The Baby Beneath the Mistletoe

by Marie Ferrarella

  The hell she was. There was nothing the same about them, and there never would be. Tony felt as if the trailer had somehow grown even more cramped than it already was. “No, what you are trying to do is challenge everything I say.”

  He made it sound as if Mikky enjoyed beating her head against his stone wall. Maybe that was Marino’s idea of a good time, but it certainly wasn’t hers. “When you’re wrong—”

  He slapped the blueprint down on his desk, underlining his point. “There, you just did it again.”

  Mikky opened her mouth, then clamped it shut again. This wasn’t getting them anywhere. This was going to escalate until they were both shouting at each other, and she didn’t want to wind up saying things she couldn’t take back.

  She held up her hands, not in surrender but in a gesture calculated to make him back off. “Okay, why don’t we go back to our corners and wait for the bell to sound on a new round?”

  Tony didn’t have patience with analogies. On the outskirts of his mind it occurred to him that he didn’t have much patience with anything lately. She just seemed to bring it out more radically.

  “Meaning?”

  Trying not to grit her teeth together, Mikky spelled it out for him. “Meaning, why don’t you—why don’t we,” she amended, knowing that to leave the suggestion in the singular was asking for trouble, “take the weekend to cool off and start again—fresh—Monday morning?” She figured that was only fair. Given the hour, he couldn’t take exception with that. “I’ll think about what you said and you—” picking up the blueprint from his desk, Mikky took out her pen and drew a few lines beneath the offending mezzanine on the upper right-hand corner “—think about this.”

  What she had drawn in, in her estimation, should do the trick to offset the stress problem he had pointed out to her. Though she hated to admit it, it had been an oversight on her part. An oversight that any normal construction manager would have realized and remedied easily, without any dramatic denouncements and billows of fire coming out of his nostrils every time he spoke to her.

  “There.” She thrust the paper back at him, then went to the door. “I’ll see you Monday. And don’t worry, nice though it would be to meet the saner members of your family, I have no intention of taking Angelo up on his invitation for Sunday dinner at your aunt’s house.” Mikky pulled open the door, more than ready to leave all this behind her for the space of two days. “I have trouble swallowing when daggers are being flung at me.”

  The door closed behind her with a resounding slam before Tony had a chance to say anything.

  He stared at the blueprint. Muttering a curse that was aimed at him rather than her, he crumpled the paper between his hands and tossed it aside. She was right, damn her. About more than one thing. Which annoyed him even more.

  But annoyed or not, it didn’t negate the fact that he was acting like a jerk, he thought reproachfully. He just couldn’t help himself. He was trying to get on with his life, he really was, but he kept tripping over his own feet while looking for the right path.

  There didn’t seem to be one.

  He knew they meant well—Angelo, Shad and the others. Maybe even that aggravating woman who had just sauntered out of here swinging those sleek, tight hips of hers meant well, though he doubted it. But all the good intentions in the world weren’t working.

  Moving around to the other side of his desk, he yanked open the bottom drawer and took out the half-pint of whisky he’d purchased. He’d brought it with him on the first day, leaving it in the drawer for when he needed it. Hoping he wouldn’t. But he felt as if he’d reached the end of the line right now. Coming here had been his last hope, and things were just not coming together. Instead, they felt as if they were unraveling. He was losing his temper more frequently, ready to fly off the handle over things he should have been able to take in stride. His life was spinning out of control, and there was nothing he could do to stop it. But at least he could anesthetize himself to it for a while.

  Taking the bottle out, he held it in his hand, staring at the amber liquid. He had to get away, go off somewhere by himself and work this out. He’d been wrong to come here, wrong to put everyone through this with him.

  Unscrewing the cap, he brought the top to his lips. It wasn’t their problem, it was—

  The slight rap on the door made him freeze. Thinking maybe he’d imagined it, Tony listened closely. He heard it again. Though it was completely different from her earlier knock, he immediately thought of Mikky. The woman had probably decided to have another go at him despite all her talk about their taking a breather. Obviously the scent of blood drew her in, just like a scavenger.

  Capping the bottle, he put the untouched half-pint back in the drawer and closed it. He knew he should apologize to Mikky for the way he lost his temper, but he wasn’t feeling very apologetic as he crossed to the door.

  With a yank, Tony pulled it open. “Look, if you want to continue this fight, then—”

  His words had no audience. Mikky wasn’t standing on his doorstep. No one was. Leaning out, he looked around, but he didn’t see anyone. Darkness blanketed everything.

  And then a gurgling sound caught his ear. A gurgling sound coming from just about his shoe level. Puzzled, he looked down.

  It was then that he saw the baby.

  Chapter Two

  Why do you let him get to you like that? Annoyed with herself, Mikky locked the door of the small trailer that housed her drawing board and all the miscellaneous paraphernalia she’d brought with her. Absently she slipped the key ring onto her finger and then, pulling her jacket closer, she strode toward where she’d left her car parked.

  In the distance she saw the lone security guard looking her way. She waved. The German shepherd he kept with him barked once, acknowledging her movement in something less than friendly tones. Mikky dropped her hand.

  It wasn’t as if she wasn’t versed in verbal combat. She was and she was damn good at it. Hadn’t she grown up with four brothers and three sisters? Didn’t she know how to hold her own, even when it was against more than one of them at a time? And wasn’t she the one who always struck a blow for common sense and common ground?

  Because it was cold, even for a Southern California December, she shoved her hands into her pockets as she hurried along. All right, maybe not every time, she amended, but enough times to really count.

  So why did she feel as if a match was being struck to her every time she found herself talking to that—to that pompous, foul-tempered—

  Mikky let the thought go, knowing that pasting a label on Marino would only make things worse in her mind. She wasn’t here to fight, she was here to do a job, to see her project through to its completion. This was the first big contract she’d won on her own. Name calling wasn’t going to help her along toward her goal.

  Even if it did feel good.

  Arriving at her car, she unlocked the door and tossed her purse in on the passenger side before sliding in herself. Much as she hated the thought, what she did need to do was apologize to the big ape and do her best to seem congenial and sincere about it.

  She started her car as she rolled the thought over in her mind.

  Maybe if she got him to relax, she could handle him.

  Yeah, right. Fat chance of that happening. The man could only be handled by an experienced lion tamer with a tranquilizer gun. Sighing, she began the slow, bumpy drive through the site, heading for the street in the distance.

  Still, she didn’t want to take a chance on coming away with a bad reputation. All she wanted to do was get her damn design up—as close to its original conception as possible.

  It wasn’t that she was being stubborn. She wasn’t so stubborn that she couldn’t be shown the error of her thinking—if there was an error—but it had to be done in a civilized fashion. She refused to be barked at.

  Belatedly, she turned on her lights. Bright yellow beams cut through the encroaching dusk. Her father had always barked at her, she remembered. His g
rousing had made her reexamine her every move. Years later she’d discovered that, despite his outwardly gruff manner, her father had been that way with her to make her strong. In his own fashion he’d tried to prepare her for the world. Walter Rozanski firmly believed that life was there to bring a person to his knees, and he wanted none of his children to be forced into that position. Riding them was the only way he knew how to make them fit enough to meet the hardships along the way.

  Maybe Marino reminded her of her father, Mikky thought with a sudden shiver. Or maybe he just reminded her of a bad-tempered bear. In any event it was up to her to get along with the man. Once this job was completed, if the fates were kind, she would never have to interact with Tony Marino again.

  Mikky paused, hesitating just before she drove off the lot. She looked toward Marino’s trailer. The light was still on. Except for his car, and the guard’s beat-up truck, the lot was empty. Everyone else had gone home for the weekend. There would be no one to come in and interrupt her if she apologized to him.

  Vacillating for a few moments, Mikky took a deep, cleansing breath and blew it out, then made her decision. Okay, it was now or never, before she thought better of this madness and changed her mind.

  The things a person had to do for the sake of peace, she thought grudgingly. She wasn’t naive enough to think that any sort of real harmony could come out of this, but it would be nice if the sniping would stop.

  Mikky guided her car along the uneven, freshly graded dirt toward the trailer. Reaching it, she pulled up the hand brake, put the car into Park and turned the engine off.

  Nothing rankled her more than apologizing when she didn’t feel as if she was in the wrong. But she wasn’t selling out, she told herself as she got out. She was doing this so she could get on with the work. So her name could be associated with this brand-new high school, and hopefully with a lot of other new projects and developments as yet unplanned.

  It wasn’t selling out, it was having good business sense.

  The silent pep talk didn’t help. Walking up the three steps to his trailer, she knocked on the door. There was no immediate answer, and she almost left before forcing herself to knock again.

  This time she thought she heard a cat mewling inside the trailer. Odd, she didn’t remember seeing a cat, and she was certain someone would have mentioned it to her if Marino kept a cat on the premises.

  Actually, now that she listened, she thought the noise sounded more like—

  “A baby.”

  The incredulous words tumbled from her lips as Tony opened the door. In the crook of one arm, held awkwardly against his chest, was a baby. She judged it to be approximately nine months old. It was wrapped up in a faded, tom, blue blanket.

  Stunned, Mikky raised her eyes to his. “What are you doing with a baby?”

  Great, Tony thought, this was all he needed to add to the confusion he was already wading through. He leaned out again to see if there was someone lurking in the shadows, ready to capitalize on this practical joke they were playing. But the lot was as empty now as it had been five long minutes ago.

  The sinking sensation that this was no joke was beginning to penetrate.

  “Holding it.” Tony ground out the words.

  “Besides that?” Mikky asked, shouldering her way past him into the trailer. As she moved by him, she took the baby into her own arms.

  Though a protest initially leaped to his lips, Tony surrendered his burden willingly. One glance at Mikky forced him to admit that she had a far better feel for holding a child that size than he did. It had been a long time since he’d held a baby in his arms. The bittersweet memories holding it evoked was just about doing him in.

  He didn’t need this on top of everything else.

  Mikky knew for a fact that Marino had no other children. What was he doing with this baby? Turning to look at him, she saw that there was no explanation forthcoming. It figured.

  “Well?” Opening her jacket, she cradled the baby against her, enjoying the warm feel of its small, rounded body. Maternal feelings that had long been sublimated leaped up within her. She wanted children. A whole house full of them. Unable to resist, she kissed the small head. “Where did it come from?”

  His wide shoulders rose and fell. “I found it on the doorstep.”

  Why did every scrap of information she got from him first have to be preceded by a tug-of-war? “No, I mean really.”

  “Really,” he insisted. Tony gestured toward a beaten-up baby seat. “The baby was in that.”

  Cooing soothing noises at the small invader, Mikky turned to look at the baby seat. It looked as if it had been in service a very long time. The baby was making sucking sounds against her shoulder that she recognized as hunger in the making. It was going to need baby food and milk and soon.

  With one hand holding the child in place, she picked up the blanket from the baby seat and shook it. A creased envelope fell out.

  Unable to open it herself, Mikky held the envelope out to Tony. She couldn’t help wondering if her initial sympathy for him was misguided. Maybe there was more to this man than she’d thought. Maybe this was his baby....

  “Want to read it?”

  Tony took the envelope from her before the tone of her voice registered. He looked at her sharply. “Why? You think it’s mine?”

  “Is it?”

  His laugh was short and completely devoid of humor. “Only in a parallel universe.”

  He hadn’t looked at another woman since he’d met Teri, much less engaged in a liaison with one. And there had been no one since his wife’s death. He was completely dead inside.

  Annoyed at her, he tore open the envelope, taking off a corner of the note with it. Ignoring Mikky, he shook the note out and quickly read it. There wasn’t much to read.

  Curious, unable to see anything in his expression, Mikky stood on her toes to look around his arm at the note herself.

  “Please take care of Justin. I know you can,” she read out loud. No help there. She looked at Tony. “Not much to go on, is it?”

  Instead of answering right away, Tony dropped the note on his desk, letting it land on the blueprint, which, she noticed, looked far more crumpled now than when she’d left a few minutes earlier. That it was apparently smoothed out again indicated he’d obviously had a change of heart about his feelings. He was a hard man to figure out, she thought.

  “No,” Tony answered, his voice very still, “it’s not.” He felt as if someone had just dropped an anvil on his chest.

  Moving into the light so she could get a better look at his face, Mikky saw that his olive complexion had grown almost pale. “What’s the matter?”

  His eyes averted, Marino refused to even look at her. “Nothing.”

  Mikky was tired of having him bite the hand she kept offering in friendship. She took the same tone she took with one of her brothers on the infrequent occasions when their moods turned nasty.

  “Don’t ‘nothing’ me.” When he began to turn from her, she butted her hand against his shoulder and pushed him back around so that he was forced to face her. He looked at her in mute surprise. “I was raised in a house full of brothers, and I know when a man’s trying to hide something. Now what’s wrong? You turned pale when you said the baby’s name.”

  She was going to harp on this until he caved, Tony thought angrily. It was none of her damn business, but he told her anyway. “Justin was my son’s name.”

  “Oh.” Where did she go from here, hobbling the way she was with her foot in her mouth? Mikky thought. She caught her lower lip in her teeth. “I’m sorry.”

  His scowl grew darker. “I don’t need you to be sorry.”

  The war was on again. It figured. His type didn’t know how to show any emotion other than growling. “Okay,” she said tersely. “Moving on. Did you see anyone?” The baby was beginning to leave a very wet spot on her shoulder where he was sucking on her blouse.

  Tony shook his head, frustrated. Why had someone singled him out? T
here had to be a reason, didn’t there? What was it?

  “There was a knock on the door. I thought maybe it was you, coming back to apologize. When I opened the door, there wasn’t anyone there, except for him.” He nodded toward the baby.

  It was exactly what she was coming back to do—apologize—but his thinking she had reason to suddenly threw a fresh log onto the dying fire of Mikky’s anger.

  Her eyes widened as she looked at him. “Why should I apologize?”

  “Because—”

  But before he could continue, she held up a hand, waving away whatever it was he was going to say that would undoubtedly launch them into another round.

  “Never mind, forget I asked. That isn’t important now.” She moved the baby into the crook of her arm. The smile that was on the rosebud mouth threatened to completely melt her heart. “But this baby is. What are you going to do about him?”

  “Me? You’re the one who’s holding him. Possession is nine-tenths of the law, remember?”

  There had to be more to this. Some kind of connection he wasn’t admitting to.

  “Whoever left him on your doorstep,” she pointed out, “obviously thought you could take care of him.” She consciously avoided using the baby’s name, though she thought of it as an odd coincidence.

  Take care of a baby? Tony thought. That was laughable. He could barely take care of himself right now, much less anyone so helpless. It was all he could do to function in the morning.

  He wasn’t answering her, she thought. Was he just ignoring her, or didn’t he know? Mikky tried again. “So what are you going to do?”

  Tiny fists opened and closed, catching air. Tony watched despite his effort not to. “I have no idea.”

  Chapter Three

  Confronted with his indecision, Mikky gave the situation only a moment’s thought and passed the baby to Tony. One of her brothers was a police detective. He’d take it from here. “Well, the right thing to do is to turn him over to the police.”