Don't Say a Word - Barbara Freethy [156]
Julia walked over to the gate and put her hands on the steel. There was no one in the yard. In fact, the building looked vacant. There were no signs, just a sense of bleakness about it, as if nothing happy or good had ever happened there.
"Would you mind if I took your picture?" a man asked.
She whirled around in surprise. "Alex?" She couldn't believe it was him, but there he stood, dressed in jeans, a black shirt, and a black leather jacket. A camera case hung over one shoulder. His brown hair was ruffled by the breeze, his green eyes alight with excitement. He looked impossibly handsome. Her palms began to sweat and her spine tingled. "What are you doing here?" she asked, finally finding her voice.
"I realized I didn't have a picture of you. All that time we spent together, and I never took a photo. What kind of a photographer am I?"
"So you came all the way to Moscow to get one?"
He grinned. "I do what I have to do to get the shot. You know that. I called your apartment a couple of days ago. I spoke to Elena. She told me you were on your way here."
"Is that why she ran off so suddenly?" Julia asked, suddenly making sense of Elena's odd comment that there were some things they needed to do on their own.
He nodded. A moment passed; then he said, "I have something to give you." He set down the camera and pulled an envelope out of his jacket pocket.
For some reason the sight of another envelope made her nervous. "What is it?"
"It's from Stan. I finally tracked him down. He told me everything, how he helped set up the defection, how much he wanted your mother to dance in the United States."
"Did he know about Brady's plan to kill them?"
Alex shook his head. "No, not at all. You see, Julia, Stan had a huge crush on your mother, Natalia. He met her a few times, and he wanted very much to help her. I guess they became friends on a few of her trips to the United States. He was devastated when she was killed. And he told me he was sorry that he hadn't been honest with us. He believed he was protecting* me and you. Like my father, Stan thought that the Russians killed your parents. As an apology, he sent you this. Open it."
"I'm afraid. I don't want any more bad surprises."
"This is a good one."
She took the envelope out of his hand and pulled out a photograph. Her heart stopped beating as she-realized what she was seeing. It was a black-and-white family picture of Natalia, Sergei, Elena, and herself. She pressed it to her heart as she blinked back a tear. "It's all of us together," she whispered.
He smiled at her. "Stan thought you would like it. He said Natalia gave it to him a long, long time ago."
"I love it. I'll have to thank him when I get back. I'm glad he wasn't involved, Alex. I know you care about him." Julia blew out a breath, seeing a new light sparkle in Alex's eyes. He obviously wasn't finished. "Was there something else?"
"Elena told me that she thinks you're in love with me."
"I can't imagine why she'd say that," Julia replied, her heart racing as he took a step forward.
"Maybe because I told her I was in love with you," he said.
"What?" She couldn't possibly have heard him say the words.
"You heard me." He moved closer until he was just inches away. "I missed you, Julia."
"You did?" she whispered, gazing into his eyes and seeing the love he was talking about.
"Yeah, I missed your smile and your beautiful blue eyes, the way you lick your fingers after you eat something really delicious, the excitement you get when you try something new, the light that shines out of you when you talk about music and changing the world one melody at a time."
"Oh, Alex," she murmured, incredibly touched by his words.
"I tried to forget you. I buried myself in work, thinking it would fill me up the way it used to, but it didn't. There was still a hole in my heart. I didn't actually know I had a heart until I met you. You see, I put it on ice