by Nora Roberts
And change it she would. Hands on hips, she began another tour of the apartment. Just as she would build a life here, one that reflected her own taste and grew from the solid, loving background she’d been blessed with. And before she was done, the world she created would be filled with music and color and love.
And, by God, with Nick.
It was nearly seven when Nick came down to the bar. Zack lifted a brow as he mixed a stinger. “Hot date?”
“Lorelie.”
“Oh, yeah.” Now Zack wiggled his brows. “Tall, willowy brunette with rose petals in her voice.”
“That’s the one.” Nick moved behind the bar to help fill orders. “We’re just going to catch some dinner. Then we’ll come back here so I can relieve you.”
“I can cover for you.”
“No, it’s no problem. She likes hanging out here. After I close up, we’ll figure out something else to do.”
“I bet you will. Table six needs two drafts and a bourbon and branch.”
“Got it.”
“Hey, did you hear about Freddie’s apartment.”
Nick’s hand paused on the lever. “What apartment?”
“Found one just a couple blocks from here. She’s already signed the papers.” Zack filled an empty bowl with beer nuts. “You just missed her. She came in to celebrate.”
“Did anybody look over the place for her? Mik?”
“She didn’t say. Kid’s got a good head on her shoulders.”
“Yeah. I guess. She should have gotten Rachel to look over the lease, though.”
Chuckling, Zack laid a hand on Nick’s shoulder as he was finishing preparing the order. “Hey, the little birds have to leave the nest sometime.”
With a shrug, Nick placed the drinks on the end of the bar for the waitress. “So, she went on back to the hotel?”
“Nope. Went out with Ben.”
“Ben.” Nick’s fingers froze on the cloth he’d picked up to wipe the bar. “What do you mean, she went out with Ben?” Now Nick twisted the cloth into a semblance of a noose. His eyes went bright and hard as a dagger. “You introduced Fred to Stipley?”
“Sure.” With a nod to a waitress, Zack began to fill another order. “He asked me who the pretty blonde was, so I introduced them. They hit it off, too.”
“Hit it off,” Nick repeated. “And you just let her walk out of here with a stranger.”
“Come on, Nick, Ben’s no stranger. We’ve known him for years.”
“Yeah,” Nick said grimly, imagining slipping the cloth noose around Zack’s neck. “He hangs around bars.”
Surprised and amused, Zack glanced over. “So do we.”
“That’s not the point, and you know it.” Nick rattled bottles and resisted the urge to pour a stiff shot of whiskey for himself. “You can’t just hook her up with some guy and let her waltz off with him.”
“I didn’t hook them up. I introduced them, they talked for a while and decided to catch a movie.”
“Yeah, right.” Movie, my ass, he thought. What man in his right mind would want to waste time at the movies with a woman with big, liquid gray eyes and a mouth like heaven? Oh, God, he thought, his stomach clenching as he imagined Fred at Ben Stipley’s mercy. “Ben just wanted a little company at this week’s box-office hit. Damn it, Zack, are you crazy?”
“Okay, I’ll give it to you straight. I sold her to him for five hundred and season tickets to the Yankees. He should have her to the opium den by this time.”
Nick managed to get his vivid imagination under control, but didn’t have the same luck with his temper. “That’s real funny, bro. Let’s see how funny you are if he hits on her.”
After setting the drinks aside, Zack turned to study his brother. Fury, he noted, which he’d seen plenty of times before on Nick’s face. Since it seemed so incredibly out of place under the circumstances, he kept his tone mild.
“And if he does, she’ll handle it or hit back. He’s not a maniac.”
“A lot you know about it,” Nick muttered.
Baffled, Zack shook his head. “Nick, you like Ben. You’ve gone to Yankees games with him. He lent you his car when you wanted to drive to Long Island last month.”
“Sure I like him.” Incensed, Nick grabbed a beer mug from the shelf and began to polish it. “Why shouldn’t I like him? But that has nothing to do with Fred picking up some strange guy in a bar and going off with him to God knows where.”
Zack leaned back, tapping a finger against the bar. “You know, little brother, someone who didn’t know you might think you’re jealous.”
“Jealous?” Terrifying thought. “That’s bull. Just bull.” He slapped the mug down and chose another at random. If he didn’t keep busy, he was afraid he might streak out of the bar and start searching every movie theater in Manhattan.
But a strange idea was beginning to take root in Zack’s mind. He eyed Nick more cautiously now, toying with the thought of his brother falling for little Freddie Kimball.
“Then why don’t you tell me what’s not bull? What’s going on with you and Freddie, Nick?”
“Nothing’s going on.” In defense, Nick concentrated on the glass he was polishing, and attacked. “I’m just trying to look out for her, that’s all. Which is more than I can say for you.”
“I guess I could have locked her up,” Zack mused. “Or gone along with them as chaperon. Next time I see she’s having a conversation with a friend of mine, I’ll call the vice squad.”
“Shut up, Zack.”
“Cool off, Nick. Your Georgia peach just walked in.”
“Great.” Making an effort, Nick ordered himself to shift Freddie and her idiotic behavior to the back of his mind. He had his own life, didn’t he? And, as Freddie had recently grown so fond of pointing out, she was a grown woman.
Nick glanced over, working up a smile, as Lorelie sauntered toward the bar. There she was, he thought. Gorgeous, sexy, and if their last date was any indication, more than ready to let nature take its course.
She slid fluidly onto a bar stool, flipped back her shiny stream of dark hair and beamed sparkling blue eyes at him.
“Hello, Nick. I’ve been looking forward to tonight all day.”
It was hard to keep the smile in place when it hit him—and it hit him hard—that he wasn’t the least bit interested in southern hospitality.
Chapter Four
Nick smelled coffee and bacon the minute he stepped out of the shower. It should have put him in a better mood, but when a man hadn’t slept well, worrying over a woman, it took more than the possibility of a hot meal to turn the tide.
She had a lot of explaining to do, he decided as he stalked into his bedroom to dress. Out half the night with some guy she’d picked up at a bar. She’d been raised better than that. He had firsthand knowledge.
It was one of the things he counted on, he thought as he met his own annoyed eyes in the mirror over the dresser. Freddie’s family, the care and attention they devoted to each other. Every time he visited them, he’d seen it, felt it, admired it.
And he was just a little envious of it.
He’d missed that kind of care and attention growing up. His mother had been tired, and he supposed she’d been entitled to be, with the burden of raising a kid on her own. When she hooked up with Zack’s old man, things had changed some. It had been good for a while, certainly better than it had been. They’d had a decent place to live, he mused. He’d never gone hungry again, or felt the terror of seeing despair in his mother’s eyes.
With hindsight, he even believed that his mother and Muldoon had loved each other—maybe not passionately, maybe not romantically, but they’d cared enough to try to make a life together.
The old man had tried, Nick supposed as he tugged on jeans. But he’d been set in his ways, a tough old goat who never chose to see more than one side of things—his own side.
Still, there’d been Zack. He’d been patient, Nick remembered, carelessly kind, letting a kid trail along a
fter him. Maybe it was the memory of that, the way Zack had taught him to play ball or just let him dog his heels, that had given Nick an affection and ease with children.
For he knew all too well what it was like, to be a kid and at the mercy of adult whims. Zack had made him feel as if he belonged, as if there were someone who would be there when you needed them to be there.
But it hadn’t lasted. As soon as Zack was old enough to cut out, he had, joining the navy and shipping off. And leaving, Nick acknowledged now, a young stepbrother miserably alone.
When Nick’s mother died, things had deteriorated fast. Nick’s defense against the loss and the loneliness had been defiance, rebellion, and a replacement of family with the edgy loyalty of a gang.
So he’d been a Cobra, he reflected, cruising the streets and looking for trouble. Finding it. Until the old man died, and Zack came back to try to pull a bitter, hard-shelled kid out of the pit.
Nick hadn’t made it easy on him. The memories of those days had a rueful smile tugging at his lips. If he could have found a way to make it harder back then, he would have. But Zack had stuck. Rachel had stuck. The whole chaotic bunch of Stanislaskis had stuck. They had changed his life. Maybe saved it.
It wasn’t something Nick ever intended to forget.
Maybe it was his turn to do some paying back, he considered. Freddie might have the solid base he’d missed in his formative years, but she was flying free now. It seemed to him she needed someone to rein her in.
And since no one else was interested in overseeing Freddie’s behavior, it fell to him.
He pulled his still-damp hair back and tugged a shirt over his head. Maybe she was just too naive to know better. He paused, considering the thought. After all, she’d spent most of her life snuggled up with her family in a little town where having clothes stolen off the line still made the papers. But if she was determined to live in New York, she had to learn the ropes fast. And he was just the man to teach her.
Feeling righteous, Nick strolled into the kitchen to begin the first lesson.
Freddie was standing at the stove, sautéing onions, mushrooms and peppers in preparation for the omelet she’d decided to cook as an opening apology. After a bit of reflection, she’d decided she’d been entirely too hard on Nick the day before.
It had been jealousy, she was forced to admit. Plain and simple.
Jealousy was a small, greedy emotion, she acknowledged to herself, and had no place in her relationship with Nick. He was free to see other women…for the time being.
Temper tantrums weren’t going to advance her cause and win his heart, she reminded herself. She had to be open, understanding, supportive. Even if it killed her.
Catching the movement out of the corner of her eye, she turned to the doorway with a big, bright smile.
“Good morning. I thought you might want to start the day with a traditional breakfast for a change. Coffee’s ready. Why don’t you sit down, and I’ll pour you some?”
He eyed her the way a man might a favored pet who tended to bite. “What’s the deal, Fred?”
“Just breakfast.” Still smiling, she poured coffee, then set the platter of toast and bacon on the table she’d already set. “I figured I owed you, after the way I acted yesterday.”
She’d given him his opening. “Yeah, about that. I wanted to—”
“I was completely out of line,” she continued, pouring already-beaten eggs into the sizzling pan. “I don’t know what got into me. Nerves, I guess. I suppose I didn’t realize how big a change I was making in my life, coming here.”
“Well, yeah.” Somewhat soothed, Nick sat and picked up a strip of bacon. “I can see that. But you’ve got to be careful, Fred. The consequences don’t take nerves into account.”
“Consequences?” Puzzled, she gave the fluffy eggs an expert flip. “Oh…I guess you could have booted me out, but that’s a little excessive for one spat.”
“Spat?” Now it was his turn to be puzzled, as she slid the omelet out of the pan. “You had a fight with Ben?”
“Ben?” She transferred the omelet to Nick’s plate then stood holding the spatula. “Oh, Ben. No, why would I? Why would you think so?”
“You just said— What the hell are you talking about?”
“About yesterday. Giving you a hard time after Lorelie called.” She tilted her head. “What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about you letting some strange guy pick you up in a bar. That’s what I’m talking about.” Nick studied her as he forked in the first bite of his omelet. God, the kid could cook. “Are you crazy, or just stupid?”
“Excuse me?” All her good intentions began a slow slide into oblivion. “Are you talking about my going to the movies with a friend of Zack’s?”
“Movies, hell.” Nick fueled up on breakfast as he prepared to lecture. “You didn’t get home until after one.”
Her hands were on her hips now, and her fingers were tight around the handle of the spatula. “How would you know when I got home?”
“I happened to be in the neighborhood,” he said loftily. “Saw you get out of a cab at the hotel. One-fifteen.” The memory of standing on the street corner, watching her flit into the hotel in the middle of the night, soured his mood again, though it didn’t diminish his appetite. “Are you going to try to tell me you caught a double feature?”
He reached for the jam for his toast just as Freddie brought the spatula down smartly on the top of his head. “Hey!”
“Spying on me. You’ve got a lot of nerve, Nicholas LeBeck.”
“I wasn’t spying on you. I was looking out for you, since you don’t have the sense to look out for yourself.” With well-conditioned reflexes, he ducked the second swipe, pushed back from the table. His body moved on automatic, tensed for a fight. “Put that damn thing down.”
“I will not. And to think I felt guilty because I’d yelled at you.”
“You should have felt guilty. And you sure as hell should have known better than to go off with some guy you know nothing about.”
“Uncle Zack introduced us,” she began, fury making her voice low and icy. “I’m not going to justify my social life to you.”
That’s what she thinks, Nick countered silently. No way in hell was he going to allow her to go dancing off with any bar bum who happened along, and he needed to make that clear. “You’re going to have to justify it to somebody, and I’m the only one here. Where the hell did you go?”
“You want to know where I went? Fine. We left the bar and raced over to his place, where we spent the next several hours engaged in wild, violent sex—several acts of which are still, I believe, illegal in some states.”
His eyes went hard enough to glitter. It wasn’t just her words, it wasn’t just her attitude. It was worse, because he could imagine—with no trouble at all—a scenario just like the one she’d described. Only it wasn’t Ben she was breaking the law with. It was Nick LeBeck.
“That’s not funny, Fred.”
Much too wound up to note or care about the dangerous edge to his voice, she snarled at him. “It’s none of your business where I went or how I spent my evening, any more than it’s mine how you spent yours with Scarlett O’Hara.”
“Lorelie,” he corrected, between his teeth. It didn’t do his disposition any good to remember that he hadn’t spent the evening with Lorelie, or anyone else. “And it is my business. I’m responsible for—”
“Nothing,” Freddie snapped back, jabbing the spatula into his chest. “For nothing, get it? I’m above the age of consent, and if I want to pick up six guys at a bar, you have nothing to say about it. You’re not my father, and it’s about time you stopped trying to act like it.”
“I’m not your father,” Nick agreed. A slow, vicious buzz was sounding in his ears, warning him that his temper was about to careen out of control. “Your father might not be able to tell you what happens to careless women. He sure as hell wouldn’t be able to show you what happens when a woman
like you takes chances with the wrong man.”
“And you can.”
“Damn right I can.” In a move too quick and unexpected for her to evade, he snatched the spatula out of her hand and threw it aside. Even as it crashed against the wall, her eyes were going wide.
“Stop it.”
“What are you going to do to make me?” Nick’s movements were smooth, predatory, as he stalked her, backing her into a corner. “You going to call for help? You think anybody’s going to pay attention to you?”
He’d never looked at her like that before. No one had, with all that lust and fury simmering. Fear lapped through her until her pulse was scrambling like a rabbit’s.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she said, trying for dignity and failing miserably as he slapped his palms on either side of the wall, caging her. “I said stop it, Nick.”
“What if he doesn’t listen to you?” He stepped closer, until his body was pressed hard against hers, until she could feel the wiry strength in it, just on the edge of control. “Maybe he wants a sample—more than a sample. All that pretty skin.” His eyes stayed on hers as he ran his hands up her arms, down again. “He’s going to take what he wants.” Now his hands were at her hips, kneading. “How are you going to stop him? What are you going to do about it?”
She didn’t think, didn’t question. Riding on fear jumbled with excitement, Freddie threw her arms around his neck. For an instant, the gleam in his eyes changed, darkened, and then her mouth was on his.
All her pent-up needs and fantasies poured into the kiss. She clung to him, wrapped herself around him and reveled in the wild flash of heat.
He was holding her as she’d always wanted to be held by him. Hard, possessively hard. His mouth was frantic as it took from hers. A scrape of teeth that made her head spin, a plunge of tongue that staggered her soul.
Desire. She could taste it on him. The full, ripe and ready-to-explode desire of a man for a woman. They might have been strangers, so new was this burst of passion and need. They might have been lovers for a lifetime, so seamlessly choreographed were the fast, frenetic movements of hands, of mouths and bodies.