“Every time I turn, there she is. In my way.” When he looked at his wife, Bess saw memories and more in his eyes. “There was no prettier girl in the village than Nadia. Then she was mine.”
“I liked your big hands and shy eyes,” she told him. Her smile was quick and lovely. “Soon you were not so shy. But my boys,” she added, turning the smile on Bess, “they were never shy with the girls.”
“Why waste time?” On impulse, Alex put a hand on Bess’s cheek and turned her face to his. Her smile was puzzled. Then surprise shot into her eyes as he covered her mouth with his. Not a quick, friendly kiss, this, but a searing one that made her head buzz.
She had no way of knowing that he’d never kissed a woman not of his family at his mother’s table. Nor that by doing so, he was telling those he loved that this wasthewoman.
As the table erupted with applause, Bess cleared her throat. “No,” she managed. “Not a bit shy.”
Nadia blinked back tears and raised her glass. She understood what her son had told her and felt the bittersweet pleasure that came from knowing the last of her children had given his heart. “Welcome,” she said to Bess.
A little confused, Bess reached for her glass as all the others were lifted. “Thank you.” She sipped, relieved when the chattering started again.
How easy to fall in love with them, she realized. All of them were so warm, so open, so comfortable with each other. Her parents would never have had such a sweetly intimate conversation at the table. Nor had they ever embraced her with the verve and passion both Yuri and Nadia showed their children.
Was this what she’d been missing all of those years? Bess wondered. Had lacking something like this caused her to be so socially clumsy as a child, and, making up for it, so socially active as an adult?
Still, what she had had, and what she hadn’t, had forged her into what she was, so she couldn’t regret it. Well, perhaps a little, she mused, falling unknowingly into the family tradition by sneaking the dog bits of food under the table. It was hard not to regret it a little when you saw how lovely it could be to be part of such a solid whole.
Absorbing everything, she glanced around the table. And found Mikhail’s eyes on her. This time she smiled. “You’re doing it again,” she told him.
“Yes. I want to carve you.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Your face.” He reached out to take it in his hand. The conversation continued around them, as if he handled women at the dinner table regularly. “Very fascinating. Mahogany would be best.”
Amused, she sat patiently while he turned her face this way and that. “Is this a joke?”
“Mikhail never jokes about his work,” Sydney commented, coaxing one more green bean into her son. “I’m just surprised it’s taken him so long to demand you sit for him.”
“Sit?” She shook her head, and then her eyes widened as it all came together. “Oh, of course. Stanislaski. The artist. I’ve seen your work. Lusted after it, actually.”
“You will sit for me, and I’ll give you a piece. You’ll choose it.”
“I could hardly turn down an offer like that.”
“Good.” Satisfied, he went back to his meal. “She’s very beautiful,” he said to Alex, in such an offhand way that Bess laughed.
“I’d say that Stanislaski taste runs to the odd, but your wife proves me wrong.”
Mikhail brushed a hand over Sydney’s halo of auburn hair, stroked a finger down her classically lovely face. “There are different kinds of beauty. You’ll come to the studio next week.”
“Don’t bother to argue.” Sydney caught Mikhail’s hand, squeezed it. “It won’t do you a bit of good.”
At the other end of the table, Rachel winced. Nadia leaned closer, spoke gently. “How far apart?”
Rachel gave a little sigh. “Eight, ten minutes. They’re very mild yet.”
“What’s mild?” Zack glanced at her, and then his mouth all but dropped to his knees. “Oh, God, now?Now?”
“Not this very minute.” She would be calm, Rachel told herself and took a deep, cleansing breath to prove it. “I think you have time for some of Mama’s cream cake.”
“She’s in labor.” He gaped across the table at his equally panicked brother.
“We’re not ready here.” Nick stumbled to his feet. “We’re ready back at home. I’m supposed to call the doctor, but I don’t have the number.”
“Mama does,” Rachel assured her husband’s younger brother. Then she lifted a hand to her husband’s. “Take it easy, Muldoon. There’s plenty of time.”
