Grounded: Michaela

by Leanne Karella

  Trent leaned over and slapped his arm in a way they had communicated as teens. "It's over and done with. All of it. We're older now," he chuckled, "hopefully a lot wiser."

  Ty eased out a slow breath, the tension releasing. "Yeah. Hopefully."

  "Besides, it looks like everything's worked out for the best." Trent nodded toward the women.

  Ty's stomach clenched painfully once again, and his heart thudded too hard a couple times. Michaela sat on the picnic table bench holding Crystal, Trent's baby girl. The child curled her hands into Michaela's wild hair—she'd taken off the hat he'd given her—and giggled. Michaela was laughing with the child, looking so…motherly.

  * * * *

  Something went soft and squishy inside Michaela as the little girl twisted her chubby fingers in Michaela's hair and giggled. Her heart felt full, her eyes teared up, and she had the urge to just hug the child until she squished. These feelings were very confusing.

  "I'll be damned," Lina said. She folded her arms over her chest and stared at her daughter. "Crystal doesn't take to anyone. You must be very special, Michaela."

  Michaela laughed. What else could she do? The same gift she had with animals extended to children, as well. But she didn't get these gentle feelings when she tussled with Stryker or pet the horses. This tenderness was something new, something wonderful.

  "Fuffy," Crystal proclaimed as she patted Michaela's hair.

  Jess laughed. "No, not Fluffy. Michaela," she said to Crystal. "Fluffy's one of the cats," she added to Michaela.

  Michaela laughed and cuddled the child closer. She wondered, now that she was mortal, if she could have a child of her own. She'd have to look into that. She wasn't exactly sure how you got one, other than you needed to be married.

  "Come on, Jess. Let's get this stuff cleaned up, and then you can go for your sleepover at Beth's." Lina started gathering up bowls of leftover food. "You mind watching Crystal for a few minutes?"

  "Not at all," Michaela answered, her throat a little tight. She did not understand these new emotions. All she knew was she wished she never had to give Crystal back.

  Trent and Ty came to the table and began carting away bowls and platters along with Jess and Lina. "Hey, Stephen," Trent called to Stephen who sat in a lawn chair cuddling Electra against his chest. "Why don't you build a fire in the pit?"

  "Sure thing." Stephen extracted himself from Electra, went to a pile of wood stacked near the side of the house, and grabbed a few small logs. He put them in a small area surrounded by big rocks. A campfire, Michaela thought, just like on television. How special. She grinned and hugged Crystal.

  * * * *

  Trent took a sleepy little Crystal from Michaela's arms and headed inside to put the child to bed. Stephen and Electra were snuggled on a lawn lounger near the fire. Michaela stood up and wandered toward the fire, carefully seating herself on another of the loungers Stephen had put near the fire.

  There were only three of the chairs. Ty let out a slow breath. He wanted her in his arms. To wrap his arms around her and hold her close as they stared into the dancing fire. He feared his body's reaction to her though. She enflamed him, made him burn like no woman ever had. The fear that she was nothing but another forbidden addiction arrowed through him.

  Just for tonight. Here, around people he knew and loved. There was safety in numbers. He could hold her and there wouldn't be any consequences. Slowly rounding the fire pit, he stopped next to her chair. Michaela looked up at him, the firelight dancing in her green eyes. "Mind if I sit with you?" he asked, his voice little more than a whisper. He felt like a young buck, randy and ready, yet shy and terrified all at the same time.

  Michaela scooted to the side of the lounger, as if his big frame would only take up half the chair. He chuckled and leaned down, scooping her negligent weight into his arms, and settled her on his lap.

  She didn't say anything, just laid her head against his shoulder and snuggled a little closer. His body jumped to life, his erection instantaneous and painful with her sitting on top of it. Then she wiggled around, as if getting more comfortable. He gritted his teeth and stifled the moan tearing at his throat. Unbidden flashes of memory spiked through his mind of her naked body, pale and perfect, sprawled out in the center of his bed.

  Clasping his hands at her waist, he held her still. She settled against him once again, her cheek against his shoulder, her hand laying on his chest, her warm, chocolaty-scented breath teasing the skin of his throat. This was dangerous, he thought, even as he wrapped his arms around her and turned his face into her hair, breathing in her apple pie scent. God, she always smelled so good.

  Just to the left of them, Electra and Stephen whispered playfully, giggling like teenagers.

  Michaela sighed against his throat.

  "You didn't seem to have any real problem meeting everyone today," he commented.

  She shook her head, her soft hair tickling his chin. "I enjoyed it." She raised her head to meet his eyes. "Did you?"

  He couldn't stop the small smile that curved his lips. She had tricked him. The little brat. He chuckled. "Yes, Michaela,"—he even loved the sound of her name—"I had a good time." He paused. "Thank you," he whispered.

  A smile broke through her serious expression before she lowered her head back to his shoulder. "You're welcome."

  Lina and Trent came out the back door and took up their position in the last lounger near the fire. Lina snuggled against Trent and both of them sighed as if perfectly content with the world.

  Only the sound of the crackling fire and the soft chirp of crickets disturbed the quiet darkness.

  Trent's voice was deep and lazy, laced with humor, as he asked, "Remember the last time the three of us sat around a campfire snuggled up with women?"

  "The Vanderhaus sisters," Stephen replied, followed by a little chuckle. "Graduation night, up at Devil's Peak."

  The feeling of lightness returned to Ty, and he smiled at the fond memory from their younger days. Long ago when he, Trent, and Stephen had been referred to as The Three Musketeers of Unegi. "Bridget, Francine and Monique," he supplied.

  "Ahh, Monique," Trent said on a sigh. "Hey!" He chuckled and grabbed Lina's elbow before she could land another blow to his gut. "It was twenty-some odd years ago, give a guy a break."

  Everyone, including the women, laughed.

  Michaela turned herself in his arms until her back lay against his front, her thighs draped over his, her butt cuddling his hard sex. Ty wanted to press against her, to ease the ache. Instead, he wrapped his arms around her waist and settled his chin on top of her head.

  Embers popped in the fire. Michaela jumped a bit, startled by the noise. He held her closer. She laid her hands over his and sighed, as if she was perfectly content with the world, too.

  "Always wondered what happened to the sisters," Trent commented, then kissed Lina's cheek as if placating her. Lina was a spitfire of the first degree. And obviously jealous of Trent's past conquests. Ty remembered the burning ire in Michaela's eyes as Carrie had flirted with him. Admittedly, jealousy from a woman was kind of a turn on. He glanced back at Trent and Lina and wondered if Trent didn't intentionally provoke his firecracker of a wife.

  "I get emails from Francine once in a while," Stephen said, even as he lifted Electra's hand to his lips. "She became an orthopedic surgeon, lives in San Diego with her husband and four kids." At everyone's silence, he added, "We met up at a medical conference in Seattle a few years back."

  "Ah," Lina said as she stroked Trent's arm as he held her. "And what of Monique?" There was no mistaking the humor behind her voice.

  Stephen chuckled. "She's the wife of some state senator in Montana. Francine says she has a couple kids, too. And Bridget is somewhere in Africa, trying to find homes for orphans. They've all done very well for themselves."

  Ty glanced between Trent and Stephen. They'd done pretty well for themselves, too. Trent the local law, Stephen, Unegi's only doctor. And here he sat, just a year out of
jail, the same age as his friends, nearing forty-five, and struggling to get a small cattle ranch out of the red. He swallowed. He definitely had turned out to be the loser of the bunch.

  Michaela leaned to the side, turned her head, and met his gaze. "Don't," she whispered, for his ears only. She reached up and touched his cheek with the backs of her fingers. "Please be happy."

  She made him happy, he realized with instantaneous clarity. Nothing had ever made feel as comfortable and…needed as Michaela did. Unable to stop himself, he leaned forward just a bit and grazed his lips over hers.

  "Weren't you planning to ask Bridget to marry you?" Trent asked.

  "Hell no!"

  Michaela jumped at his exclamation.

  He laughed and snuggled her close again. "I was headed off to the circuit, I never thought about getting married. Hell, we were only seventeen."

  "That's not what I heard," Trent teased. "I heard she broke your heart when, two days after graduation, she dumped your ass for Joey Parker."

  "Joey Parker, the little punk," Ty said, without heat.

  Stephen and Trent laughed.

  Silence reigned once more. The fire was sputtering, dying down. The crickets had quieted. A big black cat leapt onto Lina's lap, and she snuggled it close against her and Trent.

  "Besides," Ty said lightly, "you were the only fool to run off and get married."

  "True," Trent admitted. He rubbed Lina's arm. "But the second time around was for keeps."

  "I keep telling him he should have just waited for me," Lina said. She kissed Trent's chin.

  "I almost got married once," Stephen said softly.

  Surprised, Ty turned to look at him. Electra had sat up and was staring at Stephen, too. "When?" Electra asked.

  "When I was in college." Stephen sounded infinitely sad. He shrugged, his motion just barely visible in the dying firelight. "It didn't…work out."

  "Oh, you poor baby," Electra said and put her arms around Stephen's neck.

  Ty frowned. How odd that his current girlfriend would say something like that about an almost marriage when she didn't know the details. In fact, Ty was curious, himself.

  "Did you ever almost get married?" Michaela asked softly, her fingertips tickling the hairs on his arm.

  "Nope."

  "Not our local playboy," Trent said, then oomphed when Lina elbowed him again.

  "What's a playboy?" Michaela asked in her inquisitive way.

  Lina spoke up this time. "It's a guy who dates a lot of women. But Ty's…changed these past few years." Lina's steel gray eyes dared Ty to argue.

  He couldn't of course, because he had changed. Now he avoided women like the plague instead of trying to bed every one he came across. He'd even tried for Lina when she first came to Unegi, but she'd had eyes for only one person, the town sheriff. He chuckled, remembering her threats to his body parts if he so much as looked at her the wrong way.

  "Yes, ma'am. I've changed."

  "All for the better," Lina said with an air of authority, then laughed. "I actually like you now."

  Ty chuckled. "Thanks." But she could never know just how much that simple comment meant to him. Being liked had never been foremost in his list of things to need. At least not until he'd spent two years in a lonely jail cell, the only person to visit him the man who'd put him there, the man who'd been his buddy since childhood.

  * * * *

  Michaela had fallen asleep on Ty's lap listening to the smooth sound of his deep voice as he talked to his friends about days long past. He'd tried not to wake her as he picked her up and carried her to the truck, but Electra had come running after them, nearly shouting that Michaela couldn't forget the books Electra had loaned her.

  Now her head lay back against the seat of the truck, and she watched the saguaro cacti and sagebrush rush past the windows in the bright glow of the full moon.

  "So,"—Ty's voice broke through the low rumble of the truck's quiet purr—"you read romance novels, huh?"

  Romance. Hm, another of the many words she'd have to look up she'd heard today. She assumed he referred to the instructional manuals Electra had given her. She fingered the books that lay on her lap and gave a noncommittal sound.

  "I guess I pictured you as more of a scientific journal type." He chuckled. "With your curiosity about everything in general.

  A scientific journal sounded interesting. Something that might teach her more about earth and the things living and breathing on the planet.

  "Are you still awake?"

  "Mmhmm," she answered, loving the sound of his voice, but missing the warmth of his body she'd felt when he held her. "Do you have any scientific journals I could read?"

  His low rumbling laugh sent warm shivers dancing along her arms. "Sorry, sweetheart, the only scientific anything I read is on breeding cattle."

  Breeding, making babies. She could possibly learn something from those, too.

  "There's a library in Placer I could take you to. They should have some books that would interest you."

  She didn't know what a library was, but she did so love to read. "That would be nice."

  "How long do you plan to stay around here?" Ty asked, his voice dropping even lower.

  Michaela turned her head to see him. The green glow from the dashboard made his cheekbones stand out, his eyes a strange shade of darkness. "I have nowhere else to go," she answered simply. She would stay as long as…as he wanted her to, she supposed.

  "You have no other family besides Electra?" he asked.

  She shook her head. "None."

  "How long have you two been on your own?"

  Her chest tightened. He was asking those questions again, the ones that she would have to form untruths to answer if she couldn't sway him from the topic. "Do you have family?"

  He shook his head. "My parents died when I was eighteen. I was an only child. What about your parents, Michaela?"

  He wouldn't be deterred. She clasped her hands around the books on her lap. "No, I have no parents. Just…Electra." Which, she supposed was true. Electra was as close to a family as she possessed here. Angels didn't have siblings or parents, they just…were.

  She recalled the look of love in Trent and Lina's eyes as they played with Crystal. If she couldn't be on the receiving end of that kind of connection, she wanted to experience it from the parent's point of view. "Do you want children, Ty?" she asked.

  He started coughing, as if he'd swallowed something distasteful. "Uh," he said and then cleared his throat again. "I really hadn't thought about it much. I'm kinda old to start now, don't you think?"

  "Trent is your age, isn't he? And he has a baby."

  Silence filled the truck for a long while, and Michaela studied Ty's face. He looked sad, again. She truly had to start thinking before she spoke. "Can you not have children?" Her voice was soft. She didn't want to hurt him.

  He sent her a quick glance before he turned onto the rough dirt road leading to the ranch. "I'm sure I could, if I tried. I've just never thought of myself as father material. I didn't exactly have a role model to learn from. My father was a mean drunk. He died, taking my mother with him, while driving home under the influence from the bar late one night."

  "Oh." She didn't understand half his words, but his tone held all the meaning she needed. He didn't think he was good enough to be a father. Just like he hadn't thought he was good enough to be accepted back among his friends.

  He stopped the truck near the front porch of the ranch house, shut off the engine, then turned toward her in the darkness. She could barely make out his shape, couldn't see his eyes at all. "Look, Michaela, I'm not someone for you to…uh…set your sights on. I'm not…I can't…" She saw the shadow of his hand raise and rake through his hair. "I'm not the settle down, start a family type, okay?"

  She thought it wasn't okay, not at all, that he was underestimating himself again. The edges of the books dug into the pads of her fingers. Perhaps they'd give her a better idea how to convince him he was wrong.
>
  He turned away and opened the door. "Come on, it's late." He climbed out, then came around and lifted her down from her side. His hand lingered on her waist, and her breath came out in a soft whoosh when her breasts—Jess had referred to the mammary glands as such—brushed against Ty's chest.

  She heard him swallow. In the moonlight, she gazed up at him. The look in his eyes made her think he was going to kiss her again. She leaned toward him ever so slightly. His fingers flexed against her body and sharp, wonderful sensations radiated along her skin from his touch.

  Ty cleared his throat. "Would you want to come work with me tomorrow? With the animals? I was wondering if you could do that little calming trick with a couple of cows I need to give an injection to. They set up an awful fuss whenever I get close to them." He let go of her and stepped away. Another emotion—disappointment—flooded her senses.

  "Sure," she answered, not really knowing what he asked.

  "Great." He turned toward the house, his boots crunching on the rocky path.

  Stryker let out a deep woof and met them at the top step of the porch. "Hey, old boy," Ty said as he ruffled his fingers through Stryker's fur. "You keep the raccoons at bay tonight?"

  Stryker let out a little whine and thumped his tail against the floor.

  If Ty could be gentle with a strange, temperamental old dog, she thought as she followed them into the house, he could be gentle and loving to a baby.

  Stryker followed her into her room and hopped up on the bed, circled twice, plopped down, and heaved a heavy sigh.

  Yes, she thought as she began unbuttoning her shirt, she'd start reading the books tomorrow. With any luck, they would tell her what she needed to know to convince Ty he was the sweet, wonderful man she knew he was.

  Chapter Eight

  Two nights later, Michaela sat on the bed, Stryker snuggled next to her, and finished the first of the two books Electra had given her. She'd come to realize it was more of a proverb than an actual instructional manual. The man in the book was just like Ty. Ty didn't think he was worthy of the love that his friends gave him, and that she herself, now fully convinced that it was love she felt for him, wanted to give him.