by Sami Lee
“Meaning?”
“Meaning, if I had kissed you, I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t have brought an end to the world. A kiss is just a kiss and all that.”
But could it ever be that simple between the two of them? “That’s an interesting theory.”
“Anytime you want to test it,” he grinned. “I’m available.”
Eve shook her head at him, saying forcefully, “Goodnight, Mike,” before turning on her heel and making her way down the hall, ending their conversation before that smile of his worked its magic and she was tempted to rise to his mocking challenge.
It was not a temptation she could afford to give in to. Maybe a kiss between them would mean nothing to Mike, but Eve couldn’t be so sure of her own indifference.
Two nights later, Eve awoke to the sound of Bailey’s now familiar cry and rolled over with a groan to see the red digital display of her alarm clock glowing two-thirty-two am. Right on time. Bailey often woke some time between two and three in the morning, no longer needing to be fed but sometimes needing to feel her presence in the room, her warm hand against his forehead or help finding his dummy.
She listened, waiting to see whether Bailey would settle himself, as was suggested by one of the many books she had read, madly trying to learn the dos and don’ts of parenting before she did something to scar Bailey for life. After the requisite waiting period, Eve realised that Bailey would not settle on his own this time, and she slid from beneath the covers. Pulling on a lightweight cotton robe to ward off the chill that was beginning to creep into the autumn nights, she padded barefoot to the end of the hall and Bailey’s room. The sight that greeted her stopped her dead.
In the soft orange light of the Winnie-the-Pooh night light, Mike held Bailey close to his bare chest, the dim illumination accentuating his tan and the sculpted muscles of his back. His hair was pillow-mussed, and Eve was assailed by an unwelcome image of him lying in bed, tangled in warm sheets, wearing even less than the grey sweat pants he now wore and sporting one of his sexy, come-hither smiles.
With annoyance, Eve pushed the image aside. Just when she had started to think she could forget all about that surprising chemistry that had arced between them the night they had shared dinner, she had to see him without his shirt on, the sight pushing her heart rate to new heights.
With Mike working nights now, they barely spent fifteen minutes together after she arrived home from work, and that time was wholly spent discussing Bailey’s daily activities. If Mike was growing bored or weary of spending the days amusing his nephew with trips to the park or building Lego towers, it didn’t show. And if he had thought any more about their exchange on the subject of kissing and its importance, that wasn’t obvious either.
“What are you doing?” Damn him for looking sexy and perfectly suited to cradling a baby to his chest when he had not a clue what he was doing.
He turned at the sound of her voice, his dark brows lifting. “Bailey was crying.”
“I heard. I was on my way.” Bailey opened half-closed lids to pin his big saucer eyes on her, his whining gathering impetus at the sight of her. As usual, her presence seemed to upset more than comfort him, and Eve felt herself wanting to whine a little herself.
“I thought I’d save you the trouble, let you get some sleep.” He sent her a wry smile. “But something tells me I wasn’t supposed to help.”
“You’re not helping,” Eve pointed out, feeling somehow powerless to stop herself sounding like a shrew, even when she kept her voice low. The interrupted sleep she was used to, but add to that a disruption to her and Bailey’s fragile routine and an unwanted awareness of Mike’s body and she felt just about ready to pitch one of Bailey’s toy trucks at the man’s head. “I’ve been allowing Bailey the opportunity to settle himself before I tend to him in the middle of the night. And I prefer not to change his environment by taking him out of his cot.”
“That sounds like something straight from one of those dour parenting books you’ve got out there.”
Eve’s fingernails dug into her palms. Bailey was already watching the exchange between them with interest, the undertones in their voices doing nothing to settle him back to sleep. With that in mind, Eve denied herself the gratification of arguing with Mike, whose arrogance was made possible only by an ignorance she would dearly love to point out to him. Instead, she stepped forward and held out her arms, relieved when Bailey immediately wriggled free of Mike’s embrace to settle into hers.
Eve rested her cheek against the little boy’s. “There you go B. We need to get you back to sleep now, okay? Good boy.”
She crooned to him, yet still he cried. She rocked him in her arms, but he looked up at her as though she were the most useless person in the world and opened his mouth to issue an ear-piercing scream.
Immediately Mike was beside her, offering his arms. “Let me take him.”
Eve sent him a look that could wither a flower on the stem. “You’re not helping. There’s too much activity in the room.”
“And you looking like you’re going to put your head through the wall is helping?”
“I’m fine,” Eve lied, her teeth clenched. Bailey’s screams were only mounting and, gallingly proving Mike’s point, each wail pushed her blood pressure higher. “Would you please just leave?”
With a look of pure frustration, Mike did as she asked. Without another word he stalked out of the nursery.
Damn. She hadn’t meant to fight with the man, but taking care of Bailey was her job, not Mike’s.
Eve forced the tension from her shoulders, gentling her tone. “It’s all right B. It’s all right.” She made gentle shushing noises that seemed to get her nowhere. At last, in desperation, she began to sing the first song that came into her head, ‘You Can’t Hurry Love’, by the Supremes, because she had heard it on the radio earlier that day.
Blessedly, the sound seemed to arrest Bailey’s attention. Gradually his sobs turned to tiny hiccupping sounds and by the time Eve sang, ‘before loneliness will cause my heart to break’ for the third time, his eyes were drooping.
Relief washed over her. At last she felt confident to gently place Bailey back in his timber cot, tucking his favourite teddy bear beside him. Eyelids at half-mast, he immediately reached for the toy, scrunching its plush ear in his hand the way he liked to do as he drifted off and looking at her with his big, droopy blue eyes.
Although it had seemed longer to her, he had gone from hysterical screaming to sleep in less that fifteen minutes, a much shorter time than it had taken her to settle him a month ago.
Backing slowly out of the room, Eve turned at the door, only to collide with Mike, who had at some point returned, unnoticed. He was leaning on the doorjamb, quietly watching her.
She felt cool skin, solid muscle, beneath her hands before she used them to push herself away from him. Her pulse skyrocketed again … because he had scared the life out of her, she told herself. “How long have you been standing there?”
His voice was as soft as hers. “Long enough to know you’re not going to win any karaoke competitions.”
“Very funny,” Eve told him in a tone that said he was being anything but. So she couldn’t hold a tune to save herself. It wasn’t very gracious of him to point it out.
Nor was it polite of him to watch her without making his presence known. And couldn’t he have put on a shirt? Her gaze trailed of its own volition over firm muscles, lightly dusted with dark, straight hair that looked like it would be soft to the touch. A narrow trail of it bisected his flat stomach before it disappeared beneath the elastic waist of his pants.
Stop it! Eve scolded herself. This was hardly the time or the place to be ogling a man, just because he happened to be there and happened to be good-looking. She forced her eyes to move back to his face, only to find him giving her the same perusal she’d given him.
Suddenly feeling conspicuous in her barely dressed state, Eve pulled the sash of her robe tighter.
He spoke cas
ually, as though the air around them wasn’t charged with enough electricity to keep Bailey’s night-light glowing for years to come. “I’ve made a pot of chamomile tea. Want some?”
She stepped past him, pulling the nursery door halfway closed. “Chamomile? I wouldn’t have picked you for a herbal tea drinker.”
“I’m willing to try anything once.”
Eve moved down the hall to the kitchen. “Why do I feel like you mean something by that?”
“Because you’re prickly and defensive.”
He said it in good humour, but Eve felt her shoulders tensing. “I don’t think I care for your impressions,” she retorted, using his own words of two nights ago against him.
“See,” he said. “Defensive.”
Irritated that she had just gone and proven his point, Eve turned to pull two china cups from the overhead cupboard, placing them beside the waiting teapot. She could feel Mike’s eyes on her as she poured the steaming, pale liquid into the cups. At length he asked, “When was the last time you tried anything new?”
She turned wide eyes to him. “You mean like taking over care of a child?”
“I’m not talking about that. You didn’t have much of a choice there. I mean in general. I bet you’ve been at the same job for years. I bet you’ve never done anything crazy.”
Feeling besieged, Eve said, “And just look where doing something crazy got Jacinta and Derek. Why are you attacking me, Mike?”
“I’m not.” He breathed out a sigh of frustration, scrubbing a hand down his face. For the first time, Eve noted the tired lines framing his eyes and thought of how little sleep he must have had. She knew, because she had heard his car drive in the last two nights, that he didn’t get home until around eleven, probably didn’t get to sleep until after midnight. Now it was after three, and he looked exhausted.
She quashed the quick leap of sympathy. She hadn’t asked him to tend to Bailey during the night.
“I’m just trying to understand why you’re so inflexible,” Mike explained. “Why you’re so averse to accepting help.”
“I’m not…” her voice trailed off. Okay, so she was. She had learned the hard way how to stand on her own two feet. She didn’t need Mike’s help, and she certainly didn’t want it.
She wasn’t going to launch into a revealing narrative about her difficult childhood, so she focused on the present. “I told you, I have a system whereby I allow Bailey a chance to soothe himself back to sleep. Then if I do go in, I try not to—”
“Alter his environment too much. I got it the first time. Do you really think you can learn all there is to know about this from a book?”
“And just how many children do you have, oh wise one?”
“None.” His lips twitched. “Fingers crossed.”
She gave him a look that made it plain how very unamusing she found that joke. “Do you suppose I should just rely on some mystical motherly instinct to take over?”
“Why not? Women have been having babies for centuries without doing a veritable degree in child-rearing.”
“And plenty of women have sucked at it.” Eve willed away the unhappy memories of her own mother that, once they flashed through her mind, wanted to get a grip and dig in their icy fingers. “I don’t believe in relying on instinct. If you think that makes me inflexible, that’s your problem.”
Eve took a sip of her tea, forcing herself to calm down. She would not lose her temper just because Mike was trying to push her buttons. Perhaps he wanted her to lose it, wanted her to admit she was having difficulty coping. That she needed him. “I’m surprised you’re so determined to get me to admit I might need you, Mike.”
He took a sip of his tea, gave an expressive grimace, and put the cup back on the counter. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Aren’t you afraid it might obligate you? That I might get used to your help and ask you to stay?”
He scrutinised her face, his own expression unreadable. “Is that what you’re afraid of—getting used to having me around?”
Her attempt to wrest the attack position from him so swiftly thwarted, Eve felt a moment of panic. Was it possible? Was she already beginning to lean on him?
No. It wasn’t possible in so short a time, not when she had spent her whole life relying only on herself and, in moments of necessity, Jacinta. With her best friend gone now, there was only her, and now she had more to do than care for herself. She had to care for Bailey.
It had been hard, harder than anything she had ever done, and the road ahead looked longer and more unpredictable than she cared to think about; but with Mike here, already things had changed. Already the knowledge that Bailey was with family when she went to work, instead of at a childcare centre, set her mind at ease. Knowing that Mike was here to take care of the home front had given her more comfort than she ever should have accepted.
She said, as much to reassure herself as to answer Mike’s question, “I wouldn’t be that stupid.”
His jaw set in a hard line. “I may not be my brother, Eve, but I can be relied on to help when help is needed.”
She knew that was true, at least for now, but Mike’s track record didn’t exactly speak to his stability, and he’d given no assurances that he planned to give up his fancy-free lifestyle. She couldn’t afford to forget that, ultimately, she was in this thing with Bailey alone.
To appease Mike, and because it was the truth and he deserved to have it acknowledged, Eve said, “I know. I haven’t thanked you for your…” she couldn’t say help “…being here the past few days. It has been a big … relief.”
Slowly, a smile spread across his face. His eyes danced green in the dim light. “That must have nearly killed you.”
Not nearly as much as that devastating smile of his. She found herself returning it. “You’ll never know how much.”
He stood and rounded the counter. Eve tensed as he approached. He might have brushed against her if she hadn’t shrunk back against the counter. He gave no sign that he had noticed her reaction, moving past her to tip his barely tasted cup of tea down the sink.
She forced lightness into her tone. “I thought you said you were willing to try anything once.”
He turned and saw she had indicated his unwanted chamomile tea. “I said I’d try it, I never promised I’d like it.”
Why did that comment make her anxious, nervous? Was it the comment or the deep timbre of his voice, the way he was looking at her with that soft smile in his eyes? Most likely, it was the fact that he had turned back toward her, was now standing mere inches away, all that exposed male flesh so close she could touch it … if she wanted to.
Oh, she wanted to.
But she wasn’t about to take up doing crazy things now. Mike was not something new she wanted to try. A woman who had never even played with matches didn’t suddenly take up pyrotechnics.
For a moment, she thought he would take the decision out of her hands. He stepped forward, so close his pant leg brushed against the hem of her robe. The cotton material suddenly seemed a barrier much too thin to ward off Mike’s sizzling energy. Eve’s breath caught in her throat. Trapped between his imposing length and the kitchen counter, she didn’t dare move.
He brought a hand up to touch her hair. He rubbed a wayward strand between this thumb and forefinger. “I like your hair down. You have the most amazing red hair I’ve ever seen.”
Eve felt his words hit her like a belt of straight scotch, warming her from the inside out. Disorienting her and making her weak. Her voice sounded strangled when she demanded, “Don’t. Don’t say things like that.”
He tilted his head, his eyes brushing over her mouth. Returning his gaze to hers, he looked about to say something. Maybe, again, he would ask her ‘why not’? She suspected Mike was a man who asked that question of himself a lot. Why not go to Greece and open a business? Why not be a part of his nephew’s life? Why not kiss Eve O’Brien?
Why not? Because I can’t afford to be weak around you, Mi
ke Wilcox.
After a tense, heated moment, he dropped her hair and stepped back. He nodded his head, once, to let her know he would grant her request. Then he said, his voice husky soft. “Goodnight, Eve. Sweet dreams.”
He had been gone almost a full minute before Eve moved. With a long sigh, she rinsed out her own cup and the teapot before turning off the kitchen light and heading back to bed.
Chapter 5
Mike pushed the bright red and blue plastic train across the living room rug, making pretend choo-choo noises as Bailey watched, a smile splitting his chubby face. When he got close enough, Mike abandoned the train and grabbed Bailey around the waist, letting out a mock growl and pretending he was a wolf who’d caught up with his prey.
Bailey squealed with delight at the game, twisting to release himself from Mike’s grip so he could dart behind his wooden toy box for protection. The knowing grin on his nephew’s face told him he was brimming with anticipation of the next such encounter and Mike gave him what he wanted, chasing him around the sofa on all fours, growling over Bailey’s musical laughter until his knees couldn’t take it anymore.
With a heartfelt sigh, he sat on the floor, leaning back against the couch. With the affectionate openness only the very young possessed, Bailey toddled over to him, sat down and placed his head on Mike’s knees. He looked up at him with such unqualified trust shining from his bright blue eyes that Mike felt something move against his ribs. He could swear his heart was expanding.
“Hey there, kiddo,” he murmured, reaching down to stroke his nephew’s soft downy hair.
“Dadada.”
He knew it was only gibberish. Those particular syllables coming from his nephew’s mouth shouldn’t have squeezed at his chest, but they did. In only a few days, his brother’s son had wormed his way into Mike’s heart.
His moving in here was supposed to have been simple, but Mike felt it growing more and more complicated by the hour.
Working the dinner shift at The Rusty Marlin was only temporary. As fun as it was to be trading jibes and jokes with Barry McClusky, who’d been a friend from as far back as their apprenticeship days, Mike wanted to do more than work in a pub kitchen. When he had decided to come back to Australia, he had got in contact with Jay Stephenson, his former boss in Melbourne. When Mike had left for London years ago, Jay had extended an open invitation for him to return to work in the one of the several top Melbourne restaurants he owned. Over the phone, Jay had been only too happy to reiterate the overture.