Free Break the Sky (Spiral of Bliss Spin Off) by Nina Lane

again. I’d visited her over the Christmas holiday, but that had been almost five months ago.
    Now I had a sudden, sharp longing for my mother’s down-to-earth dependability, the way she cupped my face in her hands the minute I walked in the door, studying me for signs of stress, fatigue, worry, whatever. I wanted to be in her little Russian gift shop surrounded by matryoshka dolls, painted lacquer boxes, icons, and embroidered shawls. I wanted her egg bread, blinchki, and borscht.
    I wanted her strength. For most of my life, I hadn’t known or acknowledged my mother’s strength. She had always been the peacekeeper between my stubborn, iron-willed father and me. But after my father died, and my mother was forced to pull me from the wreckage of self-destruction while also fighting her own battles, I realized she had always been stronger than me and my father combined.
    “Kseniya?”
    “I’m here.” I straightened, clearing my throat. “I’ll come and visit as soon as I can.”
    “The university had better give you a vacation after all this work you do,” she said. “I will talk to the board of trustees myself if they do not.”
    That made me smile. I didn’t doubt she would.
    “It’ll be over soon,” I promised.
    “Next time you come, you bring me more
pysanky
.”
    “I will.
Ya tebya lyublyu
.”
    “
Ya tebya lyublyu
, Kseniya.”
    I ended the call and logged in to my computer to check email. There was a message from Stan reminding me about the deadline for my tenure review file, and another from the NOAA grant department declining to fund the Spiral Project.
    Bitter disappointment flooded me. With a groan, I pressed my palms against my eyes.
    I wasn’t soft. I’d always been able to deal with shit. I could handle my work, the tenure process, my students, the pressure from my colleagues. I could handle having my research proposals rejected.
    But being forced to contend with everything at once, and even thinking about giving up the Spiral Project…
    Fuck.
    I grabbed my satchel and went outside into the afternoon sunshine. The air and coolness eased some of the prickliness in my nerves. Spring was in full force in Mirror Lake, flowers and trees blooming, and pedestrians strolling on Avalon Street.
    I ordered an iced coffee from an outdoor stand and found an empty table on the terrace near the lake. I should have powered up my laptop, but instead I just sat there and looked at everything.
    A kid at a nearby table was eating a double-decker ice-cream cone. A college couple was sharing a plate of fries. A guy was sitting by himself near the fence, one booted foot propped on the wrought-iron railing.
    Oh.
    Not a guy. A
man
. And not just any man. Archer West. A big, sexy Archer West man.
    He looked out of place amidst the crowd of families and college students, but he didn’t seem to notice or care. A spiral-bound notebook lay open on the table. His body was relaxed, one hand curled around a cardboard cup of coffee, his eyes concealed behind a pair of sunglasses. He wore faded jeans and a navy T-shirt, the sleeves tight around his very well-defined biceps. He lifted the coffee cup to his mouth and swallowed, the muscles of his throat rippling.
    Oh
times infinity.
    I had a flashback to the night when I’d watched him at the bar. I felt that purely
girl
flutter of awareness again, a deep stirring of all my fantasies about sexy rebels who stormed through life on their own terms and made no apologies for it. He was exactly like that. I knew it.
    I also knew he was no whitewashed hero. Sexy rebels always had a dark side. Sometimes too dark. The warning bells rang loud and clear in my head.
    Still I watched as he lowered his foot to the ground, the movement stretching his jeans at the thigh. I swore my mouth was watering.
    When he stood, I forced my gaze back to my work. I busied myself getting my laptop out of the case, watching Archer’s movements from the corner of my eye. He was getting closer…