by Cathie Linz
“You’re talking about falsifying records?”
“If necessary.”
“I can’t let you do that,” Brett protested. “It’s too big a risk for you.”
“I’m prepared to fight for my family, if it comes to that. I know what I’m doing. But we won’t be able to adopt Hope without having some kind of substantiating paperwork to give the court.”
“You can’t give a court falsified records. You could end up in jail!”
“You have a better idea?”
“Not yet. But I can certainly see lots of trouble with your plan. What if Hope’s mother comes back?”
“If she hasn’t shown up yet, it’s doubtful she will.”
“Doubtful maybe, but not impossible.”
“You haven’t had any more nightmares about someone taking the baby, have you?”
Brett shook her head while Hope started fussing, tired of the adults talking over her head and not including her.
“Aha, I hear the sound of an unhappy camper,” Gaylynn announced as she entered the office. “I guess this is my cue to take her off your hands for a bit, hmm?” Holding out her arms for the little girl, Gaylynn took her from Michael. Delighted that someone was finally paying attention to her, Hope tugged on Gaylynn’s shoulder-length hair. “Now, kiddo, you don’t want your aunt to go bald, do you?” she demanded, gently opening the little girl’s clenched fist and then pressing smacking kisses on her little palm. Hope chortled in delight.
“I didn’t expect to see you here, Gaylynn,” Brett noted. “Isn’t today a school day?”
“School is closed for Martin Luther King’s birthday. I’m ahead of schedule with report cards, which means I get to spend some time with my favorite niece, if that’s okay with you?”
“Sure it is,” Michael said while Brett frowned at him suspiciously.
“I left the basket on your secretary’s desk,” Gaylynn said as she bustled Hope back into her snowsuit. “Expect us back in about two hours.”
“Fine, thanks.”
“What’s going on here?” Brett demanded of Michael once his sister had left.
“A seduction,” Michael told her, closing the door.
Brett heard the click as he locked the door.
“You tricked me into coming down here so you.”
“Could have my wicked way with you,” he completed for her. “Guilty as charged.”
“I can’t believe you did this.”
“Believe it.” He spread out a thin blanket on the floor. Kneeling down on it, he proceeded to open up the picnic basket he’d picked up from his secretary’s desk, where Gaylynn had left it. “Yes, we have the best that Meli’s Deli has to offer. We’ve got roast beef or Reuben here. Which would you prefer?”
“I’d prefer to know why you’re doing this.”
“I already told you.”
“What do you hope to accomplish?” Seeing his look, she blushed. “Aside from—” she wiggled her hand “—that.”
“That is enough to bring a grown man to his knees,” he noted dryly, holding out one hand to her as he knelt on the floor. “Why don’t you kick off your boots and join me down here?”
She did, even while asking, “What about your secretary? Won’t she be coming back from lunch soon?”
“I gave her the afternoon off,” he replied, biting into a Reuben sandwich as he gave her the roast beef one.
“The afternoon off? Don’t you have work to do?” she said, a bit aggravated by the fact that he always seemed to get his way.
“I’m taking a break.”
“You know, you never talk to me about your work. Why is that?”
“You distract me. And my work isn’t all that interesting.”
“Corporate security work isn’t interesting?”
“Do you really want to have a discussion about the fine points of white-collar crime?” he inquired wryly.
“I guess not. Maybe it would be better if we discussed a logical course of action for our plans to adopt Hope.”
They did talk about several options, while enjoying the lunch Michael had provided and his sister had picked up for him. Brett didn’t even realize he was tempting her with samples of finger food until his fingers brushed her lips for the fifth time in as many minutes.
“You know you haven’t been acting at all like yourself lately,” she commented. “Maybe we should talk to your father about that box. The spell might be getting stronger or something.”
Michael felt like rolling his eyes in exasperation. “Fine, if you believe in Rom magic boxes, then perhaps I should practice another bit of popular folklore. Give me your hand.”
“Why?”
“Just give it to me.” Taking her hand in his, he turned it over so that he could see her palm. “It’s time for me to do a little Gypsy fortune-telling.”
“I thought you told me they prefer to be called Rom. And I read that fortune-telling is never done by men.”
He looked at her in surprise. “How do you know that?”
She shrugged self-consciously. “I slipped a book about Gypsy legends in with those baby care books I checked out of the library.”‘
“Yeah, well, I’ve been Americanized.” He wasn’t about to admit that he’d bought a book on fortune-telling from the bookstore down the street. “Now shush, I’m concentrating.”
Brett wasn’t able to concentrate or even think at all, not with his fingertip leisurely trailing over the sensitive heart of her palm. Lordy, it was an incredibly sexy feeling! Just from him touching her hand? Wow…
“I’ll start with the basics,” Michael murmured in that dark, rich voice of his. “This one here near the base of your thumb is your life line. Ah, very nice. Long, narrow, deep and completely encircling the Mount of Venus, which represents the pleasures of the senses.”
She should have snatched her hand away at that point. But apparently she liked pleasuring her senses a little too much, because she couldn’t work up the willpower to put a halt to his wickedly delightful seduction.
“And this one going right across your palm in the middle here is the line that rules your head,” he murmured.
“I’ll bet it’s cracked,” she muttered. “Denoting muddled thinking.”
“On the contrary, the line is even and narrow, showing excellent judgment and a strong will.”
If she had excellent judgment she wouldn’t be sifting with him on the floor of his office, nearly panting at the shivery delight the merest stroke of her life line provoked. Each sliding caress left a gossamer trail of tingling awareness behind.
“And last but not least is your heart line.” Michael lifted his eyes to stare directly into hers. “Ah, I see a tall dark handsome stranger coming into your life.”
“Yeah, I think he’s in my Developmental Psych class at Loyola.”
Michael frowned fiercely and glared at her.
She responded by batting her eyelashes at him.
“The longer the heart line, the more ideal the love,” he said.
“Ideal meaning all in my mind and having nothing to do with reality, right?”
“And this is the mouth line,” he said. “See how wide it is? Indicating a woman who talks too much.”
“Get out of here! There’s no such thing as a mouth line. Is there?”
He gave her one of his slow smiles. This time, her attempt to keep a perspective on things by using her sense of humor as a defense died a quick death. She would have been fine, if he hadn’t brought her hand to his lips. His wicked eyes never left hers as he flicked his tongue over the back of her knuckles before darting into the sensitized valley between her fingers.
She would have melted there and then, tumbling back onto the small blanket and tugging him down after her, but then they both would have ended up in the vegetable dip.
“Damn, I wish I had a couch in here,” he muttered through her fingers, nipping them with his white teeth before hauling her to him and kissing her.
“You should have p
lanned ahead,” she whispered against his mouth.
“I’ve got an idea…” Leaping to his feet, he tugged her up to stand beside him.
Before she could speak, he was kissing her once more. With teasing smacks, gentle nibbles and hungry swirls of his tongue he urged her backwards until her bottom bumped into the top of his desk. Putting his hands on her waist, he picked her up and set her on the flat surface. Nudging her legs apart, he moved closer, tugging her flush against him, so that his erection was pressed to her.
“Is that an acorn in your pocket or are you just glad to see me?” she saucily paraphrased Mae West.
“Where are those rip-away panties when a man needs them?” he muttered as he slid his hands beneath her skirt and grappled with her sturdy cotton underwear.
She nibbled on his ear until he finally disposed of her panties, tossing them over his shoulder in triumph. The next move was hers as she undid the fastening on his pants, brushing the back of her fingers against him as she slowly lowered the zipper’s metal tab. He was wearing the black silk boxer shorts she’d gotten for him.
When she freed him from its silky confines, his throbbing manhood eagerly leapt to life in her hand.
“Who’s doing the seducing here?” he demanded huskily, as she caressed him with gentle strokes.
“So far all I’ve heard is talk, not much action,” she purred.
“How’s this for action?” he growled, clearing the top of his desk with one sweep of his hand and lowering her onto it until the tilt of her hips was perfect for their joining. He came to her swiftly, her knees bracketing his hips. Their bodies slipped into an erotic rhythm as he moved against her with tight urgency and exquisite sureness. Fiery bliss shimmered and rippled through her, the propulsive motion lifting her to a dizzying peak of rapture.
Afterwards, once she’d regained the ability to breath and speak, she muttered, “We’ve definitely had some kind of spell cast on us. There’s no other explanation for what just happened.”
“Sure there is.”
“Yeah, I know you think it’s just chemistry,” she said as she sat up and restored order to her mussed clothing.
“Chemistry is a powerful thing.”
So is love, she wanted to shout. But the words froze in her throat as the hurtful phrases from her past rose in her mind to taunt her:
Don’t be a nuisance, Brett.
Why do you always have to want more?
I need a woman who can be a real wife.
“Man, will you look at that kid go?” Michael marveled as Hope crawled across the floor.
It was early February and Hope was eight months old. They’d survived her first cold and her second tooth. They’d seen her grow and develop into a perpetual-motion machine, capable of wearing out even the sturdiest adults.
Other than that one relapse in Michael’s office, Brett had kept her New Year’s resolution of appreciating what she had while acknowledging that there was no controlling the inner longings of her heart. Some days she pretended Michael loved her and that he just couldn’t say the words. Some days it was enough.
Brett watched Michael as he watched Hope’s movements in awed amusement. “She’s like one of those windup toys that keeps going until it runs into something solid. Then you just pick it up and aim it in the opposite direction,” he said, doing just that as Hope got close to the base of his rack stereo system. He’d long since moved everything above baby-reaching level.
“Oh-oh, she’s heading for your newspaper,” Brett warned him. Hope had developed a curiosity about everything. She had a particular fondness for paper.
“I think she reads the thing when we’re not looking,” he claimed.
“She’s in her reach-and-explore phase,” Brett said.
“Search-and-destroy, you mean,” he replied as Hope crumpled the headlines before he removed the Tribune from her reach.
“Speaking of searching, have you heard any more about that social worker?” Brett asked.
“As a matter of fact, I got a call from my buddy this afternoon. Strangest thing, the woman decided to take an early retirement. Last time he saw her, right before she left, she acted like she’d never heard of the ‘mystery baby’ she’d been bugging him about.” As he spoke, Michael eyed the Rom box, now stored on top of the bookcase, suspiciously. If he were a superstitious man, he might think there really was some kind of magic going on here. Thank heavens he was the logical type.
“She’s gone? That’s a relief,” Brett said.
“You’ve got that right. Now maybe you’ll be able to concentrate on your homework for that psych course of yours.”
Brett was taking one class at Loyola that met Monday and Wednesday afternoons. She left Hope with Frieda and Consuela for baby-sitting while she was at school. Even though Hope was now wary of strangers, she recognized the older women next door as adopted grandmothers, and they acted the part to the hilt.
While Brett was reflecting, Hope was reaching again. A second later, the little girl had put wet handprints all over the paper Brett was working on for class. Looking and grabbing had been perfected to a fine art by the eight-month-old, who did it with split-second timing, only to have everything end up in her mouth.
“Think my professor will buy the excuse that the baby ate my homework?” Brett wryly asked as she held up the soggy sheet of paper.
“I doubt it.”
Frustrated that Brett had taken her paper “plaything” away, Hope yelled “Maaa-maaa!” along with a variety of baby sounds, all of them intended to show her displeasure.
“Do you think babies know how to swear?” Michael inquired dryly.
Instead of replying she said, “Did you see that?” as the little girl latched onto Brett’s leg and hauled herself upright in an attempt to get her soggy paper back. “She’ll be walking before we know it! She already kind of pulls herself upright by hanging onto the rungs of her crib. I caught her doing it just last night. And now she just did it again. You clever girl, you!” Brett congratulated her with one of the wet, sloppy kisses that Hope adored.
“Hey, you feel like giving me one of those?” Michael inquired suggestively.
“Sure thing, big guy,” Brett replied. Scooping Hope up in her arms, she carried the baby over to him. Moments later the little girl was placing sloppy, smacking kisses all along Michael’s forceful jaw.
“That wasn’t quite what I had in mind,” Michael noted ruefully.
Returning to her homework, Brett said, “Oh, did I tell you that the energy-efficient thermostat I installed on the boiler reduced the heating bill by twenty percent last month?”
“Yeah, you did. Selling this place is still my long-term plan, but it may take longer to fix it up than I first thought. A couple of years instead of just one. But it would be nice to have a big yard someday for Hope to play in when she starts doing football practice.”
“In your dreams. The football practice, I mean, not the yard.”
The strangled sound of the buzzer prevented him from answering.
“Finally,” Brett said as she hurriedly buzzed them in.
“You didn’t check to see who it was first,” Michael reprimanded her as he played horsie with Hope on his knee. “You fixed the busted speaker in that security system and then you forget to use it.”
“Because I know who it is. It’s the delivery man with the pizza we ordered an hour ago. Five minutes longer and I would have fainted from hunger,” she said as she opened the front door to find a young woman standing there.
“Are you Brett Munro?” the woman asked.
Brett nodded before remembering she was Brett Janos now. “And you are?”
“Here to get my baby.”
Ten
Brett had to swallow twice before she was able to speak. Even then, her voice came out thin and reedy. “What did you say?”
“My baby girl. I left her here.”
“Who is it, Brett?” Michael called out from the living room behind her.
“I
left my baby girl here, in the foyer when you were working there,” the woman said in a hurry.
Brett shook her head, unable to accept that her worst nightmare was actually here, standing on the threshold of their apartment.
Worried by her silence, Michael quickly put Hope in the playpen before joining her at the door. “Who are you?” he demanded of the strange young woman in a black leather jacket.
“My name is Denise Petty.”
“She says she’s Hope’s mother,” Brett whispered.
“Hope?” The woman repeated. “I left my baby girl Angela here. It was wrong of me, I know. But I was desperate. I’d gotten into a bad situation—I didn’t want to put my baby at risk. My kid sister hangs out at the youth center, she’s always raving about you. Maybe you remember her, bright kid with a bad dye job? Anyway from what she said, I figured you’d be the best place to leave my little girl until I could come back and get her.”
Knowing her fears, Michael put a hand on Brett’s shoulder and whispered, “Don’t worry. She’s not taking Hope from us.”
His voice hardened as he spoke to the young woman. “You say your name is Denise? Well, Denise, what proof do you have that any of this is true?” Michael demanded.
“I brought Angela’s birth certificate.” She dug it out of the ratty woven bag she had slung over her shoulder.
Michael read the crumpled document carefully. “This doesn’t prove that Angela is the same baby.”
“She has a birthmark, a tiny red mark in the shape of a rose on her bottom,” Denise said.
“Which side?” Michael demanded.
“Left side. I have one too, lower down.” Lifting the hem of her already short black leather skirt, she showed them the mark on her thigh several inches above her knee.
Brett’s heart dropped to her toes.
“What was the baby wearing when you left her here?” Michael asked.
“A sleeper outfit. And she had her blanket, the one with kittens on it. She was in a gray car safety seat for babies.”
Looking at Brett, he saw her nod, confirming that was correct.
“I need that birth certificate back,” Denise told Michael.
