Complications

For the rest of that week, Alexei and I were together at work as much as we possibly could be, taking care to keep physical contact to a minimum, as romantic relationships between co-workers were discouraged at the hospital. Even though so much time had passed, to me it began to feel just like he'd never gone away at all, as if the time we shared together now was an unbroken continuation from the time we'd first met.

I mentioned this to Alexei and asked if it felt the same way to him.

"Not when I look at Aidan and see how much he's grown," he chuckled.

The night before Halloween, the hospital had a hayride through a 'haunted forest', which was really, of course, the parking lot and the woods behind it decorated with scary scenes and employees dressed up as ghosts, witches, zombies, characters from horror movies, etc. I told Alexei I was planning to take the kids and asked if he'd like to come along. He eagerly agreed.

As soon as we'd climbed into the back of the wagon, a man dressed as a mummy pretended to try to jump on right after us. Nevada startled and looked as if she might cry, and I had second thoughts about whether I should have brought her along, after all. Sage was fine. He pretended to be a pirate threatening to stab the 'mummy' with a sword.

After that, it wasn't too bad at first. We rode past a vampire rising from a coffin and a scene from the movie 'Poltergeist.' Then a man dressed as a werewolf let out an ear-splitting howl inches from the wagon. Nevada began to cry, and even Montana turned pale.

I held Nevada and tried to comfort her, but she still sobbed. "I wanna go home!" Montana whined.

"I'll bet you've never heard the story of the 'Golden Slipper', have you?" Alexei asked.

"No, what's that?" Montana had instantly forgotten the howling werewolf.

"Once upon a time, a long time ago, there lived a young girl on a farm in St. Petersburg," Alexei began. "One day, her father brought her a fish from the market. Instead of eating the fish right away, as her older sister had done, the girl felt sorry for it and put it into the water so that it could live."

"One day the girl's mother dressed her older sister up and took her to the palace, leaving the young girl at home to do all the work. The girl sat beside the water crying because she wanted to go, too. Her friend the fish saw her crying and gave her some nice clothes so that she could go to the palace, too. While she was there, the Tsar's son, the Tsarevich, saw her and fell in love with her, but she had to leave in a hurry and lost one of her golden slippers. The Tsarevich searched the entire countryside for the girl whose foot fit the golden slipper. At last he came to our young girl. The slipper fit her foot perfectly, and the two of them were married and lived happily ever after."

By now both children were mesmerized. "What a cool story!" I exclaimed. "It sounded an awful lot like Cinderella, but it was still pretty good."

"My mother used to tell it to my sisters and me when we were little," Alexei told me.

The following night, my Mom watched Nevada while I took Montana trick-or-treating at the mall. It was very crowded, and at one point, I overheard the voices of two women standing behind me who were talking rather loudly. One was complaining of early pregnancy symptoms.

"This was the third morning in a row I threw up as soon as I got out of bed," she complained. "Does it never end?"

I turned to look and, to my utter shock, saw that the two women were Sydney and her friend Olivia. They were accompanied by a little girl who must have been Olivia's daughter. Sydney was the one who'd spoken.

I felt as if all the air had just been knocked out of me. So Sydney was pregnant, possibly by Alexei. Did he know? If not, was she planning to tell him? If she did, what would he do?

Somehow I made it through the rest of trick-or-treating. Montana, oblivious to how troubled I now was, chattered excitedly all the way back to the car and to my Mom's.

"Look at all the candy I got, Grandma!" he proudly proclaimed as soon as my Mom opened the door.

"Yes, I see," my Mom replied. "Addison, do you think that Alexei would like to go hunting with your Dad and Aidan this weekend?"

"Who cares?" After what I'd just found out about Sydney, all the hurt I'd felt over Alexei's betrayal had come flooding back.

My Mom frowned. "What's wrong?"

"Right after I met up with him again, he had a fling with a woman named Sydney," I told her. "I just found out Sydney's pregnant. I overheard her talking to her friend at the mall."

"Oh, no!" My Mom looked just as shocked as I'd felt. "Is it Alexei's?"

"I don't know. She was sleeping with this other guy at the same time."

"My God," my Mom said softly. "Does Alexei know?"

"I have no idea. He hasn't said a word about it to me."

"Well, he's a good boy," she said. "I'm sure he'll do what's right. I'm so sorry, hon."

"Yeah." I collected Nevada and took my kids home.

I dreaded running into Alexei the next day I worked, and sure enough, he was waiting for me with a big smile at the cafeteria's entrance at lunchtime. His smile evaporated as soon as he saw my face.

"Addison? What's wrong?"

I felt tears fill my eyes. "Sydney's pregnant."

"Oh, Addison!" He tried to take me into his arms, but I pushed him away. "It couldn't be mine. I used a condom with her." He frowned. "How'd you find out, anyway? When did you see her?"

"I took Montana to the mall Halloween night, and we ended up standing right in front of her and Olivia. They were there with Olivia's little girl."

Alexei shook his head. "If I had a kopek for every time I've wished I'd never met that woman..."

I smirked. "You'd be a rich man."

"I'd be a rich man," he agreed. "But I don't think there's anything to worry about, Addison. I'm sure it's that other guy's."

"But condoms aren't one hundred percent effective, you know..."

"It's that other guy's." There was an edge to his voice I'd never heard before, and it frightened me a little. "I'm sorry, Addison. I didn't mean to sound harsh, but the subject's closed. I never want to hear anything about it again." His face relaxed into a smile. "Now, shall we go to lunch?" He put his arm around me and led me into the cafeteria.

I found that I wasn't quite as hungry as I normally was. Alexei filled his tray with the usual amount of food. "Is that all you're going to eat?" he asked me.

"I'm just not very hungry today." I grimaced. "Bad time of the month," I lied.

"Poor baby." He gave me a sympathetic hug.

We engaged in light banter for the entire meal, but I still couldn't get Sydney off my mind. Before it was time to leave for the day, I couldn't stand it and went to find Olivia.

Her eyes narrowed when she saw me. "What do you want?"

"I need to know if Sydney's pregnant with Alexei's baby," I demanded.

"What business is it of yours?" She smirked hatefully. "Haven't you done enough to wreck her life? She already had to quit because of that stupid fight you picked with her. What are you gonna do to her next?"

"Nothing," I said. "But I do want to know if her baby's Alexei's."

"Well, guess what? I'm not gonna tell you!" She laughed cruelly. "And if you don't go away and leave me alone right now, you're gonna be very sorry!"

Mom called me later. "Did you get the chance to ask Alexei if he wants to go hunting with your father and Aidan this weekend?' she asked me.

"Not yet," I told her. "I've had other stuff going on, and it kind of slipped my mind."

"Other stuff? Oh, yeah," she said softly. "Whatever happened with that?"

"Well, Alexei says it probably isn't his because he used a condom with her."

"Well, then there's nothing to worry about, is there?" Mom said brightly, changing the subject.

Almost right after I got off the telephone with Mom, Alexei called. "Are you all right, Addison?" he asked.

"I'm fine. Why?"

"I just don't want you to be worried about anything, that's all. Everything's going to be all right."

"I know." I knew that I didn't dare tell him about my confrontation with Olivia. "My Mom wanted me to ask you if you want to go hunting with my Dad and Aidan this weekend."

"I'd love to!" he exclaimed.

On Saturday morning, I took the kids and went to spend the day with Mom. I hadn't done that in a long time, and I thought it would be nice to do it again. It was a sunny day but quite cool, so I put jackets on both kids.

"Well, hello there, dear," Mom said when she saw us. "What a lovely surprise!"

"I can count to twenty now, Grandma," said Montana. "Wanna hear me?"

"Of course, sweetheart." I took the kids into the house and started to take their jackets off them, but Mom stopped me.

"I was thinking that, since the men are gone for the day, perhaps we could go to the mall," she suggested. "There's supposed to be some good sales going on."

"I wanna ride the merry-go-round!" Montana crowed.

Nobody ever had to tell me twice when there were sales going on at the mall, as I was a shopaholic extraordinaire. We arrived to find that the largest store, which was at the mall's entrance, had just received a new shipment of winter clothing. I bought shirts and jog suits for both kids and a couple of sweaters for myself. On the way out of that store, we walked past the section with the newborn clothes, and my mind immediately turned to Sydney. Idly I wondered whether she was shopping for baby clothes that day.

We came to the indoor carousel, which we let both kids ride, and then we looked around in both book stores and the music store. Then it was on to the hobby store, the toy store, and the dollar store, where I bought toys for the kids and some small household items.

By then it was lunchtime, so we ate at the food court and then went back to my Mom's house. That afternoon, Montana and Nevada took naps while Mom and I baked pies in the kitchen and chatted together. It was the first time we'd done that since I was a teenager, and it was a very special time for us. Mom asked how I really felt about Alexei.

"Since he came back into my life, I've come to really care for him a lot," I told her. "It really hurt me when he had the fling with Sydney, but I know that everyone makes mistakes, so I was wiling to forgive him. But now that Sydney's pregnant...if there's any chance at all that it might be Alexei's, I just don't know how I can stand the thought of him having a child with another woman."

"Yet he was readily able to accept the fact that you'd had children with another man," Mom pointed out.

"But that's different!" I protested. "I was married to Jeff, and besides, I had no idea I'd ever see Alexei again."

"Well, you have to remember that, regardless of the circumstances, the child is completely innocent," Mom said. "If it does turn out to be Alexei's, I hope you'll be able to accept it, as he's accepted your children."

Just then we heard the sound of my Dad's truck outside and knew that the guys had returned.

Eager to find out how successful the hunting trip had been, I dashed outside to find all three of them grinning triumphantly as they emerged from the truck. "Aidan killed a deer!" Dad told me.

"Wow! Really?" I looked at my younger brother, whose beaming face told me it was true.

"We'll eat well tonight," Alexei said. He and Dad and Aidan spent most of the afternoon skinning the deer and cutting the meat up into portions. Mom cooked some of it up with onions for dinner and made vegetables and baked potatoes to go with it, and then of course there were the pies Mom and I had made for dessert. One was sweet potato and the other was pecan. I don't care much for deer meat myself, but I ate it anyway because I didn't want to hurt Aidan's feelings.

"Have you ever killed a deer before?" I asked Alexei as we were eating.

"Oh, yes," he told me. "My father started taking me hunting when I was twelve or thirteen. Mostly it was birds and other small animals, but there was an occasional deer as well."

I gave Montana a little bite of the deer meat to see if he'd like it. He grimaced and shook his head, so I heated up the frozen meal I'd brought along for him just in case.

I was happy to see that Alexei liked both pies. He asked if Mom or I had made them, and I told him that I'd helped her make them.

"You're a wonderful cook," he told me.

"Thank you," I replied. "I haven't cooked an entire meal for you yet, have I?"

"No, you haven't," he told me.

"I'll cook one just for us and the kids on the next day we both have off," I decided. "What's your favorite meal?"

"I haven't had Chicken Kiev in a long time, but anything you want to make is fine with me."

We stayed at my parents' house until it was almost dark, and then I said good-bye to Alexei. Dad had picked him up at his apartment that morning, so he didn't have his car with him. "Can you come by for a little while, after I put the kids to bed?" I asked hopefully.

He shook his head. "I'm sorry, Addison," he told me. "I'm just too tired from hunting. We'll do it soon though, OK?" He touched my chin and kissed my lips.

I swallowed my disappointment and took Montana and Nevada home alone. I put their pajamas on them and put them to bed, then sat in bed reading a romance novel until I got sleepy.

The next day, Alexei and I were eating lunch across from one another in the cafeteria when I saw Olivia. Her eyes met mine, and she mouthed the word 'yes' at me. I almost choked on my food.

"Addison! What is it?" Alexei asked me.

My eyes filled with tears as I shook my head. "I have to go now," I said, leaving my half-eaten lunch sitting on the table and dashing out of the cafeteria.

I rushed into the nurse's lounge to see that, to my relief, it was vacant. I knew that I had to collect myself before I could return to work. Could Olivia be telling the truth? Could she be lying about Alexei being Sydney's baby's father just to hurt me? Did she even know herself who Sydney's baby's father was?

Alexei had told me he'd used a condom with Sydney, and I believed him. I knew that there was a small chance that the condom had failed, and if that were the case, then Alexei may well be Sydney's baby's father. However, as I'd chosen to forgive Alexei for his affair with Sydney, we would share the possible consequences of that indiscretion together.

With the issue now resolved, I continued the day's work as usual and then left to go home. Alexei caught up with me in the parking lot as I was headed for my car.

"Addison! What happened at lunch?"

"I...I just had a bad morning today, Alexei. They brought in this little girl who'd been electrocuted and lost both her arms." It was true. The little girl had been about a year or two younger than Montana, and both her arms had been shriveled and black. They'd looked just like chicken drumsticks that had been burned to a crisp. I'd known right away that there was no way they could be saved. I'd had to assist with the operation. It had been one of the most heartbreaking cases I'd ever encountered in my career, and I knew I'd never forget it.

"But you were as cheerful as usual when I first met up with you," Alexei pointed out. "You didn't change until about halfway through lunch."

I sighed. He'd seen through my white lie. "I saw Olivia," I admitted.

"Has she been harassing you, Addison? Because if she has, I'll put an end to it right away."

"No, she hasn't been harassing me, but she told me...she told me...never mind."

"Something about me?"

"She told me you were Sydney's baby's father."

Alexei sighed deeply.

"Even if it's true, Alexei, I decided...I still want to be with you."

By now we'd reached my car. He held his arms out to me, and I went into them. He held me tightly, and I rested my head on his shoulder. "I love you, Addison," he told me.

"I...I love you too, Alexei." My heart was pounding in my ears. It was the first time he'd ever said those words to me.

"Whatever happens, it'll be all right. We'll work something out."

I went to the library to look at recipe books. I had to find the perfect Chicken Kiev recipe for when Alexei came over for dinner. At last I found one that I thought looked authentic enough and went to the supermarket to buy the ingredients.

Aidan was working that day, stocking shelves. "So you're gonna make dinner for your boyfriend?" he teased me.

"I'm gonna make dinner for Alexei," I replied. He rubbed his fingers together and made kissing noises. I ignored him.

On the day Alexei was due to come over, I spent almost the entire day in the kitchen, trying to make sure that everything was just right. When it got close to dinner time, I dressed Montana and Nevada in their nicest clothes.

"How come we have to get dressed up if we're not going anywhere?" asked Montana.

"It's a special night," I told him. "Alexei's coming over for dinner."

"What's so special about that? Alexei's been over here before."

"Not for dinner."

"What are we having?"

"I'm making something called Chicken Kiev for me and Alexei and chicken nuggets for your and Montana."

At last the meal was finished, and all that was left was to wait for Alexei to arrive.

The time we'd agreed upon came and passed. I'd left the food on low heat so that it wouldn't get cold if he arrived a little late, but I began to worry that it might dry out. I'd been waiting for fifteen minutes when the telephone rang. It was Alexei.

"Addison? Hey, babe, I'm really sorry, but I'm afraid I'm gonna be a little late. I blew a tire and just got done changing it. I'll be there as soon as I can."

"Well, thanks for calling to let me know," I said, relief flooding through me. "I'll see you when you get here!"

The kids were really starving, so I went ahead and fed them. They were just finishing up when Alexei arrived. "I'm really sorry about being late," he said. "This is for you." He handed me a red rose.

"It's beautiful!" I said. "Thanks!" I got a vase for the rose.

"Alexei!" Montana exclaimed happily.

"Hey there, buddy!" Alexei grinned and ruffled his hair. "How have you been?" He turned to Nevada. "Hey, beautiful girl!" Nevada grinned.

I served the Chicken Kiev, and Alexei told me it was perfect.

"It's the first time I've ever made it," I told him. "I looked and looked for just the right recipe."

"It tastes just like my Mom's," he replied, chuckling. "Have you noticed that the past few times we've gotten together have been to eat? I was thinking that maybe next time we could do something else for a change. Do you like to go ice skating?"

"Actually, I've never been," I confessed. "But I used to love to go roller skating when I was a teenager!"

"It's pretty much the same, only on blades instead of wheels." He grinned. "How about I take you next time we both have the day off?"

"That would be great!" I replied. "I'm sure my Mom wouldn't mind watching the kids."

After we finished eating and cleaned up, we took the kids to the park. I pushed Nevada on a swing while Alexei played with Montana on the slide. While we were there, I met up with a girl I remembered from high school named Kennedy, who was there with a man and three children.

"This is my husband Nicolai, and these are our children, Taylor, Morgan, and Jordan," she told me. Taylor and Morgan were preteens, and Jordan looked to be slightly younger than Montana.

"This is Alexei, and my children's names are Montana and Nevada," I told Kennedy.

Nicolai and Alexei immediately started chatting enthusiastically with one another in Russian. Kennedy and I watched the younger children at play. "He's thrilled to have found someone from his own country to talk to," she told me. "He gets lonely sometimes."

"I'm sure Alexei does too," I replied. To be honest, I hadn't really thought about it.

"So how long have you guys been married?" Kennedy asked.

"Actually, we're not." I felt a bit awkward. "Montana and Nevada's father was a man named Jeff. He died when Nevada was three months old."

"That's terrible!" she exclaimed. "I'm so sorry!"

"It's all right," I said. "He was an abusive drunk, anyway."

"How did you end up with someone like that?"

"I was young and naive and didn't know any better. Plus he was so charming that he fooled me. I'll sure never make that mistake again."

"So how did you meet Alexei?"

"He's a security guard at the hospital where I work. He saved me from being mugged one day, and things just went from there."

"How romantic!" said Kennedy.

Alexei and I ended up spending the entire day together. We ate leftovers and then watched television until it was time to put the children to bed.

"Thank you so much for having me over," Alexei said as he prepared to leave. "I had a wonderful time."

"Thanks for coming over," I replied. "We enjoyed having you." I was a little disappointed that he hadn't offered to stay until after the children were in bed so that we could have had some time together alone, but I didn't say anything.

I wondered whether or not he'd kiss me with the kids watching. He gave me a chaste peck on the lips.

I put the children to bed right after he left. "Mama, is Alexei gonna be my new Daddy?" Montana asked me as I tucked him in.

"I don't know what's gonna happen in the future, but for now, he's just a good friend," I replied.

"Do you like him better than my old Daddy?" Boy, did he ask some tough questions!

"I loved your old Daddy, Montana," I told my son. "But he had some very serious problems. That's why he died when he did."

"Is Alexei like my old Daddy?"

"No, he isn't, thank goodness. He's a completely different kind of man." I finished tucking him in and went to turn the light out.

"Mommy?"

"What is it, sweetie?"

"I want Alexei to be my new Daddy."

"Maybe he will be, some day."

As I'd predicted, Mom agreed to watch Montana and Nevada so that Alexei and I could go ice skating together. "You are coming over for Thanksgiving, aren't you?" she asked. With a start, I realized that it was now less than two weeks away. "Alexei's welcome to come too, of course."

"I'm sure he'll want to," I replied. "He doesn't have any family here."

On the way to the ice skating rink, I happened to think of Lara. Since Alexei and I had gotten back together, I'd hardly heard from her at all. I assumed that she was busy dating Cole and that was why she hadn't been in touch as much, but I missed her.

As it turned out, I'd completely lost my touch and had to start all over again with learning to skate. Luckily, Alexei was patient with me. I told him about the Thanksgiving invitation from Mom.

"Sure, I'd love to spend Thanksgiving with your family," he said.

I also mentioned Lara to him. "It's been such a long time since I talked to her," I said. "I know she's been really busy with her new boyfriend, but I'd really love to get together with her again."

"Perhaps we could double date sometime," Alexei suggested.

"What a great idea!" I exclaimed.