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The meeting, Alex decided forlornly, had been a disaster. Lauren had spotted him down at the end of the fifteen-foot square walnut table and frozen. Her calm expression had hardened. Her sharpened gaze had reminded Alex of that soft gray color just before dawn on the eastern horizon, then had become colorless ice shards as she stared malevolently at him. Her lips had parted. And then, she’d snapped them shut, glaring back at him, as if silently daring him to say a word to her. She’d taken a seat at the opposite end of the table, refusing to meet his gaze. At first, Alex figured she just didn’t like him. When Gage had introduced him to the Shield crew, Lauren did not welcome him. Alex knew he was a big man. Most of the operators at Shield were less than six feet tall, lean and honed. He supposed he stood out because he probably looked like a bumbling ox in comparison to a herd of gazelles. Maybe he looked ugly and repelled her? Alex honestly didn’t know. When the meeting broke up, after he’d been introduced to the group, he’d gotten up to try and meet Lauren. He’d gotten close enough to extend his hand toward her, but she froze him out with a glare that said: back off. So, he did, flummoxed.
Now, three months later, Alex thought he had some of the answers about Lauren. She tolerated him at Shield. She was the lead sniper and trained others in Krav Maga, an Israeli defense force method, besides teaching sniper techniques to her charges. There, she was cool, professional and, if he got too close to her, she’d move away from him, as if he’d infect her like a virus or something. Everyone else at Shield was glad to have him onboard. The sniper-trained women were all pleasant, trading jokes with him, black humor and swapped stories with no problem at all. Lauren refused to engage with him except when forced too. Driving up to Cal and Sky’s place yesterday afternoon in her red Jeep Wrangler had stressed them both. She was tense and snappish. He couldn’t talk to her because she always took everything he said the wrong way. Granted, English was a second language for him and he was trying desperately to learn it and learn it well. But American slang got him in a whole lot of trouble. Especially with Lauren. So, they had hardly talked.
“How many pancakes, Alex?” Cal called over his shoulder as he worked at the Wolf stove.
“How many can I have?” he asked, grinning. He heard Sky laugh as she cut up onions, green peppers and ham for the coming Denver omelets.
“Sky’s the limit, Bro,” Cal replied.
“Six? Is that all right? I do not want to take them away from others.”
Cal shrugged. “Hey, it’s easy to make more pancake batter.”
“You probably want nine?” Sky turned, bringing the coffee over and pouring more into his cup. “A dozen?” she teased.
“Nine sounds good.” And then he added, “Hey, I am a boy growing.”
Sky smiled sweetly at him. “Slang would be a ‘growing boy,’ Alex.”
“Oh,” he muttered, “I turned it around again, eh?”
“Just a little. But it’s okay. I knew what you meant.”
Cal was chuckling darkly, sliding Alex an evil-humored look over his shoulder.
Alex took his faux pas in stride. English was a very hard language to learn in comparison to Russian. Even Quechua, the Incan language down in Peru, had been easy enough to learn. But not English.
He heard a door open and close. Lifting his head, Alex saw Lauren walking slowly down the hall toward them. Eastern sunlight shot in huge shafts through the massive living room, through the kitchen, and highlighted the hallway where she walked. Wondering why Lauren always wore the same outfit, the same color, he thought it was a shame. She was twenty-eight years old, in her prime, and she was a gorgeous woman with a body so hot it made him ache to want to touch her. Alex knew she’d probably deck him if he confided in her that he wanted to make long, slow, delicious love with her. The thought of strumming her body like the fine instrument it was, to hear her sighs and moans, to feel her confidence as a woman challenging him on every level as they made love to one another, teased him. All heated dreams, he knew. But even though he felt she wore men’s clothes, bulky and ill fitting, to hide her beautiful, curvy body, it didn’t work. At least, not with him.
“Hey, Lauren,” Cal called, “hungry?”
Lauren ambled into the kitchen, moving to where the coffee pot was. “Not so much,” she said, pouring herself a cup.
“Cal and Alex are having hubcap-sized pancakes,” Sky told her. “I’m making a Denver Omelet for myself. Does that sound good to you?”
Lauren sipped her coffee, refusing to look toward the island. She could feel Alex like a bad cold coming on. She wished mightily he’d stop staring at her because she could feel his gaze on her as if he’d reached out and touched her. It made her tense. Jumpy. “Yes, that sounds fine. Do you need help? Want me to break eggs and add some cream?”
“Great,” Sky murmured, scooping up the onion, peppers and shredded cheese and putting them into a nearby bowl. “Thanks, come join me. We’ll be a team.”
Alex watched from the island. He didn’t expect Lauren to engage him. She’d only do so if forced to. More sadness moved through him. She had been hurt so badly in the past by a big man. And now, it seemed all he did was remind Lauren of her horrific past. Shaking his head, he sipped his coffee, feeling trapped and unable to know how to undo such damage that stood between them. Damage he had not caused. But Lauren didn’t seem to be able to separate him from the man she hated.
“Okay, Bro,” Cal said, bringing over a plate of six hubcap-sized pancakes, “start on these.”
“Thanks,” Alex murmured, taking the huge red ceramic plate. He smelled the scent of vanilla in them. Cal was a chef, not a cook, he’d happily discovered when he was invited up here to stay a weekend with the couple. He was grateful that they treated him like family. Maybe because he’d saved Sky from getting raped by Vlad Alexandrov, and cared for her when she’d had days of malaria, were the reasons they were so grateful to him. Later, when Cal had found them, Alex had created a diversion with the other Russian mafia soldiers staying in the village, and that had enabled them to escape. Sky and Cal’s affection for him was genuine and, being in a foreign country, he was indebted to them for their care and their love. And it was love, he knew. They reminded him of the Ukrainian people who took care of others. If there was a disaster, nearby farming families would come and help out, to support those who had lost so much. That was a form of love, also.
Alex ate alone and enjoyed watching Sky and Lauren work together like a well-oiled team to create their two omelets. When Sky came over carrying the two plates, and Lauren with the silverware and napkins, Alex wondered where Lauren would sit. Sky solved that problem by sitting next to Alex. She smiled over at him.
“Wow, you’re eating in a hurry, big guy. Hungry?”
He grinned, his gaze on Lauren, who refused to look at him as she sat down across from Sky. “Yes. Starved. I have never heard of pancakes being hubcaps, but they are that big.”
“They must be putting you on the obstacle course every day,” Cal said drolly, bringing over another six pancakes and shoveling them onto his own empty plate.
“I am putting myself through it,” Alex said. Although the interior of Shield Security was hidden within a three-story Virginia farmhouse from the 1850’s, Jack Driscoll had used the woodlands in one area to create a SEAL obstacle course for those who had to stay in shape. It was hidden within the woods, an area carved out to place the daunting, challenging course on. In one section, Jack had duplicated the dreaded and infamous obstacle course found at Coronado, where men were trained to become SEALs. The first time Alex ran it, he was winded. But within three months, he had his body finely honed like a sharpened knife blade, back into the shape that an operator needed to be in in order to work at peak efficiency.
“You’re a glutton for punishment to run the O course daily when you’re here,” Cal muttered, shaking his head and returning to the stove.
“Ah, a new slang,” Alex said. He pulled out his iPhone and pressed on the note app. Opening it up, he wrote the slang term down. The only way to learn all the thousands of American slang sayings was to keep them in alphabetized details. “What does this mean?” he asked Cal.
