Anne McAllister - Finn's Twins!

Izzy hung back until Finn turned, halfway up the stairs, to bark, “You, too. You’re not sleeping down there.”

“I’m not sleeping anywhere,” she said. “I’m leaving. I—”

“You leave, they go with you,” Finn said implacably. “I told you that.”

“But I can’t stay! I have a life.”

“So did I.” Past tense.

They stared at each other, neither speaking for a long moment. Then Finn asked, “What life? What brought you to New York?”

“I’m going to get married,” Izzy said.

“You?” He looked her up and down with such obvious disbelief that Izzy wanted to smack him.

“Yes, me,” she said flatly. “Want to make something of it?”

He smiled. “Have you picked a groom, yet?”

Which was what, his way of saying he didn’t think any man in his right mind would marry a girl like her? Izzy ground her teeth. “Yes, I’ve picked a groom. And I intend seeing him yet this evening. So if you’ll excuse me...”

Now it was Finn MacCauley’s turn to grind his teeth. “You can’t,” he said. “Not yet,” he added. “At least help me get them settled. Have dinner with us. Read them a story. Get them to bed.” He was looking just a bit desperate.

Izzy chewed on her lower lip. She wanted to get to Sam’s before it got too late in the evening. He wasn’t even expecting her. She hadn’t told him for sure what day she was coming. She’d wanted it to be a surprise. But she felt a certain obligation to the girls, too. Even if Finn MacCauley had been the best uncle in the world she’d have felt a little apprehensive about leaving them with a man she didn’t know. And as much as she might like to discomfit a man as arrogant as Mr. Wildlife MacCauley, well...it was wrong to take her irritation out on the girls.

“Until they’re in bed,” she said.

Finn let out a pent-up breath. He looked at the two little girls who stared up at him in unblinking fascination. “Follow me,” he told them and led the way up the curve of the stairs.

Izzy stared after him, heard him growl something at the girls, and hurried to join them. “Be kind,” she said.

“Nobody’s being kind to me.” Finn pointed the girls toward one of the bedrooms. “Which of these bags is yours?”

“This small one. The big ones you’re carrying are the girls’. I’ll take mine back down.”

She had just started down the steps when Tansy said, “Wow! Lookit this!”

All of a sudden Finn’s hand reached out and snatched the little girl out of the room and shut the door abruptly. “In here,” he said, steering her into the other bedroom as Izzy stared. “For now.”

Izzy looked closely. Was that a flush deepening on Finn MacCauley’s tanned cheeks? A smile quirked the corner of her mouth.

Finn dropped the girls’ duffels in the smaller bedroom at the end of the hall. “Back downstairs,” he commanded, herding them all in front of him. Izzy gave him an arch smile, which he determinedly ignored.

Once they were back downstairs, though, his battery seemed to run out. He stood and stared at them mutely, then looked at Izzy in silent appeal.

“Dinner?” she suggested. “You must be hungry, girls?”

Tansy and Pansy nodded.

Finn latched onto the suggestion like a drowning man tossed a life preserver. He headed toward the refrigerator with alacrity, opened the door, stooped and stared. And stared some more.

The girls edged over to stand next to him. Finally Tansy ventured, “You don’t got much. Milk an’ beer an’ what’s that?”

“Pickles.” Finn straightened, sighed and shut the refrigerator door. He flicked Izzy what might have been an apologetic look. “I wasn’t expecting company.”

“How about take-out?”

Both girls jumped up and down. “Ooh, yeah!” Pansy exclaimed. “Moo goo gai pan! Kung Fu Pork and Beans!”

“Kung Fu what?” Finn gaped.

Izzy shrugged lamely. “There was this weird Chinese take-away down the street from us. Sort of...nontraditional.” A grin flickered. “They specialized in dim sum and barbecue. Meg used to get supper there pretty often.”

Finn didn’t look surprised. “Whatever you say.” He fetched a stack of take-out menus from a drawer in the kitchen and handed them to the girls. “Take your pick. I’ll be right back.”

While Izzy read the hard words to them, Finn disappeared back upstairs. Izzy was beginning to wonder if he’d vanished out the fire escape when at last she heard his footsteps clattering back down the wooden stair treads. She turned just in time to see him paste a smile on his face. “All right, let’s get moving. Ready to go, girls?” he said briskly, heading toward the door.

Pansy shrank back, but Tansy came after him and thrust a bright pink paper menu into his hand. “This place.”

Finn glanced at it. “Good choice.” He opened the door. Tansy preceded him. Pansy hung back. Izzy didn’t move at all. He looked back at her. “Well?” he said sharply.

“Are you sure you wouldn’t rather have them to yourself for a few minutes?”

“Damn sure.”

“Mister—”

“I know. I know. Don’t swear. Come along. They’re hungry. Who knows what six-year-old girls do when they’re hungry?” He looked at them as if they might take a chunk out of his ankle at any moment. He made a growling sound deep in his throat.

Pansy, mistaking the tone for an indication that he just might take a bite out of her, skittered nervously past him. Tansy merely giggled. Izzy, seeing that he wasn’t moving unless she did, sighed and brushed past him out the door.

The walk to and from the Chinese restaurant, though it was only three blocks away, was the final straw for two very tired little girls. The early morning trip to the airport, the long transcontinental flight, the taxi ride into Manhattan followed by their traumatic meeting with their uncle and another long ride uptown had done them in.

They barely touched the moo goo gai pan. They nibbled at the five-spice chicken wings, and they all but fell asleep in the bird’s nest soup. It was a good thing the four of them carried all the food home to eat it, Izzy thought.

When Tansy’s head dipped and jerked up, then dipped again and finally hit the table, Izzy said, “I think they’ve had it.” Pansy had already been asleep in her chair for the past ten minutes.

Finn, who had been shoveling in food silently since they’d sat down, now said, “Thank God. Shall I carry them upstairs or will they wake up?”

The way he said it told her how much he wanted to avoid that. She wondered if he planned to spend the next two weeks ignoring them completely. He’d certainly done his best during dinner.

“I think you can carry them. Once they drift off, they’re usually dead to the world.”

“Had a lot of experience with them, have you?”

Izzy shrugged awkwardly. “They’ve stayed with us a few times.” She stood up and carried her plate to the sink, then came back to pick up the girls’ plates. Finn was still sitting at the table, watching her. She averted her gaze, focusing entirely on clearing the table.

Finally he shoved back his chair and went around the table to pick up Tansy. He looked awkward and more than a little tentative as he did so. When he straightened he looked at Izzy. “Come with me and pull back the covers.”

Izzy followed him. Whatever Tansy had seen on the bedroom wall he had obviously removed while she and the twins were deciding on dinner. All she could see now was a king-size bed with a navy blue duvet, a teak dresser completely devoid of anything at all, and a couple of rather whiter-than-the-walls spots where two pictures had obviously hung.

He saw Izzy’s glance go to the bare spots and gave her a steely look, then settled Tansy onto the bed. While Izzy turned down the covers on the other side, then brought in the girls’ bags, he went back downstairs for her sister.