by Nora Roberts
“I think so. After you meet them, you can decide. Okay?”
“Okay.”
“Ladies, maybe you could pick another time to have a conference.” Spence stood a few feet away, loaded down with luggage. “What was that all about?” he asked when they joined him on the sidewalk.
“Girl talk,” Natasha answered with a wink that made Freddie giggle.
“Great.” He started up the worn concrete steps behind Natasha. “Nothing I like better than to stand in the brisk wind holding three hundred pounds of luggage. What did you pack in here? Bricks?”
“Only a few, along with some essentials.” Delighted with him, she turned and kissed his cheek—just as Nadia opened the door.
“Well.” Pleased, Nadia folded her arms across her chest. “I told Papa you would come before Johnny Carson was over.”
“Mama.” Natasha rushed up the final steps to be enfolded in Nadia’s arms. There was the scent she always remembered. Talc and nutmeg. And, as always, there was the strong, sturdy feel of her mother’s body. Nadia’s dark and sultry looks were just as strong, more so, perhaps, with the lines etched by worry, laughter and time.
Nadia murmured an endearment, then drew Natasha back to kiss her cheeks. She could see herself as she had been twenty years before. “Come on, you leave our guests standing in the cold.”
Natasha’s father bounded into the hall to pluck her off the floor and toss her into the air. He wasn’t a tall man, but the arms beneath his work shirt were thick as cinder blocks from his years in the construction trade. He gave a robust laugh as he kissed her.
“No manners,” Nadia declared as she shut the door. “Yuri, Natasha brings guests.”
“Hello.” Yuri thrust out a callused hand and pumped Spence’s. “Welcome.”
“This is Spence and Freddie Kimball.” As she made introductions, Natasha noticed Freddie slip her hand into her father’s.
“We are happy to meet you.” Because warmth was her way, Nadia greeted them both with kisses. “I will take your coats, and you please come in and sit. You will be tired.”
“We appreciate you having us,” Spence began. Then, sensing that Freddie was nervous, he picked her up and carried her into the living room.
It was small, the wallpaper old and the furniture worn. But there were lace doilies on the arms of the chairs, the woodwork gleamed in the yellow lamplight from vigorous polishing, and here and there were exquisitely worked pillows. Framed family pictures fought for space among the potted plants and knicknacks.
A husky wheeze had Spence glancing down. There was an old gray dog in the corner. His tail began to thump when he saw Natasha. With obvious effort he rose and waddled to her.
“Sasha.” She crouched to bury her face in the dog’s fur. She laughed as he sat down again and leaned against her. “Sasha is a very old man,” she explained to Freddie. “He likes best now to sleep and eat.”
“And drink vodka,” Yuri put in. “We will all have some. Except you,” he added and flicked a finger down Freddie’s nose. “You would have some champagne, huh?”
Freddie giggled, then bit her lip. Natasha’s father didn’t look exactly like she’d imagined a grandfather. He didn’t have snow-white hair and a big belly. Instead his hair was black and white at the same time, and he had no belly at all. He talked funny, with a deep, rumbly kind of voice. But he smelled good, like cherries. And his smile was nice.
“What’s vodka?”
“Russian tradition,” Yuri answered her. “A drink we make from grain.”
Freddie wrinkled her nose. “That sounds yucky,” she said, then immediately bit her lip again. But at Yuri’s burst of laughter she managed a shy smile.
“Natasha will tell you that her papa always teases little girls.” Nadia poked an elbow into Yuri’s ribs. “It’s because he is really just little boy at heart. You would like hot chocolate?”
Freddie was torn between the comfort of her father’s hand and one of her favorite treats. And Nadia was smiling at her, not with that goofy look grown-ups sometimes put on when they had to talk to kids. It was a warm smile, just like Natasha’s.
“Yes, ma’am.”
Nadia gave a nod of approval at the child’s manners. “Maybe you would like to come with me. I show you how to make it with big, fat marshmallows.”
Forgetting shyness, Freddie took her hand from Spence’s and put it into Nadia’s. “I have two cats,” she told Nadia proudly as they walked into the kitchen. “And I had chicken pox on my birthday.”
“Sit, sit,” Yuri ordered, gesturing toward the couch. “We have a drink.”
“Where are Alex and Rachel?” With a contented sigh, Natasha sank into the worn cushions.
“Alex takes his new girlfriend to the movies. Very pretty,” Yuri said, rolling his bright, brown eyes. “Rachel is at lecture. Big-time lawyer from Washington, D.C. comes to college.”
“And how is Mikhail?”
“Very busy. They remodel apartment in Soho.” He passed out glasses, tapping each before he drank. “So,” he said to Spence as he settled in his favorite chair, “you teach music.”
“Yes. Natasha’s one of my best students in Music History.”
“Smart girl, my Natasha.” He settled back in his chair and studied Spence. But not, as Natasha had hoped, discreetly. “You are good friends.”
“Yes,” Natasha put in, uneasy about the gleam in her father’s eyes. “We are. Spence just moved into town this summer. He and Freddie used to live in New York.”
“So. This is interesting. Like fate.”
“I like to think so,” Spence agreed, enjoying himself. “It was especially fortunate that I have a little girl and Natasha owns a very tempting toy store. Added to that, she signed up for one of my classes. It made it difficult for her to avoid me when she was being stubborn.”
“She is stubborn,” Yuri agreed sadly. “Her mother is stubborn. Me, I am very agreeable.”
Natasha gave a quick snort.
“Stubborn and disrespectful women run in my family.” Yuri took another healthy drink. “It is my curse.”
“Perhaps one day I’ll be fortunate enough to say the same.” Spence smiled over the rim of his glass. “When I convince Natasha to marry me.”
Natasha sprang up, ignoring her father’s grin. “Since the vodka’s gone to your head so quickly, I’ll see if Mama has any extra hot chocolate.”
Yuri pushed himself out of his chair to reach for the bottle as Natasha disappeared. “We’ll leave the chocolate to the women.”
* * *
Natasha awoke at first light with Freddie curled in her arms. She was in the bed of her childhood, in a room where she and her sister had spent countless hours talking, laughing, arguing. The wallpaper was the same. Faded roses. Whenever her mother had threatened to paint it, both she and Rachel had objected. There was something comforting about waking up to the same walls from childhood through adolescence to adulthood.
Turning her head, she could see her sister’s dark hair against the pillow of the next bed. The sheets and blankets were in tangles. Typical, Natasha thought with a smile. Rachel had more energy asleep than most people had fully awake. She had come in the night before after midnight, bursting with enthusiasm over the lecture she had attended, full of hugs and kisses and questions.
Natasha brushed a kiss over Freddie’s hair, then carefully shifted her. The child snuggled into the pillow without making a sound. Quietly Natasha rose. She took a moment to steady herself when the floor tilted. Four hours’ sleep, she decided, was bound to make anyone light-headed. Gathering her clothes, she went off to shower and dress.
Arriving downstairs, she caught the scent of coffee brewing. It didn’t seem to appeal to her, but she followed it into the kitchen.
“Mama.” Nadia was already at the counter, busily rolling out pie-crusts. “It’s too early to cook.”
“On Thanksgiving it’s never too early.” She lifted her cheek for a kiss. “You want coffee?”
Natasha pressed a hand to her uneasy stomach. “No. I don’t think so. I assume that bundle of blankets on the couch is Alex.”
“He gets in very late.” Nadia pursed her lips briefly in disapproval, then shrugged. “He’s not a boy anymore.”
“No. You’ll just have to face it, Mama, you have grown children—and you raised them very well.”
“Not so well that Alex learns to pick up his socks.” But she smiled, hoping her youngest son wouldn’t deprive her of that last vestige of motherhood too soon.
“Did Papa and Spence stay up very late?”
“Papa likes talking to your friend. He’s a nice man.” Nadia laid a circle of dough on a pie plate, then took up another chunk to roll out. “Very handsome.”
“Yes,” Natasha agreed, but cautiously.
“He has good job, is responsible, loves his daughter.”
“Yes,” Natasha said again.
“Why don’t you marry him when he wants you to?”
She’d figured on this. Biting back a sigh, Natasha leaned on the kitchen table. “There are a lot of nice, responsible and handsome men, Mama. Should I marry them all?”
“Not so many as you think.” Smiling to herself, Nadia started on a third crust. “You don’t love him?” When Natasha didn’t answer, Nadia’s smile widened. “Ah.”
“Don’t start. Spence and I have only known each other for a few months. There’s a lot he doesn’t know about me.”
“So tell him.”
“I don’t seem to be able to.”
Nadia put down her rolling pin to cup her daughter’s face in two floury hands. “He is not like the other one.”
“No, he’s not. But—”
Impatient, Nadia shook her head. “Holding on to something that’s gone only makes a sickness inside. You have a good heart, Tash. Trust it.”
“I want to.” She wrapped her arms around her mother and held tight. “I do love him, Mama, but it still scares me. And it still hurts.” On a long breath she drew back. “I want to borrow Papa’s truck.”
Nadia didn’t ask where she was going. Didn’t need to. “Yes. I can go with you.”
Natasha only kissed her mother’s cheek and shook her head.
* * *
She’d been gone an hour before Spence made his bleary-eyed way downstairs. He and the gray dog exchanged glances of sympathy. Yuri had been generous with the vodka the night before, to guests and pets. At the moment, Spence felt as though a chain gang were chipping rock in his head. Operating on automatic, he found the kitchen, following the scents of baking, and blissfully, coffee.
Nadia took one look, laughed broadly and gestured to the table. “Sit.” She poured a cup of coffee, strong and black. “Drink. I fix you breakfast.”
Like a dying man, Spence clutched the cup in both hands. “Thanks. I don’t want to put you out.”
Nadia merely waved a hand as she reached for a cast-iron skillet. “I know a man with a hangover. Yuri poured you too much vodka.”
“No. I took care of that all on my own.” He opened the aspirin bottle she set on the table. “Bless you, Mrs. Stanislaski.”
“Nadia. You call me Nadia when you get drunk in my house.”
“I don’t remember feeling like this since college.” So saying he downed three aspirins. “I can’t imagine why I thought it was fun at the time.” He managed a weak smile. “Something smells wonderful.”
“You will like my pies.” She pushed fat sausages around in the skillet. “You met Alex last night.”
“Yes.” Spence didn’t object when she filled his cup a second time. “That was cause enough for one more drink. You have a beautiful family, Nadia.”
“They make me proud.” She laughed as the sausage sizzled. “They make me worry. You know, you have daughter.”
“Yes.” He smiled at her, picturing what Natasha would look like in a quarter of a century.
“Natasha is the only one who moves far away. I worry most for her.”
“She’s very strong.”
Nadia only nodded as she added eggs to the pan. “Are you patient, Spence?”
“I think so.”
Nadia glanced over her shoulder. “Don’t be too patient.”
“Funny. Natasha once told me the same thing.”
Pleased, Nadia popped bread into the toaster. “Smart girl.”
The kitchen door swung open. Alex, dark, rumpled and heavy-eyed, grinned. “I smelled breakfast.”
* * *
The first snow was falling, small, thin flakes that swirled in the wind and vanished before they hit the ground. There were some things, Natasha knew, that were beautiful and very precious, and here for only such a short time.
She stood alone, bundled against the cold she didn’t feel. Except inside. The light was pale gray, but not dreary, not with the tiny, dancing snowflakes. She hadn’t brought flowers. She never did. They would look much too sad on such a tiny grave.
Lily. Closing her eyes, she let herself remember how it had felt to hold that small, delicate life in her arms. Her baby. Milaya. Her little girl. Those beautiful blue eyes, Natasha remembered, those exquisite miniature hands.
Like the flower she had been named for, Lily had been so lovely, and had lived such a brief, brief time. She could see Lily, small and red and wrinkled, her little hands fisted when the nurse had first laid her in Natasha’s arms. She could feel even now that sweet ache that tugged when Lily had nursed at her breast. She remembered the feel of that soft, soft skin and the smell of powder and lotion, the comfort of rocking late at night with her own baby girl on her shoulder.
So quickly gone, Natasha thought. A few precious weeks. No amount of time, no amount of prayer would ever make her understand it. Accept, perhaps, but never understand.
“I love you, Lily. Always.” She bent to press her palm against the cold grass. Rising again, she turned and walked away through the lightly dancing snow.
* * *
Where had she gone? There could be a dozen places, Spence assured himself. It was foolish to be worried. But he couldn’t help it. Some instinct was at work here, heightened by the certainty that Natasha’s family knew exactly where she was, but refused to say.
The house was already filled with noise, laughter, and the smells of the celebrational meal to come. He tried to shake off the feeling that wherever Natasha was, she needed him.
There was so much she hadn’t told him. That had become crystal clear when he saw the pictures in the living room. Natasha in tights and dance shoes, in ballet skirts and toe shoes. Natasha with her hair streaming behind her, caught at the apex of a grand jeté.
She’d been a dancer, quite obviously a professional, but had never mentioned it.
Why had she given it up? Why had she kept something that had been an important part of her life a secret from him?
Coming out of the kitchen, Rachel saw him with one of the photographs in his hand. She kept silent for a moment, studying him. Like her mother, she approved of what she saw. There was a strength here and a gentleness. Her sister needed and deserved both.
“It’s a beautiful picture.”
He turned. Rachel was taller than Natasha, more willowy. Her dark hair was cut short in a sleek cap around her face. Her eyes, more gold than brown, dominated. “How old was she?”
Rachel dipped her hands into the pockets of her trousers as she crossed the room. “Sixteen, I think. She was in the corps de ballet then. Very dedicated. I always envied Tash her grace. I was a klutz.” She smiled and gently changed the subject. “Always taller and skinnier than the boys, knocking things over with my elbows. Where’s Freddie?”
Spence set down the picture. Without saying it, Rachel had told him that if he had questions, they were for Natasha. “She’s upstairs, watching the Macy’s parade with Yuri.”
“He never misses it. Nothing disappointed him more than when we grew too old to want to sit in his lap and watch the floats.”
A laughing squeal from the second floor
had them both turning toward the stairs. Feet clomped. A pink whirlwind in her jumpsuit, Freddie came dashing down to launch herself at Spence. “Daddy, Papa makes bear noises. Big bear noises.”
“Did he rub his beard on your cheek?” Rachel wanted to know.
“It’s scratchy.” She giggled, then wriggled down to run upstairs once more, hoping he’d do it again.
“She’s having the time of her life,” Spence decided.
“So’s Papa. How’s your head?”
“Better, thanks.” He heard the sound of the truck pulling up outside, and glanced toward the window.
“Mama needs my help.” Rachel slipped back into the kitchen.
He was at the door waiting for her. Natasha looked very pale, very tired, but she smiled when she saw him. “Good morning.” Because she needed him, she slipped her arms around his waist and held tight.
“Are you all right?”
“Yes.” She was now, she realized, when he was holding her like this. Stronger, she pulled back. “I thought you might sleep late.”
“No, I’ve been up awhile. Where have you been?”
She unwound her scarf. “There was something I needed to do.” After peeling off her coat, she hung it in the narrow closet. “Where is everyone?”
“Your mother and Rachel are in the kitchen. The last time I looked, Alex was on the phone.”
This time the smile came easily. “Sweet-talking a girl.”
“Apparently. Freddie’s up with your father, watching the parade.”
“And putting him in heaven.” She touched her fingertips to Spence’s cheek. “Will you kiss me?”
There was some need here, he thought as he bent toward her. Some deep, private need she still refused to share. Her lips were cold when his met them, but they softened, then warmed. At last they curved.
“You’re very good for me, Spence.”
“I was hoping you’d catch on to that.” He gave her bottom lip a playful nip. “Better?”
“Much. I’m glad you’re here.” She squeezed his hand. “How do you feel about some of Mama’s hot chocolate?”
