The Baby Beneath the Mistletoe

by Marie Ferrarella

  He left the room abruptly, leaving Mikky to wonder what it was she had said or done this time to set him off. Putting Justin down for the night in the portable crib that Angelo and Allison had brought, she tiptoed out of the room.

  Half expecting to find herself alone in the apartment, she found Tony in the kitchen. The man was surrounded with bowls and pots. “You cook?”

  “I’m Italian. It’s in the genes. Besides, this isn’t cooking, it’s warning.” He indicated the serving of shrimp scampi he’d just taken out “Want some?”

  Her smile was warm as she said, “I’d love some.”

  Sitting opposite him at the table, Mikky discovered that if she wanted conversation, she had to initiate it herself and then keep it moving. Tony seemed perfectly content to eat in silence. Silence drove her crazy.

  “So, I take it that you haven’t heard anything about Justin’s absent parents,” she said.

  By Tony’s count she’d only been away a little more than four hours—not that he was counting, he told himself. Only that he’d happened to notice the time when she left. In any case, four hours was hardly time for any earth-shattering revelations to occur. There’d been no more notes from the baby’s parent, no mysterious messages left on his phone at work or even here. It was as if Justin had been dropped out of the sky. Except that he hadn’t.

  He didn’t even raise his eyes from his plate. “If I had, he wouldn’t be here.”

  “True. Aren’t you the least bit curious why you were singled out?”

  “I wasn’t singled out.” Popping the top of a can of soda, he began pouring some for himself when he stopped abruptly and held the can out to her. She smiled, taking it from him and pouring a little for herself. “I just happened to be there.”

  Did he really believe that, or did it somehow keep him detached to think that? “So you think it was just the luck of the draw.”

  The shrug was dismissive. “No reason to think anything else.”

  She’d watched him earlier, after they’d given Justin his bath. In the space of less than a day, Tony seemed far more comfortable holding the baby. Certainly more than he had last night. He was getting the hang of it. More than that, she could see him getting used to this very quickly. Concern had her pointing out the obvious.

  “You know, you can’t keep him. He’s not a puppy. If his parents don’t turn up—”

  Tony put down his fork, his mouth firm. “I already told you, I’ll handle that when and if the time comes.”

  He was playing ostrich. She knew the danger in that. For years she’d secretly held on to the belief that her mother would return, that she couldn’t have just walked away and left her. It brought a very bitter sense of betrayal when she’d finally accepted the truth.

  “And, according to you, when will the time come? In a day? Two, three? A week? Eighteen years?”

  “That was a hell of a jump.” Annoyed, he got up from the table.

  She was on her feet, following him into the next room. “No more than the one I think you’re making in your mind.”

  He whirled around on his heel to glare down at her. “You have no idea what’s on my mind. If you did, you might be dialing 911.”

  Mikky raised her chin defensively. “I wouldn’t have to. One of my brothers is a cop.”

  “A cop.” His dark eyebrows converged and narrowed. “You didn’t call and tell him about this, did you?”

  She couldn’t lie. Didn’t believe in it. Even so, her throat felt a little dry as she made the admission. “Off the record—”

  “Off the record,” he echoed, his voice rising. “Does that mean off his brain, too? He’s a cop, Mikky. He’s supposed to report things. Damn it, how could you?” he demanded. “What gives you the right to think you can interfere in my life?”

  She didn’t react well to being shouted at, especially since she’d done what she had for the best reasons. Emotional to a fault, she wasn’t always strictly driven by her emotions. The way he apparently was this time.

  “I asked Thad—off the record,” she ground out, “to see if there were any reports of missing or kidnapped babies.”

  He stared at her as if she’d just said she’d had her brother check the files for alien abductions. “Kidnapped?”

  Obviously he hadn’t even thought of that. “It’s a possibility.”

  “Why would someone go through the trouble of kidnapping a baby and then leave it with me?”

  There were a whole host of reasons. “Remorse, fear, second thoughts.” She was going toe-to-toe with him now. “I don’t know, I just wanted to cover all bases.”

  “They’re my bases, and you don’t have to cover them,” he said, dragging his hand through his hair. “You’ve got a hell of an imagination, you know that?”

  On the cusp of a fight, she was pugnacious now. “Yeah, I do. I find it an asset.”

  “An asset,” he repeated, rolling the word around on his tongue. “Oh, you mean as in helping you create beautiful buildings that could only exist in that fanciful head of yours because they don’t have a prayer of standing up in reality?”

  They were back to the high school. If Marino wasn’t so pigheaded and had an ounce of vision, he could see the possibilities. Both in the building and in his life. Mindful for the baby, Mikky struggled to curb her temper and keep her voice down.

  She looked at him pointedly. “You make your own reality.”

  He met her glare head on. “I don’t seem to be having much success in that.”

  She had no trouble understanding what he meant “You want me to leave?”

  “Yes.” But as she turned away, he barked out, “No,” and then growled, “damn it”

  She was expressionless, her voice devoid of emotion. “I’m sorry, but I don’t know how to do ‘damn it.’ Just what kind of command is it?”

  “It’s not a command, it’s frustration. You’re one hell of a confusing woman, you know that?”

  There was enough electricity bouncing between them to light up San Francisco for a week. She gave up trying to ignore it. “Why, because you find yourself wanting to kiss me again?”

  “Kiss you? I never said I wanted to kiss you again.”

  He didn’t have to. “But you do, don’t you?” Tony began to open his mouth, but she wasn’t about to let him say anything yet. “It’s okay, that kiss this morning knocked me for a loop, too. I was hoping you’d do it again so that I could see I was just being delusional before.”

  “Why would you have had to be delusional before?”

  “Because nobody could have kissed like that.”

  Without knowing he was doing it, Tony took her into his arms. “Like what?”

  “Like I could feel my hair grow.”

  How had she come to fit so snugly against him? “So you want to do this in the name of science?”

  Her eyes were smiling, appearing to see right through him. “As good an excuse as any.”

  No, he thought as he brought his mouth down to hers, it wasn’t.

  Chapter Eight

  It was the kind of kiss dreams were made of. Exciting, fiery. Tender.

  But Tony didn’t want to dream.

  Lord help him, he couldn’t seem to make himself want to wake up, either.

  Not yet, just a little more, a voice within him pleaded. A second to remember, to feel, to know he hadn’t become all steel and rock inside. That there was still something of the man who had been a husband and a father left.

  Holding her closer to him, he let his lips roam over hers, absorbing the tantalizing, seductive flavor he found there. Who would ever have thought that someone whose tongue was so tart could taste so sweet?

  Not him, that was for damn sure.

  A man could get lost here, just savoring a feast. Just feeling like a man. With needs and passions and desires.

  For Mikky it was like jumping out of the plane only to discover, at the worst possible time, that the parachute was still sitting tucked under the seat. A cry of excitement, of
exhilaration throbbed within her, begging for release. But all sound had frozen in Mikky’s throat.

  And her lips were no help. They were otherwise occupied.

  It was thrilling. It was frightening. And she had absolutely no idea where to go from here. Had no idea about anything at all, only that “here” was a wonderful place to be.

  She felt her heart racing. But where was it racing to? Would there be anyone at the finish line once she got there?

  Tony vaguely became aware that there was some sort of peripheral noise intruding into this hellish paradise he was trying to find his way through.

  Crying.

  Justin.

  Justin was crying.

  The realization brought reality back with it, driving a wedge between them. Startled, Tony pulled away, feeling as if he’d just been saved from going under for the third and final time.

  Her knees were actually wobbly, Mikky thought, stunned by the discovery. So much for fluke reactions. She looked at Tony. “I think science just got burnt to a crisp.”

  Dazed, trying to reconcile the ringing in his ears with the whimpering he heard coming from his bedroom, Tony could only stare at her. “What?”

  Mikky seriously doubted if she could get in a lungful of air without sounding as if she was gasping. What had he done to her?

  “We were supposed to be doing that as an experiment, in the name of science, remember?” He was looking at her as if she’d just sprouted another head. “I said that science just got burnt to a crisp.”

  “Yeah. Whatever.”

  The best thing to do was just to retreat, to use Justin’s crying as a diversion and hope that if he ignored it, the problem would go away. But she was the problem, and Tony damn well knew he could make book on the fact that she wasn’t going away. Not unless he pushed her.

  He turned around abruptly, bumping into her. It didn’t surprise him that she was right behind him. He would have been surprised if she hadn’t been. He had to stop this before it got way out of control.

  “Look, something’s happening here I don’t want to happen.” She was staring at him, staring at him with those eyes of hers. He had to look into them to get his point across. But it wasn’t easy. “I loved my wife.”

  “I didn’t realize that was being questioned.”

  “It’s not.” How had this even come about? All he wanted was to be left in peace for the rest of his life. Was that too much to ask? “I don’t want another relationship.”

  “Not saying that we’re about to have one,” she qualified, “but I take it that means you want to play it safe.”

  “Yes. I want to play it safe.” She was trying to make him feel like a coward, he thought. Whether he was or not was his business, not hers. Why did she think she had the right to keep butting in? What gave her the right to kiss him like that, to make him forget all his promises to himself? To make him, for the briefest moment, forget everything. “You got a problem with that?”

  Mikky spread her arms wide, innocently. “Not if you don’t.” Something pushed her on to ask, “Were you happy with Teri?”

  What kind of a question was that? Tony wondered. “Of course I was, what ”

  There was no doubt in Mikky’s mind now, that the wounds had gone deep. How far did he have to dig down before he could begin healing again? “Don’t you like being happy?”

  “Not if it comes with too high a price tag.”

  If everyone was like that, the world would have died out with Adam and Eve. “You know what they say, no pain, no gain.”

  “Then I guess I just won’t gain,” he said, his glance sweeping over her lips.

  She knew it wasn’t a battle to be won in an hour or day. This one, to be achieved, was going to take time. “Suit yourself.” Justin’s cries, unheeded, were becoming lusty in tone. As least Justin was a male she could handle.

  “Where are you going?”

  She thought he’d be able to figure that out on his own. She nodded toward the bedroom doors. “Justin’s crying.”

  “I can take care of him myself.”

  The icy tone all but said, “you’re dismissed.” She didn’t need to be on the receiving end of the bum’s rush. Mikky turned around again to face Tony. Her tone was every bit as cold as Tony’s. Two could play this deep-freeze game. “Then I guess there’s no reason for me to stay any longer.”

  He looked past her head. “Guess not.”

  It didn’t matter if his kiss could set paper on fire at ten paces. Some things just weren’t worth the agony. “See you Monday.”

  “Not,” he murmured as the door slammed in her wake, “if I see you first.”

  Upset and trying to find a place for the emotions that Tony had sent into an uproar, Mikky spent the remainder of the weekend cleaning and putting things in order. If they couldn’t get organized in her head, the least she could do was organize her closets and drawers.

  She concentrated on trying not to think about Tony and trying not to wait for the telephone to ring. When it invariably did, she knew before answering that it wouldn’t be him. Tony wasn’t about to call and apologize for behaving like the rear end of a horse. And if he needed any help in dealing with Justin, he had more than an army of helpful relatives to turn to.

  He had no need of her.

  She supposed she had difficulty believing and accepting that. But there were actually people in the world, she mocked herself as she swept out her garage, who got along perfectly well without her help.

  With a sigh she leaned on her broom. Served her right for getting involved in the first place, she thought Parking her broom against a wall, she went into the house to do something really constructive.

  Mikky threw herself into the overwhelming-anddaunting project of trying to second-guess what part of her design Marino would attack next. Second-guessing how his mind worked wasn’t easy on any level, but she was going to be as prepared as she could be, given the circumstances.

  She fell asleep Sunday night over her drawing board.

  Sleep was still fringing her eyes as she drove onto the vast, graded lot on Monday morning. Actually, it wasn’t really even morning yet, she thought. She had to be crazy, coming here so early. And yet, staying home until a decent hour held no appeal, either. She might as well be working.

  Thinking herself alone as she parked by her small trailer, she started as the flashlight shone into her car, breaking up the soothing dark.

  “Oh, it’s you, Ms. R.” Sheepishly, the security guard flipped up his flashlight before turning it off. “I thought maybe it was some young punks, looking to make off with something.”

  Mikky got out, locking her door out of habit. “This is Bedford, Pete.” She smiled at him to show no harm had been done even though the little white dot in front of her eyes was probably going to continue flittering in and out for the next fifteen minutes or so. “We’re not zoned for punks, young or otherwise.”

  A solid, older man, Pete Reynolds pushed back the brim of his gray cap with the tip of his thumb.

  “Sure beats some of the other places Max and I have guarded. Thing I have to be most careful about on this assignment is not falling asleep.” He laughed to himself as he followed her to the steps of her trailer. “Not like that time I had to guard a construction site in East L.A. Plenty of action there. Had the cops out more than once.”

  She nodded, preoccupied but trying to be polite. “Well, you won’t get that here.” As a thought occurred to her, she looked at the security guard. Brought in on the first day, he was on the site every night, dusk to dawn. It was company policy. There always had to be a guard around to make sure that none of the materials were stolen.

  Which meant he had been here Friday night.

  She remembered seeing him now. “Pete, you didn’t see anything suspicious Friday evening, did you?”

  “Suspicious?” Very dark eyebrows pulled together as he concentrated. “How do you mean?”

  She was certain the guard would have investigated if he’d notice
d something out of the ordinary, but it never hurt to ask, just in case. “Somebody carrying something. Leaving a baby on the steps of Marino’s trailer.”

  Warm, chocolate-brown eyes looked at her incredulously. “A baby? Somebody left a baby? When?”

  “Friday evening. Around six.” She could see by his expression that he had no idea what she was talking about So much for getting lucky. “Never mind, I just took a shot.”

  His expression was contrite, as if he was very sorry to disappoint her.

  “I must have been on the other side of the site when that happened. I patrol the grounds once an hour.” Pete scratched the German shepherd he kept on a tight leash behind the ear. “Keeps me and Max alert.”

  Mikky flipped through her keys, looking for the one to the trailer. She nodded at his explanation. “Sorry to bother you.”

  “Hey, no bother.” He began to turn away, then stopped, curiosity getting the better of him. “What happened to the baby?”

  Finding the right key, she inserted it into the lock and opened the door. “Well, it looks like Mr. Marino’s temporarily taken custody of him.” She saw genuine interest in the older man’s eyes. “He thinks the mother is coming back.”

  Pete considered her words. “Doesn’t usually happen.” Sighing, he shook his head. Sensing something was wrong, the dog drew closer to his master. “What’s he going to do if she doesn’t show?”

  It seemed everyone acknowledged that possibility but Marino. “He hasn’t thought that far yet.”

  A philosophical, mild smile tugged on the guard’s lips. “He seems like a good guy, Mr. Marino. I’m sure he’ll come up with something.”

  She certainly hoped that he was right in this case. Mikky opened her door. “I’ll see you later, Pete. Max.” She nodded at the twosome.

  “Sorry I couldn’t be more help,” Pete called in after her.

  “Not your fault.”

  And not, she reminded herself as she closed the door behind her, your problem.

  The first order of business was getting coffee into her veins.

  Mikky was on her second cup of mudlike coffee when she heard the knock on her door. Wondering if the troops had landed and she was about to be invaded, she sidled past the table that took up most of the available space in the narrow trailer and crossed to the door. She felt her adrenaline starting up.