Because Of The Twins.... Carole Halston
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‘The TV’s too loud.’ It hurts our ears. Turn the volume down.” She mimicked using an imaginary remote control.
Justin held the real remote clutched in both hands. After long seconds of deliberation, he pressed a small finger on the appropriate button.
“Well, I’ll be d—” Graham muttered. He’d followed behind her but stopped a few yards away.
“Lower than that, please,” Holly directed Justin. She smiled at the little boy when he’d reluctantly obeyed. “Thank you. That’s much better. And much safer. Loud noise can damage our eardrums and eventually make us deaf. That’s why workmen running noisy machines wear ear protection.”
“Who are you?” demanded Jennifer, sitting up.
“I’m Holly Beaumont, a friend of your daddy’s.”
The little girl’s face clouded up and her bottom lip trembled. “He’s not our daddy. Our mommy told us we didn’t have a daddy, and I don’t like him.” Tears suddenly welled up, and Jennifer began to cry brokenheartedly. “I w-want my m-mommy to come b-back from heaven. I want to go to my h-house and stay with Mary.”
“Don’t cry, sweetie,” Holly crooned. Her own eyes wet, she sank down beside the distraught child and hugged her.
“I want Mommy to come back. And I want to go to my house,” Justin said, breaking down and sobbing just as pitifully.
Holly gathered him close, too, and murmured reassurances that seemed woefully inadequate in light of the children’s great loss. “Mommy wouldn’t want you to cry like this. She would want you to be happy children. Tell you what. Let’s dry those tears and do something really fun. Okay? How would you like for your daddy and me to take you to a playground?”
Graham had come closer. At his muffled sound of protest, Holly glanced up at him and read panic on his face. He shook his head hard and mouthed, “No way.”
“Why not?” she mouthed back.
“You haven’t ridden with them in a car,” he said in an urgent undertone. “They won’t keep their seat belts fastened. And if you let go of their hands when you’re out in public, they can be gone in a flash. In different directions.”
He obviously spoke from terrifying experience.
“There’re two of us. We can manage,” Holly said confidently.
Meanwhile the children’s sobs had quieted.
“A playground?” questioned Justin with interest, sniffling.
“With seesaws and swings?” Jennifer asked, wiping her wet little cheeks with her palms.
Holly looked pleadingly at Graham, who sighed in capitulation.
“Against all my better judgment,” he said.
Chapter Three
“We can take my minivan,” Holly offered, and Graham readily agreed once he’d determined she had child-safety locks on the back doors.
The two vehicles parked in his garage were a small extended-cab pickup and a sporty two-door car. Presumably he used the truck to drive to construction sites and the car for personal use. Holly tactfully didn’t point out that neither qualified as a family automobile.
“This is like my mommy’s minivan,” Jennifer said as she scrambled up onto the middle bench seat after Holly had cleared it of decorating paraphernalia.
Justin climbed up beside his sister, elaborating on her statement. “Mommy’s is green, too. And has wallpaper books and stuff in the back, like yours does.”
“We ride in it to Grandma’s house.”
Their use of present tense brought on another wave of sadness that they’d been visited by tragedy at such a young age, but Holly shoved the emotion aside in the interest of being upbeat for their benefit. Justin’s reference to wallpaper books in his mommy’s minivan fed her curiosity. Was their mother the interior decorator named Heather whom Ann had described last night?
The picture of cooperative children, the twins assisted Holly as she buckled their seat belts for them. Graham stood back and watched, tense and seemingly prepared for them to bolt.
“You made that look easy,” he said when she’d stepped out of the van and slid the door closed. “Yesterday it was a fifteen-minute battle getting them buckled in. And all for naught. They’d unbuckled themselves by the time I’d started the car. It took an hour to get home from my office by the time I pulled over four or five times. Finally I just gave up and drove as slowly and carefully as possible and prayed I wouldn’t meet a policeman.”
“No wonder you didn’t want to take them to the park after an ordeal like that.” Holly touched his arm in sympathy. He jerked away as though her hand had burned him.
“What is your problem with me?” she asked in exasperation.
“When are we going to the playground?” Justin called out, and Jennifer repeated his query with childish impatience.
“Right now,” Holly replied, but she didn’t budge. She was waiting for Graham to answer her.
“Sorry, I guess I’m a little on edge,” he said, not quite meeting her eyes. “We’d better go before they get restless.”
“Eventually I’d like an honest explanation,” she informed him. “Because you’ve been ‘on edge’ around me long before the twins showed up.”
He nodded soberly, not pretending to be mystified by her words. “Fair enough.”
On the ride to a park near the Mandeville city hall, the children chattered about trips to a playground in Jackson with their nanny, Mary. There was no mention of any such outings with their mother, Holly noted.
“I’ll hold Holly’s hand,” Jennifer announced, unsnapping her seat belt on arrival. She’d made a point earlier of refusing to take Graham’s hand when they were exiting his condo.
“I’ll hold my daddy’s hand,” Justin offered, as he had also done earlier.
“He’s not our daddy. And I don’t want to live at his house.”
Graham said nothing, leaving it up to Holly to assume the role of adult in charge.
“Since you both were so well behaved on the drive here, I think you can be trusted to walk on your own,” she said.
Her words gained her a horrified look from Graham. Relax. It’ll be okay, she soothed him silently, not daring to reach out and give him a reassuring pat.
He did relax his vigilance ever so slightly as they trooped toward the playground equipment, Jennifer and Justin talking excitedly and hopping and skipping along like normal preschool children.
“Will you swing me, Holly?” Jennifer asked.
“Sure.”
“My daddy can swing me,” Justin said, going along with the adult assignments.
Holly found the little boy’s readiness to accept a newfound daddy very sweet and endearing. So far he hadn’t addressed Graham as Daddy in her hearing, but she suspected it wouldn’t require much coaching for him to do so.
For the first half hour, the twins demanded close attention and constant supervising. Then half a dozen more children appeared, accompanied by parents. Jennifer and Justin began to interact with their potential playmates, Justin more so than Jennifer. Holly seized her opportunity to carry on private conversation with Graham, who continued to watch his children with hawklike intensity.
“Who is their mother?” she asked.
“A woman I dated named Heather Booth.”
“Heather Booth?” Not only did Heather and Holly share the same first initial, but