The restaurant he’d chosen was only a short drive away and sat on one of the wooded hills that overlooked the Potomac. If Natasha had been given a guess, she would have been on target with his preference for a quiet, elegant backdrop and discreetly speedy service. Over her first glass of wine, she told herself to relax and enjoy.
“Freddie was in the shop today.”
“So I heard.” Amused, Spence lifted his own glass. “She wants her hair curled.”
Natasha’s puzzled look became a smile; she lifted a hand to her own. “Oh. That’s sweet.”
“Easy for you to say. I’ve just gotten the hang of pigtails.”
To her surprise, Natasha could easily picture him patiently braiding the soft, flaxen tresses. “She’s beautiful.” The image of him holding the girl on his lap at the piano slipped back into her mind. “She has your eyes.”
“Don’t look now,” Spence murmured, “but I believe you’ve given me a compliment.”
Feeling awkward, Natasha lifted the menu. “To soften the blow,” she told him. “I’m about to make up for skipping lunch this afternoon.”
True to her word, she ordered generously. As long as she was eating, Natasha figured, the interlude would go smoothly. Over appetizers she was careful to steer the conversation toward subjects they had touched on in class. Comfortably they discussed late fifteenth-century music with its four-part harmonies and traveling musicians. Spence appreciated her genuine curiosity and interest, but was equally determined to explore more personal areas.
“Tell me about your family.”
Natasha slipped a hot, butter-drenched morsal of lobster into her mouth, enjoying the delicate, almost decadent flavor. “I’m the oldest of four,” she began, then became abruptly aware that his fingertips were playing casually with hers on the tablecloth. She slid her hand out of reach.
Her maneuver had him lifting his glass to hide a smile. “Are you all spies?”
A flicker of temper joined the lights that the candle brought to her eyes. “Certainly not.”
“I wondered, since you seem so reluctant to talk about them.” His face sober, he leaned toward her. “Say ‘Get moose and squirrel.’”
Her mouth quivered before she gave up and laughed. “No.” She dipped her lobster in melted butter again, coating it slowly, enjoying the scent, then the taste and texture. “I have two brothers and a sister. My parents still live in Brooklyn.”
“Why did you move here, to West Virginia?”
“I wanted a change.” She lifted a shoulder. “Didn’t you?”
“Yes.” A faint line appeared between his brows as he studied her. “You said you were about Freddie’s age when you came to the States. Do you remember much about your life before that?”
“Of course.” For some reason she sensed he was thinking more of his daughter than of her own memories of the Ukraine. “I’ve always believed impressions made on us in those first few years stay the longest. Good or bad, they help form what we are.” Concerned, she leaned closer, smiling. “Tell me, when you think about being five, what do you remember?”
“Sitting at the piano, doing scales.” It came so clearly that he nearly laughed. “Smelling hothouse roses and watching the snow outside the window. Being torn between finishing my practice and getting to the park to throw snowballs at my nanny.”
“Your nanny,” Natasha repeated, but with a chuckle rather than a sneer he noted. She cupped her chin in her hands, leaning closer, alluring him with the play of light and shadow over her face. “And what did you do?”
“Both.”
“A responsible child.”
He ran a fingertip down her wrist and surprised a shiver out of her. Before she moved her hand away, he felt her pulse scramble. “What do you remember about being five?”
Because her reaction annoyed her, she was determined to show him nothing. She only shrugged. “My father bringing in wood for the fire, his hair and coat all covered with snow. The baby crying—my youngest brother. The smell of the bread my mother had baked. Pretending to be asleep while I listened to Papa talk to her about escape.”
“Were you afraid?”
“Yes.” Her eyes blurred with the memory. She didn’t often look back, didn’t often need to. But when she did, it came not with the watery look of old dreams, but clear as glass. “Oh, yes. Very afraid. More than I will ever be again.”
“Will you tell me?”
“Why?”
His eyes were dark, and fixed on her face. “Because I’d like to understand.”
She started to pass it off, even had the words in her mind. But the memory remained too vivid. “We waited until spring and took only what we could carry. We told no one, no one at all, and set off in the wagon. Papa said we were going to visit my mother’s sister who lived in the west. But I think there were some who knew, who watched us go with tired faces and big eyes. Papa had papers, badly forged, but he had a map and hoped we would avoid the border guards.”
“And you were only five?”
“Nearly six by then.” Thinking, she ran a fingertip around and around the rim of her glass. “Mikhail was between four and five, Alex just two. At night, if we could risk a fire, we would sit around it and Papa would tell stories. Those were good nights. We would fall asleep listening to his voice and smelling the smoke from the fire. We went over the mountains and into Hungary. It took us ninety-three days.”
He couldn’t imagine it, not even when he could see it reflected so clearly in her eyes. Her voice was low, but the emotions were all there, bringing it richness. Thinking of the little girl, he took her hand and waited for her to go on.
“My father had planned for years. Perhaps he had dreamed it all of his life. He had names, people who would help defectors. There was war, the cold one, but I was too young to understand. I understood the fear, in my parents, in the others who helped us. We were smuggled out of Hungary into Austria. The church sponsored us, brought us to America. It was a long time before I stopped waiting for the police to come and take my father away.”
She brought herself back, embarrassed to have spoken of it, surprised to find her hand caught firmly in his.
“That’s a lot for a child to deal with.”
“I also remember eating my first hot dog.” She smiled and picked up her wine again. She never spoke of that time, never. Not even with family. Now that she had, with him, she felt a desperate need to change the subject. “And the day my father brought home our first television. No childhood, even one with nannies, is ever completely secure. But we grow up. I’m a businesswoman, and you’re a respected composer. Why don’t you write?” She felt his fingers tense on hers. “I’m sorry,” she said quickly. “I had no business asking that.”
“It’s all right.” His fingers relaxed again. “I don’t write because I can’t.”
She hesitated, then went on impulse. “I know your music. Something that intense doesn’t fade.”
“It hasn’t mattered a great deal in the past couple of years. Just lately it’s begun to matter again.”
“Don’t be patient.”
When he smiled, she shook her head, at once impatient and regal. Her hand was gripping his now, hard and strong.
“No, I mean it. People always say when the time is right, when the mood is right, when the place is right. Years are wasted that way. If my father had waited until we were older, until the trip was safer, we might still be in the Ukraine. There are some things that should be grabbed with both hands and taken. Life can be very, very short.”
He could feel the urgency in the way her hands gripped his. And he could see the shadow of regret in her eyes. The reason for both intrigued him as much as her words.
“You may be right,” he said slowly, then brought the palm of her hand to his lips. “Waiting isn’t always the best answer.”
“It’s getting late.” Natasha pulled her hand free, then balled it into a fist on her lap. But that didn’t stop the heat from spearing her arm. “We should go.”
She was relaxed again when he walked her to her door. During the short drive home he had made her laugh with stories of Freddie’s ploys to interest him in a kitten.
“I think cutting pictures of cats from a magazine to make you a poster was very clever.” She turned to lean back against her front door. “You are going to let her have one?”
“I’m trying not to be a pushover.”
