The body, covered in a white sheet, was brought up from the platform. Blood speckled the cloth and a mangled hand with three missing fingers flopped out. Wynn choked back a sickened noise. He’d seen more than his fair share of death and broken bodies, but train tracks were a gruesome way to end a life. He tried to summon a sliver of pity for Sergey but found he had none while watching his wife and mother-in-law bravely walk away. That dog would have had them killed. Wynn may be able to find forgiveness for trespasses imposed on himself, but that magnanimity did not extend to those threatening his loved ones. A hypocrisy he was willing to live with.
Leaving the police to their grisly details, Wynn and Leonid fell into step behind the women and waved off the onlookers shouting morbid questions as they crossed the upper concourse of the station in search of the exit.
“How’s your arm?”
“It heal like wound for hero.” Leonid smacked a newspaper man out of the way as he tried to get them to stop for a photograph. “Vultures,” he muttered, ending with something in Russian that was probably best left unexplained. He leaned close to Wynn. “One day real story you tell me, Mac.”
Wynn nodded absently. He needed to find that porter and have the borrowed horse returned. “One day.”
“Next time ask first. I know how handle dead bodies. No one find.”
“What is it with you Russians? Is disposal education part of your upbringing?”
Leonid shrugged. “Me, da, but no more. I honest path now. Unless you kill another patient, then I help.” He slung his good arm around Wynn’s shoulder. “Always need druk chum help bury body.”
“I didn’t kill a patient.”
“Da, but if do.”
Wynn shook his head as he placed a hand on Svetlana’s back and steered her toward the door and the gray light beyond. These Russians were going to be the death of him.
* * *
After two hours giving testimony at the police station, Wynn was ready to close the book on the day and then burn it. He hoped he never had to relive it again.
Dragging his feet down the hotel corridor, he stopped in front of the door marked 342. In 343 was his wilted mother-in-law, who hadn’t spoken more than two words since they left the train station, and in 344 was Leonid, who had boasted an intent to order everything on the room-service menu. His appetite waited for no man. It was room 342 that Wynn was interested in, for that was where Svetlana was. Waiting for him.
He pushed a hand through his hair. It must be a mess, but if any day could excuse a lapse in grooming, it was this day. Ever since he’d left his wife here to complete the other orders of business, all he could think about was returning to her. Now that he was here, uncertainty plagued him. She’d asked him to call her Lana, but what if it had only been a desperate need for comfort in that horrible moment? Calmed from the ordeal, would she now regret her intimate actions of falling into his arms? How could he convince her that together was the only place they belonged? He didn’t wish to live as man and wife separated, but ultimately the decision was in her hands. He wouldn’t force his love on her if she didn’t desire it.
Taking a deep breath to calm his jittery nerves, Wynn unlocked the door and stepped inside. She stood by the window bathed in the pearly gray of fading light. Unadorned with hat and veil, her hair was a silver sheen of curls floating over the iced blue of her dress. Dusk softened her lines, blurring her edges to the shadows behind her so he couldn’t see the expression on her face.
He dropped his hat on a decorative chair next to the door and ran a hand through his hair again. “Svetlana, I—”
She moved so quickly he almost didn’t see her. One minute she was at the window and the next her arms were wrapped about him, her face pressed into his neck.
“I love you. I am sorry for everything that has come between us. Sorry for the way I have treated you, for giving you less than you deserve when you have offered me everything with nothing expected in return. When you have cared for me from the very beginning just as you said you would. Will you please forgive me for my horrible snobbishness?”
Those were the last words he’d expected to hear, but thankfully his arms caught on quicker than his head. “Forgive you? If there is anyone to beg forgiveness, it’s me. I lied to you and broke your trust. I should have told you the truth from the beginning, hang my pride.” He held her close, glorying in the fierceness with which she clung to him as her words spilled through his mind like rushing water breaking through a barrier.
“My darling, you have been my rock and my salvation, keeping me from slipping into madness. You have taught me resilience, that simply because things are not as you wish or are taken from you does not mean you can’t thrive. My power for good is not limited to the surgical tools in my hands because your strength has shown me how to use it elsewhere without need to fan my vanity. Will you forgive me?”
In answer she tightened her embrace as if willing herself to knit into him. Bones and breath and skin of one being until two no longer existed. Warm tears slipped down the side of his neck as her lashes brushed his skin like butterfly wings. He threaded his fingers through her hair, dislodging pins that pinged to the floor. Silken curls slipped free and tumbled down her back, caressing his arms as he drew her ever closer to feel the beating of her heart echoing in his chest.
Time no longer held sway until the last tear trickled down his neck and she took a shaking breath. With excruciating slowness, she leaned back in his arms, mere inches but enough to finally look at his face. Wetness clung to her lashes and the tip of her nose was red.
“I feel we have been on the wrong foot since first we met. Always one, or two, or three steps out of place from one another. I should very much like to change that. May we start over again?”
Finding it difficult to breathe when she looked at him like that, he brushed the remnants of a tear from her cheek. “Only if you allow me to court you as you deserve to be courted. With all the wooing of flattery and flowers and serenading that goes with it.”
“No serenading. I’ve no wish to alert the hounds.” A smile played about her lips as he imagined her recalling his last attempt to sing when they walked the streets of Glasgow. He had no thought for singing but for her lips he had an irrepressible desire to kiss.
“Flowers and chocolates it is.”
“Those are insignificant to me when all I desire is you.”
“Then you shall have all of me, especially my heart. It’s all I’ve ever wanted to give you.”
“I gladly accept.”
He kissed her with every unspoken word gathered in his heart, emotions he could express in no other way. Words of longing, of desire, of promise, of love that she responded to with an aching all her own. He had found a life for himself in this woman. A woman he could fight for and fall with and create meaning alongside. Her lips melted beneath his, branding his with need, her arms a lock about his neck from which he never wished to break free.
Her mouth slowly curved into a smile and he pulled back as much as he dared to witness his handiwork molding those delightful lips. “If we’re to start over again, does that mean you wish to take back the ‘I love you’? Because I have to tell you, that’s not something I’m going to let you forget. I’ve heard it and you can’t unsay it.”