Total Package (4 page)

Alexi grinned broadly. “So this is it, huh?”

“Maybe.” Danya glanced at a movement outside the windows and noted Sidney tramping along the shoreline, dressed in her camouflage cargo pants and hooded jacket, a camera bag slung from her shoulder. She stopped, faced the ocean and quickly, expertly, extracted her large camera from the bag. Her movements on the beach said that she was shooting pictures.

Alexi, Mikhail and Jarek came to stand beside Danya. “I think she’s coming to collect you,” Alexi stated with humor in his tone.

“If she asked your quitting time, that’s a possibility,” Mikhail noted.

Danya watched that small taut body, poised against sand and ocean and forced himself to breathe quietly, though his heart was quickening and his body had tensed, eager for her to come to him.

“You’re getting that definite hot-and-bothered look, cousin,” Jarek added with a chuckle.

“Say anything about that, and you won’t be invited to the wedding.” Danya folded his arms and leveled a look at his brother and cousins. “Tell your wives this is a very tricky situation. Sidney hasn’t a clue. I would appreciate their cooperation.”

Alexi shook his head. “You mean, you want our wives to keep their distance, as if that’s possible. They’ve been worrying about you for months now, since you moved and they got you under their wings. You scooped them, cousin, found your own woman and that leaves them with little to do.”

Danya picked a baby rattle from Alexi’s pocket and shook it lightly. “Your wife had a baby, Jarek has two, and Mikhail has three. I would say that is enough to keep them busy…just for a time. Please ask them.”

Mikhail drew a deep breath. “It might not be possible to stop them. They’re having tea at my house now.”

“Sidney isn’t the tea and sewing kind. I’ve asked her to move in with me. I’ll baby-sit for a week a piece if you can keep them off her for just a bit. Think of a holiday alone with your wives.”

Jarek whistled softly. “Fast work.”

“Put your feet down. Make your wives toe the line, men,” Danya added with a chuckle. “As if you could. You’re all wrapped up around their little fingers.”

“Just wait, cousin,” Mikhail warned with a grin and glanced out of the window. “She’s getting closer.”

The four men watched Sidney march up the shoreline toward the house; they hurried to act busy.

No one answered her knock at the new door, but Sidney could hear saws buzzing. She noted the fresh scent of lumber, the Stepanov Building pickup parked at one end of the private home. The barren new windows and new door marked the new addition.

She opened the door, scanned the jumble of tools and working men and waited for someone to notice her. When the men continued working and the saw didn’t stop, she yelled, “Danya!”

When he didn’t respond, she decided he couldn’t hear her over the sound of the saw and hammers. Sidney opened the door wider and peered inside. The four tall men continued to work. She stepped inside and closed the door. Amid the flying sawdust, Danya was standing on a ladder, fitting a shelf into a built-in ceiling-to-floor bookcase.

The man at the table saw noted her and flipped it off. He removed his safety glasses, and his eyes were as blue as Danya’s. “Yes?” he asked politely.

Danya was hammering the board into place. The other two men were working together, putting up dry wall panels.

“Is Danya Stepanov here?” Sidney asked the blue-eyed man politely. His rugged face was similar to Danya’s, but then so were the other men’s. She already knew that Danya was there, because his butt was fine and taut within his jeans and she couldn’t take her eyes off it. She itched to use her camera; she could just imagine how much a magazine would pay for that…or maybe that broad muscled back, without his shirt, of course. Who was she kidding? Pictures weren’t on her
mind; she just wanted to run her hands over that back and butt and maybe other things, too. She usually methodically considered the specific shot, focusing on the shadows, the angles, backgrounds—but now, her whole body was considering the very touchable textures of the man.

“He is busy.”

“I see that. I want to talk with him.”

“It’s only a little while until quitting. If you’re his girlfriend, you’ll have to wait.”

“Listen, Bud. I’m not his girlfriend, I just want to talk with him.” Sidney never wasted time. She walked to Danya, who seemed very intent on his work and yelled, “Danya, get your butt down here. I want to talk with you.”

He seemed surprised as he turned to look down at her. “Oh…hi, Sid. What’s up?”

She noted that all of a sudden, the three other men were watching her. She moved closer so that they wouldn’t hear the conversation. She had to stand on tiptoe to whisper in Danya’s ear. He leaned down to her, and his hands rested lightly on her waist. His hands were big and firm and something inside her shimmered and warmed.

“Are you okay?” she asked, remembering how they met on Strawberry Hill, how he seemed to need to touch, to anchor himself to her and to life.

“I am fine,” he whispered back.

“Is that offer to move into your place still standing? It’s so quiet there. I slept like a log until after noon. I can use the resort’s suite for my work, so I won’t clutter up your place with my equipment.”

“The models again?”

Sidney tried not to look hunted. “They’re getting all warmed up for that party I don’t want to go to…. I’d pay rent.”

Danya frowned. “You insult me. You gave me comfort last night, and you think I would want pay?”

He was very close and scented of fresh wood. “So you’re okay with this? Is tonight okay?”

His gaze took in her face. “Tonight is excellent.”

Sidney realized that his hands were tightening, drawing her closer to him. His face was only inches from hers—probably better to hear her whisper. “What about your family? Will they mind?”

“No, I assure you, they will be most happy that you are with me.”

“Good.”

Danya turned her slowly in front of him, his hands still resting on her waist. “This is Alexi, my brother…my cousins, Jarek and Mikhail. Perhaps you have met Mikhail? This is Sidney Blakely. She’s the photographer for the models here.”

“Call me Sid.” She recognized the manager of the luxurious Amoteh Resort. In work clothing, he looked so different from the sleek businessman striding through the resort’s halls and expertly, quietly directing his staff. “Hi, Mikhail. Nice to meet you, guys. I’m just leaving. You can get back to work now.”

But each man came close, towering over her. They looked so much alike, but Mikhail’s and Jarek’s eyes were dark green, while Alexi’s eyes were as blue as Danya’s. Smaller than the men by several inches, Sidney glared up at them. “You guys should take better care of Danya,” she scolded.

“Oh, how so?” Alexi said as he frowned down at her.

“He’s a lonely sort of guy. Like tonight. I bet you could all invite him over to dinner, and you probably haven’t, right?”

The three men glanced over her head to Danya, seemed to be amused, then they shook their heads. “You are right,” Alexi said, “We forget about him at times.”

“I guess we are so comfortable in our own homes with our families that we forget he might need us,” Jarek murmured contritely.

“Shame on you,” Sidney scolded. “That is not very familylike.”

“You are absolutely right, Sid. How thoughtless of us,” Mikhail said firmly.

Sidney realized that she was holding Danya’s hand, his
thumb caressing the back of hers. His other arm had gone around her, resting lightly on her waist. She seemed to fit naturally into the cove of his body as he drew her close and looked down at her. “Actually, Sid, it isn’t their fault. It’s mine. I’m kind of a loner. Sid, do you think I could cook something for us tonight—you and me, I mean?”

She frowned at his selfish family, who hadn’t thought to include him in their warmth, a guy who needed someone to keep him from that dangerous edge. His defense of them was just loyalty. “Sure. You do that. See you later.”

Sidney moved toward the door and Danya came to open it for her. “I can do that for myself,” she said. “I’m not helpless.”

“Of course. I should have known. I’ll come outside with you.”

Sidney opened the door, Danya went through it and she leveled a look at the three other tall men. “I thought I heard a laugh. What’s so funny?”

All three men held up their hands, their expressions innocent.

“Okay, then. At ease, men,” Sidney said and closed the door.

Danya was waiting for her, and his eyes were as blue as the clear sky. For a moment, Sidney’s mind went blank and she struggled to comprehend what he was saying: “What are you hungry for?”

“Whatever. You don’t have to cook though. Sandwiches are good. I’ll bring some home.”

“No. I will cook for you.”

Sidney took a deep breath and released the thought that had been hovering in her mind: “Danya, I know it is a lot to ask, but do you think you could turn up at the…the windup party and maybe act like you’re my date?”

“I would be honored.”

“Now, look. You don’t have to. You don’t owe me anything—”

“Sid. You can count on me,” he said firmly. “See you tonight. Whenever you come home is okay, no big deal.”

Relieved that she had found the required date, Sidney
walked back up to the Amoteh Resort. Plus, she added, she was really doing Danya a favor by keeping his mind away from jumping off that cliff. She would at least have her nights free—no more models, no more threats of bikini waxes and eyebrow plucking, no sex stories.

The sky was clear now, children playing along the shoreline, tourists milling on the pier filled with shops, a sailboat lazily riding the waves.

One of the models nabbed her when she entered the resort’s pool area. Lelani Berry was a six-foot lithesome blonde, wearing two scraps that served as a bikini over her tanned, pampered body. Her expensively streaked long hair was perfectly tousled as she asked, “Hey, Sid, what are you wearing to the party?”

Then came the slow, sultry smile that hid a viperous mentality. “The next question is, who is your date? I heard you’d been ordered to bring one.”

“Got a date. Don’t know what I’m wearing.” Sidney maneuvered through the cluster of lounging chairs, draped with model bodies.

She almost made it through the gauntlet, when Storm Cameron, also six feet tall with a blond mane, caught her. “So, Sid. Who is he?”

Miss January, a hot-looking Latino model with masses of raven hair blocked Sidney’s passage to the hallway. Jennifer Mendez leaned against the wall and tapped her long painted nails on her cheek. “You’re going to need help, Shorty,” she said in her Bronx accent. “Dress, heels, that sort of thing. We’ve got our work cut out for us, ladies.”

Sidney shot her a dark look and then turned to the rest of the models who looked excited and ready to mob her. “Hands off. If anyone nags me about this, I swear I’ll shoot your bad sides and make you look like hags. I make notes, you know…for the calendar guys, on who was difficult and who wasn’t, just so they know who not to hire next time.”

A ripple of fear shot through the models and for a moment,
Sidney felt guilty; they were just making a living, the same as her. Lelani Berry had had a really hard life, and was driven to succeed; she just needed someone to help her understand that survival didn’t depend on slash and burn methods. Sidney decided that when she could, she’d try to explain that fact to Lelani.

“Okay, everybody on the beach, just as you are. The light isn’t that great, but not that bad either. We’ll do the shoot and let the graphic guys worry about what works. Wear something over your suits, no topless stuff, and we’ll take a few sunset shots. You’ve got an hour to get yourself camera ready, bring towels—we’re shooting on driftwood. Tell Earl to bring some glitter.”

Earl, the Hollywood makeup man contracted for this job, was good and he knew it. And when Sidney, moving fast, had become impatient and had called him a prima donna, he’d retaliated by making her say “Please, Earl” to get the smallest service.

If Earl wasn’t balking now over some itty-bitty statement she’d made like “Move your butt, Earl,” she had just an hour to get her stuff moved down to Danya’s cabin—maybe more, because the models always took more time than allowed….

On her way out of the Amoteh’s side door, she met Mikhail Stepanov. She slung her duffel bag over her shoulder and opened the door for him and held it. “Well, get in. I don’t have all day.”

He hesitated, then entered and said formally, “Thank you.”

“Yeah, sure. Whatever.”

She hurried out and down the resort steps, picked up a back trail that looked as if it would lead to Danya’s cabin on the shoreline and hurried over it.

She had just reached his cabin’s steps when she saw them—On the beach, three big men were wrestling, rolling in the sand and grunting. The men’s bodies thrashed and buckled into a big ball of muscle and she recognized Danya on the bottom—Sidney dropped her duffel bag and hurried
to the men. “Get off him,” she ordered, but the grunting, rolling male mass continued.

Experienced with men displaying machismo and as the fight-settler between Stretch and Junior, her tall, athletic sisters, Sidney wasted no time in acting. She grabbed the ear of one man and one ear of the other. “Didn’t you hear my order, men? I said ‘get off him.’”

“Ouch…ouch…”

She eased them away from Danya who was at the bottom of the pile. He smiled sheepishly. “Thanks.”

He rose to his feet and she briskly dusted the sand from his clothing. He frowned slightly and looked at the other men.

“Turn,” she said and Danya looked at her warily, so she moved around him and dusted sand from that taut backside. Then, she faced the men, her hands on her hips. “Well, what do you have to say for yourselves? First, you don’t share what you have with the guy, and then you mob him. Speak up. Say something. Do it now.”

Alexi and Jarek were rubbing their ears and glaring at Danya. “Sorry?” they asked angrily in unison without the slightest hint of an apology.

“What’s this all about, men?” she demanded. “Cut the excuses.”

“Teasing…they were teasing me,” Danya said softly. “We have wrestled like this since we were children.”