“Thank you, but I should probably go.” She pushed her chair out farther and stood, but Yuri stood with her.
“Do you care if Yuri and I come along?” Evelina set down her fork and pushed back from the table as well. “Just to make sure nothing gets out of hand?”
Her throat grew thick. How many times had Mikhail talked about his family with her? She hadn’t understood it when he mentioned them, hadn’t known how a man could have so much love for the people he was related to.
But now that she was here, standing in the Amos family kitchen and having people she barely knew offer to support her while she spoke with her father, it made sense.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
“We’re happy to do it.” Evelina looped their arms together and led her through the swinging double doors.
The moment they were in the hallway, snippets of conversation became clear.
“I’ll pass on your message,” Alexei said in a calm, measured tone.
“You’ll do no such thing,” her father snapped in return. “I’m not leaving until I see my daughter.”
“We’re in the middle of a meal. It will have to?—”
“It’s all right.” Bryony dropped Evelina’s arm and came up to stand behind Alexei. “I can talk to?—”
“What do you think you’re doing?” her father shouted, his eyes narrowed into two thin slits. Heath stood on the porch beside him, his arms crossed over his chest. “You snuck out of the Caldwells’ house behind our backs and came here of all places? Didn’t Heath explain to you how delicate of a line we need to walk right now? The Caldwells will be furious when they learn of this.”
She stiffened. “I didn’t come here. I went to the jail to see Mikhail, because what you’re doing is wrong, and I wanted to tell him that and let him know I would support him.”
Her father reached out to grab her arm, but Alexei was faster, moving his entire body between them.
“You need to come home with us.” Her father peered around Alexei’s shoulder, his face red. “I demand it.”
“No,” Alexei snapped, his voice as cold as ice, though it held no anger. If anything, it carried a deadly sort of calm. “Women make their own decisions in my house. If she doesn’t want to go with you, I won’t allow you to force her.”
Her father opened his mouth to respond, but Bryony met his gaze over Alexei’s shoulder.
“You forget yourself, Father. I’m not anywhere close to home. It’s not possible to return there today or tomorrow or even the day after that. But even if we were near home, I wouldn’t want to go anywhere with you. I’m staying here in Sitka.”
She hadn’t planned to say such a thing, hadn’t put so much as two seconds’ worth of thought into the idea. But the moment the words were out of her mouth, they felt right.
“Don’t be ridiculous.” Her father tried to shove Alexei aside, but the businessman didn’t move so much as an inch.
“You’re the one being ridiculous, Father. I don’t care if I end up renting a one-room apartment and working for the grocer, I’m not going back to Washington, DC, with you, and I’m not going to lie for you either.”
“No one’s asking you to lie.”
“No, you just expect me to say nothing while you try to blame Mikhail for Richard’s death. Then you expect me to follow you home and marry a man who will give you endless funding for your research, regardless of whether I’ll be happy.” She took a step closer to Alexei and her father. “The happiest I’ve ever been in my life is here in Alaska. I’m not leaving, and I’m not going to sit by and do nothing while you distort what happened in the wilderness.”
Her father’s eyes flashed. “If you do this, don’t ever expect to hear from your brother or me again. I’ll forget I ever had a daughter, and you won’t get anything from me, not even in my will.”
Heat pricked the backs of her eyes, but she refused to let the burning turn into tears. She didn’t know what her future held, even if she was staying in Alaska. She couldn’t claim to understand the kind of love and support that the Amos family had for each other. And she certainly hadn’t figured out how to be the servant with ten talents from the Bible.
But she knew, without a doubt, that if she left with her father, she’d become the servant who buried his talent in the dirt.
And that was the last thing she wanted.
So she looked back into the familiar pale blue eyes she’d known for twenty-two years of her life. “I’m staying, and there’s nothing you can do to change it.”
36
Mikhail still couldn’t stop himself from feeling helpless. Alexei and Evelina might have visited him last night, might have told him that he was like the prophet Jeremiah, mistreated only because he tried to do what was right, but none of that took away the feelings of vulnerability and weakness that settled over him the longer he sat in the jail.
