by Lisa Plumley
“Igor?” He jerked his chin toward the bird. A mistake, he realized as the bird interpreted the gesture as an invitation to dive toward his head like a miniature hawk on the prowl.
“That’s not Igor.” Chloe smiled, as though the little beast had done something especially bright and worth about a hundred points on the bird SATs. “It’s Shep.”
“Sure.” The bird landed on Nick’s head. He held himself still, trying not to shudder as it dug its claws into his scalp and tromped around through his hair looking for the best spot to take a bite. Or a peck. Or worse.
“He’s a lovebird,” she added.
“Literally?”
“Mmmm-hmmm.” She gave the bird a fond look. “They make good pets, because they’re very smart. Affectionate, too.”
“Super.” Nick put down his beaker for safekeeping and pointed toward Shep. “Would you, uh, lasso him or something? I’ve got work to do.”
“Spoilsport. When in this millennium don’t you have work to do?” Grinning, Chloe raised her slender be-bangled arm and made kiss noises toward Shep. Obediently, the bird flew to her forearm and walked placidly up to her shoulder.
“Nice work, Snow White.”
“Thanks. You really ought to get over your fear of birds, Nick. They won’t hurt any—”
“Fear?” He raised his eyebrows and gave her his best incredulous glance. “What’s to be afraid of? I could squash the little bugger like a—”
Chloe sucked in a strangled breath. “You wouldn’t!” she cried, cuddling Shep to her cheek.
He thought he heard the damn thing actually coo at her.
“He’s had a hard life already,” she informed him, cooing back.
Nick examined Shep a little more closely. “He looks okay to me,” he said dubiously. “A little raggedy around the feathers, maybe. Sort of down in the beak—”
“Be serious. You’d be raggedy too if you’d been through what he has. Luckily, I was there to rescue him.”
“Just what you need. Some other poor, defenseless creature depending on you.”
She rolled closer with a smooth whoosh of her skate wheels, and turned her hazel-eyed gaze on him. “Something you want to tell me, Nick? Feeling especially defenseless today? Or did one of your creations just go kaput on you?”
“My inventions never go kaput.” What was she getting at, anyway? “And I’m not one of your … projects.”
She shrugged. “Have it your way.”
“Now wait a min—”
“Friends depend on each other, that’s all.” She petted the bird, then added, “Anyhow, somebody brought Shep in to work last night. They were moving away and couldn’t keep him.”
“Somebody brought a bird to Red’s pet shop last night? I didn’t know you took that kind of—”
“We don’t. Especially now that Red’s looking to sell the place and retire to Sun City with her husband. That’s why I had to rescue him.”
“You had to rescue Red’s husband? From what?”
“Kibble overload, actually. Red thought a little Gravy Train might up Jerry’s fiber intake, like the doctor suggested.”
Nick grinned. Chloe rolled her eyes. “Be serious! I rescued Shep, here, of course.”
She raised her finger for a new perch and smiled like an approving mama as she watched Shep walk onto it. She lifted him chest-high and petted him with her other hand. He cooed some more, giving Nick a beady stare that suggested some birds had all the luck.
And some human guys didn’t know what they were missing.
Nick blinked and adjusted his eyeglasses at his temples, frowning at the wayward thought. Chloe smiled up at him, still smoothing her fingers over Shep’s feathers, and suddenly he imagined her fingers stroking over him. He could actually see her caress in his mind, gentle and crazymaking and accented with nails painted one of those wild nail polish colors she favored, like metallic blue or tangerine.
Dizziness walloped him. This guy doesn’t know what he’s missing, he thought.
She gazed over his array of test tubes and beakers. “So whatcha working on?”
Magically, she morphed into his old pal Chloe again. Good old late-late-movie watching, Kahlúa-brewing, pour-out-your-troubles-to-me Chloe.
Whew. The last thing he needed was a distraction like dating the girl next door. Not after all this time, and not when he had his best chance in three years of licensing one of his inventions. Especially, particularly, definitely not when the clock was ticking on putting together the prototype and proposal he needed.
“I saw Danny outside, and he says you’re not even blowing things up today,” she went on with an air of mock disappointment. “What gives?”
“What gives? What gives is that four-foot one-kid wrecking crew out there.” Nick glanced through the window at his nephew. “I’m surprised he’s not blowing things up.”
“Come on.” Chloe rolled closer and looked out the window, too. “I’m sure you were the same way as a kid.”
Her shoulders straightened as she pinned him with a give-me-a-break expression. “Admit it. You weren’t always Dudley Do-Right in disguise.”
“Maybe not, but I’ve been a steady Steadman since birth.”
“I think there’s a cure for that now. An anti-boredom vaccine or—”
“Ha, ha. Anyway, it must skip a generation, because Danny’s immune.” Nick sighed and faced his beaker of solution again. “I like having him around, but the kid’s a demolition expert in tennis shoes. So far he destroyed my Bunsen burner, erased my invention journal file—”
“You, being you, had a backup, of course.”
“—sure, but that’s not the point. Chloe, in the twenty minutes since his mother dropped him off—”
“Naomi, Nadine, Nancy, or Nora? I can’t keep them all straight.”
“—Naomi, and neither can anyone else except my mother.”
“Nester, right?”
He grinned at her. “Having fun?”
“What? It’s cute.” She raised her arms, wobbling a little on her skates as she formed a TV-style frame around her head. “The Steadman family was brought to you today,” she said with Sesame Street-style peppiness, “by the letter ‘N’ and the number seven.”
“—And since Naomi dropped him off,” Nick continued, returning to the subject of his destruction-happy nephew, “Danny’s done all that, plus almost reformatted my hard drive, made a mud castle with the potting soil for my research, and—”
“—and, in general, acted like a perfectly normal, seven-year-old kid, right?” Chloe folded her arms, turning her gaze away from the window. “What did you expect when you agreed to spend Saturdays with Danny?”
Nick shook his head. “Aww, I don’t know. Don’t get me wrong, I love the little guy. And with my schedule, spending weekends with my nieces and nephews is about as close as I’ll ever get to having a family of my own.”
“I dunno about that, Nick.” She turned her back on him and gazed out the window again. “My dad’s theory was leap-year parenting, and I turned out okay.”
In spite of it, Nick added silently. If he ever did have a family, he’d want to devote more time and care to it than Chloe’s multiply-divorced parents had. The way he saw it, a man could either be a good father and husband and provider—or he could be a great achiever and innovator and workman. Trying to be all those things simultaneously wasn’t fair to anyone.
But the point was, “I’m telling you, I’m lucky as hell not to have kids yet, Chloe. I swear I’d never get anything done.”
“Yeah. Lucky, lucky you.”
“Nice sarcasm. What’s gotten into you?”
She shrugged and trailed her fingertips along the tabletop beside them. “Maybe what’shername’s ticking clock is contagious.”
He shuddered. “I think there’s a cure for that now.”
“Har, har,” Chloe snorted, her gaze falling on his filled beaker. “So, what’s this great new invention of yours?”
Thoughts of n
ephews and destruction faded.
“It’s a growth accelerator.” He ran his fingers along the smooth glass beaker. The solution within winked blue and green, an ocean of possibilities. “This is a new version I came up with this morning. I was just about to test it.”
He waggled his eyebrows at her. “Want to watch?”
Chloe grinned. “That’s not the kind of question a girl like me gets asked very often.”
“That’s because that menagerie you keep next door scares off half your dates.” He picked up the beaker and prepared to pour.
“Fun-ny. I’d hardly call a dog, a cat, a few fish, a hamster and—” she kiss-kissed at the bird on her shoulder “—Shep here, a menagerie. I’d need to add at least a representative lizard or turtle to even begin to have that kind of variety.”
She propped her hands on her hips, pushing her right skate forward and back, adding the imminent threat of wheeled lab destruction to her words.
“Besides, my so-called menagerie loves me. And they don’t snore, leave dirty socks lying around, or bail out on me when the going gets tough.” She gave him a pointed glance. “That’s not something you can say about just any old—oh—oh—oh!”
Her right skate shot out from under her. Flailing, she clamped her hands onto his biceps, making his solution slosh against the sides of the beaker. If he didn’t lose the whole thing between Danny, Chloe, and Chloe’s winged avenger, it would be a miracle.
Gritting his teeth, Nick raised the beaker out of reach and inadvertently pulled Chloe halfway into the air, too. She shrieked and clutched his middle instead.
“Are you sure you know what you’re doing with that?” She eyeballed the solution. “I think you spilled some of your magical kool-aid on Shep.”
The bird in question flapped to the light fixture and resumed his attempts to cast disco-ball mood lighting down on them.
Chloe glanced worriedly upward. “Are you okay, Shep? Do you feel anything yet?”
As if the bird planned to answer. Nick frowned and put down the beaker. “I’m at least as good with magical Kool-Aid as you are with roller skates,” he pointed out, wrapping his arms around her so he could unclench her fists from the small of his back. It felt like she was bending his vertebrae into new and interesting shapes.
Wait a minute … he held her in his arms for a second, testing his reaction. No thoughts of stroking, kissing or anything else remotely erotic popped into his head. All clear. Double-whew! His earlier Chloe-induced fantasy had clearly been an aberration.
Maybe he’d been working too hard. Eight hours at the office and half as many more at home inventing each night would take its toll on any guy’s libido, wouldn’t it? It only made sense he’d fixate on the nearest woman within squeezing … stroking … kissing … distance. Even if said woman happened to be his best platonic female friend.
He had to start getting out more.
Nick set her upright again and picked up his beaker. Chloe shot him a small, inexplicably disappointed glance, then bumped her hip onto his lab table and stared at him. “Okay, let’s have a look at what this joy juice of yours can do.”
Nick stared back at her, momentarily discombobulated by the dispirited note in her voice. Chloe had always been his most ardent supporter, even more than his family and close-packed clan of relatives. They’d known him all his life, and none of them actually believed any of ‘Nicky’s little inventions’ would ever amount to anything. But to Chloe, his pal and confidant, he was Mr. Wizard and The Science Guy and the Absent-Minded Professor, all rolled into one big ‘you can do it’ package.
Nick rubbed the side of his nose, temporarily skidding his glasses askew. “What’s the matter, Chloe?” he asked, setting them straight again. He tried to peek at the calendar hanging on the wall behind her without being too obvious about it. “Is it that time of—”
“Say it and die.”
Her threat lacked punch, but he shut up anyway. He pulled the potted ivy close again.
She thumped her hip on the table, setting test tubes tinkling in their holders. A sheaf of Nick’s notes trembled atop the computer monitor and scattered like cottonwood leaves over his chair and floor. Chloe gazed at them with a faintly morose expression and crossed her arms over her chest. Sigh.
He gently tipped up an ivy leaf and poured a little solution into the soil inside the plant’s terra cotta pot. Beside him, Chloe’s next sigh trembled past his ear. The ivy’s glossy leaves fluttered.
He quit pouring. “Spill.”
“What?” She shouldered next to him and peered up at Shep. “You did spill some? How much? Is Shep going to be okay?”
“Aside from remaining a bird, yes.” Nick pulled over the next test-group plant, being careful not to look at her. “I mean, spill. Whatever’s bugging you.”
Silence.
An instant later, she grabbed the beaker. “No wonder your experiments take months, at this rate,” she muttered. “You need an assistant or something.”
She looked around his lab, frowning at a stack of pizza delivery boxes in the corner. “You know, somebody to tend to the details of real life for you while you’re off in La-La Land inventing stuff.”
Nick folded his arms, looking at her carefully. “Now I know something’s bothering you. You only turn mean when cornered.”
Chloe’s startled expression caught him unaware. So did the way she chewed her bottom lip, looking … vaguely guilty, if he didn’t miss his guess. She thrust her hands into her hair, loosening her bright bandanna by mistake and showing off the paler blonde highlights she’d crowed about to him last week. The gesture was a dead giveaway. She’d never have messed up her hair for anything less than sex or a natural disaster.
Nick had a feeling this fell into the disaster category.
Chloe had a secret.
He wanted to know what it was.
“Well, I … ah …”
Good move. He gave her ten points for convincing hesitancy—except Chloe was probably the least hesitant person he knew. “Mmmm-hmmm?” he nudged.
“I—I—” She rolled her eyes, clearly conjuring up a whopper. The question was, a whopper to cover what?
“Good start,” he coaxed, feeling close.
Her eyes brightened. “I’m worried about meeting Mr. Griggs at the bank tomorrow, that’s what!” she cried. “That’s it!” Her newly-triumphant gaze shifted to him and lost a couple degrees of cockiness. “I mean, sure. That’s it. That’s what’s bugging me.”
“You’re worried about your loan application.” It wasn’t a question.
“Umm, sure.”
“Come on,” Nick said. “What kind of a—”
“That’s it.” She practically oozed relief, now that the lie was out. With a flourish worthy of game show hostesses everywhere, she raised the beaker.
Thoughts of her mysterious secret and whatever rebuttal he’d been about to make flew out of Nick’s head. No, she couldn’t. She wouldn’t …
Gaily, Chloe poured every aquamarine drop of solution into the first ivy pot. “There! Now you can go on and do something fun with your day,” she announced, whisking her palms together.
In the pot in front of them, the soil sizzled. The sound grew louder, loud enough to attract even Shep’s birdbrain onto the scene. He swooped onto Chloe’s shoulder and cocked his head. She did the same. So did Nick. He’d never heard anything quite like that sizzle.
An instant later, the lustrous green ivy plant drooped in its pot, looking about as growth-accelerated as a strip of overcooked bacon.
“Looks like it’s back to the old drawing board.” Chloe looked sadly at the ivy. “But I know you can do it, Nick. Hey—can I watch?”
Chapter Three
Chloe couldn’t believe it had come to this.
Bleary-eyed and yawning, she stared at the pregnancy test instructions in her hand, then blinked beneath the glaring seven a.m. lighting in her bathroom and read them again. Yup, it really did say she was supposed to pee on a stick.
Gross.
She picked up the package. There, atop several lines of fine print medicalese, blazed the words that had lured her to this particular test. Ninety-nine percent sure. If it took bathroom acrobatics to come up with results like that, she guessed she’d better give it a whirl.
It took less time than she expected, more dexterity than she hoped, and miles more steadiness than her shaky hands could muster. Her stomach pitched as she set the tester on the vanity and turned her tomato-shaped kitchen timer to the three-minute mark.
Tick, tick, tick. The first minute passed about as quickly as hot weather in Arizona. Chloe paced across her black-and-white checkerboard-tiled floor, swiping microscopic dirt from the vanity and trying not to look at herself in the mirror.
Dumb. That’s what she was, for not thinking of this possibility beforehand. When Nick found out …
He wasn’t going to find out. She couldn’t tell him about this.
She had to tell him about this, she argued with herself. She hadn’t been with anyone else for more months than she cared to count. Her period was already two weeks late. Despite their fumbling, post-Kahlúa precautions, Nick might be a father in the making. He had a right to know, didn’t he?
I’m lucky as hell not to have kids yet. I swear I’d never get anything done.
Oh, yeah. Nick didn’t want kids. He’d told her that before. He wasn’t ready for a family now, at least not until he’d gotten the inventing bug out of his system and gotten established in his career … and turned serious about settling down.
Ha! As if that would happen anytime soon.
But part of him already wanted to settle down, Chloe told herself as she straightened the already-neat bathmat and fluffed out the shower curtain. The wistful expression on Nick’s face when he’d looked out the window at Danny yesterday had been proof enough of that.
With my schedule, spending weekends with my nieces and nephews is about as close as I’ll ever get to having a family of my own.
Then again, he seemed pretty resigned to waiting for it.
Shoot.
And what about the little white lie she’d told him? Nick didn’t even remember their night together. What if he never forgave her for lying to him about it in the first place?
