An Unexpected Father

by Marie Ferrarella

  Any way he looked at it, it was an explosion waiting to happen.

  Brady had shared a particularly nice evening meal with her tonight as well as an extended conversation centering around the twins’—mainly Toby’s—exploits at preschool. But when he and Harper parted company, it was her smile, not the conversation or even the really tasty meal she had prepared, that insisted on lingering on his mind.

  And was now keeping him awake.

  He couldn’t keep doing this to himself, Brady silently insisted, turning on his other side and punching his pillow in an attempt to get it into a comfortable, more welcoming shape.

  He wasn’t succeeding.

  So when the phone rang after ten o’clock that night, he was still awake and up to answering it. Hoping this didn’t involve some sort of an unforeseen hotel emergency, Brady mentally crossed his fingers and picked up his cell.

  Braced for anything, he said, “Hello?”

  “Hi, Big Brother, how’s it going?”

  At the sound of the cheerful, soprano voice in his ear, Brady immediately bolted upright in bed and propped himself up against the headboard.

  “Arabella?” he asked although he was certain that it had to be her.

  He hadn’t heard from his only sister in a while now. Because it was Arabella, he just assumed that she was too busy having fun to bother calling. She had a zest for life he almost envied now. The next moment, he realized that he wouldn’t change anything about the way his life had evolved, chaos and all. He admitted to himself that he had grown to care about the twins. When had that happened, he marveled.

  “You have any other sisters I don’t know about?” Arabella asked him, amused.

  “No, in your case one is definitely enough,” he assured her. And then he grew a little more serious. “Is anything wrong? Are Mom and Dad okay?” he wanted to know.

  Brady was aware that his sister, four years his junior and incredibly independent in her dealings, kept unorthodox hours. However, since he had become the twins’ guardian, he looked at things in a far different light than he had back when his days had been carefree and life hadn’t been nearly as structured as it was now.

  Now he was more aware of the darker things in life and the consequences they could bring with them.

  “They’re fine, Brady. Does something have to be wrong for me to call my favorite big brother?” his sister asked.

  Uh-oh, he thought, the phrase favorite big brother setting off alarms.

  “No,” Brady answered, “but you have to admit, Belle, you don’t usually call. So what’s up?” he wanted to know.

  “Maybe I’ve just decided that it’s time for me to grow up a little,” Arabella answered—a bit too loftily in his opinion.

  “Are you sure there’s nothing wrong?” Brady asked again. Because of the chaos the twins had initially brought into his life, he wasn’t about to take things at face value anymore and coast. He liked being prepared for possible disasters before they happened.

  “Yes, I’m sure,” Arabella answered. “Relax, Brady. I just wanted to see how you and your little wild bunch were doing—although I have to admit, until you turned this into an interrogation, you did sound as if you’re more relaxed than you were the last time we talked.” She laughed as an image came to mind. “For instance, you don’t sound as if you’re in the middle of fighting an out-of-control five-alarm fire.”

  “That’s because I’m not,” he told her. Since she had expressed an interest, he decided to fill her in. “Things are going pretty well with my new job—and as for the wild bunch as you called them, they’re actually beginning to calm down—at least enough for me to be able to catch my breath.”

  “What happened?” she wanted to know. “Did you find a doctor to write a prescription for junior-sized tranquilizers?” Arabella teased.

  He was more than happy to give credit where credit was due. “Even better. I found a nanny who’s absolutely incredible. Her name’s Harper Radcliffe,” he told his sister before she could ask. “And she’s really fantastic with the twins,” he added with wholehearted enthusiasm.

  His passionate tone was not lost on his sister. “Is that all she’s great with?” Arabella asked, amusement evident in her voice.

  Alarms went off in Brady’s head. “Hey, you’re reading much too much into this, Belle.” He laughed shortly. “I see you’re still a hopeless romantic.”

  “Not hopeless,” Arabella protested, wanting to set her brother straight.

  He noticed that she hadn’t vetoed his entire statement. “But you are a romantic,” he countered.

  Arabella sniffed. “Not everything has to be labeled, Big Brother,” she told him. Before he could argue the point, she got back to the reason she had called. “So then you feel that everything is going well in Rambling Rose?” she pressed. “You don’t have any regrets about moving there?”

  “No, not for one minute,” Brady readily assured his sister.

  “Well, that’s good to hear.” She paused for a moment, then decided to release her bombshell. Like ripping off a Band-Aid, she decided to do it quickly. “Especially since I’ve been thinking of making the move to your fair town myself.”

  The thought of seeing his sister again pleased him. In his estimation, it had already been far too long. The last time they had seen one another, he was still living in upstate New York. “Really?”

  “Really,” Arabella replied, pleasure throbbing in her voice.

  And then she hesitated, just for a moment, as she gathered her courage together. If he said no to this, it would turn out to be very awkward.

  “If I did come out, would you be able to put me up until I found a place of my own? Or would I be in the way?” she quickly asked.

  Arabella wanted everything out in the open and if her brother, despite his protest, had something going with this “fantastic” nanny of his, the last thing she wanted to do was interfere with that. She didn’t want him resenting her presence.

  Brady knew exactly what his sister was driving at and he immediately put an end to that line of thinking.

  “No, you wouldn’t be in the way,” he told Arabella. “But for your own sake, you might want to rethink staying here.”

  She didn’t understand. If he didn’t think she would be getting in the way, why would she want to rethink staying with him? It didn’t make any sense to her.

  Arabella put the question to him. “Why?”

  Brady didn’t mince any words. “Do you think you’re up to putting up with the boys twenty-four/seven?” he wanted to know.

  She didn’t hesitate. “Sure. I haven’t seen them since before you moved to Rambling Rose. They’ve probably grown at least six inches. Maybe even a foot,” she teased.

  “Not quite,” he answered. “Okay, then consider yourself invited to stay,” he told her. “Just let me know when you’re going to be coming out.”

  “Will do,” Arabella promised. And then she circled around to the real reason that she had called him. “So, things are going well for you at the hotel?” she asked again, searching for a way to broach the question that was foremost on her mind.

  “For the most part, yes,” he answered. He was becoming suspicious now. “Why do you ask?”

  “Oh, no reason,” she said quickly. “I just want to know if you’re happy. Oh, by the way,” Arabella began a little too innocently, “did you happen to run into Jay Cross anywhere while you’ve been working at the hotel?”

  At the mention of the man’s name, Brady’s mind went back to the discussion he’d had with Jay regarding the ongoing investigation into the balcony incident.

  “I think I talked to him about a week ago,” he told his sister. Then, because he had a feeling that this was what she was ultimately getting at, he told Arabella, “He’s doing well there.”

  Pausing, Brady didn’t hear his sister say anything in
response, so he decided to press her. “Why do you want to know?”

  “No reason, really,” she answered a little too quickly and too innocently. Realizing that her brother probably wasn’t fooled and wasn’t about to let the matter drop unless she gave him some sort of an actual reason for her question, Arabella cast about and managed to come up with something. “Jay was nice to me when we met at Larkin’s birthday party back in January,” she said, mentioning their little nephew, “and I was just wondering if he was still in town, that’s all.”

  She wasn’t fooling him for a second. Arabella was displaying too much interest in Jay Cross. But for the time being, Brady decided to play along. “Yes, he’s still there.”

  Hearing his tone, Arabella frowned. “Get rid of that smirk in your voice, Big Brother.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said a bit too quickly.

  “Yeah, right.” She laughed at him. “You never did learn how to lie well.”

  “We can’t all be as convincing when it comes to fabricating things as you are, Belle,” he told her. And then he dropped his bantering tone. “It’ll be great to see you again, Belle.”

  “You sure you don’t mind fitting me in?” she questioned, somewhat serious now. “Between your job and your nanny, you must be awfully busy.”

  Brady heard only one thing in the question she posed. She was making assumptions and he intended to set his sister straight immediately.

  “She’s not ‘my’ nanny, Belle,” he told her seriously. “She’s Toby and Tyler’s nanny.”

  “Right.” Arabella couldn’t keep the smile from her face. “I’ll try to remember that. Okay, I’ll let you get back to your beauty sleep. And I’ll give you a call just before I’m ready to move to your neck of the woods,” she told him.

  Brady laughed, getting a kick out of his sister’s phraseology. “Oh, you’re going to fit right in here,” he teased.

  “I’ll have you know that I fit in anywhere I set my mind to,” Arabella informed him.

  “I never doubted that,” Brady replied. Lack of confidence had never been Arabella’s problem.

  He was still smiling to himself as he hung up. It seemed that little by little, his family was all relocating to this not-quite-so-dusty little town.

  And he, for one, was really looking forward to seeing Belle here.

  * * *

  “C’mon, let’s go!” Toby cried, eager to get Harper and his “unca” Brady out of the house. He was all set to make a mad dash for the car. “You’re too slow,” Toby complained, looking accusingly at his twin who was hanging back. Toby was shifting from foot to foot.

  “I’m waiting for Unca Brady,” Tyler told his twin, looking at his uncle loyally.

  Harper had come in early carrying a packed picnic basket. She had promised the twins they would all go on a picnic on Saturday if they managed to be good for three days running.

  As far as the twins were concerned, they had fulfilled their part of the bargain. As an added bonus, the twins had gotten Brady to agree to come along with them on this venture.

  Harper looked at Brady dubiously now. “Are you sure you want to come?” she asked as she allowed Toby to pull her out the front door.

  “Are you trying to talk me out of it?” Brady asked, amused.

  “No, heaven forbid. It’s just that with all the hours you put in working at the hotel, it occurred to me that you don’t get much time to rest,” Harper explained.

  Humor curved Brady’s mouth as Tyler pulled on his arm, getting him closer to Harper’s car. “Are you trying to say this little excursion won’t be restful?” Brady asked innocently.

  “Only if you compare this to being a lion tamer,” Harper pointed out.

  “That sounds intriguing,” Brady said with a laugh.

  Spurred on and inspired, Toby immediately began to make lion noises—or what the little boy thought passed for lion noises.

  With the picnic basket already in the trunk, Harper placed a hand on either boy’s shoulder and herded them both into the backseat of her vehicle where their car seats were waiting.

  “Down, Simba,” she told Toby.

  Toby’s brow furrowed as she secured the car seat straps. “Who’s Simba?” he wanted to know.

  She turned her attention to Tyler’s straps. “That’s a lion in a story,” she told Toby.

  “Do you know him?” both boys asked almost simultaneously.

  “Not personally,” she told the boys with a straight face.

  “Nobody knows lions,” Toby declared knowingly as he spoke up.

  Tyler, however, would have believed Harper if she had told him she could walk on water. Backward.

  “Harper does,” he told his twin, then turned toward her for confirmation. “Right, Harper?”

  “Not this time,” she told Tyler. It was all she could do not to hug the boy. His innocence touched her heart. “Now let’s go. My guess is that you don’t want to miss this picnic, so we need to hurry.”

  The forecast was for rain later in the day and she’d already warned the boys that once the raindrops began to fall, they were out of there, no arguments. The twins had reluctantly agreed.

  “You sure you don’t want me to drive?” Brady asked her as she crawled out of the backseat and opened the driver’s-side door.

  “I’m sure.” Her tone left no room for arguing. “This is your day off, remember?” she reminded him.

  “When do you get a day off?” Brady wanted to know. So far, she seemed to have come in every day without fail.

  She flashed him a wide grin. “What makes you think I’m working?” she deadpanned.

  “Just kind of looked that way, that’s all,” Brady answered with a smile.

  “When you love what you do, it’s not work. You just sit back and relax,” she told him, getting in and buckling up. “I’ll handle the driving.”

  He looked a little dubious about the whole venture and then shrugged. “Sure, why not? My insurance is all paid up,” he said as he got into the passenger seat, then buckled up.

  She gave him a look that might or might not have been meant to put him in his place. “I’ll ignore that,” she said, starting up her car.

  Brady braced himself against the dashboard. He’d never liked not being in control of the vehicle he was in.

  As it turned out, though, he had nothing to worry about. But then, he told himself as they reached their destination, he should have known that.

  Not for the first time, he thought that being with Harper was an on-going learning experience.

  Chapter Fourteen

  As it turned out, the rain that was projected never materialized. Consequently, what was supposed to be only a short picnic wound up being an all-day, exhausting affair. Because of that, the twins ran themselves totally ragged. They certainly outlasted a number of other children whose parents and families had also thought that a short spring picnic was a really good idea.

  “You have a really lovely family, my dear,” one sweet-faced grandmother warmly commented to Harper as she and Brady were carrying the exhausted twins to the car.

  Harper opened her mouth to protest that neither the twins nor Brady were hers, but then she decided that the situation was too complicated to explain quickly. Besides, the older woman appeared to be taking such satisfaction in the picture they made. The woman was literally beaming at them.

  So, in response to that, Harper merely told the woman “Thank you,” and proceeded with the sleeping Tyler to the car.

  “You know,” Harper said quietly as she carefully eased Tyler into his car seat and then securely fastened his seat belt around his small body, “I don’t think I’ve ever seen either one of the twins so quiet. I think that running around in the open like this really drained them—a lot.”

  “I think we might have stumbled onto something,” B
rady joked. Toby murmured something against his shoulder as Brady put the twin into his car seat. He stood back and regarded the sleeping boys. “They look like angels, don’t they?” he asked Harper. “Nobody would ever guess what little devils these guys can actually be.” He smoothed Toby’s hair back from his forehead. His smile faded as he paused and looked at the twin thoughtfully. “Hey, Harper?”

  “Yes?” she asked, preoccupied as she checked the seat belts a second time to be absolutely sure they were secure.

  Brady was still looking dubiously at Toby. “Is Toby supposed to be this warm?”

  The concern in Brady’s voice caught her attention. She did what she could to reassure him. “Well, he has been running around all day so he’s bound to be warm,” she told Brady as she leaned over the boy to make sure everything was all right.

  She fell back on the timeless, tried-and-true method to determine whether or not a child was running a fever. She kissed his forehead. However, the moment she did, Harper shook her head.

  “But Toby shouldn’t be this warm,” she told Brady.

  “So you think he has a fever?” Brady asked her, his stomach making itself into a knot as he anticipated her answer.

  “I know he has a fever,” Harper answered. There was no room for an argument in her tone. “Let’s get these two guys home,” she told Brady as she handed him her keys. “Here, you drive.” Accepting the car keys, he looked at Harper quizzically. She knew what he was about to ask. “I want to be able to turn around in my seat and keep my eye on the twins in case they need something.”

  Twins. Plural. Alarms immediately went off in Brady’s head.

  “Does Tyler have a fever, too?” he asked apprehensively.

  “Not that I can tell, but they did run around together all day.” She saw the apprehensive look wash over Brady’s face. She did what she could to reassure him. “That doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re both going to get sick,” she said as he started up the car.