by Noelle Adams
She was someone. At least, she thought she was. Maybe Micah didn’t really count her as someone important, though.
She shook off the glum reflection and made herself focus on what was important. “Well, you don’t have to decide immediately. You’ll need to discuss things with your lawyer before you do anything definite.”
“Yeah.” He sighed and gave her a half-smile. “How do you always have such a level head about things?”
She didn’t think she had a particularly level head. And, for some reason, the question bothered her, as if he thought she were some emotionless drone who was just there to keep things running smoothly. “Just lucky, I guess,” she said, trying to sound light. She stood up and glanced at the time. “I better get going. I have to be at the church early tomorrow. I’ll be over tomorrow morning at around seven, if that’s okay with you.”
“Yeah.” He looked surprised, but he stood up too, leaving his beer bottle next to the empty stew bowl. “That’s fine.”
He followed her into the kitchen, where she quickly emptied the leftover stew into a plastic container and put it in the refrigerator. She filled the dirty pot with water and told him to just leave it for her to clean and put up tomorrow.
He made an impatient face, which she was pretty sure meant the pot would be cleaned and put away when she got there the next morning.
She was about to walk out the side door when he said, “Oh, wait. I have something for you.”
She blinked. “You do?”
He reached into the bag he’d put on the counter earlier and pulled out a box of chocolate, cream-filled Easter eggs. He handed them to her, his expression diffident.
She stared at the candy in startled bewilderment. “These are my favorite,” she breathed at last.
“I know.” He paused. “I mean, I know they used to be.”
She remembered one long conversation they’d had one evening at summer camp, when she’d been raving over how much she loved Easter and how these eggs were her favorite sweet in the world.
But she couldn’t believe he’d remembered.
She glanced up at his face and saw he looked slightly awkward. “Thank you,” she said, having no idea what else to say.
“It’s fine. They’re all over the place now.”
Well, yes, that was true. The gesture hadn’t taken any extra effort on his part. Maybe it wasn’t as big a deal as it felt. He was a generally nice guy, and he’d probably passed by them at a quick shop and randomly remembered she’d liked them. So he’d grabbed a box for her.
He probably was uncomfortable that she’d made a big deal over such a trivial thing.
This was a good time to repeat her first rule—”Don’t assume a man is interested in you unless he both tells you and shows you.”
“Thanks,” she said, striving for a casual tone. “That was nice of you. I’ll definitely enjoy them.”
His expression changed, and she assumed he felt better that the weird moment was over. “Good. I’ll see you tomorrow morning.”
“Sure.” She smiled at him brightly and wasn’t surprised when he didn’t really smile back.
She was surprised when he reached out to pull her into a hug. “Thank you,” he murmured, his voice slightly thick. “For all your help with Cara. I mean it. I wouldn’t have gotten through this week without you.”
She was suddenly overwhelmed with emotion as she hugged him back. His arms were strong, and his body was hard, and his presence was warm and real. He was Micah, and he felt like himself, more like himself than she remembered since high school.
“You’re welcome,” she mumbled into his shoulder, still holding her box of eggs in one hand.
When she was starting to feel too much—way too much to be anything like safe—she pulled out of his arms and reached for the door. “I’m happy to help,” she said, in her fake casual tone. “After all, I’m getting an apartment out of it. Right?”
He said something—probably just an empty goodnight—but she barely heard it because the only thing she could process was the desperate need to get away.
She would do this because Cara needed her and because she was glad to be somewhat independent again.
But, if she wasn’t careful and didn’t always remember her rules, the biggest thing she would get out of this arrangement was another broken heart.
Four
The next morning, Alice was resolved to do better in following her rules and protecting her emotions.
She wasn’t going to be stupid about a man again. She’d done it twice already, and she was too old to make the same mistake again. She could like Micah. And help him. And even be his friend, if he let her. But she wasn’t going to fool herself about it turning into more than that, since he’d made no moves in that direction.
This was her. Following her rules. Finally being smart.
So she drank her coffee and did her devotions and got in the shower, feeling more at peace about everything.
When she got out of the shower, she put on her robe and went to open the window in her bathroom, since it was a warm morning and the fresh air would feel good. Micah was working on the hedges in the yard, using his trimmers with remarkable competence. He’d obviously not yet showered and shaved.
He’d brought Cara outside with him, and she was sitting in her bouncy seat, bundled up in a little coat, although it was a warm morning. He was talking to her. Alice could hear the murmur of his voice through her opened window, although she couldn’t hear the exact words.
Alice felt her peaceful, resolved heart give a little leap at the sight.
But she wasn’t going to let herself backslide, so she turned away almost immediately.
She started to work on her long, curly, wet hair and grumbled when the shelving unit in the bathroom was too far away from the sink and mirror for her to easily reach. She understood why, since the bathroom was tiny and Micah had tried to make use of every inch while still preserving the window. But she didn’t care if the window was partly blocked. She’d rather have the shelves a few inches closer so she could actually reach them as she got ready.
Maybe Micah was able to reach them in this position, but his arms were a lot longer than hers were.
The apartment was cute and comfortable—with one small bedroom and an otherwise open concept—and she wasn’t about to complain to Micah about something so minor. Six months ago, she would have asked Bill to move the unit for her, but she didn’t need a man to do something so simple.
She was a perfectly competent adult. She could manage to move a shelving unit a few inches on her own. It didn’t appear to be attached to the wall, so surely it just needed a little shove.
She went to the far side, against the wall, and pushed it as well as she could, but she didn’t have enough room to get her hands in the right position. So she took both sides of it and tried to pull it out from the wall, so she could get in a better position to push it sideways. It didn’t move immediately, so she pulled harder. It still didn’t move, so she pulled even harder.
It suddenly started to move, but not the way she expected. The top half started to fall toward her.
In a panic, Alice grabbed for it, wrenching her shoulder slightly as she tried to keep the whole top half of the unit from crashing onto the floor. It was heavy, and she barely managed to hold it upright.
She took a shaky breath and made herself calm down so she could push the piece back into place.
But when she tried to push, it moved at a strange angle and the bottom half started to wobble.
She was trapped, unable to right the unit but terrified of letting it drop and destroying a very nice piece of furniture.
Or maybe being crushed beneath it.
So she did the only reasonable thing for a competent adult to do in such a situation. She screamed at the top of her lungs, “Micah! Micah!”
She didn’t even know if he would hear her, but she’d been able to hear him so she thought it was possible.
When she hear
d heavy footsteps on the stairs up to her apartment, she knew he had. “Alice? Alice, are you all right?”
“Help!”
“Do I have time to get the key?”
Her door was locked, of course, but he’d probably bust it down if he needed to. “Yes. Just hurry!”
So she heard the footsteps race down the stairs and a few seconds later, race up them again. Then she heard her door open.
Her arms were shaking helplessly when she felt him enter the bathroom behind her.
“What the—” he muttered, striding over and reaching up to take the weight of the unit from her arms.
She almost sobbed in relief when she could finally lower her arms.
Being much taller and stronger than she was, he easily returned the top half into position.
“Are you all right?” he demanded, turning her around and looking at her. “What happened?”
She was still shaking, but now she was a little embarrassed about causing the foolish situation. “I’m fine. I just couldn’t get it back up.”
“Why didn’t you just let it fall?”
“I didn’t want to destroy it. It’s not mine.”
He gaped at her. “So you thought it was better to try to hold the stupid thing up on your own?”
She frowned at his angry tone. “I would have let it drop if I’d had to. But you got up here in time.”
“You could have hurt yourself doing such a ridiculous thing. How did it fall on you, anyway? One of my guys put it up, so I’m sure it wasn’t off balance.”
She narrowed her eyes. “You don’t have to be so rude about it. I was just trying to move it a little.”
“You were trying to move it where?” His blue eyes focused on the shelves and then back to her face. Then they darted down briefly over her body before they returned to her face.
“Just a few inches closer to the sink so I could reach it.”
“Why didn’t you just ask me to move it?”
She was usually a very agreeable and civil person, rarely getting in arguments and avoiding confrontation whenever possible. But his tone was really starting to annoy her. “Because I didn’t need you to move it.”
“You clearly did, since you managed to make it fall on top of you.”
“Don’t exaggerate. I caught it just fine. And if I’d had to drop it, I could have gotten out of the way.” She took a small step back, since he seemed inordinately big, powerful, and intimidating in the small bathroom.
Not that she was afraid of him. She was just aware of him in a way that made her uncomfortable.
“I was right outside. How hard would it have been to just call down and ask me to move it?” His eyes dipped downward again.
“I didn’t want you to move it. I wanted to move it myself.” She was scowling at him when she suddenly realized she just had her thin, little robe on. It barely came down to mid-thigh, and a glance down told her it was also hanging open slightly.
With a gasp, she pulled it shut.
“Why are you always so stubborn?”
She gasped again, for a different reason this time. “I am not stubborn. Nobody thinks I’m stubborn.”
“I think you’re stubborn. I always have. That summer, I always asked if I could help you clean that awful bathroom and you never let me.”
“It wasn’t your job! It was my job. That’s not stubborn. That’s doing what I’m supposed to do.”
“That is stubborn. Because there’s no reason not to accept help from someone who wants to help you. I could have helped you then. And I could have helped you now. And instead you let yourself almost get crushed under that ludicrously heavy shelf.”
She was strangely affected by his passionate outrage. It was definitely better than his being all standoffish and aloof, but it still made her mad, since he was assuming she hadn’t made reasonable decisions. “I didn’t get crushed.”
“Well, you could have. You could have been seriously hurt.” The fire in his eyes started to fade, and his snarl turned into a different sort of frown. “That thing is big, and you’re such a little Dormouse.”
“Are dragging that name out of the grave again?” She tried to sound tart, since the nickname should have sounded condescending. It didn’t feel condescending, though. It sounded sweet and nostalgic, and she was rather touched by it.
He’d called her Dormouse that summer, too, and it had felt like his special name for her then.
“It seemed appropriate, given the circumstances.” His expression had changed to something almost fond.
She reminded herself desperately of her first and fourth rules. “Well, I wasn’t hurt.”
“I said you could have been.”
She pulled her robe closed again, since his eyes dropped lower once more. “But I wasn’t.”
“But you could have been.”
She hugged her arms to her chest. “Okay. It’s remotely possible that I could have been, but it didn’t actually happen. So thank you for coming to help me, but I think we can let the subject go now. Did you leave poor little Cara down in the yard in her bouncy seat?”
“Yeah. I better go check on her.”
Without thinking, Alice slipped on her slippers and walked outside with him to check on the baby. She was still sitting happily and babbled when she saw them.
Alice leaned down to pick her up. “Hey, sweetie. Did your daddy leave you out here to get attacked by wild dogs?”
“If there were any wild dogs around and if they could get over a seven foot fence, I have no doubt they would go after the Dormouse first.” Micah’s voice was desert dry.
Alice tried very hard not to laugh. “Your daddy isn’t very nice to me,” she told Cara.
“Your daddy,” Micah replied, talking to Cara the way Alice had, “would be a lot nicer to her if she’d ever let him.”
“I let your daddy be nice to me all the time.” Alice smiled as Cara grabbed at her robe excitedly.
Micah sucked in a strange hoarse gasp and turned around quickly on his heel.
Alice blinked in surprise at his back. His shoulders looked oddly stiff.
Then she looked down again and saw that Cara had pulled her robe open and one of her breasts was exposed.
“Whoops,” she said, blushing hotly and pulling the fabric out of Cara’s hand so she could cover herself again. “I better go put some clothes on.”
“Good idea.” Micah still hadn’t turned back around.
Alice leaned down to return Cara to her bouncy seat and said, trying for a casual tone, “Tell your daddy I appreciate him coming to help me.”
***
“Are you sure this is a good idea?”
Alice sighed at her mother’s question as she scrubbed the kitchen counter with a damp paper towel. “Why wouldn’t it be a good idea? I’ve made the casserole before. I just didn’t have the recipe on hand today, and I didn’t have any poppy seeds.”
She’d been working at the library most of the day, but she stopped by her mom’s to get what she needed for dinner before going over to the Duncans, Micah’s parents, to pick up Cara and take her home.
“I know you can make the casserole. That’s not what I’m talking about.” Her mom had been washing lettuce when she’d arrived, but now she was sitting at the kitchen table. She had a bad knee, so she had to sit down fairly often.
“Then what were you talking about?” She threw the paper towel away and then opened a twelve-pack of diet cola and started sliding them into their spot in the refrigerator.
“You don’t have to do all that,” her mother objected. “I was going to get around to it.”
“I know. But I’m here. I might as well do it for you. What were you saying wasn’t a good idea?”
“I wasn’t saying it wasn’t. I was just asking. I mean the whole thing. You living over there with Micah and watching—”
“I’m not living with Micah! It’s a separate apartment.” Alice whirled around with a jump in her heart. “Is that what people are saying?
That I’m living with Micah?”
“No, no, no. No one is saying that. I know it’s a separate apartment. I was just worried about you being around him so much and devoting so much time to that poor little girl. Are you sure it’s a good idea? For you, I mean.”
Alice’s shoulders stiffened as she realized the reasons for the question. Her mom knew all the mistakes she’d made with men in the past. She turned back around to finish putting the sodas in the refrigerator. “Why wouldn’t it be a good idea? I have a place to stay and am making some extra money.”
“But you didn’t have to move out. We were happy to have you here. You could have stayed as long as you wanted.”
“I know. But I didn’t want to. I’m twenty-six. I don’t want to have to live with my parents.”
“It’s nothing to be embarrassed about. It wasn’t your fault about the budget cuts at the library. And obviously Bill was to blame for the broken engagement, for being such a jerk about…everything. No one thinks less of you for having to come home.”
“I think less of me,” Alice mumbled.
“But you shouldn’t.” Her mom’s voice was getting urgent. “There’s no reason for you to feel bad about your situation.”
“Really?” Alice turned around and leaned against the counter. “I wasted all that time and money on a Master’s degree, and now I’m babysitting and sorting through the church’s mail. And I can’t even afford to get my car fixed.”
Immediately distracted, her mom asked, “Is something wrong with your car?”
“No. It’s fine.” Her car had been making a funny noise, but she wasn’t about to mention it to her mom. Her mom would waste no time in telling her dad, who would take it down to the garage himself. “It was just an example of how pitiful I am.”
“You aren’t pitiful. You’re having a hard time right now, but it’s not because of anything you did wrong. Things will turn around. They always do.”
“Yeah, but they usually turn around for the worse.” She started slicing the tomatoes her mom had set out for a salad with dinner later that night.
“What does that mean?” Her mom heaved herself to her feet and limped over to finish up her lettuce.
