Balancing Act. Lilian Darcy

told her over the phone that he was widowed, that his wife’s death had been sudden and unexpected, the result of an accident. What he hadn’t told her was that the blood alcohol level of the man Stacey had been driving with—her lover—had been well over the legal limit at the time.

      It wasn’t a piece of information he enjoyed sharing with strangers, and he definitely didn’t want this woman asking questions about the state of his marriage. If that led to any kind of doubt over his capability as a father…

      Would he and Libby be able to remain strangers, though?

      Looking covertly at her, he wondered about how she was situated. She’d lost her husband more than four years ago. Enough time to grieve, and for the memories to soften. In the dating department, she couldn’t be short of offers if she wanted them. Not a pretty woman like her, a woman who smelled like flowers and rain and springtime. Was there anyone else in her life whom he needed to consider?

      And in Scarlett’s? What kind of a connection were they making this weekend? How should he respond to that immediate impulse to take Scarlett’s twin into his heart?

      Shift over, Scarlett.

      He knew he could love two daughters without being unfair to either of them. The girls could build a precious bond with each other, and his mom would adore another grandchild. But where did Lisa-Belle McGraw fit in?

      “So what do you want to do?” he asked her. Despite the colorless phrasing, they both understood what an enormous question it was.

      “Talk a little more, first, about what might have happened,” she answered, her voice still firm. “I need to get the dates straight. I just need to understand the history.” She pressed her fingertips to her temples. “You and your wife took Scarlett from the orphanage, when, exactly?”

      “June twelfth.” He had the date down pat, like a birthday or an anniversary. Scarlett’s exact birth date wasn’t known. “Fifteen months ago.”

      “I was there around ten weeks later. August twentieth. I was told Colleen had just been left on the veranda at night. Someone heard her cry at around midnight and went out and found her. No idea about either of her parents, except that her father, most likely, was white and her mother was probably mixed race. I’m thinking the mom would have been conceived back during the war…”

      “Yes, in the sixties or early seventies.”

      “…with an American GI father. But all of that’s just conjecture, based on the way she looks. The way they look,” she corrected herself quickly.

      “We were told pretty much the same story,” Brady answered. “Whether the orphanage workers had any inkling the girls were sisters… Probably not, since they passed through the place at different times. I got the impression the orphanage gets its share of mixed-race babies.”

      “Yes, so did I.”

      “I’m guessing the mother kept one baby in the hope she could manage to raise it, then found after a couple of months that she couldn’t.”

      “I can’t imagine what that must have been like for her. I try not to think about it. Maybe she felt better knowing that her baby would be going to a better life.”

      “That’s what we told ourselves, also.”

      “It was for the best, I’m sure of it.”

      “And of course,” he went on, “by the time she brought Colleen in, the orphanage would have had other kids passing through, and staff coming and going, possibly. And anyhow, a baby changes so much in those first few months.”

      “I guess that’s how it happened,” she agreed. “And that’s where I’m happy to leave it. Whatever the exact story is, it doesn’t change what we’re facing now.”

      “No, I guess it doesn’t.”

      Brady took a sip of his coffee, debating on whether to reach for a cookie as well. They looked melt-in-the-mouth good, but the way they were arranged on that doily made them seem as if they were only for show. He’d already ruined Lisa-Belle’s little soap arrangement in the powder room. Didn’t want to do the same with the cookies.

      Instead of taking one, he dampened down his hunger and watched the girls. Scarlett had discovered the sturdy plastic slide and playhouse set, and was exploring its ins and outs. Colleen came down the little slide. Showing off, maybe, or staking out her territory? More likely, at eighteen months, she was just having fun.

      She tipped back too far on the way down, bumped hard onto her bottom and scrambled to her feet, taking the rough landing in stride just as Scarlett always did. Next time Colleen came down, Scarlett was right behind her, and both of them were laughing. They were active, vital little girls.

      “The only thing I know for sure, right now, is that it would be wrong for them to grow up not knowing each other, not having the chance to be sisters,” Brady said, his voice suddenly husky. “And for me, too. How could I love one little girl and not the other? It would just be wrong.”

      Shoot!

      He hadn’t planned to say it. The words had just happened, falling out of his mouth, blunt as always, as soon as they crystallized in his thoughts. He looked across to where Libby McGraw sat, in a cedarwood outdoor chair just like the one he was sitting in.

      Her legs were crossed at her ankles and her hands were clasped around her knees, neat and pretty and careful. Hell, and his heart was beating so much harder and faster as he waited for her reply that he could actually feel it thumping inside his chest.

      Why was he so scared about what he’d given away? Why was he instantly sorry he’d laid his beliefs on the table like that?

      Because he’d intended to find out what she thought and felt first.

      With unsteady hands, he took two of the cookies at once and ate them in a single bite. They tasted like Christmas morning when he was eight years old.

      “Why would it be wrong, Brady?” she asked carefully, after a long pause.

      It wasn’t the tack he had expected her to take. He was relieved about that, but still very suspicious, on shifting ground. Something didn’t ring true in what she’d just said. “Don’t you agree?” he asked her.

      “There are plenty of kids that grow up as only children, these days,” she answered. Her chin was raised and her eyes were too bright.

      “True, but—”

      “I wouldn’t have adopted Colleen in the first place if I’d thought I couldn’t meet all of her needs,” she went on, gathering speed. “I refinanced my home and took a pay cut so I could work at a high-quality day-care center and have her there with me.”

      “I’m not saying—”

      “I used to teach kindergarten, but that wouldn’t have given us the time with each other that I wanted. She gets plenty of social interaction at day care with kids her own age. If I hadn’t entered her in that contest, she and Scarlett could have gone their whole lives not knowing about each other, and they’d still have been loved and nourished and happy. They’d have missed nothing.”

      Her voice was high and sweet and very firm.

      Too firm.

      Her eyes, in contrast, were frightened and defiant.

      Okay, he understood, now.

      “You don’t believe a single word of what you’re saying,” Brady growled at her, and sure enough, she flashed him a startled look and her cheeks went bright pink. “You don’t,” he repeated.

      There was a silence.

      “Yeah, okay, you’re right,” she agreed quietly at last. Her clasped hands had tightened around her knees, and her shoulders were rounded, vulnerable looking. There was anguish in her face now. “You’re right. I don’t.”

      She shook her head, and the tiny silver