Loving the Czar (The Blakemore Files Book 6) Read online

  Davonshire House Publishing

  PO Box 9716

  Augusta, GA 30916

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s vivid imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely a coincidence.

  © 2015 Olivia Gaines, Cheryl Aaron Corbin

  Copy Editor: Gayla Leath

  Cover: koou-graphics

  Olivia Gaines Make Up and Photograph by Latasla Gardner Photography

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  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means whatsoever. For information address, Davonshire House Publishing, PO Box 9716, Augusta, GA 30916.

  Printed in the United States of America

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  First Davonshire House Publishing November 2015

  DEDICATION

  For you. I wrote this one for you.

  “Easy reading is damn hard writing.”

  - Nathaniel Hawthorne

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  To all the fans, friends and supporters of the dream as well as the Facebook community of writers who keep me focused, inspired and moving forward.

  Write On!

  Also by Olivia Gaines

  The Slice of Life Series

  The Perfect Man

  Friends with Benefits

  A Letter to My Mother

  The Basement of Mr. McGee

  A New Mommy for Christmas

  The Slivers of Love Series

  The Cost to Play

  Thursday in Savannah

  Girl's Weekend

  Beneath the Well of Dawn

  Santa’s Big Helper

  The Davonshire Series

  Courting Guinevere

  Loving Words

  Vanity's Pleasure

  The Blakemore Files

  Being Mrs. Blakemore

  Shopping with Mrs. Blakemore

  Dancing with Mr. Blakemore

  Cruising with the Blakemores

  Dinner with the Blakemores

  Loving the Czar

  The Value of a Man Series

  My Mail Order Wife

  A Weekend with the Cromwell’s

  Other Novellas

  North to Alaska

  The Brute & The Blogger

  A Better Night in Vegas

  Other Novels

  A Menu for Loving

  Turning the Page

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1. Bear down and push......

  Chapter 2. Driving Ms. Patsy...

  Chapter 3. Ring dammit...

  Chapter 4. But he is a killer...

  Chapter 5. Welcome to Las Tierras Verdes ...

  Chapter 6. Wow! What a first date...

  Chapter 7. What took you so long...

  Chapter 8. Say What Now...?

  Chapter 9. Morning Coffee...

  Chapter 10. An Afternoon Nap...

  Chapter 11. Getting Buttered Up

  Chapter 12. Chicken, Waffles and What is That?

  Chapter 11. You wash my back...

  Chapter 12. That is not funny...

  Chapter 13. Stay calm... stay calm

  Chapter 14. Can I have her....?

  Chapter 15. Three damned days...

  Chapter 16. Oh Hell Naw...

  Chapter 17. Listen to my heart...

  Chapter 18. Didn’t see that coming...

  Chapter 1. Bear down and push......

  February - Houston, TX

  “Push Odessa,” Saxton said as he held his wife’s sweaty hand. Her face scrunched in pain as she pressed the imaginary pedal in her lower abs to push out their first born. His words of encouragement were falling upon deaf ears as she tried desperately to force a small human through an even smaller opening.

  “You push! I am tired! Just reach down there and grab him and pull him out,” she yelled at her husband.

  The past three months of her pregnancy had been a tad bit too stressful for her liking. Ever since the Thanksgiving dinner from Hell, nothing had quite been the same. In December, Saxton decided it would be a great idea to come home to the Busy B for Christmas and they had never left. It was one thing after another which forced his hand to stay.

  It started with Uncle Dusty slurring his speech a bit more than normal after a few drinks. Odessa recognized the signs of a stroke, but it was not soon enough to prevent the nerve degeneration that he refused to speak about in his left arm. An arm that was now limp and bordering on useless. The therapist who came three times per week, decided somewhere in mid-January that Dusty was too ornery to deal with and left it up to his wife to get him to work through the rehabilitation. When Dusty’s wife failed, Saxton took over and pretty much made his Uncle toe the line and get it done. Some of the range of motion had returned, but the fire that made up Dustin Blakemore was tamped down.

  This took a toll on Bobby Ray. His brother was also the fun around the ranch, which kept the patriarch on his toes. A somewhat saddened Bobby Ray now had to deal with his cantankerous dry mouthed brother, who swore he was dying of thirst since his medication reacted poorly to his favorite whiskey. He was similarly forced to deal with the new, harsher reality that a drunk wife was a lot easier to live with than one who was perfectly sober every day.

  Every damned day.

  Flat out sober.

  Moving her mouth and sharing her feelings about every little thing in their lives.

  Every damned day.

  Bobby Ray spent more time in the barn and on his horse than he did in the house. He attempted to go back to work, but his son Connard ran him out of the office and sent him home to deal with his wife, who was now sober, every damned day.

  Flat out sober and talking about her feelings, every damned day.

  The Blakemores were falling apart with the exception of Belva who seemed to take more than a casual interest in the recovery of Agent Roget that stayed at the ranch the majority of December recuperating. Roget’s sudden departure from the ranch was a result of Saxton threatening to shoot him if he touched his sister. Agent Roget’s healing progressed a great deal faster and he too headed back to his own home. This was something that Odessa also wanted to do, but Saxton was needed in Houston. The only thing Odessa needed was to get their child out of her womb.

  “Come on baby, you can do this,” he told her with tears in his eyes. “We are going to be parents sweetie, you just have to push a little bit harder,” he told her.

  Saxton stood at her left holding her hand while her sister, Ryanne stood at her right, blotting her forehead with a damp cloth. Ryanne had been a life saver the past few months for both Saxton and Odessa. She moved into their home in Dallas in December so the house would not be vacant when Saxton determined he was needed at the ranch. Odessa was grateful for everything her sister had done for them, especially after Saxton enlisted her aid in getting them moved.

  Ryanne took over getting all of their personal items moved from Dallas to Houston, including setting up the new home office at the Busy B. The closer Odessa came to her delivery time, the more she clung to her sister.

  Odessa had grabbed her arm, pleading, “I am terrified Ry—don’t leave me. What if I go into labor and Momma can’t get here. I am so close and I can feel him getting anxious and wanting to come out.”

  One glance at her sister’s tummy and Ryanne did not doubt her words. At any given moment a hand or footprint could be seen pressing against Odessa’s skin like it was trying to break free. Ryanne made an off-color remark to Uncle Dusty that the child was acting more
like a baby alien and trying to burst out, which sparked an argument between Odessa and Ryanne that would rival a cat fight on any Real Housewives television show. Yet, at the end of the day, the two were sisters and there for each other, even during the delivery of a child.

  “Ry—look and see if you can see the head,” Odessa asked.

  Ryanne shook her head no.

  “Come on Ryanne, I am so tired. Look down there and tell me if you can see his head,” she asked again.

  Hesitant, and still holding the damp cloth, Ryanne angled her head and peered over her sister’s knees. From that angle, she couldn’t see anything, so she moved to the foot of the bed. Her eyes slowly trailed up the bed sheets to take a gander at the delivery in progress and Ryanne froze in place. She had never seen anything so hideous and deformed in her life as she gawked at her sister’s veejayjay that was stretched out of shape as a pointy, hairy baby’s head pulsed while trying to squeeze its way out of the snug canal. Other bodily functions were oozing out with each push and Ryanne became woozy. Saxton moved fast enough to catch Ryanne from hitting the floor in a cold faint.

  It wasn’t time for the baby to be born. The stress of their argument is what prompted Odessa’s premature labor and Ryanne felt like a complete heel. It was a dumb argument filled with words that should have been said months ago but instead had bubbled to the surface from the stress of both sisters being stuck at the Busy B.

  Ryanne didn’t mind lending her sister a hand. It was an abrupt change with little choice on her part, but to have Odessa treat her like a servant was where she was drawing the line. Every day she barked orders at Ryanne, demanding, then pleading if not resorting to crying to have her way. This was not the Odessa she knew. At first she chalked it up to hormones, but that last snotty thing Odessa said made something in Ryanne snap.

  It was an extremely cold day for February. Ryanne had been in the new Blakemore Imports and Collectibles office attempting to get everything set up and operational with very little down time. Inventory was low so Ryanne placed orders for some of the better selling items; a little something she forgot to let Odessa know. Odessa made it into the new home office, after struggling and waddling into the small building which sat 100 feet outside the back door of the main house on that Friday afternoon. Ryanne, who had been working in the office since 7 am, found her sister behind the desk on the phone with one of the distributors. She wasn’t happy when she ended the call.

  “Ryanne, why didn’t you tell me you had placed an order? Now I have double what I am going to need and it will takes months to clear out all of this product,” Odessa asked with some nastiness in her voice.

  “I’m sorry it must have slipped my mind. Can you cancel the order?” she had replied.

  The next words from her sister’s mouth were more than she could take. Odessa opened her mouth and said loudly, “Yeah, you seem to be pretty good at forgetting to let people know things!”

  “And what is that supposed to mean?” Ryanne asked as she turned and sat down a box of baskets.

  “That whole thing with you and Eduardo is what I mean...this entire thing with us being here...,” she said with some frustration.

  Ryanne was getting angrier by the minute. “You are here because of your husband’s desire to return to Southfork. Don’t get pissy with me because he didn’t give you any say in this.”

  Odessa sprung to her feet. “I am getting pissy because I thought I knew you. My own sister! And you and Eduardo...you could have gotten us all killed!”

  That did it for Ryanne. Her hands were at her sides and balled into fists. Everything that had been simmering in her coiled up and struck out. She opened up a can of venom and let go of one big run on sentence that spewed into Odessa’s face, sprayed upside her head, and then sank its fangs into her butt.

  “Me? It seems as if you would have told someone you went on vacation and killed a drug Czar’s brother. A man, whom I may say, was highly upset that you took it upon yourself to end his brother’s life. So much so, he sent a crazy man after your family. Kevin was nearly fed to a giant snake, Momma was kidnapped, Daddy has not stopped drinking and oh yeah, let’s not forget the man who married me to keep an eye on you!” she told her sister.

  Ryanne was not through yelling when she told Odessa, “To make matters worse, from what I understand, those henchman even came here and Grandma Patsy had to kill one of them.” Ryanne said with an upturned lip, “If anything, all of this is your fault and if you are miserable here, then good! It is no less than the misery you deserve for all the wretchedness you have heaped on every damned body else! You killed a man Odessa!”

  Odessa held her stomach. “I had to make a decision Ryanne! Hugo was going to kill Renteria at the same time Mateo was about to kill Saxton!” Odessa said in a huff. “The part you don’t know is that there were at least 50 women being held captive at that site. Women who were being used and trafficked by Hugo and Mateo and every other man at that villa. My wedding ring came from a basket of jewelry which belonged to women they had captured and stolen from their families. Kidnapped and sold Ryanne! It was the same thing they were planning to do to me. If you ask me, Eduardo doesn’t miss that seedy bastard, it is just a matter of principle!”

  Ryanne was shouting at her sister, “That’s the thing Odessa, someone will always miss a person, especially a family member. Just like that basket of jewelry and those rings you picked from, each one represented a life, a connection to another human being. A person at home waiting to hear from their loved one. You had no right to end that man’s life no more than you have the right to stand here and judge me for having a night for myself. If you ask me, you don’t want to see anyone else have a chance to get what you have! You are a selfish little bitch and you always have been!”

  Odessa grabbed her stomach and doubled over in pain as liquid gushed down her legs. Her eyes were full of fear. “Ry...either I just peed on myself or my water broke!”

  Ryanne grabbed her phone making the call to Saxton, then to Odessa’s doctor as she struggled to get her sister into the main house. Two hours later, Ryanne witnessed the first signs of Robert Raymond Blakemore’s head making an appearance.

  “That’s it Odessa, bear down and push,” Dr. McElroy told her as the shoulders came out.

  Saxton cut the cord with pride as a wrinkly little baby boy, opened his mouth to take in his first gulps of air and fill his lungs. The emotions were threatening to overtake Saxton as he held his very tanned son in his hand. “I think we should call him Robbie,” Saxton said as he looked at his wife. Her face was distorted in pain.

  “Odessa, what’s wrong baby?”

  “I feel like I still have to push,” she said.

  Dr. McElroy encouraged her as she bore down and out came a very small little girl, pale and half the size of Robbie.

  Grandma Patsy had eased her way into the room to take a peek at her first great grandchild. She frowned in disbelief. “Are you telling me there are twins? Somebody get me my glasses because it looks like that little girl is white and Robbie is not.”

  It was true. The next generation of Blakemores had been born. Twins, one boy and one girl. One black and one white. Their parents could not have been prouder as well as both sets of grandparents, a great grandmother and aunts and uncles who welcomed them into the world with cheers and accolades.

  Ryanne watched as her heart filled with love at seeing her niece and nephew, but as Odessa’s world brightened, hers seemed to get a little darker.

  Chapter 2. Driving Ms. Patsy...

  There is no doubting that the Blakemore babies were beautiful from birth. Ryanne listened to the infantile cries of two little people who were very hungry and very afraid. Robbie weighed in at nearly eight pounds whereas the little girl barely made four. It was no wonder she disappeared off the sonogram, Robbie was covering her up. She lay in the palm of Saxton’s hand as his index finger rubbed her little back.

  “Odessa, what shall we name her?” he asked.

 
; “I have always been fond of the name Austin,” she said as she held Robbie close to her chest. The greedy little fella’s head was bobbing trying to find her breast. “Look at him, acting just like his father,” she said. The nurse didn’t have to show her how to feed her son because once she placed her nipple in Robbie’s mouth he latched on and began to suckle.

  Although she fed one, her eyes were on her daughter. She was extremely pale. “Saxton, what color are the tops of her ears?” she asked.

  He turned Austin around to see her sweet little face. “Her ears are pink. What color should they be?”

  “Come here and look at Robbie’s ears. See how dark they are on top...this is his natural pigmentation. When all of his color comes in, this will be his skin tone,” she told him.

  Saxton’s mouth was gaped wide, “Seriously?”

  Odessa nodded.

  “So we actually have one black and one white child?” he asked.

  Grandma Patsy was still in the background mumbling, “I don’t believe that shit either.”

  “Let me hold her Saxton,” Odessa said as she reached her free hand up to take her daughter.

  It was too much for Ryanne. She needed some fresh air. “Congratulations you two,” she said as she hugged her brother in law and planted a kiss on her sister’s head. The doctor was still working on closing up Odessa’s episiotomy, but all eyes were on the beautiful Blakemore babies.

  Grandma Pasty followed Ryanne from the room and grabbed her by the arm, her cold wrinkled fingers digging into the fleshy part of the skin. “I need to get to the bank before it closes. Come on and drive me,” she said with authority in her voice.

  Ryanne looked over her shoulder, hoping someone would come to her rescue, but she was on her own with the matriarch. Great, now someone else is thinking I’m the help. “Sure thing Ms. Patsy, let me grab my coat. It is cold out, so you need to bundle up as well,” Ryanne said as she donned her overcoat and put a scarf around the old lady’s neck.