Taming Natasha(3)

Choreographing a scaled-down traffic jam, Natasha smiled. "You always think you're in love."

"I know." Annie sighed. "I wish I could see the color of his eyes. He's got one of those wonderfully lean and bony faces. I'm sure he's incredibly intelligent and has suffered horribly."

Natasha shot a quick, amused look over her shoulder. Annie, with her tall, skinny build had a heart as soft as marshmallow cream. "I'm sure his wife would be fascinated with your fantasy."

"It's a woman's privilege—no, her obligation—to weave fantasies over men like that."

Though she couldn't have disagreed more, Natasha let Annie have her way. "All right then. Go ahead and open up."

"One doll," Spence said, giving his daughter's ear a tug. "I might have thought twice about moving into that house, if I'd realized there was a toy store a half mile away."

"You'd buy her the bloody toy store if you had your way."

He spared one glance for the woman beside him. "Don't start, Nina."

The slender blonde shrugged her shoulders, rippling the trim, rose linen jacket of her suit, then looked at the little girl. "I just meant your daddy tends to spoil you because he loves you so much. Besides, you deserve a present for being so good about the move."

Little Frederica Kimball's bottom lip pouted. "I like my new house." She slipped her hand into her father's, automatically aligning herself with him and against the world. "I have a yard and a swing set all of my own."

Nina looked them over, the tall, rangy man and the fairy-sized young girl. They had identical stubborn chins.

As far as she could remember, she'd never won an argument with either one.

"I suppose I'm the only one who doesn't see that as an advantage over living in New York." Nina's tone warmed slightly as she stroked the girl's hair. "I can't help worrying about you a little bit. I really only want you to be happy, darling. You and your daddy."

"We are." To break the tension, Spence swung Freddie into his arms. "Aren't we, funny face?"

"She's about to be that much happier." Relenting, Nina gave Spence's hand a squeeze. "They're opening."

"Good morning." They were gray, Annie noted, biting back a long, dreamy, "Ahh." A glorious gray. She tucked her little fantasy into the back of her mind and ushered in the first customers of the day. "May I help you?"

"My daughter's interested in a doll." Spence set Freddie on her feet again.



"Well, you've come to the right place." Annie dutifully switched her attention to the child. She really was a cute little thing, with her father's gray eyes and pale, flyaway blond hair. "What kind of doll would you like?"

"A pretty one," Freddie answered immediately. "A pretty one with red hair and blue eyes."

"I'm sure we have just what you want." She offered a hand. "Would you like to look around?"

After a glance at her father for approval, Freddie linked hands with Annie and wandered off.

"Damn it." Spence found himself wincing.

Nina squeezed his hand for the second time. "Spence—

"I delude myself thinking that it doesn't matter, that she doesn't even remember."

"Just because she wanted a doll with red hair and blue eyes doesn't mean anything."

"Red hair and blue eyes," he repeated; the frustration welled up once more. "Just like Angela's. She remembers, Nina. And it does matter." Stuffing his hands into his pockets he walked away.

Three years, he thought. It had been nearly three years now. Freddie had still been in diapers. But she remembered Angela—beautiful, careless Angela. Not even the most liberal critic would have considered Angela a mother. She had never cuddled or crooned, never rocked or soothed.

He studied a small, porcelain-faced doll dressed in pale, angelic blue. Tiny, tapering fingers, huge, dreamy eyes. Angela had been like that, he remembered. Ethereally beautiful. And cold as glass.

He had loved her as a man might love a piece of art—distantly admiring the perfection of form, and constantly searching for the meaning beneath it. Between them they had somehow created a warm, gorgeous child who had managed to find her way through the first years of her life almost without help from her parents.

But he would make it up to her. Spence shut his eyes for a moment. He intended to do everything in his power to give his daughter the love, the structure and the security she deserved. The realness. The word seemed trite, but it was the only one he could find that described what he wanted for his daughter—the real, the solid bond of family.