Gina Wilkins - Adding to the Family

Mark hadn’t really clicked with any of them. As nice as they had been, he was usually relieved when the awkward evenings had ended and he’d been back at home. Was he really such a glutton for punishment that he was attracted only to women who were completely wrong for him?

“You’re kind of quiet tonight,” Miranda commented after their food was placed in front of them.

Worried that he hadn’t been holding up his end of the conversation, he forced a smile. “Sorry. This time of year, most accountants go into brain overload.”

“I can imagine. Especially if all your clients are as late getting their paperwork to you as I was.”

“Not everyone waits so late—but enough to make this season a challenge.”

“I bet.”

Mark sliced into his steak. “You’re a bit quieter than usual, yourself.”

“Sorry. Just before you arrived this evening, I had a disturbing phone call.”

He frowned. “Not bad news, I hope.”

She toyed with her lemon-peppered salmon, her expression solemn. “No. Or maybe. I’m not really sure, actually.”

Bemused, he tilted his head to study her face. “You’re not sure?”

“With my sister, it’s hard to tell sometimes.”

He grimaced. “Now that’s a remark I understand completely.”

“You have a sister?”

“Yep.”

“Older or younger?”

“Younger. And if she lives to be my age, it will be a miracle.”

“And that’s a remark I understand completely.”

“Your sister’s a risk-taker, too?”

Miranda rolled her eyes. “Risk-taker is a bit tame when it comes to describing Lisa. Lisa takes unpredictability to extremes. She’s rarely in the same place two months in a row, she’s never with the same guy for more than a few weeks, she’s always just one step away from total financial disaster. If I didn’t…well—”

“You slip her some money occasionally?” he guessed when she stopped.

Miranda shrugged. “I do, and so do other people. She seems to attract people who like to give her things, especially men. But they never seem to stay around long. She has trouble keeping jobs. And hanging on to money. I can’t let her go hungry, not to mention her kids.”

“Kids?” At least his sister wasn’t dragging children around on her adventures. “How many does she have?”

“Two. Twin boys.”

“Yeah? How old?”

“Five. I think,” she added with a frown of uncertainty.

He felt his eyebrows rise. “You don’t know how old your nephews are?”

“I’m pretty sure they were five in February. They were born on Valentine’s Day—I remember that because Lisa made such a big deal out of it. And why does everyone act like I should know everything about my sister’s kids? I’ve only seen them a couple of times in their whole lives.”

Because she was starting to sound defensive, he held up a hand. “I didn’t mean anything by it. How could you know them if you never see them?”

“Exactly. Does your sister have kids?”

“No. Terry has never married. She’s a photojournalist who travels all over the world—generally to the most dangerous spots she can find.”

“Lisa never married, either. The boys came from an affair she had with someone she barely remembers.”

“Does he know about his sons?”

“She told him. He wasn’t interested. He gave her a sizable check, then disappeared from her life. She went through the money before the twins were out of diapers.”

“It must have been tough for her, having two infants to care for. Did your parents help her?”

Miranda almost snorted. “Hardly. Our parents are the two most rigid, judgmental, dictatorial people on earth. They disowned Lisa when she left home the day after her high school graduation to get away from them. They did the same to me when I left home two years later. I was almost eighteen. Unlike Lisa, I had a college scholarship—full tuition and room and board paid. I was lucky. Between that and several part-time retail jobs, I was able to earn my degree in four and a half years. I’ve been working for Ballard’s ever since.”

“Sounds like you and your sister are opposites in many ways. She drifts, you’ve stayed in the same job. She spends money and you save. She lives for the present, while you plan for the future. She has her twins and you stay far away from kids.”

“That pretty well sums us up,” she agreed with a slight shrug. “But we have several things in common, too. Neither of us will ever let ourselves be browbeaten or controlled by anyone again. And there’s still a bond between us that was formed during those years when the only emotional support either of us had came from each other.”

“Your parents are still living?”

“Yes. They’re only in their early sixties.”

“But you never see them?”

“No.” She abruptly changed the subject to his family. “What about you? Are your parents still around?”

“My father died when I was just a kid. My mother was in poor health for many years. She died while I was in my last year of college, when Terry was a junior in high school. I watched out for Terry until she left for college. She’s been on her own ever since, though she has always known I was here for her if she needed me.”

“It sounds as though she was lucky to have you.”

“We were lucky to have each other.”

“You didn’t mind taking care of your younger sister when you were fresh out of college?”

“No. I was all she had,” he answered simply.

“Mr. Dependable,” she murmured, then speared a tiny herbed carrot and lifted it to her smiling mouth.

He didn’t appreciate the slight mockery he thought he detected in her tone. “The foster workers who labeled me a troublemaker would find it amusing to hear you call me that.”

She swallowed too fast, then reached for her water glass. “You?” she asked a moment later. “A troublemaker? My buttoned-down, conservative, single-dad accountant?”

He wasn’t sure why he was revealing so much of his past to her. Maybe it was because he hadn’t engaged in much adult conversation lately, and he’d forgotten how to make small talk. Or because Miranda had looked so troubled when she had spoken of the call from her sister that he’d felt she needed a distraction. Or maybe he simply wanted her to see him as something more than her “buttoned-down, conservative, single-dad accountant.”

“My mom got very sick the year I was fourteen and Terry was nine. Mom spent thirteen months in a hospital while Terry and I were sent to separate foster homes. We lived in Texas then, just outside of Dallas.”

“And you didn’t like the foster home where you were sent?”

“Hated it. I was determined to get back to my mom and sister. I thought they needed me to take care of them, you see. I ran away twice from that home, and then I was sent to another one, but I ran away from there, too. That’s when I was labeled a troubled youth and sent to a ranch that specialized in taking in at-risk boys, no more than one or two at a time. I was the only one there during my stay.”

At least they were keeping a conversation going now. Miranda seemed genuinely intrigued. “How did things work out for you at the ranch?”

“Very well, actually.” He picked up his water glass as he thought back to a time he hadn’t consciously remembered in years. “The couple who owned the ranch—Jared and Cassie Walker—were really good people. They had a son who was in college and a cute little red-haired daughter just a year younger than Terry. Jared was a no-nonsense cowboy who had a knack for asserting his authority without ever raising his voice. I pretty much idolized him by the end of my stay there.”

Miranda propped her elbow on the table and rested her chin on her fist. “So you lived on a ranch for a year. Did you ride horses and rope cows and stuff?”