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Behind me, I felt the weight of a stare. Yuriy. Hands in his coat pockets, shoulders relaxed, that mouth curved in a grin. He cocked an eyebrow.

“It’s not just me, right? Somehow this tree has managed to look even more pathetic now that we’ve cut it down.”

“Not another word from you,” I warned.

He placed a hand over his heart. “My bad. I meant to say, it’s certainly… avant-garde.”

“Shut up.”

I fought to keep my mouth from twitching. With Yuriy, the instinct to scowl and the urge to smile lately always arrived together, canceling each other out and leaving me irritated with myself.

“I can’t let you bring this home. Yelena will question my taste. How about this one, babe?”

I didn’t bother wasting my breath about him calling me that. Yuriy would always do what he wanted to do, and since I couldn’t kill him because he promised me a night of ecstasy—no, because he was family—I let it slide.

“It’s okay,” I said grudgingly, not wanting to point out that it was the best tree we’d seen all day.

“Just okay?” Yuriy slapped the trunk of the blue spruce like it owed him money. “It’s thick, symmetrical, and dependable. Like me in bed.”

“You call yourself dependable?”

“You wound me.” He crouched and got the saw started, teeth biting into wood with a rasping hiss. “Also, you’re wrong. In the past, my dislike of you has been very dependable. I’m the sort who holds the line—will trade my life for a friend. Or stay long enough to see an enemy beg for mercy. Same reliability, different ending.”

His words held some truth. I’d never been on his side as a friend. As a foe, he never let up on me and my men. He was always ruthlessly persistent in his dealings with the Zhukovsky family.

I should’ve told him to move, to let me handle cutting the tree alone. Instead, we fell into rhythm. He cut while I braced. Then I cut, and he shouldered the trunk to keep it steady. Snow dusted his hair and melted on his lashes. Up close, the pretty-boy gloss peeled back, and there was sinew, heat, the quiet economy of someone who’d learned to pace themselves for the long haul.

I’d always known the dossier on him: vicious, theatrical, made of knives and sarcastic wit. But thirty-six hours in his company had begun sketching something else around those bullet points. He was funny. Affectionate. Sweet even.

And he was sexy as hell. Especially with a saw in his hand.

The spruce gave with a low groan. We tipped it, eased it down, and felled it like a sleeping body.

We worked well together.

I swallowed the thought.

“Hey there!”

Both of us looked up.

A man trudged toward us from between the rows, heavy boots, hunting jacket, the kind of face carved by cold winters and cheap whiskey. He had a dark beard chopped close to the jaw and a knitted cap pulled low.

Something about him tugged at me, a faint familiarity I couldn’t name, but I was certain I’d never met him before. He must have one of those faces.

I shrugged off the prickle.

“You boys paid for two trees?” He gestured to the felled spruce, still lying miserably where we’d left it. Suspicion tightened his gaze. “Pretty sure Betty said you’re down for one.”

“We’ll pay for the first one too.” I straightened. “We just picked the wrong one.”

“Betty was right to ask me to keep my eyes on you.” The man snorted. “You see that you do pay for the extra. You’re from out of state, aren’t you?”

“Is that information required to buy trees now?” Yuriy asked with an all-sweet smile that didn’t mask the disdain in his tone.

“Just curious.” His gaze ticked between our faces, lingering a little too long on Yuriy. Something simmered behind the stranger’s eyes, almost like hostility.

Why did he seem familiar?