“Well, Xander. Been a long time since we’ve seen you. Never woulda thought that you’d be back under these circumstances.”
Xander turned the slightest bit pink but met Moxie’s gaze head-on. “That makes two of us, Mrs. North.”
“Huh. Can’t imagine you’re too surprised by some of those events. Unless someone planted little receivers in your brain and sent messages about breakin’ the law into your head while you were sleeping.”
At Ian’s right, Darcy wheezed. On his left, Ma covered her eyes and muttered something that he was pretty sure was an appeal to the Almighty.
Xander didn’t flinch. “I made a lot of lousy choices and hurt people in ways I never imagined. I’ll be the first to admit that I was an idiot. But those days are behind me now, and I’m looking forward to a fresh start with a new job and my amazing daughter. Now, did I hear that the dairy recently celebrated one hundred years in business?”
Ooh, smooth.
Moxie gave Xander a watered-down version of the evil eye—no doubt because she knew exactly what game he was playing—but Ma jumped into the breach with tales of ways they had marked the anniversary. Ian stayed silent. The big event had happened right after he’d returned from Tanzania, short weeks after the Carter-Taylor situation had erupted. He had walked through the weekend in a haze of jet lag and heartbreak—not a recipe for retaining many details.
But it kept the conversation going and meant nobody was interrogating him. It also gave him the chance to do something he’d needed to do since their arrival.
He needed to be sure Taylor was happy.
He stole a few glances at her as she followed the conversation with Carter’s arm bumping against hers, her face alight with a smile. Had she ever been that relaxed, that lit up, while she was with him? He couldn’t be sure. They had been good together, but watching her he realized that something was different about her now. She had been nervous around him when he’d first arrived, sure, and the whole hijacked-pregnancy-announcement thing probably had thrown her, but even with that, she seemed more—well—relaxed was the only way he could describe it.
If that was indeed what he was seeing, then he knew in his heart she had been right to end things.
Carter, though...
Darcy, who had been slipping bits of gravy-soaked food to Cady, extended her fork over his plate. “Mind if I steal your peas? Little Miss Piggy has decided she loves them.”
Sharing food—yeah, that was definitely a couple kind of thing. Nice way to get the message across.
“Go for it.” And, because he was trying to be better, he leaned forward to catch the attention of Xander, seated on the other side of Cady. “I think she has your metabolism, Xander. She eats all the time.”
Xander was silent for a moment as if waiting for the other shoe to drop before finally nodding. “Hey, when the food is this good, who can blame her?”
“That’s for sure.” Darcy sounded bright and perky. All for show, he knew, given the way her fist clenched the fork like a dagger.
“So, Ian,” Moxie began, and his appetite disappeared. “What exactly do you do at your job?”
Moxie knew the answer. She had grilled him on the subject during every phone call. Probably ferreting out information to use to lure him back home, but it had given them something to discuss at a time when a hell of a lot of topics had been off-limits. So, if there had been a hidden agenda, he could live with that.
“Different things on different days,” he said slowly. “That’s one of the reasons I enjoy it.”
“Here’s what I want to know,” Xander piped up. “The blacksmith thing. Where did that come from? I don’t remember you ever saying you had a burning need to shoe a horse. Or are you doing your Superman imitations, like bending steel rods with your bare hands?”
The truth was that he had picked it up on a whim when he’d seen a flyer for a class being offered the autumn right after Xander’s visit. His only motive had been to find something to fill the evening hours, to keep him from dwelling on how his life had belly flopped. Finding that he liked it, that he was half-decent at it, had been a happy bonus.
But he couldn’t say any of that in this crowd.
He shoved a bite of chicken into his mouth to buy a moment. Darcy must have picked up on the ploy, for she placed a warmly protective hand on his forearm.
“Xander, a word of warning. Don’t mention shoeing horses and blacksmithing to Ian unless you’re ready for a very detailed lecture.” She patted his arm, her voice warmly indulgent. “Long story short, farriers take care of horses. Blacksmiths forge things from wrought iron or steel. Farriers need some blacksmithing skills, but a blacksmith might never see a horse. Ian makes a lot of beautiful pieces with a practical purpose, like candleholders and hooks for hanging things.”
“Sounds like you know a lot about it, Darcy.” Carter smiled. “Are you a blacksmith, as well?”
Her laugh pealed around Ian. “Me? Heavens, no. I am the least artistic person on the planet. No, anything I know has come from hanging out with Ian, that’s all.” She punctuated her words with a shoulder bump that left him grinning on the outside but issuing stern reminders to himself on the inside.
Damn, she was good at this.
“Oh.” Carter helped himself to a bread stick. “I thought that might have been what drew you two together.”
Beneath the table, an elbow connected with his ribs.
“No, sorry. The only thing I make is websites for authors.”
“And beautiful little girls,” Xander added, grabbing a bit of carrot from the high chair before Cady could send it to the ground. He always had been a fast learner.
“So now I’m curious.” Ma’s smile was all innocence but Ian knew better than to relax. “Did things just evolve, or was there a moment when you two looked at each other and figured out that everything had changed?”
All eyes and ears turned to Ian. Forks hovered over plates, heads tilted and he saw with dismay that Darcy had been doubly correct. They needed a story. Not simply because folks were curious, but because this particular crowd had a vested interest in knowing he was happy, that he had moved on and that there was still magic in his life.
He really should have listened to Darcy.
“Oh,” she said in that overly bright way. “You know how it is. He was in the apartment and I brought Cady home—”
“Christmas,” he blurted, and the moment he said it, he knew it was the right answer. Christmas was all about miracles. People expected things to happen then.
“Christmas?” There was a world of questions behind Moxie’s short utterance.
“I... Yeah.” Memories tumbled through his head, with one outshining the others the way the star of Bethlehem must have stood out in the heavens. “Last year. Darcy decided she needed a real tree.”
Her eyes widened but she played along. “It was Cady’s first Christmas. I couldn’t have anything fake.”
“Right. She twisted my arm and made me go to some cut-your-own place. I think there was a bribe involving hot chocolate and homemade cookies. So we got Cady all bundled and drove to this farm—”
“An hour outside of town, and of course it was freezing cold—”
“And when we were almost there, it started raining.”
“Pouring,” she elaborated happily.
“It was about as miserable as you could imagine. Just when we pulled into the lot, it decided to come down in sheets. We sat there and stared out the window.”
“Cady may have learned her first swearwords,” Darcy said.
“Darce said to forget it. She’d get a tree from a lot. But I knew she wanted the real thing.” He grinned down at her, and it was as if their audience had faded into some fuzzy watercolor background. As far as he could tell, he was back in that cramped car with the rain battering the roof and the windows fogging up, feeling cut off from the rest of the world and not the least bit unhappy about it. In fact, as he recalled, he’d sat there and thought that if the
zombie apocalypse had erupted at that moment, his only regret would be that he hadn’t kissed Darcy.
“So what did you do?” Taylor’s soft question pulled him out of the memory.
What did he do? In reality, he had been so blown away by the direction of his thoughts that he had jumped out of the car, grabbed the saw and cut down the first tree he’d spied. It had been lopsided and way too tall, but none of that had registered at the time. All he had been aware of was the sweet smell of fresh-cut pine and a fear that had chilled him even more than the rain—the fear that he was straying way too close to a line that should never be crossed.
But this audience needed the happy ending.
Stick to the truth as much as possible, Darcy had said. It made everything easier.
Maybe that was true for details. But feelings—nope. Totally different story.
“Well, boy, don’t leave us hanging,” Moxie said. “What happened next?”
He looked at Darcy. Mistake. With her eyes wide and her lips slightly parted, he knew she was remembering, too. And if he was going to be totally honest—because with all the secrets and lies floating around this table, a little honesty sounded like a great idea—she probably remembered the way the air between them had seemed to crackle for a few seconds. The way the world had shrunk down to the space of the front seat. The way, for a moment or two, they both had known exactly what was going through the other’s mind.
Kind of like the way he could read her thoughts right at this moment. It wasn’t hard. They were written in the swirl of confusion and wonder in her eyes, painted in the pink of her cheeks, carved in the curve of her lips.
A sudden clang jerked him back to his family, to reality. Darcy jumped, too, and broke into nervous laughter as she turned to Cady, busy smashing a napkin ring against her tray.
“Think she’s trying to tell you to hurry up and finish your story, Ian?” Ma’s voice had that indulgent tone she only employed in the presence of babies and puppies.
What was he supposed to say now?
Darcy to the rescue. “I can’t do justice to the story the way Ian can—” she flashed him a smile guaranteed to set romantic hearts everywhere fluttering “—but I can tell you this. We kind of forgot about the tree for a while.”
Chuckles erupted around the table. Moxie nodded in seeming approval. Carter applauded. Cady squealed and clapped her hands together as well, setting off another round of laughter. Ma said something about dessert. Dad rose to clear dishes and the danger passed.
He should have felt relieved. He was, in a way. People were convinced. Xander seemed to believe them. Mission accomplished. Except every time he looked at Darcy, he couldn’t help but wonder what would have happened that day if he’d followed his gut and reached for her instead of for the car door.
CHAPTER TEN
WITH DINNER OVER and Xander and Carter on dish duty, Ian made sure Darcy had everything she needed to bathe Cady before deciding he had earned that walk by the river. He dragged Lulu out of the kitchen and slipped out unseen.
He’d located a new stick for throwing and made it halfway across the yard before he remembered an important point about life in the North household: unseen and unnoticed were at very different ends of the spectrum.
“Hey, there.” Ma ambled toward him, her hands in the pockets of well-patched jeans. With a contented smile on her face and a daisy stuck haphazardly behind her ear, she looked closer to his age than her own.
“What’s up?” He threw the stick far down the grassy shoreline. Lulu took off at a trot.
“Not much. Just wanted to see how it’s going. If you were settled in, if you need anything, what the hell you’re doing springing this girlfriend thing on us out of the blue. The usual.”
Oh, yeah. Now he remembered why he had stayed away for so long. It hadn’t been all because of Carter and Taylor.
“Everything’s fine. The rooms are great.”
“And Darcy?”
“Come on, Ma. If I’d told you I was seeing someone, you would have... I don’t know.” He shouldn’t have thrown the stick so hard. He could have used a distraction at the moment. “It didn’t feel right, okay? I didn’t want to get anybody’s hopes up.”
“Ours or yours?”
“Not a fair question.”
“I’m your mother. I get to ask whatever I want and you have to answer.”
“I don’t recall any clause about that in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.”
“It’s in the fine print. Seriously, Ian. A little warning would have been nice.”
“I’m sorry about that part.” At least that was true. “This thing with Xander kind of forced our hand.”
“Understandable. But if Helene had been home, and Darcy and the baby had gone there, would you have opened up to us then?”
“Hard to say.”
“As I suspected.” She whistled and pulled a dog biscuit from her pocket, waving it in the air. Lulu, who had been ambling in their direction, kicked it up a notch and raced back.
“Why do you have dog treats? You don’t have any pets.”
“Carter and Taylor have one.”
“They do?”
“Yep. I think it was Taylor’s way of easing him into the realities of feeding and walking and poop.”
“How’s that working?”
She shrugged. “You know Carter. Brilliant in the office, clueless in real life. I hope he watches you with little Cadence. He’s going to need all the fathering help he can get.”
Oh, hell, there it was. Janice North claimed to be down-to-earth and practical—and in most matters, she was—but when it came to her sons she had a fanciful streak wider than the St. Lawrence.
Maybe he could distract her.
“I thought that wasn’t public knowledge yet.”
“There’s public, and then there’s a woman who survived multiple pregnancies watching another woman racing for the bathroom every twenty minutes. I know how to connect the dots. When were you going to tell us about Darcy?”
“When it felt right. You know, Hank is right here in town. He can give Carter the heads-up on being a dad.”
“Yes, but he hasn’t dealt with a baby in a long time. Though, between you and me, I have my suspicions about Brynn.”
“You think she’s pregnant, too?”
“Not positive yet. But if she isn’t, I think they might be at the trying stage.”
“Well, that would be nice. Cousins the same age. Now all you have to do is get Cash settled and your work here will be done.”
She gave him the look he remembered well from his youth—the one that said he was as dumb as a box of rocks. “Seriously, Ian? You think that’s how it works? I see the way you are with Cady. Do you think you could ever stop worrying about her just because she found someone?”
Maybe he should start laying the groundwork for the springing of the truth. “That’s not going to be my call. She has a father.”
“Don’t be an ass. If you love the child, which you obviously do, then she will always have a place in your heart. Furthermore, you’re already playing a bigger role in her life than her father is. I know there are reasons for that, and things are shifting. But if you and Darcy are serious—”
“I am not having this conversation.”
“Oh, yes, you are. If you two are serious, well, biology isn’t always destiny. Xander doesn’t know what he’s in for yet. Not really. He may turn out to be an excellent father, and if so, bully for him. It’s impossible for a child to have too many loving people in her life. But she and Darcy are a package deal. If you’re involved with one, you’re involved with both.”
“Is there a point to any of this? Besides telling me things I already know, I mean.”
“Of course there is. I’m too busy to wander off on tangents without a point.” She stepped closer and squeezed his shoulder. “Are you happy?”
Such simple words, but coming from her they carried more meanings than he cared to separate out.
“Yeah. I am.”
“Really?” She looked him up and down. Just in case a truth fairy was hiding behind his back, maybe. “Or are you saying that so I won’t worry?”
“If I were trying to spare you, you honestly think I would say anything else?”
“Of course not. But I’m well aware that my sons will go to great lengths to keep from worrying me, never realizing that when it blows up in their face, I only worry more.”
He bent over in an elaborate search for Lulu’s stick before Ma could read the truth in his face.
“Things are good. You don’t have to lie awake at night over me.”
“So, you are happy with Darcy, even though you didn’t see fit to share this relationship with us?”
“Forget the guilt trip, Ma. It’s not gonna work.”
“So you say. How are you doing with the Xander factor?”
“I’m dealing with it.” Though his gut told him that helping Darcy deal was going to be the most difficult piece of this pie. “It’s not a great situation, but it’s still new. Give us time.”
“Fair enough. Let’s talk about something that has had time. How is it being back here?”
There it was—the six-million-dollar question.
“It’s not the easiest thing I’ve ever done.” The short blast of a cruise ship horn pulled his attention to the river and the last bits of daylight dancing on the surface. “But it’s not the hardest, either.”
Her nod was the short, brisk type that let him know his answer had been measured and found acceptable. “Given the circumstances, that’s probably appropriate.”
He tossed the stick and waited, pretty sure at least one more question was on the horizon.
“So this job Moxie wants you to take. What do you think of it?”
Bingo.
“It sounds interesting.” He walked slowly along the shore, following Lulu’s path. Ma matched his pace. “I think it’s great that Moxie wants to add a charitable foundation to Northstar. And, yeah, it was a nice surprise when she asked if I wanted to be part of it.”
“No surprise at all. Your heart was always more inclined toward helping people than making money, though you did a fine job of that part when you were at the dairy. This would let you blend both.”
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