by Nora Roberts
“And then,” she continued, making sure her voice was low, as his family was wandering along in front and behind them. “You manhandled me—in front of your mother.”
“You liked it.”
“I certainly—”
“Did,” he finished, remembering the hot, helpless way she’d responded to the kiss he’d given her on his sister’s back porch. “So did I.”
She would not smile. She would not admit for a moment to the spinning excitement she’d felt when he’d scooped her up like some sweaty barbarian carrying off the spoils of war.
“Maybe I was rooting for Alex. It seems to me he got the lion’s share of your father’s charm.”
“All the Stanislaskis have charm,” he said, unoffended. He stopped and, bending down, plucked a painted daisy from the slope of the lawn they passed. “See?”
“Hmm.” Sydney twirled the flower under her nose. Perhaps it was time to change the subject before she was tempted to try to carry him off. “It’s good seeing Spence again. When I was fifteen or so, I had a terrible crush on him.”
Narrow eyed, Mikhail studied his brother-in-law’s back. “Yes?”
“Yes. Your sister’s a lucky woman.”
Family pride came first. “He’s lucky to have her.”
This time she did smile. “I think we’re both right.”
Brandon, tired of holding his mother’s hand, bolted back toward them. “You have to carry me,” he told his uncle.
“Have to?”
With an enthusiastic nod, Brandon began to shimmy up Mikhail’s leg like a monkey up a tree. “Like Papa does.”
Mikhail hauled him up, then to the boy’s delight, carried him for a while upside down.
“He’ll lose his breakfast,” Nadia called out.
“Then we fill him up again.” But Mikhail flipped him over so Brandon could cling to his back. Pink cheeked, the boy grinned over at Sydney.
“I’m three years old,” he told her loftily. “And I can dress my own self.”
“And very well, too.” Amused, she tapped his sneakered foot. “Are you going to be a famous composer like your father?”
“Nah. I’m going to be a water tower. They’re the biggest.”
“I see.” It was the first time she’d heard quite so grand an ambition.
“Do you live with Uncle Mikhail?”
“No,” she said quickly.
“Not yet,” Mikhail said simultaneously, and grinned at her.
“You were kissing him,” Brandon pointed out. “How come you don’t have any kids?”
“That’s enough questions.” Natasha came to the rescue, plucking her son from Mikhail’s back as her brother roared with laughter.
“I just wanna know—”
“Everything,” Natasha supplied, and gave him a smacking kiss. “But for now it’s enough you know you can have one new car from the shop.”
He forgot all about babies. His chocolate-brown eyes turned shrewd. “Any car?”
“Any little car.”
“You did kiss me,” Mikhail reminded Sydney as Brandon began to badger his mother about how little was little. Sydney settled the discussion by ramming her elbow into Mikhail’s ribs.
She found the town charming, with its sloping streets and little shops. Natasha’s toy store, The Fun House, was impressive, its stock running the range from tiny plastic cars to exquisite porcelain dolls and music boxes.
Mikhail proved to be cooperative when Sydney wandered in and out of antique shops, craft stores and boutiques. Somewhere along the line they’d lost the rest of the family. Or the family had lost them. It wasn’t until they’d started back, uphill, with his arms loaded with purchases that he began to complain.
“Why did I think you were a sensible woman?”
“Because I am.”
He muttered one of the few Ukrainian phrases she understood. “If you’re so sensible, why did you buy all this? How do you expect to get it back to New York?”
Pleased with herself, she fiddled with the new earrings she wore. The pretty enameled stars swung jauntily. “You’re so clever, I knew you’d find a way.”
“Now you’re trying to flatter me, and make me stupid.”
She smiled. “You were the one who bought me the porcelain box.”
Trapped, he shook his head. She’d studied the oval box, its top decorated with a woman’s serene face in bas-relief for ten minutes, obviously in love and just as obviously wondering if she should be extravagant. “You were mooning over it.”
“I know.” She rose on her toes to kiss his cheek. “Thank you.”
“You won’t thank me when you have to ride for five hours with all this on your lap.”
They climbed to the top of the steps into the yard just as Ivan, tail tucked securely between his legs streaked across the grass. In hot pursuit were a pair of long, lean cats. Mikhail let out a manful sigh.
“He is an embarrassment to the family.”
“Poor little thing.” Sydney shoved the package she carried at Mikhail. “Ivan!” She clapped her hands and crouched down. “Here, boy.”
Spotting salvation, he swung about, scrambled for footing and shot back in her direction. Sydney caught him up, and he buried his trembling head against her neck. The cats, sinuous and smug, sat down a few feet away and began to wash.
“Hiding behind a woman,” Mikhail said in disgust.
“He’s just a baby. Go arm wrestle with your brother.”
Chuckling, he left her to soothe the traumatized pup. A moment later, panting, Freddie rounded the side of the house. “There he is.”
“The cats frightened him,” Sydney explained, as Freddie came up to stroke Ivan’s fur.
“They were just playing. Do you like puppies?” Freddie asked.
“Yes.” Unable to resist, Sydney nuzzled. “Yes, I do.”
“Me, too. And cats. We’ve had Lucy and Desi for a long time. Now I’m trying to talk Mama into a puppy.” Petting Ivan, she looked back at the mangled petunias. “I thought maybe if I fixed the flowers.”
Sydney knew what it was to be a little girl yearning for a pet. “It’s a good start. Want some help?”
She spent the next thirty minutes saving what flowers she could or—since she’d never done any gardening—following Freddie’s instructions. The pup stayed nearby, shivering when the cats strolled up to wind around legs or be scratched between the ears.
When the job was done, Sydney left Ivan to Freddie’s care and went inside to wash up. It occurred to her that it was barely noon and she’d done several things that day for the first time.
She’d been the grand prize in an arm wrestling contest. She’d played with children, been kissed by the man she loved on a public street. She’d gardened and had sat on a sunny lawn with a puppy on her lap.
If the weekend kept going this way, there was no telling what she might experience next.
Attracted by shouts and laughter, she slipped into the music room and looked out the window. A softball game, she realized. Rachel was pitching, one long leg cocking back as she whizzed one by Alex. Obviously displeased by the call, he turned to argue with his mother. She continued to shake her head at him, bouncing Brandon on her knee as she held firm to her authority as umpire.
Mikhail stood spread legged, his hands on his hips, and one heel touching a ripped seat cushion that stood in as second base. He tossed in his own opinion, and Rachel threw him a withering glance over her shoulder, still displeased that he’d caught a piece of her curve ball.
Yuri and Spence stood in the outfield, catcalling as Alex fanned for a second strike. Intrigued, Sydney leaned on the windowsill. How beautiful they were, she thought. She watched as Brandon turned to give Nadia what looked like a very sloppy kiss before he bounded off on sturdy little legs toward a blue-and-white swing set. A screen door slammed, then Freddie zoomed into view, detouring to the swing to give her brother a couple of starter pushes before taking her place in the game.
Alex caught t
he next pitch, and the ball flew high and wide. Voices erupted into shouts. Surprisingly spry, Yuri danced a few steps to the left and snagged the ball out of the air. Mikhail tagged up, streaked past third and headed for home, where Rachel had raced to wait for the throw.
His long strides ate up the ground, those wonderful muscles bunching as he went into a slide. Rachel crowded the plate, apparently undisturbed by the thought of nearly six feet of solid male hurtling toward her. There was a collision, a tangle of limbs and a great deal of swearing.
“Out.” Nadia’s voice rang clearly over the din.
In the majors, they called it clearing the benches.
Every member of the family rushed toward the plate—not to fuss over the two forms still nursing bruises, but to shout and gesture. Rachel punched Mikhail in the chest. He responded by covering her face with his hand and shoving her back onto the grass. With a happy shout, Brandon jumped into the fray to climb up his father’s back.
Sydney had never envied anything more.
“We can never play without fighting,” Natasha said from behind her. She was smiling, looking over Sydney’s shoulder at the chaos in her backyard. Her arms still felt the slight weight of the baby she’d just rocked to sleep. “You’re wise to watch from a distance.”
But when Sydney turned, Natasha saw that her eyes were wet.
“Oh, please.” Quickly she moved to Sydney’s side to take her hand. “Don’t be upset. They don’t mean it.”
“No. I know.” Desperately embarrassed, she blinked the tears back. “I wasn’t upset. It was just—it was silly. Watching them was something like looking at a really beautiful painting or hearing some incredibly lovely music. I got carried away.”
She didn’t need to say more. Natasha understood after Spence’s explanation of Sydney’s background that there had never been softball games, horseplay or the fun of passionate arguments in her life.
“You love him very much.”
Sydney fumbled. That quiet statement wasn’t as easy to respond to as Rachel’s cocky question had been.
“It’s not my business,” Natasha continued. “But he is special to me. And I see that you’re special to him. You don’t find him an easy man.”
“No. No, I don’t.”
Natasha glanced outside again, and her gaze rested on her husband, who was currently wrestling both Freddie and Brandon on the grass. Not so many years before, she thought, she’d been afraid to hope for such things.
“Does he frighten you?”
Sydney started to deny it, then found herself speaking slowly, thoughtfully. “The hugeness of his emotions sometimes frightens me. He has so many, and he finds it so easy to feel them, understand them, express them. I’ve never been the type to be led by mine, or swept away by them. Sometimes he just overwhelms me, and that’s unnerving.”
“He is what he feels,” Natasha said simply. “Would you like to see some of it?” Without waiting for an answer, she walked over to a wall of shelves.
Lovely carved and painted figures danced across the shelves, some of them so tiny and exquisite it seemed impossible that any hand could have created them.
A miniature house with a gingerbread roof and candy-cane shutters, a high silver tower where a beautiful woman’s golden hair streamed from the topmost window, a palm-sized canopy bed where a handsome prince knelt beside a lovely, sleeping princess.
“He brought me this one yesterday.” Natasha picked up the painted figure of a woman at a spinning wheel. It sat on a tiny platform scattered with wisps of straw and specks of gold. “The miller’s daughter from Rumpelstiltskin.” She smiled, tracing the delicate fingertips that rode the spindle.
“They’re lovely, all of them. Like a magical world of their own.”
“Mikhail has magic,” Natasha said. “For me, he carves fairy tales, because I learned English by reading them. Some of his work is more powerful, tragic, erotic, bold, even frightening. But it’s always real, because it comes from inside him as much as from the wood or stone.”
“I know. What you’re trying to show me here is his sensitivity. It’s not necessary. I’ve never known anyone more capable of kindness or compassion.”
“I thought perhaps you were afraid he would hurt you.”
“No,” Sydney said quietly. She thought of the richness of heart it would take to create something as beautiful, as fanciful as the diminutive woman spinning straw into gold. “I’m afraid I’ll hurt him.”
“Sydney—” But the back door slammed and feet clambered down the hall.
The interruption relieved Sydney. Confiding her feelings was new and far from comfortable. It amazed her that she had done so with a woman she’d known less than a day.
There was something about this family, she realized. Something as magical as the fairy-tale figures Mikhail carved for his sister. Perhaps the magic was as simple as happiness.
As the afternoon wore on, they ebbed and flowed out of the house, noisy, demanding and very often dirty. Nadia eventually cleared the decks by ordering all of the men outside.
“How come they get to go out and sit in the shade with a bottle of beer while we do the cooking,” Rachel grumbled as her hands worked quickly, expertly with potatoes and a peeler.
“Because…” Nadia put two dozen eggs on boil. “In here they will pick at the food, get big feet in my way and make a mess.”
“Good point. Still—”
“They’ll have to clean the mess we make,” Natasha told her.
Satisfied, Rachel attacked another potato. Her complaints were only tokens. She was a woman who loved to cook as much as she loved trying a case. “If Vera was here, they wouldn’t even do that.”
“Our housekeeper,” Natasha explained to Sydney while she sliced and chopped a mountain of vegetables. “She’s been with us for years. We gave her the month off to take a trip with her sister. Could you wash those grapes?”
Obediently Sydney followed instructions, scrubbing fruit, fetching ingredients, stirring the occasional pot. But she knew very well that three efficient women were working around her.
“You can make deviled eggs,” Nadia said kindly when she noted Sydney was at a loss. “They will be cool soon.”
“I, ah…” She stared, marginally horrified, at the shiny white orbs she’d rinsed in the sink. “I don’t know how.”
“Your mama didn’t teach you to cook?” It wasn’t annoyance in Nadia’s voice, just disbelief. Nadia had considered it her duty to teach every one of her children—whether they’d wanted to learn or not.
As far as Sydney knew, Margerite had never boiled an egg much less deviled one. Sydney offered a weak smile. “No, she taught me how to order in restaurants.”
Nadia patted her cheek. “When they cool, I show you how to make them the way Mikhail likes best.” She murmured in Ukrainian when Katie’s waking wail came through the kitchen intercom. On impulse, Natasha shook her head before Nadia could dry her hands and go up to fetch her granddaughter.
“Sydney, would you mind?” With a guileless smile, Natasha turned to her. “My hands are full.”
Sydney blinked and stared. “You want me to go get the baby?”
“Please.”
More than a little uneasy, Sydney started out of the kitchen.
“What are you up to, Tash?” Rachel wanted to know.
“She wants family.”
With a hoot of laughter, Rachel swung an arm around her sister and mother. “She’ll get more than her share with this one.”
The baby sounded very upset, Sydney thought as she hurried down the hall. She might be sick. What in the world had Natasha been thinking of not coming up to get Katie herself? Maybe when you were the mother of three, you became casual about such things. Taking a deep breath, she walked into the nursery.
Katie, her hair curling damply around her face, was hanging on to the side of the crib and howling. Unsteady legs dipped and straightened as she struggled to keep her balance. One look at Sydney had her tear-dren
ched face crumpling. She flung out her arms, tilted and landed on her bottom on the bright pink sheet.
“Oh, poor baby,” Sydney crooned, too touched to be nervous. “Did you think no one was coming?” She picked the sniffling baby up, and Katie compensated for Sydney’s awkwardness by cuddling trustingly against her body. “You’re so little. Such a pretty little thing.” On a shuddering sigh, Katie tipped her head back. “You look like your uncle, don’t you? He got embarrassed when I said he was gorgeous, but you are.”
Downstairs, three women chuckled as Sydney’s voice came clearly through the intercom.
“Oh-oh.” After giving the little bottom an affectionate pat, Sydney discovered a definite problem. “You’re wet, right? Look, I figure your mother could handle this in about thirty seconds flat—that goes for everybody else downstairs. But everybody else isn’t here. So what do we do?”
Katie had stopped sniffling and was blowing bubbles with her mouth while she tugged on Sydney’s hair. “I guess we’ll give it a try. I’ve never changed a diaper in my life,” she began as she glanced around the room. “Or deviled an egg or played softball, or any damn thing. Whoops. No swearing in front of the baby. Here we go.” She spotted a diaper bag in bold green stripes. “Oh, God, Katie, they’re real ones.”
Blowing out a breath, she took one of the neatly folded cotton diapers. “Okay, in for a penny, in for a pound. We’ll just put you down on here.” Gently she laid Katie on the changing table and prepared to give the operation her best shot.
“Hey.” Mikhail bounded into the kitchen and was greeted by three hissing “shhs!”
“What?”
“Sydney’s changing Katie,” Natasha murmured and smiled at the sounds flowing through the intercom.
“Sydney?” Mikhail forgot the beer he’d been sent to fetch and stayed to listen.
“Okay, we’re halfway there.” Katie’s little butt was dry and powdered. Perhaps a little over powdered, but better to err on the side of caution, Sydney’d figured. Her brow creased as she attempted to make the fresh diaper look like the one she’d removed, sans dampness. “This looks pretty close. What do you think?” Katie kicked her feet and giggled. “You’d be the expert. Okay, this is the tricky part. No wriggling.”
