Page 5 of Love, Always and Forever
Then the lanky teenager waggled his eyebrows in a cartoonish attempt to look lecherous. Maybe he shouldn’t encourage the kid by laughing, but Mikhail couldn’t help himself. If they could have ordered a nephew tailor-made to fit their family, they couldn’t have done any better than Ricky. Like Mikhail and his brothers, Ricky had taken the crappy cards life had dealt him and turned them into a winning hand.
“Careful, kid. What goes around, comes around. Keep giving me grief, and I promise you I will get even.”
Ricky danced back out of reach. “Ooh, I’m really scared.”
“You should be. Now start shoveling before I use you to fill in that hole.”
His nephew was still laughing as Mikhail walked away.
—
Amy managed to open her back door while juggling a tray laden with sandwiches and chips for the crew of unpaid laborers working on her fence. Granted, they were also working on Mikhail’s, but still. She hadn’t expected the gift of their time and effort to extend to her as well, a total stranger to everyone but Mikhail. Considering she’d only known him such a short time, it wasn’t as if they had a long-standing friendship that warranted such generosity.
He’d promised her that the cost of having them do the fence would be considerably less than the bids she’d gotten from the other contractors. She’d almost choked when she’d seen the ridiculously low figure on the bottom line of the detailed proposal he and his brother had put together. Jack had provided all the materials at his cost, and the price they’d quoted for labor had turned out to be a bunch of cold drinks, sandwiches, and a few snacks.
She still couldn’t believe it. The amount she was saving on the fence meant she could start on a few other projects far sooner than she’d expected.
Mikhail stood at the bottom step with his hands out. “Let me take that for you.”
Amy surrendered her burden without protest. “Thanks. I’ll be right back out with the second load.”
When she returned with a heaping platter of brownies, he was waiting to take it from her. “Is there anything else?”
Standing on the steps, she was at his level for once. Looking into those stunning blue eyes of his had her pulse picking up speed. “Just the drinks.”
“Want me to get them?”
“Sure. I’ll get everything else situated.”
He walked up the steps as she came down, passing within inches of each other. She would’ve sworn that she felt the heat of his sun-kissed skin brush against hers even though they never came into actual contact. She almost stumbled as the sensation washed over her, but she was saved from falling when his big hand snapped out to steady her.
“You okay?”
His deep voice rumbled near her ear, having its own effect on her. “I’m fine. My foot slipped on the edge of the step.”
As lies went, it was pretty weak, but he seemed to accept the explanation. “I’ll be right out with the drinks.”
She swallowed hard and used the excuse of organizing all the food on the table buffet-style to buy herself enough time to gather her scattered wits. By the time the door opened again, she had everything arranged to her liking.
“Okay, guys, lunch is served, so help yourselves. You can wash up inside first if you want to. The bathroom is straight through the kitchen on the right.”
“They can use the hose.” Mikhail leaned in close as he set the drinks on the table. “I wouldn’t even let that crew inside my own house unsupervised. Ricky is the only one of the bunch who is even close to housebroken.”
Jack and Tino countered with their own insults as they pulled off their work gloves and made use of the hose as Mikhail had suggested. The four of them kept her laughing through the entire procedure, reminding her of her own brothers’ antics. Heaven forbid any of them simply say how much they meant to one another instead of disguising their affection with insults and dire threats of physical harm.
It actually made her a little homesick. Not enough to want to move back, but maybe she’d give her parents and youngest brother a call later, after the Lukash clan finished for the day. It had been Jack who had explained that he and Mikhail were related through adoption rather than by blood when she’d accidently called him Jack Wanjek. It made sense considering how different they all looked.
Still, after spending five minutes in their company, no one would mistake them for anything but a close-knit family.
Mikhail pulled out a chair and motioned for her to sit down. “Have a seat, Amy, and fill your plate before the food’s all gone.”
At the same time, Jack glared at his son. “Ricky, what does your grandmother say about who gets served first?”
The teenager had already piled his plate high with two sandwiches and potato chips. He had been in the process of dishing up some of the fruit salad when his hand froze with the loaded spoon halfway between his plate and the bowl. He stared at the juice dripping on the table, clearly unsure what to do next.
Hoping to ease his embarrassment, Amy winked at him and stage-whispered, “That’s okay, Ricky, go ahead and dig in. I have four older brothers and learned at an early age to grab food quickly before they got to it. I wasn’t always successful, which is why they’re all half a foot taller and eighty pounds heavier than I am. They’ve always given me a bad time for being the runt of the litter.”
To her surprise, Ricky cracked up and pointed at Tino. “That’s what my dad and Uncle Mikhail call Uncle Tino.”
