His long strides ate up the ground, those wonderful muscles bunching as he went into a slide. Rachel crowded the plate, apparently undisturbed by the thought of nearly six feet of solid male hurtling toward her. There was a collision, a tangle of limbs and a great deal of swearing.

“Out.” Nadia’s voice rang clearly over the din.

In the majors, they called it clearing the benches.

Every member of the family rushed toward the plate—not to fuss over the two forms still nursing bruises, but to shout and gesture. Rachel punched Mikhail in the chest. He responded by covering her face with his hand and shoving her back onto the grass. With a happy shout, Brandon jumped into the fray to climb up his father’s back.

Sydney had never envied anything more.

“We can never play without fighting,” Natasha said from behind her. She was smiling, looking over Sydney’s shoulder at the chaos in her backyard. Her arms still felt the slight weight of the baby she’d just rocked to sleep. “You’re wise to watch from a distance.”

But when Sydney turned, Natasha saw that her eyes were wet.

“Oh, please.” Quickly she moved to Sydney’s side to take her hand. “Don’t be upset. They don’t mean it.”

“No. I know.” Desperately embarrassed, she blinked the tears back. “I wasn’t upset. It was just—it was silly. Watching them was something like looking at a really beautiful painting or hearing some incredibly lovely music. I got carried away.”

She didn’t need to say more. Natasha understood after Spence’s explanation of Sydney’s background that there had never been softball games, horseplay or the fun of passionate arguments in her life.

“You love him very much.”

Sydney fumbled. That quiet statement wasn’t as easy to respond to as Rachel’s cocky question had been.

“It’s not my business,” Natasha continued. “But he is special to me. And I see that you’re special to him. You don’t find him an easy man.”

“No. No, I don’t.”

Natasha glanced outside again, and her gaze rested on her husband, who was currently wrestling both Freddie and Brandon on the grass. Not so many years before, she thought, she’d been afraid to hope for such things.

“Does he frighten you?”

Sydney started to deny it, then found herself speaking slowly, thoughtfully. “The hugeness of his emotions sometimes frightens me. He has so many, and he finds it so easy to feel them, understand them, express them. I’ve never been the type to be led by mine, or swept away by them. Sometimes he just overwhelms me, and that’s unnerving.”

“He is what he feels,” Natasha said simply. “Would you like to see some of it?” Without waiting for an answer, she walked over to a wall of shelves.