Adding to the Family

by Gina Wilkins

  Apparently Kasey had told Payton that he and Jamie were staying with their aunt while their mother was away for a while. Payton had then informed the twins that their mother would never come back, at which point Jamie had gotten upset.

  “Why did you tell them that?” Mark asked his daughter when Kasey stopped for breath.

  “I just said maybe we could all be friends and stuff ’cause they’ll be living with their aunt all the time now,” she replied ingenuously.

  “You said our mother won’t ever come back,” Kasey accused her as Jamie sniffled in agreement.

  “Well, she won’t,” Payton shot back. “Mamas don’t come back when they leave, do they, Daddy?”

  Mark looked tempted to groan, but he kept his voice even when he replied, “Kasey and Jamie’s mother had to go away, Payton, but that doesn’t mean they’ll never see her again.”

  “We don’t ever see our mama,” Payton argued matter-of-factly, motioning to include her little sister in the statement.

  Miranda saw what might have been chagrin in Mark’s eyes before he replied, “That doesn’t mean you won’t ever see her again. And it doesn’t have anything to do with Jamie and Kasey.”

  Miranda couldn’t help wondering how Mark really felt about his ex-wife now. He had spoken of her with little emotion earlier, as if he had few feelings left for her at all, but how would he really respond if she suddenly appeared on his doorstep again? As committed as he was to family and responsibility, would he feel obligated to take her back?

  As she studied handsome Mark Wallace and his two beautiful daughters in their comfortable home, she wondered what his ex-wife had been thinking to leave all this behind. Maybe Miranda had been careful to avoid such domestic entanglements, herself, but she couldn’t imagine running out on such a nice family if she had found herself a part of one.

  Deciding a change of subject would be advantageous for everyone, she shifted Jamie’s head out of her shoulder and pointed toward the hearthrug. “Did you see the dog, Jamie? He looks like a friendly guy, doesn’t he?”

  The smallish, brown mutt had awakened from his nap when the children had come in. He sat up now watching them with a goofy doggy grin and a wagging tail, seeming to be waiting patiently for someone to notice him.

  Kasey hadn’t seen the dog until Miranda pointed him out. His face lit up. “A dog! Can we pet him?”

  “Of course you can,” Mark assured him. “He loves to be petted.”

  Kasey moved toward the mutt, who wiggled excitedly around the boy’s feet. Kasey laughed when the pup licked his chin. “Jamie, come pet him. He’s so soft.”

  Her manner somewhat territorial, Payton knelt to keep one hand on her pet. “His name is Poochie. He’s my dog.”

  “Let the boys play with him, too,” Mark instructed her, a note of warning in his voice.

  Jamie slid slowly off Miranda’s lap, his gaze focused on the dog. She watched as he crossed the room, then knelt beside the dog. Cautiously he stuck out a hand and touched Poochie’s back. Tail wagging frantically, Poochie squirmed around to lick Jamie’s fingers.

  Jamie giggled. The dog reached up to lick the boy’s still-damp cheek, and the giggle turned into a breathy laugh.

  Unconsciously holding her breath, Miranda looked at Mark. He smiled back at her over Madison’s head.

  Miranda was the one who looked away, drawing an unsteady breath. She wasn’t sure whether she was more shaken by Jamie’s touching response to the little dog, or by that fleeting moment when she had found herself lost in Mark’s smiling gray eyes.

  Chapter Six

  They took Poochie to the park with them. Miranda held the dog’s leash while Mark supervised the children on the playground equipment. Jamie clung to Miranda for a few minutes when they first arrived, apparently intimidated by the number of children taking advantage of the warm spring weather, but Miranda shooed him off to play with Kasey and Payton.

  Now she sat on a park bench, watching as Jamie followed his brother up the ladder of a slide and pondering the realization that Jamie was starting to form an attachment to her, using her as a substitute for his mother.

  She was surprised that he had turned to her so quickly; after all, he hardly knew her. They had spent only a half day together—and a night, she reminded herself with a wince, since her neck was still sore from sleeping in an awkward position.

  Just the fact that she was his aunt—and looked quite a bit like his mother—must have been enough to make him see her as someone who would take care of him. She couldn’t help wondering how traumatic it would be for him to have yet another adult he had come to depend upon choose to send him away.

  Having explored as far as the leash would allow him to go, Poochie hopped up on the bench beside Miranda and butted his head against her in a shameless request to be petted. She sighed lightly and scratched his shaggy ears. “Even you want something from me,” she murmured, making his feathery tail pump the air.

  She looked from the dog to the slide, where Mark was holding his hands out to Madison as she slid down to him, squealing with delight. The guy was a natural at the daddy thing. Parenthood seemed to come so effortlessly to him—which was probably why he didn’t entirely understand her own reluctance to take on the role, no matter what he said to the contrary.

  She watched him catch his youngest daughter at the bottom of the slide. Little Madison obviously adored him. There was such absolute trust in her face when she landed in his waiting arms.

  Payton was at that self-centered, queen-of-the-world stage where she took his attention for granted. She was as possessive of her father as she had been with her dog, making sure the twins didn’t get too much of his time. Yet he still managed to give attention to the boys, teasing and encouraging Kasey and being gently supportive of Jamie in trying new playground challenges.

  Her own father would have considered a playground visit a waste of his valuable time. His daughters were expected to entertain themselves, preferably with instructive and character-building pursuits such as studying and piano practice. Miranda considered him a throwback to Victorian times, when the man had served as the distant and undisputed head of his household, whose only responsibility to his offspring was to provide financial support and firm instruction.

  Mark, she realized, watching him toss Madison in the air and catch her, then give giggle-inducing neck nuzzles, was a very different sort of father. Had Stewart Martin been more like him, Lisa and Miranda might have turned out very differently.

  Especially Lisa, Miranda added regretfully. Never satisfied with her own accomplishments, Lisa had sought affirmation from too many outside sources. That craving for approval had made her too susceptible to unsavory influences, too easily led into trouble.

  Why couldn’t Lisa have been satisfied with the love of her children? Why hadn’t being a good mother to them been enough of a challenge for her? Miranda shook her head with a renewed sense of frustration and anger.

  Her attention returned to the present when a towheaded boy climbed onto the bench next to her, sitting so close their thighs almost touched. “Jamie?”

  He nodded.

  “You don’t want to play with the others?”

  He shook his head.

  “Are you getting tired?” she asked, studying the faint purple smudges under his eyes. He hadn’t slept very deeply the night before.

  Another nod.

  Wondering if the boy was ever going to speak to her, Miranda decided not to push him. Instead she shifted the dog closer to Jamie’s reach. “Why don’t you pet Poochie? He loves having his ears scratched.”

  Jamie reached out a hand, a slight smile playing on his lips when the dog grinned goofily at him and licked his fingers. Miranda sat back and let Poochie work his magic. Her head was beginning to ache a bit, probably from a combination of weariness, bewilderment and worry.

  Thank goodness Mark had coincidentally been with her when the boys had arrived, she thought for at least the dozenth time. Even though she ass
ured herself she could have handled everything on her own, his assistance had certainly come in handy.

  It was just after five when the children decided they had had enough of the playground. “I’m hungry,” Payton proclaimed.

  “Me, too,” Kasey seconded, looking up at Miranda.

  Having spent the past half hour dozing on the bench with his cheek on Miranda’s leg, Jamie rubbed his eyes and nodded agreement.

  “Why don’t we go out for pizza?” Mark suggested.

  “Pizza!” Madison exclaimed, her smudged little face lighting up.

  Mark looked at Miranda with an inquiringly lifted eyebrow. She debated maybe a half second before nodding. “Pizza sounds good to me. But what do we do with Poochie?”

  Mark made a shooing motion toward the parking lot. “We’ll drop him off at home on the way.”

  Shamelessly taking advantage of another opportunity to avoid being alone with her nephews, Miranda followed the crowd.

  It was inevitable, of course, that the time would finally arrive for Miranda to take the boys back to her apartment. Parked in Mark’s driveway, she made sure they were belted into the back seat of her car, then walked around to the driver’s side, where Mark waited to see her off. His daughters were inside with the housekeeper, giving them their first moment in several hours to speak privately.

  “Are you going to be okay with them tonight?” Mark asked. “Do you need anything?”

  She shook her head. “Now that they’ve been fed and entertained, I’m sure everything will be fine. Maybe the boys will be so tired tonight they’ll go right to sleep.”

  “I hope so.”

  “Thanks for everything this afternoon, Mark. I know you had more important things to do than to help me baby-sit my nephews.”

  “I had other things I could have done, but nothing more important,” he corrected her with a smile.

  She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “You always say just the right thing, don’t you? It must be a talent. I’m afraid it’s not one of mine.”

  He frowned as if he weren’t sure whether he had just been complimented or insulted. “Because I don’t know the right response to that, I’ll simply say goodnight.”

  She opened her car door and climbed in. “Good night, Mark.”

  “I’ll call you tomorrow, okay? I’d like to know how things are going. And, uh, what you’ve decided to do about…you know,” he added with a glance at the boys.

  Her fingers clenched a bit spasmodically on the steering wheel. “You can call, if you like—but nothing has changed about my plans.”

  “I’ll call, anyway,” he said, and stepped back to allow her to close the car door.

  Miranda sent the twins straight to the bathtub when they arrived at her apartment. Kasey assured her they were quite capable of bathing themselves and washing their own hair, something they had apparently been doing for some time. Relieved, she checked her answering machine while they were splashing around in the bathroom.

  There were several messages from various friends, all wondering where she had been this weekend. Three nights had passed now since anyone had seen her out at the clubs, and they wondered where she was keeping herself.

  Brandi was convinced Miranda was involved in a passionate new love affair, and she wanted details. Juicy ones. Oliver was having a cocktail party at his place the next evening, and he wanted Miranda to be sure to attend. “Feel free to bring a friend or two,” he’d added casually, being of the-more-the-merrier persuasion.

  With a rueful smile, Miranda wondered how Oliver would feel if she brought a couple of five-year-olds to the party. Since most of her friends had much the same attitude about children that Miranda had, it wasn’t much of a stretch to conclude that Oliver would be horrified.

  It occurred to her only then that none of her current friends had children. Once members of her loose circle married and started families, they tended to disappear. She supposed it was because there wasn’t as much time to party once the babies arrived.

  Just as she wouldn’t be going to Oliver’s get-together tomorrow because she had to take care of her nephews. She’d always known that kids would seriously cramp her lifestyle—was it any wonder she had always avoided them so assiduously?

  After the boys had bathed, dressed in pajamas and brushed their teeth, she tucked them into her bed again. “I’m going to sleep on the couch tonight,” she told them as she hovered by the light switch. “You both know you’re safe here, and that I won’t let anything happen to you, so we can all sleep easily, okay?”

  Two blond heads nodded against the pillows.

  Seeing a look of anxiety on the face she assumed was Jamie’s, she added gently, “If you need anything, I’m only a few feet away. I’ll close the door now, so you won’t be disturbed if I watch the news on TV or something, but I’ll be able to hear you if you call out to me, okay?”

  Jamie looked just a bit more at ease when he nodded again. Feeling an imaginary weight of responsibility lying heavily on her shoulders, Miranda turned off the light and closed the bedroom door.

  It was just after 9:00 p.m., which was hours earlier than she usually turned in on a Saturday night. Aware of the need to be quiet, she moved to the couch and picked up a mystery novel she’d started a few weeks earlier, but had lost interest in before she’d made it halfway through.

  For nearly an hour she sat there with the book open in her lap, an untouched soda on the table beside her and her feet propped comfortably on the coffee table in front of her. She didn’t read a word during that entire time. She was lost in a mental slide show featuring Mark Wallace—images of him sitting at his desk poring over her tax forms, smiling at her over a candlelit dinner table, playing with the children at the park, speaking so kindly to Jamie. The way his face had looked when he was just about to kiss her last night.

  What would have happened then had Jack Parsons not shown up with her nephews? Would the kiss have flared into spontaneous passion? Would she have invited him in—and would he have accepted if she had? And if they had carried the kiss into the bedroom, would the results have been as spectacular as she suspected?

  Even though she knew it would have been no more than a brief fling, maybe only the single night, and even though she had never been one to indulge in one-night stands, which were more her sister’s style, just this one time she might have made an exception. If for no other reason than to rid herself of the embarrassing crush she had unreasonably developed for the man. She figured it was just a fleeting thing, a combination of lust and curiosity and admiration.

  A brief infatuation, she assured herself. She didn’t even want it to develop into anything more, considering her aversion to commitment and his ready-made family. But that one night might have been a pleasant aberration, leaving memories she could have savored for a lifetime.

  Once again Miranda was awakened not long after she went to sleep, this time by a hand on her shoulder, followed by a tentative voice saying, “Aunt ’Randa? Are you asleep?”

  She opened her eyes just as a booming clap of thunder rattled the apartment windows. Only then did she realize that a spring storm was raging outside, complete with thunder, lightning and torrential rain. She had been so soundly asleep, she hadn’t even roused, proving how tired she had been when she had finally dropped off to sleep.

  “Aunt ’Randa,” the boy said again, giving her shoulder another little shake. “Are you awake?”

  “I am now.” She yawned and sat up. “What’s wrong, Kasey? Are you afraid of the storm?”

  “I’m Jamie. And I’m a little afraid of the storm, but that’s not why I woke you up.”

  Startled, she studied his face in the bright flash of lightning that momentarily lit the room. “Oh, sorry. I thought you must be…”

  Jamie had talked to her. The relief of it made her pause a moment to collect herself before she asked, “Why did you wake me?”

  “Kasey’s sick. He threw up in the bathroom.”

  “Oh, cripes
.” After tossing her blanket aside, Miranda jumped to her feet and ran into the other room.

  Kasey was still in the bathroom, his face so pale that the slight smattering of freckles across his cheekbones stood out in stark contrast. Wrinkling her nose at the smell in the room, Miranda opened a cabinet to pull out a washcloth and a can of air freshener. She squirted a bit of the scent before holding the cloth beneath a stream of cool water.

  “Sit on the toilet seat,” she instructed Kasey, and when he did, she pressed the cloth to his face. “Are you still feeling sick?”

  “I don’t think so.” But he didn’t sound entirely confident.

  She felt his forehead. A bit clammy, but she didn’t think he had a fever. She knew absolutely nothing about childhood illnesses, so she didn’t even know what questions she should ask. She settled for, “Do you hurt anywhere?”

  Looking miserable and embarrassed, Kasey shook his head. “I’m okay.”

  “He always throws up when he eats pepperoni pizza,” Jamie volunteered.

  Still a little startled to hear him speaking, Miranda nodded at him before looking at Kasey again. “Pepperoni always makes you sick, Kasey?”

  He nodded.

  “Then why did you eat it?”

  “Everyone else did.”

  Which meant either he hadn’t wanted to single himself out or he had been reluctant to cause any inconvenience. Maybe he just liked pepperoni pizza and had hoped he would get lucky tonight.

  Miranda sighed. “What usually happens after you get sick?”

  He shrugged. “I feel better.”

  So perhaps there was no need to rush him to the closest hospital, after all. She had him brush his teeth, then gave him a glass of water and tucked him back into bed with his brother. “Call out if you need anything, okay? The door will be open.”

  Kasey nestled into the pillows and she was relieved to see that the color had almost fully returned to his face. “I’ll be okay. G’night.”

  “Good night, Kasey.”

  Jamie yawned hugely and pulled the covers to his ears. “‘Night, Aunt ’Randa.”