Bethany glanced at the clock on the kitchen wall as it ticked noisily past midnight. Her father had gone to bed hours ago, exhausted by his unusually stressful day, although gleeful about his part in their adventures. Or misadventures.
She had been stalling, doing little things around the house, and pretending she wasn’t waiting for Alexei to return. But she’d taken Lulu out for one last pee and checked on the puppies an hour ago. It was time to admit to herself what she’d feared all along - he wasn’t coming back.
With a sigh, she got up from the table, poured out her cold tea, and was reaching for the light switch when she heard a knock at the door. Her heart might have skipped a beat or two as she walked over to open it.
“Hi,” Alexei said, as if he’d just strolled over from the guest house after a normal day. “I saw your light on and hoped you might still be up. Can I come in?”
Bethany looked over his shoulder to see if he was alone. “Are Beka and Chewie with you?”
He shook his head. “They’ve been back at the bus for a while. I had a few extra things to deal with in the Otherworld before I came back through, so it took me a little longer.” He rolled his eyes. “Besides, high tea with the queen went on forever. You know, they don’t serve beer at those things. What’s the point?”
He brushed past her and sat down at the table, staring at the refrigerator until she took the hint and grabbed him a cold brew. Bethany didn’t bother to get one for herself. She had no idea how this conversation was going to go, and she felt as though she needed to have her wits about her. What was left of them, anyway.
“Are you okay?” he asked, once he’d drained half the bottle.
Bethany gave him a lopsided smile, the best she could manage under the circumstances. “I’m fine. Some nasty bumps and bruises, my wrists are pretty torn up, and I’ll probably have some strange nightmares for a while, but considering that I was kidnapped by pirates, not bad really.”
Alexei grinned at her. “That’s my girl. And where is your father? Do you need me to help you put him to bed?”
She shook her head wryly. “He put himself to bed an hour ago. Apparently all your nagging and trickery paid off, and he is in much better shape than he was when you got here. Once this crisis forced him to push himself, he discovered that he is capable of doing almost everything for himself now. It looks like we won’t be needing a home health aide after all.”
“Oh,” Alexei said. His face bore a curious expression, and she couldn’t tell if he was relieved or disappointed. “That’s good, I guess.”
“Yeah,” Bethany said, her stomach feeling as though it were filled with lead. “So you don’t need to stay here and take care of him anymore. And you fixed all the stuff you broke at the bar, so you’re free to travel on to whatever adventure waits for you down the road.”
He finished his beer and set the empty bottle down decisively on the table. “Ah, right. I’ve actually had a few thoughts about that, if you’d be interested in hearing them. If it’s not too late, that is.”
Bethany got the sinking feeling it was too late for a lot of things, but she figured she might as well get the bad news now instead of later. It wasn’t as though she was going to sleep anyway, once he went back to the guest house to pack so he could leave in the morning.
“Not at all,” she said in what was supposed to be a perky tone, although it ended up making her sound like a slightly demented cheerleader. “I can’t wait to hear where you’re going on that ridiculous Harley next. A riding tour of all the dive bars in Alaska, maybe? It’s a big state. Might take you a while.”
Alexei fiddled with the ends of his beard. “Well, there’s kind of a problem with that plan. For one thing, I’ve figured out recently that I don’t seem to find drinking and brawling as entertaining as I used to. It was a disappointment at first, but I guess after all these years, it’s only to be expected.”
Bethany blinked. “Really? It’s kind of hard to imagine you without the drinking and the fighting. Are you sure?”
He shrugged. “I know. Kind of shocking, isn’t it? The other problem is that I’m not sure the motorcycle is going to work for extensive traveling anymore. You see, I’ve gotten kind of attached to one of Lulu’s puppies, and she said I could keep him. But it is going to be hard to fit a Great Dane puppy on the back of a motorcycle, even one as big as the Harley. Not to mention that he’ll probably keep growing. They do that, you know.”
“Huh,” Bethany said, feeling a spark of something that felt suspiciously like hope. She stomped on it with a mental boot. “How were you planning to deal with that, exactly? Trade the bike in on a nice practical SUV?”
Alexei looked appalled. “Hell, no. What kind of barbarian do you think I am?” He held up one hand. “Never mind, don’t answer that.” He gave her that grin again, the one that made her knees weak and her fingertips tingle. “Actually, I was thinking I might try staying in one place for a while. This place, specifically, if you don’t have any objections.”
“This place,” Bethany repeated. “You mean the guest house?” It wasn’t what she’d hoped for, in her heart of hearts, but at least he’d still be here. “I guess you could stay there until tourist season starts. Then we’d have to rent it out, I’m afraid. We need the money.”
“Ah,” Alexei said. “About that. You don’t actually.”
Bethany felt like she was missing something in this conversation. Maybe a number of somethings. “What are you talking about? Of course we do. Even if my father doesn’t need a home health aide, he has lots of medical expenses. The income from the bar barely covers them, even without me taking a salary. We need all the extra money we can get.”
“I think this will probably help with that,” Alexei said, reaching into an inside pocket of his leather jacket. He pulled out a small pouch and upended it onto the table, spilling out a small handful of old, slightly battered-looking gold coins.
“Are those?” Bethany put one hand over her mouth.
“Yep. I grabbed them up off the deck when I went back to fetch the amulet. The damned ship was on fire; it seemed a pity to waste them.” Alexei grinned at her, looking more than a little piratical himself. “Besides, I thought they might come in handy. Now that your dad is doing so much better, I figured he might want to get one of those cool vans designed for folks in wheelchairs, and maybe one of those fancy electric wheelchairs to go with it.”
Bethany blinked back tears. “That’s a great idea. But don’t you want the coins for yourself?”
He laughed. “I don’t have much need for money. Besides, this is just the tip of the iceberg. There will be plenty more.”
“What the heck are you talking about?” Bethany gave up and went to pour herself a shot or two of her father’s whiskey. This conversation was making her head spin anyway.
“Two things, really,” Alexei said, casually reaching out and taking a sip from her glass. “First of all, the queen punished Hayreddin by taking away his hoard, and Beka convinced her majesty to allow us to bring a chunk of it back here to help out the fishermen who were hurt by his actions. So Beka is going to stick around for a while and set up a fund for that, which you’ll then administer, if that’s okay with you. There would be a small salary attached and Beka thought your legal background would help.”
“Wow,” Bethany said. “That’s great. The damaged boats and loss of fishing put a lot of families into serious trouble. This will completely save the day.” She thought for a minute of everything Hayreddin had put them - and her - through. “But just taking away his treasure doesn’t really sound like enough of a penalty, all things considered. He was going to kill us all!”
“Oh, that wasn’t the only punishment, although losing his hoard is actually pretty traumatic for a dragon,” Alexei said. “She turned him into a newt.”
“A newt!”
“He’ll get better,” Alexei said. “Eventually. The queen usually only stays mad for a century or two.”
“Oh,” Bethany said weakly. “I guess that’s okay, then.” She shook her head, trying to rid herself of the feeling that she had walked through a looking glass into a completely upside down world. “You said there were two things?”
“Right. Well, more than two, but two that had to do with money,” Alexei said. “You see, it occurred to me that when the kraken brought up those coins, they were probably from Hayreddin’s lost treasure, since he’d said they were close to getting it back when we stopped him. We have the coordinates of where Len’s boat was when Beka and I caught up with you, so we figured that between Beka’s diving skills and your father’s boat, we could probably find Hayreddin’s old ship and claim the rest of it.”
“Holy shit,” Bethany said. She was pretty sure her jaw had dropped open in an unbecoming way. “You’d be rich.”
“We’d be rich,” Alexei said in a firm tone. “Or at least, you and your father would be well enough off to make whatever improvements to the house you wanted, and you wouldn’t have to worry about the bar or renting the guesthouse. You could even go back to law school if you wanted. Since I’m going to be sticking around, I could keep an eye on your father.” He poured another slug of whiskey into her glass. For a guy who said he wasn’t interested in drinking much anymore, he could certainly put it away.
“What would you do with your share?” she asked.
“Would you go back, if you could?” Alexei asked, ignoring her question.
“I don’t know. Ever since I realized earlier tonight that my dad might not need me the way he had, I’ve been thinking about finishing up my law degree. All I have left to do is sit the bar. I’d actually completed the coursework before my dad’s accident derailed my plans, but I was having doubts about whether or not a legal career was really what I wanted.”
“So you said. And now?” he asked.
“Being back here made me realize that I’d been looking at a conventional path, and I’m not a conventional person. But that doesn’t mean I couldn’t use my legal degree to do some good. I was thinking I might be able to help the locals when they had issues, and maybe get into environmental law so I could fight for your friends the dolphins and the sharks.” She gave him a crooked grin. “I might be the first lawyer in town to hang up a shingle in a bar. My dad wants to get back to running the place part time, but he’s not up to handling it on his own.”
“That sounds great,” Alexei said, a twinkle in his eyes. “I think it would be fabulous to work out of a bar. In fact, I was thinking of taking my part of the money from the treasure and buying into one. That way if I got carried away and broke things, it wouldn’t be so bad, since I’d be a part owner.”
Bethany stared at him. “Did you have any particular bar in mind, by chance?”
“I am kind of partial to The Hook and Anchor,” he said. “Having spent so much time rebuilding the damned place. Besides the barmaid is hotter than hell. I could think of a lot worse places to spend my days. You know, when I wasn’t out hunting treasure or chatting with dolphins.”
“Of course,” Bethany said, feeling slightly hysterical. This conversation was not going at all the way she expected it to. “And what would you chat with the dolphins about, just out of curiosity?”
The twinkle got even stronger. “I thought maybe I could work out a kind of treaty between the ocean dwellers and the fishermen. You know, like the dolphins could tell me where certain fish were running, and the fishermen would go out at prearranged times to get them. That way the locals would have better catches and they wouldn’t be accidentally netting turtles or sharks or dolphins. Mind you, we’d have to figure out a way to do it without the fishermen realizing I speak dolphin, but I’m sure we could come up with something.”
“That could be amazing,” Bethany said. She wasn’t sure why she was surprised that Alexei had put so much thought into doing something practical and useful. She’d seen his patience and consideration with her father, after all, and how hard he’d worked to make the bar look nice again - well, even nicer - after he’d wrecked it.
“You know, for a guy who puts so much effort into trying to act like he’s a jerk who doesn’t care about anything, you’re a pretty decent fellow.”
“Stop it,” Alexei said with a grimace. “If you’re going to be insulting, I’m not going to tell you the rest of the plan.”
“There’s more?” Bethany had no idea what to expect. Hell, she hadn’t expected any of what he’d told her already. She’d been braced to watch him drive away in the morning, and now he was going to be staying. At least for a while. Maybe longer, if he was serious about buying into the bar. It was always hard to tell with Alexei. “What now? A bridge club with mermaids? A pirate-themed fishing tour?”
Alexei perked up. “That last one kind of sounds like fun. But no, that’s not it.” Suddenly he looked almost…nervous. She didn’t think she’d ever seen that expression on his face.
“What?” she asked. Maybe he was going to buy his own place to live once he’d found the treasure. Why wouldn’t he?
“It’s about the guesthouse,” he said.
Damn. She knew it.
“I thought maybe it would be nice to fix that up to be wheelchair accessible. Your father mostly only uses the living room and his bedroom here, and the kitchen to eat whatever you’ve cooked for him. The guesthouse would be a lot easier to redo than the house, which has narrower doorways, and then he’d have more privacy.”
“Uh, yeah, that’s true. But then where would you live?” Bethany suspected her father would actually prefer the smaller, more manageable space of the guesthouse, especially if they could fix it up so it was more accessible. But she’d miss Alexei being right outside her back door.
He flashed her a smile that wobbled around the edges, and cleared his throat. “I, um, I was hoping I’d live here. With you. And Lulu and the puppy. At least one puppy. They’re all really cute.” Bethany couldn’t believe it. He was babbling. But wait, had he just suggested that they live together?
As she watched in disbelief, he slid out of his chair and onto one knee in front of her, then pulled a small leather bag out of his back pocket. He emptied it into his palm, revealing a gold ring in the shape of a dolphin, holding a brilliant and astonishingly large diamond in its mouth.
“This is why I was late,” he said. “I took one of the gold coins to an artisan at court - a dwarf known for his metal work - and had him make it into this ring. The diamond is a gift from the queen, by the way. She was very impressed with everything you’d done, and said you sounded delightfully fierce. She’s looking forward to meeting you some day.”
Bethany opened and closed her mouth, but no words came out.
Alexei grinned up at her. “Want to raise puppies together? I promise to try not to break anything. Much.”
She blinked. “You know that is the least romantic proposal in the history of proposals, right?”
“Oh,” he said, face falling. “Yeah, well, my brother Mikhail is the smooth one. I’m just the muscle.”
“You’re a lot more than that,” she said softly, gazing into his eyes. The truth was, she couldn’t imagine her life without this surprisingly gentle giant, even if that likely meant a future of repairing furniture and cooking meals that should feed an entire pirate crew.
“You’re the man I love. I don’t need smooth. I need someone who loves dogs and can put up with my crabby father and treats me like an equal.” She leaned down and kissed him. “Now, are you going to put that ring on my finger or not?”
His face lit up as he slid the ring onto the finger it had been made for, where it fit perfectly. Magic, no doubt. Then he stood up and pulled her into his strong arms.
“You know, I might occasionally go help Beka or one of the other Baba Yagas out with a problem. It could be dangerous. Would that be okay with you?” He looked into her eyes. “I would like to have an adventure now and again, but I won’t go if you don’t want me to.”
“Life should probably have a little danger and adventure in it,” she said, feeling her lips curve up into a wicked grin. “In fact, if you want to live dangerously, I have an idea.”
“What’s that?” her future husband asked, smiling back down at her.
She reached behind her and shoved the paperwork she’d been fiddling with onto the floor. “How about we see if this old table is sturdy enough to take the weight of an insanely large former Rider and a barmaid-soon-to-be-lawyer?”
“I like the way you think,” Alexei said with a roar of laughter, and they proceeded to find out.
What the heck. It was just one more piece of furniture to mend after all.