“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 IRS.”

“Tash, I’m serious.”

“So am I.” When her pins worked loose again, she gave up and yanked them out. “Every American businessperson is afraid of the IRS.”

“We’re talking about Spence Kimball.”

“No,” Natasha corrected. “You’re talking about Spence Kimball.”

“I thought we were friends.”

Surprised by Annie’s tone, Natasha stopped tidying the racetrack display her Saturday visitors had wrecked. “We are. You know we are.”

“Friends talk to each other, Tash, confide in each other, ask advice.” Puffing out a breath, Annie stuffed her hands into the pockets of her baggy jeans. “Look, I know that things happened to you before you came here, things you’re still carrying around but never talk about. I figured I was being a better friend by not asking you about it.”

Had she been so obvious? Natasha wondered. All this time she’d been certain she had buried the past and all that went with it—deeply. Feeling a little helpless, she reached out to touch Annie’s hand. “Thank you.”

With a dismissive shrug, Annie turned to flick the lock on the front door. The shop was empty now, the bustle of the afternoon only an echo. “Remember when you let me cry on your shoulder after Don Newman dumped me?”

Natasha pressed her lips in to a thin line. “He wasn’t worth crying over.”