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With a laugh, Natasha shook her head. “Other people’s problems are the easiest to solve.” Weakening, she glanced toward the rose again. If she had one wish at the moment, it would be for someone to come along and solve her own.
An hour later she felt a tug on the hem of her skirt.
“Hi.”
“Freddie, hello.” She flicked her finger over a bow that was trying to hold back Freddie’s flyaway hair. It was tied from the blue ribbon Natasha had given her on her first visit. “Don’t you look pretty today.”
Freddie beamed, female to female. “Do you like my outfit?”
Natasha surveyed the obviously new blue denim overalls, parade stiff with sizing. “I like it very much. I have a pair just like them.”
“You do?” Nothing, since Freddie had decided to make Natasha her newest heroine, could have pleased her more. “My daddy got them for me.”
“That’s nice.” Despite her better judgment, Natasha scanned the shop for him. “Did he, ah, bring you in today?”
“No, Vera did. You said it was all right just to look.”
“Sure it is. I’m glad you came in.” And she was, Natasha realized. Just as she was stupidly disappointed that Freddie hadn’t brought her daddy.
“I’m not supposed to touch anything.” Freddie tucked her itchy fingers into her pockets. “Vera said I should look with my eyes and not with my hands.”
“That’s very good advice.” And some Natasha wouldn’t have minded others passing along to nimble-fingered children. “But some things are okay to touch. You just ask me.”
“Okay. I’m going to join the Brownies and get a uniform and everything.”
“That’s wonderful. You’ll come in and show it to me?”
Delight nearly split Freddie’s face in two. “Okay. It has a hat, and I’m going to learn how to make pillows and candle holders and all kinds of things. I’ll make you something.”
“I’d like that.” She tidied Freddie’s lopsided bow.
“Daddy said you were going to eat dinner with him in a restaurant tonight.”
“Well, I—”
“I don’t like restaurants very much, except for pizza, so I’m going to stay home, and Vera’s going to fix tortillas for me and JoBeth. We get to eat in the kitchen.”
“That sounds nice.”
“If you don’t like the restaurant, you can come back and have some. Vera always makes a lot.”
Uttering a helpless little sigh, Natasha bent to tie Freddie’s left shoelace. “Thank you.”
“Your hair smells pretty.”
Half in love, Natasha leaned closer to sniff Freddie’s. “So does yours.”
Fascinated by Natasha’s tangle of curls, Freddie reached out to touch. “I wish my hair was like yours,” she said. “It’s straight as a pin,” she added, quoting her Aunt Nina.
Smiling, Natasha brushed at the fragile wisps over Freddie’s brow. “When I was a little girl, we put an angel on top of the Christmas tree every year. She was very beautiful, and she had hair just like yours.”
Pleasure came flushing into Freddie’s cheeks.
“Ah, there you are.” Vera shuffled down the crowded aisle, straw carryall on one arm, a canvas bag on the other. “Come, come, we must get back home before your father thinks we are lost.” She held out a hand for Freddie and nodded to Natasha. “Good afternoon, miss.”
“Good afternoon.” Curious, Natasha raised a brow. She was being summed up again by the little dark eyes, and definitely being found wanting, Natasha thought. “I hope you’ll bring Freddie back to visit soon.”
“We will see. It is as hard for a child to resist a toy store as it is for a man to resist a beautiful woman.”
Vera led Freddie down the aisle, not looking back when the girl waved and grinned over her shoulder.
“Well,” Annie murmured as she stuck her head around the corner. “What brought that on?”
With a humorless smile, Natasha shoved a pin back into her hair. “At a guess, I would say the woman believes I have designs on her employer.”
Annie gave an unladylike snort. “If anything, the employer has designs on you. I should be so lucky.” Her sigh was only a little envious. “Now that we know the new hunk on the block isn’t married, all’s right with the world. Why didn’t you tell me you were going out with him?”
“Because I wasn’t.”
“But I heard Freddie say—”
“He asked me out,” Natasha clarified. “I said no.”
“I see.” After a brief pause, Annie tilted her head. “When did you have the accident?”
“Accident?”
“Yes, the one where you suffered brain damage.”
Natasha’s face cleared with a laugh, and she started toward the front of the shop.
“I’m serious,” Annie said as soon as they had five free minutes. “Dr. Spencer Kimball is gorgeous, unattached and…” She leaned over the counter to sniff at the rose. “Charming. Why aren’t you taking off early to work on real problems, like what to wear tonight?”
“I know what I’m wearing tonight. My bathrobe.”
Annie couldn’t resist the grin. “Aren’t you rushing things just a tad? I don’t think you should wear your robe until at least your third date.”
“There’s not going to be a first one.” Natasha smiled at her next customer and rang up a sale.
It took Annie forty minutes to work back to the subject at hand. “Just what are you afraid of?”
“The IRS.”
“Tash, I’m serious.”
“So am I.” When her pins worked loose again, she gave up and yanked them out. “Every American businessperson is afraid of the IRS.”
“We’re talking about Spence Kimball.”
“No,” Natasha corrected. “You’re talking about Spence Kimball.”
“I thought we were friends.”
Surprised by Annie’s tone, Natasha stopped tidying the racetrack display her Saturday visitors had wrecked. “We are. You know we are.”
“Friends talk to each other, Tash, confide in each other, ask advice.” Puffing out a breath, Annie stuffed her hands into the pockets of her baggy jeans. “Look, I know that things happened to you before you came here, things you’re still carrying around but never talk about. I figured I was being a better friend by not asking you about it.”
Had she been so obvious? Natasha wondered. All this time she’d been certain she had buried the past and all that went with it—deeply. Feeling a little helpless, she reached out to touch Annie’s hand. “Thank you.”
With a dismissive shrug, Annie turned to flick the lock on the front door. The shop was empty now, the bustle of the afternoon only an echo. “Remember when you let me cry on your shoulder after Don Newman dumped me?”
Natasha pressed her lips in to a thin line. “He wasn’t worth crying over.”
“I enjoyed crying over him,” Annie returned with a quick, amused smile. “I needed to cry and yell and moan and get a little drunk. You were right there for me, saying all those great, nasty things about him.”
“That was the easy part,” Natasha remembered. “He was a dork.” It pleased her tremendously to use the young Freedmont boy’s insult.
“Yeah, but he was a terrific-looking dork.” Annie allowed herself a brief reminiscence. “Anyway, you helped me over that rough spot until I convinced myself I was better off without him. You’ve never needed my shoulder, Tash, because you’ve never let a guy get past this.” She lifted a hand, pressing her palm against empty air.
Amused, Natasha leaned back against the counter. “And what is that?”
“The Great Stanislaski Force Field,” Annie told her. “Guaranteed to repel all males from the age of twenty-five to fifty.”
Natasha lifted a brow, not quite sure if she was amused any longer. “I’m not certain if you’re trying to flatter or insult me.”
“Neither. Just listen to me a minute, okay?” Annie took a deep breath to keep herself from rushing through something she thought should be taken step-by-step. “Tash, I’ve seen you brush off guys with less effort than you’d swat away a gnat. And just as automatically,” she added when Natasha remained silent. “You’re very pleasant about it, and also very definite. I’ve never seen you give any man a second’s thought once you’ve politely shown him the door. I’ve even admired you for it, for being so sure of yourself, so comfortable with yourself that you didn’t need a date on Saturday night to keep your ego out of the dirt.”
“Not sure of myself,” Natasha murmured. “Just apathetic about relationships.”
“All right.” Annie nodded slowly. “I’ll accept that. But this time it’s different.”
“What is?” Natasha skirted the counter and began to tally the day’s sales.
“You see? You know I’m going to mention his name, and you’re nervous.”
“I’m not nervous,” Natasha lied.
“You’ve been nervous, moody and distracted since Kimball walked into the shop a couple of weeks ago. In over three years, I’ve never seen you give a man more than five minutes’ thought. Until now.”
“That’s only because this one is more annoying than most.” At Annie’s shrewd look, Natasha gave up. “All right, there is…something,” she admitted. “But I’m not interested.”
“You’re afraid to be interested.”
Natasha didn’t like the sound of that, but forced herself to shrug it off. “It’s the same thing.”
“No, it’s not.” Annie put a hand over Natasha’s and squeezed. “Look, I’m not pushing you toward this guy. For all I know, he could have murdered his wife and buried her in the rose garden. All I’m saying is, you’re not going to be comfortable with yourself until you stop being afraid.”
Annie was right, Natasha thought later as she sat on her bed with her chin on her hand. She was moody, she was distracted. And she was afraid. Not of Spence, Natasha assured herself. No man would ever frighten her again. But she was afraid of the feelings he stirred up. Forgotten, unwanted feelings.
Did that mean she was no longer in charge of her emotions? No. Did that mean she would act irrationally, impulsively, just because needs and desires had pried their way back into her life? No. Did that mean she would hide in her room, afraid to face a man? A most definite no.
She was only afraid because she had yet to test herself, Natasha thought, moving toward her closet. So tonight she would have dinner with the persistent Dr. Kimball, prove to herself that she was strong and perfectly capable of resisting a fleeting attraction, then get back to normal.
Natasha frowned at her wardrobe. With a restless move of her shoulders she pulled out a deep blue cocktail dress with a jeweled belt. Not that she was dressing for him. He was really irrelevant. It was one of her favorite dresses, Natasha thought as she stripped off her robe, and she rarely had the opportunity to wear anything but work clothes.
He knocked at precisely seven twenty-eight. Natasha detested herself for anxiously watching the clock. She had reapplied her lipstick twice, checked and rechecked the contents of her purse and fervently wished that she had delayed taking her stand.
She was acting like a teenager, Natasha told herself as she walked to the door. It was only dinner, the first and last dinner she intended to share with him. And he was only a man, she added, pulling the door open.
An outrageously attractive man.
He looked wonderful, was all she could think, with his hair swept back from his face, and that half smile in his eyes. It had never occurred to her that a man could be gut-wrenchingly sexy in a suit and a tie.
“Hi.” He held out another red rose.
Natasha nearly sighed. It was a pity the smoke-gray suit didn’t make him seem more professorial. Giving in a little, she tapped the blossom against her cheek. “It wasn’t the roses that changed my mind.”
“About what?”
“About having dinner with you.” She stepped back, deciding that she had no choice but to let him in while she put the flower into water.
He smiled then, fully, and exasperated her by looking charming and cocky at the same time. “What did?”
“I’m hungry.” She set her short velvet jacket on the arm of the sofa. “I’ll put this in water. You can sit if you like.”
She wasn’t going to give him an inch, Spence thought as he watched her walk away. Oddly enough, that only made her more interesting. He took a deep breath, shaking his head. Incredible. Just when he was convinced that nothing smelled sexier than soap, she put something on that made him think of midnight and weeping violins.
Deciding that he was safer thinking of something else, he studied the room. She preferred vivid colors, he mused, noting the emerald and teal slashes of the pillows on a sapphire-blue couch. There was a huge brass urn beside it, stuffed with silky peacock feathers. Candles of varying sizes and shades were set around the room so that it smelled, romantically, of vanilla and jasmine and gardenia. A shelf in the corner was crammed with books that ran the gamut from popular fiction to classic literature by way of home improvements for the novice.
The table surfaces were crowded with mementos, framed pictures, dried bouquets, fanciful statuettes inspired by fairy tales. There was a gingerbread house no bigger than his palm, a girl dressed as Red Riding Hood, a pig peeking out of the window of a tiny straw house, a beautiful woman holding a single glass slipper.
Practical tips on plumbing, passionate colors and fairy tales, he mused, touching a fingertip to the tiny crystal slipper. It was as curious and as intriguing a combination as the woman herself.
Hearing her come back into the room, Spence turned. “These are beautiful,” he said, gesturing to one of the figures. “Freddie’s eyes would pop out.”
“Thank you. My brother makes them.”
“Makes them?” Fascinated, Spence picked up the gingerbread house to study it more closely. It was carved from polished wood, then intricately painted so that each licorice whip and lollipop looked good enough to eat. “It’s incredible. You rarely see workmanship like this.”
Whatever her reservations, she warmed toward him and crossed the room to join him. “He’s been carving and sculpting since he was a child. One day his art will be in galleries and museums.”
“It should be already.”
The sincerity in his voice hit her most vulnerable spot, her love of family. “It’s not so easy. He’s young and hardheaded and proud, so he keeps his job, hammering wood, instead of carving it to bring in money for the family. But one day…” She smiled at the collection. “He makes these for me, because I struggled so hard to learn to read English from this book of fairy tales I found in the boxes of things the church gave us when we came to New York. The pictures were so pretty, and I wanted so badly to know the stories that went with them.”
She caught herself, embarrassed to have said anything. “We should go.”
He only nodded, having already decided to pry gently until she told him more. “You should wear your jacket.” He lifted it from the sofa. “It’s getting chilly.”
