A Family Come True (32 page)

“I’m saying you had a hell of a week and you wanted to stop the spinning, but you maybe grabbed the wrong thing.”

“I could buy that. Except—” she peeked out the window in time to see Cady and Xander sticking their tongues out at each other “—it almost always feels that way, you know? Ever since she was born. Not just the busyness. I get that. But I never feel like I’m doing it right.”

“And you honestly believe there’s ever been a parent who feels they are?”

“My head tells me, no, of course not. But some folks just seem so natural at it. You. The Norths. My dad. I do a good job with Cady, but it never feels like I just know what to do. Some things are automatic now, thank heaven, but there’s so much I don’t know. And it’s not the stuff like when she should stop having a bedtime bottle. It’s the big things.”

“Like whether or not her father should be around?”

“Like whether I can give her a solid life, like I had when Daddy was alive.” She poked at the eggs with a spatula. “Or whether having a family where Mommy lives here and Daddy lives here and Daddy’s friends are all on parole and Mommy really wants to be—”

But it didn’t matter what Mommy wanted. That had been lost in a flood of angry words.

“Darcy.” Nonny sat at the small white table with a muffled groan that sent Darcy’s guilt level soaring. “When it comes to building a family, no one knows what the hell they’re doing. And that’s okay. Half of being a good parent is pretending you’re not scared out of your tree.”

“Let me guess. The other half is love?”

“Nope. Though, of course, that’s important.” Nonny grinned over her mug. “The other half is stubbornness or persistence or whatever you want to call it. Refusing to give up when things are rough. Hanging in there because you’re pretty sure it’s going to get better. Knowing that these people are your life, and that being with them, no matter what it takes, is better than being without them.”

“Are you saying it doesn’t matter if I make a mess of things with Cady?” She frowned at the uneven, broken eggs in the pan. “Like a worse mess than these?”

“Of course it matters. But the thing is, child, the good Lord gave you a head, a heart and a gut. As long as you’re listening to all of them, you’re going to do okay.” She forked up a bite of egg from the plate Darcy set in front of her. “I know you want to give Cady a wonderful life. Every parent does. And by the way, no matter what your mother tells you, Paul was not a perfect father, and your world wasn’t all hunky-dory before he died.”

Darcy’s butt hit the chair a bit more forcefully than she’d intended, probably due to the sudden wobble in her knees.

“I know she’s told you stories about him and the things he did with you,” Nonny said. “Most of it has some truth. But she’s... Well, I won’t say she’s twisted things. But she’s definitely working from a script that I wouldn’t recognize.”

“But why?”

Nonny snorted, then coughed and thumped her chest. “Huh. Darcy, your mother and I come from very different worlds. I never understood her, not even when Paul was still with us. I hoped things would get better after you arrived, but I never did warm up to her, so I’m not the one to get inside her mind, you know? She made Paul happy. That was all I cared about. Drove him half out of his head most of the time, too, but it’s like I said—for him, being with her was worth it.”

“Then why—”

“Hang on, girl. I’m getting to that part.” She sighed and forked up more eggs. “Sylvie is a storyteller. It’s not just her job, it’s how she gets through her life. She and Paul were like gas and matches, but she did love him. After he died...I’m not sure, but I think she wanted you to remember him in the best way possible. So she told you stories. And stories need a good guy, right? So that’s what he became.” She sighed. “You think you don’t know what to do? Sylvie had you beat, hands down. I think that when she told you things about Paul, it was her way of figuring out what she should be doing. And since it was her, she needed everything to be as perfect as she could make it.”

Oh, yeah. That sounded like Sylvie.

“Did Daddy really cut my hair with pruning shears?”

“Ha! Who told you about that? Was it Moxie?”

“No. Actually, it was Robert.”

“That makes sense. Yep, he did it. It was your last day here, and there wasn’t time to get you to the hairdresser and fix it up before you went back home. Sylvie wasn’t happy.” Nonny’s shrug was evidence of how little Sylvie’s opinion meant to her. “It was just hair. It grew back. And, Darcy, that’s the thing about being a parent, or a friend or even a wife. There are very few things that can’t be fixed, no matter how scary they look at the time.”

Darcy let the words seep into her while staring out the window. At Cady...at Cady’s father...and at the empty space where Ian should have been standing.

“I know you want to make her life as strong and wonderful as you can, Darcy.” Nonny’s hand covered her own. “But the rest of the world isn’t steady and perfect, you know? You can try to protect her from all the hurt and confusion. Or you can teach her how to find her own steadiness no matter what life throws at her.”

“And how do I do that?”

“By living that way yourself.”

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

D
ARCY CARRIED THE MUG
of coffee across the backyard, moving slowly to avoid slopping it onto her hand. She’d be damned if she’d made it this far only to be stopped by a rogue burn.

“Is that for me?” The hope in Xander’s eyes was almost pathetic.

“Indeed. Here. You sit and enjoy. I’ll take Bug watch.”

“Darce, don’t take this the wrong way, but right at this minute I really love you.”

“Since that was how I felt when you appeared in the middle of my sobfest, I think you’ll understand when I say that the feeling is mutual.”

She reached into her pocket and grabbed the spoons she’d tucked in there, handing them to Cady as she sat beside her.

“Why are your pants wet?”

“The grass hadn’t dried when we first came out. Cady needed someplace warm and dry to climb.”

She remembered him lying prone while Cady clambered all over him. “You didn’t have to do that.”

“Yeah, and maybe someday I won’t be that dense again. But I was still half asleep and she needed something to keep her happy while you weren’t around. So I got a little cold.” He shrugged. “Nothing that can’t be fixed with a hot shower and some excellent coffee.”

If she’d had any lingering doubts over what she was about to say, those words blew them out the window.

“I want you to move into the garage apartment, Xander.”

The sputtering sound was so unlike his usual cool that she couldn’t keep from snickering.

“Seriously?” It came out in three gasps and a gulp.

“Very seriously. And before you aspirate any more coffee and we have to rush you to the ER, let me explain everything.”

He blinked and nodded. She mock-tugged one spoon from a giggling Cady.

“We didn’t set out to lie to you,” she began, taking him through the entire course of events. Well, everything except how she and Ian had managed to turn make-believe into reality, at least for a little while. She would need to share many things with Xander in the years ahead. This wasn’t one of them.

When she was finished, he spent long seconds studying the clouds in his coffee.

“I’ll be honest, Darce. I wish you’d been up front from the start. We’re going to have enough of a challenge to do right by her as it is without throwing mind games into the mix.”

“You’re right.”

“That said, I can see where you’re coming from. In your shoes, I might have done the same thing.” He paused before adding gently, “And in Ian’s shoes? Yeah. Absolutely.”

“Thanks.” Gratitude thickened her voice. “That’s probably more than we deserve.”

“Yeah, well, you gave me something pretty amazing. I figure I owe you.”

“Um, I didn’t exactly give Cady to you,” she said with a laugh. “I’m pretty sure you had almost as much to do with her being here as I did.”

“Darce. You gave me a chance. You might have been dragged into it kicking and screaming, but you’re doing it. You’ll never know how much that means to me.”

“You’re giving me too much credit, Xander.” She pulled the spoon from Cady’s mouth. “Ian is the one you need to thank for that.”

“Oh, paying him back is gonna be easy. All I have to do is let him keep Lulu.” He tickled Cady’s tummy with his toes. “And make sure he knows that I’m not trying to replace him in Cady’s life.”

Loneliness cut her, sharp and deep. “Well, the problem with that is I’m not so sure he wants me in his life anymore. Cady, probably. But me?” She traced a slow line down Cady’s nose. “I’m not so sure.”

“What the hell? Darce. You ever stop and ask yourself why it was so easy for you guys to make us all believe you were a couple?” He leaned forward and delivered two quick raps to the top of her head. “Hello. It’s because it was true.”

“But we weren’t—”

Xander slid off the table and down to the ground, where he took Cady’s outstretched hands and helped her stand. “Cady girl, what are we gonna do about your mama, huh? She thinks she was fooling everybody else, but the only one she was fooling was herself.”

Could it be true?

“Oh, Xander. I don’t know. The things we said...”

“Good God, Darce. Did
you
dump a dog on him and leave? Did
you
hide things from him and end up in jail? Did
you
come back unannounced and expect to pick up where you left off?”

“No, but—”

“Darce. Someone who can get past all that from a friend—a friend who hasn’t done much lately to deserve the title—well, someone who can get past all that isn’t going to just walk away from someone who loves him.”

“He walked away from Carter.”

“Yeah, he did. But then he came back.”

“For everyone else, yes. For Carter?”

“Carter’s part of the parcel. He knows that better than you ever will.” Xander grabbed one spoon and clanked it against Cady’s, sword-fighting style. “Maybe he didn’t handle it the way you would have, but come on. He’s a guy. He’s not complicated. If he’s here, talking about moving back, then yeah. He wants to make things right with Carter.”

“So I should have stepped back and let him do it his own way.”

“Hey, I’m not saying he couldn’t use a swift kick. I’m just saying... Damn. I don’t know anymore.” He lowered himself onto his elbows. “Cady, you are going to have one screwed-up family.”

Funny. He didn’t sound the least bit worried about that. In fact, he sounded pretty happy at the prospect.

Maybe she should take a hint.

“Screwed up, maybe, but still workable.” She tugged Cady’s blond wisps, then gave a soft tweak to the thicker head of hair that was the perfect match. “Happy Father’s Day, and welcome to the family...Daddy.”

* * *

I
AN NEVER WOULD
have believed it, but for the first time in memory, talking to Moxie had left him more settled rather than less. Which was damned unnerving in its own way, but he’d take it.

The glider had felt too confining after she left. “Into the fire,” he’d said to Lulu, and dragged himself upstairs. There had been one bad moment when he’d rolled over and his head had hit Darcy’s pillow, filling his lungs with sex-scented memories. But after that first slice of pain he had pulled the pillow close and decided it was like when he had been in Tanzania and Ma had sent care packages filled with Millie’s drawings and newspaper clippings and boxes of Kraft Dinner. It left him longing, true, but it also comforted. More than that, it gave him hope.

And hope was enough to let him close his eyes.

He woke with a start and a cold nose in his hand.

“Damn it, Lulu!”

He couldn’t believe he’d fallen asleep.

Or how bright the sunlight was for this early in the morning.

Or how much laughter was floating up the stairs.

He grabbed his phone, squinted at the display and let out a word that would still make Moxie wash his mouth out with soap.

How the hell had he let himself sleep past ten?

Pushing his barely awake body from the bed, he hobbled to the window, pulled back the curtain and checked the driveway. Yep. Everyone was here, probably hard at work setting up for the party. Not only was he not helping, he was going to go down there and steal another pair of hands from the preparations. He was never going to hear the end of this.

Lucky for him, once folks figured out why he was doing it, they might agree that in the long run, it would be worth it.

Wake up, brain. We have work to do.

One cursory shower later, he hit the stairs faster than he had since the morning after the infamous trig all-nighter. He followed the trails of conversations, listening for that one voice he needed right now.

It wasn’t in the kitchen, which had been taken over by people who were either caterers or thieves.

It wasn’t in the sunporch, where Ma was on the phone apparently trying to make some poor soul swear there would be no high winds or rain.

Nor was it in the dining room, where Millie, Brynn and Taylor were singing some song about fireworks and doing something with ribbons and glittery stars. But at least they might have an idea of where he should look.

“Taylor. Where’s Carter?”

That was one way to bring the music to a crashing halt.

Taylor glanced at Brynn. Cautious hope dawned on both their faces.

“He’s outside with your dad and Hank and Cash. Moxie decided the backyard looked bare, so she went out and bought a helium tank and balloons. They’re blowing things up as we speak.”

“Backyard. Right.” He turned on his heel but wasn’t fast enough.

“Ian? Why do you need him?”

Once again, he asked himself why he had been so insistent that he had to come back here. But he knew it was a purely rhetorical question.

“You’ll find out soon enough,” he said, and set off for the back door. He didn’t have to look back at the women to know what must have been happening: the quick exchange of glances, the scissors hitting the table, the race for the door. He should be hearing footsteps in three—two—one—