“I will give you one to trade.”

“Make it the glaze for this ham, and I guarantee he’ll give you anything.” Zack sampled another bite. “It’s great.”

“You will take some home,” Nadia ordered. “Make sandwiches.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Nick grinned.

Rachel bided her time, waiting until dinner was over and three of the four apple pies her mother had baked had been devoured. With just a little urging, Nadia was persuaded to play the piano. After a time, she and Spence played a duet, the music flowing out over the sound of clattering dishes and conversation.

She saw the way Nick glanced over, watching, listening. As cleverly as a general aligning his troops, she dropped down on the bench when Spence and Nadia took a break. She held out a hand, inviting Nick to join her.

“I shouldn’t have had that second piece of pie,” she said with a sigh.

“Me either.” It was difficult to decide how to tell her the way the afternoon had made him feel. He wouldn’t have believed people lived this way. “Your mom’s great.”

“Yeah, I think so.” Very casually, she turned and began to noodle with the keys. “She and Papa love these Sundays when we can all get together.”

“Your dad, he was saying how the house would get bigger when the kids left home. But now he thinks they’ll have to add on a couple of rooms to hold everyone. I guess you get together like this a lot.”

“Whenever we can.”

“They didn’t seem to mind you brought me and Zack along.”

“They like company.” She tried a chord, wincing at the clash of notes. “This always looks so easy when Spence or Mama does it.”

“Try this.” He put his hand over hers, guiding her fingers.

“Ah, better. But I don’t see how anyone can play different things with each hand. At the same time, you know.”

“You don’t think about it that way. You just have to let it happen.”

“Well…”

She trailed off and, unable to resist, he began to improvise blues. When the music moved through him, he forgot he was in a room crowded with people and let it take over. Even when the room fell silent, he continued, wrapped up in the pleasure of creating sound and feeling from the keys. When he played, he wasn’t Nick LeBeck, outcast. He was someone he didn’t really understand yet, someone he couldn’t quite see and yearned desperately to be always.

He eased into half-remembered tunes, filling them out with his own interpretation, letting the music swing with his mood from blues to boogie-woogie to jazz and back again.

When he paused, grinning to himself from the sheer pleasure it had given him to play, Zack laid a hand on his shoulder and snapped him back to reality.

“Where’d you learn to do that?” The amazement in Zack’s voice was reflected in his eyes. “I didn’t know you could do that.”

With a shrug, Nick wiped his suddenly nervous hands on his thighs. “I was just fooling around.”

“That was some fooling around.”

Cautious, trying to put a label on the tone of Zack’s voice, Nick glanced back. “It’s no big deal.”

Grinning from ear to ear, Zack shook his head. “Man, to somebody who can’t play ‘Chopsticks,’ that was one whale of a big deal.” Pride was bubbling through the amazement. “It was great. Really great.”

The pleasure working its way into him made Nick almost as uneasy as the criticism he’d expected. It was then he realized that everyone had stopped talking and was looking at him. Color crept into his cheeks. “Look, I said it was no big deal. I was just banging on the keys.”

“That was some very talented banging.” With Katie on his hip, Spencer moved to the piano. “Ever think about studying seriously?”

Flabbergasted, Nick stared down at his hands. It had been one thing to sit across the table from Spencer Kimball, and another entirely to have the renowned composer discussing music with him. “No… I mean, not really. I just fool around sometimes, that’s all.”

“You’ve got the touch, and the ear.” Catching Rachel’s eye, he passed her Katie and changed positions with her so that he sat with Nick on the edge of the piano bench. “Know any Muddy Waters?”

“Some. You dig Muddy Waters?”

“Sure.” He began to play the bass. “Can you pick it up?”

“Yeah.” Nick laid his hands on the keys and grinned. “Yeah.”

“Not too shabby,” Rachel murmured to Zack.

He was still staring at his brother, dumbfounded. “He never told me. Never a word.” When Rachel reached for his hand, he gripped hard. “I guess he did to you.”

“A little, enough to make me want to try this. I didn’t know he was that good.”

“He really is, isn’t he?” Overwhelmed, he pressed his lips to Rachel’s hair. Nick was too involved to notice, though several pairs of eyes observed the gesture. “Looks like I’m going to have to get my hands on a piano.”

Rachel leaned her head against his shoulder. “You’re all right, Muldoon.”

It took him nearly a week to arrange it, but taking another deep dip into his savings, Zack bought an upright piano. With Rachel’s help, he dragged furniture around the apartment to make room for it.

Puffing a bit, her hands on her hips, she surveyed the space they had cleared under the window. “I wonder if it wouldn’t be better against that wall there.”

“You’ve already changed your mind three times. This is it.” He took a long pull from a cold beer. “For better or worse.”

“You’re not marrying the stupid piano. You’re arranging it. And I really think—”

“Keep thinking, and I’ll pour this over your head.” He caught her chin to tilt her head up for a kiss. “And it’s not a stupid piano. The guy assured me it was the best for the money.”

“Don’t get started on that again.” She eased closer to link her arms around his neck. “Nick doesn’t need a baby grand.”

“I’d just like to have done a little better for him.”

“Muldoon.” She pressed her mouth to his. “You did good. When’s it supposed to get here?”

“Twenty minutes ago.” Wound up, he began to pace. “If they blow this after I went through all that business to get Nick out for a few hours—”