Michael's Baby. Cathie Linz

       Two

      “All done!” Brett declared from the kitchen threshold.

      Michael’s eyes traveled from the box to Brett. “Wha…at?”

      “I said I’m done fixing your stove. It’s as good as new. I put that new bulb in there while I was at it. Hey, are you okay?”

      Michael blinked, his head spinning. He felt so strange. Maybe he was coming down with the flu or something. That would explain the heat flashing through his body. It was just his imagination that made him think it was originating from the box he held in his hands. No, it must be the flu. It would be the perfect way to end such a miserable day.

      He blinked again, relieved to find that Brett Munro was back in focus once again. She’d taken off her bulky down coat and was wearing a curve-clinging soft sweater the same blue as her eyes. She was backlit by the kitchen ceiling light, which created a strange kind of halo behind the crown of her head. It was just an optical illusion, but it made him catch his breath. So did she. In that moment, she seemed beautiful.

      Brett stared back at Michael, captured by the powerful look in his hazel eyes as surely as if he’d clamped a pair of handcuffs around her wrists. She’d seen moments like this in movies, but had never been the recipient of such visual magic herself. This was a first. A momentous first. Something was going on here that would have dramatic consequences; she felt that in the deepest part of her soul. Her heart was pounding in her ears and breathing was all but forgotten.

      Then the mysterious box tilted in his shaking hands and the lid flipped shut. The sharp noise punctured the tensely silent air between them the way a pin punctured a balloon.

      Seeing Michael swaying, Brett immediately snapped out of her dreamlike state and rushed forward to prop her shoulder under his arm. He was just the right height for her to do that, she noted, feeling a shiver of awareness slip down her spine at his closeness.

      “Here, let me take that before you drop it,” she said, taking the box he was holding and setting it on top of his rack stereo system. “You certainly don’t have much furniture here,” she noted as she lowered him into the only piece in the room—a recliner that had seen better days.

      “No chintz couches,” he muttered, closing his eyes and leaning back to rest his head against the back of the chair.

      Chintz couches? The man sounded delirious, Brett decided. And he looked pale. Sexy as all get-out, but pale. Putting her hand on his forehead, she said, “Have you eaten anything today?”

      “You sound like my mother.”

      This came as no surprise to Brett. Men usually thought of her as either one of the boys or the protective motherly type. She’d taken enough guys under her maternal wing to man a softball team. In fact, she was honorary manager of a team called Vito’s Market Super-Sluggers. But she wasn’t wife material. “Just answer the question. What have you eaten today?”

      “Enough trouble to give a man indigestion.”

      “Have any food with your trouble?” she dryly inquired.

      “Naw, I had my trouble on the rocks today.”

      She tried to hide a smile. So the man had a sense of humor. “You’d probably feel better if you put some food in your stomach,” she noted.

      “So my mother always tells me.”

      “What will I find if I open your refrigerator?”

      “Your guess is as good as mine. I don’t get in there much.”

      She opted to look in his cupboard instead, where she found a couple of cans of soup. “Which would you prefer,” she called out, “cream of mushroom or hearty vegetable?”

      “I’d prefer getting the damn hot-water heater fixed,” he replied, glaring at the ceiling as Mr. and Mrs. Stephanopolis resumed their militant marching routine upstairs.

      Looking at the way the kitchen ceiling light swayed beneath the pounding from the floor above, Brett shot him an understanding look. “Sounds like someone up there is unhappy.”

      “They’re not the only ones,” Michael muttered.

      “Your soup will be done in a minute. I picked mushroom. And I’ll make some toast…” By the time she was done cheerfully telling him what she was going to fix for him, she had it ready, and carried it out to him. “Careful, it’s hot.”

      “Thanks,” he muttered.

      She smiled as if she knew how hard it was for him to say that.

      “If you fix hot-water heaters as fast as you do soup, you’ve got a job,” he heard himself saying.

      Taking his toolbox in hand, she said, “I’ll go check it out. Is it in the basement?”

      He nodded, his mouth full of soup.

      “Don’t worry. I’ll find it,” she said with a confident grin.

      Don’t worry? Michael was worried plenty. What on earth had possessed him to offer her a job if she fixed the damn water heater? Desperation, that’s what had possessed him. Combined with a lack of food and lack of sleep.

      Michael set his empty plate and soup bowl on the floor next to his chair. He didn’t remember closing his eyes, but when he opened them again, he found Brett standing before him—a triumphant smile on her face as she waved a wrench in the air. “I did it! Your hot-water heater is working just fine now.”

      For some reason, Michael’s heart sank at her declaration. He’d only felt that way once before, when the Bears had fumbled a critical play that had ended up costing them their play-off bid. Michael couldn’t help wondering what hiring Brett Munro was going to end up costing him.and he wasn’t thinking of her salary. His ad had clearly stated what he was willing to pay, and it wasn’t much, but he had tossed in a rent-free basement studio apartment into the deal.

      “You won’t regret giving me this job,” Brett was excitedly saying, ignoring the fact that he hadn’t actually said she had the job yet. She wasn’t about to let him wiggle out of their deal.

      “What was wrong with the hot-water heater?” Michael demanded, lurching to his feet. “On second thought, don’t tell me.” He stalked into the kitchen and flipped back the faucet. Hot water poured out. Damn.

      He knew he should be counting his blessings as he heard the muffled cheers of Mr. and Mrs. Stephanopolis coming from upstairs. He’d finally found a handyman—only she was a woman, one who seemed to have the strangest affect on him.

      But it could never be said that Michael Janos wasn’t a man of his word. He’d promised her the job of building supervisor and by God he’d keep that promise. But he doubted she’d be able to keep the job. Once she saw how many things were wrong with this eccentric building, she was bound to quit. Any sane person would.

      “The studio apartment isn’t very big,” Michael warned her as he unlocked the door in the basement.

      “That’s okay, I don’t have much stuff.”

      “It needs work,” he added before giving the stubborn door a hefty nudge.

      “I’m a whiz with a paintbrush,” she replied.

      What did it take to make this woman discouraged? Michael found himself wondering. Then he got distracted by the sight of the sunlight hitting her hair, reminding him of that moment upstairs when she’d been standing in the kitchen doorway