Total Package (6 page)

“That’s true.”

She had to have more answers. Ben had never wanted to talk about sex, and neither had Bulldog. In fact, Sidney’s father got all flustered, huffy and reddish when his daughters pressed him. Danya seemed to have reliable information and wasn’t averse to answering questions. “But—say one partner or the other got really aroused, and things went too fast and gee, there you were, all ready and nowhere to go?”

“I would take extreme care to see that my partner was—satisfied.”

She patted his thigh. “I’m sure you would.”

She wondered, while staring into Danya’s very blue eyes, what would happen if her hand just happened to wander upward. She squeezed lightly, testing the solid pad of muscles beneath the denim.

“Don’t,” he ordered unevenly as his hand clamped over hers. “Don’t even think about it. You’re scaring me.”

“Who me?” she asked and tried for a bland, innocent expression.

Danya inhaled abruptly, scowled at her, and stood. “I’ve got to get back to work.”

Sidney came to her feet slowly. She didn’t want him to go. She stood looking up at him, helpless with her emotions. Sidney wanted to run away from whatever was happening inside her—and she wanted Danya. Because she was uncertain, she hooked her thumbs into her cutoff shorts pockets.

She tingled and ached and couldn’t look away from Dan
ya’s deep blue eyes. “I can’t and won’t take her place—your wife’s place,” she said unsteadily and wasn’t certain what had caused that statement.

“You’re nothing like her.” The statement was soft and low and curled inside Sidney. Then Danya nodded to the woman coming toward them, an infant sleeping in the carrying sack in front of her. The woman’s hair was black and sleek, tossed by the breeze. “This is my sister-in-law, Jessica, and that little beauty is Danika Louise.”

Danya frowned at another woman with sun streaked hair walking toward them, carrying a baby. A young girl near her chased a giggling toddler. “That would be Ellie, Mikhail’s wife with Tanya and Sasha.”

He sucked in his breath and added, “The woman with all those curls is Leigh, Jarek’s ‘Precious’, and she has my cousins, of course. They want to meet you. I had hoped to—”

“Oh, hi, Danya,” Ellie said as she came to stand near them. “I didn’t know you took work breaks in the middle of the day.”

“Yes, I see that. Ah, here’s my Sasha.” He reached for the little girl who had come running and giggling into his arms. Danya made growling noises and nuzzled her throat while she squirmed and giggled happily.

When all of the women stood near, Danya introduced Sidney. “She likes to be called ‘Sid.’”

“Oh, you’re the photographer who’s been taking pictures of the models,” Jessica said. “We were wondering if you could take family pictures for all of us. If you have time—There isn’t a photographer nearby and to get us all packed up and the children rested for a family portrait would be so much more difficult than having one taken here.”

Danya cleared his throat and seemed uneasy. “She’s not really a portrait photographer. This assignment is unusual for her. I’m sure she wouldn’t have the time, anyway.”

Ellie smiled sweetly. “But she just might want to, Danya.”

He frowned at Ellie. “Of course. It is her decision.”

Sidney stared at him; Danya didn’t seem to want her to take
pictures of his family. “He’s right. I’m learning. I usually do documentary type things, magazine spreads. This gig is new to me.”

Danya lowered Sasha to the sand; he crossed his arms over his chest and looked forbidding as Ellie continued, “You must be good to be hired for calendar work. Mikhail may be asking you to do some shots for his new promotion brochure, and his mother is redoing the sales brochure for Stepanov Furniture.”

“Ladies—” Danya began in what seemed might be a protest.

“And we thought maybe you could take pictures of us in Fadey’s house, maybe do something for Fadey and Mary Lou’s anniversary in late July,” Leigh added. “Maybe something with Viktor and Alexi and Danya? Have you met Viktor, Danya’s father? I think you should come to our afternoon tea and get a real feel for the family, and then you can decide.”

Danya sighed as if outflanked and defeated. “I have to get back to work.”

He looked at each woman and they smiled warmly back at him. Each one drew his head down for a kiss on the cheek. Danya shook his head and started back toward the house he was remodeling. Sidney noticed that two women lying on the beach were locked onto that tall, lean powerful male body striding away; she didn’t like their lustful expressions one bit. She instantly decided not to even ask him if he wanted to model for her.

Sidney studied the Stepanov women, the different coloring, various heights and studied the babies held close to them. Together, they were beautiful and natural, and the contrast with the male counterparts would be exquisite.

Then, because Danya obviously didn’t want her to work with them, she was intrigued, but she had to set the ground rules. She picked up her camera and began shooting the women and children’s pictures, the wind tugging at their hair and clothes, a toddler sitting to sift sand through her fingers.

When she finished, she said, “I’ll see that you get prints of
these. I’m living with Danya, but don’t get any ideas about romance in the mix. He’s just offered me a place to rest. It gets hectic at the resort with all the models.”

All three women agreed in a rush:

“Oh, Danya has made that perfectly clear.”

“Crystal clear.”

“He’s already told us that you’re just friends.”

“I’ll think about the family portraits and the brochures, but first I’ve got to finish this contract,” Sidney said. “There’s a big shindig at the resort tomorrow night, and I have to turn up—business, you know. But I’ve got to get something to wear. Is there a dress shop around here? I’ll need something.”

“Not really. It’s mostly tourist stuff. I could maybe put something together for you—or alter it,” Ellie said thoughtfully as she considered Sidney. “Come by the house when you get a break.”

“She’s a whiz with a sewing machine,” Leigh said.

“Thanks. I may need to ask your help. I’m not much into clothes. I just need something that serves.” In an elegant group, the models were moving down the steps of the Amoteh. “I have to get to work. Catch you later. Maybe. I’ll get back to you about the portrait work.”

As the women moved away, Sidney studied them. Clearly they were concerned for Danya.

When the shoot was over, Sidney took her daily takes up to the resort and expressed them to New York for processing. In the luxurious hallway, she met Mikhail. After a short conversation on the progress of the shoot, Mikhail said, “My wife has already told you that I would like you to do some promotion shots for the resort. I hope you’re considering that. We need to update and my staff is comfortable with you.”

“I’ll think about it. Your family has already asked me to do portraits.”

“We are overdue for that. We would so appreciate your attention.”

“They’re all so lovely. I’m considering it, but I don’t usually stay long in one location. I’m a freelancer which means
I move around a lot. I’ve moved for most of my life—my dad was in the service.”

“But you are more comfortable staying with Danya, than here at the resort?”

“The resort is really nice, very well run, Mikhail. But this particular gig has too many women in it and they’re crowding me.” After her exchange with the Stepanov women, Sidney’s impression that Mikhail and all of his family hadn’t cared about Danya had changed; she now saw that they were very concerned about him. “He’s a great guy. I know he’s mourning his wife. He’ll find someone someday.”

“Of course.” With a brief smile Mikhail nodded and plucked the pager from his waist. He glanced at it. “I have to go. Some dilemma on the golf course. You are welcome in my home at any time.”

Sidney decided to take more shots around Amoteh and wandered down to the docks. She took several of the tourist pier and children playing on the beach. She felt so much a part of everything she’d seen and done, and yet not a part of anything—as if she’d always been an observer, traveling on the perimeters of life.

She hadn’t realized she was crying until she came to sit on the steps of Danya’s cabin, surveying the evening’s black rolling waves and thinking of the warmth and love of the Stepanov family. Sidney dashed away the tears and wrapped her arms around herself; the Stepanov women had their husbands and children and the images of the day skimmed through her mind. She had nothing in comparison.

Danya seemed to come out of the night, looming over her. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. Everything.”

He sat beside her and took her hand. He rubbed it between his warm ones. “What can I do?”

She wanted to be held and cuddled, but she was just having a silly feminine moment; she’d get over it soon enough. “I’m just down in the dumps. I get that way sometimes. It will
go away. I’ll be glad to get on the move again, get a new assignment somewhere else, life goes on, yada yada. I never cry, you know. I’m just getting all weirded out for some reason. Everything is off kilter here. Wrong, you know? I don’t feel like myself. I mean, I think my work is really good or Jonesy says so—she’s working on it in New York. But there’s something else here, and it scares me.”

“Ah. Maybe a change is good.” His arm came around her, and Danya drew her close. She quivered again, the sensation that she was feminine and needed a man’s strength was ridiculous, but still there. She moved into the sensation, testing it. She was definitely a great deal smaller than Danya, and probably less strong—but then she was very agile. So being smaller had advantages, too. She could probably be all over him in a minute—

“That’s why you came here from Wyoming, isn’t it? For the change?”

“It’s been good for me.”

Sidney looked up at Danya and studied him. She rarely touched anyone, unless it was to arrange them for a shoot, but just now—she found her fingertip moving over his face, taking in the sensations, the heat, the texture of his skin. He was new and yet familiar; he caused her to relax and to ache to have him. The contrast of all her emotions concerning him terrified her. “I’m scared, Danya. Really scared,” she whispered.

“Of course. So am I.” His kiss was light and friendly and with enough impact to stun her.

Sidney tried to catch her breath and suddenly she felt herself being lifted to sit on Danya’s lap. “What’s this? I’m not a kid and I’m not some overaged baby doll—”

“Shut up and stop squirming,” he said pleasantly. “Has no one ever held you before? Like this? A man?”

“No one,” she whispered back as she noted how Danya’s hair felt in her fingers, the waves and the crisp texture.

“You can relax a little—against me.”

It was a companionable thing to do, easing against Dan
ya’s hard body, testing the fit, the heat churning silently around them. “I don’t know why I’m shaking,” Sidney whispered.

“Neither do I.”

“Shouldn’t we be doing something? I mean we can’t just sit here.”

“Why not?”

“It’s wasting time….” She wanted to stake him out and have him. But the poor guy was coping with enough problems. Sidney pushed away from Danya, stood, and rubbed her hands together. “So what’s to eat? Shall we go out somewhere, pick up something?”

Danya’s big hands settled on her hips and he drew her to stand between his knees. “Why are you so nervous, Sid?”

She couldn’t say,
Gee, I’m having a sexual moment, Danya, and I want to nail you.

Instead she said, “So you’re going to be my date tomorrow night, right? Boy, I don’t want to do the party thing. I usually just take off somewhere until the agony is over.”

“Ah, that reminds me. Ellie said to get your measurements. She’s already started on a dress—she’s good at fittings and gauging from sight—but she wants you to stop by tomorrow afternoon for final adjustments. She sews for everyone and made me a shirt—she’s made all the men in my family a shirt. Their women have embroidered them with old world designs—from some that my mother did for us as boys. Mine is as yet plain.” He drew out a tape measure from his shirt pocket. “May I?”

Her body started doing that quaking thing—on the outside and the inside. “Sure,” she managed. “Ellie can put a dress together just like that?”

“Mmm.” Danya had slid the tape measure around Sidney’s bust. He looked up at her. “Stand still. Stop fidgeting. Am I bothering you?”

His hands were resting over her breasts, bringing the ends of the tape measure together. In the moonlight, he leaned close to read the tape.

Sidney could have grabbed his head and pulled it close to her breasts—

Danya nodded and measured her waist, then her hips. He tucked the tape measure away and then fitted his hands around her waist, easing them up and under the loose shirt she wore. “Don’t worry, Sidney,” he whispered softly. “This will all work out.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You’re nervous of me.”

She’d been through battlefields, avalanches, volcanoes, floods, earthquakes. She’d slept beside men in the African bush and on ship decks. “Hey, I work with men all the time—”

“But this is different, isn’t it?”

But this is different,
echoed in Sidney’s mind as she tried to sleep later.
Very different.

She was killing him, inch by inch,
Danya decided early the next morning.

Restless and tossing on her sleeping bag, Sidney had talked in her sleep. Ben’s name was noted frequently again. Danya intended to replace that name with his.

Sidney lay like a child, curled beneath the light sheet, her feet exposed. She had absolutely no idea of how attractive she was, how feminine.

How much of a curse she was to a man who had decided to take his time, building a solid relationship with her.

Danya answered the light rap on the door and with a sweep of his hand, invited Alexi into the cabin. “You brought them?”

Alexi took the small box from his shirt pocket and handed it to Danya, who indicated Sidney, sleeping on the floor. “I’m just fixing breakfast. Have some coffee?”