A Family Come True. Kris Fletcher

in his prime, fully whipped. Tomorrow, she could wake with a clear head and focus on what mattered—getting Cady through this change without turning her childhood into the same kind of convoluted mess Darcy’s had been.

      All she had to do was get through the next hour.

      * * *

      LOOKING IAN IN the eye as she descended the stairs took about as much intestinal fortitude as telling Xander that he had hit the conception jackpot, but Darcy made herself do it. She was rewarded with a glimmer of his usual smile.

      Crap. She had forgotten the hurt she’d spotted in his face right after Xander’s arrival. The conversation ahead was shaping up to be as complicated as the ones she’d just navigated.

      She rubbed her temples. Couldn’t anything ever be simple?

      “Headache?”

      It was as good an explanation as any. “Yeah.”

      “Need anything?”

      This was the Ian she knew—helpful and supportive. The caregiver. The trusted friend, not the Lust Igniter.

      “I’ll be okay after I grab something to eat. Thanks.” She glanced around. “Lulu?”

      “I think she’s worn-out. Last time I saw her she was heading for her basket.”

      “I’m jealous.”

      There was nothing but the usual amount of concern on his face when he studied her. The inner caveman that had shown up while they were outside must have departed with Xander. Thank heaven.

      “We should talk,” he said slowly. “But if you’re not up for it right now...”

      “No. I mean, yes.” She blinked and dredged up a smile. “I’m fine. But I think, maybe, this calls for a beer. Want one?”

      “God, yes.”

      She pulled bottles from the refrigerator, grabbed a jar of salsa while she was there. “Can you get the chips?”

      He didn’t hesitate before opening the correct cupboard and snagging a bag of tortilla chips from the top shelf, where she stored them out of her everyday reach. It hit her as he moved with easy confidence around her kitchen how thoroughly entrenched he was in her life. He knew his way around her kitchen, he dragged the trash to the curb every Thursday, he changed her daughter’s diapers, all without asking how or where or when.

      She really couldn’t blow this.

      “Let’s go out on the porch,” she said when he pulled a chair from the table. The front porch. Public. Less chance of her breaking down. Or, worse, reliving that kiss and feeling tempted to do something truly stupid.

      He raised an eyebrow but picked up the monitor and followed her outside.

      She set the food on the small wicker table and climbed into her favorite hammock swing suspended from the roof. Ian settled in the oversize chair he had added to the porch last summer, the day he’d announced he was signing up for baby rocking duty.

      After a scoop of salsa on a chip and a long, welcome draw on her beer—damn, she had needed that—she was as ready as she would ever be.

      “Okay.” She ran her nail beneath the label on her bottle. “I have a million questions, and I bet you do, too, but first and most important, thank you. You got me through something I kind of knew would have to happen someday, but I sure wasn’t looking forward to it. Having you here made the whole situation— Okay, so it got kind of screwy there for a while, but I—”

      “I shouldn’t have kissed you.”

      She blinked. He was jumping straight to that?

      “I don’t want you to think— I mean, it was all for Xander,” he said in a rush. “You know that, right?”

      “Of course.” Stop weeping, stupid hormones. “It’s fine. We were winging it, and, okay, maybe I wouldn’t have done that, but it worked, and that’s what matters.”

      “Good.” He grabbed a chip but instead of eating it, he stared at it as intently as if a secret code were printed there. “I had no idea that you and Xander— But I wasn’t planning to pull the whole act out there, especially not if you’d been glad to see him. But when I came outside you looked scared when I said I would leave, so I... I don’t know. Reacted.”

      She thought back, replaying the sudden appearance of Caveman Ian. Now it made sense. “Ohhh. Yeah. I was kind of spooked. Xander had just told me where he spent the last— Jeez, I don’t even know how long he was in jail. Or what for.” She peeked at Ian. Good. He’d lost the pinched look around his eyes. “Do you?”

      “He didn’t go into detail, but based on his past run-ins—”

      “Past run-ins?” It was a miracle she still had enough air to speak given the way her breath had flown from her lungs. “You mean this wasn’t the first time?”

      “Easy, Darce. He’s not a hardened criminal, okay? He had some brushes with the law when we were in university, but never anything that led anywhere. And nothing violent. It’s all cyber stuff. Breaking into corporate accounts, things like that. As far as I know, he never does anything against individuals. I’m sure in his mind he’s some kind of modern-day Robin Hood.”

      “Oh.” Some of the tension seeped from her shoulders. “Thanks. That helps.”

      He nodded and stuffed the chip into his mouth. She had a feeling it was her move.

      “Here’s the story,” she said at last. “Xander and I never had a real thing. So you weren’t interrupting a reunion of long-lost lovers or anything like that.”

      The relief on his face told her that he had indeed been wondering. But was he glad to know he hadn’t intruded, or relieved that there wasn’t anything to interrupt in the first place?

      Not that it mattered, of course.

      “Remember when Xander was here and you went away over Labor Day weekend?”

      “Right. For Hank’s wedding.”

      Now, why did the mention of his brother’s wedding make him tense up again? Maybe it had something to do with his ex-fiancée. From what Darcy had gleaned from the bits and pieces Ian had let drop, the ex had continued living in Comeback Cove.

      “Well, that Friday night was when Jonathan and I broke up.” She snagged a chip and snapped it in half.

      “Jonathan.” There was a hint of a question in his voice when he mentioned her ex, and she knew what he was asking.

      “I know. You thought he was Cady’s father. I’m sure everyone thought that, but fortunately—or not—he isn’t. That night—well, let’s just say it didn’t end gracefully.”

      Call her the Queen of Understatement. On their six-month anniversary she had thought it might be safe to ask what he saw in their future. What she had ended up seeing was his back as he’d run as far and fast as he could.

      “Anyway, I made a horrible scene, then came home and went out in the backyard and got rip-roaring drunk. When I got to the maudlin stage and decided I needed a babysitter, I went up to the apartment looking for you, forgetting you weren’t there.”

      “But Xander was.”

      Oh, if his voice were any more neutral, he would have been beige. “Yep. I bawled all over him, and when I was cried out he said he’d help me get back to my place. I think his intentions truly were honorable, but by then I was starting to sober up and I didn’t want to, so I grabbed some vodka and convinced him to join me. And things kind of...escalated.”

      Silence hung between them. On the street, a car cruised past, bass thumping out the windows. A kid shouted to a friend on the other end of the block.

      “It was one night,” she said, leaning forward, praying with everything she had that he