Ghost Dance (Tulsa Thunderbirds Book 3) Read Online Free PDF Page B

required in order to be sure she gets it.”
    “You owe me. Deal with it, or no more baby whisperer.”
    He snorted on his way out the door. “Whatever, Dima. You’re smitten with that baby. All I have to do is text you, any time of the day or night, and you’re here in twenty minutes. You’re not going to cut her off just because I don’t make my wife kick your girlfriend out.”
    “Not my girlfriend,” I called out to his retreating form.
    He laughed.
    I looked down at Harper, who had her big, wet eyes trained on me, her chin trembling as she grasped for my beard. “London isn’t my girlfriend,” I said to her in Russian. “She’s a thorn in my side. Why won’t your papa help me get rid of her, huh? We need to teach him to run people off before you’re a teenager, don’t we?”
    She made a sound that was half whimper and half coo.
    “If he doesn’t, I’ll do it. I’ll scare those boys away. Just the ones you don’t want in your life, though. I’ll only scare the good ones enough to make sure they don’t do anything stupid. You should learn now, kukolka , that boys are stupid. And even if they say they’re not just trying to get in your pants, they’re liars.”
    The longer I talked, the calmer she became. Soon, I was telling her about the summer I was sixteen and my papa died, and how Sergei, who was two years older, had looked out for me. He’d gone on to play pro hockey, and he’d taken me with him. “In Russia, once you’re fifteen, they leave you to be on your own if you have no parents. Most of those kids end up in bad situations, little one. Very bad. And that was to be my fate. But Sergei wouldn’t leave me all alone. He took me with him and helped me find my own way. I don’t know where I would be if not for Sergei. I’ll bring him over someday for you to meet. He doesn’t have a beard for you to pull, but he can talk to you in Russian and tell you stories about me as a boy. Stories that will make me glad you don’t understand, probably.”
    Before long, her fussing stopped and she fell asleep in my arms as she so often did. I didn’t stop talking, though. If I put her back in her crib, I’d have to go out and join the others. London’s voice was still ringing out through the house every now and then, so clearly Hunter hadn’t done a thing to help me on that front.
    Not just her voice. Her laughter. All three of them seemed to be enjoying themselves out there. I didn’t have to step into the kitchen to realize Tallie had already pulled London into the fold, the way she tended to do.
    Frankly, I wasn’t ready to face her again. That woman irritated me like no one had done in so long I’d almost forgotten I could get this worked up over something. Someone. I hated that she had that kind of power. I hated that I gave in to it. The easiest thing would be to simply never do anything again that would mean running into this woman, but now that I’d been stupid enough to bring her here…
    Her eyes shut tight, Harper let out a huge, sleepy sigh.
    “I feel the same way,” I said softly. “Help me find my way out of this mess, kukolka . And promise me you’ll grow up to be much smarter than your Dima.”
    “Well, this is an image I never expected to see,” London said, wheeling into Harper’s nursery.
    My irritation shot straight up to high again in the space of an instant.
    “Quiet,” I grumbled. “Don’t wake the baby.”
    “If talking was going to wake her up, she wouldn’t have fallen asleep with you griping at her the way she did.”
    “I don’t gripe at Harper.”
    “Nope, you only gripe at me. So I expect you were griping about me to her.”
    There was more truth to that statement than I wanted to concede, even if it hadn’t only been about her.
    “What do you want?” I demanded.
    “In life? Or right at this moment?”
    I glared in response.
    “Tallie says dinner’s ready, and she wants to know if you’re willing to put the baby in her crib so she can feed