Balancing Act. Lilian Darcy

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СКАЧАТЬ were shrieking with laughter—identical laughter—tossing wild handfuls of color every which way and earning exaggerated protests from Brady which they clearly found hilarious.

      “More leaves? We’re having more leaves?” he was saying in that gravelly voice she was starting to know. “What? I’m not buried deep enough for you, yet, guys? I swear—”

      Then he caught sight of Libby and stopped abruptly, and she had to hide a laugh of her own at the sight of his face.

      He was blushing?

      No, it had to be the effort and exertion of all that protesting, followed by the sudden scramble to his feet.

      “I…uh…” he said, and brushed himself down, strong shoulders moving beneath the gray fabric of his sweatshirt. “That was…you know…”

      “I know,” she answered, still laughing. “They loved it.”

      She wanted him to laugh with her, but he’d closed off, retreated somehow. Coming up the steps and reaching for the coffee mug she still held in her hand, he looked intimidating and serious, a construction company boss through and through, not the kind of man you’d ever catch horsing around with two little girls.

      Libby was sorry, now, that she’d caught him out. She didn’t want to create more distance than necessary.

      Their fingers touched briefly as he took the mug. As a piece of body contact, it was nothing. Quicker and lighter than the touch of a makeup brush on her cheek, or the flick of her hand when she shooed a mosquito from Colleen’s face. All the same, it was warm and physical and potent, and she wished it hadn’t happened.

      Possibly he did, too.

      If he’d even noticed it, Libby revised. She doubted that the imprint of it had lingered on his skin the way it was still lingering on hers. And she doubted that her scent was still wrapping around him, the way his had wrapped around her. It was clean and male, reminding her of freshly shaven wood, and it was mixed with the earthy scent of the leaves.

      He could have had half a dozen better reasons for moving away from her so quickly, with that distant frown still on his face.

      Brady knew he was frowning too much, knew it made him look distant—intimidating, even—and he didn’t care. Deliberately, he turned his back on Libby, took a big mouthful of coffee and stared down at the fall color carpeting the yard.

      He shouldn’t have fooled around with the leaves like that. He couldn’t afford to have this woman think he was soft, lacking intelligence, easy to manipulate, easy to distract from his goals with a bit of pretty color, and ready to take care of everything as needed.

      Even though he was soft. He knew that. When it came to Scarlett’s well-being, he was a pussycat. He turned to liquid inside, like a soft-centered chocolate candy, every time he felt her little arms around his neck, or saw her smile, or had to kiss a bump.

      And when it came to Scarlett, he would take care of everything as needed. He would walk over hot coals to give her the things she should have. A play in the leaves. Pretty toys at Christmas. A college education. Her very own twin sister.

      What kind of sacrifices was Libby McGraw prepared to make? he wondered.

      They drank their coffee mostly in silence, just watching the girls and commenting occasionally on their play. Inwardly, Libby was working on her courage, putting it in place piece by piece, like building a solid brick wall.

      She waited until Brady had drained his mug, then cleared her throat—it shouldn’t have been so tight, but it was—and said, “How about we go out for pizza? There’s a place just a few blocks from here that’s kid-friendly, and the girls should stay the distance, don’t you think, after their naps? It’s not even six, yet. Seven, Ohio time.”

      “Shouldn’t be a problem,” he agreed.

      She took a deep breath and forced herself to speak. “Because I don’t want to leave it until the end of the weekend before we talk about this, Brady. I want to get it on the table tonight, so that we both know where we stand.”

      He looked at her, and she could see the speculation and assessment in his face. He didn’t fully trust her. It was written in the jut of his jaw and the narrowing of his eyes. It was shouted by the frequent glances he gave toward both the girls. Definitely, he didn’t trust her.

      The feeling was mutual, and maybe that was good. Staying on her guard was a lot better than the alternatives.

      Since it was still pretty early, they had their pick of several tables at the pizza restaurant, and chose one in a quiet corner in back, near the open kitchen. The girls were happy to squiggle with crayons on sheets of paper, watch the pizzas sliding in and out of the big, wood-fired oven and slurp their juice.

      “Have you always lived in St. Paul?” Brady asked Libby as they waited for their order, and she couldn’t help her suspicion that it was more than just a casual question. Had she once again lost the initiative she was seeking?

      “No, I was born in Kansas City,” she answered him, too accustomed to behaving as good manners dictated. She wasn’t prepared to avoid his question, or to challenge it, no matter how suspicious of it she was. “But I grew up in Chicago after my parents got divorced. I met my husband at Northwestern—he was doing his master’s—and we moved here when his company transferred him, around ten years ago, right after I finished college.”

      “You’ve moved around some, then. I was born in Columbus, and I’ve stayed there.”

      “So Scarlett is a third-generation Buckeye fan?”

      He laughed. It was the kind of laugh that invited a response, deep and chuckling, like a little stream gurgling way down in a forest’s secret hollows. “Fifth.”

      “Wow!”

      “My grandfather used to take me to games when I was a kid, and his father took him. I’ve been taking Scarlett since she was a baby. Not sure how she’ll go this season, now that she wants to run around.”

      “That’s nice.”

      His eyes were nice, too. Libby didn’t want to notice the fact, but it was a little hard not to, when they were looking at her from just a few feet away, across the table. She was right in what she’d seen earlier. They didn’t always look blue. Now, for instance, you’d have said they were gray—dark and smoky and thoughtful.

      She got the impression he wasn’t an intellectual man—not the kind of person who read serious books and watched documentaries on TV—but he wasn’t stupid, either. He was the kind of person who kept his thought processes to himself, then came out with surprising results in the end. Take his next question, for example.

      “Were you and your husband trying to have a baby for long?” he asked. “Were you on that whole assisted reproduction treadmill, like Stacey and I put ourselves through?”

      “No, we hadn’t been trying long at all,” she answered, startled into honesty. A couple’s fertility wasn’t something most people wanted to ask about at a first meeting. As it happened, she and Glenn hadn’t had time to discover whether they had any problems in that area. “Just three or four months,” she added. “Glenn hadn’t felt ready until he hit thirty-seven.”

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