Elena was not amazed.
This couldn’t actually be the place. The building where Vlad had directed her the next afternoon looked like the aftermath of a rabies outbreak. This was the cheese shop?
“Elena.” Vlad’s hand shot across the center console and grabbed hers. “There’s still time to back out.”
“I really need that cheese, Vlad.”
He closed his eyes. “God forgive me.”
He let go of her hand and opened his door. Elena ran around and helped him with his crutches. “Stay behind me,” he ordered her.
“You can’t be serious,” she said.
“Just do what I say, Elena. Please.”
She slid behind him and immediately felt invisible. His massive shoulders dwarfed hers, hiding her from whatever bogeyman he feared as they approached the decrepit black door.
Vlad knocked three times in quick succession and then twice more.
A moment passed, and someone from inside knocked once.
Vlad knocked two more times.
“There’s a secret knock?” Elena whispered.
“Be quiet,” Vlad hissed. “And don’t laugh. He doesn’t like it when you laugh.”
“Sorry.” Elena cleared her throat.
A single window in the center had something covering it. The scrape of wood against it made her stand on tiptoe to peer over Vlad’s shoulder. A pair of eyes looked out through the previously blocked window. “Coin,” a dark voice said.
Elena slapped a hand over her mouth to cover the bark of laughter that threatened to ruin it all. Vlad held up the Swiss cheese coin like the one Colton had shown her. There was a sound of locks turning, and the door opened. A burst of cold air from inside rushed out.
Vlad crutched forward slowly, and Elena stayed as hidden as possible behind him. But when Vlad crossed the threshold, the mysterious man began to close the door. Elena shoved her foot in the door as Vlad whipped his head around.
“Wait—”
The man’s hand shot out and gripped her shoulder, holding her back. “Who is this?”
Vlad swiveled on his crutches, an ominous look turning his face into an intimidating mask, and Elena got the first glimpse of what he must look like to opposing players on the ice. She’d be lying if she said it didn’t sort of do things for her.
“Do not touch her,” Vlad warned.
Whether it was the tone or the expression, it worked. The man dropped his hand but shook his head. “You know the rules. No nonmembers.”
“It’s my wife,” Vlad said in that same menacing tone.
The man narrowed his eyes. “Where has she been? Why hasn’t she been here before?”
“She’s been away at school,” Vlad said. He balanced a crutch against his side so he could extend his hand to her. “Elena, come here.”
She skirted around the man and skidded toward Vlad. He pulled her against his side. “She knew nothing about this until now,” he said. “I’ve never told her about this place.”
Elena glanced around the tiny, dark space. It had probably once been the welcoming entryway to a small shop or pub but had long ago decayed into the kind of moldy, cramped staging area she always imagined for illegal organ-harvesting operations. Which wasn’t that far-fetched. Her father had uncovered just such an operation several years before his disappearance.
Behind them, a short hallway ended with a slight ramp, where a thick black tarp of some kind hung low to the ground and blocked her view of whatever was beyond.
“He’s not going to like this,” the man said.
Now that Elena’s eyes had adjusted to the darkness, she could actually see him. He wore a red bandanna around his forehead, and a tight hairnet covered what appeared to be the smallest man bun ever attempted. The smudges on his black-rimmed glasses told her he spent too much time in the dark.
“Well, bring him out here,” Vlad said. “Let’s ask him directly.”
“No. I can’t do that. Only coin holders get to see him.”
Vlad shifted to pull Elena closer to him, but at the same time, the movement caused his crutch to dislodge from under his arm. It fell to the floor, and inside the small space, it was as loud as a gunshot and had nearly the same effect.
Man-bun Man jumped half a foot and whipped a short-handled prong knife from his pocket. The kind used for soft and medium-hard cheeses and, in this case, maybe their throats.
Vlad lunged forward on one leg, grabbed the man’s wrist, and simultaneously shoved him against the wall. “That’s a fancy cheese utensil you’ve got there,” Vlad said in a deceptive drawl. “I’d hate to have to break it.”
Elena muttered a Russian curse word and stepped forward. “Stop this! You’re going to hurt yourself.”
Vlad didn’t turn around. “Elena, stay back.”
She shoved his crutches at him. “For God’s sake, I just need some tvorog.”
The scuff of the tarp brought a collective gasp from all three of them. At once, they turned their heads in time to see a tall, dark figure emerge from behind the curtain. He wore a long apron and carried a towel on which he slowly wiped his hands.
“A woman who knows her cheese. Color me aroused.”
His voice was smooth, warm, like a melted raclette, soft and creamy and hot. Elena felt herself sink into it like a crust of bread in a fondue pot. She turned toward it and began to walk.
“Elena, no.” Vlad’s fingers skimmed her elbow, but it was no use. She was under a spell.
The man descended the ramp. When he finally stepped into the dim light, he spoke to the dude with the bandanna. “It’s okay, Byron. Let them in.”
To Elena, he extended his hand. “I am Roman. You are?”
“Elena,” she breathed.
“A beautiful name for a beautiful woman.” He raised her knuckles to his lips. “It is a pleasure.”
“That’s my wife,” Vlad said behind them.
Roman lifted a perfectly formed brow. “A gorgeous woman who is also a turophile? You are a lucky man, my friend.” He cupped Elena’s elbow. “Please, let me show you to my fromagerie.”
The click-scruff of Vlad’s crutches behind them had an aggressive cadence to it as he followed. Roman lifted the black plastic curtain. When she walked through, bright lights automatically turned on, momentarily blinding her. But after blinking a couple of times, she slapped her hand to her chest. This was a cheese paradise.
Elena wrapped her arms around her torso and shivered.
“My apologies, love,” Roman said, brushing a fingertip down the goose bumps that had erupted along her triceps. “We must keep it cool in here. Your husband should have warned you to bring your coat.”
Vlad made an ugly noise.
“As you can see,” Roman said, bending seductively close to her ear, “we have everything you could want.”
“Tvorog?”
He turned and pointed with a long, slender finger. She followed with her eyes and . . . there it was. “You have it,” she whispered, her feet moving of their own accord toward her quarry. Her mouth watered.
“Ah yes,” Roman said, following closely. “Authentic farmer cheese. I use the original recipe of my great-grandmother.”
Elena looked over sharply. “You are Russian?”
“On my father’s side. My great-grandparents came over in 1911.”
“Do you speak any Russian?”
He winked and made a dirty proposition in their native language that made her cheeks flame.
Vlad squinted in suspicion. “You have never spoken Russian to me.”
“I only know enough to get me in trouble.” He laughed in Vlad’s direction.
“I don’t understand,” Elena said, shaking her head. “This is amazing. Why don’t you open a store to the public?”
The air seemed to escape the room. She glanced at Vlad, who was frozen in place, a slice of Havarti halfway to his mouth.
Roman chuckled quietly, but his laughter held a sinister undertone. “Big Cheese would never let it happen.”
“Big Cheese?”
“Corporate dairy farms. They lobby the government to pack the FDA with their friends who set regulations that make it impossible for a small cheesemaker to succeed. They set standards that strip away the joy, the artistry. They have sold their souls”—he pounded his fist into his other hand—“to factory-made cheese. And then they destroy the environment with their mass-production farms that milk their cows too often.”
Elena blinked. “How often do they milk their cows?”
“Three times a day, Elena. Three times!”
“And how many times should they be milking them?”
“Two times, max.”
“I see.”
“Do you know how hard it is to get a real Brie in this country, Elena? American pasteurization laws make it impossible. What you buy in the stores is a watered-down version with none of the texture and seduction of the real thing.”
Elena didn’t know what those words meant in regards to cheese, but he was on a roll, so she didn’t want to interrupt him.
“That is why I must operate in the dark,” he said. “In the underground.”
“So you’re like a resistance fighter against a cheese conspiracy?”
“At the highest levels of government and dairy.”
“And you can make authentic cheeses that others cannot?”
“Yes. And anything I do not make, my network of underground fromagers can provide.”
“Cool. I’m in.” She fist-bumped him. “Because we are having a party on Saturday, and I’m going to need a lot.”
“A party, huh?”
“Yes. You should come.”
“It is a party for friends only,” Vlad growled.
“Then I am doubly honored to be invited.” He lifted Elena’s hands to his lips and kissed her knuckles. Elena might have swooned a little. “I’ll be sure to bring something extra special.”
“That’s the last time we’re going there.”
Vlad eased his leg into the car and slammed his door shut. Elena started the car, a dreamy look on her face that made him want to punch the dashboard and add broken fingers to his list of problems.
“All that cheese,” Elena breathed, pulling onto the road. “It was like a dream.”
“It is a nightmare, and I cannot believe you invited him to the party.”
“It seemed rude not to.”
“I don’t want him anywhere near our party.” Vlad glared out the window at the passing buildings as she drove. He suddenly hated those buildings and for no particular reason other than they happened to be in his line of vision at the time of his bad mood.
“I’m going to make cottage cheese bars,” she said in that same wispy voice. “And vareniki.”
“That’s too much work.”
“And a kurnik.”
His stomach growled that the mention of another one of his favorites. It had been years since he’d had the traditional layered chicken pie.
“Oh, and dressed herring.”
She moaned it in a way that snapped every last nerve. “We don’t need all that. Make some tea cakes and call it good.”
“I just want your friends to get the full Russian culinary experience.”
“They eat pizza and wings. They won’t know the difference.”
“Colton seems to like my cooking.”
Vlad cracked a knuckle. Colton needed to start eating at home. He didn’t like this feeling, whatever it was. His skin felt too tight over his bones, and something burned in his chest.
She finally glanced over. “Why are you so grumpy?”
“I’m not grumpy.”
“You’re acting grumpy.”
“Have you decided where you’re going to live in Russia?” he asked, because why the hell not? He was already grumpy.
“What?” she asked. She did a double take, tearing her eyes briefly from the road. “Where did that come from?”
“It’s something we should probably talk about, don’t you think?”
“Now?”
“Why not?” He twisted in his seat to look at her and then instantly regretted it because all he could see was the gentle curve of her jaw. “What about your car? Are we going to ship it?”
Her hands tightened on the steering wheel. “I—I don’t know. I haven’t thought that far. I’ll probably leave it with you.”
“You can’t leave it here. What will you drive in Russia?”
“I will buy a new one.”
“That’s ridiculous. Why would you do that when you already have a car?”
“Because I’ll be making my own money. I’m not going to keep relying on you, Vlad.”
It annoyed him when she said stuff like that. A reminder that all of this had been nothing but a transaction to her. He rubbed the center of his chest again.
“There’s no use fighting about this stuff now,” she said. “I don’t even have a job yet.”
“You should apply to the paper in Omsk. You could live with my parents.”
She rolled her eyes. “Oh yes. I’m sure they would love to have their son’s ex-wife move in.”
“You are like a daughter to them, whether we are married or not.”
“Well, the last time I looked, the paper in Omsk doesn’t have any openings.”
“But I’m sure they would make an exception for you—”
“Vlad, stop,” she snapped, once again peeling her gaze from the road. “You don’t understand how journalism works. Could you just send your résumé to any hockey team and ask to play for them? No.”
“Why are you being so stubborn?” Vlad asked, eyebrows tugging together.
“Why are you being so stubborn?”
“Because I’m just trying to protect you, Elena.”
She turned onto his street. “I don’t need your protection. Maybe you haven’t noticed, but I’m not the same scared little girl you married.”
“I have noticed,” he said as she pulled into the drive. “And I’m proud of you. If I haven’t said that before, I’m sorry.”
“There’s a lot we don’t say to each other.” She eased the car into the garage and killed the engine. Irritation was evident in her movements when she threw open her door and slid out. He waited for her to come around to his side before opening his door. She handed him his crutches like always and stepped back so he could get out. But in the cramped space between the car and the wall of the garage, she could only move so far. She was blocked between his open door on one side and his body on the other.
The mundane suddenly became meaningful, and he began to notice all those small moments of awareness about which Malcolm had waxed so poetically. The fresh-aired scent of her hair. The light spray of freckles across her nose and cheeks. The way her lush bottom lip curled out farther than the top, giving her a perpetual look of someone who’d just been kissed. The way he suddenly felt like he was seventeen again, sitting next to her along the banks of the Om River, his body hyperaware of hers in a way he’d never experienced before. The way the air moved against his skin whenever she flipped her hair off her shoulder. The way his fingers itched to catch a soft tendril and tickle it across his palm. The way her collarbone formed a straight, sensual line above the swell of her breasts beneath her shirt. The urgent, overwhelming, burning need to kiss her.
Her eyes strayed to his mouth and lingered there. Every breath became a labor of willpower under her scrutiny. Kiss me. The words were there on the tip of his tongue. Why couldn’t he say them? Why couldn’t he move, take that first step? Now, like then, he couldn’t do it. “Elena,” he rasped.
She blinked, and that cool detachment returned. She stepped back with a forced smile. “Thank you for taking me today. You should go inside and rest your leg.”
“My leg,” he said, disappointment weighing his voice down.
“It’s why I’m here, right?”
Right. And as soon as he was healed, she’d be leaving. How many times was his brain going to have to remind his heart of that fact?