by Sami Lee
Now she had the result. It was supposed to be a light and fluffy chocolate sponge, but it didn’t bear the slightest resemblance to the colour photo in one of Jacinta’s old recipe books.
“I suppose we could use it as a Frisbee.”
Eve hadn’t heard Mike come up behind her. She whirled around. “If you dare say you told me so, I … I think I’ll … scream.” She could barely get the words out past the tears that clogged her throat.
At her expression, all teasing left Mike’s. “Hey, I was kidding. Don’t cry, Evie.”
She pushed away the hand he moved toward her. “I’m not crying!” Spinning back around, Eve picked up the burnt disc in frustration and stalked to the bin in the corner, tossing it emphatically in with the rest of the garbage, where it belonged, she thought dolefully.
Mike pushed out a sigh, his expression beleaguered. “For Pete’s sake, why didn’t you just let me do it?”
“Because I wanted to do it!” she fired at him. “I wanted to make it up to Bailey for not planning anything for his birthday. For forgetting it, for goodness sake!”
“Hey, I forgot too, remember? It’s been a crazy time,” he pointed out gently. “It’s just a cake, Evie.”
“Every kid deserves a cake for his birthday,” Eve said meaningfully. “A cake made by his own mother, and Bailey doesn’t even have a mother now. All he has is me.”
The tears that had been gathering behind her eyes spilled forth. She was helpless to resist when Mike stepped forward and gathered her in his arms. His embrace was so warm, comforting, that she didn’t have the strength to resist. She cried into his shoulder for several moments longer than she knew she should have allowed, taking solace from the warmth and strength of his body, the consoling sounds he made while he stroked her hair.
After some time, she became aware of other things about his embrace. The solid support of his shoulder against her cheek, the hard wall of his chest pressed to her softer one. His hand had moved from her hair to her back, his touch moving in slow circles over her skin, the barrier of her shirt insufficient to prevent the raising of goosebumps. His other hand was at her hip, holding her still and close to him.
As her distress ebbed, physical reaction flowed over her. His lips were at her temple. If she tilted her face a fraction, if he dipped his head…
Abruptly Eve pushed away from him, swiping at her cheeks with the heels of her hands. Leaning on the counter, Mike watched her in silence while she couldn’t dredge up the courage to meet his eyes. At length he said, “Tell me why this is so important to you.”
“I told you, every child should have a birthday cake. And presents, and a party… everything. If they don’t, they feel like nobody cares. I don’t want to talk about it any more.” She stalked out of the kitchen and away from Mike and his searching, watchful eyes.
Shutting herself in the bathroom, Eve splashed water on her face. In the vanity mirror she saw her eyes were puffy, her complexion wan. Several stands of hair had come loose from her hair band to fly around her face. She looked an awful mess.
She pulled the hair band out and brushed her hair, chastising herself for getting so worked up over nothing. Mike was right, it was just a cake. Bailey was only one, he wouldn’t know the difference, wouldn’t care who made it.
But she would. And so would Denise.
Steeling herself to attempt the whole ordeal of baking again, Eve headed back to the kitchen. Her steps slowed when she saw Mike was still there, sifting flour into a ceramic bowl.
He glanced up when she walked in. “I know you want to do this yourself, but I figured maybe we could work together.” He watched her carefully. “What do you think?”
Eve felt the warmth of his generosity spread through her. The fact that he was willing to include her, when he could no doubt do a much better and faster job on his own, warmed her heart in ways that scared her even more than her understandable physical attraction to him. “I’d like that.”
Working side by side, they had the batter mixed in no time. As Mike poured it into the cake tin, Eve wiped her finger sneakily around the rim, dipping the rich prize into her mouth. “Hmmm. That’s so much better than the one I made! But you used exactly the same recipe.”
Mike glanced sidelong at her. “Don’t be too hard on yourself. I am a professional.”
“If you’re looking for me to thank you, you’ve got it. I couldn’t have done it without you. Obviously,” she added with a roll of her eyes.
He regarded her for several seconds in silence, before turning to put the now empty mixing bowl into the sink. “Let’s just put it in the oven and wait before we congratulate ourselves.”
Of course the finished product was perfection. It sprang back cheerily when Eve touched it in the centre, and it smelled divine. “It’s perfect,” she announced happily. “All we have to do is decorate it.”
“We’ll have to wait till it cools first.”
“Oh,” Eve said, a little deflated. But still, they had a cake, and while she hadn’t make it all on her own, she had had a hand in it. She smiled in satisfaction.
“You’re pretty excited about this cake.” She turned her head to see Mike watching her, a smile playing around his lips. “Anyone would think you hadn’t seen one before.”
She blanched a little at his comment, taking a step to the side, away from him.
This time Mike wasn’t letting her go so easily. He stepped behind her, placing his hands on her shoulders. “Something about this has upset you, Evie. I wish you’d talk to me.”
Eve closed her eyes, trying to control her reaction to his nearness, the gentle persuasion of his voice. Her body trembled, weakened, and she sagged against him, giving in. “It’s just that I never had a birthday cake.” Perhaps talking about it was made easier by the fact she couldn’t see him, couldn’t see the pity. “My mother wasn’t exactly extravagant when it came to dishing out the affection. She said my birthday only reminded her of the day her life was ruined by having me. We didn’t celebrate it.”
“Oh, Evie.” Mike pulled her tighter against him “Didn’t you get any presents?”
She lifted a shoulder in reply. “Actually one time, Leanna—she didn’t like me to call her Mum—took me shopping for my birthday. She said I could go to my favourite shop and pick out whatever I wanted. I was so excited. I picked a doll I’d dreamed of having, but when I went to find her again, she was gone. She … she left me there, in the shopping centre. Damn it,” she snapped, “I am not going to cry about this again. It was seventeen years ago. I was ten.”
“You cry all you want to,” Mike said, surprising her with the ferocity of his statement. “I have plenty of dry shirts.”
Eve let out a sound somewhere between a laugh and a sob. How could he always make her feel better no matter how miserable she was? Because he was Mike. And he had something special about him that she was growing way too accustomed to.
She didn’t dwell on the thought, afraid of where it might take her. Gathering all her tenacity, she stepped out of his comforting embrace. To her mingled relief and regret, Mike let her go without protest.
She forced brightness into her tone. “Are you sure we can’t ice this cake yet?”
Mike reached over to touch the cake’s surface, shaking his head. “Not yet.”
“I’ll go wrap Bailey’s presents then, before he wakes from his nap.” With that, Eve disappeared down the hallway, relieved Mike had read her signal that she wanted to talk no further about her childhood.
Bailey’s would be better, she determined. Starting with his party on Sunday.
Chapter 8
Mike turned the chicken kebabs on the barbeque while he waited for his father to return with their drinks, watching the cooking meat only sparingly. His eyes kept straying to the grassed area of the back yard where Eve sat on her haunches rolling a soccer ball to Bailey, who rolled it back with an aim that was inconsistent to say the least.
He had meant what he’d said to Eve, more than
once, about her being great with Bailey. She was careful and conscientious with his care, knowing when to hand out praise and when to scold. She would never do anything to hurt his nephew, and it was obvious she had his best interests foremost in her mind. It was also obvious she had no idea how to play with a toddler. He suspected it must have a lot to do with her poor excuse for a mother.
He felt a surge of anger, not for the first time since yesterday. Eve had been treated abominably by the one person who was supposed to protect her. Mike had spent last night sleeping only fitfully, haunted by the image of a lost and lonely ten-year-old girl with bright red hair, clutching a doll and searching for her mother. He couldn’t imagine how much such an experience had effected Eve.
The more he thought about how she’d been hurt by her past, the more he told himself he ought to keep his distance. No matter that he wanted to convince her she deserved better than what life had so far dished out, he wanted to do other things, too. Things that had a lot less to do with comforting Eve than satisfying his own needs.
Yet he couldn’t manage to shake the attraction. He couldn’t keep his eyes off her today, even though she was wearing a perfectly modest cream sweater and a pair of tan corduroy pants. But she’d left her hair out so it swirled in airy red clouds around her shoulders, the perfect frame for her huge brown eyes and pretty face. And the pants skimmed her hips, hugged her slender thighs and just about made him drool over the food.
“You’re going to burn those if you’re not careful.” Mike turned at his father’s comment, then glanced down to see smoke rising from the now blackening kebabs. Muttering under his breath, Mike used the tongs to shift them from the hot side of the barbeque to the cooler one. Before moving in with Eve he’d never burnt a thing in his life. Some chef he was.
“Here,” he said as he handed his father back the tongs and took the spare light beer he carried instead. “You take over before I make a mess of your world famous Hawaiian chicken kebabs.”
“You, the master chef?” Allen Wilcox laughed. “You could barbeque in your sleep, son—although distracted by a woman, I’m not so sure.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Don’t kid a kidder, Mike. You and Eve can barely keep your eyes off each other, and I, for one, think it’s great.”
“We can’t—Wait. … You do?” Mike swore under his breath and took a deep swig of beer. “I used to have a perfectly good command of the English language.”
“Until Eve O’Brien started frying your brain.” His dad turned down the burners on the barbeque and glanced sidelong at him. “It wouldn’t be such a bad idea, would it? You and Eve and Bailey… Maybe you’d be good together.”
“You’re getting way ahead of yourself Dad,” Mike warned. “I’m only staying with her temporarily. We’re not talking about anything permanent here.”
There was a thoughtful pause before Allen said, “If that’s the case, I think you ought to back off from Eve, son. She’s a decent girl and I reckon she’d stand by you through thick and thin if the need arose. Look at the way she took Bailey in, fulfilling her best friend’s wishes even though it completely up-ended her life. She’s a good egg, that one. Try not to break her, okay?”
Not knowing how to respond, Mike looked out across the yard. Bailey had picked up the ball and had toddled several steps with it pressed against his chest, his walking getting better every day. He was growing up so fast, and Mike was really enjoying being a part of it.
And Eve… Eve was watching Bailey make his way across the yard, a wistful smile on her face. It hit him then, so many things about her that had previously mystified him making sense.
Her fierce determination to be the one to make the blasted cake, her unrelenting self-recrimination over what was a perfectly understandable oversight about Bailey’s birthday. Her difficulty in asking for or accepting help. She must not have felt she could rely on anyone, if she couldn’t rely on her own mother. If she appeared unsure of how to conduct her relationship with Bailey, it was no doubt because she had nothing on which to model it.
Eve wasn’t very expressive when it came to having fun with Bailey because she didn’t know how to be.
Placing his half-empty drink on the edge of the barbeque, Mike started toward her, pushing his father’s warning words to the back of his mind. He wasn’t going to seduce Eve. He didn’t want to hurt her. All he wanted to do was help her get over her demons so she could truly bond with his nephew. That was what she needed him for, whether she knew it or not.
“Hey, you two,” he called as he approached. “Is this a private game or can anyone join in?”
Somehow Eve had been manoeuvred so she stood in front of a pair of equally spaced potted plants Mike had arranged to represent a soccer goal, resting her hands on her knees as though she were anxiously anticipating the next strike. A strike that was hardly going to beat her reflexes, given the way Bailey kicked the ball. Or rather threw the ball.
But she soon found that wasn’t the point. Mike’s animated calls of encouragement made Bailey beam with excitement, and he soon got the substance of his uncle’s frantic pointing and waving toward the make-shift goal. He began carrying the ball on increasingly hasty steps toward Eve, dropping it triumphantly at her feet.
“Hey, almost, kiddo!” Mike called. “A little more oomph next time and you’ve got her. She’s wide open.”
Eve sent him an indignant look. “Wide open? I’m covering my territory exceptionally well, thank you.” Her lips tilted as she picked up the ball, pretending to use all her strength to throw it when in reality she made sure it landed not far beyond Bailey’s reach.
“Are you kidding? With your response time, you couldn’t stop a tortoise.”
“Ha!” She huffed, wishing she still had the soccer ball so she could throw it at his head. Talk about method acting. “I dare you to have another go, Bailey. I think I’m unpassable.”
Bailey grinned at her, the picture of mischievousness. He looked at Mike for support, who said, “Don’t listen to her, B. She’s a rookie, she’ll crack under the pressure. Go for it!”
Bailey looked between the both of them several times before turning in Eve’s direction and propelling forward on his remarkably strong legs. Eve leaned to the right, he swerved left. Eve leaned left, Bailey went to the right and darted toward the goal. Eve let him pass, taking an exaggerated dive across the goal line that Bailey had already thrown the ball at. As she lay on the ground feigning injury, the ball rolled between the plant pots. “Oh, no!” she cried. “My chance at the pros, gone!”
Bailey let out a squeal of delight, clapping his hands together above his head before turning to retrieve the ball. Eve was so busy laughing at his antics that she didn’t realise what he was planning until it was too late to block his aim as he threw the ball. It landed right on her stomach, causing her breath to whoosh out of her.
Bailey let out a shout of triumph, but Mike was beside him in seconds, scolding him. “Not at Eve, kiddo. You hear me. No.” He turned toward her, concern furrowing his brow. “Are you okay?”
The knock had barely winded her, but his razzing about her cracking under pressure still rang in her ears, making her want revenge. She grimaced and held her stomach. “I don’t know. You might need to help me up.”
As he reached for her outstretched hand, Eve used her foot to sweep him off balance. He landed with a thump on the soft grass beside her. Bailey grinned and launched toward them, his momentary bewilderment at having been chastised forgotten. Soon they were all three rolling on the grass, Bailey giggling as Mike blew raspberries on his stomach and Eve laughing so hard her stomach actually did start to hurt.
When she grabbed her abdomen and moaned, Mike said, “No way I’m falling for that one again.” He was leaning on his elbow looking down on her with a devilish grin that lit his eyes to a glittering green.
“I didn’t really knock you over, did I?”
“Are you accusing me of taking a fall?”
“Something tells me this fly-weight rookie shouldn’t have toppled the great Mike Wilcox so easily,” Eve said, unable to stop her eyes roaming over him in his dark blue jeans and blue and white striped polo shirt. There was altogether too much solid muscle on that frame to make that fall believable.
“I don’t think you give the fly-weight goalie’s effect on my balance enough credit. You pack quite a punch, sweetheart.” His gaze dipped to her mouth, lingering for long enough to make her breath catch before returning to her eyes. He reached up and plucked a dried leaf from her hair, his fingers stopping to toy with a strand of it where it lay against the grass.
Eve’s heartbeat hammered. Her breathing grew shallow. Her poor abused stomach turned over and did back flips. And he thought she packed a punch.
But the moment was over almost as quickly as it had begun. Mike blinked, his eyes clearing as he pulled away, frowning. “I think lunch is about to be served.”
He was on his feet offering her his outstretched hand before Eve could decide if the look he’d given her meant anything at all, let alone what she’d thought it had—that he was thinking about kissing her.
Thank heavens he hadn’t given in to the impulse—if he’d really had one—in his parents’ back yard. Eve spied Denise standing at the outdoor setting looking with speculation in their direction. Allen was cleaning off the barbeque and shaking his head to himself … over what Eve had no idea.
Reluctantly accepting Mike’s hand and the hot sizzle that shot through her at the contact, Eve allowed him to pull her to her feet. Their bodies bumped gently. More sizzle. She was being very slowly sautéed by a master chef.
They both took a step back and Eve turned to make sure Bailey was following them, focussing her attention on him to avoid being caught gazing at Mike like some lovesick puppy.
As they approached the outdoor table laden with food, Mike leaned toward her, just close enough that he couldn’t be over heard. “A word of warning—steer clear of the potato salad.”
