"What is it?" he demanded as the buzzer sounded.

Instead of answering, Freddie hurried inside, dropped her music portfolio on Rio's table and raced out again. "Sorry to wake you, Nick," she called into the intercom. "If you're free tonight, we'll have dinner. See you."

"Wait a damn—"

But she was already dashing toward the front of the building and her waiting cab. She sat back, let out a long breath and closed her eyes. If he didn't want her—her talents, she corrected—after he went through what she'd left for him, she was back to ground zero.

Think positive, she ordered herself. Straightening, she folded her arms. "Take me to Saks," she told the driver.

When a woman had a potential date with the man she intended to marry, the very least she deserved was a new dress.

Chapter Two

By the time Nick found and dragged on a pair of jeans and stumbled downstairs, Freddie was long gone. He had nothing to curse but the air as he rapped his bare toe against the thick leg of the kitchen table. Hopping, he scowled at the slim leather portfolio she'd left behind.

What the hell was the kid up to? he wondered. Waking him up at dawn, leaving mystery packages in the kitchen. Still grumbling, he snatched up the portfolio and headed back up to his apartment. He needed coffee.

To get into his own kitchen, he expertly stepped over and maneuvered around discarded newspapers, clothing, abandoned sheets of music. He tossed Freddie's portfolio on the cluttered counter and coaxed his brain to remember the basic functions of his coffeemaker.

He wasn't a morning person.

Once the pot was making a hopeful hiss, he opened the refrigerator and eyed the contents blearily. Breakfast was not on the menu at Lower the Boom and was the only meal he couldn't con out of Rio, so his choices were limited. The minute he sniffed the remains of a carton of milk and gagged, he knew cold cereal was out. He opted for a candy bar instead.

Fortified with two sources of caffeine, he sat down, lighted a cigarette, then unzipped the portfolio.

He was set to resent whatever it was that Freddie had considered important enough to wake him up for. Even small-town rich kids should know that bars didn't close until late. And since he'd taken over the late shift from his brother, Nick rarely found his bed before three.

With a huge yawn, he dumped the contents of the portfolio out. Neatly printed sheet music spilled onto the table.

Figures, he thought. The kid had the idea stuck in her head that they were going to work together. And he knew Freddie well enough to understand that when she had something lodged in her brain, it took a major crowbar to pry it loose.

Sure, she had talent, he mused. He would hardly expect the daughter of Spencer Kimball to be tone-deaf. But he didn't much care for partnerships in the first place. True, he'd worked well enough with Lorrey on Last Stop. But Lorrey wasn't a relative. And he didn't smell like candy-coated sin.

Block that thought, LeBeck, he warned himself, and dragged back his disordered hair before he picked up the first sheet that came to hand. The least he could do for his little cousin was give her work a look.

And when he did, his brows drew together. The music was his own. Something he'd half finished, fiddled with on one of the family visits to West Virginia. He could remember now sitting at the piano in the music room of the big stone house, Freddie on the bench beside him. Last summer? he wondered. The summer before? Not so long ago he couldn't recall that she'd been grown up, and that he'd had a little trouble whenever she leaned into him, or shot him one of those looks with those incredibly big gray eyes.

Nick shook his head, rubbed his face and concentrated on the music again. She'd polished it up, he noted, and frowned a bit over the idea of someone fooling with his work. And she'd added lyrics, romantic love-story words that suited the mood of the music.

"It Was Ever You," she'd titled it. As the tune began to play in his head, he gathered up all the sheets and left his half-finished breakfast for the piano in the living room.

Ten minutes later, he was on the phone to the Waldorf and leaving the first of several messages for Miss Frederica Kimball.

It was late afternoon before Freddie returned to her suite, flushed with pleasure and laden with purchases. In her opinion, she'd spent the most satisfying of days, shopping, lunching with Rachel and Bess, then shopping some more. After dumping her bags in the parlor, she headed for the phone. At this time of day, she thought, she could catch some, if not all, of her family at home. The blinking message light caught her eye, but before she could lift the receiver, the phone rang.

"Hello."

"Damn it, Fred, where have you been all day?"

Her lips curved at the sound of Nick's voice. "Hi there. Up and around, are you?''

"Real cute, Fred. I've been trying to get hold of you all day. I was about to call Alex and have him put out an APB." He'd pictured her mugged, assaulted, kidnapped.

She balanced on one foot, toeing off her shoes. "Well, if you had, he'd have told you I spent part of the day having lunch with his wife. Is there a problem?"

"Problem? No, no, why would there be a problem?" Even through the phone, sarcasm dripped. "You wake me up at the crack of dawn—"

"After ten," she corrected.

"And then you run off for hours," he continued, ignoring her. "I seem to recall you yelling something about wanting me to call you."

"Yes." She braced herself, grateful he couldn't see her, or the hope in her eyes. "Did you have a chance to look at the music I left for you?"

He opened his mouth, settled back again and played it cool. "I gave it a look." He'd spent hours reading it, poring over it, playing it. "It's not bad—especially the parts that are mine."

Even though he couldn't see her, her chin shot up. "It's a lot better than not bad—especially the parts that I polished." The gleam in her eyes was pure pride now. "How about the lyrics?"

They ranged from the poetic to the wickedly wry, and had impressed him more than he wanted to admit to either of them. "You've got a nice touch, Fred."

"Oh, be still my heart."

"They're good, okay?" He released a long breath. "I don't know what you want me to do about it, but—"

"Why don't we talk about that? Are you free tonight?"