Babies in the Bargain

But still, the idea of sinking into a bath full of bubbles was too tempting to pass up and she stood, too, following Cutty to the kitchen and feeling guilty for the sight of him limping even more than he had been the night before.

“I really am sorry,” she told him yet again as they reached the kitchen.

“I’ll let it go this time but another day like today and I’ll have to dock your pay,” he joked.

He took a key from the hook beside the door and turned around, giving her a full view of a mischievous smile that put those creases on either side of his mouth and made an unexpected warmth wash through her.

“Before this is over I might end up having to pay you,” Kira said, making a joke of her own. “In fact you can probably start a tab with those two dishes and the coffee mug I broke.”

Cutty just laughed and again she liked the sound of it. “You are kind of a bull in a china shop,” he said as if it were a compliment.

“Not usually,” she assured. “Honestly, no one who knows me would have believed this today.”

He didn’t say anything to that. He merely gave her the key.

But as she accepted it their hands brushed. Only briefly. And Kira found herself oddly aware of it. Of the heat of his skin. Of the little shards of electricity that seemed to shoot up her arm from the point of contact.

It was just silly, she told herself.

Although, she also thought when Cutty spoke again that his voice might have dropped an octave, and she had to wonder if he’d felt it, too.

But if he did, he didn’t indicate it in what he was saying.

“And don’t even think about coming over here at four tomorrow morning. Seven is plenty early enough. You’ll probably have to wait half an hour or so for the girls to wake up even at that. But maybe if you’re the first person they see instead of Betty, it’ll start things off more in your favor.”

“Like ducks bonding to the first thing they see when they hatch?”

He grinned. “Something like that, yeah.”

“I’ll hope for the best.”

There was a moment then when their eyes met and held. Kira didn’t understand why or what was in the air between them when it happened. But there was definitely something in the air between them. Something that seemed more than just the camaraderie of being in the trenches together.

But then it passed and Cutty opened the screen for her, holding it while she went out.

“See you in the morning,” he said then.

“Good night,” she responded.

But even as Kira walked across the yard to the garage apartment she could still feel the remnants of that change that had hung in the air for that single moment.

What had that been about? she wondered.

She honestly didn’t know.

But she did know that even after the fact, it left her feeling all tingly inside.

Chapter Three

“It was the weirdest damn thing. There was this minute when I actually thought about kissing her.”

Cutty was sitting in the kitchen of Ad Walker’s apartment at seven-fifteen the next morning with his ankle propped on one of Ad’s chairs.

Ad was Cutty’s best friend and after Cutty had suggested to Kira that he leave her alone with the twins this morning, he’d done just that. His police-issue SUV had an automatic transmission, and since it didn’t have a clutch and it was his left foot that was out of commission, he could drive even if he wasn’t supposed to walk any more than necessary.

He’d taken advantage of that fact and driven to the restaurant-bar Ad owned on Main Street. There were two apartments above Adz, one in which Ad lived. Cutty had had to hop on one foot to get up the outside stairs but once he had he’d pounded on Ad’s apartment door until Ad woke up to let him in.

A bleary-eyed Ad had made coffee, and it was over two cups of that strong, black brew that Cutty had told him about the appearance of Kira Wentworth on his doorstep and her insistence on staying to help out.

Cutty had also told Ad what had been on his mind since Kira had walked through his door, culminating in that moment when he and Kira had been saying good-night the evening before and the air all around them had seemed charged.

“So you just thought about kissing her? You didn’t do it?” Ad asked, sitting across the table from Cutty in the same position—with his legs propped on the remaining chair even though they weren’t in need of elevation.

“No, I didn’t do it,” Cutty answered as if the question was ridiculous.

“I think you should have.”

“Come on,” Cutty said as if his friend had to be kidding.

“Why not? A beautiful woman shows up out of the blue—the first woman I’ve ever heard you say that about, by the way. You have trouble keeping your eyes off her all day long—especially when she’s bending over,” Ad said, summarizing what Cutty had already told him. “You felt sparks—even though you don’t understand it. Who’s to say she didn’t feel them, too?”

“Come on,” Cutty repeated, this time with a groan.

But Ad wasn’t fazed. “You said yourself that it was time you got back on the horse—so to speak. I don’t see anything wrong with going for it.”