Page 87 of The Primary Pest
Dmytro
Dmytro heldone girl in each arm and breathed in the sweet fruity scent of their hair. Liv looked on from a seat by the bed, smiling softly.
Liv looked enough like Yulia to be her twin, but while Yulia’s nature was sunny and calm, Liv was a bit austere. Zhenya sat by her side, casting glances her way every so often. Since Zhenya had flown his family in and put them up in a nice room at a nearby hotel, they’d visited Dmytro every day.
Now his table was cluttered with drawings and flowers and carefully lettered get-well cards from Sasha. Glitter covered his sheets. He knew how lucky he was, and he should be grateful, but he had begun to worry about the one person who should be there and wasn’t.
Why hadn’t he heard from Ajax? Introductions might be awkward at first.Hello, meet Ajax, the very young man I love.Liv might be shocked and even stubborn at first but not because she didn’t want him to be happy. She told him to find someone new all the time.
Yet she could be a little controlling.
He’d done himself a favor by keeping any suggestion that Ajax and she meet to himself while he was still healing, but now, perversely, he wondered why Ajax hadn’t insisted.
Ajax was normally an insistent man.
Perhaps Ajax wanted to know whyhehadn’t gotten in touch? He’d still been recovering while Ajax was in the hospital, but after they let him out of the ICU, why hadn’t he contacted Ajax?
And why was it so much harder to pick up the phone with every hour that passed?
“We’d better go.” Liv picked up her handbag. “If they fall asleep here, I’ll never get them down when we get back to the hotel.”
“Thank you for coming.” He held the half-asleep Penelope out to Zhenya, who stood ready to walk Liv to her car.
“Night, Daddy.” Sasha grabbed his face and gave him a smack on the cheek before holding hers out for his kiss. “I’ll come see you tomorrow.”
“Be a good girl.”
“I will, Daddy.”
He kissed them both one last time while Zhenya made silly faces.
“Liv, they weigh a ton. What do you feed them?”
Though he joked, Zhenya looked as tired as Dmytro felt. He barely took his eyes off Liv, but she was oblivious to his crush on her. Dmytro wished he could put him out of his misery.
“Liv’s cooking is so delicious it’s addictive. I’m surprised we don’t all weigh a ton.” Dmytro gave matchmaking a shot via an order he knew his sister-in-law could not refuse. “Liv, for God’s sake, invite Zhenya over to dinner at the house when we go home. I don’t think he eats anything but takeout.”
“Mitya.”Her face flushed bright red.
“That’s all right.” Zhenya tried to look anywhere but at Liv. “Liv doesn’t need to feed me.”
“No.” Liv straightened her shoulders. “Mitya is right. As soon as we get home, you should come for supper. Allow us to thank you for all you do for our family.”
A smile bloomed on Zhenya’s weathered face. “I would be delighted to accept, but you owe me nothing.”
Charming pink spots dotted Liv’s cheeks.
“Come, girls.” Zhenya put them down and offered his hands to hold. The three of them walked to the door together. “Let’s go.”
Dmytro watched his boss and daughters leave. It might be nice for Liv to have a boyfriend. No one could be better. He trusted Zhenya with his life every day.
“I should be released tomorrow.” He returned his gaze to Liv. “I’ll call you when I need a ride, shall I?”
“Where do you plan to go? After, I mean,” she asked.
What did she know? “Zhenya has given me ample time off to recover.”
“He should,” she muttered. “Fine for him to send men out to risk their lives. But when they have babies at home—”
