A Family Come True by Kris Fletcher Read Free Book Online Page B

dumb enough to get drunk and pregnant again?”
    “No!”
    The shock on his face reassured her. No one was that good an actor, and, having spent much of her life haunting stages waiting for her mother, she should know.
    “Then what’s the problem? Ian, I’m a big girl. I don’t like this situation, but I’ll manage. I know I was a total basket case when I first had Cady, but on the whole, I’m organized, competent and reasonable. I can handle this.”
    “I think that’s it.”
    “What’s what?”
    “I know you can handle this. Alone.” He leaned forward, quietly serious. “But what kind of friend would I be if I made you do that?”
    Oh.
    She had no comeback for that one. Maybe because it was so unexpected.
    Maybe because she couldn’t remember the last time someone had made her feel that her happiness mattered to them.
    “Make you a deal,” she said softly. “You want to be a friend to me? I’m all for that. But it’s about time I returned the favor. See, I have this suspicion that I’m not the only one who’s been dealing with things solo for too long.”
    “What’s that mean?”
    “It means that sometimes you get this look like...” Almost like the way he had looked when she had handed Cady to him and told him she had to talk to Xander. “Like someone just pushed you over a cliff.”
    He tipped the chair back. The soft creak of the rocker made her wince and wonder if she had pushed too far.
    “Fine,” he said at last. “Since you’re coming with me anyway—”
    “ If I go with you,” she reminded him, though it was pretty much an auto-response. She wasn’t at all surprised when he waved it away.
    “Everything will come out one way or another. You might as well hear it from me.”
    He drummed his fingers on the arm of his chair and stared out at the road. She gave him the time it took to eat one chip. As soon as it was gone she stretched out her foot and nudged his leg.
    “You falling asleep on me, North?”
    “Trying to figure out where to start.”
    “Well, you know what the song says. Start at the beginning.”
    “The very beginning,” he corrected.
    “Details, details.” She bit her lip, debated and decided to go for broke. “Is it about Taylor?”
    “Yeah.” But the way he drew out his reply told her there was more to it than that. “Okay.” He blew out a short breath as if readying himself for a race. “You know that I spent some time working in Tanzania.”
    “Right. A year, right?”
    “Not quite. Well, it was just before I came home that Taylor ended things between us.”
    “So much for absence making the heart grow fonder,” she said softly.
    He grimaced. “In a way that’s what happened. Me being away gave her time to realize that her heart was actually fonder of someone else.”
    The word that slipped out of Darcy’s mouth was one she never would have let herself utter in front of Cady.
    He shrugged. “It sucked, but it happens. And even though I didn’t think so at the time, we were lucky that she figured it out when she did.”
    “You have a strange definition of luck.”
    “Hey, lemons, lemonade. It’s over. It’s in the past. It was rough, but then it got better.”
    “And yet you still miss her.” Which really shouldn’t bother her as much as it did.
    “Actually, I don’t.” He raised a hand before she could give voice to any of the retorts bubbling inside her. “I know. If I’m over her, then what’s the big deal?”
    “Thank you for being the one to say it. I don’t think I could have managed without more swearing.”
    “Yeah, well, you might want to save the bad words for when they really matter.”
    “When they really matter? What could be worse than having your fiancée leave you for someone else?”
    “Easy,” he said. “When the someone else is your brother.”

CHAPTER FOUR
    T HE SILENCE THAT greeted his announcement went on so long that he started to think she might have choked on her chip. When he finally made himself