TWENTY-SEVEN
Stevie Nicks’s “Gold Dust Woman” increased in volume as Isobel approached the cottage on the Chase Manor estate where Violet had lain her Fedora for the last seven months. Vi’s love of the Fleetwood Mac front woman was a tad obsessive, and knowing that she probably couldn’t hear the knock, Isobel walked right in.
On Dante Moretti, lounging against the kitchen counter and looking very much at home.
“Oh, hi,” Isobel said.
“Morning, Isobel.” Unfazed by her arrival, Dante sipped his coffee from a mug bearing Lionel Richie’s face and the slogan “Hello. Is it tea you’re looking for?”
At a loss for how to proceed, Isobel was immensely grateful when the music stopped and Violet walked in, wearing overalls and a purple T-shirt that matched the streaks in her hair.
“Hey.” Violet looked at Isobel.
Isobel looked at Dante.
Dante looked . . . bored.
So, they were all caught up.
Dante placed the mug down in the sink. “Any idea where Petrov is, Isobel?”
“What do you mean ‘where Petrov is’?”
“He took a personal day. After last night’s loss, we are now in the unenviable position of needing to win the day after tomorrow. Against Philly, the Eastern Conference leader. The last game of the season, and perhaps of all our fucking careers, and your charge decides he needs to go find himself and practice is optional.”
That was not good. Vadim played better when he was happy, and last night he had not played well. In the week since their big fight, the Rebels had blown two chances to earn a top three in the division, leaving it all to ride on the final game. Breaking up with the player you’re banging before you make the play-offs should probably not go in the coach’s manual.
But she wasn’t his keeper. He was a grown man, and if he felt it was perfectly legitimate to make decisions about her career, then he could sure as hell make decisions about his own.
She folded her arms, recalcitrant. “He’s going through some stuff. Family stuff.”
This earned her Moretti’s squint. “Why do I get the impression there’s something you’re not telling me?”
“It’s none of your business, Dante.”
“None of my business? This team is my business! Let me guess. Just another episode in the Chase Family Telenovela.”
“And pray tell, Dante, why are you here?” Isobel snapped. “Getting acquisitions advice from Violet?”
Violet coughed out a laugh, but then assumed a guilty expression when she saw Isobel glaring in her direction.
“Violet, thanks for the coffee,” Dante said, and then he left the building with his three-piece suit and his hot-assed scowl.
“What the hell was he doing here at eight in the morning?” Isobel asked.
“He’s helping me with Italian character work. For my improv class.” Violet headed to the counter. “Is this a wine conversation?”
Isobel took a seat at the scratched farmhouse table, marred by splotches of blue and red paint that looked recent. Painting, improv classes, wine for breakfast—Violet definitely led a more fulfilling life than the rest of them. “It’s a two-bottle conversation, but I have to drive to Rebels HQ to work with Burnett, so I’ll stick with coffee.”
While Violet poured, she asked, “So, where is Petrov, exactly?”
“I’ve no idea. If he’s not answering his phone, then he doesn’t want to talk to anyone.”
“And . . .”
Wasn’t this why she’d trekked two hundred feet from the big house? “We broke up. Parted ways. Whatever you want to call it. I found out something, something he did.”
“Freakin’ hockey players. He cheated on you?”
“No. Not that I know of. It’s worse.”
Violet placed two mugs of coffee on the table and took a seat. “You’re on the air, caller.”
She blew out a breath. “So, I tried out for Team USA and I would have made it except Vadim sabotaged it.”
“What?”
She didn’t have far to reach for the indignation still simmering below the surface, so she let it fuel her explanation of what Vadim had done. Once unburdened, she felt supremely vindicated in her decision to kick the manipulative bastard to the curb.
Except Violet had this weird look on her face. Also weird? She had remained uncharacteristically quiet.
Feeling edgy, Isobel plowed onward. “And then he had the nerve to tell me that he did it because he loved me. I mean, who does that? Total dick move, right?” Right?
Violet pursed her lips. Twitched her nose. She opened her mouth to say something. Closed it again.
After two more false starts, she finally spoke in a low voice, like she was summoning it from a deep, dark place. “Are you seriously telling me that you were going to play hockey again—real hockey with checks and knocks and all that shit—even after the doctors told you one bad hit or fall and it might be kaput, bye-bye, Isobel?”
Isobel squirmed in her seat. “Doctors always err on the side of caution. That’s their job. But my job is to skate. I know what I’m capable of, what my body can handle.”
Athletes are consummate liars.
Women in love often are, too.
“Oh really?” Exasperated, Violet waved at an empty chair at the table. “What does Harper think? How does she feel about you lacing up your skates so you can go off and—and—and—” She pointed to some far-off point. An imaginary ice rink of doom, Isobel supposed. “And die?”
There was a reason Isobel hadn’t told anyone but Vadim, and it wasn’t only because she didn’t want to jinx it.
“Stop being so dramatic. I haven’t told her and I’m not going to because it’s not happening now anyway. I’m done, no more pro hockey for me!”
Flustered, Isobel shot up, then sank to her chair again. She needed to explain it better. Violet had gone through her own rotten year with her breast cancer and had embraced her second chance with more zest than a bowl of lemons. Surely she would understand.
“You don’t know what it’s like to lose the thing that defines you, Vi. This has been everything to me since I was yea high. Dad would take me out and practically fling me across the rink. On the ice I danced. I was free. This is what I was supposed to do. It’s what Dad wanted, and now . . .” She knuckled her eyes. Some of her happiest memories were of Clifford teaching her to skate. “I’ve let him down. I’ve let the old bastard down.”
Her heart shriveled into a tiny lump, coal-like and blackened, incapable of sustaining life and love and happiness.
Violet was still scowling. She didn’t get it, because she had never cared for hockey. The only person who understood was the same person who snatched it away from her—for her own good. Turdweasel!
“First, Harper almost fucks her life up trying to impress a dead man, and now you’re doing the same,” Violet said. “Jesus H. Christ on a bike, Clifford was an asshole. He screwed around, left his baby mamas high and dry, and then thought he could twist you all up in knots from the grave with his legal shenanigans. And I bought into it. I said I’d hang with you for the season and not take the cut I had coming in the will until later, so your Rebels dreams wouldn’t die. But I didn’t sign on for this crap.”
Isobel opened her mouth to protest but shut it when Violet made a zip-it gesture with her hand. “And now you’re using this thing the Russian did for you because he loves you as an excuse to push him away. It’s like you desperately want to please old Cliffie-boy, yet you’re terrified that any guy you meet will be like him.”
That made no sense, except she guessed it did. “Well, you have to admit the Russian is out of my league.”
“Yes, he is! He has a brain and you don’t. The man doesn’t want you to die playing a stupid game with sticks and a ball—and yes, I know it’s called a puck but I’m making a point. He doesn’t want you to end your days getting your head bashed in. I can’t believe your selfishness. Sounds like Vadim is better off without you.”
This was outrageous. Isobel was the one suffering through a breakup and mourning the death of her career, and Violet was acting like this was a crime against her. Why the hell did she care how Isobel lived her life? If she ended up on a stretcher or in a coffin, it’d be no skin off Violet’s nose. They hardly knew each other.
Oh.
Shit.
“Violet, I—”
“Look, I’ve got stuff to do.” Violet jerked upright and put her mug of coffee in the sink beside Dante’s. She hadn’t even taken a sip. In profile, it looked like she was—oh, hell, she was crying.
Isobel stood again, even more discombobulated than she had been ten minutes ago when she walked in and saw Dante in her sister’s kitchen.
“I’m sorry,” Isobel whispered. “I didn’t mean to upset you.” I didn’t think I could.
“Doesn’t matter. After we lose this dumb game the day after tomorrow, it’ll all be over anyway. You can go skate yourself to death, and I won’t be around to see it.”
She stomped out of the room, leaving Isobel floundering.
Vadim stepped off the elevator in the high-rise building in Park Slope, Brooklyn, and looked left, then right. His mother stood at the doorway to the apartment where she lived with Mia, a crimp at the center of her forehead so deep it was visible from twenty feet out. He headed down the corridor to meet her.
“Mia’s not here,” she said quickly. “She’s at practice.”
He could fib and say that he had not known this, but the time for lies was over. Isobel had said he needed to see this from his mother’s point of view. His woman might despise him, but her advice about his family had always been sound.
“I knew Mia was out. I am here for you.”
Her blue eyes flew wide. Vadim had always assumed he had his father’s eyes, but he saw the ring of fire in hers now. Just like Vadim’s, a signifier of deep emotion. His father had never been an emotional man.
“Come in.” She wore a blue silk blouse and a well-cut black skirt. Not expensive, but smart and professional.
“You are just home from work?” he asked as he stepped into the foyer, though foyer was too generous. Mia had told him it was a small two-bedroom that, like all New York real estate, cost a fortune. He placed his overnight bag near the coat closet while Gordie Howe sniffed it, and then him. Ridiculous creature.
“About an hour ago. I was just about to open a bottle of wine. Would you like a glass?”
“I am not drinking alcohol this week. We have one more game, and I don’t want to jinx it.” They had lost their game in Denver, the one that would have been their cushion. Now there was only one shot left in Chicago against the Eastern Conference leaders, Philadelphia.
He should not be here. He should be home getting ready. But he could not be where she was, not without falling to his knees before her and apologizing. He refused to say he was sorry for saving her life!
“Tea?”
He nodded. She left the room, and he found his gaze avidly drinking in everything before she returned and made more of his curiosity than was warranted. Clearly this was a lived-in place, a weathered and well-loved home. Interesting art graced the walls, and photos covered every flat surface. Most of them were of Mia, or of mother and daughter.
His breath hitched.
Not all of them.
He picked up a gilt-edged frame with hands that would lose the Rebels the last game of the season if he let them tremble like this. Taken when he was nine years old, it showed him wearing hockey gear and carrying a trophy that was almost as big as he. His first big win.
Had she hidden it away all these years while she kept his identity a secret from Mia? Did she occasionally remove it from its storage place, unwrap its protective wrapper, and pore over it with a desperate longing?
He suspected she had. He suspected this separation had been as hard on her as it had been on him.
“Do you remember when you wanted to give up hockey?” He heard her voice behind him.
A stress laugh spilled from his mouth. “I was too small. And Papa said it would never work out for me. I was always getting checked and pounded. I loved hockey but I hated competitions.”
She smiled. “And I told you that if you couldn’t be the biggest, you would be the quickest. Buzz around the ice like a pchyolka.”
Little bee. That is what she called him. But after she left, he had an unexpected growth spurt, his muscles came in, and he no longer needed his quickness. His power came from brute strength. His speed never left, but he did not rely on it.
He forgot what had made him so suited for hockey in the first place. He forgot a lot of things.
“I’ve made a mistake. Screwed up with Isobel. I thought what I did was for the best, but she doesn’t see it that way.” He noticed his mother’s wry arch of her eyebrow. “Yes, tell me, Mama, how we men know nothing about our women.”
“Oh!” Tears welled in her eyes. What had he done now?
Ah. Mama. He had called her Mama.
She sniffed and knuckled the corners of her eyes.
He cupped her shoulder. “Don’t cry. I won’t call you Mama again.”
That only made it worse, though it was hard to tell if she was laughing or crying.
She swiped at her cheeks. “I’m such a blubberer. Let me see to the tea, and then you can tell me about Isobel and how you messed up.”
An hour later, the front door opened and Mia called out, “Whose bag is this?” She stopped, mouth agape, on seeing Vadim on the sofa.
“Don’t be so surprised, sestrichka. I said I would visit.”
“But . . .” She looked at her mother, then back at Vadim, who was sitting with shoes off, legs stretched out on a footstool, and Gordie Howe in his lap. Yes, he had made himself quite at home while he explained what had happened with Isobel. His mother had listened, not judging. Isobel would need time to come around, she advised. He had threatened her independence, and now she was figuring out how to align this with her feelings for him. Vika had no doubt that Isobel was crazy about him—she knew it from the moment she saw their dinner table teasing of each other in Chicago.
Only a mother could be so sure that her son was loved despite all evidence to the contrary.
He stood and enveloped his sister in his arms, while Gordie Howe yapped around excitedly. “How was practice?”
“Uh, good. What are you doing here?”
“I cannot come to see my family?”
“Sure you can, bro.” She thumped him on the shoulder, her eyes soft and wet. “I just didn’t expect you. Are you staying the night? You can have my room!”
“That would not be very brotherly of me. I have made a reservation at a hotel nearby. I will come back for breakfast.” He turned to his mother. “If that is okay.”
“Of course it is.” Vika looked as teary-eyed as Mia—well, that would increase tenfold with his next move. He had forgotten all about it until now.
“I have something for you. Wait one moment.” He went to his overnight bag and pulled out a package.
“For me?” Mia said.
“No. This is for our mother.”
With shaking fingers, Victoria opened the boxed gift and flipped the cardboard lid. Peeling back the tissue paper, she yelped in surprise.
“Vadim, it’s beautiful!” She lifted it out of the box: a samovar used to make tea in the Russian tradition. Made of polished brass, this one was less ornamental than many, more functional. Watching her face transform with emotion was still too painful, so instead he fixed on her blurred reflection in the burnished metal.
He cleared his throat. “Do you already have one?”
“I do, but it isn’t as beautiful as this. It’s on its last legs, actually.” She stood and threw her arms around him, sinking into him, and he found himself holding on to her, as if that could replace every hug he’d missed for the last seventeen years.
It couldn’t, but hugs were contagious, were they not? He was happy to become infected.
“What time should I come over for breakfast?” It was Saturday, so he didn’t want to force them to rise too early, but his flight back to Chicago was at two.
“Eight. It’ll give me time to get to the bakery.”
“I’ll bring the baked goods. You provide the tea.”
Swiping at her eyes with one hand, Mia gripped his forearm with the other. “You could just stay here tonight. On the sofa.”
“Ah, but is that not where Alexei will be staying?”
His mother blushed. “Alexei? I—I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Oh, don’t you?” He called out loudly in Russian, “You can come out now, you old fool!”
The durák put his head around a corner, his expression sheepish. “The walls are thin. You will wake the neighbors.”
Mia laughed, all amazement. “You mean he was here the entire time? Hiding?”
Vadim shook his head in pity. “I saw his shoes over by the armchair. Fools in love are not known for their common sense or the ability to cover their tracks.” To Alexei, he commanded, “Do me the service of treating my mother with respect and court her with pride in the open.”
The old bulldog scowled. “I do not need your permission.”
“No, you don’t, priyatel’.” Friend. He kissed his sister, then his mother, on the forehead. “Until breakfast. And, Alexei?”
He placed a hand on his old friend’s shoulder, the man who had attended every hockey game, given unsolicited opinions, and stepped into his father’s shoes for very little reward. “Please take this with the kindness it is intended. You are fired.”
And then he left his family awestruck.