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.
She loved him. He felt some of the tension ease from his shoulders as he thought of the way Freddie’s big eyes would shine when he tucked her in at night, at the way her arms would wrap tightly around him when he held her. Perhaps he would never fully forgive himself for being so involved with his own problems, his own life during her infancy, but things had changed. Even this move had been made with her welfare in mind.
He heard her laugh, and the rest of the tension dissolved on a wave of pure pleasure. There was no sweeter music than his little girl’s laugh. An entire symphony could be written around it. He wouldn’t disturb her yet, Spence thought. Let her indulge herself with the bright and beautiful dolls, before he had to remind her that only one could be hers.
Relaxed again, he began to pay attention to the shop. Like the dolls he’d imagined for his daughter, it was bright and beautiful. Though small, it was packed from wall to wall with everything a child might covet. A big golden giraffe and a sad-eyed purple dog hung from the ceiling. Wooden trains, cars and planes, all painted in bold colors, jockeyed for position on a long display table with elegant miniature furniture. An old-fashioned jack-in-the-box sat beside an intricate scale model of a futuristic space station. There were dolls, some beautiful, some charmingly homely, erector sets and tea sets.
The lack of studied arrangement made the result all the more appealing. This was a place to pretend and to wish, a crowded Aladdin’s cave designed to make children’s eyes light in wonder. To make them laugh, as his daughter was laughing now. He could already foresee that he’d be hard-pressed to keep Freddie from making regular visits.
That was one of the reasons he’d made the move to a small town. He wanted his daughter to be able to reap the pleasures of local shops, where the merchants would know her name. She would be able to walk from one end of town to the other without those big-city worries about muggings, abductions and drugs. There would be no need for dead bolts and security systems, for “white noise” machines to block out the surge and grind of traffic. Even a girl as little as his Freddie wouldn’t be swallowed up here.
And perhaps, without the pace and the pressure, he would make peace with himself.
Idly he picked up a music box. It was of delicately crafted porcelain, graced with a figure of a raven-haired Gypsy woman in a flounced red dress. In her ears were tiny gold loops, and in her hands a tambourine with colored streamers. He was certain he wouldn’t have found anything more skillfully made on Fifth Avenue.
He wondered how the owner could leave
