Finn's Twins!

Finn's Twins! Page 7

by Anne McAllister

  "Can you bat?" he asked her.

  She nodded. "I'm not very good, though."

  "You'd probably get better with practice."

  "I'd rather swim."

  "Maybe we can go swimming."

  "We went swimming with Izzy and Grandad."

  Finn frowned. "Grandad?"

  "He was Izzy's really, but he let us call him that, too."

  Finn remembered the grandfather of one of his foster brothers inviting him to call him Grandpa. He'd stub­bornly refused. Why bother? he'd thought. In a matter of months he'd be gone.

  Now he wondered if maybe he hadn't been a little too stubborn, for even when Tansy said sadly, "He died," she didn't sound angry, only sad.

  "I know. That's too bad."

  "He was the bestest grandad in the whole world. Izzy said so. He took care of her since she was little. She didn't have a dad, either. Or a mom."

  At least she'd been left to the "bestest grandad in the whole world," instead of an incompetent unwilling uncle. A look at Tansy's face showed him that her thoughts seemed to be running along the same lines.

  He felt a pang of remorse for his gruff treatment of her and her sister. God knew it wasn't their fault Meg was so useless as a mother, nor that she had the mis­fortune to have him as her only living, semiresponsible relative.

  "I'm hungry," he said, straightening up. "Are you?"

  "A little."

  "Do you like pizza?"

  "Pizza's good."

  "Think Pansy'd like some, too? Shall we ask her?"

  "She'd like some," Tansy said. "You don't have to ask her." She stepped between Finn and her sister as if she could protect her from him.

  "I won't yell," Finn promised.

  Tansy turned to her sister, who still hadn't moved from her perch on the rock. "He won't yell," she said, just as if Pansy hadn't heard the words herself.

  Pansy gave a tiny, jerky nod of her head.

  "All right," Tansy said to Finn.

  He straightened up. "Come on, then." He shouldered his camera bags. "Maybe after we can go swimming."

  Tansy was the only one of the three of them daring enough to take a risk. When she'd handed him the lens cap, she'd done that. And somehow seeing a six-year-old girl with more courage to face reality than he had, had made Finn stop and think about someone other than himself.

  So when they survived eating pizza together, he said, "How about going to the beach?"

  "The beach?" The girls looked at each other doubtfully.

  "Did you bring bathing suits?" he asked.

  "Dunno." Tansy shrugged. Pansy looked worried.

  A quick trip back to the apartment and a rummaging through their duffels had proved they hadn't.

  "I guess we can't go then," Tansy said, looking crest­fallen now that the chance seemed to be evaporating.

  "I bet they sell bathing suits somewhere in the city."

  Tansy brightened at once. "Really?"

  He held out his hand. "Come on."

  Tansy took it. Pansy didn't. But at least she followed along.

  A sporting goods store a few blocks away on Broadway had exactly what they were looking for. Finn, used to seeing the world's most gorgeous women parading in front of his camera lens in less-is-more bathing suits, found himself smiling as the girls had picked their way through an entire rack full, debating hotly before de­ciding on the ones they wanted and trying them on to show him. Tansy was eager from the first, and even Pansy found one that she liked.

  "Beautiful," he told them both. And he wasn't ex­aggerating. In fact he was half tempted to whip out his camera and take a few shots. The girls weren't old enough to be self-conscious yet, nor did they preen. Their blos­soming joy was natural. He was enchanted.

  Once they'd found what they liked, they were ready to go.

  "How far is it?" Tansy skipped beside him. "Are we gonna walk?"

  "We're taking the train," he told them, explaining that the subway was easier than driving would be. Tansy was eager. Pansy looked a little apprehensive still.

  "We have one more stop to make," he said and led them into a small art supply store where he bought a sketch pad and a box of bold-colored markers, which he presented to Pansy.

  She took them wordlessly, her eyes round and questioning.

  He felt a moment's panic that he'd done the wrong thing. "Tansy says you're a good artist."

  "She is," Tansy said stoutly.

  A smile like he'd never seen before lit her sister's face. "Thank you," Pansy said softly, clutching the pad and markers against her chest. And she looked at him for the first time without that glimmer of wariness in her eyes.

  Before the afternoon was over, Finn found out just how right Tansy was.

  While she dashed and jumped and cavorted in the water, Pansy got her feet wet briefly, then retired to her towel where she stayed, drawing intently for the rest of the afternoon. She drew kids and dogs, swimmers and sunbathers, splashers and dashers. All simple, yet bold and exciting. In her own way she seemed able to catch the excitement that Tansy was so much a part of. The one did, the other observed.

  Finn did both. He swam with Tansy. He shot pictures of them both. And for the first time since they'd walked through his studio door, he thought they might actually make a go of it after all.

  On the way home they both fell asleep. Tansy, exhausted, sank into a deep slumber almost before they'd rattled out of the station. Pansy took a bit longer, starting to draw a picture of the people in their car, when she began to yawn. Minutes later she slumped against Finn's arm, her sketch pad slipping toward the floor.

  He rescued it, then shifted so that he could sit with an arm around each of them. They were sticky and scratchy and sandy. Their spiky Midge-created hairdos had vanished in the water. All three of them probably looked like they'd been run over by a bus. Finn smiled. Izzy would be proud of him.

  "We went on a subway!" Tansy said, bounding through the front door.

  "To the beach!" Pansy added, her eyes as bright as Izzy had seen them since they'd arrived the week before. She'd been worried out of her mind when she'd come back from her manicure and Finn and the girls were no­where to be seen. She'd called the studio and got the answering machine. She'd gone out and looked around the neighborhood. Then she'd come back and paced for the next four hours. And they'd been to the beach!

  "Swimming!" Tansy said.

  "An' I made you a picture!" Pansy looked over her shoulder at Finn who was just coming in behind the two bedraggled girls, looking pretty shattered himself, like a pirate who'd been keelhauled. "He's got it," she told Izzy.

  Izzy steadied herself from the girls' onslaught and looked at Finn once more. No, not entirely shattered. There was something of a satisfied glow about him. Even as she thought it, he gave her a slow devastatingly at­tractive smile as he reached into his shirt pocket and took out a paper to hand to her. "Voilà," he said with a faint bow.

  Izzy, fumbling, took the picture from his hand.

  It was clearly recognizable as a Pansy MacCauley original. In her own vivid style the little girl had used bold colored markers to draw a beach crowded with swimmers and sunbathers and multicolored umbrellas. The detail was wonderful—the little boy with the sand pail; the children building a castle at the water's edge; the small black dog that seemed to be yapping at the heels of a pair of lovers walking arm in arm.

  "Why, Pansy," Izzy exclaimed. "I can see it just as if I'd been there."

  Tansy went up on tiptoe and poked at one vivid figure. "That one's me," she said, pointing out a carrot-topped child way out in the water.

  "You swam way out there?" Izzy's eyes widened.

  "Not alone," Tansy assured her, clearly aware from Izzy's tone that she was worried. She poked at the black-haired man next to the carrot-top. "That's Uncle Finn."

  Uncle Finn. She hadn't heard the girls call him that yet. He'd just been he, up till now. Or the ogre. Izzy looked at him again speculatively.

  "She said she like
d to swim." Finn's blue eyes met hers for an instant, then slid away, almost as if Tansy's apparent affection embarrassed him. "Come on," he said gruffly to the girls. "You need baths, both of you. You smell like wet dogs."

  Pansy's mouth formed an astonished O. Tansy just giggled and, grabbing her sister's hand, tugged her toward the stairs.

  Izzy watched them go, then turned to stare at Finn.

  "What're you looking at?" he growled, then stalked toward the kitchen.

  "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, I think." She smiled.

  "You told me to try to get along. I did what you said." He shrugged irritably, then bent to rummage in the re­frigerator. "Tansy said she liked swimming," he added gruffly. "And she said Pansy liked to draw."

  Izzy, watching him, realized just how much of his grouchy exterior was no more than skin-deep.

  Finn turned back and popped the top on a bottle of beer. He scowled at her. "What?" he demanded. He held out another bottle to her questioningly.

  She shook her head. "No, thanks." Her smile broadened. "You're a very kind man."

  "I'd offer anyone a beer."

  "That's not what I meant, and you know it. I meant that you were kind to the girls."

  He snorted and took a long draft from the bottle, then wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. "It was the least I could do."

  "The least you could do was bring them back here and ignore them for the rest of the day. Or stick them with a baby-sitter," Izzy pointed out.

  "I got the feeling they've been with enough baby­sitters. Besides, I'm not a complete ogre, despite what Pansy thinks."

  "I'm sure she doesn't think so anymore," Izzy said gently. "Where did you take them? I never associate beaches with New York City."

  "Ever heard of Coney Island?" He gave a grim smile. "It was a zoo, half the damn city was there. But—" he shrugged "—they seemed to like it."

  "I imagine they had a ball."

  "Yeah, well, like you said, it was better than bringing them back here. What the hell would I do with them here? I don't know what to do with kids."

  "Seems to me you do."

  Finn shook his head. "Nope." He finished that beer and snagged another. "Sure you don't want one?"

  "No, thank you."

  "You don't drink? Why not? Doesn't Sam approve?" There was a slightly belligerent tone to his voice that surprised her.

  She cocked her head. "Are you by chance trying to pick a fight with me?" She thought his cheeks flushed slightly, but his face was sunburned enough so she couldn't tell.

  "Maybe." He flicked her a quick glance. "Is it working?"

  Izzy grinned. "No."

  Finn rubbed a hand through his hair, then down his face. "Can't win for losing, can I?"

  Something in his gaze when he looked at her again made her heart kick over. She tried to ignore it. "Are you trying to increase your ogre quotient, Mr. MacCauley?"

  Finn's eyes met hers and awareness seemed suddenly to crackle between them. He shook his head. "Frankly, Miss Rule, I don't know what the hell I'm doing."

  CHAPTER FIVE

  THAT night she had the strangest dream. She was playing in the surf at Stinson Beach, racing after Sam who had been teasing her, splashing her, then dashing away and daring her to catch him. And so she ran, and he dodged and slipped. And she caught him—tackled him, as a matter of fact—brought him down on the sand so that their bodies pressed together from knee to neck.

  "Got you!" she'd cried.

  And he'd rolled over with her in his arms—and it wasn't Sam at all.

  It was Finn.

  Izzy jerked awake, trembling, and sat up, dragging in deep lungfuls of air, trying desperately to slow the ram­paging of her heart.

  Sam! Where are you, Sam? The words pounded in her head. She wrapped her arms around her drawn-up knees, hugging them tightly, wishing for a glimpse of his crooked grin or a touch from his hand, anything to banish the memory of Finn MacCauley still so vivid in her mind. Even if she wasn't ready to plunge into Sam's wealthy world, it seemed suddenly the safer alternative.

  Why on earth had she dreamed of Finn?

  There came the sudden sound of a door creaking and Izzy glanced up nervously to see her halfway closed door opening.

  A small figure in a pale nightgown appeared. "Are you a'right, Izzy? Did you have a bad dream?"

  Izzy took one last shuddering breath, then shook her head. "No, Pansy. I'm fine. Truly."

  "I heard you say somethin'."

  "I must have been talking in my sleep. I'm okay. Really. But it was good of you to come and ask."

  "You come when I have bad dreams," Pansy said. She'd had two in the first days after their arrival in New York. Scary dreams, she'd told Izzy, where ogres yelled at her. Izzy hadn't had any trouble imagining what the ogre had looked like. Each time she had cuddled the little girl in her arms until Pansy had drifted off to sleep once more.

  Now Pansy moved toward the bed and stood looking at Izzy worriedly in the moonlight. "I was thinking," she began slowly. She chewed on her thumbnail.

  "What about?"

  The little girl hesitated, then blurted, "What if I have a bad dream and you're not here?"

  I will be here, Izzy wanted to say, but she couldn't. She knew it wasn't true. When Sam got back, she'd be gone.

  And the sooner that happened, the better, she thought now. Especially if she was going to be dreaming about Finn.

  "Your uncle will be here."

  Pansy didn't reply. That was, in fact, something of an improvement. Before he'd taken them to the beach, Izzy was sure Pansy would have said, "Don't want him," in no uncertain terms.

  "Mommy's not coming back, is she?"

  Oh, damn, Izzy thought. Why now? Why me? Why hadn't Meg told them herself? Or why hadn't Finn?

  But fairness wouldn't allow her to blame Finn. He'd been as much a victim of Meg's decisions as the girls were.

  "No, dear. She isn't."

  "Why? Doesn't she want us?"

  "I think she would love to have you with her," Izzy said honestly. "But she knows she can't provide a good place for you. And she thinks your uncle can."

  Pansy climbed onto the bed and Izzy slipped an arm around her narrow shoulders. She felt the unevenness of Pansy's breathing. "Thought so," Pansy said finally in a small voice. "He's okay," she added after a moment.

  Izzy breathed a sigh of relief. "Yes," she said. "He is."

  She wouldn't have said that a week ago. But she was beginning to get a pretty good idea that Finn MacCauley, for all his gruffness, wasn't the ogre Tansy had thought he was. She also knew, whether he really wanted to or not, that he wouldn't turn his back on them.

  "Be better if you were here," Pansy said, giving Izzy a jolt. "Can't you stay?"

  "You know the answer to that. Don't forget about Sam." And she found that she was saying it as much for her own benefit as for Pansy.

  "I know. I like Sam, too." Pansy slanted Izzy a glance. "Maybe you an' Sam could adopt us."

  "I would love having you for my children," Izzy told the little girl. "But I don't think that's what your mother had in mind."

  "She wouldn't care."

  "Your uncle would."

  Pansy tilted her head so that her eyes looked deeply into Izzy's. "Truly?"

  "Yes," Izzy said softly, but firmly. "Give him a chance to prove it to you."

  A minute went by, then another. Finally Pansy gave a small, almost imperceptible nod of her head.

  "Sam's coming home the day after tomorrow," she told Finn the next evening when he got home from work.

  Still haunted by her dream, she'd called his office first thing in the morning and learned the good news.

  "Tomorrow?" Finn's black brows drew down. He kicked off his shoes and socks and padded barefoot to the kitchen.

  Izzy followed him. "Don't worry. I won't leave you totally in the lurch. I'll take the girls with me for the time being." She'd decided this afternoon that Sam wouldn't mind, and it was the perfect solution.


  Finn started to open the refrigerator. He turned in­stead and looked at her over his shoulder. "Take them with you? What's that mean?"

  "During the days. Sam won't care and—"

  "I thought you were terrified to set foot in Fletcher's apartment. I thought you were quaking in fear of his mother. And now you're going to drag two little kids with you? Did you have a conversion experience?"

  Izzy started to bite her thumbnail, then remembered all the trouble Carlota had expended to shape them up. She jammed her hands into the pockets of her baggy shorts. "I found courage."

  Or something else that scared her more. Even now— if she dared—Izzy could remember the hard muscled feel of Finn's body beneath hers in her dream.

  He snorted. "Yeah. Probably hidden in the depths of those damn shorts." He popped the top on a can of beer and took a long swallow. But even with his head tipped back, Izzy could still see his disparaging look.

  She stiffened. "I told you, I'll get other clothes!"

  He wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. "Yeah, you will. Tomorrow. You can bring the girls down to the studio first thing in the morning and Anita will take you shopping."

  "I don't—"

  "We have a deal, Miz Rule. Tomorrow. Nine-thirty sharp."

  No one was going to say Finn MacCauley didn't keep his part of a bargain. So if Isobel Rule could hardly wait to leave, fine, she could leave. But she was going to leave looking like she could knock 'em on their Upper East Side asses.

  He called on Anita, a clothing stylist whom he trusted wouldn't bring Izzy home with Day-Glo miniskirts and see-through blouses—although a part of him wondered just exactly what Sam Fletcher would say if she did— and arranged for her to take Izzy shopping.

  "She'll know what you need," he told Izzy. "She needs everything," he told Anita.

  "I can't afford everything," Izzy told her. The look she gave him told Finn that offering to pay for it himself wouldn't set well at all.

  "Anita won't spend a dollar herself where a dime will do."

  "Count on it," Anita said with a bright smile. "Come on, kiddo. We've got work to do."

  "How come we can't go?" the girls wanted to know.

 

‹ Prev Next ›