you have to say it’s very good, or I’ll knock your heads together.”
She left them arguing over which coin to use for the fatal flip.
“You missed your calling,” Annie commented when the brothers raced off with the football.
“How’s that?”
“You should be working for the UN.” She nodded out the front window; the boys were practicing passing on their way down the street. “There aren’t many tougher nuts than the Freedmont brothers.”
“I make them afraid of me first, then offer them a dignified way out.”
“See? Definitely UN material.”
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
