Chapter 14
“So, what’s with the Daddy thing?” I step onto the porch, carrying a bundle of wood with me.
Artem turns from the pile of firewood to take the stack from my arms. It’s been a week since he brought us here in the dead of night, and I’m starting to fully understand the term cabin fever.
“Some women get off on being called names like slut and whore—”
“Not me.” I point to him. “If you ever call me those things I’ll slap you.”
He pauses in his task of rearranging the wood to his liking, and glances at me over his shoulder.
To say the man is in his element like this…
playing house…would be an understatement.
He’s attractive like this, taking care of things around the cabin, making time to play card games with me at night, sitting by the fire before bed while I work on my needlepoint and he flips through his phone.
I don’t think any of my brothers know how to chop wood, much less how to make a fire with it. They have people who do that for them. Who do everything for them. Artem isn’t like that. He gets his hands dirty doing the work others won’t bother to do for themselves.
“I would love to see you try, Babygirl.” He laughs and goes back to moving the wood around.
I deadpan. “Seriously, Artem. Don’t ever call me those things.”
He drops the last bit of wood into place. “Has someone done that before?”
I lean against the railing of the porch. The cabin is set far into the woods. Other than trees and dead leaves carpeting the forest floor, there’s nothing around for miles. Winter is right around the corner, and all the birds have smartened up and left already. It’s quiet.
And a lot of thoughts you think you buried tend to make their voices heard when it’s this quiet.
“Elana.” He touches my cheek. “Who said such things to you?”
I shake my head, wishing it would dislodge the memories and get rid of them all together.
“Not to me.”
“What then.”
“My father called my mother those names. He never let me forget how I was born. That she was his mistress.” I look off into the woods. “His whore.”
Artem grabs my chin, dragging me back to him. “Your father was an asshole.”
“That’s an understatement.” I huff. “When I was little, I didn’t understand why he’d even let me come over if he hated me and mom so much.
But when I got older, I understood. He liked to flaunt me in front of his wife.
Most of the time, she’d just leave until I went back home. Eventually, she left for good.”
“None of that was your doing. His evil games with his wife, that was on him, not you.”
“She hated me so much. I could see it whenever she looked at me, like I was the spawn of the devil.”
“Well, you are his daughter, so she wasn’t completely wrong.”
He looks so serious when he says it, it takes me a second to realize he’s teasing me.
“Funny.”
“Yes, I thought so.”
“I suppose it’s the devil’s blood running in my veins that made my brothers not hate me? They could have turned me away when my mom died. They could have completely cut me out when our father died. But they didn’t.”
“No. They wouldn’t. Your grandfather taught them many things, and loyalty to blood is one of them. You’re their sister, period.”
“And look what it got them. A war with the DeAngelos. I mean, Kaz had to get married.”
He leans his ass against the railing and folds his arms over his chest.
“How’d you do it?”
“What do you mean?”
“The war. How did you get Marco DeAngelo to target Megan and Mira? How did you know Mira’s boyfriend had been stealing from Marco?”
“I didn’t.” I frown. “First time I met them was when Michael had a gun pointed at me.”
“And you knew Tony was going to take you to that restaurant and let his brothers use you as bait?”
“No. I see what you’re doing.”
“I’m pointing out how it’s your fault. I mean, if you didn’t know Tony’s brothers or what they were up to, it’s reasonable to believe you should have stopped them.”
He squishes his lips together as he stares at me.
“Sarcasm doesn’t look good on you.”
“And victimhood doesn’t look good on you.”
“Who said I’m a victim? I’m not.”
“I know you’re not.” He nods hard. “So why do you want the blame here?”
Now there’s a million-dollar question.
The crunch of a branch breaking and then another catches our attention. A flash of brown and black fur comes out of the corner, on top of the pile of wood.
A raccoon.
What the hell is a raccoon doing jumping onto the porch in the middle of the afternoon. It should be hiding and sleeping until the sun goes down.
Artem stands in front of me, pushing me further back.
The raccoon slips as he walks along the top of the wood. He walks in a circle, like he doesn’t know where he’s going. If this were a cartoon, I’d picture him scratching his head in confusion.
“Artem, look at his mouth.” I shove his back then reach around him to point at the matted fur and thick foamy saliva dripping from the animal’s lips.
The sound of my voice grabs the raccoon’s attention, and he turns to face us. His dark eyes glimmer. His lips pull back, baring his teeth, but there’s no sound yet. No growl.
“My gun.” Artem jerks his head toward the door of the cabin. “Just inside the door. Get it. Go slow.”
I’m only two steps from the front door of the cabin. As I open the screen door it creaks, drawing the raccoon’s attention toward me. Artem steps to the right, blocking me from the sick animal.
The weapon sits on the table right inside the door. After grabbing it, I slowly step back out onto the porch.
The screen door slips from my fingers and slams shut. The raccoon leaps from the wood pile, hits the ground, then lunges in my direction..
Artem, who should not be able to move as quickly as he does with all his muscle, moves to put himself in front of me again. He kicks out his foot as though to punt the animal, but it’s a full-grown beast. The raccoon jumps, grabbing hold of Artem’s arm, and sinks his mouth around his wrist.
“No!” I point the gun and fire a single round. There’s a squeal, then nothing. The raccoon falls to the porch with a thud.
“Fuck.” Artem groans, low and full of pain.
Blood runs down his arm, covering his hand.
“Shit! Shit!”
“Give me the gun, Elana.” He puts out his hand.
When I hand it to him, he aims it at the raccoon and fires three more shots into it.
“It’s dead, Artem.”
He brings his eyes, hot with anger and pain. “That fucker bit me.”
I grab hold of his arm and bring up to get a better look. Artem had taken off the leather coat he was wearing to chop the wood.
“We have to clean it. And then get to a hospital.”
“It’s a little bite. I’ll be fine.” He turns his arm to get a better look at the torn flesh. While he’s right, and it doesn’t look that bad in that the punctures aren’t ripping the skin, it’s not the damage from the teeth that are the problem.
“Artem, look at it. A raccoon attacks us on the porch in the middle of the afternoon? Look at his mouth, all the drool. He’s rabid, Artem,” I say with force. “Come inside, we need to flush out the wound.”
He follows me into the cabin, and I point toward the bathroom. “We need to wash it. Do you have first aid supplies?”
“Of course. Under the sink.”
I find a blue box with a Red Cross printed on the top. Digging through the kit, I find a bottle of iodine and place it on the counter.
“Soap. Use a lot of soap, just keep washing it,” I direct him while pushing aside the bandages.
He picks up the bar of soap from the dish and lathers his hands.
“We need rubbing alcohol.” I crouch down, looking under the cabinet again when I hear his grunt of pain as he rubs the soap into the wound.
“Keep cleaning it.” I put the unopened bottle of alcohol on the counter and lean over him to see the wound. “The rabies virus sits near the wound at first, so you have to keep washing.”
He glances at me. “How do you know so much about rabid raccoons?”
“When I was little my mother put me in Girl Scouts.”
“They taught you about wild animals and treating injuries?” He lifts an eyebrow.
“No.” I huff. “The troop I was in was more concerned with the boys in school and bedazzling everything. So, I took the handbook and taught myself, and whatever the book didn’t tell me, I learned.”
I prod the bite marks. The bleeding has stopped, but the danger isn’t over. “We need to get to a hospital. You don’t have any medications in here other than ibuprofen.”
“Give me that. I’ll be fine.”
“Artem, did you not hear me? The raccoon was carrying rabies. You have to be treated for it. Medication at the hospital and probably antibiotics.”
“No hospital.”
“You stubborn Russian ass. This isn’t something you can fight with a gun.
It’s a virus. Teeny tiny germs are right now setting up shop in your body.
” I grab hold of his bicep, well as much as I can.
My hand doesn’t even wrap all the way around.
“People die from rabies, Artem. Is that how you want to die? From a virus a raccoon gave you?”
Playing to his ego seems to work.
“I’m not going to die from a raccoon.”
“If he passed the virus on to you and you don’t get it treated, yeah, you big baboon.
You will die.” I grab hold of his chin in the same manner he does to me when he wants my full attention.
“And there won’t be anything I can do to stop it.
And then I’ll be stuck here all alone. Let me take you to a hospital. ”
His nostrils flare. It’s as though the way this whole situation will affect me is more important than what it could do to him.
Die from a raccoon bite because he won’t go to a hospital—fine. Leave me stranded and possibly in danger—never.
Impossible man. I’m surrounded by impossible men.
“Fine.” He might choke on the word, he gives it with such tension. “But I’m driving.”