A Man Like Mike (11 page)

By the way her pink-painted lips twisted, Eve guessed Denise didn’t appreciate the corner she had been backed into, but she said with forced pleasantness, “Of course we can. In fact, I was hoping to talk to you, Eve. I was going to suggest we have Bailey’s birthday celebration early, the day after tomorrow, at our house. Unless you’ve organised something for next weekend that I don’t know about.”

“Birthday?” Eve repeated, before she could stop the word and its incriminating implication escaping. A sick feeling washed over her.

The feeling only got worse when Denise made no attempt to hide her shock. “Surely you realise it’s Bailey’s birthday on Wednesday? Or did you forget?”

“I didn’t forget,” Eve lied. She had known the date of Bailey’s birthday, she just hadn’t realised how quickly it had crept up. She had been distracted. She glanced sideways at Mike, the source of her recent distraction. She had forgotten Bailey’s birthday because she was wrapped up in a man.

Like mother, like daughter
. The nausea worsened.

“Oh, yes, you did,” Denise persisted, fury underpinning her words. “You
forgot.”

“Come on, Mum,” Mike said. “The situation’s a little extraordinary. With everything that’s happened, it’s understandable that it slipped our minds.”

Denise turned her eyes to her son, disappointment clear in her expression. “You, too? Oh, Michael. How could you?” Her only answer was silence that thrummed with their combined guilt. Eve felt as though the both of them had been called into the principal’s office.

But this was much more serious than high school hijinks. They—
she
, because it was
her
responsibility to remember these things—had failed to make plans to celebrate little Bailey’s birthday—a very important birthday—not only because it was his first on the planet, but his first significant event without his mother and father.

His first with her, Eve O’Brien, a poor substitute for his mother indeed.

It was Mike who finally broke the silence. “I’m sorry Mum—we both are.” Eve felt rather than saw the gesture Mike made to include her in his admission. She didn’t dare look up at either him or Denise. She was too ashamed of herself. “A bit of a party at your place sounds like a great idea. We can throw everything together by Sunday. What time do you want us there?”

“Noon would be good,” Denise said, grudgingly abandoning her invective, at least for now. “If that fits in with Bailey’s nap schedule. Your father’s been champing at the bit to use the barbeque before the weather gets too cold.”

“That’ll suit us,” Mike told her. “I can organise a cake.”

“I’ll do it.”

Eve was as surprised as Denise and Mike appeared to be at her interjection, but there was no equivocation in her statement.

Denise said, “Don’t trouble yourself too much.”

“I’ll do it,” Eve said again, her tone inviting no further debate, so that even Denise was compelled to silence.

Eve intervened no further as Mike and his mother sorted out some of the finer details. It would just be the family, Denise said: her and Mike’s father, the two of them, and Bailey, the guest of honour. A short time later, Denise planted a kiss on Bailey’s forehead and Mike’s cheek. There was no such affection for Eve, but then she hadn’t expected any. The other woman gave her a cool goodbye and a curt nod before Mike walked her to her car.

Eve let out a long, slow breath once they were gone, and wandered over to where Bailey sat still strapped in his high chair. He looked up at her and grinned, revealing his two bottom teeth poking up through the gums. Her chest squeezed tight.

“I’ll make it up to you, B,” she vowed. “I promise I’ll get better at this.”

Step one was learning to bake a cake.

Eve stared down in dismay at the charred disc that was supposed to be a cake and felt ridiculous, emotional tears threaten. She didn’t understand. The recipe had outlined explicit instructions any fool could have followed and come out with something edible.

Any fool except this fool.

She had risen early and gone shopping for ingredients, staunchly refusing Mike’s repeated offers of help. The look of scepticism on his face when she had insisted
she
would be the one to bake Bailey’s cake, despite never having baked one before, had irked her. It was a wholly superior chef’s look, one that implied she had no business dabbling in things she didn’t understand. Incensed, thinking
how difficult could it be to cook a simple cake
, Eve had insisted she could manage and had gone on her way.

Now she had the result. It was supposed to be a light and fluffy chocolate sponge, but it didn’t bear the slightest resemblance to the colour photo in one of Jacinta’s old recipe books.

“I suppose we could use it as a Frisbee.”

Eve hadn’t heard Mike come up behind her. She whirled around. “If you dare say you told me so, I … I think I’ll … scream.” She could barely get the words out past the tears that clogged her throat.

At her expression, all teasing left Mike’s. “Hey, I was kidding. Don’t cry, Evie.”

She pushed away the hand he moved toward her. “I’m not crying!” Spinning back around, Eve picked up the burnt disc in frustration and stalked to the bin in the corner, tossing it emphatically in with the rest of the garbage, where it belonged, she thought dolefully.

Mike pushed out a sigh, his expression beleaguered. “For Pete’s sake, why didn’t you just let me do it?”

“Because
I
wanted to do it!” she fired at him. “I wanted to make it up to Bailey for not planning anything for his birthday. For forgetting it, for goodness sake!”

“Hey, I forgot too, remember? It’s been a crazy time,” he pointed out gently. “It’s just a cake, Evie.”

“Every kid deserves a cake for his birthday,” Eve said meaningfully. “A cake made by his own mother, and Bailey doesn’t even have a mother now. All he has is me.”

The tears that had been gathering behind her eyes spilled forth. She was helpless to resist when Mike stepped forward and gathered her in his arms. His embrace was so warm, comforting, that she didn’t have the strength to resist. She cried into his shoulder for several moments longer than she knew she should have allowed, taking solace from the warmth and strength of his body, the consoling sounds he made while he stroked her hair.

After some time, she became aware of other things about his embrace. The solid support of his shoulder against her cheek, the hard wall of his chest pressed to her softer one. His hand had moved from her hair to her back, his touch moving in slow circles over her skin, the barrier of her shirt insufficient to prevent the raising of goosebumps. His other hand was at her hip, holding her still and close to him.

As her distress ebbed, physical reaction flowed over her. His lips were at her temple. If she tilted her face a fraction, if he dipped his head…

Abruptly Eve pushed away from him, swiping at her cheeks with the heels of her hands. Leaning on the counter, Mike watched her in silence while she couldn’t dredge up the courage to meet his eyes. At length he said, “Tell me why this is so important to you.”

“I told you, every child should have a birthday cake. And presents, and a party… everything. If they don’t, they feel like nobody cares. I don’t want to talk about it any more.” She stalked out of the kitchen and away from Mike and his searching, watchful eyes.

Shutting herself in the bathroom, Eve splashed water on her face. In the vanity mirror she saw her eyes were puffy, her complexion wan. Several stands of hair had come loose from her hair band to fly around her face. She looked an awful mess.

She pulled the hair band out and brushed her hair, chastising herself for getting so worked up over nothing. Mike was right, it was just a cake. Bailey was only one, he wouldn’t know the difference, wouldn’t care who made it.

But she would. And so would Denise.

Steeling herself to attempt the whole ordeal of baking again, Eve headed back to the kitchen. Her steps slowed when she saw Mike was still there, sifting flour into a ceramic bowl.

He glanced up when she walked in. “I know you want to do this yourself, but I figured maybe we could work together.” He watched her carefully. “What do you think?”

Eve felt the warmth of his generosity spread through her. The fact that he was willing to include her, when he could no doubt do a much better and faster job on his own, warmed her heart in ways that scared her even more than her understandable physical attraction to him. “I’d like that.”

Working side by side, they had the batter mixed in no time. As Mike poured it into the cake tin, Eve wiped her finger sneakily around the rim, dipping the rich prize into her mouth. “Hmmm. That’s so much better than the one I made! But you used exactly the same recipe.”

Mike glanced sidelong at her. “Don’t be too hard on yourself. I
am
a professional.”

“If you’re looking for me to thank you, you’ve got it. I couldn’t have done it without you. Obviously,” she added with a roll of her eyes.

He regarded her for several seconds in silence, before turning to put the now empty mixing bowl into the sink. “Let’s just put it in the oven and wait before we congratulate ourselves.”

Of course the finished product was perfection. It sprang back cheerily when Eve touched it in the centre, and it smelled divine. “It’s perfect,” she announced happily. “All we have to do is decorate it.”

“We’ll have to wait till it cools first.”

“Oh,” Eve said, a little deflated. But still, they had a cake, and while she hadn’t make it
all
on her own, she had had a hand in it. She smiled in satisfaction.

“You’re pretty excited about this cake.” She turned her head to see Mike watching her, a smile playing around his lips. “Anyone would think you hadn’t seen one before.”

She blanched a little at his comment, taking a step to the side, away from him.

This time Mike wasn’t letting her go so easily. He stepped behind her, placing his hands on her shoulders. “Something about this has upset you, Evie. I wish you’d talk to me.”

Eve closed her eyes, trying to control her reaction to his nearness, the gentle persuasion of his voice. Her body trembled, weakened, and she sagged against him, giving in. “It’s just that I never had a birthday cake.” Perhaps talking about it was made easier by the fact she couldn’t see him, couldn’t see the pity. “My mother wasn’t exactly extravagant when it came to dishing out the affection. She said my birthday only reminded her of the day her life was ruined by having me. We didn’t celebrate it.”

“Oh, Evie.” Mike pulled her tighter against him “Didn’t you get any presents?”

She lifted a shoulder in reply. “Actually one time, Leanna—she didn’t like me to call her Mum—took me shopping for my birthday. She said I could go to my favourite shop and pick out whatever I wanted. I was so excited. I picked a doll I’d dreamed of having, but when I went to find her again, she was gone. She … she left me there, in the shopping centre. Damn it,” she snapped, “I am not going to cry about this again. It was seventeen years ago. I was ten.”

“You cry all you want to,” Mike said, surprising her with the ferocity of his statement. “I have plenty of dry shirts.”

Eve let out a sound somewhere between a laugh and a sob. How could he always make her feel better no matter how miserable she was? Because he was Mike. And he had something special about him that she was growing way too accustomed to.

She didn’t dwell on the thought, afraid of where it might take her. Gathering all her tenacity, she stepped out of his comforting embrace. To her mingled relief and regret, Mike let her go without protest.

She forced brightness into her tone. “Are you sure we can’t ice this cake yet?”

Mike reached over to touch the cake’s surface, shaking his head. “Not yet.”

“I’ll go wrap Bailey’s presents then, before he wakes from his nap.” With that, Eve disappeared down the hallway, relieved Mike had read her signal that she wanted to talk no further about her childhood.

Bailey’s would be better, she determined. Starting with his party on Sunday.

Mike turned the chicken kebabs on the barbeque while he waited for his father to return with their drinks, watching the cooking meat only sparingly. His eyes kept straying to the grassed area of the back yard where Eve sat on her haunches rolling a soccer ball to Bailey, who rolled it back with an aim that was inconsistent to say the least.

He had meant what he’d said to Eve, more than once, about her being great with Bailey. She was careful and conscientious with his care, knowing when to hand out praise and when to scold. She would never do anything to hurt his nephew, and it was obvious she had his best interests foremost in her mind. It was also obvious she had no idea how to play with a toddler. He suspected it must have a lot to do with her poor excuse for a mother.

He felt a surge of anger, not for the first time since yesterday. Eve had been treated abominably by the one person who was supposed to protect her. Mike had spent last night sleeping only fitfully, haunted by the image of a lost and lonely ten-year-old girl with bright red hair, clutching a doll and searching for her mother. He couldn’t imagine how much such an experience had effected Eve.

The more he thought about how she’d been hurt by her past, the more he told himself he ought to keep his distance. No matter that he wanted to convince her she deserved better than what life had so far dished out, he wanted to do other things, too. Things that had a lot less to do with comforting Eve than satisfying his own needs.

Yet he couldn’t manage to shake the attraction. He couldn’t keep his eyes off her today, even though she was wearing a perfectly modest cream sweater and a pair of tan corduroy pants. But she’d left her hair out so it swirled in airy red clouds around her shoulders, the perfect frame for her huge brown eyes and pretty face. And the pants skimmed her hips, hugged her slender thighs and just about made him drool over the food.

“You’re going to burn those if you’re not careful.” Mike turned at his father’s comment, then glanced down to see smoke rising from the now blackening kebabs. Muttering under his breath, Mike used the tongs to shift them from the hot side of the barbeque to the cooler one. Before moving in with Eve he’d never burnt a thing in his life. Some chef he was.