Michael's Baby

“They all work,” Michael stated as she opened the fridge and peered inside. “They’re just about the only ones in the entire building that do,” he added in a muttered aside. “I’m told that awful color of green was popular at one time.”

“Avocado,” she replied.

“Never eat them.”

“I was referring to the color of the appliances. Avocado appliances were very popular in the sixties.”

“Which probably makes that refrigerator about as old as I am,” he said.

She turned to study him with the same thoroughness she’d given the fridge. The brief animosity she’d felt toward him when she’d been in the vestibule earlier had evaporated. Now she was intrigued by him. That wasn’t necessarily a good thing. After all, he was her boss for the time being.

Not that she felt intimidated by him. She was confident of her abilities. She knew she’d do a good job here, in a building just crying out for tender loving care.

TLC was something Brett specialized in. She fixed things for a living—stoves, hot-water heaters, men who needed understanding, stray animals who needed food. She worked with them all until they were well enough to function on their own. Michael Janos didn’t look like the kind of man who needed any fixing, however. He was the epitome of a loner. A lone wolf. But even wolves mated for life, she reminded herself. The lone ones were the ones who had lost their mates. Had that happened to him?

Tilting her head, she gazed directly into his eyes, searching for a few answers. Instead she found a matching curiosity. He had incredible eyes, striking flames in her soul with their mysterious combination of light and shadow. She felt as if she could look into them forever, as if at some point in her past she had spent a lifetime looking into them—which was ridiculous since she’d never met him before today. She’d never have forgotten a face like his. There was a noble elegance mixed with a raw power in everything from the curve of his high cheekbones to the thrust of his jaw. There was nothing traditional about him, except for the chauvinistic fact that he didn’t think a woman could do a handyman’s job. Reminding herself of that, she tore her gaze away. It was like ripping an adhesive bandage off a wound.

Tempted though she was to return her attention to him, she forced herself to concentrate on other things, imagining where she’d place what little furniture she had. The apartment—with its single narrow main room, tiny kitchen area and bath—might be considered a decorator’s nightmare. Brett considered it to be home.

Michael recognized that expression—the nesting look. Whenever he saw it in a woman’s eyes he got nervous.

“You should meet the tenants,” he stated abruptly. Okay, so the basement flat hadn’t discouraged her from taking the job. But surely the strange assortment of people living in the building would make her think twice. if she had a lick of sense. So would the long list of repairs each of those tenants had.

As Michael led her upstairs to the door of the apartment next to his, he felt as if he were leading a lamb to slaughter. The two elderly ladies that lived there might look like solicitous souls, but they were as tough as nails.

He pounded on their door. Nothing short of pounding could be heard by either of them. Mrs. Weiskopf came to answer the summons. “You here to fix my leaky kitchen faucet?” she demanded of Michael.

“No, but she is,” he heard himself answering.

Mrs. Weiskopf switched her eagle gaze from him to Brett. “Where are your tools?” she demanded suspiciously. “Is this some kind of joke?”

“No joke. Mrs. Weiskopf, meet Brett Munro—our new building supervisor.”

“About time you got a woman to do a man’s job,” Mrs. Weiskopf retorted with the sting of her infamous sauerkraut.

“Who’s at the door?” her flat-mate, Mrs. Martinez, demanded. “You’re letting all the heat out.”

“There’s enough heat in that spicy food you’re cooking in the kitchen to warm the entire building,” Mrs. Weiskopf retorted.

“Is this your girlfriend?” Mrs. Martinez asked Michael with the interest of a born matchmaker.

“No, she’s the new building supervisor. I just hired her.”

“Hired her?” Mrs. Martinez repeated with raised eyebrows. Taller than Mrs. Weiskopf by a good half foot, she was also twenty pounds heavier. Her dark hair was streaked with white, but wasn’t yet the silvery gray of her flat-mate’s. Brett couldn’t tell which of the women was the oldest. She could tell which one wanted her hooked up with Michael. The other one, Mrs. Weiskopf, just wanted her leaky faucet fixed. That was a job Brett could do.

“If you’d like me to look at the faucet now, I should be able to get an idea what’s wrong with it. Then I’ll know what tools to bring later today to fix it.”

“Later today?” Mrs. Weiskopf and Michael both repeated in unison.

“Didn’t you want me to start as soon as possible?” Brett addressed her comment to Michael.

“Yes, well.”

“This afternoon is fine,” Mrs. Weiskopf interjected. “Come right this way. The toilet doesn’t work right, either. Keeps running water even when no one uses it.”

Twenty minutes later, Brett left the elderly women’s apartment with their praises ringing in her ears, and their cooking in her hands—homemade sauerkraut in a plastic bowl and fresh salsa in a glass mason jar “because It’s so hot it would melt plastic,” Mrs. Martinez had said.

Michael couldn’t believe the women’s hospitality. In the short time he’d known them, they’d always treated him as if he were personally responsible for everything that had ever gone wrong in their long and eventful lives. Now, just because Brett had jiggled a few things inside their toilet tank and promised to replace a faulty gasket in their faucet, the two women thought she could do no wrong.

He felt as if the lamb had just turned into a lion.

“So who’s next?” she perkily inquired.

He led her directly to the second floor and the apartment of Mr. and Mrs. Stephanopolis. Okay, so the old women living next door to him were tough, but they were marshmallows compared to the couple upstairs.

He should have known better. Before he could even knock on the door, Mr. Stephanopolis had it open and was kissing Brett’s cheeks while exclaiming in Greek.

Having heard stories about Mrs. Stephanopolis’s legendary jealous streak, Michael thought it in Brett’s best interest that he disengage her from the overexuberant Greek’s embrace.

“Mrs. Martinez called from downstairs and told us all about this angel who has come to save us,” Mr. Stephanopolis replied as Michael tugged Brett out of the other man’s embrace only to end up with her in his arms instead.

Brett was seized by a dizzying sense of pleasure and an even stronger sense of enchantment. Michael’s chest was warm against her back, and his hands cupped her elbows. His breath stirred the hair at her nape and sent shivers down her spine. She’d never felt this way before, filled with wondrous excitement and breathless desire—all from an accidental embrace.

“I thought you said the girl was not Michael’s girlfriend,” Mrs. Stephanopolis said as she joined her husband at the door.

“I’m not,” Brett hurriedly said, stepping away from Michael and the spell he seemed to cast on her. “I’m the new building supervisor.”

“In my time a girl did not do such work,” Mrs. Stephanopolis replied with dark disapproval.

“I’m just glad the hot water is working again,” Mr. Stephanopolis exclaimed. “I almost froze my privates off this morning.”

“This girl does not want to hear about your privates,” his wife declared with frosty fire.

As the bickering between husband and wife continued in Greek for a few moments, Michael was taken aback at the amused look that Brett shared with him. Her face had this glow that raised his blood pressure, among other things.

Brett surprised him further by breaking into Greek herself—a feat that provided momentary silence from the couple before both broke into speech once more.

Mrs. Stephanopolis’s earlier disapproval melted as she put her arm around Brett and ushered her into the apartment, leaving Michael standing on the threshold as if he were an unwelcome in-law.

Half an hour later, when he and Brett left their apartment, she’d added a bottle of ouzo to her collection of goodies.

“You’re lucky to have such great tenants,” Brett told him.

“Yeah, right.”

“So who else do you want me to meet?”

“There’s only one more apartment left. The Lincolns live next door. Since you’re getting on so well with everyone, I’ll just leave you to it. Clearly you don’t need me to hold your hand.”