A Family Come True (9 page)

He shrugged and pulled an apple from his bag. “Just thinking.” One eyebrow quirked. “About what Moxie will say to that.”

Her own memories of the formidable Mrs. North, combined with the stories Ian had shared over the years, gave her a moment’s concern. But on the other hand...

“Look, I not only was raised by a diva, I spent most of my adult life making sure she got everything she wanted the minute she needed it. I have out-conned hotel managers, stage managers, agents and, worst of all, other divas. And I can do it in three languages. Four if you count swearing in German. There’s no way Moxie can make me stay at your family’s home.”

But,
piped up a sly little voice inside her,
if you stayed at the house, it might give you more chances to see Ian and Carter together. See if they need a hand reconciling and all that.

Not a bad point. She’d be more inclined to listen if she could be sure the voice wasn’t being fueled by those sneaky hormones.

Ian bit into the apple, backhanded juice from his chin and let loose a grin. “You know, I think I should call the rest of the family. Maybe sell tickets. This could be the smackdown of the century.”

“What smackdown? I don’t need to get violent. I’ll just say, ‘Thank you very much. That’s incredibly generous, but I can’t possibly.’ Which will be even easier if you drop me someplace before you go home.”

“Are you kidding? That’s like handing my head to her on a silver platter. It’s going to be hard enough going home already. I’m not making Moxie pissed off before I even walk through the door.”

Guilt tugged at her. She’d forgotten that he was walking back into a situation loaded with land mines.

“And that’s precisely why you don’t need me around. You and your family need to get past this on your own without tiptoeing around some stranger—”

“Almost family.”

“—and her baby.”

“Very true. At least, when it comes to you.” He pointed to the child clinging to the picnic bench. “It’s Cady I really want.”

“I’m afraid to ask.”

“She’s the perfect diversion. If things get too intense, all I have to do is hold her up and make her blow raspberries, and there ya go. Crisis averted.”

“Cute and possibly correct. But my kid is not going to be your auto-distraction.”

“Not even for a day or two?”

She was on the edge of giving him a resounding
no
when she heard the plea beneath his words. He was only half joking. And being a guy, he probably didn’t even know it.

Just like he probably had no clue that the only one he really wanted to avoid was Carter. She didn’t think it was simply an oversight that had led him to tell her about Taylor and the broken engagement but never once mention Carter’s role.

Unbidden, she remembered Ian walking into the backyard after Xander had dropped his jail bomb. She had never been so happy to see anyone in her life, except maybe the anesthesiologist who administered her epidural. She had desperately needed someone nearby, someone she could trust to keep her steady while the rest of the world swirled around her.

Of course, then he had kissed her and sent things rocking even more, but...

“I don’t think so,” she said gently. “But how about if Cady and I come along for the first meeting? We can see whoever is there, talk to Moxie, hang out for a while. Then you can deliver us someplace.”

He gave her a long look—mentally assessing, she was sure, comparing her powers of resistance against Moxie’s powers of persuasion. Let him have his delusions.

“Deal,” he said at last. “But you have to promise you won’t take the bus back home.”

“Ian, I can’t stay until Sunday or Monday. A hotel, eating out that much... It’s not in my budget.” Ironic, given that she had spent such a huge portion of her life in hotels and used to think nothing of them. But that life was long gone.

“Give yourself a day or two. See if you can find a lawyer who can give you some basic information. Then if you’re really determined to go back, I’ll drive you.”

“But your dad—”

“I can drive you home on Saturday and go back Sunday morning in time for the party. It’s no big deal.”

“Well, yeah, it is. I can’t ask you to do that.”

“Then stay at the house.”

Points for Ian. He’d almost caught her.

“So my choices are to inconvenience your family by staying with them or drag you away when you’ve just started easing back into the family bosom.” Oops. Mentioning bosoms might not be such a good idea given the way he’d been scoping out hers not an hour ago. “So to speak,” she added.

“I’d say that covers it.”

As if she would do any of that. The bus would work fine. Well, not really
fine
, not with a baby and all her assorted crap. But those were details. Details were her specialty. She could do this.

The only stumbling block was seated across the table, slipping—oh, jeez—a bit of something chocolate into her daughter’s mouth.

She couldn’t let Ian know. He would insist on coming to her rescue, and she couldn’t let him do that. Not this time. This return home was a turning point for him, she knew, and she had a feeling—mostly from things he hadn’t said—that there was more to it than a mere wish to begin mending fences. She wasn’t going to jeopardize this reunion by pulling him away at a crucial moment.

She would go to his house now and ease that initial meeting. She would be on call for any times he might need a beautiful little bundle of distraction. And on Friday or Saturday she would slip out, texting him once she and Cady were halfway to Toronto.

He wouldn’t like it. But she wasn’t the daughter of a diva for nothing.

“Okay. We’ll go say hi to everyone before we find a place to settle in.”

“Moxie will want you to stay for dinner. She already asked if you like chicken and dumplings.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. All homemade like you’ve never had it before.”

“It won’t be a hardship to say yes to that. But once it’s over, promise you’ll drive us to a place we can stay. Preferably in town, so I can get out with Cady and see the sights.”

He sized her up for a second before leaning back to scratch behind Lulu’s ears. “Sure.”

“That was too easy.”

“Hey, if Moxie hasn’t talked you into staying by the end of dinner, you will have earned anything you want.”

She allowed herself a small smile, clamping down on the giant grin threatening to make itself known. It had been a long time since she’d faced down an equally determined and devious mind. She was almost looking forward to this.

Though when she considered what could happen if she lost and had to spend the next few days watching Ian—purely to assess his level of Carter tolerance, of course—she had to admit that losing would have its own reward.

* * *

D
ARCY HAD BEEN
at Moxie’s house many times during her childhood visits, though since she had stopped hanging with the North brothers once she hit high school, her memories were mostly of the bits-and-pieces variety. But once they turned off Highway 2 and headed toward the river, nostalgia began crowding into her awareness. A long backyard, with her dad chasing her. A rope swing hanging from a tree. An old car dashboard and steering wheel, and the way the brothers would fight over who got to play with it next.

And one sharply clear memory that must have come from the summer when she was seven—the first time she’d gone to Comeback Cove without her father.

“Is the kitchen green?”

“Not anymore, unless Moxie has painted it since I left.” Ian frowned as he slowed for the corner. “But it used to be. Do you remember it?”

“I remember seeing Nonny in a green room. It must have been a kitchen because there was a counter behind her.”

A counter where a pitcher lay on its side while something purple—grape juice?—had dripped over the edge. But neither of the adults had been paying any attention to it, because Moxie had been kneeling beside a chair holding Nonny, who had been making the most terrifying choking noises while she shook with sobs.

That had been the first time Darcy really understood that she wasn’t the only one who missed her dad. Until then, the quietness of Nonny’s house and the slowness of Nonny’s movements hadn’t really connected. But after that moment, it made sense.

“You know what I remember most about coming here when I was a— Shh, Cady, we’re almost there, sweet cheeks. Anyway, I remember the noise.”

The corner of his mouth lifted. “Funny. My big memory is Ma forever telling us that it was time to play the Quiet Game.”

“I think that was my mother’s favorite game, too.” Not her dad’s, though. He’d always done whatever it had taken to make Darcy laugh. That moment when Cady had let loose with her first real giggle had made Darcy miss her father in a way she hadn’t in years.

“Your mom had a legitimate excuse, poor woman. Four little boys racing around... But even though you guys scared the bejeebers out of me, it was fascinating, you know? I was used to a house where it was just me. Then Nonny would bring me here and it was all noise and pushing and boogers and other gross stuff.”

“We were really well-behaved most of the time. We just pulled that act when you came to visit, so you would go home and take your girl cooties with you.”

“Sure, North. Tell me another one.”

“Can’t. Ma will paddle me if I tell family secrets.”

She rolled her eyes, but inside, she gave thanks. He’d seemed to be drawing in on himself the past hour or so. Hearing him joke and tease was a relief. She ached to think of what this trip must be costing him. But no matter how hard, he needed to be here, doing this. Families such as his weren’t meant to be pulled apart this way.

When they turned into the driveway and approached the big old Victorian with its turret and peachy gingerbread-trimmed porch, she bounced in her seat.

“Oh, my gosh. It hasn’t changed at all!”

“Not on the outside much, no, though Moxie has done a lot with the gardens and the yard lately. She’s redone practically every room inside.”

“Don’t tell me that running Northstar Dairy and keeping your family in line left her time to be bored.”

“Nah. After Hank’s first wife left, he packed up Millie—she wasn’t even two, I think—and they moved in for a few years. Moxie tore down some walls and changed things to make a nice little suite for them.”

“Let me guess. Once that was done, it made something else look shabby so she kept going.”

“You got it.”

They pulled in behind a vintage MG, blazing red against the gray fieldstone wall and green grass.

“Looks like someone is home already,” she said quietly.

“Moxie. She takes Wednesdays off now.” He killed the engine but made no move to exit the car.

She patted his arm—quickly, to be on the safe side. “You ready for this?”

“Yeah. Sure.” But his smile didn’t touch the lines around his eyes.

“You don’t have to do this. You would be well within your rights to say, ‘No, they need to make the first move.’”

There were two sides to every story. She knew that. But it was hard to understand how Carter had allowed the situation to develop in the first place, why Taylor hadn’t nipped the growing attraction in the bud, how his
mother
could have allowed him to leave when he’d been so hurt. Sure, he was a grown man and they couldn’t have forced him to stay if he didn’t want to, but come on.

She’d spent many a lonely childhood day wishing she could live with the Norths, many a long night wondering if her family would have been more like theirs if her dad hadn’t died. What had happened to that loud, smelly, loving family?

It was a good thing she was going to be staying elsewhere while she was here. She might have a very hard time keeping silent if she spent too much time with the North clan.

“Ian?”

He shook his head, gave a small, unconvincing laugh. “It’s okay.”

“Really?”

His answer was to open the door. “Here comes Moxie. Let’s go.”

Darcy glanced through the windshield, but her perusal of the apple doll of a woman hustling toward the car was interrupted by a quick squeeze of her shoulder.

“Thanks, Darce.”

She turned to smile, to reassure, but he was out of the car already, striding toward his grandmother with open arms.

“Just as well,” she said to Cady, who was kicking her feet and making her unhappiness known. “I might have done something stupid like give him a kiss for luck.”

Stupid, but undeniably enjoyable.

She bit her lip against the shiver making its way down her spine, hopped out of the car and opened the rear door. Three buckles later, Cady was free, bouncing against Darcy’s chest in a physical appeal to be let down and allowed to explore.

“One minute, Bug. Let’s get Lulu out of there.”

But Ian was already returning to the car, pulling the crate to the ground. The dog exploded from her prison in a blur of tan and black, disappearing behind a bush, yapping all the way.

“Come on.” He took her elbow, turned her away from the car. “Moxie’s dying to see you.”

“You mean to meet Cady,” she said, but she fell into step beside him and approached the older woman.

In Darcy’s mind, Moxie North had always had white hair and wrinkles. The wrinkles might be more plentiful now, but the smile hadn’t changed. One part welcome, one part censure and two parts curiosity, Moxie moved with a lightness of step that made Darcy vow to pull out her dusty yoga DVD as soon as she got home.

“Mrs. North, thank you so—”

“You’re not a child anymore, Darcy. Call me Moxie.” Sharp eyes subjected Darcy to the kind of once-over that was usually delivered by border guards. “You grew up nicely.”

“Um, thank you.” Moxie’s words should have come out as a compliment, but Darcy could swear there was an accusation lurking beneath them. Of course that could simply be her own guilty conscience reminding her that she hadn’t visited Comeback Cove in years—a fact that was weighing more heavily on her mind with every minute of Moxie’s scrutiny.

“And this is your little one.” Moxie’s features relaxed as she bent slightly to look Cady in the eye. “Hello, sweetheart. You’re a cute one. Yes, you are. It’s Cadence, right?”