by Nora Roberts
“I’d say they’re way beyond interested.” Amused, Rachel tilted her head. “What’s the matter, Muldoon? Worried about your baby brother?”
“No. Yes. No.” Frustrated, he dragged a hand through his hair. “Are you sure about this?”
“Of course I am, and if you weren’t so used to looking at Nick as if he were still a teenager with delinquent tendencies, you’d have seen it too.”
Zack let his shoulders sag against the wall behind him. “Maybe I did see it. Something about the way he acted when she went out with this friend of ours.”
Rachel’s sense of fun kicked into high gear. “Uh-oh—jealous, was he? Sorry I missed it.”
“He was ready to strangle me for introducing them.” Slowly, Zack’s lips curved. Then a laugh rumbled up. “Son of a gun. Freddie and Nick. Who’d have thought?”
“Anybody with eyes. She’s been mooning over him for years.”
“You’re right. And she may be a sweetheart, but she’s no pushover. I’d say my little brother has trouble on his hands.” He looked back at his wife. Her hair was loose and tumbled. She was wearing only a thin robe that tended to slip, just a little bit, off her right shoulder. His grin widened. “And speaking of romance, Your Honor, I just had a thought, may it please the court.”
Leaning forward, he whispered something in her ear that had her brows shooting up and her own mouth bowing. “Well, well, that’s a very interesting suggestion, Muldoon. Why don’t we discuss it—in my chambers?”
“Thought you’d never ask.”
In their rambling house in the Connecticut countryside, Sydney lay sprawled over her husband. Her heart was still pounding like a jungle drum, her blood singing in harmony.
Amazing, she thought. After all these years, she never quite got used to just what the man could do to her body. She hoped she never would.
“Cold?” he murmured, skimming a hand over her naked back.
“Are you kidding?” She lifted her still-glowing face to his, meeting his eyes in the flickering glow of candlelight. “You’re so beautiful, Mikhail.”
“Don’t start that.”
She chuckled and trailed a line of kisses up his chest. “I love you, Mikhail.”
“That you can start.” He let out a contented sigh as she settled into the curve of his shoulder. For a time, they lay in blissful silence, watching the shadows dance.
“Do you think we will plan a wedding soon?” he asked.
Sydney didn’t ask what wedding. Though they hadn’t yet discussed it, she understood what he meant. And who. “Nick’s not sure of his moves, or his needs. I think Freddie’s sure of the latter for herself, but far from sure of the former. It’s sweet, watching them watch each other.”
“Reminds me of another time,” he mused. “Another couple.”
She shifted to smile at him. “Oh, does it?”
“You were very stubborn, milaya.”
“You were very arrogant.”
“Yes.” It didn’t offend him in the least. “And if I had been less, you’d have been an old maid, married to your business.” He barely registered the punch in the stomach. “But I saved you from that.”
“Now who’s going to save you?” She rolled on top of him.
Blissfully unaware of her family’s interest, Freddie grabbed her just-hooked-up cordless phone in her new apartment. Almost dancing with excitement, she punched out the number quickly. Her father, she knew, would be in class, but her mother would be at the toy store.
“Mama.” Clutching the receiver, she turned three circles, making her way across the living room toward the kitchen. “Guess where I am. Yes.” Her laughter echoed through the nearly empty rooms. “It’s wonderful. I can’t wait for all of you to see it. Yes, I know, at the anniversary party. Everything’s fabulous.” She did a quick boogie over the antique Oriental she’d picked up in the shop Sydney had recommended. “I saw them all on Sunday. Grandma made pot roast. A present?” she stopped her improvised jitterbug to listen. “From Dad? Yes, I’ll be here all day. What is it?”
She rolled her eyes and began a new dance. “All right, I’ll be patient. Yes, I got the dishes you sent. Thank you. I even lined the kitchen cupboards to honor them. I’ve picked up some essentials.”
She snagged a cookie from the bag on the kitchen counter and two-stepped back into the living room. “No, I’m going to buy a bed here. I really hoped you’d keep mine in my room. It makes me feel like I’m still sort of there. Oh, and tell Brandon I haven’t had a chance to get to Yankee Stadium yet, but I’m hoping to take in a game next week. And I’ve already got tickets for the ballet.”
Two tickets, she thought. She’d get Nick there, come hell or high water.
“Tell Katie I’ll commit every movement, every plié and fouettée turn to memory. Oh, and tell Dad— Oh, there’s too much to tell everyone. I’ll talk you all senseless when you come up, and— Hold on, someone’s buzzing me. Yes, Mama,” she said with a smile. “I’ll make sure I know who it is first. Just wait. Yes?” she called into her intercom.
“Miss Frederica Kimball? Delivery for you.”
“Papa?”
“Who you think?” came the strongly accented voice. “Frank Sinatra?”
“Come on up, Frankie. I’m in 5D.”
“I know where you are, little girl.”
“Yes, it’s Papa,” Freddie said into the phone. “He’ll want to say hello, if you’ve got time.” She was already unlocking her door and swinging it open. “You should see, Mama—I’ve got this great elevator, iron grates and everything. And my neighbor across the hall’s a struggling poet who wears nothing but black and speaks in this tony British accent with just a hint of the Bronx underneath. I don’t think she ever wears shoes. Oh, here’s the elevator. Papa!”
It wasn’t only Yuri. Behind him, Mikhail came, bearing an enormous box.
“Pots and pans,” Mikhail told her when he set the box down with a dangerous-sounding thud. “Your grandma is afraid you don’t have anything to cook with.”
“Thanks. Mama’s on the phone.”
“Let me have it.” Mikhail snatched the receiver even as her grandfather gathered Freddie into a bear hug.
Yuri was a big, broadly built man who squeezed her as if it had been years, rather than days, since he’d seen her.
“How is my baby?”
“Wonderful.” He smelled of peppermint, tobacco and sweat, a combination she associated with love and perfect safety. “Let me give you the grand tour.”
Yuri adjusted his belt, took one long, pursed-lipped look at her living room. “You need shelves.”
“Well.” She snuck her arm around his waist and fluttered her lashes. “Actually, I was thinking that if I just knew a carpenter who had some time…”
“I build you shelves. Where is furniture?”
“I’m picking it up, a little at a time.”
“I have table in my shop. Goes well right here.”
He stalked over to the windows, checked to see that they had adequate locks and moved smoothly up and down.
“Good,” he pronounced. He was checking the baseboards and the level of the counters in the kitchen when Nick strolled in. “So,” Yuri said, “you come to unload boxes?”
“No.” Nick shoved a large, blooming white African violet at Freddie. “Housewarming present.”
She couldn’t have been more thrilled if he’d come in on one knee, with a diamond ring the size of a spotlight in his hands. “It’s beautiful.”
“I remembered you liked plants. Figured you’d want one.” With his hands already seeking the safety of his pockets, he scanned the room. “I thought you said it was just a little place.”
It would fit two of his apartment, he noted, and shook his head. So went the perceptions of the rich and privileged. “You shouldn’t leave your door open.”
She lifted her brows. “I’m not exactly alone.”
“Papa. Tash wants to talk to you. Fred, you got something to drink in here?�
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“In the fridge,” she told Mikhail, watching Nick. “So, did you come by to look the place over, give it the LeBeck seal of approval?”
“More or less.” He wandered out of the living room, into the bedroom that held nothing more than a closet, which was already full of clothes, a few boxes and a rug that he figured probably cost the equivalent of a year’s rent for him.
“Where are you going to sleep?”
“I’m expecting a sofa bed to be delivered today. I want to take my time picking out a real bed.”
“Hmmm.” He wandered out again. Dangerous area, he realized. Thinking of her in bed. Her bed. His bed. Any bed. “You want to keep these windows locked,” he said as he strolled through. “That fire escape’s an invitation.”
“I’m not an idiot, Nicholas.”
“No, you’re just green.” He glanced up in time to catch the can of soda Mikhail tossed at him. “You need a dead bolt on that door.”
“I have a locksmith coming at two. Anything else, Daddy?”
He only scowled at her. He was mulling over the proper retort when her buzzer sounded again. It seemed there was another delivery for Miss Kimball.
“Probably the sofa,” Freddie mused, as Nick lighted a cigarette and looked around for an ashtray. She found him a porcelain soapdish shaped like a swan.
But it wasn’t a sofa. Her mouth fell open and stayed open as three broad-shouldered men muscled in the base of a grand piano.
“Where you want it, lady?”
“Oh, God. Oh, my God. Dad.” Her eyes filled to overflowing instantly.
“Put it over there,” Nick told them as Freddie sniffled and wiped her cheeks. “A Steinway,” he noted, thrilled for her. “Figures. Nothing but the best for our little Fred.”
“Shut up, Nick.” Still sniffling, she took the phone from Yuri. “Mama. Oh, Mama.”
The men went about their business as she wept into the phone.
He should have left with the rest of them, Nick told himself when he found himself alone with Freddie thirty minutes later. She was busy tuning the glorious, gleaming instrument, between bouts of weeping.
“Cut it out, will you?” Shifting uncomfortably on the new bench, Nick hit middle C.
“Some of us have emotions and aren’t ashamed to express them. Give me an A.”
“God, what a piece,” he murmured. “Makes my little spinet sound like a tin can.”
She glanced over as she hit a chord. They both knew he could have replaced the spinet with an instrument every bit as magnificent as this. But he was attached to it.
“Looks like we’ll be able to work here, too, if we want to.” She waited a beat, flexed her fingers, tried out an arpeggio. “If we have anything to work on.”
“Yeah, about that.” Entranced with the piano, Nick began improvising a blues. “Listen to that tone.”
“I am.” As delighted as he, she picked up his rhythm and filled in on the bass. “About that?” she prompted.
“Hmm. Oh. You’ve got yourself a gig, Fred. You’ll have contracts by the end of the week. You’ve lost the tempo,” he complained when her hands faltered. “Pick it up.”
She only sat, her hands still on the keys, staring straight ahead. “I can’t breathe.”
“Try sucking air in, blowing it out.”
“I can’t.” Giving in, she swiveled, let her head fall between her knees. “They liked it,” she managed as Nick awkwardly patted her back.
“They loved it. All of it. Valentine told me Maddy O’Hurley said it was the best opening number of her career, and she wanted more. She dug the love song, too. Of course, it was my melody that caught her.”
“Cram it, LeBeck.” But despite her sharp tone, her eyes were wet when she lifted her head.
“Don’t start leaking again. You’re a professional.”
“I’m a songwriter.” Jittery with success, she threw her arms around him and clung. “We’re a team.”
“Looks that way.” He found his face buried in her hair. “You’ve got to stop wearing this stuff.”
“What stuff?”
“That perfume. It’s distracting.”
She was too overwhelmed by possibilities to worry about taking careful steps. “I like distracting you.” Heedlessly, she slid her lips up his throat until she found the vulnerable lobe of his ear and nipped.
He nearly gave in to the compelling need to turn his suddenly hungry mouth to hers, and swore. “Cut that out.” Taking her firmly by the shoulders, he pushed her back. “We’ve got a professional relationship here. I don’t want things clouded up with…”
“With what?”
“Hormones,” he decided. “I’m past the age where I think with my glands, Fred, and you should be, too.”
She ran her tongue over her lips. “Am I bothering your glands, Nicholas?”
“Shut up.” He rose, knowing he was safer with some distance. “What we need is some ground rules.”
“Fine.” She couldn’t stop the wide smile or the sparkle in her eyes. “What are they?”
“I’ll let you know. Meanwhile, we’re partners. Business partners.” He decided it wasn’t wise to seal the arrangement with a handshake. Not when she had those soft, narrow, incredibly sensitive hands. “Professionals.”
“Professionals,” she agreed. She tilted her head and crossed her legs in a slow, fluid way that had him staring carefully at a spot above her head. “So, when do we start…partner?”
Chapter Six
Nick knew Freddie’s mind wasn’t focused on her work. They’d cruised along smoothly enough for two weeks, but as the time approached for her family to come to New York for Nadia’s and Yuri’s anniversary party, her work came more in fits and starts than in a flow.
He hadn’t meant to snap at her, really, but the way her mind was darting from subject to subject—a new recipe for canapés she just had to give to Rio, the art deco lamp she’d bought for her living room, the jumpy, tongue-twisting lyrics she’d come up with for a number in the second act—they weren’t getting any real work done.
“Why don’t you just go shopping, get your nails done, do something really important.”
Freddie sent him a bland look and forced herself not to look at her watch again. Her family was scheduled to arrive in less than three hours.
“I bet Stephen Sondheim’s taking an afternoon off wouldn’t have sent Broadway into a crisis.”
He knew that. And if she hadn’t assumed they were taking the rest of the day off, he’d have suggested it himself. “We’ve got an obligation. I take obligations seriously.”
“So do I. I’m only talking about a few hours.”
“A few hours here, a few hours there.” He refused to look at her as he reached up to change a note on the sheet of music. “You’ve already had plenty of those the last few days.” He picked up the cigarette he’d left burning and drew deep. “It must play hell, having your social life get in the way of your hobby.”
She took a careful breath, hoping it would help. It didn’t. “It must play hell, having your creativity always at war with your sanctimonious streak.”
That little barb stung, as she’d meant it to. “Why don’t you try doing your job? I can’t keep carrying you.”
Now her breath hissed out. “Nobody has to carry me. I’m here, aren’t I?”
“For a change.” He tossed the cigarette back in the ashtray to smolder. “Now why don’t you try contributing something, so we can earn our keep? Some of us don’t have Daddy’s money behind us, and have to work for a living.”
“That’s not fair.”
“That’s the fact, kid. And I don’t want a partner who only wants to play at songwriting when it suits her busy schedule.”
Freddie pushed back on the stool, swiveled—the better to glare at him. “I’ve been working every bit as hard as you, seven days a week for nearly three weeks now.”
“Except when you had to go buy sheets, or a lamp, or wait for your bed to be delivered.�
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He was baiting her, and even knowing it, she swallowed the lure whole. “I wouldn’t have had to take time off if you’d agreed to work at my place.”
“Yeah, great. Working with all the sawdust and noise, while Yuri builds you shelves.”
“I need shelves.” She did her best to rein in the temper he seemed hell-bent on driving to a gallop. “And it was hardly my fault that the delivery was three hours late. I finished the chorus from the first solo in the second act while I was there.”
“I told you that needs work.” Ignoring her, Nick started to play again.
“It’s fine.”
“It needs work.”
She let out a huff of breath, but she refused to lower herself to the childish level of arguing back and forth. “All right, I’ll work on it. It would help if the melody wasn’t flat.”
That tore it. “Don’t tell me the melody’s flat. If you can’t figure out how to write for it, I’ll do it myself.”
“Oh, really? And you’ve got such a way with words, too.” Sarcasm dripped as she rose from the bench. “Go ahead, then, Lord Byron, write us some poetry.”
When his eyes snapped to hers, they were dangerously sharp and ready to slice. “Don’t throw your fancy education in my face, Fred. Going to college doesn’t make you a songwriter, and neither do connections. I’m giving you a break here, and the least you can do is put in the time it takes.”
“You’re giving me a break.” There was a growl in her voice, feral and furious. “You conceited, self-important idiot. All you’ve given me is grief. I make my own breaks. I don’t need you for this. And if you’re not satisfied with my work habits, or the results, take it to the producers.”
She stormed across the room, snatching up her bag en route.
“Where the hell do you think you’re going?”
“To get my nails done,” she tossed back, and made it to the door before he caught her.
“We’re not done here. Now sit down and do what you’re getting paid to do.”
She would have shaken him off, but after one attempt, she decided she preferred dignity to freedom. “Let’s get something straight here. We’re partners. Partners, Nicholas, which means you are not my boss. Don’t confuse the fact that I’ve let you call the shots so far with subservience.”