She drummed up the energy to open one eye. "How many times do I have to tell you, writers are every bit as observant as cops? You noticed it, didn't you? The way they've started to look at each other, circle around?"

"Maybe." He wasn't certain he was entirely comfortable with the idea yet. "Somebody ought to clue Natasha in."

Bess gave a lazy snort. "Alexi, compared to a mother, cops and writers are deaf, dumb and blind." She snuggled closer. "Strawberries, huh?"

Across town, Rachel and Zack made a final check on their kids. Rachel eased the headset off her daughter's ears while Zack tucked a stuffed rabbit more securely under her limp arm—a tribute, Rachel often thought, to the contrasts of a growing girl.

"She looks more like you every day," Zack murmured as they stood for a moment, watching their firstborn sleep.

"Except for that Muldoon chin," Rachel agreed. "Stubborn as stone."

Arm in arm, they walked out and across the hall, into the room shared by their sons. They both let out a long, helpless sigh. You could, if you were a parent and had particularly sharp eyes, just make out the two sprawled bodies amid the debris. Clothes, toys, models, sports equipment, were scattered, piled or precariously perched on nearly every surface on the top bunk, Jake's arm and leg draped over the mattress. A devoted guardian angel or pure good luck kept him from rolling over and falling into a heap on a tumble of possessions. Below, Gideon was no more than a lump beneath the tangled sheets.

"Are you sure they're ours?" Rachel wondered as she gave her older son a nudge that had him muttering in his sleep and rolling to safety.

"I ask myself that same question every day. I caught Gideon telling one of Mik's kids that if they tied on bed sheets like a cape, then jumped off Yuri's roof, they'd fly back to Manhattan."

Rachel closed her eyes and shuddered. "Don't tell me. Some things I'm better off not knowing." She uncovered Gideon's head on the pillow, discovered it was his feet, and tried the other side.

"I meant to ask you, how do you feel about Nick and Fred?"

"Working together? I think it's great" Zack swore as his stockinged foot stepped hard on an airplane propeller. "Damn it."

"I've told you to wear hip boots in here. And that's not what I meant. I meant how do you feel about the romance."

One hand massaging his wounded instep, Zack stopped dead. "What romance? Whose romance?"

"Nick and Fred. Keep up with the tour, Muldoon."

He straightened, very slowly. "What are you talking about?"

"About the fact that Freddie is head over heels in love with Nick. And the fact that he keeps shoving his hands into his pockets whenever she gets within arm's reach. Like he's afraid if he touches her he'll—"

"Hold on. Just hold on." Because his voice rose, she shushed him, and he grabbed her arm to pull her into the hall. "Are you telling me that the two of them are interested in—"

"I'd say they're way beyond interested."

Amused, Rachel tilted her head. "What's the matter, Muldoon? Worried about your baby brother?"

"No. Yes. No." Frustrated, he dragged a hand through his hair. "Are you sure about this?"

"Of course I am, and if you weren't so used to looking at Nick as if he were still a teenager with delinquent tendencies, you'd have seen it too."

Zack let his shoulders sag against the wall behind him. "Maybe I did see it. Something about the way he acted when she went out with this friend of ours."

Rachel's sense of fun kicked into high gear. "Uh-oh—jealous, was he? Sorry I missed it."

"He was ready to strangle me for introducing them." Slowly, Zack's lips curved. Then a laugh rumbled up. "Son of a gun. Freddie and Nick. Who'd have thought?"

"Anybody with eyes. She's been mooning over him for years."

"You're right. And she may be a sweetheart, but she's no pushover. I'd say my little brother has trouble on his hands." He looked back at his wife. Her hair was loose and tumbled. She was wearing only a thin robe that tended to slip, just a little bit, off her right shoulder. His grin widened. "And speaking of romance, Your Honor, I just had a thought, may it please the court."

Leaning forward, he whispered something in her ear that had her brows shooting up and her own mouth bowing. "Well, well, that's a very interesting suggestion, Muldoon. Why don't we discuss it—in my chambers?"

"Thought you'd never ask."

In their rambling house in the Connecticut countryside, Sydney lay sprawled over her husband. Her heart was still pounding like a jungle drum, her blood singing in harmony.

Amazing, she thought. After all these years, she never quite got used to just what the man could do to her body. She hoped she never would.

"Cold?" he murmured, skimming a hand over her naked back.

"Are you kidding?" She lifted her still-glowing face to his, meeting his eyes in the flickering glow of candlelight. "You're so beautiful, Mikhail."

"Don't start that."

She chuckled and trailed a line of kisses up his chest. "I love you, Mikhail."

"That you can start." He let out a contented sigh as she settled into the curve of his shoulder. For a time, they lay in blissful silence, watching the shadows dance.

"Do you think we will plan a wedding soon?" he asked.

Sydney didn't ask what wedding. Though they hadn't yet discussed it, she understood what he meant. And who. "Nick's not sure of his moves, or his needs. I think Freddie's sure of the latter for herself, but far from sure of the former. It's sweet, watching them watch each other."

"Reminds me of another time," he mused. "Another couple."

She shifted to smile at him. "Oh, does it?"

"You were very stubborn, milaya."

"You were very arrogant."

"Yes." It didn't offend him in the least. "And if I had been less, you'd have been an old maid, married to your business." He barely registered the punch in the stomach. "But I saved you from that."

"Now who's going to save you?" She rolled on top of him.

Blissfully unaware of her family's interest, Freddie grabbed her just-hooked-up cordless phone in her new apartment. Almost dancing with excitement, she punched out the number quickly. Her father, she knew, would be in class, but her mother would be at the toy store.