Luka tilted his head and gave me a crooked smile. “Me neither.”

My eyes widened and relief melted in my chest. “You haven’t?” I asked in shock.

“Who else would I have kissed?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know? You have a lot of girls at church following you around.”

Luka laughed and shook his head. Squeezing my shoulders, he leaned down and rasped, “But none of them are you.” Luka pointed to his eye again. “We match. Why would I want anyone else? Nobody else is you. Long brown hair, blue eyes and tanned skinned beautiful you.”

Dipping my eyes, I pushed my toes into the sand, loving the soft feel of the hot grains beneath my feet. When I lifted my long lashes, I met Luka’s eyes and whispered, “Okay…”

Luka tensed and regarded me so seriously that my stomach began doing flips. His hand released mine and he gently cupped my cheek, hand slightly trembling. “You ready?” he said, licking his lips.

Swallowing my nerves as he moved to only an inch from my mouth, I confessed, “I hope I don’t mess this up.”

“Not possible,” Luka said as he leaned all the way forward and pressed his lips against mine. Everything seemed to go quiet around us and my eyes closed of their own accord. Luka’s lips were so soft and, like the pieces of a puzzle, fit perfectly against mine. There was no movement of tongues, no frantic caressing of lips, just two innocent young mouths feeling one another’s intimate touch for the first time.

Finally pulling away, Luka wore an expression of shock, making my heart thump too slow. But when his swollen mouth pulled into a happy, besotted grin, I knew mine reflected his own.

Luka’s heavy arm pulled me down to curl into his chest, and I stared out at the glistening water in perfect contentment.

“Like I said… we match,” Luka confirmed—I think to himself. I knew right then and there that I’d given my soul to this boy… I knew there’d never be anyone else that ever came close.

*****

“Kisa?” a heavily accented female voice called out from my right. Sitting back in the wooden pew, wiping away the tears from my sacred childhood memory, Mama Tolstoi came into view. She too had dressed in all black—the traditional color of mourning. Not a day had gone by in twelve years that Luka’s mama hadn’t worn black.

Rising to my feet, I smiled at Mama Tolstoi and embraced her. “How are you, Mama?”

Her brown eyes—the same eyes as Luka’s—stared off to look upon Christ on the cross, and she shrugged. “Today is a very hard day, my girl.”

My stomach fell and I nodded my head, unable to speak through the threat of tears. Talia joined us at the pew, and I saw her eyes rimmed with red. She could barely meet my gaze. Today was our mutual nightmare.

“He would have been twenty-six today,” Mama Tolstoi added. The tears that had been a threat to me finally trickled slowly down my face.

Mama Tolstoi reached out and grabbed my hand. “You two would have been married and perhaps I would have been a grandmama by now.” Her eyes gazed over and she added, “He would have loved you your whole life. You would have looked so beautiful on your wedding day and my Luka would have looked so handsome in a tux. Your mama would have smiled down from heaven on that day, Kisa. Her heart would have been so full at the two of you committing to one another under God’s eyes.”

The picture Mama Tolstoi conjured up might as well have been a dagger to my heart. She squeezed my hands to gain my attention after I had to look away, too upset by what she’d said.

I stared into her tense brown eyes when she gripped my hands tightly and said, “He wouldn’t do it, Kisa. He wouldn’t have killed your Rodion. My boy, your fated love, would not have taken his best friend’s life. He was wronged. Deep down you know this.”

Bowing my head, the tears came thick and fast. I believed her words, but I still remembered Rodion’s eyes glazed with the new presence of death, Alik stabbed and in hospital.

“Mama, come,” Talia said, interrupting her mama’s plea for her lost son. Talia moved around her to press a kiss to my cheek. Wrapping her arm around her mama’s shoulders, Talia led her out of the church, leaving me alone in the expansively ornate room, all the eyes of the saints staring down at me, balefully watching my despair.

“Kisa?” Father Kruschev said, and I cast my gaze to the back of the room. “Are you still good to join us on the truck?”

Breathing a sigh of relief that Father Kruschev had found something for me to do, I made my way to the back of the church. I turned one more time to look to the altar and whispered, “May God bless your soul, Luka… I love you, lyubov moya, my love… I know I was made for you too… We matched… you were part of my heart…”

Chapter Seven

Kisa

“Kisa, you stay in the truck. You were out on the streets last night. Stay in the safety of the truck tonight,” Father Kruschev said as I unbuckled my belt and panic flowed through me.

“If it’s okay, Father, I prefer to be outside. I need fresh air.”

Father Kruschev gave me a sympathetic smile. He believed it was because of Luka’s birthday. I confess in part it was, but I couldn’t lie to myself. I had to admit that I wanted to see that man again—my defender.

Who was homeless…

I closed my eyes and shook myself. I was losing my damn mind!

Zipping up the leather jacket I had brought over my black dress, I stepped out onto the street. It was hot¸ but without the jacket, Alik would think I was showing too much skin.