Finn's Twins!

“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.

Izzy was just slipping Tansy into a thin cotton gown when he got back with Pansy cradled in his arms. He laid her on the far side of the bed, then stood silently by and watched while Izzy removed her shirt and shorts, then put a gown on her as well. Then she pulled the summer-weight duvet over them.

“Probably should have made sure they brushed their teeth,” Izzy said as she bent to drop a kiss on each girl’s forehead. “But I guess they’ll survive one night without. Their toothbrushes are in their bags. I’m sure you won’t have any trouble finding them.” She flicked a reassuring smile in Finn’s direction, then stepped back and waited for him to give them each a kiss as well.

He didn’t move. He just stood in the doorway, looking down at the two small bodies in the very big bed. His expression was unreadable. Finally he sighed, raked a hand through his hair, and turned and walked away.

Izzy watched him go.

The girls wouldn’t care that he hadn’t kissed them. Probably Pansy would be relieved. But still...

It’s not your business, Izzy told herself firmly as she shut out the light. You did your part. And that was true, but she wished she felt better about leaving the girls with him. She wished he had at least kissed them.

He was standing by the French doors staring out into the waning summer twilight when she came down the stairs. His hands were jammed into the front pockets of his faded jeans, his shoulders were slightly slumped. A swath of dark hair fell across his forehead. He didn’t look particularly piratical now, unless he was a pirate whose ship had just been boarded and sunk.

Izzy would have liked to say something cheerful. She didn’t think the words had been invented yet. She cleared her throat. “I...really do have to be going now.”

He turned. “A rat abandoning the sinking ship?” he said, his mouth twisting wryly. The metaphor was so close to her own that she blinked.

“You’ll be fine,” she assured him.

He snorted. “Yeah, right. They look like they expect me to kill them.”

“They’re nervous. They’ll calm down. It won’t happen all at once. You can’t expect it to. But you were a little...nicer over dinner.”

“I didn’t say anything at all over dinner.”

“Which was a distinct improvement,” Izzy said tartly. “But,” she went on, determined to give him his due, “I understand what a shock this was for you. I had no idea Meg hadn’t told you she was sending them.”

“Yeah, well, that’s Meg. A shock a minute.”