The Baby Beneath the Mistletoe Page 7

  Mikky ignored the sarcasm and took his comment at face value. “That’s different. That’s clutter on its way to becoming something.” Because Justin was still whimpering, she began rocking him. “What you have here is just clutter.”

  She was right about that, but Tony wasn’t about to let her know that. “Thanks for pointing out the difference.”

  He left the room before things began to escalate again.

  It was several minutes later, as he debated unpacking at least a couple of the boxes in the living room—in the interest of space and not because she was harping on it—that he became conscious of the sound of her voice, low and melodic, drifting around him. Surrounding him like a large, warm towel just freshly taken from the dryer. It took effort to shake off the effects.

  Tony glanced at the pile of papers on the coffee table. Even though he’d brought some work home with him, he felt too restless to concentrate and focus on anything with her here. Mindless physical activity seemed like the perfect solution.

  He approached the boxes closest to him. Except that it wouldn’t be mindless. Everything within the boxes had some sort of memory attached to it, however minor. He didn’t feel up to dealing with them yet.

  Hearing her sing tipped the scales. The boxes could wait a little longer. He had enough space to navigate from room to room, and he didn’t need her telling him what he should or shouldn’t do.

  Straining, he tried to hear what Mikky was singing. But he couldn’t make out any of the words. There was a reason for that, he suddenly realized. She wasn’t singing in English. It was some foreign tongue he couldn’t put a label on. All he knew for certain was that it wasn’t Spanish, which he knew enough of to recognize.

  This was probably just gibberish.

  For gibberish, the slow, sad tune had a hypnotic power. He tried to shut out the sound and found that was even harder to do than deciphering the words. Her voice was low, seductive, tantalizing. Like light wine that teased and aroused before it went in for the kill and intoxicated.

  Silly thought. Where was he getting all this from?

  He was just tired, he thought. Maybe before he did anything else, he’d just stretch out in front of the television set and watch the news for a few minutes. Or see whatever else was on.

  It bothered him that he was out here while she was in there, tending to the baby that had so quickly become his personal responsibility. But if he went in, they were sure to get into it again.

  He wasn’t up to arguing.

  Turning on the set, he waited two beats before changing the channel. And giving the next contender the same time limit. What was it about her that irritated him so? he wondered. After all, Mikky seemed like a decent enough woman, giving up her evening to help someone she didn’t get along with. And God knew she wasn’t hard on the eye, if he were in the market for that sort of thing. The curves were all in the right places, and she had a way of raising her breasts when she was making a particularly salient point....

  Best not go there. He flipped through two channels in quick succession, working his way into the cable selections.

  It was her mouth that was the problem, he decided. If she just kept it shut...if he thought about it, it was almost tempting when it was shut....

  He stopped surfing.

  “Well, he’s finally asleep.”

  A bone-weary sigh followed her statement. Walking out of the bedroom, Mikky felt exhausted. It had taken more than a full hour of rocking and pacing, making a zigzag pattern between the boxes that threatened to make her dizzy after a while, before she had finally gotten Justin to drift off again. For a while there, it had been almost touch-and-go which of them would fall asleep first.

  “I’m just going to—”

  Mikky stopped as she realized that Tony hadn’t acknowledged her entrance, not because of any habitual crustiness on his part but because he was asleep himself. Sprawled out on the sofa, with every indication that he’d slid down from a sitting position, he was sound asleep. Though the program on the television screen was going strong, it was there by happenstance instead of choice. The remote had fallen from his slack fingers.

  For a moment Mikky just stood there looking at him. Asleep, Tony didn’t look nearly as forbidding as he did awake. His hair had fallen into his eyes, and his features had softened under the light hand of sleep. He really was heart-stoppingly handsome, at that, she mused. It was his perpetual scowl that made her more or less oblivious to his looks. Well, maybe less than more, she amended, a smile creeping to her lips.

  “You don’t look so much like the big, bad wolf anymore, Marino,” she murmured. She curbed the desire to trail her fingers through the wayward locks of his hair.

  Now what, she wondered. By all rights she could just slip out and go, but she didn’t feel right about leaving the baby alone while Tony was asleep out here. What if he slept like a dead man? What if the baby started to cry and he didn’t hear him? Tony hadn’t woken up when she’d come out talking to him, and he was sleeping right through the rather loud program.

  Not her problem.

  Yeah, it was, she amended. She was here, that made it hers.

  Someday she was going to have to do something about anesthetizing that conscience of hers.

  “Damn, but you don’t make this easy, Marino.” Making up her mind, she went to the telephone in the kitchen. She had to page Johnny again.

  And while she was at it, maybe she’d put in a call to Thad. Eleven months her junior and Johnny’s twin, Thad had just made detective on the narcotics squad of the Bedford Police Department. If anyone could find things out for her, it was Thad.

  The ache in his neck and shoulders seeped into his consciousness, mingling with fading strains of a woman’s voice that echoed in his head and displacing it It was a dream.

  At least the voice was. The ache was real.

  Tony stretched, trying to work the kink out. He must have dozed off.

  As his surroundings penetrated the lifting fog around his brain, he realized that the television set was off. And instead of darkness, there was daylight spilling in through the windows.

  When did that happen? He didn’t even remember closing his eyes.

  “Damn.”

  Blinking away the last haze of sleep, he looked at his watch. His annoyance elevated. He’d not only allowed himself to fall asleep, but he’d been sleeping for almost eight hours.

  Justin.

  Tony shot to his feet and almost tripped when he took a step. There was a blanket bunched at his feet It had fallen off him when he’d bolted upright But he didn’t remember...

  Unless she...

  Confused, Mikky’s name ricocheted through his brain like a misfired shot. Right now, she didn’t matter. He’d left a baby alone, he upbraided himself as he picked his way to his bedroom as fast as possible.

  She was right about these stupid boxes, too, damn her.

  The baby wasn’t alone.

  Mikky was curled at the foot of the bed, her arm tucked beneath her head as an impromptu pillow. He felt something stir within him as he looked at her, wrapped in sleep. It had been a long time since he’d watched a woman sleep.

  Tony roused himself. She looked far from comfort able. How long had she been here like this?

  Obviously all night, and that was his fault. He was going to hear about it the minute she woke up. But that didn’t matter right now. What did was Justin. He looked toward the little boy and found to his relief that the baby was still sound asleep, just like she was.

  The best of all possible worlds.

  Until she woke up, Tony thought, easing out of the room.

  Mikky woke up with a start, unsure what it was that had awakened her. Disoriented, she tried to remember where she was and why. For a few seconds she thought she was back in Los Angeles, in the rundown apartment on Beaker Street. Sharing a bed with Rebecca.

  And then it came back to her. That’s right, she was playing angel of mercy. For a devil of a man.

  Time t
o get her wings refitted, she thought.

  Very carefully, watching the baby to make sure she didn’t accidentally jostle him, Mikky eased herself off the bed. This morning, she promised herself as she rotated her neck, Marino was on his own. She had a life to get back to.

  Picking up the shoes she’d kicked off hours ago, she tiptoed out of the room and closed the door behind her. She was dying for a shower, but that was going to have to wait until she got home. There was no way she was taking one here. All she needed was to have Marino wake up and walk in on her. He would probably accuse her of attempting to seduce him.

  As if that would even cross her mind. Cold day in hell before that would happen....

  She wondered if Thad had found out anything, then realized it was too soon for that.

  Tony wasn’t where she’d left him. Calling out his name softly got her no response. He wasn’t there.

  “Terrific.”

  Maybe he’d decided the baby was a hot potato, and it was her turn to be “it.” With a sigh, she ran her hand through her hair, trying to focus her brain.

  She needed caffeine. Badly.

  Maybe Marino had only been kidding about not having any coffee. Right now she would have settled for chewing on the unground beans.

  She found neither.

  Obviously, she thought, looking into the refrigerator, the man wasn’t given to understatement. There was nothing inside except for the two cartons of milk she’d had him buy. Disgusted, she let the door drop. Curiosity pushed her to take inventory of the pantry. The jars of baby food were still on the counter. The cupboard yielded a half-empty box of breakfast tarts and some popcorn packages for the microwave. Toaster tarts and popcorn. That, she supposed, was his idea of a hot meal.

  Mikky shook her head as her stomach growled. It had been hours since she’d eaten. The baby food was beginning to look pretty good to her.

  No wonder Marino was so grumpy. She would be, too, without something decent to eat.

  The sound of a key being inserted into the lock had her whirling toward the front door. Relief outweighed annoyance when she saw Tony walking in. That meant the responsibility for the small human being in the bedroom had reverted back to him.

  She looked around for her purse, then remembered she’d tossed it on the table. It had slid down to the floor. “I thought maybe you decided to make a run for it.”

  Tony had no idea why that sounded as if she were talking like this was the morning after a passion-laced but meaningless night of torrid lovemaking. He dismissed the thought with effort.

  “No, I just went out to get this.” Opening the bag he’d brought with him, he took out a large takeout cup of coffee and placed it on the table in front of her. She didn’t take it. “Do you want it in a mug?”

  She looked at him in surprise and wonder. A smile began to curve her mouth. “It’s for me?”

  “Yeah, you said you couldn’t get started in the morning without it.” Shrugging, he looked away. He liked it better when she was swiping at him. He didn’t know what to do with gratitude. “I thought—”

  He’d been listening to her, Mikky thought. More than that, he’d remembered. She didn’t know whether to be astonished or touched. When it came down to it, she felt a little of each.

  Taking a long, big sip, she let the coffee wind its healing liquid all through her. “You do have your human moments, don’t you?”

  “Mostly not around you.”

  If she didn’t know any better, she would have said he was being positively shy. “I noticed.”

  Tony nodded toward the bag. “There’s an order of scrambled eggs in there. I don’t know if you have a thing about cholesterol...” That was the singularly most stupid thing he’d ever said, he thought. It was her mouth again, throwing him off by smiling that way at him.

  What would that quirky smile feel like if he—He stopped his mind from wondering too far.

  “Right now the only thing I have ‘a thing’ about is hunger. I’m starving.” Like a child at Christmas, she gleefully looked into the bag and pulled out the order of scrambled eggs. “Thanks.”

  She ate with pleasure, he noticed. Like someone who thought food was a gift. Absently he wondered if that was a holdover from her childhood. He told himself there was no need to know, but he wondered, anyway.

  “What was that I heard you singing to Justin last night?” He could swear that he could still hear it right now.

  So he’d been listening. Mikky hadn’t realized her voice had carried. She’d tried to be quiet “An old Polish lullaby. I don’t know all the words, just a couple of refrains actually, but it sticks in my head, and it seems to do the trick with babies. I sang it to all my brothers and sisters when they were little.”

  Tony could see her doing that, holding court amid a group of small children. He supposed she had a nice voice as far as singing went. “Did your mother sing it to you?”

  The open expression on her face darkened just a touch. “I really don’t remember.”

  She did, he thought, but she didn’t want to talk about it. It was too private. He could respect that.

  Too bad it wasn’t a two-way street.

  But then, that didn’t matter either, really. It wasn’t as if they were going to be running into each other very much after this. Once the high school was on its way to completion, Tony doubted they’d ever see each other again. But for now, Tony thought as he lingered over his coffee, it felt nice having someone to share the table with.

  Chapter Six

  “I didn’t mean to sack out on you like that.”

  Tony found it easier to address the air above her head than to look directly at her when he spoke. It was the coward’s way he supposed, but he chose to think of it as taking a rational approach. This way there’d be no temptation to get into an argument with her when he was trying to apologize.

  No temptation at all. But he knew Justin was his responsibility, not hers. He had to admit he was surprised Mikky hadn’t upbraided him for shirking.

  “You were tired.”

  Since she was being civil about it, he supposed he could be the same about other things. “Look, maybe we got off on the wrong foot before.”

  Mikky set down the container of eggs and studied him. He looked as if he’d spent an even-less-comfortable night on that chair than she had at the foot of the mattress.

  “Besides,” Mikky continued magnanimously, “you’re not the first person to bite off more than he could chew.”

  Another crack. Tony should have known better. The woman wasn’t being civil, she was just lulling him into a false sense of security so she could set him up.

  “And then again,” he rescinded, “maybe we didn’t. I’m not biting off anything.” He resented the way she could just arbitrarily lump him into any category that pleased her fancy, as if he were nothing more than a laboratory rat, there for her observation and amusement. “I’m minding a baby for a friend.”

  Because he’d gotten her coffee, Mikky let his raised voice slide. Besides, she was too curious to have him stop talking now. Just where was he going with this? They’d already established that he didn’t know who the baby belonged to. Had he lied?

  “who?”

  The words had just popped out. Tony had no real friends out here anymore, outside of the family. He’d declined every invitation from the crew to grab a drink at a local restaurant after hours; had done everything he could to maintain a firm distance between himself and the others who worked for him. His heart wasn’t into socializing; it was buried back in Colorado.

  “A friend who’ll remain nameless until they show up,” he snapped at her. “What are you, a part-time interrogator for the CIA?”

  “If I were,” she informed him tersely, getting up, “you would have been blown up by now.” Picking up the coffee cup, she threw back her head and drained its contents, then replaced it on the table. “I think the fat lady has just sung. Thanks for the coffee.” With a sweep of her hand, she cleared away the two contai
ners, depositing them into the wastebasket he had against the wall. “I’ll see you at work.”

  But as she turned to go, Tony caught her wrist, upbraiding himself even as he did it. He wasn’t even sure why he was trying to stop her, except that deep inside he knew he’d just behaved like a belligerent jerk. There was no question about it, she definitely brought out the worst in him.

  Mikky looked at him, her mouth firmly shut, her eyes sweeping from his fingers wrapped around her wrist to his face. She waited for an explanation.

  What was it about her eyes that got to him? That made him feel as if he was completely transparent when even he couldn’t figure himself out? He hadn’t a clue. “I wasn’t always such an idiot.”

  Mikky contained a sigh before it escaped. Damn it, another veiled apology. Why couldn’t Marino leave her in peace, let her embrace her annoyance and be done with it? When he made apologetic noises like this, she felt bound to let what he’d said earlier pass.

  She was beginning to feel like a yo-yo.

  She let her wrist drop. He loosened his hold. “Nice to know there’s hope for humanity.” Feeling a need for some sort of truce, and knowing it was up to her to initiate it, she searched for common ground between them. “Why don’t we just agree that we seem to rub each other the wrong way and let it go at that?” Then, lest her words instigate another volley, for whatever mysterious reason he might see fit, she added, “I’ve seen enough to convince me that you can be nice when you want to be. I just seem to set you off, that’s all.”

  It was silently understood that he reciprocated the reaction.

  On impulse Mikky rose on her toes to brush a kiss on his cheek.

  Surprised by the sudden movement, Tony turned his head just enough for the kiss to miss its mark. And find a completely unexpected one.

  Surprise built on surprise, utterly overwhelming him. Knocking him to his knees, figuratively if not literally.

  Maybe it was because his resistance was low. Maybe it was because he hadn’t kissed a woman since the morning Teri left his life so abruptly.