Hush, Little Baby

by Judith Arnold

  He rushed D.J. through his bedtime rituals—diaper change, face and finger wash, snapping the baby into a clean sleeper and whispering, “No bath tonight, buddy. I’ll make it up to you tomorrow—you can have two baths if you want. Okay?”

  “Da-da-da!” D.J. responded.

  “Sounds like ‘yes’ in Russian.” Levi closed the final snap and carried D.J. to his crib. “Now it’s grown-up time. You know what that means? It means you let me be a grown-up for a while. Got it? No fussing, no barfing, no pain-in-the-butt stuff. Are we on the same page?”

  “Da-lee-lee-lee!”

  “Good. I’ve got to take care of business with Ms. Lanier downstairs. Don’t screw things up for me any more than you already have. Now, here’s your teddy bear—” he handed D.J. the stuffed bear Ruth’s housemate Sandy had given him “—and I’ll wind up your music box—” he did, and it began to play a tinkly version of “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” “—and I’ll turn on the walkie-talkie, so if you’ve got a real emergency you can summon me. Not a fake emergency, D.J., not one of those ‘I’m bored and I want someone to play with me’ whines, but a genuine 911 emergency. Got it?”

  “Ba-ba-ba-ba.”

  “That’s it. ‘Baa-baa Black Sheep.’ It’s the same melody as ‘Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.’ There are probably plagiarism issues involved.” He scruffed his hand gently through D.J.’s downy hair and backed up to the doorway, where he switched on the nightlight. Dusk light brightened the room, but once night darkened the windows, D.J. would want the nightlight on.

  Levi tiptoed down the stairs, listening for a wail. Sometimes, when the realization struck D.J. that he’d been abandoned, he’d send up an outraged yell loud enough to shake Tara’s house across the street. Other times he babbled contentedly for a few minutes and then drifted off to sleep. Levi prayed tonight would be one of those times.

  He found Corinne gazing through the deck door, her wine glass still in her hand. She glanced over her shoulder at him as he entered the kitchen, and another shy smile flickered across her lips.

  Shy. That was what she was. Levi tried to recall the last time he’d met a shy woman and drew a blank. Most of the women he worked with were brassy and assertive; most of the women he dated were up-front and in-his-face. He didn’t mind. He liked women who knew their own power and used it.

  But Corinne… It wasn’t just that her voice had a whispery edge, even when she was making demands. It was the reserve in her gaze, the stillness in her posture, the restraint in her smile.

  He reminded himself that this was a business dinner. Her shyness meant nothing more than a possible weakness he could exploit once they got down to discussing the house design and the contract.

  Still, he smiled back at her, once again feeling the urge to reassure her. “Let me get myself some wine, and we’ll head out and get this meat on the grill.”

  “Is D.J. okay?”

  For a moment, he thought she actually cared about D.J., but then he figured she was probably only asking if the kid was going to remain quietly out of sight long enough for them to eat and hash out the issues concerning Mosley’s house. “I’ve got an intercom,” he said, displaying the portable receiver he’d brought downstairs. “If he’s not okay, he’ll let me know.”

  He poured himself a glass of wine, then carried it, the intercom and the platter of steaks to the door and edged it open with his hip. He motioned with his head for Corinne to accompany him outside, and she moved straight to the deck railing as he busied himself lighting the grill.

  His backyard was small, but it bordered on conservation land, so beyond his little square of lawn stretched an untouched expanse of dense New England forest. In the mellow warmth of early June, the foliage was a dozen shades of green, ranging from the silvery pallor of poplars to the almost gloomy dark green of balsam fir. The slender trunks of birch trees stood out in slashes of white, as if someone had streaked the forest with paint.

  “It’s beautiful,” she murmured.

  He was pleased out of proportion that she liked it. “I wish I could say all this land was mine, but it’s not.”

  “It doesn’t matter.” She sipped her wine. “Everything is so—so rural here.”

  He chuckled. “Arlington is a small city. I’d hardly call it rural.”

  “Compared to Manhattan it certainly is,” she said, her smile a little less shy. “You designed this house, didn’t you?”

  He adjusted the burners on the grill, then joined her at the railing. “Yeah. “ He grinned. “You hate it, right?”

  “No. It’s striking. It seems more practical than the design you came up with for Gerald.”

  “His kitchen will have more counter space.”

  “His kitchen will be three times the size of yours. The ratio of counter space to total kitchen size is better in your kitchen.” She must have realized how bizarre that sounded, because when he laughed, she did, too. “Anyway, I bet you don’t have a fireplace in your bedroom.”

  As a matter of fact, he did. “Would you like to see?” he asked.

  Her smile faded and she took a small step backward. He hadn’t meant his invitation as a way to lure her upstairs and into his bedroom, but she seemed to take it that way—and the possibility obviously made her uncomfortable.

  Okay. He’d shelve all thoughts about her collarbones, her long legs and her large hazel eyes. This was supposed to be a business dinner, and it would be. “What I meant,” he explained, “was that if you’d like, I can give you a tour of the house after dinner so you can see how a Levi Holt design comes together. We’d have to wait until D.J. is sleeping, but then you could have a look around. I plan to do a lot more with Gerald’s house—he’s got a lot more money to spend than I did when I built this place—but maybe you’ll get an idea of what the finished product would be.”

  Skepticism shadowed her gaze. Either she didn’t want to see how well a fireplace could fit into a master bedroom, or she didn’t trust his motives. Both possibilities made him smile.

  He returned to the grill and laid on the steaks. They hissed against the hot metal and released a rich, meaty smell. His peripheral vision tracked her as she turned from the scenery and rested her hips against the railing. She looked—not relaxed but like someone trying hard to appear relaxed.

  “When did you build this house?” she asked.

  “Three years ago. I’d just gotten a huge commission, and the land wasn’t too expensive—this isn’t the west side of town, which is a lot pricier—and I grabbed it. I did a lot of the construction myself, and I have friends in the business who cut me some breaks. I could probably sell this place for twice what it cost me to build it.” Enough. He wanted her to realize that a Levi Holt house was an excellent investment, but he didn’t want to come across as pushy. “Do you like your steak red, pink or burnt?”

  “Pink, please.” She sipped some wine. Her lips were soft and rosy. The wine darkened them slightly. He wished he hadn’t noticed that.

  “I’ll be right back.” He left her for the kitchen, took the baked potatoes out of the oven, stuck a loaf of sourdough bread in to warm, pulled a cruet of salad dressing and a tub of butter from the refrigerator, and loaded everything on a tray. A glance through the door informed him that Corinne was back at the railing, gazing out at the woods.

  Shy, or just guarded? If she was afraid of him, she had no reason to be. Even before D.J. had entered his life, he’d never been a wolf. He liked women too much to treat them without respect. If a woman sent signals that she wasn’t receptive, he was sensitive enough to pick up on them.

  The thing was, the signals he was picking up from Corinne were erratic. She’d been clear about not wanting to see how he’d integrated a fireplace into his bedroom, but the way she gazed at him implied that she wanted to know him better, wanted to dig beneath his surface. Maybe she was so hard-headed, her interest in him was only a means to renegotiate Mosley’s contract with him from a position of strength.

  But she didn�
�t seem hard-headed. Smart, articulate, reserved, but vulnerable underneath. Not vulnerable to a seduction, alas, but not impervious, either.

  He carried the tray through the dining room to the screened part of the porch. He’d set the table before driving to the Arlington Inn to pick her up, and it looked cozy and inviting. One of the few worthwhile concepts his mother had indoctrinated him in was the importance of cloth napkins that matched the table cloth—or in this case, placemats. Napery had been a big thing with her.

  He returned to the kitchen for the bread, arranged it in a basket, and brought it to the table. Then he stepped out onto the deck and lifted the grill lid. Aromatic smoke wafted out.

  “If you want pink, we’re ready,” he said.

  She smiled again. Shy, but definitely something more. Something warm, aware, responsive…just possibly willing to take a chance.

  Chapter Four

  THE WINE was good. The steak was tender, the bread crusty. The porch was dimly lit. At the center of the table, a candle inside a tinted blue glass augmented the sky’s waning light and the brighter light that poured through the glass slider to the dining room. Blue, gold and rusty pink played on Levi’s face, painting mysterious shadows across his skin.

  Corinne didn’t want to be caught up in the mystery of Levi. She wanted to straighten out the problems with Gerald’s house and go back to New York. Perhaps if the lighting were better, she’d be able to concentrate on her mission.

  Maybe it wasn’t the lighting that distracted her. Maybe it was the wine, or the filling food, or the balmy warmth and grassy scent of the air above the backyard. Maybe it was the faint, steady hiss of the intercom receiver, informing them that D.J. was sleeping peacefully upstairs.

  Or maybe it was just Levi.

  Whatever the reason, Corinne couldn’t force herself to care about Gerald’s dream house. Later, she’d care. Tomorrow morning. But not now.

  “The house I grew up in was dark,” he was saying, and as she lifted her glass for a sip she assured herself that listening to him describe the path that led to his career as an architect was actually relevant to the business she was supposed to be conducting. “It was an antique farm house, maybe a hundred fifty years old. The windows were small, and the surrounding trees blocked a lot of the light, too. It was gloomy.”

  Was he talking about his childhood house or his childhood? “I don’t know much about old houses,” she said. “I grew up in Phoenix, where most buildings are pretty new. A hundred fifty years ago, Phoenix probably had a few adobe haciendas, but most of the houses in my neighborhood were no older than forty years old or so.”

  “And they all look like adobe haciendas,” he guessed.

  She grinned. “They try to look like haciendas. Everything is stucco, with red tile roofs. It’s nothing like Arlington.” The candle flickered. She saw the flame reflected in Levi’s eyes, just as she’d seen herself reflected in them earlier. “Was your family’s farm house in Connecticut?”

  “Central Pennsylvania,” he told her.

  “How did you wind up here?”

  “I finished grad school and got a job offer.” He pushed his chair back from the table so he could stretch his legs. Sliding down a bit in his chair, he rested the base of his wine glass against his belt.

  His abdomen was board-flat. She couldn’t detect a hint of flab on him—not that she was ogling his body or anything.

  “I liked the people at Arlington Architectural Associates when they brought me in for an interview,” he continued. “It’s a small enough firm that everyone depends on everyone else. People collaborate and bounce ideas off each other. No one acts like a prima donna. Even though all the partners have different styles and different strengths, there’s a real respect and openness to other people’s approaches. And we all agree on certain basic philosophies of building design.”

  “What are those philosophies?” she asked, silently commending herself for the fact that she and Levi were talking shop. Even if she was maybe ogling him just a teeny, tiny bit, she was also taking care of business, which made the ogling almost justifiable.

  “Light,” he said, then grinned. “That’s our main philosophy: buildings should be full of natural light. They should be open to the outside world, integrating the outdoors into the interior as much as possible.” He sipped his wine. “Having grown up in a dark house, I want to design houses full of light.”

  “In other words, houses with walls of glass,” she muttered, although she smiled so he wouldn’t sense any hostility in the comment.

  “Walls of glass,” he confirmed. “Skylights. Porches. Broad doors and windows. Whether we’re designing an office building or a Colonial reproduction or something post-modern, we try to open it up as much as possible. I like having all that light embracing a room. Or natural darkness. Not the kind of gloom caused by small windows and long eaves, but a night sky. With the right kind of windows, a room can be filled with the night.”

  She tried to calculate how much wine she’d consumed. Certainly not enough to be thinking what she was thinking: that a room filled with the night sounded remarkably romantic.

  The word “romantic” ought not to be a part of that evening’s vocabulary. Just because she’d shared a candlelit dinner with a handsome man on his back porch—which had been filled with dusk and now was filling with night—didn’t mean she was in a romantic mood.

  “Tell me more about the house you grew up in,” she urged him, because even if she wasn’t in a romantic mood, neither was she in the mood to argue about the imposition of his architectural philosophy on Gerald’s house. “You said it was a farmhouse. Did you grow up on a farm?”

  “We had a pretty extensive garden,” he said. “We grew a lot of the food we ate, and we also raised chickens. Nasty little beasts. They were always pecking and squawking. I didn’t like them.”

  “It sounds wonderful,” Corinne murmured, despite his negative attitude toward chickens. “I mean, the old house and the garden.” She’d come of age in a variety of interchangeable suburban houses. For a few years she’d had a pet cat, but she’d had to give it to her father when her mother’s second husband proved to be allergic to cats. And her father’s wife at the time hadn’t wanted the cat, so she’d given it to a neighbor who’d moved to Tucson. Corinne realized with a pang that she still missed Muffy.

  “It wasn’t wonderful,” Levi told her, his smile lacking humor.

  “Were the chickens really that bad?” she needled him.

  “Not the chickens. The whole thing. The house wasn’t just dark—it was drafty in the winter and sweltering in the summer. The plumbing and electricity were unreliable. Whenever anything broke, my father insisted on fixing it himself. He made my brothers and me help him. Our repairs were pitiful. He should have hired professionals to do the repairs, but he refused to.”

  “There’s something to be said for doing things yourself.” Corinne prided herself on her self-sufficiency. She might not be able to perform plumbing and electrical repairs any better than Levi’s father, but she knew how to take care of herself. She’d learned that necessary skill at an early age. With her parents caught up in their own chronic melodramas, their marriages and divorces, passions and feuds, she couldn’t count on them to take care of her. So she’d learned to launder her own clothes, write shopping lists, forge her parents’ signatures on permission slips from school—whatever was necessary to keep her life on track.

  She’d even done a few repairs in her day. Nothing elaborate, but by the time she was seven she’d known how to pump air into her bicycle tires and change light bulbs, and by the time she was ten she’d figured out how to set a circuit-breaker and how, using a bent wire hanger, to clean a hair clog from the sink drain. Her mother probably still didn’t know what a circuit-breaker was.

  “Self-sufficiency was a big thing with my parents,” Levi said.

  She imagined pioneers, backpackers camping beside a wilderness trail, sailors marooned on a desert island, rigging lean-to
s on the beach and subsisting on coconuts and whatever fish they could catch. No, none of those images fit with Levi. She conjured another picture: old hippies trying to get back to the land. That one clicked. “Did your mother jar her own preserves?”

  “You bet. She and my sisters did lots of canning.”

  “Wait a minute. The brothers did household repairs and the sisters did canning? What kind of a sexist division of labor was that?”

  Although she’d said it in a joking way, Levi didn’t smile. “It was very sexist. Very traditional. My parents believed men and women each had their places.” He shook his head, as if to dismiss the entire subject.

  Corinne wasn’t as willing to dismiss it. She’d seen Levi with his son—or whatever D.J. was to him. She’d seen him feed the baby and carry him and kiss his brow. Raising an infant—without a woman’s help—struck her as extremely evolved, not the sort of role a man who’d been raised with such old-fashioned values would accept. “What do your parents think about you taking care of D.J.?” she asked.

  He leveled a gaze at her. She realized her question had crossed a line, but she wasn’t sure where the line was, or what it marked. She felt the way she had in his car earlier that evening, when her questions had pushed him into revealing that D.J.’s mother was dead and that Levi wasn’t his father. Perhaps she’d pushed him again. Perhaps he’d reveal some other interesting tidbit, something that would demystify him—or make him even more mysterious.

  He had the option of not answering. But after scrutinizing her for a long time, his face shimmering in the light from the candle, he said, “My parents think I’m a fool.”

  The words held no self-pity, no plea for sympathy. He’d simply stated a fact.

  “Your parents are obviously mistaken,” she said—another simple fact, as far as she was concerned.

  A smile whispered across his lips. He lifted his glass toward her, as if he was seconding her opinion by drinking to it.