Waiting For Nick: the classic story from the queen of romance that you won’t be able to put down

Waiting For Nick: the classic story from the queen of romance that you won’t be able to put down
Nora Roberts

THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLING AUTHOR‘The most successful novelist on Planet Earth’ Washington PostNick didn’t know what had hit him. Sweet, adorable Freddie, whom he’d always loved like a kid sister, was suddenly all woman.And his feelings for her were anything but brotherly!Nora Roberts is a publishing phenomenon; this New York Times bestselling author of over 200 novels has more than 450 million of her books in print worldwide.Praise for Nora Roberts‘A storyteller of immeasurable diversity and talent’ Publisher’s Weekly‘You can’t bottle wish fulfilment, but Nora Roberts certainly knows how to put it on the page.’ New York Times‘Everything Nora Roberts writes turns to gold.’ Romantic Times.‘Roberts’ bestselling novels are… thoughtfully plotted, well-written stories featuring fascinating characters.’ USA Today

Waiting for Nick

The Stanislaskis

Book Five

Nora Roberts

www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)

The Stanislaskis: an unforgettable family saga by #1 New York Times bestselling author Nora Roberts

Frederica Kimball had been waiting all her life…waiting to grow up…waiting forever for the day when Nicholas LeBeck would fall as desperately in love with her as she had always been with him. Nick didn’t know what had hit him. Sweet, adorable Freddie, whom he’d always loved like a kid sister, was suddenly all woman. And his feelings for her were anything but brotherly!

For the family

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Epilogue

Chapter One

She was a woman with a mission. Her move from West Virginia to New York had a series of purposes, outlined carefully in her mind. She would find the perfect place to live, become a success in her chosen field, and get her man.

Preferably, but not necessarily, in that order.

Frederica Kimball was, she liked to think, a flexible woman.

As she walked down the sidewalk on the East Side in the early-spring twilight, she thought of home. The house in Shepherdstown, West Virginia, with her parents and siblings, was, to Freddie’s mind, the perfect place to live. Rambling, noisy, full of music and voices.

She doubted that she could have left it if she hadn’t known she would always be welcomed back with open arms.

It was true that she had been to New York many times, and had ties there, as well, but she already missed the familiar—her own room, tucked into the second story of the old stone house, the love and companionship of her siblings, her father’s music, her mother’s laugh.

But she wasn’t a child any longer. She was twenty-four, and long past the age to begin to make her own.

In any case, she reminded herself, she was very much at home in Manhattan. After all, she’d spent the first few years of her life there. And much of her life in the years after had included visits—but all with family, she acknowledged.

Well, this time, she thought, straightening her shoulders, she was on her own. And she had a job to do. The first order of business would be to convince a certain Nicholas LeBeck that he needed a partner.

The success and reputation he’d accumulated as a composer over the past few years would only increase with her beside him as his lyricist. Already, just by closing her eyes and projecting, she could envision the LeBeck-Kimball name in lights on the Great White Way. She had only to let her imagination bloom to have the music they would write flow like a river through her head.

Now all she had to do, she thought with a wry smile, was convince Nick to see and hear the same thing.

She could, if necessary, use family loyalty to persuade him. They were, in a roundabout way, semicousins.

Kissing cousins, she thought now, while her eyes lighted with a smile. That was her final and most vital mission. Before she was done, Nick would fall as desperately in love with her as she was, had always been, with him.

She’d waited ten years for him, and that, to Freddie’s mind, was quite long enough.

It’s past time, Nick, she decided, tugging on the hem of her royal blue blazer, to face your fate.

Still, nerves warred with confidence as she stood outside the door of Lower the Boom. The popular neighborhood bar belonged to Zack Muldoon, Nick’s brother. Stepbrother, technically, but Freddie’s family had always been more into affection than terminology. The fact that Zack had married Freddie’s stepmother’s sister made the Stanislaski-Muldoon-Kimball-LeBeck families one convoluted clan.

Freddie’s longtime dream had been to forge another loop in that family chain, linking her and Nick.

She took a deep breath, tugged on her blazer again, ran her hands over the reddish-gold mop of curls she could never quite tame and wished once, hopelessly, that she had just a dash of the Stanislaskis’ exotic good looks. Then she reached for the door.

She’d make do with what she had, and make damned sure it was enough.

The air in Lower the Boom carried the yeasty scent of beer, overlaid with the rich, spicy scent of marinara. Freddie decided that Rio, Zack’s longtime cook, must have a pasta special going. On the juke, Dion was warning his fellow man about the fickle heart of Runaround Sue.

Everything was there, everything in place, the cozy paneled walls, the seafaring motif of brass bells and nautical gear, the long, scarred bar and the gleaming glassware. But no Nick. Still, she smiled as she walked to the bar and slid onto a padded stool.

“Buy me a drink, sailor?”

Distracted, Zack glanced up from drawing a draft. His easy smile widened instantly into a grin. “Freddie—hey! I didn’t think you were coming in until the end of the week.”

“I like surprises.”

“I like this kind.” Expertly Zack slid the mug of beer down the bar so that it braked between the waiting hands of his patron. Then he leaned over, caught Freddie’s face in both of his big hands and gave her a loud, smacking kiss. “Pretty as ever.”