The Baby beneath the Mistletoe

Some family they were.

Mikky waited until Angelo and Shad had left and the door to the trailer was closed before turning toward Tony again.

The invitation from the man’s cousins had made her feel warm. In contrast, any exchange with Tony just made her feel hot. Hot under the collar and braced to go the full fifteen rounds of a championship fight in which she had to be the winner in order to survive in this field. She couldn’t afford to look as if she didn’t know what she was doing. Word spread too fast in the architectural community, and although the number of female architects was growing, there were still not enough to make her feel comfortable and at ease. Sometimes she felt as if she were carrying the standard for all women in the male-dominated field.

God, but the man did look formidable when he was annoyed, she thought, her eyes quickly sweeping over him. She couldn’t help wondering what his face looked like when it was relaxed, or when he was laughing. She had yet to see him even attempt a smile. Something told her that it would not be an unpleasant sight, but she doubted if she’d ever get to witness it firsthand.

It didn’t matter. She wasn’t here to make friends, just a good reputation.

Vowing to keep her own temper in check no matter what, she looked at Tony expectantly. She wanted to get this over with as quickly as possible because she didn’t want to be late for the movie she’d promised to catch with her brother, Johnny. “Well?”

Tony didn’t like her tone. She’d walked in on a meeting he’d had earlier with Mendoza, the foreman, taking him to task for changes she’d discovered he was about to make on her design. She’d had the nerve to all but order him to take another look before he struck out so much as a single line.

He’d been on the phone most of the morning, tracking down a shipment of conduit wiring that had mysteriously gone astray and hadn’t had time to go over their newest bone of contention at length. But he didn’t feel he had to. Right was right, no matter how thoroughly it was examined.

“ ‘Well’ nothing, you know what I have to say.”

He folded the blueprints back so that the design was showing on both sides and indicated the area they were coming at from opposite ends. How could she not see how obvious the problem was?

Talking as if he were explaining it to a slow-witted child, he said, “You can’t have the mezzanine sticking out this far. It jeopardizes the integrity of the floor joist here, not to mention the ridge beam.” Stopping, he began to deliberately point out the long, straight lines below the roof. “That’s this—”

Mikky curbed the urge to swat his hand away from the blueprints. “I know where the ridge beam is.” Mikky had no doubt that if she were a man, Marino wouldn’t have been talking down to her that way.

“Fine. Then you also know that if you eliminate the mezzanine—”

“I am not going to eliminate the mezzanine.” The man was nothing short of a shark, she thought, her temperature rising despite all her promises to herself. With unerring instinct, he was going for an area vital to her style. Mikky had worked hard to incorporate that into her design. The music-and-arts complex was the jewel in the five-building setting.

Blowing out an angry breath, he looked at her. “What do high school students need with a mezzanine?”

Now he was talking nonsense. “What does anyone need with pleasing shapes and sleek lines? Why five buildings? Why not just make everything into a great big ugly box?” Realizing her voice had gone up, Mikky stopped using hand gestures to underscore her words and attempted to rein in her irritation. “Because it’s more aesthetic this way, that’s why.”

Tony had no idea why, when she mentioned pleasing shapes and sleek lines, his eyes had been drawn to Mikky’s own form. They were talking—arguing—about a building. A building that wasn’t going to go up if it had to be according to her design.

There was absolutely no reason for him to notice that when her voice went up an octave, her breasts strained against the plum-colored sweater she was wearing. Who the hell wore colors like that to a construction site, anyway? he thought in irritation. “Aesthetic?” He spat out the word. “They’re there to learn, not philosophize.” He believed in solid, utilitarian construction, not gingerbread and sugar that melted in the first rain. And this kind of design was wasted on the audience it was to have. “Kids that age haven’t got enough in their heads to philosophize about, anyway. All they think about is having fun, nothing else.”

Memories clawing at him, Tony turned away to collect himself. Everything kept going back to that, to the moment his life had been irrevocably shattered.

Mikky watched his back, saw the silent struggle being waged, saw the tension in his shoulders. She knew his story. Had asked around after their first meeting. He’d struck her as a walking ice palace, and she’d wanted to know why. She’d had one of her brothers, an investigative reporter on the staff of the L.A. Times, nose around for her. Johnny had come across a story in the Denver Post. Marino’s wife and three-year-old son had been killed in a car crash, both dying instantly when a teenage driver, drunk and out joyriding with his friends, had slammed into their car. Marino had been away at an engineering conference at the time.

Sympathy was something that came as naturally to Mikky as breathing. Even sympathy for someone who kept biting her head off. She figured he had issues to work out. But she wouldn’t have him do it at her expense.

Her voice softened. “Look, I’m sorry about your wife and little boy—”

His head snapping up, Tony looked at her sharply, his eyes dark and dangerous. She’d jabbed a long, narrow pin deep inside an open wound. She had no business even approaching it.

“Thanks.” The word was covered with so much frost, Mikky thought she was in danger of losing all feeling in her extremities. “But I’d appreciate if you didn’t mention them. This has nothing to do with them.” He looked at the blueprint. “These are teenagers. They’re supposed to be attending school to learn. All they need are classrooms, not mezzanines or enclosed atriums or cascading waterfalls—”

She was trying to be understanding, but he was pushing her to the limit. This was her work he was criticizing so cavalierly. Like a mother coming to her child’s defense, Mikky felt her adrenaline beginning to rise. The whole point of the design was to come up with something that was in keeping with the larger scheme of things within the city. Bedford was on record as a planned community—a place where everything was a celebration of shapes and colors, that strove also for balance and harmony within the community. Was he determined to ruin that just for the sake of argument?

The Southwoed High complex was going to be the first building block to forge her reputation and as such was of tantamount importance to her. This was her first solo baby, and she meant to do right by it. And have it do right by her.

Maybe that made her a tad overprotective of the design. But she’d made absolutely certain she’d been right in her calculations—that there were no faults, no surprises—and she was going to stick to her guns come hell or high water.

Or a man named Tony Marino.

“Then, why don’t we just build a little red schoolhouse and be done with it?” she challenged.

“Don’t get sarcastic with me.”

Far from being intimidated, Mikky fisted her hands on her hips, anger bubbling inside of her at a breathtaking speed. Its very advent took her by surprise. While no one had ever accused her of being easygoing, she’d never been one to overheat quickly, either. But there was something about Marino that lit her fuse. “Then don’t get belligerent with me. I’m just trying to do a job, same as you.”

The hell she was. There was nothing the same about them, and there never would be. Tony felt as if the trailer had somehow grown even more cramped than it already was. “No, what you are trying to do is challenge everything I say.”

He made it sound as if Mikky enjoyed beating her head against his stone wall. Maybe that was Marino’s idea of a good time, but it certainly wasn’t hers. “When you’re wrong—”

He slapped the blueprint down on his desk, underlining his point. “There, you just did it again.”

Mikky opened her mouth, then clamped it shut again. This wasn’t getting them anywhere. This was going to escalate until they were both shouting at each other, and she didn’t want to wind up saying things she couldn’t take back.

She held up her hands, not in surrender but in a gesture calculated to make him back off. “Okay, why don’t we go back to our corners and wait for the bell to sound on a new round?”

Tony didn’t have patience with analogies. On the outskirts of his mind it occurred to him that he didn’t have much patience with anything lately. She just seemed to bring it out more radically.

“Meaning?”

Trying not to grit her teeth together, Mikky spelled it out for him. “Meaning, why don’t you—why don’t we,” she amended, knowing that to leave the suggestion in the singular was asking for trouble, “take the weekend to cool off and start again—fresh—Monday morning?” She figured that was only fair. Given the hour, he couldn’t take exception with that. “I’ll think about what you said and you—” picking up the blueprint from his desk, Mikky took out her pen and drew a few lines beneath the offending mezzanine on the upper right-hand corner “—think about this.”

What she had drawn in, in her estimation, should do the trick to offset the stress problem he had pointed out to her. Though she hated to admit it, it had been an oversight on her part. An oversight that any normal construction manager would have realized and remedied easily, without any dramatic denouncements and billows of fire coming out of his nostrils every time he spoke to her.

“There.” She thrust the paper back at him, then went to the door. “I’ll see you Monday. And don’t worry, nice though it would be to meet the saner members of your family, I have no intention of taking Angelo up on his invitation for Sunday dinner at your aunt’s house.” Mikky pulled open the door, more than ready to leave all this behind her for the space of two days. “I have trouble swallowing when daggers are being flung at me.”

The door closed behind her with a resounding slam before Tony had a chance to say anything.

He stared at the blueprint. Muttering a curse that was aimed at him rather than her, he crumpled the paper between his hands and tossed it aside. She was right, damn her. About more than one thing. Which annoyed him even more.

But annoyed or not, it didn’t negate the fact that he was acting like a jerk, he thought reproachfully. He just couldn’t help himself. He was trying to get on with his life, he really was, but he kept tripping over his own feet while looking for the right path.

There didn’t seem to be one.

He knew they meant well—Angelo, Shad and the others. Maybe even that aggravating woman who had just sauntered out of here swinging those sleek, tight hips of hers meant well, though he doubted it. But all the good intentions in the world weren’t working.

Moving around to the other side of his desk, he yanked open the bottom drawer and took out the half-pint of whisky he’d purchased. He’d brought it with him on the first day, leaving it in the drawer for when he needed it. Hoping he wouldn’t. But he felt as if he’d reached the end of the line right now. Coming here had been his last hope, and things were just not coming together. Instead, they felt as if they were unraveling. He was losing his temper more frequently, ready to fly off the handle over things he should have been able to take in stride. His life was spinning out of control, and there was nothing he could do to stop it. But at least he could anesthetize himself to it for a while.

Taking the bottle out, he held it in his hand, staring at the amber liquid. He had to get away, go off somewhere by himself and work this out. He’d been wrong to come here, wrong to put everyone through this with him.

Unscrewing the cap, he brought the top to his lips. It wasn’t their problem, it was—

The slight rap on the door made him freeze. Thinking maybe he’d imagined it, Tony listened closely. He heard it again. Though it was completely different from her earlier knock, he immediately thought of Mikky. The woman had probably decided to have another go at him despite all her talk about their taking a breather. Obviously the scent of blood drew her in, just like a scavenger.

Capping the bottle, he put the untouched half-pint back in the drawer and closed it. He knew he should apologize to Mikky for the way he lost his temper, but he wasn’t feeling very apologetic as he crossed to the door.

With a yank, Tony pulled it open. “Look, if you want to continue this fight, then—”

His words had no audience. Mikky wasn’t standing on his doorstep. No one was. Leaning out, he looked around, but he didn’t see anyone. Darkness blanketed everything.

And then a gurgling sound caught his ear. A gurgling sound coming from just about his shoe level. Puzzled, he looked down.

It was then that he saw the baby.

Chapter Two

Why do you let him get to you like that? Annoyed with herself, Mikky locked the door of the small trailer that housed her drawing board and all the miscellaneous paraphernalia she’d brought with her. Absently she slipped the key ring onto her finger and then, pulling her jacket closer, she strode toward where she’d left her car parked.

In the distance she saw the lone security guard looking her way. She waved. The German shepherd he kept with him barked once, acknowledging her movement in something less than friendly tones. Mikky dropped her hand.

It wasn’t as if she wasn’t versed in verbal combat. She was and she was damn good at it. Hadn’t she grown up with four brothers and three sisters? Didn’t she know how to hold her own, even when it was against more than one of them at a time? And wasn’t she the one who always struck a blow for common sense and common ground?

Because it was cold, even for a Southern California December, she shoved her hands into her pockets as she hurried along. All right, maybe not every time, she amended, but enough times to really count.

So why did she feel as if a match was being struck to her every time she found herself talking to that—to that pompous, foul-tempered—

Mikky let the thought go, knowing that pasting a label on Marino would only make things worse in her mind. She wasn’t here to fight, she was here to do a job, to see her project through to its completion. This was the first big contract she’d won on her own. Name calling wasn’t going to help her along toward her goal.

Even if it did feel good.

Arriving at her car, she unlocked the door and tossed her purse in on the passenger side before sliding in herself. Much as she hated the thought, what she did need to do was apologize to the big ape and do her best to seem congenial and sincere about it.

She started her car as she rolled the thought over in her mind.

Maybe if she got him to relax, she could handle him.

Yeah, right. Fat chance of that happening. The man could only be handled by an experienced lion tamer with a tranquilizer gun. Sighing, she began the slow, bumpy drive through the site, heading for the street in the distance.

Still, she didn’t want to take a chance on coming away with a bad reputation. All she wanted to do was get her damn design up—as close to its original conception as possible.

It wasn’t that she was being stubborn. She wasn’t so stubborn that she couldn’t be shown the error of her thinking—if there was an error—but it had to be done in a civilized fashion. She refused to be barked at.

Belatedly, she turned on her lights. Bright yellow beams cut through the encroaching dusk. Her father had always barked at her, she remembered. His grousing had made her reexamine her every move. Years later she’d discovered that, despite his outwardly gruff manner, her father had been that way with her to make her strong. In his own fashion he’d tried to prepare her for the world. Walter Rozanski firmly believed that life was there to bring a person to his knees, and he wanted none of his children to be forced into that position. Riding them was the only way he knew how to make them fit enough to meet the hardships along the way.

Maybe Marino reminded her of her father, Mikky thought with a sudden shiver. Or maybe he just reminded her of a bad-tempered bear. In any event it was up to her to get along with the man. Once this job was completed, if the fates were kind, she would never have to interact with Tony Marino again.

Mikky paused, hesitating just before she drove off the lot. She looked toward Marino’s trailer. The light was still on. Except for his car, and the guard’s beat-up truck, the lot was empty. Everyone else had gone home for the weekend. There would be no one to come in and interrupt her if she apologized to him.

Vacillating for a few moments, Mikky took a deep, cleansing breath and blew it out, then made her decision. Okay, it was now or never, before she thought better of this madness and changed her mind.

The things a person had to do for the sake of peace, she thought grudgingly. She wasn’t naive enough to think that any sort of real harmony could come out of this, but it would be nice if the sniping would stop.

Mikky guided her car along the uneven, freshly graded dirt toward the trailer. Reaching it, she pulled up the hand brake, put the car into Park and turned the engine off.

Nothing rankled her more than apologizing when she didn’t feel as if she was in the wrong. But she wasn’t selling out, she told herself as she got out. She was doing this so she could get on with the work. So her name could be associated with this brand-new high school, and hopefully with a lot of other new projects and developments as yet unplanned.

It wasn’t selling out, it was having good business sense.

The silent pep talk didn’t help. Walking up the three steps to his trailer, she knocked on the door. There was no immediate answer, and she almost left before forcing herself to knock again.

This time she thought she heard a cat mewling inside the trailer. Odd, she didn’t remember seeing a cat, and she was certain someone would have mentioned it to her if Marino kept a cat on the premises.

Actually, now that she listened, she thought the noise sounded more like—

“A baby.”

The incredulous words tumbled from her lips as Tony opened the door. In the crook of one arm, held awkwardly against his chest, was a baby. She judged it to be approximately nine months old. It was wrapped up in a faded, tom, blue blanket.

Stunned, Mikky raised her eyes to his. “What are you doing with a baby?”

Great, Tony thought, this was all he needed to add to the confusion he was already wading through. He leaned out again to see if there was someone lurking in the shadows, ready to capitalize on this practical joke they were playing. But the lot was as empty now as it had been five long minutes ago.

The sinking sensation that this was no joke was beginning to penetrate.

“Holding it.” Tony ground out the words.

“Besides that?” Mikky asked, shouldering her way past him into the trailer. As she moved by him, she took the baby into her own arms.

Though a protest initially leaped to his lips, Tony surrendered his burden willingly. One glance at Mikky forced him to admit that she had a far better feel for holding a child that size than he did. It had been a long time since he’d held a baby in his arms. The bittersweet memories holding it evoked was just about doing him in.

He didn’t need this on top of everything else.

Mikky knew for a fact that Marino had no other children. What was he doing with this baby? Turning to look at him, she saw that there was no explanation forthcoming. It figured.

“Well?” Opening her jacket, she cradled the baby against her, enjoying the warm feel of its small, rounded body. Maternal feelings that had long been sublimated leaped up within her. She wanted children. A whole house full of them. Unable to resist, she kissed the small head. “Where did it come from?”

His wide shoulders rose and fell. “I found it on the doorstep.”

Why did every scrap of information she got from him first have to be preceded by a tug-of-war? “No, I mean really.”

“Really,” he insisted. Tony gestured toward a beaten-up baby seat. “The baby was in that.”

Cooing soothing noises at the small invader, Mikky turned to look at the baby seat. It looked as if it had been in service a very long time. The baby was making sucking sounds against her shoulder that she recognized as hunger in the making. It was going to need baby food and milk and soon.

With one hand holding the child in place, she picked up the blanket from the baby seat and shook it. A creased envelope fell out.

Unable to open it herself, Mikky held the envelope out to Tony. She couldn’t help wondering if her initial sympathy for him was misguided. Maybe there was more to this man than she’d thought. Maybe this was his baby....

“Want to read it?”

Tony took the envelope from her before the tone of her voice registered. He looked at her sharply. “Why? You think it’s mine?”

“Is it?”

His laugh was short and completely devoid of humor. “Only in a parallel universe.”

He hadn’t looked at another woman since he’d met Teri, much less engaged in a liaison with one. And there had been no one since his wife’s death. He was completely dead inside.

Annoyed at her, he tore open the envelope, taking off a corner of the note with it. Ignoring Mikky, he shook the note out and quickly read it. There wasn’t much to read.

Curious, unable to see anything in his expression, Mikky stood on her toes to look around his arm at the note herself.

“Please take care of Justin. I know you can,” she read out loud. No help there. She looked at Tony. “Not much to go on, is it?”

Instead of answering right away, Tony dropped the note on his desk, letting it land on the blueprint, which, she noticed, looked far more crumpled now than when she’d left a few minutes earlier. That it was apparently smoothed out again indicated he’d obviously had a change of heart about his feelings. He was a hard man to figure out, she thought.

“No,” Tony answered, his voice very still, “it’s not.” He felt as if someone had just dropped an anvil on his chest.

Moving into the light so she could get a better look at his face, Mikky saw that his olive complexion had grown almost pale. “What’s the matter?”

His eyes averted, Marino refused to even look at her. “Nothing.”

Mikky was tired of having him bite the hand she kept offering in friendship. She took the same tone she took with one of her brothers on the infrequent occasions when their moods turned nasty.

“Don’t ‘nothing’ me.” When he began to turn from her, she butted her hand against his shoulder and pushed him back around so that he was forced to face her. He looked at her in mute surprise. “I was raised in a house full of brothers, and I know when a man’s trying to hide something. Now what’s wrong? You turned pale when you said the baby’s name.”

She was going to harp on this until he caved, Tony thought angrily. It was none of her damn business, but he told her anyway. “Justin was my son’s name.”

“Oh.” Where did she go from here, hobbling the way she was with her foot in her mouth? Mikky thought. She caught her lower lip in her teeth. “I’m sorry.”

His scowl grew darker. “I don’t need you to be sorry.”

The war was on again. It figured. His type didn’t know how to show any emotion other than growling. “Okay,” she said tersely. “Moving on. Did you see anyone?” The baby was beginning to leave a very wet spot on her shoulder where he was sucking on her blouse.

Tony shook his head, frustrated. Why had someone singled him out? There had to be a reason, didn’t there? What was it?