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When it ended, she sat very still.
“I don’t have to ask you what you think,” Spence murmured. “I can see it.”
She only shook her head. She didn’t have the words to tell him. There were no words. “When?”
“Over the last few days.” The emotion the song had wrenched from him came flooding back. Rising, he went to her to take her hands and pulled her to her feet. As their fingers met, she could feel the intensity he’d poured into his music. “It came back.” He pressed her hands to his lips. “At first it was terrifying. I could hear it in my head, the way I used to. It’s like being plugged into heaven, Natasha. I can’t explain it.”
“No. You don’t have to. I heard it.”
She understood, he thought. Somehow he’d been sure she would. “I thought it was just wishful thinking, or that when I sat down there…” He looked back at the piano. “That it would vanish. But it didn’t. It flowed. God, it’s like being given back your hands or your eyes.”
“It was always there.” She lifted her hands to his face. “It was just resting.”
“No, you brought it back. I told you once, my life had changed when I met you. I didn’t know how much. It’s for you, Natasha.”
“No, it’s for you. Very much for you.” Wrapping her arms around him, she pressed her mouth to his. “It’s just the beginning.”
“Yes.” He dragged his hands through her hair so that her face was tilted to his. “It is.” His grip only tightened when she would have pulled away. “If you heard that, if you understood that, you know what I mean. And you know what I feel.”
“Spence, it would be wrong for you to say anything now. Your emotions are all on the surface. What you feel about your music is easily confused with other things.”
“That’s nonsense. You don’t want to hear me tell you that I love you.”
“No.” Panic skidded up her spine. “No, I don’t. If you care for me at all, you won’t.”
“It’s a hell of a position you put me in.”
“I’m sorry. I want you to be happy. As long as things go on as they are—”
“And how long can things go on as they are?”
“I don’t know. I can’t give you back the words you want to give to me. Even feeling them, I can’t.” Her eyes lifted again to meet his. “I wish I could.”
“Am I still competing against someone else?”
“No.” Quickly she reached out to take his hands. “No. What I felt for—before,” she corrected, “was a fantasy. A girl’s make-believe. This is real. I’m just not strong enough to hold onto it.”
Or too strong to give in to it, he thought. And it was hurting her. Perhaps because he wanted her so badly, his impatience was adding pressure that would break them apart instead of bring them together.
“Then I won’t tell you that I love you.” He kissed her brow. “And that I need you in my life.” He kissed her lips, lightly. “Not yet.” His fingers curled tightly over hers. “But there’ll come a time, Natasha, when I will tell you. When you’ll listen. When you’ll answer me.”
“You make it sound like a threat.”
“No, it’s one of those promises you don’t want to hear.” He kissed her on both cheeks, casually enough to confuse her. “I have to get back.”
“Yes, so do I.” She picked up her gloves, only to run them restlessly through her hands. “Spence, it meant a very great deal that you wanted to share this with me. I know what it’s like to lose part of yourself. I’m very proud of you and for you. And I’m glad that you celebrated this with me.”
“Come back, have dinner with me. I haven’t begun to celebrate.”
She smiled again. “I’d like that.”
She didn’t often buy champagne, but it seemed appropriate. Even necessary. A bottle of wine was little enough to offer for what he had given her that morning. The music itself was a gift she would always treasure. With it, he’d given her time and a glimpse of hope.
Perhaps he did love her. If she believed it, she could allow herself time to let it strengthen. If she believed it, she would have to tell him everything. It was that, even more than her own fears that still held her back.
She needed time for that, as he did.
But tonight was for celebrating.
She knocked and tried a sober smile for Vera. “Good evening.”
“Miss.” With this noncommital greeting, Vera opened the door wider. She kept her thoughts on Natasha very much to herself. True, the woman made the señor happy and seemed very fond of Freddie. But after more than three years of having them to herself, Vera was very cautious of sharing. “Dr. Kimball is in the music room with Freddie.”
“Thank you. I brought some wine.”
“I will take it.”
With only a little sigh, Natasha watched Vera walk away. The more the housekeeper held firm, the more determined Natasha was to win her over.
She heard Freddie’s giggles as she approached the music room. And others, she realized. When she reached the door, she spotted Freddie and JoBeth clinging to each other and squealing. And why not? Natasha thought with a grin. Spence was wearing a ridiculous helmet and aiming a cardboard spool like a weapon.
“Stowaways aboard my ship are fed to the Beta Monster,” he warned them. “He has six-foot teeth and bad breath.”
“No!” Eyes wide, heart pounding with delight and dread, Freddie scrambled for cover. “Not the Beta Monster.”
“He likes little girls best.” With an evil laugh, he scooped the squealing JoBeth under one arm. “He swallows little boys whole, but he chews and chews and chews when I feed him girls.”
“That’s gross.” JoBeth covered her mouth with both hands.
“You bet.” So saying, Spence made a dive and came up with a squirming Freddie. “Say your prayers, you’re about to be the main course.” Then with a muffled “Oomph,” he tumbled onto the couch with both of them.
“We vanquished you!” Freddie announced, climbing over him. “The Wonder Sisters vanquished you.”
“This time, but next time it’s the Beta Monster.” As he blew the hair out of his eyes, he spotted Natasha in the doorway. “Hi.” She thought his smile was adorably sheepish. “I’m a space pirate.”
“Oh. Well, that explains it.” Before she could step into the room, both girls deserted the space pirate to launch themselves at her.
“We always beat him,” Freddie told her. “Always, always.”
“I’m glad to hear it. I wouldn’t want anyone I know to be eaten by the Beta Monster.”
“He just made it up,” JoBeth said wisely. “Dr. Kimball makes things up real good.”
“Yes, I know.”
“JoBeth’s going to stay for dinner, too. You’re going to be Daddy’s guest and she’s going to be mine. You get to have seconds first.”
“That’s very polite.” She bent to kiss Freddie’s cheeks, then JoBeth’s. “How is your mama?”
“She’s going to have a baby.” JoBeth screwed up her face and shrugged her shoulders.
“I heard.” Natasha smoothed JoBeth’s hair. “Are you taking care of her?”
“She doesn’t get sick in the mornings anymore, but Daddy says she’ll be fat soon.”
Miserably envious, Freddie shifted from one foot to the other. “Let’s go up to my room,” she told JoBeth. “We can play with the kittens.”
“You will wash your hands and faces,” Vera told them as she came in with the ice bucket and glasses. “Then you will come down to dinner, walking like ladies, not running like elephants.” She nodded to Spence. “Miss Stanislaski brought champagne.”
“Thank you, Vera.” Belatedly he remembered to remove his helmet.
“Dinner in fifteen minutes,” she stated, then went out.
“Now she knows I have designs on you,” Natasha muttered. “And is certain I’m after your great wealth.”
With a laugh, he pried the cork free. “That’s all right, I know you’re only after my body.” Wine frothed to the lip of the glasses, then receded.
“I like it very much. Your body.” With a smile she accepted the flute of champagne.
“Then maybe you’d like to enjoy it later.” He touched the rim of his glass to hers. “Freddie twisted my arm and got me to agree to a sleep-over at the Rileys’. So I don’t feel left out, maybe I can stay with you tonight. All night.”
Natasha took her first sip of wine, letting the taste explode on her tongue. “Yes,” she said, and smiled at him.
CHAPTER NINE
Natasha watched the shadows dancing from the lights the candles tossed around the room. Soothing, they played over the curtains, the top rung of the old ladder-back chair in the corner, over the coxcomb she had impulsively slipped into an empty milk bottle and set on her dresser. Her room, she thought. It had always been very much hers. Until…
With a half sigh she let her hand rest on Spence’s heart.
It was no longer quiet; the wind had risen to toss a late, cold rain against the panes. Outside it was a chilled, gusty night that promised a chilled, frosty morning. Winter often came early to the little town snuggled in the foothills of the Blue Ridge. But she was warm, beautifully warm, in Spence’s arms.
The silence between them was easy, as the loving had been. Curled close, they lay still, content to let the hours pass, one lazy second at a time. Each of them quietly celebrated the knowledge that in the morning they wouldn’t wake alone. His hand skimmed over her thigh, her hip, until it linked with hers.
There was music playing inside her head—the song he had given her that morning. She knew she would remember each note, each chord, for the rest of her life. And it was only the beginning for him, or a new beginning. The idea of that delighted her. In the years to come she would hear his music and remember the time they had had together. On hearing it she would celebrate again, even if his music took him away.
Still, she had to ask.
“Will you go back to New York?”
He brushed his lips through her hair. “Why?”
“You’re composing again.” She could imagine him there, in evening dress, attending the opening of his own symphony.
“I don’t need to be in New York to compose. And if I did, there are more reasons to stay here.”
“Freddie.”
“Yes, there’s Freddie. And there’s you.”
Her restless movement rustled the sheets. She could see him after the symphony at some small intimate party, the Rainbow Room perhaps, or a private club. He would be dancing with a beautiful woman.
“The New York you lived in is different from mine.”
“I imagine.” He wondered why that should matter to her. “Do you ever think of going back?”
“To live, no. But to visit.” It was silly, she thought, to be nervous about asking such a simple thing. “My mother called me today.”
“Is everything all right?”
“Yes. She only called to remind me about Thanksgiving. I’d almost forgotten. Every year we have a big dinner and eat too much. Do you go home for the holiday?”
“I am home.”
“I mean to your family.” She shifted to watch his face.
“I only have Freddie. And Nina,” he added. “She always goes out to the Waldorf.”
“Your parents. I’ve never asked you if you still have them, or where they live.”
“They’re in Cannes.” Or was it Monte Carlo? It occurred to him suddenly that he didn’t know for certain. The ties there were loose, comfortably so for everyone involved.
“Won’t they come back for the holidays?”
“They never come to New York in the winter.”
“Oh.” Try as she might, she couldn’t picture the holidays without family.
“We never ate at home on Thanksgiving. We always went out, were usually traveling.” His memories of his childhood were more of places than people, more of music than words. “When I was married to Angela, we usually met friends at a restaurant and went to the theater.”
“But—” She caught herself and fell silent.
“But what?”
“Once you had Freddie.”
“Nothing changed.” He shifted onto his back to stare at the ceiling. He’d wanted to tell her about his marriage, about himself—the man he had been—but had put it off. For too long, he reflected. How could he expect to build, when he had yet to clear away the emotional rubble of his past? “I’ve never explained to you about Angela.”
“It’s not necessary.” She took his hand again. She’d wanted to invite him to a meal, not dredge up old ghosts.
“It is for me.” Sitting up, he reached for the bottle of champagne they had brought back with them. Filling both glasses, he handed her one.
“I don’t need explanations, Spence.”
“But you’ll listen?”
“Yes, if it’s important to you.”
He took a moment to gather his thoughts. “I was twenty-five when I met her. On top of the world as far as my music went, and to be honest, at twenty-five, very little else mattered to me. I had spent my life traveling, doing exactly what I pleased and being successful in what was most important to me. I don’t believe anyone had ever told me, ‘No, you can’t have that. No, you can’t do that.’ When I saw her, I wanted her.”
