Heart Stealers

by Patricia McLinn

  “What’s on tap for this afternoon?” he asked, not sure what answer he expected—or wanted.

  “Olivia’s mom wants me to watch her for a while longer,” Sharon told him. “I’ve got some film I need to develop.”

  “Isn’t everything digital these days?” he asked.

  “I do digital photography. Also film, depending on the project. It forces you to be a lot more specific and careful, to make conscious choices. It’s an amazing medium.” She smiled bashfully, as if embarrassed about sounding pedantic. “Anyway, I was figuring I’d take the kids back to the studio and maybe, if I get lucky, they’ll crash. I could develop the film while they nap.”

  “And if they don’t nap?”

  “I’m up the creek.”

  “You wouldn’t be able to get any work done if they were wired, would you.” He didn’t ask so much as state it as a fact.

  She shrugged. “It wouldn’t be the first time they interfered with my ability to get work done. I might be able to get some paperwork done, though. Not the darkroom stuff, because to do that I have to shut the door, and I can’t open it for any crises without ruining the film.”

  “What film do you want to develop?” he asked.

  She slid a French fry into her mouth. Unlike the children, whose mangling of their fries made them look decidedly unappetizing, the way Sharon bit off a piece of her fry, with a clean, sharp snap of her teeth, struck him as inexplicably erotic.

  She chewed, swallowed and shrugged again. “The pictures I’ve been taking for my submission for the Arlington commemorative book. Those shots I took last week, among others. But I can probably get them done tomorrow. Olivia’s mother owes me some baby-sitting time.”

  He must have been crazy. Her eyes and the sweet curve of her mouth were messing with his brain, and the thought of her trying to hold everything together without complaint, to assemble a proposal that might open all sorts of doors for her if she won the commission—which she was too proud to ask him to help secure for her... He thought of her grit, her determination, her refusal to lean on others. Her incredible heroism.

  Yes, spending time with her, gazing into those magnificent eyes and witnessing her steadiness in the midst of chaos, must have made him lose his mind.

  Or else he’d just decided it was time to set himself a new challenge. Because he said, “If you want to get your work done, I could watch the kids for you.”

  Chapter Nine

  The kids dropped off in the car on the drive back to the studio. Brett carried Max inside, and Sharon carried Olivia, who was marginally lighter. She led Brett to the curtained area where she’d photographed the Cashman sisters that morning. The floor was carpeted and scattered with cushions; it would serve as the dormitory area for the two sleeping beauties. She knelt and lowered Olivia onto one of the cushions. Brett eased Max down onto another cushion.

  From Olivia’s tote bag she retrieved Mr. Poochie and tucked it into the curve of Olivia’s arm. She brought Max’s stuffed teddy bear to him, then lowered the dimmer switch so the space was relatively dark. Satisfied that the kids were deeply asleep, she tiptoed out, Brett right behind her.

  “My darkroom is in the basement,” she told him. “You really don’t have to stay if you don’t—”

  “Are you kidding?” He glanced over his shoulder at the slumbering children. “This could be the easiest time I’ve ever spent with kids.”

  If he was willing to keep an eye on them while they dozed, she’d be a fool not to accept his offer. “I’ve got some magazines, if you’d like something to read.” She hurried through the doorway to the shelf behind the counter where she stored a variety of magazines—news magazines, photographic journals, material she kept on hand to occupy waiting customers and to spark ideas when her vision went stale and inspiration eluded her. She returned to Brett, who seemed vaguely amused by the magazines.

  “I’ll be fine,” he assured her.

  He would be, she knew. As long as the kids were asleep, he wouldn’t need any of his Daddy School training to keep an eye on them. She remembered long days—long weeks and months—during which she’d sworn that the times she loved Max best were the times he was fast asleep. Maybe Brett would learn to love Max over the next half hour.

  She raced downstairs, aware that a half hour might be all the time she had before the kids woke up. Her landlord had let her build a tiny dark room using the basement lavatory below her studio. It was too small for the quantity of photos she took during the course of her work, but a sink, a few basins, some clothes line, a work table and a red lamp were all she needed to develop proofs of the photos she’d taken for her proposal for the Arlington birthday book.

  She shut herself inside and began mixing chemicals. The familiar, tangy smells carried her back to the early years of her career, when she and Steve had moved to New York, hoping to become a part of that city’s bustling art world. It had been a fun dream, the sort a childless couple in their twenties could afford to indulge in. Actually, she’d been the one to suggest, after a few years of starving-artist romance, that they move someplace where they’d be able to support themselves and start a family. If not for her urging, Steve might still be living in that ghastly walk-up in Alphabet City, with the bathtub in the kitchen and the mildew-stained tiles surrounding the toilet, and lugging his portfolio of black-and-white images from gallery to gallery. Steve had loved living on the edge.

  He’d died on the edge, too. Once they’d settled into a more middle-class existence in Arlington, he’d found his thrills elsewhere—rock climbing, bike racing and hot-dog skiing. Strapping on a pair of skis and gliding down a hill hadn’t been enough for him. He’d had to try snowboarding, snow-blading, navigating moguls and attempting ski jumps. He’d said he loved the thrill of it, but she suspected he also loved the immaturity of it. Growing up would mean accepting one’s mortality and taking responsibility for others. Even after she got pregnant, Steve hadn’t been able to do that.

  And now he was dead.

  Fresh out of college eight years ago, Sharon would not have imagined herself feeling such attraction to a man who spent his days sitting at a desk, wearing a tie—a staid, colorless one—and manipulating money for a living. Brett’s world seemed so safe, so square. But now that she was a mother, with more responsibility than she’d ever had before, she respected Brett’s square, safe existence. Someone like him would never test his own life expectancy just for a thrill. Perhaps he got his heart pounding by placing some of his fund money in high-risk investments, but she couldn’t imagine him hurtling down an icy forty-degree slope on snow blades, jumping and attempting a three-sixty in the air. Just for the thrill of it.

  Attending a class for fathers at the Children’s Garden might well be the most perilous thing he’d ever done. And he’d done it for her.

  She put the film through its baths, checking her watch frequently, wondering how Brett was holding up. As long as the kids remained unconscious he’d be fine. But if they woke up, she couldn’t race upstairs and rescue him. Once the film entered this process, opening the dark room door would destroy it. Brett was on his own.

  He was putting forth such a noble effort for her—not just keeping an eye on the kids for now, not just his attendance at Molly’s Daddy School class that morning, but lunch at McDonald’s. She smiled as she recalled Max’s dragging him over to the ball pit to show him the balls, and—when Brett fled back to the table—Max’s screeching at top volume, “Look at me! Hey, Mr. Man, look at me!” while he climbed the jungle gym and scooted down the slide into the ball pit. Sharon had told him Brett’s name, but apparently he didn’t remember it.

  Once the proof sheet was drying, she washed her hands, turned off the red lamp, and emerged into the basement, which was scarcely brighter than her dark room had been. Old file boxes lined the shelves along one wall—her landlord’s records, not her own, which were kept upstairs in the studio. She heard no terrifying sounds spilling down the stairs, but she hurried up the flight quick
ly just in case. She raced through the larger portrait studio, where she took photos using a screen on which she could project various backgrounds for customers who preferred to be photographed in front of a realistic-looking country bridge or a garden filled with flowers, or a slightly less realistic classic Corvette in glossy red. And on into the smaller studio, where she stumbled to a halt.

  Brett lay on the carpeted floor, looking like Gulliver surrounded by Lilliputians. Two Lilliputians, to be precise. Max and Olivia were perched on their knees on either side of him, rolling the Nerf ball back and forth across his chest.

  She couldn’t see Brett’s face from where she stood, but that didn’t stop her from reaching for the camera. “Don’t you dare,” Brett growled before she could angle it to capture the scene.

  She still couldn’t see his face, but she hoped he could at least smile at his predicament. His two pint-sized captors were obviously quite pleased with their conquest. “Throw the ball!” Olivia commanded, and Max nudged the squishy ball across Brett’s torso. His leg twitched as Max’s knee dug into his side.

  “Look, Mommy!” he boasted. “We’re playing ten-its!”

  “Tennis,” Brett corrected him, rising onto his elbows and peering at Sharon with an expression that seemed to shout, Thank God you’re here. “I’m the net.”

  “And a fine net you are, too.”

  “Nothing else worked,” he complained, shoving himself higher, until he was seated and the ball accelerated down his chest and rolled past Olivia. “It was either let them play tennis on my stomach or watch them tear the place apart. One of the magazines got sacrificed, I’m afraid.”

  “That’s all right,” she assured him. “They’re pretty old.”

  “I noticed.”

  “I’m hungry,” Olivia whined, ignoring the ball and rushing to Sharon. She flung herself at Sharon’s leg and wrapped her arms tightly around her knee.

  “Me, too.” Max abandoned the “net” and staked his claim on Sharon’s other leg. “Let’s go to McDon-o’s!”

  “We’ve already been to McDonald’s,” Sharon reminded him. “It’s time to go home.”

  “I wanna go McDon-o’s,” Olivia wailed. Max decided to join her, manufacturing a mournful sob and a few impressive-looking tears.

  “No McDonald’s. We’re going home. You can have a snack when we get home.”

  The children brayed in harmony. The noise seemed to pain Brett as he hoisted himself to his feet. “I don’t know what your plans are,” she told him, maintaining a conversational tone in spite of the keening duet, “but you’re welcome to follow me back to my house.”

  “I’m not getting into a car with those two,” he said, glowering at the children. “It was hard enough teaching them tennis when they were hell-bent on destroying your studio. I’m not going to put up with this screaming, too.”

  “I don’t blame you.” She patted his arm. “You did make an awfully cute net, though.”

  A smile almost escaped him, but he snuffed it before it could take hold.

  Getting the children organized, the tote bags packed and the studio locked up was more difficult when the children were cranky than it would have been if they were in better spirits. But Sharon was used to their inconvenient moods. She was even, in an odd way, used to Brett’s scowl. Each day she spent with him was a little more comfortable, a little more natural than the last. From a posh benefit dinner to a summery outing to this, a day when Brett felt confident enough with Max to simulate a tennis net, she saw a steady improvement. Maybe he didn’t hate children as much as he thought he did. Maybe if he told her why he hated them, she could help him get past that hatred—she and Max and Olivia.

  Max and Olivia were not in the mood to help anyone with anything right now. They continued to cling and howl and lament their undernourished state as she half led, half carried them outside to the car. The rain had let up, easing into a dank mist that washed every surface. The alley’s asphalt glistened like patent leather. The brownstone walls of her studio’s building and the adjacent beauty salon shone as if they were wearing a coat of fresh paint.

  Once she’d gotten the kids strapped into their seats, she backed out into the road. Gazing into her rear-view mirror, she saw Brett’s silver Infiniti pull up behind her. She permitted herself a smile. He was definitely salvageable. He never would have allowed himself to be used as a tennis net if he hated children that much.

  No cars were parked outside her townhouse or Deborah’s next door as Sharon steered up the winding street where she lived. Raymond must have left, finally. Sharon wondered how Deborah was faring—and how much she resented Sharon for having made their private encounter possible. If Deborah was still recovering, Sharon would be happy to keep Olivia with her for a while longer. She had plenty of snacks for the famished children, and a decent supply of toys and videos they could watch.

  She pulled into her driveway, and Brett braked to a stop at the curb in front of her house. Olivia and Max had sniveled and hiccupped most of the way home. Sharon had managed not to let them distract her, but she was glad to get out of the car.

  “I have to drop off Olivia,” she explained to Brett as he joined her in the driveway. He took the tote bags while she unbuckled the kids. Max didn’t bolt, and Olivia was too distraught to run anywhere. “We’re home now, Livie,” Sharon murmured, lifting the melodramatic girl into her arms. “Do you want to see Mommy?”

  “I want Mommy,” Olivia whimpered, her cheeks tear-stained.

  “Let’s go see her, then.” She trooped across the wet grass to Deborah’s front walk. Her canvas sneakers soaked through, dampening her toes.

  Deborah answered the door, looking rather damp herself. Her hair hung in glistening ringlets and her skin was dewy, as if she’d just taken a shower. “Livie, honey!” she said, extending her arms to take her daughter. Sharon gladly relinquished the load. “Any reason for all this fretting?” she asked Sharon.

  “She wants to go to ‘McDon-o’s,’” Sharon explained, peeking past Deborah on the chance that Raymond might still be there, even if his car wasn’t. The living room appeared empty, though—and Deborah looked far too refreshed and relaxed. If he were there, she’d be tense and testy.

  “Come here, baby,” Deborah crooned, stroking Olivia’s head. “Are you a little sleepy? Do you need a nap?”

  “The kids napped,” Sharon reported, then glanced behind her at Brett, who stood warily on the front walk, two steps down from the porch where she and Max stood. His eyes were shadowed, his jaw rigid. “How long did the kids sleep, Brett? Do you remember?”

  “Not long enough,” he muttered.

  Sharon turned back to Deborah, whose eyebrows arched with curiosity. “Deborah, this is Brett Stockton. Brett, my neighbor, Deborah Jackson.”

  Brett nodded. Any fantasies Sharon might have nurtured about his learning to love children dissolved. He looked surly and tired. The tennis net was sagging.

  “Nice to meet you,” Deborah called to him, then whispered to Sharon, “He hates children?”

  Sharon shrugged, unwilling to concede the point.

  “He sure is pretty. Maybe you can bring him around.”

  “So, how did things go with Raymond?” Sharon whispered back, not willing to dwell on Brett’s shortcomings—or his beauty.

  Deborah’s cheeks darkened. “I can’t really talk about it right now.”

  “Are you still pissed at me?”

  “I haven’t decided yet,” Deborah told her, although she didn’t sound angry. “We’ll talk later. You’ve got Mr. Wrong to take care of.”

  “And you’ve got Miss Tragedy,” Sharon observed, patting Olivia’s back.

  “Yeah, thanks. I send you off with a cheerful little girl and you return with this miserable creature. Any chance you brought home her evil twin by mistake?”

  “None at all.” Sharon smiled. She was eager to hear more specifics about Deborah’s meeting with Raymond, but Deborah was right. Now wasn’t the time.

 
; She left the porch, and Max clamped a sticky wet hand around her knee. Brett accompanied her back across the soaked grass to her own front door. Once inside, she let out a long breath.

  “I’m hungry,” Max grumbled.

  “I know. Let’s get your wet shoes off and then we’ll get a snack.”

  Brett said nothing as Sharon pried off her own sneakers and left them, along with Max’s, on the floor mat inside the door. She lifted Max and poked a discreet finger into the waistband of his shorts to check his diaper. Dry. She ought to perch him on his potty immediately, but that would mean abandoning Brett—probably for a good fifteen minutes. When Max tried to use the potty, it often turned into a time-consuming production.

  Her heart just wasn’t in it. Max could be toilet-trained another day. Right now he was hungry and Brett seemed lost. She would rather devote her attention to him.

  “Would you like a snack?” she asked as she carried Max into the kitchen.

  “Have you got a beer?”

  She smiled. A beer was the least he deserved. “In the refrigerator, on the lower shelf of the door. Help yourself.” She settled Max into his booster seat.

  Brett pulled out two bottles, twisted off both caps, and left one on the counter for her. She might have considered this presumptuous, but the sight of that cold bottle and the happy hiss of released pressure as he’d opened it made her acknowledge that his presumption was correct. She wished she could sprawl out on the family room sofa with him, and they could enjoy their beers and talk about anything other than Max.

  But that option wasn’t available. Max was drumming his hands on the table, chanting, “Milk, milk, milk!”

  She poured some milk into a sippy cup, peeled a banana and cut it into chunks on a plate, and arranged the snack in front of Max. Then she crossed to the counter, lifted her bottle and tapped it against Brett’s in a toast.