A Baby for Easter (10 page)

She wanted to just soak it in.

The phone rang as they were laughing, and Daniel got up to
answer it, telling them not to tell any good stories while he was away from the
table.

Out of general courtesy, they quieted their laughter, so
Alice could hear clearly Daniel’s voice on the phone.

“Oh, hi, Lydia…Yeah, he’s over here for dinner...He probably
just has it turned off.”

At this, Micah pulled his phone out of his pocket, and his
eyebrows arched when he looked at the screen.

Lydia. She must have been trying to reach Micah. Alice
wondered how many times she’d called to make him raise his eyebrows in surprise
that way.

“Is it an emergency?” Daniel asked. “Oh, okay. Good. We’re
having dinner now, but I’ll ask him if he can stop by there afterwards. It
shouldn’t be too late.”

When Daniel returned to the table, all three of them, plus
Cara, were looking in his direction.

“The Morgans are having a plumbing crisis, and they want
Micah,” he explained, not looking particularly concerned.

It wasn’t surprising. Micah was the go-to guy for any sort
of handyman problem among families in the church.

“I can go over there. I’d just have to run home to get my
snake first.” Micah glanced at his phone. “Lydia called four times.”

For some reason, Alice’s good mood from just a minute
earlier completely evaporated. She looked down at her plate and cuddled Cara
tightly. “If it’s serious, you should get on over there now.”

“No one is in danger,” Daniel said, helping himself to
another slice of bread. “It can wait until we’re done dinner.”

“And you haven’t even had dessert,” Jessica added.

“I’m not going to leave yet,” Micah said with a tilt of his
lips. “I’m not going to miss dessert unless their house is on fire.”

“Well, hang around here for a while and that might happen,”
Daniel drawled.

Jessica gasped and gave him an exaggerated kick under the
table.

Micah chuckled, and Alice looked between the three of them.
“Did someone almost burn the house down?”

So Daniel got to tell the story of Jessica’s first adventure
with their fireplace in the house, and they were laughing through the entire
dessert.

Jessica’s cake was a little dry, but it was fine with some ice
cream, and they all told her it was perfect.

***

Micah went the Morgans’ place after
dinner, and Alice took Cara home. It was after eight, so she put the baby right
to bed, and then she picked up around Micah’s house, mostly because it bothered
her that he didn’t do a few simple things that would make the house so much
more pleasant—like move his shoes into the bedroom or throw away his junk mail.

It was like this house was just a place to stay for him.

She was reading a book after ten when he finally got back
home. He was a mess—dirty and damp and with a scrape on his forearm.

“What happened?” she asked, when he came into the living
room. She stood up in concern.

“Nothing. It was just a complicated situation and took
longer than I expected.”

“Did you get their plumbing straightened out? What happened
to your arm?”

Without waiting for an answer, she went into the bathroom to
his medicine cabinet to get something for the cut.

“It’s just a scrape. I wasn’t paying attention. You don’t
have to—” He broke off because she ignored him, grabbing his arm to clean the
scrape.

“I won’t bandage it up,” she said, inspecting the cut,
“because I assume you want to take a shower.”

“That’s for sure.”

“But put something on it before you go to bed.” She found
antibiotic cream and a box of bandages. “Here. It could get infected. It’s kind
of deep through here.” She gestured toward one side of the scrape.

“All right,” he said with a sigh. “I will.”

“I’m going to check tomorrow morning to make sure you’ve
taken care of it.” She studied his face. “Do people always call you like that
and expect you to do manual labor at any time of the day or night?”

He shrugged and looked slightly self-conscious. “Sometimes.
I don’t mind. I like to help.”

“Yeah, but people shouldn’t take advantage of you.”

“I’m happy to help people when they need it.”

She frowned. “I guess. But surely there are other men who
could help too.”

“Maybe.”

“Well, you look tired. You should go to bed early.”

“I might.” He raised his eyebrows, but his eyes were warm as
he gazed down on her. “You’re kind of bossy for a Dormouse, you know.”

She felt her cheeks warm. “Who said dormouses shouldn’t be
bossy?”

“No one. I like it when they are.” He reached up to brush a
stray curl off her cheek. “But it’s dormice, isn’t it?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.” She repeated under her breath,
“Dormouses, dormice, dormouses, dormice.” With a sigh, she admitted, “You’re
probably right.”

“I am occasionally.” His eyes were smiling, although the
rest of his expression was sober.

Her rules
. She
absolutely, positively had to remember her rules.

She said, “Cara is sleeping. She’s been just fine. And I’m
going to leave now so you can get in the shower.”

“Okay.” Now his lips were almost smiling too.

It made her want to smile back at him, but she gave him a
stern look over her shoulder as she grabbed her book and purse.

“I’ll be by tomorrow morning before eight to pick up Cara. I
work at the church in the morning, and I’ve just got busywork so I can take her
with me.”

“Sounds good.” He walked with her to the side door and then
surprised her by walking out with her.

“Where are you going?” she asked, stopping short.

“I was just going to walk you over to the apartment.” He
looked surprised by her question, although he’d never done anything of the kind
before.

“Oh. You don’t have to.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

Despite his dry words, he didn’t seem inclined to turn
around, so they went down the walk and then up the stairs to her apartment
door.

Before she turned the key in the lock, she looked up at him.
He was gazing down at her with eyes that still looked warm but weren’t amused
anymore.

Her breath hitched, and she stared up at him speechlessly.

He reached up and tucked that same stray curl back behind
her ear. “Why do you always pull your hair back?”

The texture in his voice made her want to shiver. “I don’t
know,” she replied, lowering her eyes shyly but then looking up again. “It just
gets in the way if it’s loose.”

“It never stays pulled back.”

“No. It’s kind of unruly.”

“It’s beautiful.”

Her cheeks flushed hot. “Thank you. It’s a pain.”

She couldn’t look away from his eyes, and for a moment she
thought he was actually going to kiss her.

But it must have just been her imagination, since he dropped
his hand and turned away. “Have a good night.”

“Yeah,” she managed to say. “You too. I’ll see you before
eight.”

She went inside and watched through the window until he
disappeared into his house.

The next day, Alice was determined to
keep following her rules and not over-analyze the evening before. She wasn’t
going to rehearse every detail, examining what each little look, action, or
word might have meant. And she wasn’t going to start to daydream about what
might happen after this.

Anything that was going to happen, would happen whether she
mentally obsessed about it or not, so she wasn’t going to work herself up into
a state of romantic stupidity.

No more stupidity for her.

So she worked at the church for a few hours and then called
up an old friend from high school, whom she ended up having lunch with at a
cute bistro on Main Street. Then Alice, her friend, and Cara did a little
shopping.

She took Cara back to Micah’s house afterwards, boiled eggs,
and got everything ready to decorate Easter eggs. She set Cara in her bouncy
seat some distance away so she could watch but not get her little hands on
anything she shouldn’t.

Alice had dyed her first dozen eggs and was working on the
decorations when the door opened behind her and a voice called, “Alice, I’m
home.”

It was just after three, and she hadn’t expected Micah until
dinner time.

“I’m down here,” she said, leaning back so he could see her.
“You’re home early.”

“Yeah, it started to rain, so we had to give up on the
Rogers’ place for today.” He blinked in surprise when he saw she was on the
floor with all her supplies spread out on newspaper.

“I’m doing Easter eggs,” she explained with a smile,
reminding herself that she could be perfectly happy without him, no matter how unbearably
gorgeous he looked with his hair slightly damp from the rain.

He had his hands full, but he put his stuff down on the counter,
leaned down to kiss and say hello to Cara, and then knelt down to the floor
beside her.

“Wow,” he said, when he saw the egg she was working on. “How
did you do that?”

The egg was dyed a dark red, and she was painting it with
gold paint to give it an ornate look.
 
“I’m just painting it.” She showed him her brush.

He gazed in awe at her collection of bowls with dye, her
little acrylic paint set, and her other decorations. “How did you do this one?”
He pointed toward the egg she’d just finished, with a lace pattern on pale
blue.

“I wrapped it with lace before I dyed it. Then, when it was
dry, I took the lace off and it left that pattern.” She gestured to a couple of
others that were just getting dry. “These have stickers of them that I’ll take
off.”

“What is the marker for?”

“I don’t know. Sometimes I want to draw on an egg. I just do
whatever I feel like. Didn’t you ever decorate Easter eggs before?”

“Yeah, but we always just dunked them in jars. We never did
anything this fancy.”

She handed him an egg she’d died a darker blue. “Here. You
can decorate this one.”

He stared down at the egg, turning it around as if it might
reveal a secret to him. “What should I do with it?”

She laughed at his dubious expression. “Just decorate it
however you want.”

She went back to painting her egg, finishing it and picking
up one of the stickered ones. She could peel them off now to reveal two little
white bunnies, which she finished off with eyes, noses, and whiskers using the
black marker.

She was very pleased with the effect and showed it to Micah,
who said, “Wow, that’s amazing.”

Then he showed her his, on which he’d painted a big smiley
face with yellow paint.

She couldn’t help but laugh at his sheepish expression.
“That’s beautiful,” she said, grabbing an egg dyed a lovely pink-rose color.
“Here. Try another one.”

“This is about as good as I can do. If you want them to be
pretty, you better do them yourself.”

“They don’t have to be pretty.” She nodded back at Cara, who
was staring with interest at what they were doing.
 
“Make that pink one for Cara to match her
Easter dress.”

“What Easter dress?”

“Oh. Yeah. I bought her one this afternoon. I hope it’s all
right.” She used tongs to pull out a few eggs that had been soaking in dye and
set them on the rack to dry. “I was shopping, and the baby Easter dresses were
just so pretty.” She sighed. “I used to love my Easter dresses when I was a
girl.”

“Where is it?”

“It’s in Cara’s room. I’ll show it to you when we’re not
covered with paint and dye.”

He was peering at the decoration options, obviously trying
to decide what to do with his pink egg. “I can pay you for it.”

“No. I bought it for her. I wasn’t expecting to be paid back.”
Strangely, she felt a little hurt, as if Micah thought her regard for Cara was
just monetary.

“Okay. Thanks. I didn’t even think about her needing an
Easter dress.”

He was frowning as he started to paint what looked like
flowers on Cara’s egg. Alice studied him discreetly and soon figured out why.

“Hey, she’s too young to know about an Easter dress yet.
You’ll know she needs one by the time she’s old enough to be aware of what
she’s wearing.”

He gave her a half smile. “Yeah. I guess. But how many other
things am I not going to know?”

She gave a little shrug. “So you’ll learn. Don’t beat
yourself up about it. You weren’t ever a little girl. You didn’t even have a
sister. I’d be just as clueless about things if I had a boy.”

He smiled at her, a little more fully.

She smiled back.

Feeling too soft and fond, she made herself focus on her
next egg. This was getting emotionally dangerous for her, and absolutely
nothing was known at this point about Micah’s feelings or intentions.

He hadn’t even asked her out. He might never do so.

Her rules prevented her from assuming anything about his
feelings from a few smiles and soft looks.

She started to think about what she’d just said to him. She
hoped it hadn’t sounded like she was talking about Cara as if she were hers.

She hoped she wasn’t
feeling
like Cara was hers.

She glanced back at the baby and couldn’t help but smile
when she saw Cara had gone to sleep, her head hanging to the side.

“Why are you on the floor?” Micah asked.

“Because you don’t have a table big enough, and I was afraid
of staining that gorgeous granite with the Easter egg dye. It’s easier on the
floor anyway, since I can spread everything out as much as I want.”

“I guess I should get a bigger table,” Micah said. “That little
thing probably won’t work once Cara is big enough to sit at a table.”

“Probably not.” Alice glanced around the kitchen, which was
as sparsely decorated as the rest of his house. “You might need to actually buy
some grown-up furniture.”

He gave her a wry smile. “Or I can make some. It just never
seemed worth it, since I was always moving from house to house.”

“Are you going to keep doing that? With Cara, I mean?”

“I don’t know. I hadn’t thought about it.”

“It might be worth thinking about. This house, for instance,
isn’t set up very conveniently for having a baby, with the master bedroom
upstairs and her bedroom down here. You probably want the bedrooms on one floor
and maybe have a bigger yard, where you can build her a swing set when she gets
older. And maybe the house could have a family room or something, instead of
just the formal living room.”

He was frowning thoughtfully.

“Not that you have to,” she said hurriedly, afraid she’d
sounded too pushy. “I mean, kids can be happy anywhere, as long as they’re
loved and taken care of. But since you’re almost done with this house, it’s
worth considering. It might be hard for a little girl to always live in a house
that’s being redone and then have to move somewhere else every six months.”

“Yeah,” he said slowly. “I guess so.”

She looked at him closely. “Aren’t you tired of always
living like this? Don’t you want to settle down a little—I mean, just in terms
of having a home? Wouldn’t it be nice to have a place that was genuinely your
own? For the long-term?”

He met her eyes. “I…I don’t know. I’ve never thought about
it. It was always just…whatever.”

“You spend so much time fixing up homes for other people.
Don’t you want one for yourself?”

“It just never seemed like it was worth it. For me.” He
shrugged away the words, but she could tell he’d meant them, and they made
something in her chest ache painfully.

It had clearly never crossed his mind that he was worth
having a home.

“Oh.” She swallowed hard and tried to think of something to
say—something that didn’t reveal the depth of her feelings. “Well, I’m sure
whatever you decide will be just fine for you and Cara.”

She looked back down at her egg, wondering why she’d felt
compelled to bring up such an intimate subject, when it would be much smarter
to get some emotional distance.

Neither of them spoke for a couple of minutes. Then Micah
put down his paint brush.

She looked over at his completed egg. “That’s really good,”
she said. “That’s perfect for Cara.”

He’d covered the pink egg with white and red flowers. They
were simple and not particularly sophisticated, but the overall effect was
quite pretty.

“She won’t even know it’s her egg,” he said, glancing over
at his daughter.

“Well,
you’ll
know
it’s for her. I like it.”

They worked on the eggs for another half-hour, until they’d
decorated all the eggs she’d prepared. The last one he worked on, Micah
wouldn’t show her until it was all the way done.

He’d painted a little gray mouse on the lavender egg, with
huge eyes, tiny nose, and long whiskers. “It’s for you,” he told her.

“Oh, you…you…” She was torn between impatience and
affection.

“Me what?”

“I thought I’d left that nickname behind years ago.”

“Sometimes things we think are lost aren’t really lost at
all. Sometimes they come back to life.” His eyes were deep and full.

Suddenly, it felt like he was saying a lot more than the
topic of conversation. She held her breath, waiting to see if he’d continue.

He didn’t, though. So they just cleaned up the mess and
washed their hands.

“Now come see Cara’s Easter dress,” Alice said, leaning over
to pick up the baby, who had already started to wake up from her nap with a few
whimpers.

Micah followed her into the little bedroom, and he walked
over to the dress she’d spread out on the railing of the crib.

It was white and frilly, with pink and purple ribbons
threaded through it and embroidered flowers on the hem and bodice.

Alice thought it was the prettiest dress she’d ever seen. It
had been more expensive than she could easily afford, but she was in better
shape now that she was getting a paycheck from Micah. She just hadn’t been able
to resist the little dress.

Micah picked it up and held it with a sober expression.
“It’s really pretty,” he murmured.

“It might be a little over the top,” she admitted. “But
little girls should be able to wear over-the-top dresses for Easter. And
Christmas.”

He gazed at it some more, until he finally laid it back
down, as if it were made out of delicate crystal. He met her eyes gravely.
“Thank you.”

She felt ridiculously like squirming and hugged Cara to hide
it. “She’s worth it,” she murmured, kissing the baby on the cheek.

Micah stuck his hands in his pockets. “I guess they’re
having this Easter play at the Miner Theater.”

“I heard about that,” Alice said, glad to move onto a casual
topic. “I had lunch with Jenny Lend today, and she said she took her kids to
see it last night. She said it was great.”

“I thought I might take Cara,” he said, shifting from foot
to foot. “She might be kind of young to know what’s going on but—”

“Oh, you should definitely take her. She’ll have fun looking
around at everything, anyway. It’s a great idea to take her.” She was smiling,
thinking it was really good that Micah was starting to get into fatherhood in
such an intentional way. He was really trying.

“Great. I think I will. Maybe Wednesday. Did you…” He
cleared his throat. “Did you want to go with us?”

“Oh. Yeah, sure. I’m not at the library that evening. I’m
happy to help with Cara, since you’ve never taken her to a setting like that
and we don’t know how she’ll behave. It’s a good idea. I’ll be happy to come
and help out.” She was babbling a little because her first thought was that it
would feel like a date, and she needed to be careful not to think about it that
way.

He frowned and looked a little startled. “I, uh, wasn’t
expecting for you to work.”

“You weren’t?”

“No. I just thought it might be fun if you came too.” He
sounded strange. A little stressed.

Now she was frowning as much as he was. “What do you mean?
Of course, I’d want to help out if…” She trailed off, suddenly realizing what
was happening. Her heart gave a little jump. “Oh. You wanted me to…to come?”

He still had his hands in his pockets, and he looked
half-amused and half-embarrassed. “Yeah. If you want to. No pressure, of
course.”

She was shuddering inside now, hardly believing this was
happening. But she managed to say, somewhat casually, “Thank you. That would be
fun. Thank you.”

“So you’ll come with us on Wednesday?” His face had gotten
quiet and serious, the smile disappearing.

She thought she’d already told him that, but she nodded,
“Yeah. I’ll come. Thanks.”

He let out a breath. “Good.”

Alice took a jerky inhale and tried to give herself a
lecture about how it was just a casual date and absolutely no big deal. She
couldn’t—couldn’t—make a big deal about it. The only future being offered was
next Wednesday evening. Absolutely nothing more. “I guess it’s about time for
Cara to eat something.”