai had somehow cast over her, and Sam broke from the stare to look at the cop she now only considered a friend. He took a deep breath and said, “If you’re worried about having a safe place to stay, you could come back to my apartment for as long as you need. Then you could arrange counseling sessions with Pavel until Mount Nik finds him a permanent therapist. You don’t have to follow the kid.”
No, she didn’t, and there were plenty of places she could stay outside of Marco’s apartment. A hotel or even at Ruth’s House itself, since it had beds currently going unused. But she wasn’t naive. The system always tried to place children with their blood relatives when they could, and Nikolai Rustanov was a local sports hero. There was no way she’d be able to retain her temporary custody of Pavel. It was either move into Nikolai Rustanov’s place now or risk getting kicked out of Pavel’s life all together, because he was in his uncle’s physical custody.
She gave Marco a weak half smile and said, “Don’t worry about me staying with Mount Nik, Marco. I can take care of myself.”
“I know you can but…” Marco trailed off, and she sensed there was something he wasn’t telling her.
“What, Marco? If there’s something you want me to know, tell me.”
He shook his head. “Nothing. It’s probably nothing. It’s just that Rustanov’s and the kid’s stories are exactly the same. Like they made them up together. Just maybe, I don’t know… keep your eyes open for anything off, and if you feel like there’s something weird going on, call me.”
“Sure. Okay, I can do that.”
Her easy acquiescence to his request seemed to reassure him. He cupped her shoulders and drew her a little closer. “And even if there’s nothing shady going on, call me. Just because you’re living with him doesn’t mean we can’t hang out. And it’s your turn to pay for takeout at my place next time, remember?”
Sam crooked her head, trying to figure out if Marco was seriously trying to finagle her into a sleepover date she really didn’t want—less than a few hours after she’d nearly been killed by some kind of Russian hit man.
“Uncle says it’s time to go, Mama!” Pavel called out to her from where he and Nikolai were standing.
Marco jerked a little, as if just now realizing Pavel was still there.
“Yeah, uh, you better go, but…” He turned out his pinky and thumb, making the universal sign for phone as he mouthed, “Call me, okay?”
Sam gave him a tight smile, saying, “Thanks for everything, Marco” before she walked away, unable to believe she’d ever been attracted to the self-absorbed cop, much less thought they’d be a good match.
She shook her head. Just goes to show how silly she’d been to think she could find a great guy and start a family like Josie had. She was on the brink of moving in with a hockey idol who’d pretty much introduced himself as Mr. One Night Stand. And he—not she—was the true custodian of the boy who’d come to feel like a child to her in an impossibly short time.
She’d never been farther away from realizing the dream she’d started spinning when she was Pavel’s age, blocking her ears from the sound of her stepfather’s yelling, and promising herself she’d never end up in an abusive relationship. It was as good of a time as any to accept some hard truths. She’d managed not to walk down the same path as her mother, but that didn’t mean she was slated for a happy ending. Vicious thoughts circled like sharks in her head as she walked toward Pavel. Women like Josie got happy endings. Women like her—the memory of her mother lying dead on the living room floor flashed across her mind, curdling her stomach—women like her had to settle for knowing when to get out of a bad relationship while the getting was good.
12
Sam had to give herself credit. She didn’t freak out. Not while arranging to stay with Nikolai, not while being questioned by the police, and not while talking to Marco. In fact, she not only got Pavel and herself packed up in record time, but she also called for another, larger pizza from her second favorite pizza joint and stopped to get it on their way to Nikolai’s house.
“It’s probably a good thing your uncle had to go back to the rink to finish up some work,” she told Pavel after they’d used the code Nikolai had given her to get into his colonial-style mansion. “Not to judge, but he just doesn’t come across like the kind of guy who can appreciate a good pizza.”
If Pavel sensed the false cheer in her voice he didn’t let on. In fact, he seemed more at home sitting at the tea-stained oak top island in Nikolai’s oversized kitchen than he had in her small cottage. As she ate across from him, she remembered the dirty little boy who had originally snuck into this grand house. Pavel had been showering regularly for the last few days, and she’d escorted him to a barber downtown to cut off the unruly mess on top of his head. So he’d cleaned up and he’d settled in well at her cottage. But that was nothing in comparison to finding out his uncle was his favorite hockey star and moving into his house.
If she’d been a Hollywood producer, Sam imagined she might turn the story into a Great Expectations reboot. Judging from the way Pavel looked all around him as he ate, this was a dream come true for the boy. Even if his uncle was a total jerk who didn’t believe in love or little boys crying.
“What kind of food do you think Uncle Nik eats?” Pavel asked her as they hunted through the cabinets for some kind of Ziploc bag to put the remaining pizza in.
She wrinkled her nose. “I don’t know. Raw eggs, lots of protein, maybe wheat germ.”
“What’s wheat germ?” Pavel asked, wrinkling his own nose as he checked another one of the lower cabinets.
Sam laughed. “Oh, I’m sure you’ll find out soon enough.”
“I don’t want to find out!” Pavel said. “Please don’t let him feed me wheat germ. It sounds disgusting!”
Pavel had a truly terrified look on his face as he proclaimed this, but his accompanying giggles proved him to be nothing less than thrilled to be living with a possible wheat germ drinker. Anything was better than living with an addict, she guessed.