Balancing Act

By Lilian Darcy

"ARE WE TOGETHER BECAUSE OUR DAUGHTERS ARE TWINS? OR COULD THIS BE THE REAL THING??

Four days ago, Libby McGraw had never even heard of Brady Buchanan. But if his claim was true, her carefully constructed life was about to be blown apart. One glance at the silky–haired baby cradled in Brady's arms told Libby more than any blood test could. Her adopted daughter had an identical twin sister!

Libby wanted to believe she was only marrying Brady to keep the girls together, but her heart wasn't buying that malarkey. Not when the feel of Brady's lips on hers told her they might be destined for a more powerful union .

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers Australia
• Release date: Jul 1, 2012
• ISBN: 9781460855355

Lilian Darcy

Lilian Darcy has now written over eighty books for Harlequin. She has received four nominations for the Romance Writers of America's prestigious Rita Award, as well as a Reviewer's Choice Award from RT Magazine for Best Silhouette Special Edition 2008. Lilian loves to write emotional, life-affirming stories with complex and believable characters. For more about Lilian go to her website at www.liliandarcy.com or her blog at www.liliandarcy.com/blog

Book preview

Chapter One

Brady Buchanan would be here with his little daughter in twenty minutes, maybe less. Libby McGraw hadn’t even heard of the man four days ago, but already, without yet having met him, she had the strongest intuition that he was going to be an important figure in her life.

If I hadn’t entered Colleen in the Bright and Beautiful baby contest, she muttered to herself, I might never have known…

A part of her regretted that contest bitterly now, although she’d been so pleased and proud and excited when Colleen had won and had been photographed for the magazine, with proud mother Lisa-Belle McGraw, of Minnesota.

Libby tried to focus on something—anything—but she couldn’t. There was a nagging, crampy ache low in her stomach and she knew it was only partly physical. Circling back to the bathroom mirror for the third time, she fussed with her appearance a little more. She pulled the clips out of her hair, then combed it, twisted it up and put the clips back in.

No, she decided. Leave it down.

Out came the clips again. Up went the brush to put in some shine. Yes, her hair definitely looked better framing her face today. Softer. And it camouflaged the fact that she looked so stressed-out and tired.

She reapplied her lip gloss in a brighter shade, then wondered if it, too, left her skin looking too white. She tended to lose color when she was stressed. Since Monday, she’d gone through her makeup at twice the normal rate and had slept about half the hours she needed.

She heard a sound, listened in case it was Colleen and, creeping into her daughter’s room, found her still napping. The dark, silky hair around her temples was a little damp, as if she was hot. Libby was hot, too. She felt as if she was burning up.

It was just after four in the afternoon. Friday afternoon. He—Brady Buchanan—had said that his flight was getting in at quarter to three. He had to pick up his rental car, then check himself and his daughter into their motel. It was one of the motels right opposite the Mall of America, just across Interstate 494, which ran along beside the airport.

When he’d checked in, he was coming right over. The drive across the river into St. Paul would take him around fifteen minutes. Maybe a little more if there was traffic.

And then he would be here, with a little girl named Scarlett.

Libby still hoped against hope that it would all turn out to be a huge mistake. She’d entered Colleen in the baby contest and Colleen had won. Brady had seen Colleen’s picture on the front page of the parenting magazine which had sponsored the contest, and she appeared—appeared—identical to his own little girl.

Twins, like two peas in a pod.

Since they’d each adopted their mixed-race daughters from the same orphanage in Vietnam, it wasn’t as impossible as it sounded.

Face-to-face, however, it would turn out that their girls wouldn’t look alike at all, and this overwhelming situation would be over before it had properly begun. She hoped so, desperately, fervently, blindly, because if not…

Libby was terrified about the whole thing, terrified about what Brady Buchanan would want, and what kind of a man he would be. Her instinct was to be deeply wary about the potential complications involved, and about how vulnerable she might become.

Four days ago, on the phone, out of the blue, she hadn’t had the slightest idea what the man was talking about at first. She’d been on the verge of concluding that it was a prank call, or worse. Some creep had gotten enough detail from the story in Parenting Now to find her in the St. Paul telephone directory.

But then Mr. Buchanan had changed tack suddenly. His voice—deep, with a slightly roughened note in it, like fine sandpaper sliding across heavy wood—had softened.

Okay, you’re not getting this, are you? he’d said. Or you don’t believe me, I guess. Which I can understand. But it’s true. It has to be.

"What’s true?"

Remember the orphanage?

How did you know— She’d stopped abruptly, afraid of what she might be giving away. She’d learned a deep reliance on privacy and self-sufficiency during her adult years, and was very careful to whom she told the details of how she’d gotten her darling baby, despite the fact that the adoption was in full compliance with international law.

But then something about Brady Buchanan’s voice compelled her to listen as he went on with those evocative questions, his words a little clumsy in their emotion, his phrases disjointed and stumbling over themselves.

Did you see the white cotton diapers, the way they had ’em spread out to dry on the bushes? he’d said. And remember the heat? And did all the local people, when you were in Da Nang, when you went out into the streets with the baby, did they crowd around you, smiling and asking questions?

So you’re saying—

Did you see the sand at My Khe beach, how it was so white? And did you taste that fantastic seafood? That’s where you got your daughter from, isn’t it? From the orphanage outside of Da Nang?

Yes. Yes, I did, she’d answered him shakily.

That’s where my daughter came from, too.

Oh, mercy, it’s not possible!

Ms. McGraw, it has to be!

They’d talked about it for nearly twenty minutes, arranging a way to meet as soon as he could get away from his work, trying to piece together the girls’ story. All of it was conjecture, most of it coming from him, since he’d had longer to think about it.

What would he be like? And what would he want to do if their girls really were twins? She’d been tossing the options back and forth in her mind for four days and four sleepless nights. There weren’t many of those options, and each of them had huge ramifications.

Oh criminy, she was terrified!

Two things cut across her darting thoughts. First, she heard Colleen, who had woken from her nap in tears, as she often did. Then, as she went to pick up her crying daughter, Libby heard the doorbell ring and knew it would be him.

Brady Buchanan.

The man who owned that dark, husky, emotional voice.

The man who was adoptive father to the child who could be—could be—her daughter’s twin.

In a minute, she called, and hurried into Colleen’s room. He could probably hear her crying, even from the porch.

Colleen was standing in her crib, face screwed up, mouth open wide and tears pouring down her cheeks. Libby lifted her up and began to soothe her as she headed down the stairs. By the time she had reached the front door, Colleen was quiet. Normally, she cried for longer when she woke late like this. Had she sensed that something important was about to happen?

Libby took a deep breath and opened the door, praying yet again that Brady Buchanan would be wrong. This wouldn’t be important at all.

He wasn’t wrong.

She knew it the moment she saw her daughter—her daughter!—in the arms of a total stranger. No, not her daughter, despite that instinctive moment of possessiveness and panic and leaping emotion.

This was Colleen’s sister. Her twin sister.

On the phone, Brady had talked about blood tests, and Libby had agreed. Now, she already knew that the tests would be purely a formality. The girls were identical. Silky hair, curious eyes, neat little shoulders, fine-drawn mouths.

Identical, except for the way they were dressed. In place of Colleen’s matched set of lilac floral, lace-edged T-shirt and pants, Scarlett Buchanan was dressed in a red-and-gray stretch playsuit emblazoned across the front with the words Born To Be a Buckeye. It looked as if her dad was a college football fan and a graduate of Ohio State.

Scarlett’s dad…

Libby looked at him for the first time. Only a few seconds had passed since she’d pushed open the door but it felt like much longer, and neither of them had yet spoken a word. She still couldn’t, because there was some kind of invisible hand clamped right across her throat. Instead, she just looked at him standing there—a little awkward, possibly as terrified as she was—with her daughter’s twin propped on his arm.

He wasn’t a huge man. Slightly above average height, that was all. Five-eleven, say. But he was solid as a rock. Chest like a brick wall. Shoulders padded with muscle. Washboard abs, without a doubt, beneath his clothing. You couldn’t have scraped enough fat off his frame to grease a muffin pan.

He had a few threads of premature silver in his light-brown hair, which was cut short and practical, and the faintest reddish-brown shadow of new growth on his jaw. As she gaped helplessly at him, he scraped his hand across it and she heard the light friction of callused palms against stubble.

His skin had some living in it. It was outdoor skin, tanned but not moisturized, clean but not pampered. She remembered he’d told her, over the phone, that he owned and operated his own construction company, which probably accounted for that rugged look. It also accounted for why he hadn’t been able to get here until today.

Both of them had wanted to hop straight on a plane, but he’d had project commitments he couldn’t break, and Colleen had been getting over an ear infection, so Libby was reluctant to fly.

Hi, he said. His smile was careful, brief.

And his eyes were blue. Complex blue. The kind that looked gray in some lights and deep, smoky green in others. On the tail end of the half smile, he frowned, and those changeable eyes seemed to darken. For a fleeting moment, Libby wondered how they would look in bright sunshine when he was laughing. Say, when he was watching his football team win their game.

He was wearing an Ohio State Buckeyes sweatshirt—gray with scarlet lettering, over newish blue jeans. The clothing showed off the breadth of his shoulders and the lean strength of his thighs. She’d met bigger men and stronger men, but there was something about the potent aura of maleness surrounding Brady Buchanan that affected her powerfully. She felt as though someone had picked up a big wooden spoon and started stirring it around deep in her crampy, aching stomach.

Was it only because she was so terrified about how much potential he had to change her life? Ruin her life? She’d faced that fear in the dark hours of every night since his call. She’d even wondered whether she would have reacted in the same confident way that he had if she had been the one to see a photo of her daughter’s twin in a magazine.

Would she have called every Buchanan in Ohio until she’d reached him? Or would she have convinced herself that it wasn’t possible, it had to be a mistake, and let her contented, self-reliant life go on just as it was?

It would have been very easy to play it that way. Accidentally lose the magazine and forget his last name. Convince herself that the girls only looked alike because of the angle of the photo. Tell herself that the adoption authorities would surely have known if there was a twin sister, so she had to be mistaken.

Brady hadn’t used any of those excuses to opt out. He’d taken the morally right and decisive action at once. He’d accessed all of Minnesota’s telephone directories via the Internet, had kept calling until he’d found her, and now, here he was.

What would she do if they disliked each other within five minutes? If his ideas on how to deal with this situation were impossibly different from hers? And what would he do?

Strong men could get in the habit of winning, of dominating with their decisions, and it was a hard habit to break. Immediately, she didn’t trust the way he had his feet planted so squarely on her porch, or the way his jaw and mouth had set. He looked too much like a man who believed in simple solutions. His solutions. She didn’t want that kind of man in her life again.

Stop this, she coached herself angrily. Don’t leap to conclusions. Get a grip. Listen to him. Communicate. Don’t duck the issues. Stand your ground. And right now, say something.

Please come in, said Lisa-Belle McGraw at last, her voice sweet and polite. They hadn’t been standing here in the doorway all that long. Maybe half a minute. But it seemed like half of forever.

She looked even more nervous than Brady felt. That was saying something, since he felt as though his tie was choking him and he wasn’t even wearing one. She held her daughter’s soft dark curls against her cheek in a gesture of tender possession, unconsciously emphasizing the contrast in their coloring.

Brady had expected they’d need to sit the two girls down side by side in order to compare them properly and turn their suspicions into certainty. Maybe even dress them in similar outfits or something, in order to decide whether to go ahead with the blood tests. But already it wasn’t necessary, and blood tests would only be the icing on the cake.

Just the way Colleen moved, the expression on her face, everything about her except her clothes, was so identical to Scarlett. He could tell that she’d woken from her late nap in tears, because that was what Scarlett always did, and that was how she always looked when it happened. Red and crumpled, sad and irritable.

He knew that even though Colleen had stopped crying, she would look a little zoned-out for several more minutes, and she would cling to whoever was holding her and occasionally turn to bury her face in their shoulder.

Yep, there she goes…

It was uncanny to feel as if he already knew this little girl. It tugged painfully on his heart. He remembered how he and Stacey had both bonded instantly with Scarlett, the first moment she was laid in Stacey’s arms.

This your baby, the orphanage worker had told them, in her broken English, and they’d loved their little girl from that moment on. How could Brady meet her twin sister and not start to feel the same?

His heart lurched again. Sideways. Out of balance.

Shift over in there, Scarlett, and make room. You don’t have the place to yourself anymore. There’s someone else I need to love now.

Someone who already had a family of her own and a life here in St. Paul.

How on earth would they deal with this?

Scarlett had napped early, and she was bright as a button in his arms right now—curious and happy and ready to toddle off at breakneck speed and explore. Ms. McGraw knew all about that, Brady could tell. Just as he knew her child, this stranger knew his little daughter. Was her heart lurching sideways, too?

After another intense look at Scarlett, she scraped her teeth over her bottom lip and repeated, even more nervously, Please, you really must come in!

She reached out, pushing the storm door open a little wider. The movement tightened the light fabric of a pink-and-blue summery top across her breasts. She had a neat figure, petite and curved just right, enough to give a man something to hold, and something to watch when she walked.

Brady stepped forward and suddenly he caught her scent for the first time. It reached out and drew him in, and his stride and his breathing both faltered as he walked quickly past her, still caught in its sweet net. It was like lilacs after rain, cool and intoxicating. It was like…

No. No!

He wasn’t a poetic man. It wasn’t like lilacs and rain at all. It was a punch in the gut that almost knocked him off his feet. It was a trip wire stretched across his path. Responding to Lisa-Belle McGraw as a man was the last thing in the world he’d expected or wanted. Primitive. Beyond logic or personality. And potentially disastrous.

He’d been there before, with Stacey, when he was too young to know any better—going crazy for her body and never stopping to find out who she really was. Finding out had cooled the craziness as time went on, but by then it was too late. Brady wasn’t going to make the same mistake again.

It was vital to keep his head clear here. He had something else to think about. Something much more vital to his emotional well-being than the physical tricks a female body could play. And apparently Ms. McGraw had her eye on the ball much better than he did.

If people see us and get an inkling as to what’s going on… she was saying behind him. I don’t want to have to tell anyone about this yet. Not until we’ve worked out what it means. I—I have an idea it’s going to be, uh, pretty big.

Yeah, you’re right, he agreed, his voice gruff and deep, and went ahead of her into the house, out of reach of the aura that had briefly ensnared him.

As he responded to Scarlett’s wriggling and put her onto her feet, first impressions piled into his mind. Ms. McGraw had a nice house on a street just two blocks south of the Minnesota governor’s mansion. He’d already noted the quiet prosperity of the neighborhood as he drove here. It was similar to the neighborhood he’d bought into in Columbus several years ago, when his construction business really took off.

The interior of the house was immaculate, furnished in florals and pastels, with a thick cream rug covering most of the hardwood floor. Photos and knickknacks were everywhere: decorative plates on the dusky-pink walls, and fresh flowers in vases on the old-fashioned piano as well as on the dining table he glimpsed in the next room. It was a real home, reflecting one caring woman’s taste. It wasn’t a place you’d easily uproot from.

And Lisa-Belle McGraw looked as if she belonged. She was a natural Minnesota blond princess, with hair that reminded him of that fairy tale, Rumpelstiltskin, about the goblin with the unique name who had known how to spin straw into gold. He could easily have been practising his talent on this woman’s hair. Silky, straw-colored strands, as straight as a waterfall, mingled with shiny threads that looked like pure gold in the last of the day’s September sunlight slanting through her living-room windows.

She was too pale, even with makeup, and it made both her eyes and her lips stand

Reviews for Balancing Act

[nancynova · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Ballerina Cheryl was stranded in a snowstorm, breaking her foot, in her ex-hometown, definitely not the place where she wanted to be. Rescued by single dad rancher, Sam, she winds up being a temporary nanny to his twins while she heals.

[rhonda1111 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

5 STARSIts a family romance on a ranch. With twin little girls, bulls wearing nail polish and throw in cattle rustlers. Makes for a fun enjoyable story.Cheryl Steele goes to her sister wedding and has to drive aways to get to her ballet performance. She has a starring role in the traveling ballet. Angie tries to make her sister promise to go out to the ranch where they used to live. Cheryl keeps telling her no but finds her almost to the ranch and she turns the car around in the snow and hurry down the road so she won't be late and she almost runs a cowboy on his horse down. Cheryl is able to advoid him but wrecks the car and traps her foot. Sam Hardin is finally able to free her foot and they ride his horse to the ranch.Cheryl is stuck their till the roads opens in a few days and finally gets to hospital and her foot has two broken bones. Cheryl is fired from the ballet, she's leased her apartment out for the 6 months she was on tour and her wallet is missing. Cheryl does not want to tell her past and that she used to live here in this area years ago.Sam is cattle rancher and architect raising his twin girls. His mother baby sits for him when he has to go away to work. But she has to go help her daughter who has three children and just got put on bed rest for the rest of her pregnacy. Cheryl agrees to stay and help take care of the girls while he works for a while.The twins are adoreable and get into lots of things they shouldn't and want her to stay longer. Cheryl falls for them quickly but does not want her past mistakes and family history of trouble to be found out. She is afraid someone will reconsise her.I had a great time seeing what happens next in the story. Its clean feal good story. I want to read more from Patricia Davids. I was given this ebook to read in exchange of honest review from Netgalley.

[jolzyn · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Common love story comes to mind after reading thru this book. It took me about two days to finish reading it and although the story is simple; the internal conflict in the main character; Cheryl makes the reader, i.e. me, felt sorry for her. The story started with her sister, Angie pestering her to visit her home and find the closure that she needed. What is the closure the book is talking about was only revealed when i reach the mid section of the book which i feel it is a good way of attracting the reader's attention. Then, the story progress to how Cheryl met with Sam and the instant attraction between both of them. Reading thru the progress of their relationship gives me warmth feeling and at one stage, i really wish for an happy ending for them ;) Besides Cheryl's character, i like both Sam's twin daughters; Lindy and Kayla who are mischievious and have give a humor to the story with their attics. Overall, it is a good reading experience for me of this book. ;)