by Deb Kastner
Her gaze flashed briefly in his direction.
“I think that’s a good idea, actually.”
“You do?” Whatever he’d imagined she’d been about to say, agreeing with him definitely wasn’t it.
“I haven’t changed my view on the whole thing. I still think it’s just a bunch of harmless teenagers getting into some Christmas mischief—and they are artistic kids, at that. But I know there’s a reason you have a different perspective and I want to understand where you’re coming from, as well. I’m open-minded. I know you don’t like to talk about what happened to you when you were growing up, and I don’t want to pressure you to say anything you don’t want to, but I would like to understand.”
By this time, she’d pulled up in front of his house, but the twins were both sleeping and neither Simon nor Miranda moved to get out of the vehicle.
Simon inwardly balked. To say he didn’t like talking about himself, and especially about his past, was an understatement. He didn’t like to remember those times, much less dwell on them. He didn’t like the person he’d been back then, the hotheaded kid life’s circumstances had turned him into. But if he didn’t speak now, she would never know why he was so adamant about the subject.
“I was a scrappy little kid. Skinny as a beanpole.”
It was a start, but it was hard. Very hard.
She nodded but didn’t interrupt his train of thought.
“The bigger boys, they picked on me a lot. It was about what you’d expect out of a group of bullies. I got a few black eyes. More than one awkward landing inside a Dumpster of decomposing food.”
She wrinkled her nose.
“I know, right? So when puberty hit me in seventh grade, I started lifting weights. I was determined that no one was going to mess with me anymore.
“And they didn’t. In fact, the guys who ruled the middle school recruited me into their gang. I was foolish and lonely, and I wanted to be accepted so badly that I didn’t realize I was going to get messed with again, except in a different way.”
Still, Miranda didn’t speak, though her gaze brimmed with empathy and sorrow. She slid her hand across the cab and linked her fingers with his, silently giving him the courage to continue.
“Since I had no family, I desperately wanted to belong to something. I went right along with their hazing, allowing them to put me in all kinds of bad situations. But I didn’t question it or complain about it.
“The first thing they made me do was dress up the school mascot—a big bear. I put a balaclava over his head and wrapped him in toilet paper. That wasn’t so bad. I didn’t get caught. The principal was mad, but all he had to do was take off the mask and TP and everything was back to normal. It wasn’t like I permanently marred the mascot. Every student in the school had a good laugh and we moved on to other things.
“But then the next week they had me sneak into the school at midnight again, this time to tie pieces of string through the holes in everyone’s locker handles so no one could open them the next morning. There were two hundred and sixty-five lockers—I still remember the exact number. It took me half the night, and I had two very healthy scares when the night janitor came around. My adrenaline was working overtime. But again—harmless, right?”
Miranda nodded. “Harmless, but not very nice. I’ve had a few experiences like that myself.”
She paused. For a moment, it looked like she was going to say more about what had happened to her, but then she shook her head and closed her mouth. It felt as if she was waiting for him to say something to her, but he didn’t know what he could say that would comfort her, so instead, he continued with his story.
“I doubled up the string on the lockers of the people I didn’t like—the guys who used to pick on me. At the time I thought it was funny to watch them struggle to get their lockers to open.”
He couldn’t believe the depth of the narrative he was sharing with Miranda. Even Mason didn’t know all the gory details.
But then again, Mason had never asked.
Miranda had.
“The next night I was supposed to siphon gas from some vehicles in a parking lot to fill up the tanks of a couple of the older guys’ cars. I was having a hard time with it. Siphoning gas isn’t as easy as it looks in the movies, by the way. Anyway, the cops showed up and the fellows I thought were my friends ditched me faster than you can say, ‘You’re under arrest.’”
“No. They didn’t.”
He groaned. “Let’s just say orange isn’t my favorite color, and I picked up a lot of trash on the side of the highway because of that one stupid move.”
“Your friends weren’t very courageous if they just deserted you.”
“And it was stupid of me to break the law just to try to impress the jerks. They were never really my friends, but that’s not something you realize until much later in life, when you can look back at it without all the emotions clouding the subject. Thankfully, soon after that I got sent to Wildhorn to live with the McPhersons. They were good to me. And I met Mason. His friendship is the real deal. I was still kind of a jerk for a while, but he pulled me out of the funk I was in and set me on the straight and narrow.”
A shadow crossed her expression, but all she said was, “He’s a good guy.”
“Yes, he is.”
“And now I understand why your view is so different from mine. I can see the obvious parallels between what happened to you and what’s been occurring around here. Dressing up the bear and TPing it. But do you really think it’s possible that Wildhorn has some sort of gang activity going on? That seems so unlikely to me, given what a small town this is.”
He shrugged. “It could happen anywhere.”
“Growing up, I don’t remember much crime in Wildhorn at all, of any nature. I never even heard about thefts. No one locked the doors to their cars or their houses. I guess times have really changed.”
Her brow knit in concern and he immediately backpedaled. He didn’t mean to frighten her with his theories, only open her mind to the possibilities so she wouldn’t take any unnecessary risks.
“Like you said, it’s probably nothing,” he amended, adjusting his cowboy hat lower over his eyes. “Kids on a lark, right? Nothing dangerous. Wildhorn is still one of the safest towns to live in—in Texas, or the whole country, for that matter. Our crime rate is remarkably low across the board.
“The police would already be involved if they felt there was a viable threat,” he continued. “I’ll organize an off-the-record neighborhood watch, something casual, just to keep folks alerted to the situation. The sooner we catch the culprits, the sooner the pranks will stop, innocent or not.”
“I’ll talk to Mason and Charlotte, and mention it to Pastor Corbit. It won’t take long for the word to get around. Shall I have anyone interested in being involved call your cell phone?”
“That’ll work. It’s best if we can catch the pranksters red-handed. We need to get some cold, hard evidence so we can convince them to stop what they’re doing. But in the meantime, I want you to take extra precautions for you and the twins. Lock your doors. Keep your cell phone on you. And put my number on speed dial.”
“And this is only because of the leaves on the street?”
Her words could have been laced with sarcasm, but when he met her gaze, he realized she was teasing him, and he let out a breath that released the coils of tension in his neck and shoulders.
He wanted her to be serious about this, but not too serious. He didn’t want Miranda to lose any of the open, trusting vibrancy that made her the woman she was. But he didn’t want her to be in danger, either.
He’d protect her and the twins, no matter what happened. He’d keep his eye on her, but he didn’t want her to feel hovered over, like she wasn’t a strong, independent woman.
She was. No doubt about it.
“Unless you have another reason in mind for putting my phone number on speed dial?”
Which sounded like flirting.
Miranda must have thought so, too, because her eyes widened almost as much as her gaping mouth.
Suddenly the path they were traveling on had nothing to do with pranksters and everything to do with—
A place they could never go.
* * *
The next Saturday, Miranda was busy preparing the twins for the town Christmas party, her mind mulling over the last time she’d seen Simon. She had put his number on speed dial, but not because she was afraid of some random gang activity in the small town.
There was no gang. She was positive of that. Not in Wildhorn.
She understood why Simon saw things the way he did, and she was definitely aware of the striking parallels between his life and what was happening now, but that was his past, not Wildhorn’s present.
She kept his number as the first spot on her contact list because—well, because she was starting to depend on Simon. For other things, not for his brand of protection. Even when they clashed, which was often, she still trusted that, while his methods left a little bit to be desired, he only acted the way he did because he cared.
About the twins, that is.
And lately, she wondered if he might even care just a little bit for her. She was hesitant to explore that thought, because she’d been so desperately wrong in the past when it came to relationships.
Which was why, even though she admired Simon and felt her heart jolt every time their eyes met, she was going to be very careful with him. Take it slow.
If there even was an it.
From the very first day they’d met again as adults, after she’d returned to Wildhorn to take up Hudson and Harper’s guardianship, Simon’s focus had been solely on the twins. As time went on, she and Simon had developed a friendship with each other, a bond she believed she could trust in.
She respected him.
But she was also wary.
She didn’t want to get hurt again. He might not be the jerk who’d been so callous to her in high school, but she didn’t trust her heart any more now than she had then. So Simon’s number would stay safely on her cell phone and she would see where time and circumstance took them.
In the meantime, Mason and Charlotte were waiting on her.
She had a party to attend.
Wildhorn’s community parties were nothing at all like the glitz and glamour of the functions she’d attended in Los Angeles, with catered food, professional string quartets and borrowed diamonds. There was no comparison whatsoever.
No—this small town really knew how to pull out all the stops. The band was local, the food was potluck and the clothing anywhere from casual to Sunday best, all the better for dancing in. No one stood around in penguin suits holding flutes of expensive champagne. They were too busy Texas two-stepping.
“Is there anything cuter than dressing up babies at Christmastime?” she asked Hudson as she adjusted the adorable little red bow tie that matched the red suspenders holding up his black pants. She’d tried to slick back his thick tuft of chestnut hair with gel but all she’d managed to do was turn it into porcupine spikes that stuck out in every direction.
Harper, with her green velvet dress, was a little easier to groom. Her identical thick tuft of chestnut hair had been corralled with a big green ribbon on top of her head—a style Miranda had promised herself when she was a single woman that she would never do to her poor daughter. But with Harper?
Adorable.
“You two look delicious enough to eat,” she told them, and then, amidst much squirming and giggling, she nommed on their sweet necks and tickled their tummies.
Miranda’s camera was never very far away from her these days, and she shot several pictures of the twins next to the glowing lights of the Christmas tree, sitting back-to-back, or standing supported by foil-wrapped Christmas gifts. She’d seen some photo shoots with babies holding large ornaments or wrapped up in lights, and she wanted to make sure and take the time to do a full session before Christmas came and went. But right now they were in a hurry. Uncle Mason and Auntie Charlotte were already out in their SUV waiting for Miranda to follow along in hers.
But that didn’t stop Miranda from admiring her children.
Were there ever any two more darling babies in the world? Miranda didn’t think so. And she couldn’t even begin to imagine her life without them now. They’d changed her whole world, and all for the better.
The cuteness, it hurt. They were going to be the life of the party.
Miranda had fudged a little bit with her own wardrobe, and she knew she was bound to stick out from the crowd, as well, but she reasoned that it was one of the few times she could even remotely consider wearing a cocktail dress, so she was all red sparkles tonight, even though she knew she would be overdressed.
She’d expected to catch folks’ attention, all right, but she had no idea how much until she met up with her brother.
Mason’s eyes widened to epic proportions when he first caught sight of her, and his lips twitched as if he was holding back a guffaw, but Charlotte, dressed in a lovely pine-colored skirt with matching blouse, shot him a warning look and then linked arms with Miranda and told her how pretty she looked.
“She way overdid it,” Mason murmured in Charlotte’s ear. Charlotte pressed a cautionary finger over his mouth. Miranda wondered for the tenth time that hour if her dress was too flashy, but at this point she didn’t have time to change.
When Miranda entered the church’s fellowship hall where the party was being held, a hush fell over the room, followed by quiet murmuring. Every eye was on her, and it was only partially because of the two adorable babies she held in her arms.
She pretended to appreciate the decorations—columns wrapped like candy canes, red, green, gold and silver garland strung from the ceiling, and a gigantic evergreen in the middle of the room, glowing with lights and large bulbs and frosted with icicles.
“Told ya so,” Mason muttered from beside her.
“Quiet, you,” Charlotte reprimanded, swatting his arm. “Stop talking and help with the twins.”
“I’m fine with them for now,” Miranda said. Mason and Charlotte had their own brood to worry about, and she suspected many of the townsfolk would want to interact with the twins, which was her primary reason for attending the party in the first place. She could already see a swirl of movement headed in her direction.
“Honey, I think you’re going to be way too busy to look after the twins tonight, and I really don’t mind,” Charlotte said. “And look—there’s your mom and dad. You wouldn’t want to deny the proud grandparents the opportunity to show off their sweet grandkids.”
As Charlotte predicted, Miranda’s mom wanted to take the twins for a stroll around the room, but Miranda’s arms felt oddly empty without them, and she wasn’t quite sure what to do with herself. She’d planned on having the twins with her for the whole evening.
She should mingle, she supposed. She hadn’t had the opportunity to do that much since she’d returned to Wildhorn.
She sidled back up to Charlotte, who was straightening Mason’s collar.
“The man can’t dress himself,” she teased mildly.
“If I had more than five seconds before being bombarded by children, maybe I could do a better job of it.”
“You love being a daddy and you know it.” Charlotte ran an affectionate hand across his stubbled jaw.
Mason grinned and shrugged, then placed a gentle hand against Charlotte’s growing midsection.
“Dance with me, sweetheart?”
Miranda hadn’t even noticed that the band had struck up a romantic tune.
“Go,” she e
ncouraged, waving them away.
“Your dance card isn’t full yet?” Charlotte asked.
Miranda snorted. “No, I think I’ve pretty much scared off all the single men in Wildhorn with my over-the-top shimmer. I knew I had overdressed, but this—” she gestured to her dress “—is major overkill to the nth degree. There’s not a single cowboy here who would dare to take me on.”
Charlotte’s eyes flickered with mischief.
“I can think of one.” She nodded toward the door.
Miranda glanced back to see Simon entering with his foster mother on his arm and his foster father walking on the other side of him. Simon’s head was tilted down toward Edith McPherson as she spoke to him.
He appeared relaxed and smiling, and Miranda silently thanked God that Simon had ended up in the McPhersons’ care. From everything he had told her about them, they had significantly changed his life for the better.
She turned back to Charlotte. “You think?”
She wasn’t nearly as certain as Charlotte seemed to be that Simon would display any interest in her. Not without the twins in her arms.
“I’ve never seen him so—involved—in a woman’s life before you came along. He’s a changed man.”
“Yes, but that’s because he’s the twins’ godfather.”
Charlotte’s eyes twinkled. “Is it?”
“You girls can gossip later. I want to dance.” Mason made a face at Miranda and dragged Charlotte toward the dance floor.
Miranda crossed her arms, feeling suddenly very exposed and awkward, which wasn’t like her at all.
She just needed to get over herself, she decided, heading toward the nearest group of people. Nothing that a little friendly chitchat with the neighbors couldn’t fix.
Before long she was the center of attention the way she liked to be the center of attention—talking and laughing with a group of people.
A man’s hand closed around her elbow from behind her and her heart leaped into her throat.
