The Baby Beneath the Mistletoe

by Marie Ferrarella

  That made him only a shade better than nothing. Leave it to her. “You sure know how to turn a man’s head.”

  She grinned. “I call it as I see it.”

  “An honest woman.” In a way he supposed she was, at that- At the very least, she didn’t pull punches.

  She slipped the last spoonful into the open, waiting mouth. “Something like that.”

  “Why wouldn’t they have left him with you?”

  She shrugged. “Who knows? Maybe they got our trailers mixed up, or maybe whoever it was was in a hurry. Or maybe they sensed you wouldn’t turn to the police. I guess there’s just no way knowing for sure without knowing who left the baby in the first place.”

  He suddenly realized that the jar was empty. “Hey, you finished.”

  “So I did.” Retiring the spoon into the jar, Mikky placed both on the table and turned the baby around to face her. “Good job, Justin.” Her eyes swept over him. Unless Tony changed his mind and turned him over to the police, Justin was going to need a change of clothes in the morning. “Of course, you’re wearing about half your dinner, but hey, it’s a start. Are you still hungry? Are you?” Holding him up, she nuzzled her head against the boy’s tummy. Justin exploded with a laugh that surrounded her heart.

  “Um, hold still a second.”

  Now what, didn’t he approve of her playing with the baby? “Why?”

  “He spit up a little in your hair.” Tony had no idea what made him catch her hand as she started to feel around for the offending spot. Or what made him hold it a beat too long. It surprised him how small and delicate her hand felt. Did wolverines have delicate hands? “Not much,” Tony added, releasing her hand. “Just that I didn’t think you’d want to let it get stiff. Wait a minute.” He took a paper towel and wet it, then crossed back to her. “Lean your head forward a little.”

  Stunned by this chivalrous turn, Mikky did as he asked and kept very still. She could smell his cologne, she realized. Funny, she hadn’t noticed it before. Maybe because he didn’t seem like the type to wear any.

  If she was wrong about that, maybe she was wrong about other things about him as well.

  “Okay, it’s out.” He tossed the towel toward the sink.

  “Thank you,” she murmured. Looking up at him, her eyes strayed to the clock that hung on the wall just behind him. At least he’d made some effort...

  As if set to a thirty-second delay, the hour registered belatedly. Her eyes widened.

  For just the briefest second, Tony felt himself trapped within them. And then she moaned and brought him back to reality. “What’s the matter?”

  “Oh, God, look at the time.” Mikky was on her feet, although she couldn’t exactly slam-dunk Justin and bolt. “Johnny’s going to kill me.” She’d meant to call him as soon as they’d arrived at Tony’s apartment, but the thought had completely left her head.

  “Boyfriend?” The idea of her being involved in any sort of male-female relationship caught Tony off guard. He would have thought her kind killed after mating. A tiny splotch of irritation surfaced for no reason. He banked it down.

  “Brother,” Mikky corrected. “Right now a very angry brother.” She hated when she forgot things. She was the one who was supposed to be able to juggle everything, no matter how many of those things she had to keep up in the air at the same time. “He’s standing in front of the Newport Theaters, waiting for me. We were supposed to see that new science fiction movie that’s opening tonight.” Their tastes in movies almost identical, she and Johnny saw all the new movies together. He’d been looking forward to this for weeks. Her brother was going to be fit to be tied. She needed to page him.

  “You like science fiction?” Tony couldn’t picture her mesmerized by space aliens. But then, science fiction was a little out there and so was she.

  “I love science fiction,” she corrected. Placing Justin against her shoulder, she began to pat his back. A quirky grin Tony found unsettlingly diverting lifted the corners of her mouth. “When I was a kid, I could recite the dialogue from all three Star Wars movies.”

  “You must have been a great draw at parties,” he muttered. He was trying to be flip, but if he were being honest, he would have had to admit that he could never get himself to pass up watching any of the famous trilogy if he was channel surfing. “Which one was your favorite?”

  “Han Solo. I’ve got a real weakness for dashing adventurers who come through in a pinch.”

  Why did he feel as if she was directing that comment at him? “No, I mean of the three movies.”

  She flushed a little at her mistake. “Oh, the first one.”

  He’d liked the third. He couldn’t help asking, “You don’t like sequels?”

  “The sequels were great, it’s just that I like things when they’re fresh with promise—” she continued as she patted Justin’s back “—when everything is new. I don’t like endings.” Her voice drifted off.

  Tony caught himself wondering about Mikky, thinking of her as something other than a walking tongue. Now there were questions linking up to one another in his head.

  Was there a reason for her to feel that way? To hate endings? Had there been an ending in her life, the way there had in his?

  “Yeah,” he agreed quietly. “Me, neither.” He looked at Justin. His cheek pressed against her shoulder, Justin’s eyes were slowly beginning to drift shut. “Think he’s tired?”

  “We could try putting him to bed—speaking of which,” she raised her eyes to his, “where will that be?”

  Tony hadn’t thought that far ahead. Judging by the expression on her face, Mikky had probably guessed that, which brought back his feeling of annoyance. He found annoyance more comfortable than the unsettling one he’d just experienced.

  He shrugged. “I could put him on my bed.”

  Mikky nodded. Sounded like a plan to her. Justin was too large to spend the night in an emptied-out drawer, the way two of her little brothers had when they’d made their debut one after the other and money had been too tight to afford another crib.

  “That could work.” She glanced around. “You certainly have no shortage of things you could surround the bed with.” He was looking at her blankly. “You don’t want to have him rolling off. Nothing fun about a midnight run to the emergency room.”

  A deaf man would have noticed the conviction in her voice, Tony thought. “You’ve made them?”

  Mikky nodded. “More than once.” Things always seemed so much scarier at night, as if the lack of sunlight automatically made conditions more serious. “We found out my sister Alexis was allergic to peanuts the hard way. We got her to the hospital just in time. And then there was Randy, the flying squirrel.”

  “You took a squirrel to the emergency room?”

  Laughing, she realized there was no way for him to know. “That’s just a nickname I gave one of my brothers—after he tried to climb out of his second-story window and meet his friends, when he should have been sleeping. Broke his arm in two places. Lucky he didn’t break his neck, as well.” She’d been so terrifed, negotiating empty streets like a race car driver on his trial run at Indy, with Randy in the back seat, screaming the entire way. “Those were the nocturnal visits. I’ve had my share in the daytime, too.”

  Tony suspected she was being dramatic. “Where were your parents?”

  “My father worked three shifts at a restaurant to try to keep clothes on our backs and food in our stomachs. The manager liked him so the food part wasn’t as hard as it could have been.” Her expression grew a little rigid around the edges. “Your guess is as good as mine as to where my mother was.” Realizing that had sounded bitter, she cleared her throat. “Why don’t you go and barricade your bed, and we’ll see about putting this little guy down.”

  The momentary glimpse into her past made him uncomfortable. Unable to work his way through his own situation, he didn’t know what to say when confronted with someone else’s problems. That she’d given him a way out left him beholden to
her. The tally appeared to be mounting up. His guess was that she’d probably call it in before the week was out.

  “Right.”

  She nodded toward the wall phone in the kitchen. “Mind if I use your phone?”

  He disappeared into his bedroom. “Help yourself.”

  Dialing Johnny’s cell phone, Mikky mentally counted the number of rings. It went the full count. “Ten. Damn.” She frowned as she heard the recorded message. “He is too in range.”

  Curious, Tony came out again. She didn’t sound as if she was talking to her brother. “Not there?”

  Disgusted, Mikky hung up. “The connection’s not there. I hate that cell phone recording—‘The mobile unit you have dialed is not answering. It is either out of range or not on,’” she mimicked in a low, monotone voice, then groaned.

  With a sigh she walked past Tony to the bedroom. “I swear, sometimes I think I could get a better connection if I just strung up two tin cans.”

  He followed her. “You’d need an awful lot of string for that.”

  He’d left a space open for her by the bed, she noted. Oversight, or thoughtful? She decided on the former. “Not a problem. I’ve got friends in all kinds of places.” Gingerly she lowered the baby onto the bed, placing Justin on his back. When Tony reached for him, she caught his sleeve.

  “What are you doing?”

  There was that challenge again, Tony thought, as if no one could do anything right but her. “I’m going to turn him over on his stomach.”

  Still holding his sleeve, she shook her head. “Bad idea.”

  “All babies sleep on their stomachs.”

  “Not anymore. Latest studies show that babies run less of a risk of incurring SIDS if they sleep on their back.” He raised a brow. “I also baby-sit for two nephews and a niece. I keep up on this kind of stuff.”

  She probably did at that. “Does anyone ever win an argument with you?”

  In lieu of a blanket, she took one of the large, plush bath towels from the bathroom and covered Justin with it. “Only when I’m wrong.” Stepping back, she started to move another box in place.

  Fool woman was going to get a hernia proving she was macho. Biting off a reprimand, Tony moved her out of the way and did the honors himself. The only way Justin was getting out of there was by pole vault ing. “How often is that, in your opinion?”

  She looked up at him, straight-faced and innocent. “anyday now.”

  He had a feeling she wasn’t kidding.

  Chapter Five

  Tony waited until the low, murmuring sound of her voice had stopped before entering the kitchen. That he still heard a little of it in his head he attributed to the fact that she talked almost nonstop, not to the fact that the sound had somehow wound, seductively, into his blood and was even now unsettling him.

  That just wasn’t possible. Not with someone like Mikky.

  “Did you get ahold of your brother?” He figured she’d reached someone, unless he’d heard her talking to a wrong number.

  “Yes, finally.” She replaced the receiver as she turned to face Tony. “Johnny’s not too happy about missing the first evening show, but he’ll forgive me. He always does.”

  Tony laughed shortly. She probably ruled the members of her family like a power-hungry despot. “Does he have any choice?”

  “Sure.” Another quirky smile played along her lips, drawing his attention back to them. As much as he hated to admit it, there was something about her smile that got to him. “He can forgive me or die. I always leave that option open to my relatives.”

  He had a feeling her relatives weren’t the only ones she included in that group. Diminutive, small-boned and deceptively delicate looking, Michelle Rozanski, by his reckoning, could still have been the poster woman for the independent female of the ’90s. She was the last person he’d ever think of who needed to be taken care of.

  Light years away from Teri, he thought. Together since they were freshmen in college, Teri had turned to him for everything. Made him feel as if he were necessary to her very existence.

  He missed being needed. Missed making a difference in someone’s life.

  Maybe that was why he’d been so adamant about keeping the baby until Justin’s mother showed up. He needed to feel that someone needed him. Even a faceless woman with no name. And it was a cinch that the baby needed him, at least for now.

  “Well, I’d better get going.” Mikky hesitated, look ing at him. Debating. “You’ll be all right?”

  He wasn’t accustomed to having his capabilities questioned. “I’m not exactly helpless.”

  She sighed. “I didn’t say that.”

  He narrowed his eyes. She was doing it again. Twisting things so that it looked as if he were the one in the wrong instead of her. Had she learned how to do that, or did it come naturally to her?

  “You didn’t have to.”

  Humor, Mik, remember to keep your sense of humor, she warned herself.

  “Well, before we begin dissecting my overbearing personality again, I’ll just get going.” Unsure why she was lingering, she turned away and reached for the doorknob. “See you Monday morning. Drawing boards at thirty paces.”

  “Wait.”

  Mikky debated the wisdom of remaining one second longer than she already had. Reminding herself that she did have to work with Marino until she was confident that her designs were not being scrubbed, Mikky turned around. “What?”

  When she looked like that, it was hard for Tony to push the words out. But he owed them to her, and he always paid every debt, no matter how small or how troublesome. “Thank you.”

  It took every effort Mikky possessed not to let her mouth drop open. So he could say the words out loud, after all, and even look as if he meant them. Faced with what passed as a silent apology for his manner, she relented. She’d never been one to hold a grudge once any effort was made to make amends.

  “You’re welcome.” She paused, vacillating. He’d taken a step toward meeting her halfway and, judging from his sunny disposition, it hadn’t been easy for him. “Here.” On impulse, she opened her purse, took out one of her business cards and wrote on the back of it before handing it to him. “That’s my home phone number. If you find yourself needing help, call me.”

  Tony took the card, his fingers brushing against hers. Something in him wanted the contact to widen, to grow. Lack of sleep had to be evaporating his brain.

  His eyes met hers and held. “Why are you doing this?”

  Mikky didn’t like being questioned. Not when she didn’t even have any clear answers herself. A careless shrug marked her exit. “Just a sucker for a poor dumb animal, I guess.”

  She opened the door, and that was when they both heard it.

  Wailing.

  Mikky stopped and looked over her shoulder, not toward the sound, but toward Tony. He’d stiffened uneasily.

  You’ve already done more than your share. This isn’t any of your business.

  Somehow she just couldn’t make herself believe it wasn’t. What was worse, she couldn’t make herself leave. The fact that the baby might have started crying when she was safely in her car driving home, instead of now, and she would have been none the wiser for it didn’t mitigate her feelings of guilt.

  She couldn’t leave him like this.

  Calling herself an idiot, Mikky closed the door again.

  Tony looked at her uncertainly. “What are you doing?”

  Was it in her mind, or was there just the slightest touch of relief woven through his defensive tone? She tossed her purse back on the kitchen table. “The next showing doesn’t start for another three hours. I guess staying a few more minutes wouldn’t hurt.”

  Tony followed her into the bedroom. He didn’t like the idea of being more indebted to her than he already was. But he liked the idea of being left alone with a wailing child even less, especially after dark. Somehow the cries seemed more plaintive in the absence of sunshine.

  “Well,” he said expansively,
“if you have nothing else to do—”

  They were getting into muddy water again. Mikky held up a hand to stop Tony before he went any further.

  “Why don’t we just leave it at ‘thank you’ and you can think of yourself as ahead of the game?” Shouldering one of the boxes aside so she could reach Justin, she picked the baby up. The wailing settled down to a heart-wrenching whimper. “What’s the matter, big boy, did you have a bad dream?”

  Patting the baby’s bottom, she murmured something against his ear. Though he’d been listening, Tony couldn’t quite make the words out. Mikky kissed the baby’s forehead.

  “Well, you’re not wet, you’re not warm and we did just feed you.” She looked down at Justin. The redness in his cheeks was settling back to a rosy hue. “I think you just want attention, what do you think?”

  It almost sounded as if she were carrying on a conversation with the infant. “Are you waiting for him to answer you?”

  She shifted Justin to her shoulder. “Oh, he’s answering me, all right. Babies have their own way of communicating.” Mikky spared Tony a glance. “Too bad some of them lose that knack when they grow up.”

  They were on the brink of another sharp-tongued exchange; he could feel it. But she was going out of her way, so he curbed the response that rose to his lips. “What do you want me to do?”

  He’d only get in her way, and there were enough things in the way within the room as it was. Mikky nodded toward the tiny hallway and the living room beyond. “Why don’t you go and unpack?”

  He shoved his hands deep into the back pockets of his jeans. “Why do those boxes bother you so much?”

  There had been eight of them, not counting her father, stuffed into a small apartment with only two bedrooms. She’d grown up in cramped quarters despite all her best efforts to keep things neat. The state of Tony’s apartment brought it all back to her, reminded her of the harder times, where not only money but space was at a premium.

  But that was all far too personal to share with a man who couldn’t care less about her background. “Clutter bothers me.”

  “I guess being around construction sites must be hell for you.”