Page 13 of Dimitri
Sipping her tea, Elizabeth smiled happily and for the first time since losing her baby, she felt light.
*****
"You've been strangely reticent and uncommunicative since you left."
Easing his aching muscles, Dimitri took the phone inside the elegant cream and gold bathroom with him. He was sore, feeling muscles he had not known existed. He considered himself to be active and healthy, but these past few days on the farm had proven him wrong.
"I sent you a text just yesterday."
"You could call, Dimitri. We worry."
"Why?" Sitting on the floor, he tugged off his socks and winced at the blisters on his feet. His grandfather had warned him about doing too much too quickly and he hadn't listened. How could he? he wondered. The land was wild and some of it untamed. And beautiful. Miles and miles of trees and hills. It was hard to resist.
"You're in an unfamiliar place." He heard the impatience in his brother's voice and had to smile.
"We both considered here home when we were younger. I think of it as home now."
There was a pause during which, Dimitri finished stripping in preparation for his bath. He had decided that a long soak in the fragrant water would do better for his sore muscles than a quick shower.
"It no longer is."
"It is to me. Papa hasn't texted me back or called." It hurt, but he would live. His father's indifference was not going to break him.
"He has been busy."
Bypassing the sink, he went about turning on the tap and adding bath salts and some pine scented gel. "You're very good at that."
"At what?"
"Making excuses, being the diplomat. It's all right, brathiska. I don't blame you for it. How's my nephew?"
"Missing his uncle."
Putting his phone on the lip of the tub, he stepped into the warm suds and sighed. "And my sister? Has she come to her senses and decided to come and find me?"
He grinned at his brother's longsuffering sigh. "In your dreams."
"Why are you up so late?"
"Some troubles with the shipment to the UK. And a minor threat from a competitor."
He went on full alert. "How minor?"
"Minor enough to be squashed. We have eyes and ears everywhere."
"Take care of yourself and the family."
"What I do best. Are you happy there?"
"More than I expected."
"Babushka is very forthcoming with her information, unlike you. She tells me you are, how do we say? Adapting. You're becoming a regular farm man."
"It's called a hand. And yes, I like it here."
"Russia is your home, don't you forget it."
"If I do, you will remind me. Brother, get some sleep. Your lovely wife is wasted on you."
