The Baby Beneath the Mistletoe

by Marie Ferrarella

  As a rule the crew didn’t come looking for her. The men were pleasant enough to her, but Marino kept them hopping, which left little time for her to get to know any of them, and technically she wasn’t part of what was going on. Supposedly, she had done her part, and her presence was an intrusion. At least, that was what Marino made her feel.

  Damn, why couldn’t the man kiss like a frog? Wasn’t it bad enough that he looked like a fairy-tale prince, did he have to kiss like one, too?

  With a barely suppressed huff, she pulled open the door.

  The fairy-tale prince was on her doorstep. The princein-waiting was tucked under his arm.

  Mikky looked from Tony to Justin. The former wore a faint scowl, the latter a sunny smile. It was obvious that Marino could learn something from his foundling.

  Still, she was surprised to see the baby. “You brought Justin with you?”

  “I thought you might be more forgiving if I had a baby in my arms.”

  Suspicion piqued as she reached for Justin. Tony surrendered the boy after a beat. “Forgiving?”

  Was she going to make him spell it out? Apparently so, he thought grudgingly. “About Saturday night. I meant what I said about getting involved.” With every word, Tony’s tongue was getting thicker. He wasn’t any good at this kind of thing. Never needed to do this until he’d met her. Now he seemed to be doing it all the time. “But maybe I could have said it better. It was no excuse to behave like a...a—”

  “Jerk. Ass. Clod.” With each suggested label, her smile grew.

  Well, this had certainly been a bad idea, thought Tony. “I don’t need a thesaurus.”

  “Just trying to be helpful.” Her grin swept right through him even though he tried to prevent its entry. She turned her attention to the baby. “Hi-ya, Justin.” With a laugh, she nuzzled him. Tony couldn’t help thinking how natural she looked, holding Justin like that. Another time, another place...

  Mikky raised her eyes to his. “You didn’t really bring Justin here with you as a visual aid, did you?”

  He shrugged his reply to the implication in her question. “That and because I thought that maybe if he was here, someone on the site might recognize him—or have regrets.”

  Mikky couldn’t decide if he was hoping to succeed or fail. The longer it took to find Justin’s errant mother, the longer Tony got to keep the boy.

  She turned her attention to something far less serious. “Where did you get the hard hat?” She tapped the white helmet with her finger, catching Justin’s attention. Giggling, he grabbed her finger and held on.

  Just like he had a hold of her heart, she realized. It didn’t take long with kids.

  “Angelo gave it to me.” Tony had taken Justin over with him to his aunt Bridgette’s for her mandatory Sunday dinner and had spent part of the time explaining to her why Mikky hadn’t come with him. But that wasn’t something he wanted Mikky to know. “He has several for when he brings his kids onto a site.”

  Justin had his fingers firmly around the brim. Mikky, carefully pried them off. “You look very dashing, Justin.”

  Not unlike your keeper, she added silently.

  “So now what?” she asked.

  “I thought maybe you could watch him for a while. I forgot I have to meet with a supplier this morning and—”

  She put him out of his misery. “Sure. Justin and I will go over my blueprints together, won’t we, Justin?”

  The boy gurgled.

  “See, he’s a lot more agreeable than you are already,” she said.

  “That’s because he’s too young to know what he’s letting himself in for.” But Tony was smiling as he said it.

  Justin, Mikky noted later that morning, attracted attention like a magnet dropped into a box of metal filings. The gorgeous weather had prompted Mikky to bring Justin out of the trailer to enjoy the day. That, and Tony’s idea that someone might recognize the little boy.

  No one seemed to recognize him, but that didn’t stop people from coming over. Weather-beaten, hard-edged men were transformed into malleable wads of mush when taking turns clustering around the sweet-tempered baby. Everyone, it appeared, wanted to hold Justin.

  Even the security guard had taken his turn, entertaining Justin with his keys. The foreman, a heavyset man named Mendoza, was a natural with Justin. He had five kids and a grandchild on the way, courtesy of his second oldest.

  “It’s gonna be a boy,” Mendoza told Mikky as they queued up to the lunch truck. “They already know.” It was obvious he didn’t think much of the idea of finding out ahead of time. “In my day you waited to find out what it was going to be. Nobody likes surprises anymore. Me, I kinda think you lose something that way.” He shifted Justin so that the boy was facing him. “How about you, little guy?”

  Justin responded with a toothy grin as he drooled down the front of Mendoza’s jacket.

  “Here, you’ve hogged the kid long enough, give him to me,” a riveter with a tattoo of a cobra on his hand said, reaching for Justin.

  The crane operator nudged him out of the way. “I’ve had lunch. I can hold him.”

  Mikky looked at Tony, who’d only now joined her. “If we charge everyone for a turn, we could start up a nice college fund for him.”

  Tony muttered something she didn’t catch as he elbowed his way through the crowd. “I’ll take him.” Without waiting for a comment. Tony took the boy into his arms. “It’s time he had something to eat.”

  “Sure, boss. He’s all yours.” Mendoza surrendered the baby to him.

  “I’m impressed,” Mikky told Tony, falling into step beside him.

  Justin’s cheeks were bright red. He’d had enough of an outing for now, Tony thought. “I wasn’t aware I was saying anything impressive.”

  How much of that brusqueness was an act and how much was genuine? Mikky had watched him with Justin, and she knew there was a warmer side to Tony. Why did he insist on being such a bear around her? “You remembered his feeding time.”

  “I eat, he eats, no big deal.” Tony stopped at the door of his trailer, his fingers on the knob. Escape was within his reach, but for some reason he didn’t feel like taking hold of it. Instead, he glanced at Mikky. “You can join us if you want.”

  “Ah, a warm invitation. How can I resist?”

  He frowned, walking in. “Does everything have to be a crack with you?”

  “I dunno.” She pretended to think it over. “Does everything have to be offhand with you? An offhand invitation, an offhand apology...”

  Shifting Justin to his other side, he held up a hand. He’d already learned that if he didn’t stop her, she’d be off and running with no end in sight.

  “Okay, point taken. If you have no better offers, would you do me the extreme honor of dining in my trailer with Justin and me?”

  “Better.” She grinned at him. “And I’ve never had a better offer.” She looked around the trailer. “Did you bring his food with you?”

  He pointed to a large tote bag that Shad’s wife had lent him. “Right there.”

  Mikky opened up the bag. Inside was a complete array of everything Justin would need to get through the day. She looked at him in surprise. “Who packed this for you?”

  “I did,” he informed her. “It took a while, but it’s coming back to me.”

  “Did you take your own son on outings?”

  “Yeah.” The desire to be curt and cut her off flared and disappeared as the memory of his son chased it away. “Yeah, I did.” He turned her around. “So do I pass inspection?”

  Mikky took out a jar of rice and turkey dinner. “You don’t need me to validate that.”

  “Just so you know.”

  While she fed Justin, he unwrapped the sandwiches they’d gotten at the truck and placed them on the desk. Two cans of soda completed the setting. “I can do that, you know.”

  “I know.” She smiled at him. “We’ll take turns.”

  Was it him, or was there something kinder about that smile? As i
f she had his number but wasn’t going to use it. Just yet.

  Sitting down opposite her, Tony picked up his pastrami sandwich. Hungry earlier, he found that his appetite had mysteriously faded. Had to be the company. He set the sandwich down again, content to sip his soda and watch her feed Justin.

  The domesticity of the scene soothed him. There was a danger in allowing himself to get too comfortable with this. With her. “You haven’t heard anything from your brother, have you?”

  “Not a word.” She’d only called the one time and then decided that no news was good news. “Anyone here look as if they might be feeling guilty to you?”

  He shook his head. Although, if he were being truthful, he would have to admit that he hadn’t really been looking, despite what he’d told her.

  “Not so far as I can see.” He leaned over to wipe Justin’s mouth when an abundance of apple sauce threatened to burble out his lips. “I’m beginning to think that it was someone driving by who just happened to see the site and left Justin here on impulse.”

  Scraping the bottom of the jar, she fed Justin the last bit of apple sauce. “You might be right. At least, Pete said he didn’t see anyone.”

  He looked at her blankly. “Pete?” He didn’t remember any of the crew being named that, but then, he could be wrong.

  “The security guard.” She wiped Justin’s chin and tossed the towel aside. “Don’t you know his name?”

  “I’m not very good with names. Truth is, I’m not very good with people. Not anymore, anyway.” He took Justin from her, freeing her hands. “Go ahead, eat your sandwich.”

  She smiled. He was coming along. For however long Justin was in his life, the little boy was a positive influence. “It’s like riding a bike. It’ll come back to you.” Draining her own soda, she set it down, then eyed his. Mikky raised a brow, looking at him.

  He gestured toward the can. “Go ahead.”

  Mikky took a sip from his can. She had no idea why that felt so intimate, but it did. “I’ve had a chance to go over my design again.” She waited for him to say something flippant.

  “Mendoza said there was a light on in your trailer when he got here at six-thirty.”

  “I got in at six.”

  “Why?”

  “I like to tackle things early.” Mikky made her way into the minefield cautiously, waiting for the first explosion. “When you have a chance, I’d like to discuss that point you raised on Friday—” She was now fully armed to show him, in the politest way she knew how, exactly why she was right and he was wrong.

  Busy playing with Justin, he waved away her words. “No need, you were right.”

  Mikky felt her jaw grow slack. She’d put in several hours on this. “Excuse me?”

  “The augmentation you showed me, it works.” After he’d returned from Bridgette’s on Sunday, Tony had taken a second look at what Mikky had proposed. In a more tolerant frame of mind, he’d realized that her suggestion solved the potential stress problem he’d initially detected. “I should have seen it. The design’s a little futuristic, but it’s doable.” He stopped. Still seated opposite him, Mikky was looking all around the trailer. “What are you looking for?”

  “A pod.”

  He picked up on the science fiction reference. “No pod, no invasion of the body snatchers. I took a closer look, that’s all.”

  “All” wouldn’t have been the way she would have put it. She smiled at him. “Someone should have left a baby on your doorstep a long time ago.”

  “Justin has nothing to do with it.”

  She knew better. “Whatever you say.”

  Chapter Nine

  Justin became the crew’s mascot.

  It happened quickly, effortlessly, taking hold in less than a couple of days. Tony took to bringing the boy with him every day. By the third day, Justin was a fixture on the site. Everyone took turns watching Justin, especially Mikky.

  For Tony the bonding was even faster. It seemed to him that he and the sunny-faced little boy had taken to each other the moment he had picked him up from his doorstep. The effects generated by Justin’s presence in his life were not isolated solely to his interaction with the baby. The darkness that had such an iron grip around Tony’s world began to allow glimmers of light in.

  Which, he decided later when he looked back, was probably how Mikky managed to seep in—through the fissures and the microscopic spaces that were emerging in the walls he’d kept around himself.

  Justin was their catalyst, his and Mikky’s.

  Because of Justin, Tony noticed that their working relationship transformed into something other than open warfare. Tony’s admission that perhaps he’d been too hasty dismissing aspects of her design paved the way to a better rapport between them.

  Which paved the way for other things.

  Granted, it had cost him to admit he was wrong. But to Tony’s surprise, he had gained far more than he’d lost with that one simple action.

  He’d gained Mikky as a friend. Beyond that, he wouldn’t, couldn’t, allow his thoughts to go. The territory out there was raw and hard to negotiate. He was still hurting.

  But even so, Tony had to admit that there were more pluses to the woman than minuses. Once he stopped seeing her as a major annoyance, he realized that she was easier to work with than he’d initially thought. Like two halves of a whole, they complemented each other.

  She had vision while he was practical. Rather than butt heads and shout, upsetting Justin, they strove to remain calm and reach for compromises.

  Justin was their tranquilizer—and so much more than that.

  “A happy pill, that’s what you are,” Mikky told the baby as she changed him on the table that had previously held only blueprints. There was a container of baby powder on it now and a box of baby wipes. A half-empty plastic bag of diapers was nestled in the corner of the trailer, beside a minirefrigerator that housed his food. “You’ve had a positively calming effect on that man.” Closing the diaper tabs, she tucked Justin’s rompers back on, then picked him up in her arms. It was only two short weeks since he’d come into both their lives, and she felt as if she’d held the little boy in her arms forever.

  She felt as if he were hers.

  Don’t go there, she warned herself.

  It was bad enough that Tony had become so attached to the boy. She couldn’t allow herself that luxury. She had no claim to Justin at all. But there was no denying that he had one on her. On her heart.

  A little like, she mused, the big lug who took care of him.

  Mikky raised Justin high overhead. Sweet, childish laughter surrounded her as he enjoyed his impromptu flight. “If we could bottle you, we’d make a fortune, you know that?”

  “And if you could talk, Justin, you’d tell her that all she had to do was behave civilly and she would have gotten the same results.” The door shut, punctuating Tony’s words.

  Mikky glanced over her shoulder, not all that surprised to see Tony standing behind her. It was an unspoken understanding that he could drop by whenever she had Justin in her trailer, and she could walk into his anytime Justin was with him. They had become, without ever putting it into words, each other’s support group.

  The feeling leeched out to areas beyond Justin, though that, too, was unspoken, but for very different reasons.

  Mikky turned her attention back to the baby. “Can you say bull, Justin?”

  Her trailer was smaller than his. Tony had difficulty maneuvering without bumping into something. This time it was Mikky he brushed up against as he went to retrieve Justin from her.

  “Teaching him how to rebel already?” A warmth fingered him as he enfolded Justin in his arms. “How’re you doing, big guy?”

  “Teaching him how to wade through the muck and see the truth,” she countered. Who would have thought that this was the same man she’d met three months ago in the mayor’s office? Two weeks in Justin’s company and he had gone through a remarkable transformation. “Face it, he’s turned you into a
human being.”

  Tony eyed her. “Meaning I wasn’t before he came along?”

  She couldn’t help the smile that curved her mouth. Maybe being around Justin had changed her, as well. Not that long ago she would have answered Tony’s question with a biting barb. Now she had no desire to match wits with him. “You know the answer to that yourself.”

  It was a crisp, sunny day, and he didn’t feel like waltzing on the cusp of a disagreement. Some of the anger that had been his unshakable, steadfast companion had begun to slip away.

  He changed the subject. “The project’s coming along nicely. Looks as if we’re going to be finished before deadline.”

  He’d sweated that a few times in the beginning, when they were afraid the supplies would be held up. But now everything was a go. The grading along the three acres where the school was to stand had all been completed, the foundation laid and now the actual construction was well underway. Everyone seemed to be working at maximum potential. Barring any unforseeable major mishaps, the late-deadline penalty no longer hung over their collective heads as an ever-present threat. There might even be a bonus in it for completing the job before deadline.

  Mikky had monitored the crew’s progress and thrilled as her design became more than lines on paper and a three-dimensional drawing on her computer screen. It was well on its way to becoming a reality. She’d had buildings she designed go up before, and the thrill had never left her. But this one was her first beneath her own banner. It was very special to her.

  But the progress, something she had longed for earlier, now had a bittersweet component to it. The faster things went, the faster she would leave.

  “I know.” She blew out a breath, then turned away so he couldn’t see the look in her eyes. “Looks as though I’ll be packing up and leaving by the end of next week.”

  He’d forgotten about that. Because the design was working out so well now, there would be no need of her presence on the site soon.