Page 8 of Small Town Hero
T hat night, Ian’s mind was full of Susannah Holiday; they’d had a long and pleasant conversation there on the patio at Manuel’s, during dinner, and she’d supplied a few answers to questions he hadn’t known how to ask.
She was single, an obvious plus. Never married, no kids.
In town to see her sister and niece through a rough patch.
She ran a web design business online and flipped houses as a sideline, doing much of the work herself, though she hired contractors for bigger jobs, like replacing roofs or upgrading the electrical systems and plumbing.
Susannah was successful by any definition of the word, and definitely ambitious, but she wasn’t, well, driven . Even with a seemingly inexhaustible source of physical and mental energy, there was an undercurrent of deep serenity about her.
Of course, all that could be a facade, but Ian’s instincts told him that Susannah was exactly who she appeared to be: the kind of person who would stop at the scene of an accident, as she had when Tim Boyd was hurt, and look after the kid and his frightened horse, standing by until help came.
The kind who would drop everything, leave her busy life in Chicago without looking back and rush to a nothing-special town in northern Arizona to look after her struggling sister and young niece.
The sound of his daughters laughing in the bathroom down the hall—they were in their pajamas and brushing their teeth—brought Ian back to the present moment. Mostly.
He was standing on the threshold of the room Mabel and Vivian shared, with a large, empty garbage bag in one hand.
It had been three days since the twins arrived in Arizona—three busy days, tending the rescued mares, taking long horseback rides, living on takeout food and watching Disney and Pixar movies on TV at night. Hence, the room was a mess.
Multicolored balloons and twisted streamers drooped from the ceiling, and the floor was covered in wrapping paper and empty packages, both of which crunched under the soles of Ian’s boots as he stepped inside and began to clean up.
Dub, having appointed himself as guardian, lay curled up on the rug between the girls’ mismatched twin beds, watching Ian work.
As he collected the welcome-home decorations and gift packaging, Ian allowed his mind, once again, to wander back over the evening just past.
He definitely hadn’t expected to encounter Susannah at Manuel’s and, at first, the sight of her had taken him aback. Left him speechless, in fact.
He’d been grateful for the distraction Vivian and Mabel had created, spotting their summer friend, Ellie Bennet; it gave him a couple of moments to get back on track.
The three girls had met the summer before, during a barbecue at Jack and Harper O’Ballivan’s ranch and, due to a shared love of horses and Saturday afternoon ballet lessons at the community center, they’d formed a bond.
Speaking of bonds, Ian reflected now, as his daughters reentered their bedroom like a pair of rockets fired from space, he’d felt a swift and powerful connection happen between himself and Susannah, silent but reverberating on impact.
Vivian and Mabel were now standing on their beds, jumping for joy, while Dub joined in by hopping back and forth between them, barking for all he was worth.
Ian sighed, smiled. On the inside, he was all a-jumble, happy to be with his daughters again, but unsettled, too. And more than a little confused.
Just as he was beginning to develop a headache, the twins simultaneously stopped jumping and landed, knees first, on their mattresses. Their eyes were huge as they focused on Ian’s face.
“You like Susannah,” Vivian told him. “ A lot. ”
“Right,” Mabel agreed, with a note of sweet triumph.
Once again, Ian sighed. Shifting the now-bulging garbage bag to his left hand, he used his right to run his fingers through his hair.
“Of course I like her,” he affirmed. “She’s a nice person.”
“She’s really pretty,” Vivian insisted.
“Yeah,” agreed Mabel. “She is.”
“And this conversation is headed—where?” he asked, with a smile. He was exhausted, but having his daughters around was a rare treat, and he didn’t want to miss a moment.
“You need to get married again, like Mom did,” Mabel said, taking the verbal lead this time. “It must be really lonely out here in the country when we’re not around.”
“It’s true that I miss you when you’re not here,” Ian confirmed, choking up a little as he spoke, and hoping the girls hadn’t noticed. They were kids, and he didn’t want them worrying about him for any reason.
“I wish we could stay here all the time,” Vivian confided.
That statement caused Ian to stash the garbage bag in the hall and then return to sit on the end of Vivian’s bed, since Dub took up much of Mabel’s.
“What do you mean by that?” he asked, once he’d recovered enough to speak.
At times, dealing with these bright, lively and outspoken children was like entering an emotional rodeo. Although he liked to think otherwise, there were issues, as there were in any divided family.
Earlier, the twins’ exuberant delight had filled the room like a flood tide, but now, suddenly, it had receded, revealing the rocky ground beneath.
Mabel began to cry, so Ian reached across the gap between the beds and shifted her to sit next to him.
“Hey,” Ian said softly. “What’s the matter?”
Mabel ran the sleeve of her pajama top across her face and sniffled, bravely squaring her shoulders. “I’m scared,” she confessed.
“Of what, sweetheart?” Ian’s tone was cautious.
This was a new and disturbing development.
Why hadn’t he picked up on the fact that something was wrong?
“We’re both scared,” Vivian added. “We’re worried that you’ll get married again, like Mom did, and then you and your wife will have babies and you won’t want to be with us anymore.”
With some maneuvering, Ian was able to shift around until he had one arm around Mabel, and the other around Vivian. Several moments passed, though, before he could answer; his mind was racing, and he didn’t want to cry in front of his daughters.
His daughters? Biologically, they belonged to Catherine, and he was able to spend time with them only because she’d agreed to share custody.
If his ex, or her new husband, decided to revoke that arrangement, there would be nothing Ian could do about it.
When it came to these children, he had no legal rights whatsoever.
Technically, he wasn’t even their stepfather anymore, now that Catherine had gotten married again.
Though he mostly kept this realization at bay, pressing it back whenever it arose to torment him, now it was looming over him like a dark specter.
Desperate, Ian latched on to the first truth that came to mind. “I love you both with all that I have and all that I am,” he said. Then he followed up with the second truth: “And no matter what happens, I’ll be there for you.”
By then, their little arms were wrapped around his neck, and he felt their wet faces pressed against either side of his own.
“We want to stay with you,” Vivian reiterated, clinging to him.
“Forever,” Mabel all but wailed.
He waited for them to calm down a little.
Dub, whimpering with canine concern, paced the narrow space between the beds.
“What about your mom?” Ian asked gruffly, after two or three miserable minutes had gone by. “She loves you. She’s a very good mother. Wouldn’t you miss her if you came to live with me?”
“She has Tony now,” Mabel murmured.
“She goes on a lot of trips,” Vivian added, in the tone of a lament.
“And Tony has four kids. They’re around almost every weekend.”
Tony. The new husband.
As a precaution, Ian had run a background check on the man soon after Catherine had told him she’d met The One.
He hadn’t been motivated by jealousy or anger; any romantic attachment he and Catherine had shared was long gone by then. He’d wanted to find out what kind of person Tony Delgotto was because he’d be sharing a home with Mabel and Vivian.
No other reason.
And the report on Delgotto had been clean.
He was an airline pilot by profession, he’d served in the Air Force after getting a degree in aeronautics, married his college sweetheart, and fathered four children, two boys and two girls.
Tragically, his wife had died of pancreatic cancer three years ago, and because as a pilot he traveled almost nonstop, the kids lived mostly with their grandparents.
The man’s reputation was solid, both personally and professionally.
Not that Ian could have done a whole hell of a lot about it if he’d turned out to be a creep.
Anyway, Catherine was nobody’s fool, nor was she the type to overlook red flags in any relationship. He still respected her very much.
“Look,” Ian began, after clearing his throat, “it’s always hard when the shape of a family changes. I understand that, and I’m sure your mom does, too.”
“We wanted Mom to get married to you again, so we could all be together, like before,” Vivian said. “That isn’t going to happen, is it?”
“No,” Ian managed, with much effort. “That isn’t going to happen. Your mom and I are friends, but we don’t love each other. Not the way a married couple ought to.”
Vivian pulled away first, then Mabel.
Ian averted his gaze, blinking rapidly in the gathering darkness.
Dub stood still now, but he kept turning his head to look at one twin, then the other.
“Why not?” one of the girls asked, very softly. Ian couldn’t have said which, because they not only looked alike, they sounded alike. And none of them had bothered to switch on a lamp, so the room was dim and shadowy.
Before he could respond, the other twin piped up. “Why don’t you love Mom anymore? She’s really pretty, and she’s smart, and she’s nice, too.”