Michael's Baby

“You don’t have to remind me.” She still hadn’t figured out what had happened a few hours ago when she’d stepped out of his kitchen to tell him she’d fixed his stove. She’d felt so strange…as if she’d been bound to him by invisible chains. The look in his hazel eyes had pierced her soul and she was still trying to repair the damage. Because men simply didn’t look at her that way. Unless they wanted something—usually to borrow money. Otherwise she was just one of the boys. Always had been. With one exception…

Feeling the pain ready to creep up on her like the cold fingers of mist that came off the lake, she resolutely changed mental gears. Leaving Michael’s side, she focused her attention on getting the last of her belongings into her new home.

All the while, she was only too well aware of his intense gaze homing in on her. He really did have the most incredible eyes. And he looked like such an outsider, standing apart from the action, watching but not involved in it.

“Would you like to come in and have some coffee or something?” she invited, unable to leave him just standing there. “We’ve got plenty of food.”

Michael fully intended to say no. Hanging out with a bunch of adolescents wasn’t his idea of a good time. But for some reason, he couldn’t seem to voice the refusal. He really wasn’t himself today.

Exasperated by his silence, Brett said, “It’s really not that tough a question to answer. Look, I don’t want you to take this the wrong way, but it might be easier for people to get to know you if you.”

“If I what?” he demanded irritably. “Don’t stop there.”

“If you lightened up a little, maybe.”

His fiery look would have sent a weaker soul scurrying for cover, but not Brett.

“Yeah, well, we can’t all be Suzy Sunshine,” he retorted.

She flushed. Is that how he thought of her? She knew he wasn’t alone in that opinion. If only they all knew how far from the truth that was. There was a cold darkness in her soul that no amount of cheerfulness could melt.

But the bottom line was that she’d never been able to say no to those in need, because she knew how it felt to need someone, or something, so badly and not be able to have it—not ever.

“That was a stupid crack I made,” Michael said, lifting his hand to cup her cheek. “I’m sorry.”

Her heart stopped. His touch was so gentle.

“Yo, Brett, where do you want this box?” thirteen-yearold Juan asked her.

Brett stepped away from Michael—silently noting that each time she did so, it got harder and harder. Stepping inside the basement apartment, Michael poured himself a mug of coffee from a coffeepot that looked like it had been around during World War II. Sipping his coffee, he observed the suspicious looks the kids gave him. Each glance held a warning. Their protectiveness was impressive.

When Brett was outside, he took the opportunity to get a little more information about his new employee. “Your name is Juan?” he asked the kid in the baseball cap.

“That’s right. You wanna make something of it?”

“Why this routine? What makes you think Brett needs protecting?”

Eyeing him, Juan waited before replying. “Because she’s the Mother Teresa type,” he finally said. “Too good. She’s been hurt already.”

“By whom?” Michael demanded.

Juan shrugged. “She don’t say and I don’t ask. All I know is that since she started volunteering at the center, things have been different. She understands.”

“What center might that be?”

“St. Gerald’s Youth Center. Two blocks from here. Which means we’re close enough to check up on you.”

“Do I look impressed?” Michael countered.

“You look mean, but Brett told us that you’re not really.”

“What did she say I was, really?”

“Lonely.”

The observation stung. Slamming the coffee mug back on the rickety table, he glared at Juan before making his departure. He didn’t need this aggravation. Michael enjoyed his own company. He certainly didn’t need a snottynosed kid telling him what was wrong with his life.

As soon as Michael got back to his apartment, he turned on his computer and did some checking into Brett’s background. He learned that she was thirty and had no middle name. No criminal records. The pickup out front was hers and was apparently paid for. She only had one credit card and that had a modest fifteen-hundred-dollar limit. She was still paying off a large medical bill at a Northside hospital for a stay involving a surgical procedure almost two years ago.

Her job history was sporadic. She’d tried her hand at just about everything, from flipping “sliders” at a popular burger joint, to a stint as a waitress in a Rush Street watering hole, to working in a hardware store. She was only twenty credit-hours short of earning her degree in psychology, from Loyola no less. But she’d been a parttime student there longer than some people were president. She wasn’t attending classes now, but was registered for the next semester starting in mid-January.

There was no indication of her having any living relatives and she’d never been married. He wondered why not. With a loving heart like hers, she’d make some man a wonderful wife. She was great with kids, too. And smart. Caring. Sassy. No pushover. And she had the biggest blue eyes he’d ever seen.

Yes, he’d done right to hire her. It had been a wise and logical decision. That was his story and he was sticking to it.

“Are you crazy?” Michael shouted at Brett not even a week later.

“I was just…”

“I can see what you were doing. Trying to get your neck broken! That’s much too heavy for you to carry.”

“I wasn’t carrying it. I was using leverage…”

“Don’t do it again,” he interrupted her to order, moving the huge potted plant in the hallway for her. The thing weighed a ton. “Why are you moving this, anyway?”

“Because I needed to drain the radiator behind it.” Seeing his frown of confusion, she elaborated. “The tenants have all complained about the rattling radiators waking them up at night. The entire system needed to be bled, to get the air out of it. That’s what’s causing all the noise. This radiator is the last one to be done. I have to.”

He was distracted from the rest of her explanation by the way her eyes lit up as she talked. Had he ever met a woman with such an expressive face? He didn’t think so. And all this enthusiasm was about draining radiators, no less.

Today she was wearing a baggy sweatshirt. The color matched her blue eyes. A pair of black leggings encased her legs, the material lovingly following every curve.

“So how are you settling in?” he asked even though he already knew the answer. The tenants had been singing her praises and he hadn’t had any more tap dancing on his ceiling or middle-of-the-night irate phone calls. Which left him free to concentrate on his work, which should have taken up every second of his time as it had for the past five years of his life. Instead he’d actually caught himself daydreaming about Brett—the way she smiled, the way she’d looked with the sun haloing her short dark hair, the sound of her laughter, the way she lit up a room with her presence.

“Nicely.”

“What?” he asked absently, distracted by the cutest little dimple he’d just noticed at the corner of her lush mouth.

“I said I’m settling in nicely.” She hoped she didn’t sound as breathless as she felt. Michael was staring at her strangely again. His hazel eyes were fascinating enough as it was without adding that seductive look to the mix. Unable to help herself, she lifted her hand to rub her mouth as she asked, “Do I have dirt on my face or what?”

“No.”

“You were looking at me so intently.” He’d been staring directly at that corner of her mouth. She leaned forward to check her reflection in the glass beside the front door.

“You look fine,” he huskily assured her. “Better than fine.”

“Sure I do,” she said dryly. The man was either being kind or he was just plain blind. She knew the baggy sweatshirt had seen better days. So had she. She looked like an elf on a chain-gang crew. She hadn’t brushed her hair since this morning. Forget lipstick. She hadn’t worn any since Wednesday and this was Friday. Yeah, she was a regular Cindy Crawford look-alike.

“Don’t you go trying to lift anything else this heavy,” he scolded her, reaching out to brush her bangs away from her eyes. “Ask for some help next time, okay?”