Читать книгу Babies in the Bargain - Victoria Pade - Страница 9

Cutty had a hell of a time falling asleep Wednesday night and when he woke up before dawn Thursday morning it was aggravating to find his mind instantly on the mental treadmill that had kept him from sleeping in the first place. The treadmill Kira Wentworth’s appearance on his doorstep had caused.

She’d really shaken things up for him, and as he rolled onto his back and tried to fall asleep again, he didn’t feel any more sure of his decision to let her stick around.

He’d never expected to see any Wentworth again. Not after so many years and not when he was persona non grata in the extreme with Tom Wentworth.

Tom Wentworth who was the only Wentworth he ever really thought about when he thought about the family Marla had been estranged from. But then her adopted mother and adopted sister were just specks in the shadow Tom Wentworth cast, so it wasn’t surprising that they wouldn’t be uppermost on his mind for the last thirteen years.

Cutty opened his eyes and looked at the clock on his nightstand.

It was just after 5 a.m.

He doubted he would be able to sleep anymore but he didn’t want to get up, either, so he cupped his hands under his head and stared at the ceiling.

He still couldn’t believe that Kira Wentworth had shown up.

Marla’s sister.

He’d only seen her once before. Actually, he’d only met her mother and father one time, too. But while Tom Wentworth’s face was one Cutty would never forget, he had barely glanced at Kira before her adoptive father had ordered her to her room that night thirteen years ago. So there was no way Cutty had recognized her. If he had he might not have been so willing to let her come into his home. Her or anyone connected to Tom Wentworth.

Tom Wentworth.

Yeah, meeting him just once had been enough. More than enough, Cutty thought.

Marla’s father hadn’t wanted Marla to date in high school so she’d only seen Cutty on the sly. They’d made arrangements through friends; they’d met at the movies or the shopping mall; they’d seen each other at school functions. And always they’d had to keep an eye out for anyone who might report back to the controlling father, who ran his household with an iron fist.

But six months into dating, Marla had realized she was pregnant.

Cutty didn’t think he’d ever seen anyone as afraid of anything as she’d been to tell her father.

Two seventeen-year-olds facing a nearly three-hundred-pound mountain of mean—the memory was still fresh in Cutty’s mind.

To say it had been an ugly scene was an understatement. Tom Wentworth hadn’t even wanted Cutty in the house. He’d hit the ceiling at just the sight of a boy there with his daughter. But Marla had insisted that they all needed to talk. Then she’d told her father what they’d come to tell him.

And all hell had broken loose.

Cutty still couldn’t believe the way Tom Wentworth had exploded. It was as if a bomb had gone off in that living room. He’d screamed that Marla was a whore. A tramp. A good-for-nothing slut. And worse.

There hadn’t been much Cutty could do during the tirade. Nothing much anyone could do but sit under the rain of hurtful, hateful words. But when Tom Wentworth had begun to demand that Marla have an abortion, Cutty had stood up to him. He’d told Tom Wentworth that Marla didn’t want to have an abortion.

And Tom Wentworth had nearly beaten him to a pulp.

A few good punches of his own had saved Cutty, but after that he’d been afraid to leave Marla there alone with her enraged bull of a father. So Cutty had taken Marla with him and left, not having any idea what he was going to do with her.

And a baby.

The sun began to make its rosy entrance through Cutty’s bedroom curtains, and for a while he watched it, trying not to relive those early emotions that could still creep up on him every now and then. He’d been just a kid himself. A scared kid. With no one close by to turn to. He’d felt responsible. Overwhelmed. Terrified. He hadn’t known what the hell he was going to do….

Lying there wasn’t getting him anywhere, he decided suddenly and swung his legs over the side of the bed. He sat up on the edge, gripping the mattress and let his head drop forward.

Tom Wentworth had washed his hands of Marla—that’s what he’d told her when she’d tried to call him the next day in hopes that he might have cooled off. She was on her own. He didn’t care what happened to her.

Her adoptive mother had packed some of her clothes and sneaked them out to her because her father had said she wasn’t even entitled to those.

And that had been that.

At least for a couple of years until Marla had gone behind Cutty’s back. But that had been that in terms of Cutty and the Wentworths.

Until now.

Now when Kira Wentworth had shown up on his doorstep.

He really had thought she was the journalism student when he’d first caught sight of her coming up his porch steps. The journalism student had already interviewed his friend Ad, and Ad had told him she was slightly older than the average college student. That she was thin. Pretty. Blond.

Kira Wentworth fit that description. Although the minute he’d laid eyes on her he’d thought that he wouldn’t say she was merely pretty. Kira Wentworth was beautiful. And her hair wasn’t just blond. It was the color of honey shot through with sunlight. Plus she had skin like alabaster. And the softest mouth he’d ever seen. And a small, streamlined nose. And those eyes! They were the blue of a summer sky on a cloudless day. Not to mention that for a petite woman she had a body that wouldn’t quit….

So, okay, he couldn’t deny that that first sight of her had stirred things inside him that hadn’t been stirred for a long, long time. But how confusing was it that the first person he’d been attracted to, since he seemed to have gotten his head together again after Marla’s and Anthony’s deaths, was a Wentworth?

Incredibly confusing, that’s how confusing it was.

Rationally, Cutty knew there was no reason to hold a grudge against Kira Wentworth. But that had been his reaction when she’d told him who she was. In spite of his initial attraction to her. He’d been tempted to kick her out of his house. What had gone through his mind was that he didn’t want any Wentworth anywhere near him because with any Wentworth came the potential for contact with Tom Wentworth. Or the effects of having been raised by him.

But Cutty hadn’t wanted to be a hard-ass, so he’d tried to curb the feelings.

And apparently he’d been pretty successful, since only a few minutes later his heart had gone out to Kira when he’d told her about Marla and Anthony and witnessed the blow that struck.

He’d been so successful at curbing his negative feelings that he’d even been tempted to comfort her with a hug.

Well, more than a hug. What he’d really been inclined to do was take her in his arms, learn what it would feel like to have her head pressed to his chest, her body against his….

But she’s a Wentworth, he’d reminded himself to chase away that urge.

Or at least to resist it. The urge hadn’t exactly gone away, he just hadn’t acted on it.

In fact, he’d still been struggling with it when she’d offered to come in and care for the twins. And him.

He hadn’t expected that and once more his emotions had taken a swing toward the negative. He’d instantly imagined another Wentworth in his house. He’d flashed on the way things had been. On the way they could be again.

Cutty closed his eyes and shook his head as if that would get rid of the thoughts that he felt guilty for having had the night before and again now. Thoughts of Marla. Of life with Marla.

But guilty or not, the bottom line had been he really hadn’t been thrilled with the prospect of Kira stepping in for Betty.

After all, she’d been raised by the same man Marla had. And there she’d been, with the ink barely dry on her Ph.D. as a clue to the likelihood that she was an overachiever, not a hair out of place, not a wrinkle in her clothes, her makeup flawless, her posture perfect, and Cutty hadn’t had a doubt she was cut from the same cloth Marla was.

So no, he hadn’t wanted Kira’s help.

Only she’d made him feel like a heel for denying, not only the help she was offering, but for denying her the chance to meet the twins. To get to know them. To be a part of their lives.

They were her nieces, after all, and Cutty had known that if Marla had been there she would have welcomed Kira with open arms—both for herself and for the girls. He’d known that Marla would have wanted her younger sister to know her daughters.

So he’d caved.

Cutty opened his eyes and sighed, disgusted with himself. Just when he’d thought his life was finally settling down, here he was in a muddle of conflicting thoughts, conflicting feelings again. And for about the tenth time, he asked himself if he’d really accepted her help as temporary nanny and housekeeper because it was what Marla would have wanted, or if he’d had some kind of attraction to her. In spite of himself.

He hoped he’d only accepted her help because it was what Marla would have wanted.

Sure he’d told Ad a couple of weeks ago that he thought he was finally ready to get back into the swing of things again. But slowly. Cautiously. With great care and consideration given to exactly who—and what—he let into his life again.

And a pair of blue eyes—no matter how incredible a blue they were—didn’t change that.

He grabbed his cane from where it rested against the nightstand and got to his feet.

Kira would do the same job Betty did, and he would make sure his relationship with her was no different than the relationship he had with Betty—purely friendly.

And that was all there was to it.

Because while he might have finally made it over the hump of grief and been ready to restart his life, it wouldn’t be with Kira Wentworth.

What he was ready for was an ordinary, everyday woman who took things in stride, who knew when to put on the full-court press and when not to, who knew the value of people over the value of appearances, who stopped long enough to smell the flowers.

And he didn’t think for a minute that Dr. Overachiever Microbiologist Kira Wentworth was that woman.

After a restless night, Kira was awake before her alarm went off. The moment she remembered where she was and what she was slated to do today, she was too antsy to linger in bed. She got up and went into the bathroom for a quick shower.

The sun was just dawning when she came out of the bathroom and stood in front of the armoire to survey the clothes she’d brought with her. She didn’t have the slightest idea what was involved in taking care of eighteen-month-old babies, which meant she wasn’t sure what to wear. But she was sure that she wanted it to be just right.

Not that she thought her nieces would even notice what she had on, but she so desperately wanted them to like her that every detail of this first meeting seemed important.

Maybe something bright, she thought, taking out a red silk shirt.

Or was that too bright? Would it scare them?

Maybe.

She replaced the shirt in the armoire and continued the search.

Definitely not the black high-necked blouse, she decided when that was the next thing that caught her eye. Black was too austere. It might send the message that she wasn’t accessible and the last thing she wanted was for her nieces to see her as standoffish.

And white might make her look too washed out, so she decided against the white rayon cap shirt, too.

Kira was tempted to wear the flowered sundress with the full skirt but she wasn’t sure if that was practical. Although she did give it a second look when it also occurred to her that this was essentially her first day on a new job and making a good impression was probably not a bad idea.

But the impression she was thinking of making with the dress was on Cutty and the moment she realized that was what was dancing on the edges of her mind she shied away from the sundress for sure.

She wasn’t in Northbridge to impress Cutty. Her goal was connecting with the babies—only with the babies—and she wouldn’t let herself be distracted from that. Not even by a pair of deep, dark green eyes that had longer, thicker lashes than any man should be entitled to.

No, she wasn’t even going to think about him. Wasn’t that what she’d told herself the night before when she’d had so much trouble getting to sleep because every time she’d closed her eyes he was there, in her thoughts? There was one reason and only one reason she’d come to Montana and that was to try to have what remained of her family in her life again. And what remained of her family were the twins. Cutty was merely incidental. To her at least. He was just the person she had to go through to get to her nieces.

So what was she going to wear? she asked herself.

She forced herself to focus on the clothes in the armoire. To concentrate.

What about the linen slacks and the short-sleeved yellow silk blouse with the banded collar?

Comfortable but not sloppy. A little color but not too much. Sort of casual—because Cutty had made that odd comment about how he liked things casual—whatever that meant. So, okay, the linen slacks and the yellow blouse it was, she decided.

The slacks that made her rear end look good.

Not that that was a factor in her choosing them, she swore to herself. It was just a coincidence.

She took the pants and the shirt to the bed and laid them out before she turned to the small dressing table to do her hair and makeup.

Although she would ordinarily have worn her hair loose on the first day of a new job, for this particular job she thought it should probably be kept under control. That meant pulling it away from her face. A French knot seemed too stiff and formal, but she thought that a ponytail might be just the ticket. So she brushed her hair, pulling it tightly back and tying a pale yellow scarf around it to keep it there.

Once she was finished with her hair she applied a little blush, mascara and lipstick. Then she returned to the bed to put on the clothes she’d chosen before pulling on trouser socks and loafers, and concluding that she was ready to face the day and this new undertaking.

Ready and eager.

“To meet the twins,” she said out loud, as if someone had accused her of being eager for more than meeting her nieces.

And that wasn’t the case. She wasn’t eager to see Cutty again, she tried to convince herself. How could she be eager to see the person who would no doubt be watching her every move, judging her, comparing her to Marla?

Of course she wasn’t looking forward to that. Even if the person doing the judging had turned into a staggeringly handsome man.

Aunt Kira, I’m just here to be Aunt Kira.

Aunt Kira.

And Marla had been Mom…

That seemed so strange.

Whenever Kira thought of her sister she thought of the age Marla had been the last time Kira had seen her—seventeen. Just a teenager.

But Marla had grown up. She’d been a wife. A mother.

And now she wasn’t just out in the world somewhere where Kira had hope of finding her again. Now she was lost to Kira forever. Tears flooded her eyes. Tears for her lost sister, for her lost nephew.

Kira knew there was nothing she could do to bring back either of them and reminded herself that there were still the twins. Marla’s twins. And if she couldn’t have Marla, if she couldn’t ever know Anthony, at least she could maintain her connection with her sister through those babies.

Which was exactly what she intended to do, she vowed as she left the dressing table to make the bed, fighting the longing that things had been different. That her family hadn’t ended up the way it had.

And not just because it would have been nice to have had Marla and Anthony in her life. If things had been different and Marla hadn’t been estranged from them all it might have also been easier for Kira to think of Cutty Grant as her sister’s husband, as someone who was off-limits.

As it was, she didn’t have any sense of him as family. Maybe that was part of why it was so difficult to get past how attractive he was. So difficult not to notice it. Not to be affected by it the way any woman would be affected by it.

She was determined not to be, though, Kira told herself forcefully. She was going to have with the twins what she’d missed with Anthony. To be Aunt Kira now, even if she hadn’t been before.

Aunt Kira, she thought, moving into the tiny bathroom to straighten it. Nothing but Aunt Kira.

And she meant it, too.

It was just that it would have been so much easier just to be Aunt Kira if Cutty wasn’t going to be right there with her every minute. Right there where all she would have to do was look up to see his face. Those eyes. That big, hard body…

But she wasn’t going to let herself be affected by it. She wasn’t. She really wasn’t.

She was going to do the best she could to take care of the twins, to get to know them, to earn their love, and in the process she was also going to keep their father nothing more than a sidebar to her relationship with them.

She was going to make sure of that if it was the last thing she ever did.

It was just that it might not only be the last thing she ever did.

It also might be the hardest…

Kira left the apartment at 6:45.

As she crossed the yard she wondered if Cutty would be awake yet or if he stayed in bed until the twins woke him. If that was the case and she couldn’t get into the house, she had every intention of waiting outside the back door on one of the patio chairs just to make sure that she was there the minute she was needed.

But when she got to the house the back door was open and through the screen she could smell bacon frying and see Cutty sitting at the kitchen table—his foot propped on a second kitchen chair. There were also two babies in matching high chairs on the other side of the table, and a short, plump, older woman who was setting bowls on the high chairs’ trays.

Kira felt a sinking feeling at the thought that she was already late. That someone else had had to come in to do the job she’d volunteered for.

But she didn’t want to make it any worse by wasting time standing there looking in from outside, so she knocked on the screen door’s frame.

Cutty looked away from the twins and that first glance of those evergreen eyes sent the oddest sensation through Kira. It was like a tiny jolt that skittered across the surface of her skin.

“Come on in,” Cutty encouraged.

Kira opened the screen and went in, apologizing as she did. “I’m sorry if I’m late. I thought you said seven was early enough to get here and it’s not even that yet.”

“I did say seven was early enough,” Cutty responded. “But Betty—this is Betty Cunningham,” he interrupted himself to do the introductions. “Betty, this is Kira, Marla’s sister. Anyway, Betty came over early on her way to the hospital to get her mother, and I dropped the cane coming down the stairs and woke the girls, so here we are.”

Betty had waited for him to finish, but just barely before she came to stand directly in front of Kira to wrap her arms around her and give her an unexpected hug. “It’s so nice to meet our Marla’s sister.”

Kira tried not to stiffen up at the physical contact from the stranger. “Thank you,” she said. “It’s nice to meet you, too.”

Betty released her and turned toward the table, extending one hand in the direction of the twins as if they were the prize on a game show. “And these are our darlings. Cutty said you didn’t get to see them last night.”

And that was when Kira got her first real look at her nieces.

She’d never been an easy crier before, and she didn’t know what was wrong with her now, but yet again quick tears filled her eyes at that initial glimpse of the two babies, who were paying no attention to her whatsoever.

There wasn’t any question that they were Cutty’s children but there was enough of Marla in them to cause Kira’s tears. Identical, they both had Cutty’s sable-colored hair in tight caps of curls that were just like Marla’s. They had big green eyes slightly lighter than Cutty’s, chubby cheeks and rosebud mouths like Marla, and the cutest turned-up noses Kira thought she’d ever seen.

“This is Mandy,” Cutty said, pointing to the baby on the right. “And this is Mel—short for Melanie. About the only way any of us can tell them apart is that Mel has that tiny mole above her left eye. We’re hoping Mandy doesn’t get one like it or we’ll have to go back to guessing which of them is which.”

Fighting the tears because she was afraid Cutty and Betty would think she was crazy if they saw them and because she didn’t want to alarm the babies, Kira went to the table and leaned across it.

“Hi, Mandy. Hi, Mel.”

They were doing more playing with their oatmeal than eating it—Mel had a handful she was squishing through her fingers and Mandy was taking spoonfuls and placing them meticulously on the tray around the bowl—but they finally looked up from what they were doing.

Kira didn’t know what she’d expected, but it wasn’t what she got. Mel immediately held out her arms to Betty as if to save her from Kira, and Mandy’s adorable little face screwed up into a look of great alarm before she let out a wail.

That made Kira really want to cry.

“Oh, no, it’s all right. I’m your aunt,” she said as if that would make any difference.

It didn’t.

Betty hurried to the high chairs, standing behind them and wrapping a comforting arm around each of the babies as she bent over between them to pull their cheeks to hers.

“Poor little dears,” she cooed to them. “They’re usually so good with strangers.”

“It’s okay, girls,” Cutty assured his daughters. “Kira’s a nice lady.”

Mandy had cut short her wail, but both babies still stared at Kira as if she were some kind of alien life-form.

“Just give them a little time. They’ll warm up to you,” Betty said.

“Sure they will,” Cutty chimed in.

It didn’t make Kira feel any better.

And it wasn’t much help when Cutty said, “Betty, why don’t you show Kira the ropes around here so the girls will eat?”

Kira didn’t think it was a good sign that she had to be removed from her nieces’ sight in order for them to relax enough to have their breakfast. But there was nothing she could do except comply and hope the twins would warm up to her. Eventually.

Disheartened, Kira followed Betty out of the kitchen.

“Really, they’ll be okay after a while,” the older woman said confidently.

“I hope you’re right.”

That seemed to put an end to the subject then, because Betty said, “Let’s start in the nursery,” and led Kira down the hallway that ran alongside the staircase and up the steps.

The second floor of the house was as much of a disaster as the first. On the way to the nursery Betty picked up a few things, but it didn’t make a dent in the mess.

The nursery itself was painted white and trimmed in mauve, with one wall papered in a print where cartoonish jungle animals all played happily in a rain forest.

There were two cribs, two dressers, two toy boxes, but only one changing table.

“That’s Mel’s bed. That’s Mandy’s,” Betty began, pointing out which was which. “But sometimes if one or the other of the girls is fussy they sleep better if you put them in the same crib.”

The older woman crossed to Mandy’s bed and began to strip off the sheet. “I probably have enough time to help you with these beds. Marla always changed the bedding every day. I’ve tried to go on doing things like she did because I know that’s what she would have wanted.”

There was a strong message implied that Kira should do things as Marla would have wanted, too.

Kira went to the other crib and began to strip the sheet from it. “You must have known Marla well.”

“Northbridge is a small town—everyone knows everyone well. And then I helped out three days a week after the twins were born so I got to know her even better. Not that Marla really needed any help, because believe you me, she didn’t. It was Cutty who brought me in but I mostly just fed the babies bottles and tried to play with Anthony while Marla did the real work. She was just a marvel as a mother and housekeeper. Actually I can’t think of anything she wasn’t a marvel at.”

Unlike her younger sister, Kira thought, as she lost her grip on the crib sheet three times before she finally succeeded in getting it stretched over all four corners of the mattress.

But at least the other woman didn’t notice. Betty just continued talking. “You should have seen Marla with Anthony. He was a sweet boy but he was a handful. It never fazed your sister, though. She was devoted to him. She was like a saint, that girl.”

Kira didn’t know what to say to that, especially since what Betty was saying was making Kira worry about how she was going to accomplish all Marla apparently had.

Betty then hurried out of the room with the sheets in her arms, saying as she did, “You can do the rest of the room later. In the meantime we can put these sheets right into the washer. Marla always did at least one load of laundry a day, and I’m sure you’ll want to, too.”

Kira watched the plump older lady stuff the sheets into the washing machine in the closetlike space that opened off the hall, hoping it and the dryer operated the same way the machines in her apartment laundry room did so she wouldn’t have to ask for instructions.

“Cutty told me this morning that he’s not having you do anything in his room. He says he’ll take care of it himself,” Betty informed her, bypassing the closed door across the hall from the nursery and moving into the bathroom where towels, washcloths, baby clothes, tub toys and various soaps, shampoos and lotions littered the space. There was also a ring around the tub and stains all over the sink and countertop.

“Baths everyday,” Betty instructed. “In the evenings before bed. That was how Marla did it. And she would never have left the bathtub dirty. Or a speck of dust anywhere or the floors unvacuumed or—well, or anything less than immaculate. I’m telling you, she was amazing.”

“She always was,” Kira said, trying to do a little in the way of straightening up the bathroom.

“Oh, honey, no. Marla kept that soap dispenser on the right side of the sink and that’s where it belongs.”

Kira put the pump bottle where she’d been told to.

Betty adjusted it to just the right spot, explaining as she did, “Marla liked everything exactly so. But I don’t have much time, and you can get this done later. Let’s go back downstairs so I can show you a few things there.”

The older woman led the way out of the bathroom and Kira followed.

There was another closed door on the other side of the bathroom and Betty nodded in that direction as they went by it.

“That was Anthony’s room,” she whispered as if it were a secret. “There’s nothing in there. Even when Anthony was here he could only have a mattress on the floor, and at the start of the summer Cutty finally got rid of it. He gave away his own bed and bedroom furniture, too. It was a clean sweep. He bought all new things for himself, but of course there was no reason to get anything for Anthony’s old room. Besides, there’s work that needs to be done in there and until it is… Well, no sense furnishing it.”

Kira glanced in the direction of the closed door, curious about what kind of work the room needed and why. But she didn’t feel comfortable asking so she merely followed Betty down the stairs as the woman continued her nonstop chatter.

“It was good for Cutty to make some changes, though. We all thought it meant he was ready to get on with his life, and we were glad to see it. For his sake and for Mandy’s and Mel’s. A person can’t grieve forever. That’s just not healthy. Would you look at this mess?” Betty said, changing subjects as they reached the living room but not taking so much as a breath to let Kira know she was suddenly talking about something else. “Two days I’ve been gone, and I just can’t believe what a shambles this place is in. You came at the right time, that’s for sure. Now I can take care of my mother and know everything here will be all right. If poor Marla saw a mess like this she’d have had a fit. Never a thing out of order—that was Marla.”

Betty went on to point out the box in the corner of the room where the downstairs toys could be put away, as well as outlining how often Marla had washed windows. And turned mattresses. And scrubbed walls. And wiped down baseboards. And polished furniture and silver. And made hot meals and home-baked cakes and cookies and her own bread.

The list seemed to go on and on until Kira began to think she might have a panic attack if she heard one more word.

Maybe Betty saw it on her face because she stopped suddenly and said, “Oh, not that you have to do all Marla did. I don’t know if anyone could do all Marla did. I’ll just be happy if you can keep everybody clean and fed and the house picked up until I can get back here.”

“I’ll do my best,” Kira said, realizing that Marla had left her a very high standard to live up to.

“I’m sure you’ll be fine,” Betty said. “Now let me give you a quick tour of the kitchen and tell you about the babies’ schedule before I let you get to work.”

Kira followed the plump woman back to the kitchen where Cutty was trying to coax his daughters to eat.

The reappearance of Kira didn’t aid that cause because this time when she walked into the room they watched her warily and paid no attention to what their father wanted of them.

“After breakfast I get the darlings cleaned up and dressed for the day,” Betty was saying, oblivious to the twins’ continuing disenchantment with Kira. “Some mornings they’ll watch Sesame Street while I get to work on the house, or they’ll play—”

“Those are the good mornings,” Cutty contributed wryly, leaving Kira to guess what happened on the bad mornings.

Betty didn’t address it, though, she just went on. “They’re ready for lunch around noon and then I let them digest their food for about half an hour before I put them down for their naps. That’s the best time to catch up. They’ll be awake again about three or so. We try to have dinner around six. Then there are baths and hair washing. They like to look at books before bedtime—they won’t sit still if you try to read to them but if you point to the pictures and tell them what they are, they like that. I put them to bed for the night about eight or eight-thirty, and that’s the day.”

Kira felt winded just listening to it.

But she wasn’t going to let either Betty or Cutty know that and decided she would look at it all as a challenge. A challenge she was confident she could meet just the way she’d always met every other challenge in her life. After all, she’d been well-trained in meeting standards set by someone else. Plus she kept her own apartment pristinely clean. How much more difficult could it be to take care of two little girls on top of doing the housework around here?

“Okay,” she said simply enough.

“You’ll do fine,” Betty insisted, looking at her watch. “I’d better leave you to it so I can get Mom out of that hospital before she tries hitchhiking home. She warned me to be there first thing this morning or else. But if you all need me—”

“Don’t worry about us. We’ll manage,” Cutty said.

“What’s this we business?” Betty countered. “Remember, you’re supposed to stay off that ankle. You just let Kira do everything. After all, she’s Marla’s sister. She’ll be able to handle anything.”

Kira didn’t refute that because she knew she would bend over backward to do every bit as well as Marla had. As always.

“Okay, I’m off,” Betty announced.

She kissed the babies on the top of their curly heads as Cutty said, “Tell your Mom hi and that we hope she feels better.”

“I will,” Betty answered before bustling out amidst her goodbyes.

And then there Kira was, alone with Cutty and that incredible face that looked amused at something, and two babies who both eyed her warily.

“Are you sure you’re up for this?” Cutty asked then.

“Absolutely,” she said.

And she honestly thought she was.

Even as she glanced around at the stacks of dirty dishes, at the babies who seemed to hate her, and thought about all she suddenly found herself in charge of.

Marla had done it. And done it well.

She would, too.

“You were on your ankle too much, weren’t you?”

It was nine o’clock that night before Cutty got the twins to bed and, coming down the stairs after putting laundry in the dryer, Kira saw him flinch as he sat on the couch and raised his foot onto the throw pillow on the coffee table.

“It’s okay,” he said, looking embarrassed to have been caught showing pain.

But it was Kira who was really embarrassed. She’d been much more hindrance than help today and she knew it. She had only to look around at the chaos that had grown rather than diminished to realize just what a detriment she’d been.

“Why don’t you sit down so we can talk?” Cutty said then.

“That sounds bad. You’re going to fire me, aren’t you?”

He laughed. A deep rumble of a laugh that sounded better than it should have to Kira. “You just look like you need to sit down,” he said.

She caught sight of her reflection in the living room’s picture window and was nearly startled by what she saw. Her blouse was partially hanging out of the waistband of slacks stained with Mandy’s chicken-noodle soup from lunch, half of her hair had slipped from the scarf-tied ponytail and the other half was bulging out of it more on one side of her head than the other, and all in all she looked as if she’d just been through the wringer. In fact, she was more of a wreck than the house was.

“Oh,” she said, reaching up to snatch the yellow scarf so her hair could fall free. She stuffed the scarf into her pocket and then finger-combed her hair into some sort of order.

“Come on. Sit a minute,” Cutty urged.

She did, perching like a schoolgirl on the edge of the easy chair to his left.

Cutty’s dark green eyes studied her, and it occurred to Kira that even though they’d basically been together all day and evening she’d been so enmeshed in one thing after another that she’d hardly glanced at him.

He didn’t look any the worse for wear, though. The gray workout pants that stretched across his massive thighs and the muscle-hugging white T-shirt he wore were still clean. Even the five o’clock shadow that darkened the lower half of his striking face only gave him a scruffiness that was very sexy.

But the last thing Kira needed was to notice that now.

To avoid it she forced herself to stare at the apple-sauce caked on her shoe. “I’m so sorry about…” She shrugged helplessly. “Everything today. Really, I swear I’m usually the most organized, efficient person anyone knows. And believe it or not, my apartment is always spotless.”

“I don’t doubt it,” he said. “But add a couple of busy, mischievous eighteen-month-olds to the equation and it tends to throw everything off.”

Why did he seem to think her failure today was funny?

“Even when my focus was on school and I was under a lot of pressure to get grades as high as Marla always had, I could still juggle all my work at home with all my classwork and even my research. My room at home and my apartment after I left home never looked like this…” Kira motioned to the even bigger mess all around them. “I was sure if Marla was a whiz at all of it the way Betty said she was, that I would be, too.”

“Marla wasn’t always a whiz at it. She started out having trouble taking care of a baby—one baby—and everything else, too. We both did. But as time went on—”

“I’ll get better,” Kira promised before he could finish what he was saying. “I mean it. I’ll come over here at four tomorrow morning before you or the girls are awake and—”

“Whoa!” Cutty said with a shake of his head and a big hand held up palm outward. “I didn’t want to talk to you about trying harder—”

“So you are firing me.”

“I never hired you, how could I fire you? You’re just helping out and all I wanted to talk to you about was relaxing.”

“Relaxing?” Kira repeated as if the word wasn’t in her vocabulary.

“I think you’re trying too hard and getting in your own way.”

Trying too hard? Was there such a thing?

“It’s making you kind of fumble fingered.”

“I know I seemed to drop and spill everything I touched today, and I spent all my time cleaning up my own messes rather than making any headway with the ones that were already here. I’m not usually that clumsy.”

“And when it comes to the girls—”

“They still don’t like me.”

“You’re just unfamiliar to them, and they’re missing Betty—she’s like a grandmother to them. They’ll get used to you but you can’t force it. They can be pretty contrary when you try.”

And Kira had the soiled clothes and shoes to show for it.

Still she knew he was right. The way she’d handled the twins certainly hadn’t been the recipe for success, since all they’d wanted to do was escape from her overly cloying attentions—frequently by displays of temper—and Cutty had ended up having to step in to do everything.

“I’m sorry,” Kira said again. Then, with another glance at the debris all around them, she added, “Maybe I can get some things done now.”

“I think what you should do now is go soak in a bubble bath,” Cutty said. “And we’ll start over tomorrow. Maybe without so much concern about how Marla did things.”

Kira had spent an inordinate amount of time asking how her sister did everything. “Betty said—”

“I can imagine what Betty said. But Betty isn’t here and neither is Marla, and we just need to get things taken care of regardless of what Betty said or how Marla did things.”

“Okay,” Kira agreed, thinking that that was a nice way of saying she just needed to get something—anything—done.

But then he managed to raise her sinking spirits with a simple, winning smile. “You know, I appreciate that you’re here and willing to help out. And I’m glad you want to get to know the girls. I just think things will run more smoothly if you can go with the flow. Like I said, relax. Have a little fun, get a little done. There’s no right way. There’s no wrong way. There’s no big deals.”

Kira nodded. “I’ll try.” But the truth was, she’d been taught that there was always a right way and that was how she had to do everything. She wasn’t too sure she could ignore that now.

Cutty took his foot off the pillow and stood then. “Come on. Let me give you a key to the back door so you can get in whenever you want, and then you can go have that long soak in the tub. Tomorrow will be a better day.”

Kira thought he was probably figuring it couldn’t be a worse one.

But still, the idea of sinking into a bath full of bubbles was too tempting to pass up and she stood, too, following Cutty to the kitchen and feeling guilty for the sight of him limping even more than he had been the night before.

“I really am sorry,” she told him yet again as they reached the kitchen.

“I’ll let it go this time but another day like today and I’ll have to dock your pay,” he joked.

He took a key from the hook beside the door and turned around, giving her a full view of a mischievous smile that put those creases on either side of his mouth and made an unexpected warmth wash through her.

“Before this is over I might end up having to pay you,” Kira said, making a joke of her own. “In fact you can probably start a tab with those two dishes and the coffee mug I broke.”

Cutty just laughed and again she liked the sound of it. “You are kind of a bull in a china shop,” he said as if it were a compliment.

“Not usually,” she assured. “Honestly, no one who knows me would have believed this today.”

He didn’t say anything to that. He merely gave her the key.

But as she accepted it their hands brushed. Only briefly. And Kira found herself oddly aware of it. Of the heat of his skin. Of the little shards of electricity that seemed to shoot up her arm from the point of contact.

It was just silly, she told herself.

Although, she also thought when Cutty spoke again that his voice might have dropped an octave, and she had to wonder if he’d felt it, too.

But if he did, he didn’t indicate it in what he was saying.

“And don’t even think about coming over here at four tomorrow morning. Seven is plenty early enough. You’ll probably have to wait half an hour or so for the girls to wake up even at that. But maybe if you’re the first person they see instead of Betty, it’ll start things off more in your favor.”

“Like ducks bonding to the first thing they see when they hatch?”

He grinned. “Something like that, yeah.”

“I’ll hope for the best.”

There was a moment then when their eyes met and held. Kira didn’t understand why or what was in the air between them when it happened. But there was definitely something in the air between them. Something that seemed more than just the camaraderie of being in the trenches together.

But then it passed and Cutty opened the screen for her, holding it while she went out.

“See you in the morning,” he said then.

“Good night,” she responded.

But even as Kira walked across the yard to the garage apartment she could still feel the remnants of that change that had hung in the air for that single moment.

What had that been about? she wondered.

She honestly didn’t know.

But she did know that even after the fact, it left her feeling all tingly inside.