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Alex gave her an apologetic smile, shoving wisps of short black hair off his brow. “I want to say,” he murmured formally, “that I am very sorry I treated you like a piece of meat yesterday, Lauren. Will you forgive me?”
Lauren watched him struggle with the English words. The look in Kazak’s hazel eyes was one of abject apology. He was sincere. She could feel it. And he appeared humble in her presence. Black ops men were good and they knew it. They were all type A’s, super confident and competitive. “What do you want, Kazak?”
He blinked once, cocked his head, studying her. “Why… to make you feel okay about me. I did not mean to be rude to you the other day in the office.” He shrugged, opening his large hands. “Am I saying this right? My English is very bad.”
“Yeah, for sure,” she said wryly. “You don’t go around telling a woman that she’s a piece of meat. Okay? That’s slang no woman wants to be seen as or hear.” Lauren saw his face fall, the desperation in his eyes. She almost felt sorry for him. Almost. “And you haven’t told me why you’re really doing this.”
“But… I just did. I was not a gentleman. I did not treat you as the lady you are, and how you should be treated. The American way.”
Rubbing her face, Lauren shook her head. “Kazak, bone up on English, will you? You’re slaughtering it.”
“I am at fault, Lauren. I am sincerely sorry,” and Alex pressed his hand to his chest in a gesture of heartfelt apology.
Lauren studied his hands. Even though she knew Kazak was from a farm life in Ukraine, his hands reminded her of artist’s hands, beautiful in their own masculine way.
“You’re sorry? I doubt it, Kazak. All I felt and saw around you was lust yesterday. You wanted to screw me. And I’m NOT interested.”
Wincing, he murmured, “That was true, I felt you were beautiful. What does screw mean? Is that a construction term?”
Surprised, Lauren stared at him. “Well,” she muttered, “I’ll give you an E for effort, Kazak. At least you’re more honest than most American men will ever be.” And then she added, “Men use the word screw to mean you take a woman to bed.”
Alex gapped at her. “Oh….no….I would NEVER use such a word like that with ANY woman! In Ukraine, we honor our women, we admire them, we see them as equals. They would NEVER be treated like that. “Then,” he pleaded, holding out his toward her, “can we start over? I promise never to look at you like that again or treat you without respect.”
Her nostrils flared and Lauren felt her heart wrench. An odd reaction for her, for sure. But the earnest look in his puppy dog eyes got to her. Kazak reminded her of a big, slobbering St. Bernard dog; somewhat bumbling, shaggy, and inept, but nevertheless, lovable and huggable. Well, dogs were, but men were not. “Fine,” she said flatly. “But you know what? Actions speak louder than words. Just remember that.”
He frowned, his eyes moving upward as he considered the words. Trying to understand what she’d just said.
“Is this American slang again?”
Lauren smiled a little. “I suppose it is. Ask Cal. He’ll know what it means.” She gunned the engine, the Jeep taking off down the road with a rooster tail of rising dust behind it.
Alex wiped the sweat off his brow. His heart was pounding in his chest. He’d so desperately wanted to make peace with beautiful Lauren. Watching the red Jeep speed away like a banshee flying down the long, graveled drive, he smiled a little. Well, that didn’t go too badly, did it? Rubbing his sweaty hands off on his cargo pants, Alex climbed the stairs to go to his guest room and take a shower. His heart lifted a little because just as Lauren, the vaunted sniper, could sense the subtleties, so could he. In Spetsnaz, he had been cross-trained as a back-up sniper. He possessed the same sniper sensing equipment she did. But the deeper truth was that he was a healer. He honed those sensory abilities to read his patients, to learn what they needed to save their lives. And if his senses were right, Alex had just gotten an inch inside those Kevlar-like shields she wore like a good friend around herself.
He met Cal in the hall on the way to his room and stopped him.
“What does ‘actions speak louder than word’s’ mean? It is American slang?”
Cal nodded. “Yes. It means how you act on a daily basis shows a person more about you than any amount of words you speak.” He saw Alex scowl. It wasn’t computing. Cal tried again. “Okay, let’s say you tell someone you’re honest.”
“Yes?”
“That person may wait, watch and listen to you over days, weeks or even for months at a time to see if you’re really honest or not. The words you speak and the actions you take, they have to be the same, they can’t be different.”
Alex’s dark brows flew upward. “Ah, I see! That would be like me saying I am a good guy. But I would have to prove I was one every day with everyone I met. Yes?”
“Sort of,” Cal said with a grin. “What’s this all about?”
Alex told him.
Cal rolled his eyes.
“Have you got a death wish, Alex?”
“No. Why?”
“You just don’t ambush Lauren like that. You have to give her a helluva lot of room to maneuver. She’ll cold cock you.”
“What is a cold cock?” The vision he had in his head wasn’t pretty.
