Something was stirring deep in his gut. Something skittish and dangerous and unwanted. He had an urge, a shockingly strong one, to reach out and run his fingers down that smooth ivory-and-rose cheek. Instead, he took a careful breath and crushed out his cigarette.

"Okay, Fred, convince me."

The hideous tightness around her heart loosened. "I will," she said, "but let's order dinner first."

She chose her meal almost at random. Her mind was too busy formulating what she should say, and how she should say it, to worry about something as insignificant as food. She sipped her wine, watching Nick as he completed his part of the order. When he finished and looked back over at her, she was smiling.

"What?"

"I was just thinking." Reaching over, she laid a hand over his. "About the first time I saw you. You walked into that wonderful chaos at Grandma's and looked as if you'd been hit by a brick."

He smiled back at her, on easy ground again. "I'd never seen anything like it. I never believed people lived that way—all that yelling and laughing, kids running around, food everywhere."

"And Katie marched right up to you and demanded you pick her up."

"Your little sister's always had her eye on me."

"So have I."

He started to laugh, then discovered it wasn't all that funny. "Come on."

"Really. One look at you, and my in-the-middle-of-puberty-hell heart started beating against my ribs. Your hair was a little longer than it is now, a little lighter. You were wearing an earring."

With a half laugh, he rubbed his earlobe. "Haven't done that in a while."

"I thought you were beautiful, exotic, just like the rest of them."

Initial embarrassment at her description turned to puzzlement. "The rest of who?"

"The family. God, those wonderful Ukrainian Gypsy looks, my father's aristocratic handsomeness, Sydney's impeccable glamor, Zack, the tough weather-beaten hunk."

He'd like that one, Nick thought with a grin.

"Then you, somewhere between rock star and James Dean." She sighed, exaggerating the sound. "I was a goner. Every girl's entitled to a memorable first crush. And you were certainly mine."

"Well." He wasn't sure how to react. "I guess I'm flattered."

"You should be. I gave up Bobby MacAroy and Harrison Ford for you."

"Harrison Ford? Pretty impressive." He relaxed as their appetizers were served. "But who the hell's Bobby MacAroy?"

"Only the cutest boy in my eighth-grade class. Of course, he was unaware that I planned for us to get married and have five kids." She lifted her shoulder, let it fall.

"His loss."

"You bet. Anyway, that day I just sort of looked at you, and worked on working up the courage to actually speak. Little freckled Fred," she mused. "Among all those exotic birds."

"You were like porcelain," he murmured. "A little blond doll with enormous eyes. I remember saying something about how you didn't look like your little brother and sister, and you explained that Natasha was technically your stepmother. I felt sorry for you." He looked up again, losing himself for a moment in those depthless eyes. "Because I felt sorry for me—the out-of-step stepbrother. And you sat there, so serious, and told me step was just a word. It hit me," he told her. "It really hit for the first time. And it made a difference."

Her eyes had gone moist and soft. "I never knew that. You seemed so easy with Zack."

"I tried to hate him for a long time. Never quite pulled it off, though I worked pretty hard at making life miserable for both of us. And then, I was hung up on Rachel."

"Hung up? But…" Diplomatically Freddie trailed off and took an avid interest in her food.

He was easy with the memory now, had been for years. "Yeah, I was barely nineteen. And because I figured she was a class act with a great figure and incredible legs, I didn't see how she could resist me. You're blushing, Fred.

"Hey, every boy's entitled to one memorable crush." He grinned at her. "I was pretty ticked when I figured out Rachel and Zack had a thing going, made an idiot out of myself. Then I got over it, because they had something special. And because it finally occurred to me that I loved her, but I wasn't in love with her. That's how crushes end, right?"

She eyed him levelly. "Sometimes. And in a roundabout way, what we've been talking about right here proves my point about why we should work together."

He waited while their appetizers were cleared and the second course was served. Interested, he picked up the wineglass that had just been topped off again. "How?"

To add emphasis to her pitch, Freddie leaned forward. And her perfume drifted over him so that his mouth watered. "We're connected, Nick. On a lot of levels. We have a history, and some similarities in that history that go back to before we met."

"You're losing me."

She gave an impatient shake of her head. "We don't have to get into that. I know you, Nicholas. Better than you may think. I know what your music means to you. Salvation."

His eyes clouded, and he lost interest in his meal. "That's pretty strong."

"It's absolutely accurate," she corrected. "Success is a by-product. It's the music that matters. You'd write it for nothing, you'd play it for nothing. It's what kept you from sinking without a trace, every bit as much as the family did. You need it, and you need me to write the words for it. Because I hear the words, Nick, when I hear your music. I hear what you want it to say, because I understand you. And because I love you."

He studied her, trying to separate emotion and practicality. But she was right. He'd never been able to separate the two with his music. The emotion came first, and she'd tapped into that with the words she'd already written, and with the words she'd just spoken.

"You make a strong case for yourself, Fred."

"For us. We'll make a hell of a team, Nick. So much stronger and better than either of us could be separately."

The music he'd played that morning wound through his head, her lyrics humming with it. It was ever you, in my heart, in my mind. No one before and no one after. For only one face have I always pined. You are the tears and the laughter.