“Your mother and sister are fine, also,” Popov said.
Jake’s pulse shot up. “Have you seen them?”
“I see them quite often. I am sure they miss you.”
Jake’s insides tightened. When he made no reply, the Russian’s voice turned hard.
“We must meet before you leave the country.”
Jake’s fingers tightened around the receiver. “When?”
“There is a diner near the junction of 287 and Washington Valley Road. Do you know it?”
“Yes.”
“Be there at ten o’clock Tuesday morning.”
“I’ll be there.”
Popov chuckled, the sound grating. “I have no doubt you will. Do nothing you will be sorry for,Tovarich.”
Jake’s answer lodged in his throat. “I told you before, I’ll do whatever you say.”
Popov grunted. “Just like your father. Always a sensible man. Too bad you and he were both fools. I will see you at ten.”
Only a slight click marked the Russian’s departure. Jake set the phone back in its cradle and let out a long slow breath. Pushing open the swinging kitchen door into the dining room, he made his way wearily down the hall to the bar in the den where he poured himself a double shot of Napoleon brandy. His hand shook as he set the crystal decanter back on the mirrored shelf.
With an exhausted sigh, he sank down on the leather sofa in front of the rock fireplace, his pulse beginning to slow. The showdown he’d been expecting for the last eight months was finally at hand. Until the day he’d heard Popov’s voice on a gusty, chilly day last October, Jake had all but forgotten his past. He was an American in every way. He thought like an American, he spoke like an American, he looked like an American.
In the last five years, he’d even begun to dream like an American, the words spoken in English, not Russian, or the Hungarian he’d been raised with.
In America, just as his father had said, opportunity had beckoned, and he’d been able to make a life for himself. Popov, a man dedicated to the Marxist philosophy, would never understand.
Jake swirled the brandy in his glass. Thank God he’d been honest with the selection committee when they’d asked him to accept the job as head coach. He’d told them his real name was Janus Straka, told them how he’d escaped to this country from the Soviet Union, and how much he had come to love it.
“I don’t see why that should make any difference,” one of the committee members had said. “Baryshnikov and dozens of other Soviet exiles have made great contributions to America. Besides, you’re not Russian, you’re Hungarian. Bertalan de Nemethy was Hungarian, for God’s sake.”
De Nemethy was considered the father of American show jumping. He had coached the U.S. Equestrian Team for twenty-five years, had brought it to the greatness it still maintained today.
“We’d be honored if you would accept the position, Jake,” the head of the committee had said.
It had been the proudest moment of his life.
Jake downed the last of the brandy and set the crystal snifter on the coffee table.I owe this country,he thought. He owed its people a debt so great it could never be repaid.
But he owed his mother and sister, too. They were family, and though he hadn’t seen them in twenty-eight years, he loved them. He couldn’t let them come to harm.
There was no easy answer.
But then there never had been.
Not for Janus Straka or for Jake Sullivan.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Clayton Whitfield tossed and turned on the king-sized bed, thrashing the covers off his naked body while he dreamed of making love to Ellie Fletcher.
His lips grazed the smooth white skin at the base of her throat where a tiny pulse throbbed in anticipation. His hands moved down her body, stopping to cup each breast then teasing the peak until it hardened into a small dark bud. She softly called his name.
