“I’m sorry,” Kira said again. Then, with another glance at the debris all around them, she added, “Maybe I can get some things done now.”
“I think what you should do now is go soak in a bubble bath,” Cutty said. “And we’ll start over tomorrow. Maybe without so much concern about how Marla did things.”
Kira had spent an inordinate amount of time asking how her sister did everything. “Betty said—”
“I can imagine what Betty said. But Betty isn’t here and neither is Marla, and we just need to get things taken care of regardless of what Betty said or how Marla did things.”
“Okay,” Kira agreed, thinking that that was a nice way of saying she just needed to get something—anything—done.
But then he managed to raise her sinking spirits with a simple, winning smile. “You know, I appreciate that you’re here and willing to help out. And I’m glad you want to get to know the girls. I just think things will run more smoothly if you can go with the flow. Like I said, relax. Have a little fun, get a little done. There’s no right way. There’s no wrong way. There’s no big deals.”
Kira nodded. “I’ll try.” But the truth was, she’d been taught that there was always a right way and that was how she had to do everything. She wasn’t too sure she could ignore that now.
Cutty took his foot off the pillow and stood then. “Come on. Let me give you a key to the back door so you can get in whenever you want, and then you can go have that long soak in the tub. Tomorrow will be a better day.”
Kira thought he was probably figuring it couldn’t be a worse one.
But still, the idea of sinking into a bath full of bubbles was too tempting to pass up and she stood, too, following Cutty to the kitchen and feeling guilty for the sight of him limping even more than he had been the night before.
“I really am sorry,” she told him yet again as they reached the kitchen.
“I’ll let it go this time but another day like today and I’ll have to dock your pay,” he joked.
He took a key from the hook beside the door and turned around, giving her a full view of a mischievous smile that put those creases on either side of his mouth and made an unexpected warmth wash through her.
“Before this is over I might end up having to pay you,” Kira said, making a joke of her own. “In fact you can probably start a tab with those two dishes and the coffee mug I broke.”
Cutty just laughed and again she liked the sound of it. “You are kind of a bull in a china shop,” he said as if it were a compliment.
“Not usually,” she assured. “Honestly, no one who knows me would have believed this today.”
He didn’t say anything to that. He merely gave her the key.
But as she accepted it their hands brushed. Only briefly. And Kira found herself oddly aware of it. Of the heat of his skin. Of the little shards of electricity that seemed to shoot up her arm from the point of contact.
It was just silly, she told herself.
Although, she also thought when Cutty spoke again that his voice might have dropped an octave, and she had to wonder if he’d felt it, too.
But if he did, he didn’t indicate it in what he was saying.
“And don’t even think about coming over here at four tomorrow morning. Seven is plenty early enough. You’ll probably have to wait half an hour or so for the girls to wake up even at that. But maybe if you’re the first person they see instead of Betty, it’ll start things off more in your favor.”
“Like ducks bonding to the first thing they see when they hatch?”
He grinned. “Something like that, yeah.”
“I’ll hope for the best.”
There was a moment then when their eyes met and held. Kira didn’t understand why or what was in the air between them when it happened. But there was definitely something in the air between them. Something that seemed more than just the camaraderie of being in the trenches together.
But then it passed and Cutty opened the screen for her, holding it while she went out.
“See you in the morning,” he said then.
“Good night,” she responded.
But even as Kira walked across the yard to the garage apartment she could still feel the remnants of that change that had hung in the air for that single moment.
What had that been about? she wondered.
She honestly didn’t know.
But she did know that even after the fact, it left her feeling all tingly inside.
Chapter Three
“It was the weirdest damn thing. There was this minute when I actually thought about kissing her.”
Cutty was sitting in the kitchen of Ad Walker’s apartment at seven-fifteen the next morning with his ankle propped on one of Ad’s chairs.
Ad was Cutty’s best friend and after Cutty had suggested to Kira that he leave her alone with the twins this morning, he’d done just that. His police-issue SUV had an automatic transmission, and since it didn’t have a clutch and it was his left foot that was out of commission, he could drive even if he wasn’t supposed to walk any more than necessary.
He’d taken advantage of that fact and driven to the restaurant-bar Ad owned on Main Street. There were two apartments above Adz, one in which Ad lived. Cutty had had to hop on one foot to get up the outside stairs but once he had he’d pounded on Ad’s apartment door until Ad woke up to let him in.
A bleary-eyed Ad had made coffee, and it was over two cups of that strong, black brew that Cutty had told him about the appearance of Kira Wentworth on his doorstep and her insistence on staying to help out.
Cutty had also told Ad what had been on his mind since Kira had walked through his door, culminating in that moment when he and Kira had been saying good-night the evening before and the air all around them had seemed charged.
“So you just thought about kissing her? You didn’t do it?” Ad asked, sitting across the table from Cutty in the same position—with his legs propped on the remaining chair even though they weren’t in need of elevation.
“No, I didn’t do it,” Cutty answered as if the question was ridiculous.
“I think you should have.”
“Come on,” Cutty said as if his friend had to be kidding.
“Why not? A beautiful woman shows up out of the blue—the first woman I’ve ever heard you say that about, by the way. You have trouble keeping your eyes off her all day long—especially when she’s bending over,” Ad said, summarizing what Cutty had already told him. “You felt sparks—even though you don’t understand it. Who’s to say she didn’t feel them, too?”
“Come on,” Cutty repeated, this time with a groan.
But Ad wasn’t fazed. “You said yourself that it was time you got back on the horse—so to speak. I don’t see anything wrong with going for it.”
“She’s Marla’s sister,” Cutty reminded.
“Well, sure, technically. But she’s Marla’s adopted sister. They weren’t related by blood. Plus, they only shared a roof when they were kids and not even for their whole childhoods. If Marla were alive and they passed each other on the street they might not have even recognized each other. And no matter what their relationship was a lifetime ago, the bottom line is that to you, this woman is just a woman. No different than if she was a newcomer to Northbridge who you met at church.”
“Still,” Cutty persisted with his coffee cup poised at his lips so he could take a drink after the word left his mouth.
“Good argument,” Ad countered sardonically. “And the reason you don’t have a good argument is that this woman being Marla’s adopted sister is absolutely no reason you couldn’t have a thing with her.”
“You have to admit it’s a little—”
“It’s a little nothing. I can’t see where there would be a single thing wrong with it. Two separate women. Mostly unrelated to each other. It’s not freaky so stop even thinking that it might be.”
Cutty gave him a mock salute, pretending to take the order.
“Th
ere is a bigger issue here, though,” Ad went on. “Is this Kira like Marla?”
There weren’t many people who had known the real Marla. But Ad had. He was also the only person Cutty felt free to talk to honestly because he was the only person Cutty had ever confided in about his late wife and marriage.
“That’s not just a bigger issue,” Cutty said. “It’s a huge issue.”
“So she is like Marla?”
Cutty shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe. Maybe not. She was raised by Marla’s father—that’s not much of an endorsement. I don’t think he would have let anybody get away with being less than a shining monument to him. She has a Ph.D. in microbiology—that can’t mean she’s a slacker. And since she didn’t get enough done yesterday she was downstairs trying to clean the kitchen at six this morning even though I told her point-blank to come around seven when the girls usually wake up.”
Ad’s eyebrows rose. “Not good signs,” he agreed.
“On the other hand,” Cutty said, and he couldn’t help laughing when he did, “she hit my place like a second tornado. So far she’s been all thumbs. She’s broken dishes. Spilled cereal. Made a mess of everything she’s touched. And even though she swears she’s usually a great housekeeper and it’s just trying to keep up with the twins that’s causing it, I may not find my house still standing when I get back.”
“And you liked that she made mistakes,” Ad accused.
“I wouldn’t say I liked it. I need help around there, somebody to take Betty’s place, and I’m sure as hell not getting that with Kira. I was on this ankle so much yesterday and last night that I had to take a pain pill to get the throbbing to quit so I could sleep. I haven’t had to do that in three days.”
“Okay, so while it might indicate that she’s different from Marla, it’s not doing you much good right now,” Ad amended. “How is she with the girls?”
“Oh, so bad. I’m liable to have to arrest myself for being a neglectful parent because I left them alone with her this morning.”
“They’ll be fine. They’ve survived my baby-sitting in a pinch.”
“And Kira’s about as bad at it as you are. Although it’s also possible that the twins might hurt her,” Cutty added with another laugh. “They don’t like her yet, that’s for sure. I’m hoping if she gets them up this morning and neither Betty or I are anywhere around, they’ll have to let her take care of them and maybe that’ll break some of the ice. But as it stands now, she is definitely not their favorite person.”
“None of this makes her sound much like Marla,” Ad observed.
Cutty sobered again and Ad caught it and said, “But something about her is like Marla. What?”
“She wants to do it all the way Marla did. She doesn’t know how to accomplish it—yet—but I can tell that’s how high she’s set the bar.”
Ad didn’t have anything to say to that right away. Instead he took a drink of his coffee and then stared at the cup even after he’d set it back on the table.
“I can’t get into that…that whole perfection thing again, you know?” Cutty said then, his voice quiet, solemn, determined. And reluctant, too. Reluctant to even allude to anything that spoke badly of his late wife.
“Yeah,” Ad agreed the same way.
“I’m not even going to take the chance.”
“So you didn’t kiss her.”
Cutty shook his head.
“But you wanted to,” Ad said on a more upbeat note. “At least that means you really are back in the land of the living.”
“Or that I’m just a glutton for punishment,” Cutty countered wryly.
“That, too,” Ad confirmed with a laugh. Then he said, “Maybe I should come by and meet her. Give you my expert opinion.”
“You just want to check her out.”
“That, too,” Ad repeated with another laugh.
“Okay. But you’d better be on your best behavior.”
“Nothing less.”
“Any chance you could make it over tonight? When I saw how things were going yesterday I had to call that journalism student and reschedule my half of the interview for tonight. Only tonight she has to be there at seven, which means the twins will still be up. Maybe you could help Kira keep the girls out of the way while I talk to the reporter.”
“Sure.”
“Great. And will you do me a favor? Will you run by my office later today when your brother starts his shift and get that paperwork from him?”
One of Ad’s brothers was Cutty’s partner on Northbridge’s police force.
“You’re supposed to be recuperating, not working,” Ad reminded.
“Paperwork doesn’t put any weight on my ankle, and at least I’ll feel like I’m doing something to earn my paycheck.”
“Uh-huh. And I guess it’s a good idea to have something to keep you from watching your new housekeeper bending over.”
“Oh, yeah,” Cutty agreed.
The problem was, he doubted that paperwork would do the trick any more than anything he’d tried the day before.
There was just something about Kira that had his eyes wandering to her like heat-seeking missiles every time she was in sight.
Whether she was bending over or not.
Kira felt as if she were walking to the guillotine as she climbed the stairs at 7:45 that morning. She was on her own. Cutty was gone. There was no chance of Betty bustling in to rescue her. And one of the twins was calling, “Da…Da…” from the nursery.
It was a cute, pleasant little summons of Cutty. Kira hoped that meant that at least one of the girls was in a more receptive mood than yesterday. But even if one or both of the twins was happy now, that didn’t necessarily mean the high spirits would last when Kira showed her face in the room.
“Just be positive and upbeat,” she advised herself as she reached the nursery door. “Positive and upbeat and don’t try too hard,” she added, recalling what Cutty had said the night before.
She closed her eyes and willed the tension out of her shoulders. But it didn’t help much and when the next, “Da!” was more insistent, she decided keeping the twins waiting too long was not going to get the day started on the right foot, either.
So she opened her eyes and the nursery door and went in.
“Good morning,” she said cheerily. Probably too cheerily.
Mel and Mandy were both standing up in their respective cribs, grasping the railings for balance. Cutty had told her that in the summer heat he let them sleep in only their diapers. But Mel had taken off even that. And neither of them was glad to see Kira.
“Da?” Mel queried, her tiny forehead wrinkled into a frown that threatened tears.
“Your daddy isn’t home this morning. He’s at work,” Kira lied, hoping their daddy being at work was something that registered as routine for them.
Maybe she was right because although Mel’s bottom lip came out in an elaborate pout, she didn’t cry.
“Down,” Mandy demanded then.
“We have to get a diaper on Mel before she has an accident,” Kira answered.
“Down!” Mandy insisted.
Wanting to please her, Kira went to Mandy’s crib. “Okay, I’ll put you down to play with your toys while I get a diaper on Mel. Then it’s your turn.”
Kira lifted Mandy out of her crib and set her on the floor before picking up Mel and taking her to the changing table.
Within moments of setting Mel on the changing table, Mandy toddled out of the nursery.
“No! Mandy, come back here!”
Mandy didn’t so much as pause in her flight.
But there was Mel, already on the changing table, stark naked, and Kira couldn’t leave her.
“Let’s do this fast,” she muttered to herself, reaching for a fresh disposable diaper.
But she was only partway through putting it on when she heard a loud, crashing thunk and an ensuing, “Oh-oh…”
“Mandy? Are you all right?” Kira shouted, her tension turning to panic just that qu
ick.
Of course the baby didn’t answer.
With Mel’s diaper half on, half off, Kira snatched her up and ran out of the nursery in search of Mel.
She found the other baby in the bathroom, gleefully splashing the water out of the toilet, clearly remorseless about having knocked the tissue box from the back of the toilet tank into the bathtub, taking with it a bottle of shampoo that was now running down the drain.
“No, Mandy, that’s icky,” Kira groaned.
She stood Mel on her own two feet to haphazardly fasten her diaper and then snatched Mandy away from the toilet to wash her hands in the sink.
“You noddy,” Mandy decreed during the process.
“Right. I’m the naughty one. The naughty one isn’t the stinker who ran away to play in the toilet.”
“You sinker,” Mandy countered. “Wan Beh-ee.”
“Betty isn’t here, either,” Kira said, feeling disheartened at the reminder that she was not on the list of people the twins wanted taking care of them.
Still, she dried Mandy’s hands and arms, trying to believe that the babies would come to like her eventually.
“Okay, now let’s change your diaper,” she said when she’d finished, as if they were embarking on a great adventure.
But that particular adventure couldn’t begin immediately because then she realized that Mel wasn’t where she’d set her only moments before. Mel was no longer in the bathroom at all.
“Oh, no,” Kira said, thinking that they were like scurrying little mice—the minute their feet hit the floor they took off.
Why hadn’t this happened the day before when Cutty had taken care of them? she asked herself.
Then she recalled that whenever he’d had to concentrate on them one at a time, he’d put the other one in the playpen downstairs. Or in a high chair, or in one of the cribs. Or he’d closed the nursery door.
“Containment—that’s the first lesson of the day,” she said.
Ignoring Mandy’s demand to be put down and her attempt to wiggle out of Kira’s arms, Kira took her to search for Mel.
Babies in the Bargain Page 5
