A Baby for Easter (5 page)

She glanced up at his face and saw he looked slightly awkward.
“Thank you,” she said, having no idea what else to say.

“It’s fine. They’re all over the place now.”

Well, yes, that was true. The gesture hadn’t taken any extra
effort on his part. Maybe it wasn’t as big a deal as it felt. He was a
generally nice guy, and he’d probably passed by them at a quick shop and
randomly remembered she’d liked them. So he’d grabbed a box for her.

He probably was uncomfortable that she’d made a big deal
over such a trivial thing.

This was a good time to repeat her first rule—”Don’t assume
a man is interested in you unless he both tells you and shows you.”

“Thanks,” she said, striving for a casual tone. “That was
nice of you. I’ll definitely enjoy them.”

His expression changed, and she assumed he felt better that
the weird moment was over. “Good. I’ll see you tomorrow morning.”

“Sure.” She smiled at him brightly and wasn’t surprised when
he didn’t really smile back.

She
was
surprised
when he reached out to pull her into a hug. “Thank you,” he murmured, his voice
slightly thick. “For all your help with Cara. I mean it. I wouldn’t have gotten
through this week without you.”

She was suddenly overwhelmed with emotion as she hugged him
back. His arms were strong, and his body was hard, and his presence was warm
and real. He was Micah, and he felt like himself, more like himself than she
remembered since high school.

“You’re welcome,” she mumbled into his shoulder, still
holding her box of eggs in one hand.

When she was starting to feel too much—way too much to be
anything like safe—she pulled out of his arms and reached for the door. “I’m
happy to help,” she said, in her fake casual tone. “After all, I’m getting an
apartment out of it. Right?”

He said something—probably just an empty goodnight—but she
barely heard it because the only thing she could process was the desperate need
to get away.

She would do this because Cara needed her and because she
was glad to be somewhat independent again.

But, if she wasn’t careful and didn’t always remember her
rules, the biggest thing she would get out of this arrangement was another
broken heart.

The next morning, Alice was resolved
to do better in following her rules and protecting her emotions.

She wasn’t going to be stupid about a man again. She’d done
it twice already, and she was too old to make the same mistake again. She could
like Micah. And help him. And even be his friend, if he let her. But she wasn’t
going to fool herself about it turning into more than that, since he’d made no
moves in that direction.

This was her. Following her rules. Finally being smart.

So she drank her coffee and did her devotions and got in the
shower, feeling more at peace about everything.

When she got out of the shower, she put on her robe and went
to open the window in her bathroom, since it was a warm morning and the fresh
air would feel good. Micah was working on the hedges in the yard, using his
trimmers with remarkable competence. He’d obviously not yet showered and
shaved.

He’d brought Cara outside with him, and she was sitting in
her bouncy seat, bundled up in a little coat, although it was a warm morning.
He was talking to her. Alice could hear the murmur of his voice through her
opened window, although she couldn’t hear the exact words.

Alice felt her peaceful, resolved heart give a little leap at
the sight.

But she wasn’t going to let herself backslide, so she turned
away almost immediately.

She started to work on her long, curly, wet hair and
grumbled when the shelving unit in the bathroom was too far away from the sink
and mirror for her to easily reach. She understood why, since the bathroom was
tiny and Micah had tried to make use of every inch while still preserving the
window. But she didn’t care if the window was partly blocked. She’d rather have
the shelves a few inches closer so she could actually reach them as she got
ready.

Maybe Micah was able to reach them in this position, but his
arms were a lot longer than hers were.

The apartment was cute and comfortable—with one small
bedroom and an otherwise open concept—and she wasn’t about to complain to Micah
about something so minor. Six months ago, she would have asked Bill to move the
unit for her, but she didn’t need a man to do something so simple.

She was a perfectly competent adult. She could manage to
move a shelving unit a few inches on her own. It didn’t appear to be attached
to the wall, so surely it just needed a little shove.

She went to the far side, against the wall, and pushed it as
well as she could, but she didn’t have enough room to get her hands in the
right position. So she took both sides of it and tried to pull it out from the
wall, so she could get in a better position to push it sideways. It didn’t move
immediately, so she pulled harder. It still didn’t move, so she pulled even harder.

It suddenly started to move, but not the way she expected.
The top half started to fall toward her.

In a panic, Alice grabbed for it, wrenching her shoulder
slightly as she tried to keep the whole top half of the unit from crashing onto
the floor. It was heavy, and she barely managed to hold it upright.

She took a shaky breath and made herself calm down so she
could push the piece back into place.

But when she tried to push, it moved at a strange angle and
the bottom half started to wobble.

She was trapped, unable to right the unit but terrified of
letting it drop and destroying a very nice piece of furniture.

Or maybe being crushed beneath it.

So she did the only reasonable thing for a competent adult
to do in such a situation. She screamed at the top of her lungs, “Micah!
Micah!”

She didn’t even know if he would hear her, but she’d been
able to hear him so she thought it was possible.

When she heard heavy footsteps on the stairs up to her
apartment, she knew he had. “Alice? Alice, are you all right?”

“Help!”

“Do I have time to get the key?”

Her door was locked, of course, but he’d probably bust it
down if he needed to. “Yes. Just hurry!”

So she heard the footsteps race down the stairs and a few
seconds later, race up them again. Then she heard her door open.

Her arms were shaking helplessly when she felt him enter the
bathroom behind her.

“What the—” he muttered, striding over and reaching up to
take the weight of the unit from her arms.

She almost sobbed in relief when she could finally lower her
arms.

Being much taller and stronger than she was, he easily
returned the top half into position.

“Are you all right?” he demanded, turning her around and
looking at her. “What happened?”

She was still shaking, but now she was a little embarrassed
about causing the foolish situation. “I’m fine. I just couldn’t get it back
up.”

“Why didn’t you just let it fall?”

“I didn’t want to destroy it. It’s not mine.”

He gaped at her. “So you thought it was better to try to
hold the stupid thing up on your own?”

She frowned at his angry tone. “I would have let it drop if
I’d had to. But you got up here in time.”

“You could have hurt yourself doing such a ridiculous thing.
How did it fall on you, anyway? One of my guys put it up, so I’m sure it wasn’t
off balance.”

She narrowed her eyes. “You don’t have to be so rude about
it. I was just trying to move it a little.”

“You were trying to move it where?” His blue eyes focused on
the shelves and then back to her face. Then they darted down briefly over her
body before they returned to her face.

“Just a few inches closer to the sink so I could reach it.”

“Why didn’t you just ask me to move it?”

She was usually a very agreeable and civil person, rarely
getting in arguments and avoiding confrontation whenever possible. But his tone
was really starting to annoy her. “Because I didn’t need you to move it.”

“You clearly did, since you managed to make it fall on top
of you.”

“Don’t exaggerate. I caught it just fine. And if I’d had to
drop it, I could have gotten out of the way.” She took a small step back, since
he seemed inordinately big, powerful, and intimidating in the small bathroom.

Not that she was afraid of him. She was just
aware
of him in a way that made her
uncomfortable.

“I was right outside. How hard would it have been to just
call down and ask me to move it?” His eyes dipped downward again.

“I didn’t want you to move it. I wanted to move it myself.”
She was scowling at him when she suddenly realized she just had her thin,
little robe on. It barely came down to mid-thigh, and a glance down told her it
was also hanging open slightly.

With a gasp, she pulled it shut.

“Why are you always so stubborn?”

She gasped again, for a different reason this time. “I am
not stubborn. Nobody thinks I’m stubborn.”

“
I
think you’re
stubborn. I always have. That summer, I always asked if I could help you clean
that awful bathroom and you never let me.”

“It wasn’t your job! It was
my
job. That’s not stubborn. That’s doing what I’m supposed to do.”

“That
is
stubborn.
Because there’s no reason not to accept help from someone who wants to help
you. I could have helped you then. And I could have helped you now. And instead
you let yourself almost get crushed under that ludicrously heavy shelf.”

She was strangely affected by his passionate outrage. It was
definitely better than his being all standoffish and aloof, but it still made
her mad, since he was assuming she hadn’t made reasonable decisions. “I didn’t
get crushed.”

“Well, you could have. You could have been seriously hurt.”
The fire in his eyes started to fade, and his snarl turned into a different
sort of frown. “That thing is big, and you’re such a little Dormouse.”

“Are dragging that name out of the grave again?” She tried
to sound tart, since the nickname should have sounded condescending. It didn’t
feel condescending, though. It sounded sweet and nostalgic, and she was rather
touched by it.

He’d called her Dormouse that summer, too, and it had felt
like his special name for her then.

“It seemed appropriate, given the circumstances.” His
expression had changed to something almost fond.

She reminded herself desperately of her first and fourth
rules. “Well, I wasn’t hurt.”

“I said you
could
have been.”

She pulled her robe closed again, since his eyes dropped
lower once more. “But I wasn’t.”

“But you could have been.”

She hugged her arms to her chest. “Okay. It’s remotely
possible that I could have been, but it didn’t actually happen. So thank you
for coming to help me, but I think we can let the subject go now. Did you leave
poor little Cara down in the yard in her bouncy seat?”

“Yeah. I better go check on her.”

Without thinking, Alice slipped on her slippers and walked
outside with him to check on the baby. She was still sitting happily and
babbled when she saw them.

Alice leaned down to pick her up. “Hey, sweetie. Did your
daddy leave you out here to get attacked by wild dogs?”

“If there were any wild dogs around and if they could get
over a seven foot fence, I have no doubt they would go after the Dormouse
first.” Micah’s voice was desert dry.

Alice tried very hard not to laugh. “Your daddy isn’t very
nice to me,” she told Cara.

“Your daddy,” Micah replied, talking to Cara the way Alice
had, “would be a lot nicer to her if she’d ever let him.”

“I let your daddy be nice to me all the time.” Alice smiled
as Cara grabbed at her robe excitedly.

Micah sucked in a strange hoarse gasp and turned around
quickly on his heel.

Alice blinked in surprise at his back. His shoulders looked
oddly stiff.

Then she looked down again and saw that Cara had pulled her
robe open and one of her breasts was exposed.

“Whoops,” she said, blushing hotly and pulling the fabric
out of Cara’s hand so she could cover herself again. “I better go put some
clothes on.”

 
“Good idea.” Micah
still hadn’t turned back around.

Alice leaned down to return Cara to her bouncy seat and
said, trying for a casual tone, “Tell your daddy I appreciate him coming to
help me.”

***

“Are you sure this is a good idea?”

Alice sighed at her mother’s question as she scrubbed the
kitchen counter with a damp paper towel. “Why wouldn’t it be a good idea? I’ve
made the casserole before. I just didn’t have the recipe on hand today, and I
didn’t have any poppy seeds.”

She’d been working at the library most of the day, but she
stopped by her mom’s to get what she needed for dinner before going over to the
Duncans, Micah’s parents, to pick up Cara and take her home.

“I know you can make the casserole. That’s not what I’m
talking about.” Her mom had been washing lettuce when she’d arrived, but now
she was sitting at the kitchen table. She had a bad knee, so she had to sit
down fairly often.

“Then what were you talking about?” She threw the paper
towel away and then opened a twelve-pack of diet cola and started sliding them into
their spot in the refrigerator.

“You don’t have to do all that,” her mother objected. “I was
going to get around to it.”

“I know. But I’m here. I might as well do it for you. What
were you saying wasn’t a good idea?”

“I wasn’t saying it
wasn’t
.
I was just asking. I mean the whole thing. You living over there with Micah and
watching—”

“I’m not living with Micah! It’s a separate apartment.”
Alice whirled around with a jump in her heart. “Is that what people are saying?
That I’m living with Micah?”

“No, no, no. No one is saying that. I know it’s a separate
apartment. I was just worried about you being around him so much and devoting
so much time to that poor little girl. Are you sure it’s a good idea? For
you
, I mean.”

Alice’s shoulders stiffened as she realized the reasons for
the question. Her mom knew all the mistakes she’d made with men in the past. She
turned back around to finish putting the sodas in the refrigerator. “Why
wouldn’t it be a good idea? I have a place to stay and am making some extra money.”

“But you didn’t have to move out. We were happy to have you
here. You could have stayed as long as you wanted.”

“I know. But I didn’t want to. I’m twenty-six. I don’t want
to have to live with my parents.”

“It’s nothing to be embarrassed about. It wasn’t your fault
about the budget cuts at the library. And obviously Bill was to blame for the
broken engagement, for being such a jerk about…everything. No one thinks less
of you for having to come home.”

“I think less of me,” Alice mumbled.

“But you shouldn’t.” Her mom’s voice was getting urgent.
“There’s no reason for you to feel bad about your situation.”

“Really?” Alice turned around and leaned against the
counter. “I wasted all that time and money on a Master’s degree, and now I’m
babysitting and sorting through the church’s mail. And I can’t even afford to
get my car fixed.”

Immediately distracted, her mom asked, “Is something wrong
with your car?”

“No. It’s fine.” Her car had been making a funny noise, but
she wasn’t about to mention it to her mom. Her mom would waste no time in telling
her dad, who would take it down to the garage himself. “It was just an example
of how pitiful I am.”

“You aren’t pitiful. You’re having a hard time right now,
but it’s not because of anything you did wrong. Things will turn around. They
always do.”

“Yeah, but they usually turn around for the worse.” She
started slicing the tomatoes her mom had set out for a salad with dinner later
that night.

“What does that mean?” Her mom heaved herself to her feet
and limped over to finish up her lettuce.