Christmas In the Snow: Taming Natasha / Considering Kate

by Nora Roberts

“But we’re going to eat soon, right? We’re starving.”

  “Very soon. Tell your brothers and sisters, your cousins, my table must be set.”

  “All right!” He shot out of the room, shouting orders.

  “He wants to be in charge, that one.”

  Natasha laughed. “Mama, they all want to be in charge. How’s Brody holding up, Katie?”

  “He’s talking with Uncle Alex.” Kate snitched a crouton then wandered to the stove to sniff at pots. “Isn’t he adorable?”

  “He has good eyes,” Nadia said. “Strong, kind. And he raises his son well. You show good taste.”

  “I learned from the best.” She leaned over to kiss Nadia’s cheek. “Thank you for welcoming him.”

  Nadia felt her heart sigh. “Go, help set the table. Your young man and his little boy will think no one eats in this house.”

  “They’ll soon find out differently.” She snatched another crouton and kissed the top of her mother’s head on the way out.

  “Well.” Nadia stared hard into a pot. “We’ll be dancing at her wedding. You’re pleased with him.”

  “Of course.” Natasha could barely see as she prepared to dress the salad. “He’s a good man. He makes her happy. And to be honest, I think if I could have chosen for her myself, it would have been Brody. Oh, Mama.” Eyes drenched, Natasha looked over at the stove. “She’s my baby.”

  “I know. I know.” Nadia hurried over for the hug, then offered Natasha one corner of her apron while she used the other to dry her eyes.

  By midweek, Kate was hard at work and anxious to open her doors for the first students. The studio itself was complete. The floors were smooth and gleaming, the walls glistening with mirrors. Her office was organized, the dressing areas outfitted.

  And now the front window was finished.

  Kimball School Of Dance

  She stood out on the sidewalk, her palms together and pressed to her lips, reading it over and over again.

  Dreams, she thought, came true. All you had to do was believe hard enough, and work long enough.

  “Oh, miss?”

  “Hmm?” Lost in her own joy, she turned, then blinked at the woman crossing the street. The woman, Kate remembered with a sinking stomach, who’d seen Brody cart her outside over his shoulder. “Oh. Yes. Hello.”

  “Hello. We didn’t really meet before.” The woman looked as uneasy as Kate and fiddled with the strap of her shoulder bag. “I’m Marjorie Rowan.”

  “Kate Kimball.”

  “Yes, I know. Actually, I sort of know your boyfriend, too. The landlord’s hired him a couple of times to see to things in my building.”

  “Ah,” Kate said. “Hmm.”

  “Anyway, I picked up one of your brochures the other day, from your mother’s store. My little girl, she’s eight, she’s just been nagging me half to death about taking ballet classes.”

  Relief came first. It was not to be a conversation about creating public scenes on quiet streets. Then came the pleasure at the possibility of another student.

  “I’d be happy to talk to you about it, and to her if you’d like. First classes start next week. Would you like to come in, see the school?”

  “Truth is, we’ve peeked in the window a few times. I hope you don’t mind.”

  “Of course not.”

  “I’ve been telling Audrey—that’s my girl—that I’d think about it. I guess I have. I’d like her to be able to try it.”

  “Why don’t you come inside, and tell me about Audrey.”

  “Thanks. She’ll be home from school soon. This’ll be a nice surprise.” She started up the stairs, relaxing now. “You know I always wanted ballet lessons when I was a girl. We couldn’t swing it.”

  “Why don’t you take them now?”

  “Now?” Marjorie laughed and stepped inside. “Oh, I’m too old for ballet lessons.”

  “They’re wonderful exercise. It increases flexibility. And they’re fun. No one’s too old for that. You look to be in very good shape.”

  “I do what I can.” Marjorie looked around, smiling a little dreamily at the barres, the mirrors, the framed posters. “I guess it would be fun. But I couldn’t afford classes for both of us.”

  “We’ll talk about that, too. Come on back to my office.”

  An hour later, Kate rushed upstairs. She wanted to share with someone, and Brody was elected. She had two new students—her first mother and daughter team. And the accomplishment had given her yet one more angle for her school.

  Family plans.

  She started to dash across the little living room and stopped in her tracks. Slowly she turned a circle. It was done. She hadn’t been paying enough attention, she decided, and the progress had zipped right by her.

  The floors and walls were finished. The woodwork glowed like silk.

  Dazzled, she walked into her kitchen where everything gleamed. Cabinets waited only to be filled. The windowsill cried out for flowerpots.

  She ran a fingertip along the countertop. Brody had been right about the breakfast bar, she thought. He had been right—no, they had been right, she corrected, about everything.

  The apartment, just like the rest of the building, had been a team effort. And it was perfect.

  She hurried into the bedroom where Brody was kneeling on the floor installing the lock sets on her closet doors. Jack sat crossed-legged, tongue caught in his teeth as he carefully tightened a screw in a brass plate on a wall plug.

  Mike snored contentedly between them.

  “There’s nothing quite like watching men at work.” They glanced up, and made her heart sing. “Hello, Handsome Jack.”

  “We’re punching out,” he told her. “I got to come help because Rod and Carrie had to go to the dentist. I went already and no cavities.”

  “Good for you. Brody, I’ve been so involved downstairs that I haven’t taken in what you’ve done up here. It looks wonderful. It’s exactly right.”

  “Still got a few details. Some outside work, too. But you’re pretty much good to go.” But he didn’t have that lift of satisfaction he usually experienced toward the end of a job. He’d been depressed for days.

  “I love it.” She crouched down as Mike woke and gamboled over to greet her. “And I just signed two more students. Now, if I could just find a couple of handsome men who’d like to go out and celebrate, it would really round things off.”

  “We’ll go!”

  “Jack. It’s a school night.”

  “I was thinking about an early dinner,” Kate improvised as Jack’s face fell. “Burgers and fries at Chez McDee.”

  “She means McDonald’s,” Jack explained, then fell on his father’s back, hugging fiercely. “Please, can we?”

  Cornered again, Brody thought. “Pretty tough for a guy to turn down a fancy meal like that.”

  “He means yes.” Jack swung over to Kate and hugged her legs. “Can we go now?”

  “I got some things to finish up here.” Brody pushed his hair back. And just looked at her.

  He’d been doing that quite a bit, Kate thought, since they’d come back from New York. Looking at her—and looking at her differently somehow.

  Differently enough to have frogs leaping in her belly again.

  “An hour okay with you?” he asked.

  “Perfect. Do you mind if I steal your helper here? I want to go tell my mother. We can give Mike a little exercise on the way.”

  “Yeah, sure. Jack? No wheedling.”

  “He means I can’t ask for toys. I’ll get Mike’s leash. Dad, can I—” He broke off then ran over to whisper in Brody’s ear.

  “Yeah, go ahead.”

  “We’ll be back in an hour.”

  “Great.” Brody waited until they’d chased Mike downstairs, then sat back on his heels.

  He was going to have to make some decisions. And soon. It was bad enough he was stuck on Kate, but Jack was crazy about her.

  A man could risk a few bumps and bruises on his own heart, bu
t he couldn’t risk his child’s. The only thing to do was to sit down and have a talk with Kate. It was time they spelled out what was going on between them.

  More, he was going to have to have a talk with Jack. He had to know what the boy was thinking, what he was feeling.

  Jack first, Brody decided. Could be, could very well be, his son looked at Kate as nothing more than a friend and would be upset at the idea of her being a more permanent, more important part of their lives. It had been the two of them as long as Jack could remember.

  He looked over with a little jolt as a movement caught the corner of his eye.

  “You turn that noise down,” Bob O’Connell said, “you wouldn’t get taken by surprise.”

  “I like music on the job.” But Brody rose, shut off the radio. “Something you need?”

  They hadn’t spoken since the scene in the Kimball kitchen. Both men eyed each other warily.

  “I got something to say,” Bob stated.

  “Then say it.”

  “I did my best by you. It ain’t right for you to say different, when I did my best by you. Maybe I was hard on you, but you had a wild streak and you needed hard. I had a family to support, and I did it the only way I knew how. Maybe you think I didn’t spend enough time with you—” Bob broke off, jammed his hands into his pockets. “Maybe I didn’t. I don’t have the knack for it, not the way you do with your boy. Fact is, you weren’t the same pleasure to be around Jack is. He’s a credit to you. Maybe I should’ve said so before, but I’m saying so now.”

  Brody said nothing for a long moment, adjusting to the shock even as his father glared at him. “You know, I’m pretty sure that’s about the longest speech you ever aimed in my direction.”

  Bob’s face hardened. “I’m done with it,” he said and turned.

  “Dad.” Brody set his drill aside. “I appreciate it.”

  Bob let out a breath, the way a man might as the trapdoor opened under his feet. “Well.” He turned back, fought with the words in his head. “Might as well finish it off then. Probably I shouldn’t have jumped on you the other day, not in front of your boy and your…the Kimball girl. Your mother lit into me over it.”

  Brody could only stare. “Mom?”

  “Yeah.” With a look of frustrated disgust, Bob kicked lightly at the doorjamb. “She don’t do it often, but when she does, she can peel the skin off your ass. Hardly speaking to me yet. Says I embarrassed her.”

  “I got the same line from Kate—she did some peeling of her own.”

  “Didn’t much care having her claw at me the way she did. But I gotta say, she’s got spine. Keep you straight.”

  “It’s my job to keep myself straight.”

  Bob nodded. The weight that had been pressing on his chest for days eased. “Guess I figure you’ve been doing your job there. You do good work. For a carpenter.”

  For the first time in a long while, Brody was able to smile at his father and mean it. “You do good work. For a plumber.”

  “Didn’t have any problem firing me.”

  “You pissed me off.”

  “Hell, boy, you fire every man who pisses you off, how are you going to put a crew together? How’s the hand?”

  Brody lifted it, flexed his fingers. “Good enough.”

  “Since you’ve got no permanent damage, maybe you can use that hand to dial the phone. Call your ma and let her know we cleared the air some. She might not take my word on it, given her current state of mind.”

  “I’ll do that. I know I was a disappointment to you.”

  “Now, hold on—”

  “I was,” Brody continued. “Maybe I was a disappointment to myself, too. But I think I made up for it. I did it for Connie, and for Jack. For myself, too. And I did it, partly anyway, for you. So I could show you I was worth something.”

  “You showed me.” Bob wasn’t good at taking first steps, but he took this one. He crossed the room, held out his hand. “I guess I’m proud of how you turned out.”

  “Thanks.” He took his father’s hand in a firm grip. “I’ve a kitchen remodel coming up. Needs some plumbing work. Interested?”

  Bob’s lips twitched. “Could be.”

  Chapter Twelve

  While father and son were closing a gap, Kate strolled with the third generation of O’Connell male.

  “I didn’t wheedle, right?”

  “Wheedle?” She sent him a shocked stare. “Why Handsome Jack, Mama and I had to practically force that plane on you. We had to beg you to accept it.”

  Jack grinned up at her. “You’ll tell Dad?”

  “Of course. He’s going to want to play with it, you know. It’s a very cool plane.”

  Jack swirled it through the air. “It’s like the one I got to fly on, all the way to New York and back again. It was fun. I told everybody thanks in the cards I sent. Did you like your card? I did it almost all by myself.”

  “I loved my card.” Kate patted her pocket where the thank-you note, painstakingly printed, resided. “It was very polite and gentlemanly of you to write one to me, and to Freddie and Nick and to my grandparents.”

  “They said I could come back. Papa Yuri said I could sometime spend the night at his house.”

  “You’d like that?”

  “Yeah. He can wiggle his ears.”

  “I know.”

  “Kate?”

  “Hmm.” She bent to untangle Mike from his leash, then glanced up to see Jack studying her. So serious, she thought, so intent. Just like his father. “What is it, Handsome Jack?”

  “Can we…can we sit on the wall so we can talk about stuff?”

  “Sure.” Very serious, Kate realized as she boosted him up on the wall in front of the college. She passed Mike up to him, then hopped up beside them. “What kind of stuff?”

  “I was wondering…” He trailed off again while Mike scrambled off to sniff at the grass behind them.

  He’d talked it all over with his best friends. Max in New York, and then Rod at school. It was a secret. They’d spit on their palms to seal it. “You like my dad, don’t you?”

  “Of course I do. I like him very much.”

  “And you like kids. Like me?”

  “I like kids. I especially like you.” She draped an arm around him, rubbed his shoulder. “We’re friends.”

  “Dad and I like you, too. A whole lot. So I was wondering…” He looked up at her, his eyes so young, so earnest. “Will you marry us?”

  “Oh.” Her heart stumbled, then fell with a splat. “Oh, Jack.”

  “If you did, you could come live in our house. Dad’s fixing it up good. And we have a yard and everything, and we’re going to plant a garden soon. In the mornings you could have breakfast with us, then drive to your school and teach people how to dance. Then you could drive home. It’s not real far.”

  Staggered, she laid her cheek on the top of his head. “Oh, boy.”

  “Dad’s really nice,” Jack rushed on. “He hardly ever yells. He doesn’t have a wife anymore, because she had to go to heaven. I wish she didn’t, but she did.”

  “I know. Oh, baby.”

  “Maybe Dad’s afraid to ask you in case you go to heaven, too. That’s what Rod thinks. Maybe. But you won’t, will you?”

  “Jack.” She fought back tears and cupped his face. “I plan to stay here for a very long time. Have you talked to your father about this?”

  “Nuh-uh, ’cause you’re supposed to ask the girl. That’s what Max said. The boy has to ask the girl. Me and Dad’ll buy you a ring, ’cause girls need to have one. I won’t mind if you kiss me, and I’ll be really good. You and Dad can make babies like people do when they get married. I’d rather have a brother, but if it’s a sister, that’s okay. We’ll love each other and everything. So will you please marry us?”

  In all her dreams and fantasies, she’d never imagined being proposed to by a six-year-old boy, while sitting on a wall on an afternoon in early spring. Nothing could have been more touching, she thought. Mor
e lovely.

  “Jack, I’m going to tell you a secret. I already love you.”

  “You do?”

  “Yes, I do. I already love your dad, too. I’m going to think really hard about everything you said. Really hard. That way, if I say yes, you’re going to know, absolutely, that it’s what I want more than anything else in the whole world. If I say yes you wouldn’t just be your dad’s little boy anymore. You’d be mine, too. Do you understand that?”

  He nodded, all eyes. “You’d be my mom, right?”

  “Yes, I’d be your mom.”

  “Okay. Would you?”

  “I’m going to think about it.” She pressed her lips to his forehead, then hopped down.

  “Will it take a long time to think?”

  She reached up for him. “Not this time.” She held him close before she set him on his feet. “But let’s keep this a secret, a little while longer, while I do.”

  She gave it almost twenty-four hours. After all she was a woman who knew her own mind. Maybe the timing wasn’t quite perfect, but it couldn’t be helped.

  Certainly the way things were tumbling weren’t in the nice, neat logical row she’d have preferred. But she could be flexible. When she wanted something badly enough, she could be very flexible.

  She considered asking Brody out for a romantic dinner for two. Rejected it. A proposal in a public restaurant would make it too difficult to pin him down, should it become necessary.

  She toyed with the idea of waiting for the weekend, planning that romantic dinner for two at Brody’s house. Candlelight, wine, seductive music.

  That was her next rejection. If Jack hadn’t spilled the beans by then, she very likely would herself.

  It wouldn’t be exactly the way she’d pictured it. There wouldn’t be moonlight and music, with Brody looking deep into her eyes as he told her he loved her, asked her to spend her life loving him.

  Maybe it wouldn’t be perfect, but it would be right. Atmosphere didn’t matter at this point, she told herself. Results did. So why wait?

  She started upstairs. It was good timing after all, she realized. He was just finishing the job that had brought them together. Why not propose marriage in the space they had, in a very real way, made together? It was perfect.