Balancing Act (Silhouette Special Edition)

by Darcy, Lilian

  “Please come in,” said Lisa-Belle McGraw at last, her voice sweet and polite. They hadn’t been standing here in the doorway all that long. Maybe half a minute. But it seemed like half of forever.

  She looked even more nervous than Brady felt. That was saying something, since he felt as though his tie was choking him and he wasn’t even wearing one. She held her daughter’s soft dark curls against her cheek in a gesture of tender possession, unconsciously emphasizing the contrast in their coloring.

  Brady had expected they’d need to sit the two girls down side by side in order to compare them properly and turn their suspicions into certainty. Maybe even dress them in similar outfits or something, in order to decide whether to go ahead with the blood tests. But already it wasn’t necessary, and blood tests would only be the icing on the cake.

  Just the way Colleen moved, the expression on her face, everything about her except her clothes, was so identical to Scarlett. He could tell that she’d woken from her late nap in tears, because that was what Scarlett always did, and that was how she always looked when it happened. Red and crumpled, sad and irritable.

  He knew that even though Colleen had stopped crying, she would look a little zoned-out for several more minutes, and she would cling to whoever was holding her and occasionally turn to bury her face in their shoulder.

  Yep, there she goes…

  It was uncanny to feel as if he already knew this little girl. It tugged painfully on his heart. He remembered how he and Stacey had both bonded instantly with Scarlett, the first moment she was laid in Stacey’s arms.

  “This your baby,” the orphanage worker had told them, in her broken English, and they’d loved their little girl from that moment on. How could Brady meet her twin sister and not start to feel the same?

  His heart lurched again. Sideways. Out of balance.

  Shift over in there, Scarlett, and make room. You don’t have the place to yourself anymore. There’s someone else I need to love now.

  Someone who already had a family of her own and a life here in St. Paul.

  How on earth would they deal with this?

  Scarlett had napped early, and she was bright as a button in his arms right now—curious and happy and ready to toddle off at breakneck speed and explore. Ms. McGraw knew all about that, Brady could tell. Just as he knew her child, this stranger knew his little daughter. Was her heart lurching sideways, too?

  After another intense look at Scarlett, she scraped her teeth over her bottom lip and repeated, even more nervously, “Please, you really must come in!”

  She reached out, pushing the storm door open a little wider. The movement tightened the light fabric of a pink-and-blue summery top across her breasts. She had a neat figure, petite and curved just right, enough to give a man something to hold, and something to watch when she walked.

  Brady stepped forward and suddenly he caught her scent for the first time. It reached out and drew him in, and his stride and his breathing both faltered as he walked quickly past her, still caught in its sweet net. It was like lilacs after rain, cool and intoxicating. It was like…

  No. No!

  He wasn’t a poetic man. It wasn’t like lilacs and rain at all. It was a punch in the gut that almost knocked him off his feet. It was a trip wire stretched across his path. Responding to Lisa-Belle McGraw as a man was the last thing in the world he’d expected or wanted. Primitive. Beyond logic or personality. And potentially disastrous.

  He’d been there before, with Stacey, when he was too young to know any better—going crazy for her body and never stopping to find out who she really was. Finding out had cooled the craziness as time went on, but by then it was too late. Brady wasn’t going to make the same mistake again.

  It was vital to keep his head clear here. He had something else to think about. Something much more vital to his emotional well-being than the physical tricks a female body could play. And apparently Ms. McGraw had her eye on the ball much better than he did.

  “If people see us and get an inkling as to what’s going on…” she was saying behind him. “I don’t want to have to tell anyone about this yet. Not until we’ve worked out what it means. I—I have an idea it’s going to be, uh, pretty big.”

  “Yeah, you’re right,” he agreed, his voice gruff and deep, and went ahead of her into the house, out of reach of the aura that had briefly ensnared him.

  As he responded to Scarlett’s wriggling and put her onto her feet, first impressions piled into his mind. Ms. McGraw had a nice house on a street just two blocks south of the Minnesota governor’s mansion. He’d already noted the quiet prosperity of the neighborhood as he drove here. It was similar to the neighborhood he’d bought into in Columbus several years ago, when his construction business really took off.

  The interior of the house was immaculate, furnished in florals and pastels, with a thick cream rug covering most of the hardwood floor. Photos and knickknacks were everywhere: decorative plates on the dusky-pink walls, and fresh flowers in vases on the old-fashioned piano as well as on the dining table he glimpsed in the next room. It was a real home, reflecting one caring woman’s taste. It wasn’t a place you’d easily uproot from.

  And Lisa-Belle McGraw looked as if she belonged. She was a natural Minnesota blond princess, with hair that reminded him of that fairy tale, “Rumpelstiltskin,” about the goblin with the unique name who had known how to spin straw into gold. He could easily have been practising his talent on this woman’s hair. Silky, straw-colored strands, as straight as a waterfall, mingled with shiny threads that looked like pure gold in the last of the day’s September sunlight slanting through her living-room windows.

  She was too pale, even with makeup, and it made both her eyes and her lips stand out. Eyes like a tropical ocean, lips that glistened like candy melting in the heat. She’d dressed up for this meeting, he guessed, as he took in her strappy pumps and the pastel swirl of feminine fabric that clung to her body.

  She was as pretty as he’d seen in her photo in Parenting Now. Actually, she was more than pretty. Definitely not something he wanted to be so aware of, he reminded himself. He wasn’t in the market for a new relationship any time soon, and certainly not with this woman. Even if he liked the way she smelled.

  He needed to move farther away from the memories of his marriage first.

  His heart sank as he considered the possibility of emotional scenes, energy-sapping manipulation, hidden motives and downright dishonesty. In a situation like this, those things might easily happen if he didn’t play everything right. He’d had more than enough of all that with Stacey, and though he’d grieved for her in a complicated, upside-down kind of way, he couldn’t help doubting that they would have stayed the distance, had she lived. By the end, she’d lied to him a few times too often.

  “Do you want to come out back, where they can play?”

  Ms. McGraw’s question dragged his focus back to where it ought to have been all along. Scarlett was toddling around the living room, eager to explore. Colleen watched her from the safety of her mother’s arms.

  “I expect Scarlett would like that,” he said.

  “We can sit on the deck and have some coffee while we watch them.” She clasped her hands briefly, then brushed a stray silk ribbon of hair away from her face. “I—this is such a weird situation. I’m sorry, I don’t know where to begin or what to suggest.”

  “Coffee sounds good,” he answered gruffly.

  Coffee was the tip of the iceberg. It was the next twenty years that occupied both their minds.

  “If you want to wash up first…?” she offered, her politeness apparently ingrained and automatic. Once again, her voice was sweet and clear.

  “Yeah. Thanks.”

  She indicated a little powder room tucked away beneath the stairs, and he barged into it, needing a few moments alone, and hoping that cool water streaming over his hands would cool his whole body down.

  The exercise wasn’t a success. For a start, Scarlett got clingy
and stood outside the door, crying persistently. He heard that sweet female voice again, inviting her to go out back and try the slide, but Scarlett wasn’t having any of that. No instant, instinctive bonding for her, thank you very much. She was too young to recognize the mirrorlike familiarity of that other little girl, and eighteen months was a clingy age. Brady wanted to hurry back out to her, which made him even clumsier than he’d already felt.

  Ms. McGraw had maddening soaps—tiny pastel-toned seashell shapes, nestling in a glass dish. His big hands knocked several of them out onto the pristine vanity unit, and when he’d finally grabbed one, his wet palms sent it spurting out of his fingers. It ricocheted off the door, hit the bud vase on the windowsill and knocked it over. An apricot-hued rose fell to the floor.

  Brady had never liked fussy decor, and now he knew why. If Ms. McGraw had heard the soap hitting the door and the vase hitting the sill, she probably wondered what on earth he was doing in here.

  And Scarlett was still crying. Louder than ever. He could hear her little hands, batting at the door.

  At least nothing was broken. He pressed his hands together, across his nose and mouth, and blew a long breath through his fingers, then studied his image in the mirror. He wasn’t happy about what he saw.

  For a start, he should have shaved again at the motel. He looked like a thug. His jaw had felt as rough as a metal rasp just now beneath his tension-knotted hands.

  And he was too casually dressed. He should have worn a buttoned-down shirt and a jacket. Like this, with his gut still churning, he felt that he didn’t project enough authority or enough intellect. He might need both those qualities, if he and this woman disagreed, at a fundamental level, about what they needed to do.

  In the brains department, he wasn’t a pushover. He had a college degree, and the construction company he owned was tendering for bigger and more important jobs every year and getting them. He’d never doubted himself in that area. But he wasn’t great with words, and emotional scenes tied his tongue in knots.

  There were some emotional scenes coming up. There had to be! They had the futures of two little girls weighing in the balance, and they lived in cities that were more than seven hundred miles apart.

  What if Lisa-Belle McGraw expected him to make all the sacrifices? What if she had a plan for getting what she wanted, and he didn’t see it coming until it was too late?

  Scarlett wailed louder, and he told her, “I’m still here, baby. I’ll be out in two seconds.”

  He bent to pick up the fallen rose, stuck it roughly back in the vase and filled the little glass tube with fresh water. It overflowed and saturated his hands, as well as an inch of one sleeve. With Scarlett still crying outside, he left without taking time to use the towel, and had to dry his hands on the back of his pants before scooping his little girl into his arms once more.

  Passing through the spotless kitchen and onto the wooden rear deck, he found his daughter’s twin sister’s mother already there with two porcelain mugs of coffee on a tray, some milk in sippy cups for the girls, and a plate of dainty cookies arranged on a paper lace doily.

  Their cue for some polite, meaningless conversation?

  Not on Ms. McGraw’s agenda, apparently. He was surprised at the determined look which had appeared on her pretty face, but it gave him a brief warning of her intentions and left him a little better prepared. Almost relieved, too. Whatever she wanted, he would much prefer it if she went after it openly and honestly, if she said what was on her mind so that they both knew where they stood.

  “I don’t want to pursue this through official channels,” she said. Her voice started out wobbly and ended up firm.

  “Pursue what?” he asked, betraying his impatience, and his ill ease. “The question of whether the girls are twins? Isn’t it obvious, after one glance, that they are? The blood tests are only going to confirm it.”

  “Yes, it’s—” she took a deep breath, and tried to smile “—uncannily obvious.” The smile wobbled and fell off her face, like a loose wheel falling off a toy cart. “I never imagined that they could look so much alike, even when I considered that you might be right. When I first saw your daughter, I wanted to snatch her right out of your arms.” Her voice dropped to a husky whisper.

  “I know the feeling,” he drawled.

  She pulled herself together, and her voice firmed. “No, I just meant that I don’t want to tell anyone about it. Not Immigration or the adoption people.”

  “I don’t think it would invalidate the adoptions, Ms. McGraw. I can’t see how it could.”

  “Please, call me Libby.”

  “Okay. Libby.” He tried it out on his tongue, but couldn’t decide if he liked it. On the one hand, it was a snappy little nickname, and an inventive way to contract the more formal Lisa-Belle. On the other, it was a little too cute. He wasn’t big on cute.

  “I guess I’m just not prepared to take any kind of a chance on the adoptions,” she said. The fall air was crisp and cool, and she shivered a little as she spoke. On the grass in her yard, there was already a carpet of fallen yellow leaves. “If there was ever any risk that I might lose Colleen…”

  “No one’s talking about either of us losing our daughters.” The very thought opened a pit of fear in his gut. “The adoptions were both done in full accordance with the…you know, you must have read the information about it…the Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoption,” he reminded her. “You know how strict Vietnam is on that issue, and the United States, too. Stacey and I wouldn’t have gotten involved with the idea if there’d been anything dodgy about it.”

  “Me, neither.” She paused, then added gently, “I’m sorry, it must have been hard for you to lose your wife so soon after you’d both become parents at last.”

  He nodded, and muttered something. He’d told her over the phone that he was widowed, that his wife’s death had been sudden and unexpected, the result of an accident. What he hadn’t told her was that the blood alcohol level of the man Stacey had been driving with—her lover—had been well over the legal limit at the time.

  It wasn’t a piece of information he enjoyed sharing with strangers, and he definitely didn’t want this woman asking questions about the state of his marriage. If that led to any kind of doubt over his capability as a father…

  Would he and Libby be able to remain strangers, though?

  Looking covertly at her, he wondered about how she was situated. She’d lost her husband more than four years ago. Enough time to grieve, and for the memories to soften. In the dating department, she couldn’t be short of offers if she wanted them. Not a pretty woman like her, a woman who smelled like flowers and rain and springtime. Was there anyone else in her life whom he needed to consider?

  And in Scarlett’s? What kind of a connection were they making this weekend? How should he respond to that immediate impulse to take Scarlett’s twin into his heart?

  Shift over, Scarlett.

  He knew he could love two daughters without being unfair to either of them. The girls could build a precious bond with each other, and his mom would adore another grandchild. But where did Lisa-Belle McGraw fit in?

  “So what do you want to do?” he asked her. Despite the colorless phrasing, they both understood what an enormous question it was.

  “Talk a little more, first, about what might have happened,” she answered, her voice still firm. “I need to get the dates straight. I just need to understand the history.” She pressed her fingertips to her temples. “You and your wife took Scarlett from the orphanage, when, exactly?”

  “June twelfth.” He had the date down pat, like a birthday or an anniversary. Scarlett’s exact birth date wasn’t known. “Fifteen months ago.”

  “I was there around ten weeks later. August twentieth. I was told Colleen had just been left on the veranda at night. Someone heard her cry at around midnight and went out and found her. No idea about either of her parents, except that her father, most likely, was white and her mother was probably
mixed race. I’m thinking the mom would have been conceived back during the war…”

  “Yes, in the sixties or early seventies.”

  “…with an American GI father. But all of that’s just conjecture, based on the way she looks. The way they look,” she corrected herself quickly.

  “We were told pretty much the same story,” Brady answered. “Whether the orphanage workers had any inkling the girls were sisters… Probably not, since they passed through the place at different times. I got the impression the orphanage gets its share of mixed-race babies.”

  “Yes, so did I.”

  “I’m guessing the mother kept one baby in the hope she could manage to raise it, then found after a couple of months that she couldn’t.”

  “I can’t imagine what that must have been like for her. I try not to think about it. Maybe she felt better knowing that her baby would be going to a better life.”

  “That’s what we told ourselves, also.”

  “It was for the best, I’m sure of it.”

  “And of course,” he went on, “by the time she brought Colleen in, the orphanage would have had other kids passing through, and staff coming and going, possibly. And anyhow, a baby changes so much in those first few months.”

  “I guess that’s how it happened,” she agreed. “And that’s where I’m happy to leave it. Whatever the exact story is, it doesn’t change what we’re facing now.”

  “No, I guess it doesn’t.”

  Brady took a sip of his coffee, debating on whether to reach for a cookie as well. They looked melt-in-the-mouth good, but the way they were arranged on that doily made them seem as if they were only for show. He’d already ruined Lisa-Belle’s little soap arrangement in the powder room. Didn’t want to do the same with the cookies.

  Instead of taking one, he dampened down his hunger and watched the girls. Scarlett had discovered the sturdy plastic slide and playhouse set, and was exploring its ins and outs. Colleen came down the little slide. Showing off, maybe, or staking out her territory? More likely, at eighteen months, she was just having fun.