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

“Do I care what Washington says? I don’t think so. Tell them they can have three pieces, no more.”

“But—”

“No more,” he repeated, and closed the door behind him. He muttered to himself in Ukrainian as he crossed the gallery. Words, Freddie noted with a lifted brow, that she wasn’t supposed to understand.

“Very artistic language, Uncle Mik.”

He broke off in the middle of a very creative oath. “Freddie.” With a hoot of laughter, he hoisted her off the ground as if she weighed no more than a favored rag doll. “Still just a peanut,” he said, kissing her on the way down. “How’s my pretty girl?”

“Excited to be here, and to see you.”

He was, like his swearing, wild and exotic, with the golden eyes and raven hair of the Stanislaskis. Freddie had often thought that if she could paint, she would paint each member of her Ukrainian family in bold strokes and colors.

“I was just admiring your work,” she told him. “It’s incredibly beautiful.”

“It’s easy to create something beautiful when you have something beautiful to work with.” He glanced toward the sculpture with love in his eyes. For the wood, Freddie reflected, but more, much more for the family he’d carved in it. “So, you’ve come to the big city to make your splash.”

“I have indeed.” With a flutter of lashes, Freddie hooked an arm through his and began to stroll, stopping here and there to admire a piece of art. “I’m hoping to work with Nick on the score he’s beginning.”

“Oh?” Mikhail quirked a brow. A man with so many women in his life understood their ways well, and appreciated them. “To write the words for his music?”

“Exactly. We’d make a good team, don’t you think?”

“Yes, but it’s not what I think, is it?” He smiled when her lips moved into a pout. “Our Nick, he can be stubborn, yes? And very hard of head. I can knock him in that head, if you like.”

Her lips curved again before she laughed. “I hope it won’t come to that, but I’ll keep the offer in reserve.” Her eyes changed, sharpened, and he could see clearly that she wasn’t so much the child any longer. “I’m good, Uncle Mik. Music’s in my blood, the way art’s in yours.”

“And when you see what you want…”

“I find a way to have it.” Easily accepting her own arrogance, she shrugged her shoulders. That, too, was in the blood. “I want to work with Nick. I want to help him. And I’m going to.”

“And from me you want…?”

“Family support for a chance to prove myself, if it becomes necessary, though I have an idea I can convince him without it.” She tossed her hair back, in a gesture, Mikhail thought, very like his sister’s. “What I do want, and need, is some advice about an apartment. I was hoping Aunt Sydney might have some ideas about a place near Lower the Boom.”

“Maybe she does, but there’s plenty of room with us. The children, you know how they would love to have you with them, and Sydney—” He caught her expression and sighed. “I promised your mama I would try. Natasha, she worries.”

“She doesn’t need to. She and Dad did a pretty good job of raising the self-reliant type. Just a small place, Uncle Mik,” she continued quickly. “If you’d just ask Aunt Sydney to give me a call at the Waldorf. Maybe she and I can have lunch one day soon, if she’s got time.”

“She always has time for you. We all do.”

“I know. And I intend to make a nuisance of myself. I want a place soon. Before,” she added with a gleam in her eyes, “Grandma starts conspiring to have me move in with them in Brooklyn. I’ve got to go.” She gave him a quick parting kiss. “I have another couple of stops to make.” She darted for the door, paused. “Oh, and when you talk to Mama, tell her you tried.”

With a wave, she was out on the street, and hailing another cab.

Now that her next seed was planted, Freddie had the cab take her to Lower the Boom, and wait as she went to the rear entrance to ring the security bell. Moments later, Nick’s very sleepy and irritated voice barked through the intercom.

“Still in bed?” she said cheerfully. “You’re getting too old for the wild life, Nicholas.”

“Freddie? What the hell time is it?”

“Ten, but who’s counting? Just buzz me in, will you? I’ve got something I want you to have. I’ll just leave it on the table downstairs.”

He swore, and she heard the sound of something crashing to the floor. “I’ll come down.”

“No, don’t bother.” She didn’t think her system could handle facing him when he was half-awake and warm from bed. “I don’t have time to visit, anyway. Just buzz me in, and call me later after you’ve gone over what I’m leaving for you.”

“What is it?” he demanded as the buzzer sounded.

Instead of answering, Freddie hurried inside, dropped her music portfolio on Rio’s table and raced out again. “Sorry to wake you, Nick,” she called into the intercom. “If you’re free tonight, we’ll have dinner. See you.”

“Wait a damn—”

But she was already dashing toward the front of the building and her waiting cab. She sat back, let out a long breath and closed her eyes. If he didn’t want her—her talents, she corrected—after he went through what she’d left for him, she was back to ground zero.

Think positive, she ordered herself. Straightening, she folded her arms. “Take me to Saks,” she told the driver.

When a woman had a potential date with the man she intended to marry, the very least she deserved was a new dress.

Chapter Two

By the time Nick found and dragged on a pair of jeans and stumbled downstairs, Freddie was long gone. He had nothing to curse but the air as he rapped his bare toe against the thick leg of the kitchen table. Hopping, he scowled at the slim leather portfolio she’d left behind.

What the hell was the kid up to? he wondered. Waking him up at dawn, leaving mystery packages in the kitchen. Still grumbling, he snatched up the portfolio and headed back up to his apartment. He needed coffee.

To get into his own kitchen, he expertly stepped over and maneuvered around discarded newspapers, clothing, abandoned sheets of music. He tossed Freddie’s portfolio on the cluttered counter and coaxed his brain to remember the basic functions of his coffeemaker.

He wasn’t a morning person.

Once the pot was making a hopeful hiss, he opened the refrigerator and eyed the contents blearily. Breakfast was not on the menu at Lower the Boom and was the only meal he couldn’t con out of Rio, so his choices were limited. The minute he sniffed the remains of a carton of milk and gagged, he knew cold cereal was out. He opted for a candy bar instead.

Fortified with two sources of caffeine, he sat down, lighted a cigarette, then unzipped the portfolio.

He was set to resent whatever it was that Freddie had considered important enough to wake him up for. Even small-town rich kids should know that bars didn’t close until late. And since he’d taken over the late shift from his brother, Nick rarely found his bed before three.

With a huge yawn, he dumped the contents of the portfolio out. Neatly printed sheet music spilled onto the table.

Figures, he thought. The kid had the idea stuck in her head that they were going to work together. And he knew Freddie well enough to understand that when she had something lodged in her brain, it took a major crowbar to pry it loose.

Sure, she had talent, he mused. He would hardly expect the daughter of Spencer Kimball to be tone-deaf. But he didn’t much care for partnerships in the first place. True, he’d worked well enough with Lorrey on Last Stop. But Lorrey wasn’t a relative. And he didn’t smell like candy-coated sin.

Block that thought, LeBeck, he warned himself, and dragged back his disordered hair before he picked up the first sheet that came to hand. The least he could do for his little cousin was give her work a look.

And when he did, his brows drew together. The music was his own. Something he’d half finished, fiddled with on one of the family visits to West Virginia. He could remember now sitting at the piano in the music room of the big stone house, Freddie on the bench beside him. Last summer? he wondered. The summer before? Not so long ago he couldn’t recall that she’d been grown up, and that he’d had a little trouble whenever she leaned into him, or shot him one of those looks with those incredibly big gray eyes.

Nick shook his head, rubbed his face and concentrated on the music again. She’d polished it up, he noted, and frowned a bit over the idea of someone fooling with his work. And she’d added lyrics, romantic love-story words that suited the mood of the music.

“It Was Ever You,” she’d titled it. As the tune began to play in his head, he gathered up all the sheets and left his half-finished breakfast for the piano in the living room.