Page 23 of The Lies Between Lovers

She remembered the driveway lined on either side with beautiful adult lilac trees reaching toward the sky. She hadn’t noticed, or thought to ask then rather, but the bushes had become smaller the closer the drive came to the house on the hill. Like he was planting new ones each year. Along with a row of smaller cuttings that had been growing in terracotta pots along the front of the house.

“How long have you been working with these—what’s the proper name again?” she asked.

“Syringa vulgaris—Krasavitsa Moskvy.”

Vera smiled. “Beauty of Moscow.”

“I’ve been working with them for a few years,” Vaslav said, sighing as he wiped his hands together over the bucket to shed some loose dirt. “Every year, I’ve used root boxes to take cuttings from the two adult trees at the gate to plant over. I average a fifty-fifty success rate with it. Although, this is the last year for that, I think. I’ll have to start planting all the ones I managed to start in pots along the drive in the spring. I think I have enough now.”

She bet the property in Dubna would look gorgeous in the spring when the lilacs were in bloom. Full, white blossoms with a fragrance one could smell clinging to the wind. Even though the majority would be juvenile trees, eventually they would tower and blossom beautifully, too.

“Was it because you were ashamed?” he asked then, changing the subject altogether. “Why you stayed inside and closed off the world?”

Vera stiffened, her hands finding the edge of the terracotta pot to steady the trembling in her fingers. “Embarrassed, ashamed ... I was a failure, and it wasn’t even my fault. Honestly, a lot of it was just in my head, but by the time I’d realized that, everything else—and everyone else—had moved on, in a way. I guess that’s when I learned that just because my world stops doesn’t mean everybody else’s does, too.”

What a sad lesson that had been for her to learn while she was at her very weakest. It also solidified Vera’s belief that no matter what, she could survive by herself. She learned to like her own company because of it, too.

“Were you alone?”

“Mostly. I had a few friends.”

They thinned out over the years.

Vera sighed, saying, “And my family lives stateside, so ...”

“Alone, then,” he deadpanned.

She didn’t bother to confirm what was obvious as Vaslav stepped away from the table and moved along the counter to the sink where he began washing the remnants of the soil from his hands. A part of her knew she should still be packing in soil around the outer edge of the pot, but Vera couldn’t seem to look away from the way the water and dirt sluiced over the same hands that had taken her to earth-shattering orgasms in seconds. He hadn’t even taken off his rings, uncaring that the gold bands—centered with rubies, diamonds, and one with an onyx stone—had gotten packed with dirt in the process. It was the first time she paid particular attention to each ring, and the fact that there was only one finger, besides his thumbs, that bore no ring.

Not even a tattoo.

His ring finger.

How many times is he going to mention his wife before you ask, Vera?

She ignored her inner voice. That bitch never had good things to say

“It’ll only need a small bit of water,” Vaslav said, nodding toward the pot as he turned off the taps and reached for the drying cloth hanging off the stove. “I think the soil is damp enough so don’t soak it.”

“Sure. I’ll just go get my little can in the other room. It has some water left in it from this morning, and it’s probably lukewarm.”

Vas smiled, and for a second, she was blinded by the beautiful sight. Only a second—she didn’t think he realized how handsome his face was when he smiled even if it did pull and stretch his grisly scar more than usual—because he was fast to say, “Good. Cold water always shocks the roots.”

“I know,” Vera replied, bending down to pull another two handfuls of soil to finish packing in what space remained inside the pot. “I only had to kill a couple of hundred Marigold seedlings my first year to figure it out.”

She was wrong.

His laughter was even better than his smile.

7.

“I thought you didn’t add anything extra to the soil?”

Vaslav quickly folded the plastic bag up, and turned at the table to find Vera standing in the entryway of her kitchen. He’d spent less than an hour inside the young woman’s home, and he could tell a couple of things about her already because of it. She enjoyed cooking. Her kitchen was a homage to that fact from the cupboards piled high with different glass dishes and pots to the hanging rack over top of the island that was also filled with pans and too many covers to count.

That, and plants.

There were plants in every corner. Plants hanging from macrame holders with various beads and knots that were different from pot to pot. Even the table housed more plants in pots than it did space to sit and eat.