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“It’s okay, Michael,” Brett said soothingly.
“No, it’s not. Did you hear what I said?” he demanded of the kid closest to him.
“These are my friends,” Brett inserted. “They’re helping me move. I just wanted them to give me the mattress because it’s too heavy for them to carry alone.”
“Who’s the dude?” the kid with the backward White Sox baseball cap demanded belligerently.
“He’s my new boss,” Brett replied.
“Hey, man, you better treat her right.” The kid had the menacing steely-eyed look of a pro.
“Now, Juan, you know I can take care of myself. Two of you carry that mattress, I don’t want anyone getting hurt. You go on ahead.”
“Where did you find these juvenile delinquents?” Michael demanded of Brett as the kids obeyed her request.
“Have trouble getting along well with children, do you?”
Brett’s observation had him bristling defensively. “I have a younger sister and brother. I got along fine with them.”
“I meant now that you’re an adult.”
Okay, so he was legendary within his family for his lack of “kid skills.” The truth was that he was wary of children. They made him feel incompetent and awkward. However, Michael didn’t appreciate Brett reminding him of that fact. So much for him coming to her rescue.
“Make sure you close the front door when you’re done,” he growled.
“Actually we’ve been using the back door because I didn’t want to bother the rest of the tenants,” Brett told him. “It takes us in the building just a few steps from the studio apartment downstairs.”
“I know that. But how did you know? I didn’t show you the door because it’s been jammed shut.”
“The hinges just needed oiling. Works like a charm now.”
“Great.”
She wondered why Michael didn’t look very pleased with her news. Did he expect her to have asked for permission first? As building supervisor, she couldn’t be asking permission before fixing the hundred-and-one things that needed repairing in this lovely old building. Since there hadn’t been any expense involved, she didn’t think his approval beforehand was required. “Surely you don’t expect me to check with you before I do any work on the building?”
He shook his head, realizing she’d be checking with him every five minutes in that case. “But I do want to be kept apprised of what you’re doing. I need to authorize any repairs that will cost over thirty dollars. I don’t have an unlimited budget here. My plan is to fix up the building and then sell it.”
“Sell it? Whatever for?”
“The money,” he replied dryly.
“How could you!”
“What are you so upset about? If it’s your job, you don’t have to worry. It’ll probably take almost a year to get the place fixed up enough to sell it.”
“Do your tenants know about your plans?” Brett demanded.
“Why should they care?”
“Because some of them have lived here for a very long time.”
“Look, I’ve only owned the building for a short while. My first priority has to be a financial one. I can’t afford to pour limitless amounts of money into this white elephant. Besides, I don’t talk much to the tenants. It’s not like they’ve exactly formed an attachment to me. In fact, sometimes they give me the impression they’d like to hang me by my toes.”
“If I had the money, I’d buy this place from you in a second,” she declared.
“You just saw it for the first time today.”
“I know what I like,” she said quietly.
He noticed that her cheeks were flushed, from excitement as much as from the cold air. Although the late afternoon sun had come out, it was a weak shadow of itself. Winter was definitely here to stay. So was Brett. Moving in and apparently here to stay.
She hadn’t brought much furniture with her. The battered pickup truck he assumed to be hers held a rocking chair that had seen better days, a table, some lawn furniture and a few boxes.
“How is it that you were able to move in so quickly?” Michael asked. “Didn’t you have to give notice at your old place?”
She shook her head. “I was staying with friends and had my things in storage.”
Her reply made him realize that, although he had gotten her Social Security number, he never had checked her references, or even asked her for any. That wasn’t like him. She could have a criminal record for all he knew. Granted, he was usually a good judge of character, but she’d knocked his instincts off kilter. As soon as he got back inside, he planned on turning on his laptop computer and accessing his office computer to do a simple background check on her—not that he anticipated anything about this woman to be simple.
Following them around the back of the building, he watched her clucking over her gaggle of stringy adolescent boys. They clearly adored her. She’d brought pop and junk food for them to munch on as they emptied the back of the pickup.
Mrs. Martinez’s industrial-strength salsa was a big hit. He noticed she didn’t even attempt to introduce the kids to Mrs. Wieskopf’s sauerkraut. Wise move.
“They’re not delinquents, you know,” she quietly noted from his side, startling him with her nearness. When she was this close, he got the strongest urge to tug her into his arms and kiss her. Michael blinked in surprise and wondered what he was fighting here. For that matter, why the hell was he fighting it, period?
So what if Brett was different from other women he’d been attracted to? Nothing wrong with that. She was a sexy woman, just the right height for him; he remembered that from the way she’d slid her shoulder under his arm. The top of her head was just beneath his chin. When he’d briefly held her in his arms earlier, she’d conformed to his body as if designed for that purpose and no other.
It suddenly occurred to him that this handywoman situation could turn out to be a blessing in disguise, after all.
“Why are you looking at me that way?” Brett asked suspiciously.
“What way is that?” he countered.
“The old I’m-a-man, you’re-a-woman look.”
“I am a man. You are a woman.” His shrug was surprisingly continental. “Is it so strange I would look at you as such?”
“You bet. I’m not that kind of a woman.”
“What kind might that be?”
“The kind who makes men go all gooey-eyed.”
Stung, he drew himself up to his full height, his look now a glare.
“Aha,” she said approvingly. “That’s more the look I’m used to getting from you.”
“You know nothing about me,” he reminded her. “We only met for the first time this afternoon.”
“You don’t have to remind me.” She still hadn’t figured out what had happened a few hours ago when she’d stepped out of his kitchen to tell him she’d fixed his stove. She’d felt so strange…as if she’d been bound to him by invisible chains. The look in his hazel eyes had pierced her soul and she was still trying to repair the damage. Because men simply didn’t look at her that way. Unless they wanted something—usually to borrow money. Otherwise she was just one of the boys. Always had been. With one exception…
Feeling the pain ready to creep up on her like the cold fingers of mist that came off the lake, she resolutely changed mental gears. Leaving Michael’s side, she focused her attention on getting the last of her belongings into her new home.
All the while, she was only too well aware of his intense gaze homing in on her. He really did have the most incredible eyes. And he looked like such an outsider, standing apart from the action, watching but not involved in it.
“Would you like to come in and have some coffee or something?” she invited, unable to leave him just standing there. “We’ve got plenty of food.”
Michael fully intended to say no. Hanging out with a bunch of adolescents wasn’t his idea of a good time. But for some reason, he couldn’t seem to voice the refusal. He really wasn’t himself today.
Exasperated by his silence, Brett said, “It’s really not that tough a question to answer. Look, I don’t want you to take this the wrong way, but it might be easier for people to get to know you if you.”
“If I what?” he demanded irritably. “Don’t stop there.”
“If you lightened up a little, maybe.”
His fiery look would have sent a weaker soul scurrying for cover, but not Brett.
“Yeah, well, we can’t all be Suzy Sunshine,” he retorted.
She flushed. Is that how he thought of her? She knew he wasn’t alone in that opinion. If only they all knew how far from the truth that was. There was a cold darkness in her soul that no amount of cheerfulness could melt.
But the bottom line was that she’d never been able to say no to those in need, because she knew how it felt to need someone, or something, so badly and not be able to have it—not ever.
“That was a stupid crack I made,” Michael said, lifting his hand to cup her cheek. “I’m sorry.”
Her heart stopped. His touch was so gentle.
“Yo, Brett, where do you want this box?” thirteen-yearold Juan asked her.
Brett stepped away from Michael—silently noting that each time she did so, it got harder and harder. Stepping inside the basement apartment, Michael poured himself a mug of coffee from a coffeepot that looked like it had been around during World War II. Sipping his coffee, he observed the suspicious looks the kids gave him. Each glance held a warning. Their protectiveness was impressive.
When Brett was outside, he took the opportunity to get a little more information about his new employee. “Your name is Juan?” he asked the kid in the baseball cap.
“That’s right. You wanna make something of it?”
“Why this routine? What makes you think Brett needs protecting?”
Eyeing him, Juan waited before replying. “Because she’s the Mother Teresa type,” he finally said. “Too good. She’s been hurt already.”
“By whom?” Michael demanded.
Juan shrugged. “She don’t say and I don’t ask. All I know is that since she started volunteering at the center, things have been different. She understands.”
“What center might that be?”
“St. Gerald’s Youth Center. Two blocks from here. Which means we’re close enough to check up on you.”
“Do I look impressed?” Michael countered.
“You look mean, but Brett told us that you’re not really.”
“What did she say I was, really?”
“Lonely.”
The observation stung. Slamming the coffee mug back on the rickety table, he glared at Juan before making his departure. He didn’t need this aggravation. Michael enjoyed his own company. He certainly didn’t need a snottynosed kid telling him what was wrong with his life.
As soon as Michael got back to his apartment, he turned on his computer and did some checking into Brett’s background. He learned that she was thirty and had no middle name. No criminal records. The pickup out front was hers and was apparently paid for. She only had one credit card and that had a modest fifteen-hundred-dollar limit. She was still paying off a large medical bill at a Northside hospital for a stay involving a surgical procedure almost two years ago.
Her job history was sporadic. She’d tried her hand at just about everything, from flipping “sliders” at a popular burger joint, to a stint as a waitress in a Rush Street watering hole, to working in a hardware store. She was only twenty credit-hours short of earning her degree in psychology, from Loyola no less. But she’d been a parttime student there longer than some people were president. She wasn’t attending classes now, but was registered for the next semester starting in mid-January.
There was no indication of her having any living relatives and she’d never been married. He wondered why not. With a loving heart like hers, she’d make some man a wonderful wife. She was great with kids, too. And smart. Caring. Sassy. No pushover. And she had the biggest blue eyes he’d ever seen.
Yes, he’d done right to hire her. It had been a wise and logical decision. That was his story and he was sticking to it.
“Are you crazy?” Michael shouted at Brett not even a week later.
“I was just…”
“I can see what you were doing. Trying to get your neck broken! That’s much too heavy for you to carry.”
“I wasn’t carrying it. I was using leverage…”
“Don’t do it again,” he interrupted her to order, moving the huge potted plant in the hallway for her. The thing weighed a ton. “Why are you moving this, anyway?”
“Because I needed to drain the radiator behind it.” Seeing his frown of confusion, she elaborated. “The tenants have all complained about the rattling radiators waking them up at night. The entire system needed to be bled, to get the air out of it. That’s what’s causing all the noise. This radiator is the last one to be done. I have to.”
He was distracted from the rest of her explanation by the way her eyes lit up as she talked. Had he ever met a woman with such an expressive face? He didn’t think so. And all this enthusiasm was about draining radiators, no less.
Today she was wearing a baggy sweatshirt. The color matched her blue eyes. A pair of black leggings encased her legs, the material lovingly following every curve.
“So how are you settling in?” he asked even though he already knew the answer. The tenants had been singing her praises and he hadn’t had any more tap dancing on his ceiling or middle-of-the-night irate phone calls. Which left him free to concentrate on his work, which should have taken up every second of his time as it had for the past five years of his life. Instead he’d actually caught himself daydreaming about Brett—the way she smiled, the way she’d looked with the sun haloing her short dark hair, the sound of her laughter, the way she lit up a room with her presence.
“Nicely.”
“What?” he asked absently, distracted by the cutest little dimple he’d just noticed at the corner of her lush mouth.
“I said I’m settling in nicely.” She hoped she didn’t sound as breathless as she felt. Michael was staring at her strangely again. His hazel eyes were fascinating enough as it was without adding that seductive look to the mix. Unable to help herself, she lifted her hand to rub her mouth as she asked, “Do I have dirt on my face or what?”
“No.”
“You were looking at me so intently.” He’d been staring directly at that corner of her mouth. She leaned forward to check her reflection in the glass beside the front door.
“You look fine,” he huskily assured her. “Better than fine.”
“Sure I do,” she said dryly. The man was either being kind or he was just plain blind. She knew the baggy sweatshirt had seen better days. So had she. She looked like an elf on a chain-gang crew. She hadn’t brushed her hair since this morning. Forget lipstick. She hadn’t worn any since Wednesday and this was Friday. Yeah, she was a regular Cindy Crawford look-alike.
“Don’t you go trying to lift anything else this heavy,” he scolded her, reaching out to brush her bangs away from her eyes. “Ask for some help next time, okay?”
