“No.” Rachel chuckled again while her brother sat on the arm of the couch, beside his wife. “But I have a feeling it’s going to be a good one. Come on, Bess, this I have to hear.”

She told them, while Alex interrupted a half-dozen times to disagree or correct or put in his own perspective. Even as they sat at the big old table to enjoy Nadia’s pot roast, they were shouting with laughter or calling out questions.

“He put you in a cell, but you still go out with him.” This from Mikhail.

“Well.” Bess ran her tongue over her teeth. “He is kind of cute.”

With a hearty laugh, Yuri slapped his son on the back. “The ladies, they always say so.”

Alex scooped up potatoes. “Thanks, Papa.”

“Is good to be attractive to women.” He wiggled his brows at his wife. “Then, when you pick one, she is helpless to resist.”

“I picked you,” Nadia told him, passing biscuits to Nick. “You were very slow. Like a bear with, ah…” She struggled for the right word. “Soft brains.” She ignored Yuri’s snort of objection. “He did not come to court me. So I courted him.”

“Every time I turn, there she is. In my way.” When he looked at his wife, Bess saw memories and more in his eyes. “There was no prettier girl in the village than Nadia. Then she was mine.”

“I liked your big hands and shy eyes,” she told him. Her smile was quick and lovely. “Soon you were not so shy. But my boys,” she added, turning the smile on Bess, “they were never shy with the girls.”

“Why waste time?” On impulse, Alex put a hand on Bess’s cheek and turned her face to his. Her smile was puzzled. Then surprise shot into her eyes as he covered her mouth with his. Not a quick, friendly kiss, this, but a searing one that made her head buzz.

She had no way of knowing that he’d never kissed a woman not of his family at his mother’s table. Nor that by doing so, he was telling those he loved that this was the woman.

As the table erupted with applause, Bess cleared her throat. “No,” she managed. “Not a bit shy.”

Nadia blinked back tears and raised her glass. She understood what her son had told her and felt the bittersweet pleasure that came from knowing the last of her children had given his heart. “Welcome,” she said to Bess.

A little confused, Bess reached for her glass as all the others were lifted. “Thank you.” She sipped, relieved when the chattering started again.

How easy to fall in love with them, she realized. All of them were so warm, so open, so comfortable with each other. Her parents would never have had such a sweetly intimate conversation at the table. Nor had they ever embraced her with the verve and passion both Yuri and Nadia showed their children.

Was this what she’d been missing all of those years? Bess wondered. Had lacking something like this caused her to be so socially clumsy as a child, and, making up for it, so socially active as an adult?