"Roberts, Nora - Stanislaski 05 - Waiting For Nick" - читать интересную книгу автора (Roberts Nora)

"I'm counting on it." Freddie sat back and rocked a little on the stool,
then asked--casually, she hoped--"So, what's Nick up to? I thought I
might run into him here."

"He's around. In the kitchen, I think, shoveling in some of Rio's pasta
special."

She sniffed the air for effect. "Smells great. I think I'll just wander
on back and say hi."

"Go ahead. And tell Nick we're waiting for him to play for his supper."

"I'll do that."

She carried her wine with her and firmly resisted the urge to fuss with
her hair or tug on her jacket again. Her attitude toward her looks was
one of resignation. 'Cute' was the best she'd ever been able to do with
her combination of small build and slight stature. Long ago she'd given
up on the fantasy that she would blossom into anything that could be
termed lush or glamorous.

Added to a petite figure was madly curling hair that was caught
somewhere between gold and red, a dusting of freckles over a pert nose,
wide gray eyes, and dimples. In her teenage years, she'd pined for sleek
and sophisticated. Or wild and wanton. Curvy and cunning. Freddie liked
to think that, with maturity, she'd accepted herself as she was.

But there were still moments when she mourned being a life-size Kewpie
doll in a family of Renaissance sculptures.

Then again, she reminded herself, if she wanted Nick to take her
seriously as a woman, she had to take herself seriously first.

With that in mind, she pushed open the kitchen door. And her heart
jolted straight into her throat.

There was nothing she could do about it. It had been the same every time
she saw him, from the first time she'd seen him to the last. Everything
she'd ever wanted, everything she'd ever dreamed of, was sitting at the
kitchen table, hunkered over a plate of fettuccine marinara.

Nicholas LeBeck, the bad boy her aunt Rachel had defended with passion
and conviction in the courts. The troubled youth who had been guided
away from the violence of street gangs and back alleys by love and care
and the discipline of family.

He was a man now, but he still carried some of the rebellion and
wildness of his youth. In his eyes, she thought, her pulse humming.
Those wonderful stormy green eyes. He still wore his hair long, pulled
back into a stubby ponytail of dark, bronzed blond. He had a poet's