“I’ll say you are, a Texan would never treat guests this way.”
“They are not guests!”
Before the argument could circle back around, Lacey yanked open the door to see the lady who was giving Alexei such a hard time.
She was surprised to find a pretty and very pregnant black woman on the doorstep, with her hands on her hips as she addressed the much larger Alexei Rustanov. But as soon as she saw Lacey, she pasted on a wide smile. “How are ya’ll doing?” She held out her hand for a shake. “Eva Rustanov. I’m the mayor of Drummond and Alexei’s wife. It is so nice to make your acquaintance.”
Lacey tentatively shook her hand, finding it hard to believe that this little spitfire was married to the scary Russian who had picked them up in Santa Fe. “It’s nice to meet you, too. Are you really the mayor? I’ve never met a mayor before, especially not a female one.”
“I sure am,” Eva answered. “And let me tell you, the last mayor, my daddy, is still hoppin’ mad about it. Of course, if it had been up to him, I wouldn’t have married this big, rude Russian husband of mine in the first place.” Eva glanced sideways at the handsome but hulking figure at her side.
“Eva…” he said, his voice full of warning.
But Eva swatted his words away. “I am almost six months pregnant with your oversized progeny. Do not ‘Eva’ me, Lexie.”
She then turned her gorgeous smile back on Lacey. “Now tell me all about you. Can I just say, I am so glad you’re here? It’s been about a month of Sundays since I had another woman to talk with. And I love this classical music you’re playing on the stereo. What is it?”
“Rachmaninoff,” Alexei supplied. “He is a great Russian composer.”
“And it’s actually my daughter playing,” Lacey told her, opening the door wider so they could come in. “She’s been going backwards up a list of Russian composers she found on the internet ever since we got here. You should have come by a couple of days ago for all the Tchaikovsky. I guess it’s kind of her way of thanking Mr. Rustanov for hosting us.”
Eva’s eyes widened in wonderment as she watched Sparkle’s hands fly over the keys of the piano sitting in the living room. “I can’t believe she’s getting that to come out of our old piano. I could never get our son Aaron to so much as take lessons!”
“It ‘s a blessing and a curse,” Lacey said. “Sparkle—I mean Jennifer—gets these ideas in her head and then she becomes kind of obsessed. But Mr. Rustanov, if you want to come back, she’ll be playing until she gets to the A’s”
“I think I might,” Alexei answered, looking at Sparkle with real admiration in his eyes. “I have not heard trained pianists play Rachmaninoff half so well.”
Not for the first time, Lacey wondered how far Sparkle could go in life if she weren’t saddled with a mother who couldn’t fully support her prodigious talent. For a few moments she let herself admire her daughter along with Alexei and Eva as they all watched her play.
When the piece finished, they applauded. But then Sparkle surprised them all by saying, “Perhaps your son does not like this piano because it’s out of tune.”
Lacey winced. She wasn’t sure if they knew Sparkle was on the autism spectrum and meant no insult when she said things like that.
But either Suro had let them know or Eva was just smooth, because all she said was, “Well, aren’t you a sweetheart for letting us know our piano needs fixing. We’ll get somebody right on that.”
Proving Lacey’s years of instilling rote manners in her daughter hadn’t been wasted, Sparkle did say, “Thank you,” before flipping to the next computer print out of music and starting another piece.
The adults eventually ended up in the kitchen with Eva making them tea while they chatted back and forth about Texas and the house, which, as it turned out, Eva had grown up in since her father had been the mayor for many years before her. “The truth is, if they ever decide to vote me out, we’re going to be in a real pickle because technically the town owns this house, and we’ve built up our compound around it.”
Rustanov frowned at his wife. “Drummond loves you. They would not do this to you. And if ever you decide to retire, then we will buy this house from them and build them another one outside the compound.”
Eva reached over and squeezed Alexei’s hand. “My biggest supporter right here. But seriously, I hope ya’ll are comfortable. If you need anything, just holler. And again, let me apologize for my husband. If I hadn’t been away at a conference, I would never have let you languish out here all alone.”
“They are not alone, they have each other,” Alexei said. “And you are right, you should have been here. You shouldn’t be traveling in your condition.”
Eva just rolled her eyes. “Lexie’s all scared because it took us a while to get pregnant due to a really bad decision he made when was in the habit of sleeping with unsuitable women who weren’t me.”
“All the books say you should not fly after six months. What would you have done if you had gone into early labor?”
“I dunno, called the two bodyguards you had hovering over me the entire conference?” Eva answered, so obviously not afraid of her husband that Lacey could only stare at her in awe. “Relax, Lexie. I’m back now and I’m not going anywhere else anytime soon. Especially now that I know we have guests.”
Before Alexei could say anything else, she turned back to Lacey. “Now tell me all about you. I’m guessin’ you must have a pretty extraordinary back story.”
So Lacey told her everything. She wasn’t sure how much she already knew, but it seemed silly to keep holding on to secrets, especially from a woman who lived in a compound.
By the end of the story Eva was holding her hand and listening, hanging on her every word. “And you say this Suro just upped and disappeared? Where did he go? Why hasn’t he contacted you?”
“I don’t know,” she answered. She glanced at Alexei, who had also listened quietly but hadn’t seemed overly surprised by anything she said, which made her suspect he already knew most of the story she’d just told. “Your husband hasn’t told me anything about him, other than he said to come get my daughter and me.”
Eva turned to Alexei expectantly, but he shook his head. “It is better she does not know.”