Just Like a Man (27 page)

"Hey," he said softly.

"Hey," Michael greeted him back.

"You worked late again."

"Yep."

"Been doing that a lot lately."

"Yeah, I know. I'm sorry."

"But it's not tax season."

"I know. But I've kind of been on a special assignment. Only temporary, though, I promise."

"How much longer will it last?"

"Not much longer," Michael promised him. Because one way or another, this assignment would be drawing to a close soon. He just hoped when it did, everything fell into place the way it was supposed to.

"Did you see Ms. Frost tonight?" Alex asked.

And Michael didn't ask how his son knew he'd been seeing Hannah. Alex just had a knack for knowing what was going on. He supposed all nine-year-olds did. They might
look
like they were wrapped up in the latest Super Mario game or
Yu-Gi-Oh!
DVD, but they still had one ear tuned to what was going on in the grown-up world.

"Yeah, I saw Ms. Frost," Michael said. Because he never lied to Alex.

Alex nodded. "Good. I like her."

"I like her, too."

Alex smiled. "I know you do." And then he started in with the "Dad and Ms. Frost sittin' in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G" thing, so Michael pulled the comforter all the way up over his head.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," he said. But he smiled, too. He wouldn't mind being up in a tree with Hannah K-I-S-S-I-N-G. Hell, he wouldn't mind doing that under a tree, either. Or on a rock. Or in a stream. Yeah, in a stream would be good. Or maybe in the back seat of his car. Or the front seat of his car. Or, hell, the trunk of his car. Or on the roller coaster at King's Island. Or—

Well, he could think about that later. And he no doubt would.

"Go to sleep, kiddo," Michael told his son. "It's late."

Alex nodded and reached out to his dad, and Michael leaned in for a hug and a kiss. Then Alex lay his head down on the pillow and closed his eyes, and with one final adjustment to the comforter, Michael turned to leave. He was almost out the door when Alex called out to him again.

"Dad?"

He turned around. "Yeah, sport?"

"Promise me again that you won't be working late much longer."

"I promise."

"Good. 'Cause I miss you, you know."

"I know. I miss you, too."

Evidently satisfied that he had said everything he needed to say, Alex wished his father a good night and turned his head on the pillow.

Michael stood in the doorway for a long time, watching Alex sleep. It had been years since he'd done such a thing. But he remembered when he and Tatiana both had stood beside the crib in the middle of the night, watching the soft rise and fall of their infant son's back, just to reassure themselves he was still there, still breathing, still alive.

And he remembered how Tatiana had always been the first to go back to bed, and how Michael would stand by himself watching Alex, being terrified something would happen to him. Night after night, he'd had to reassure himself his fear was groundless. But then he'd go to work the next day, and he'd realize how what he was doing could potentially piss off an awful lot of people, should those people ever find out Michael was the one doing the work. And he'd realize that some of those people, being amoral and vengeful, might opt to exact their revenge not on Michael, but on someone whose life he considered infinitely more important than his own. Eventually, he decided he needed to find a new line of work, if for no other reason than that he didn't want any of those amoral, vengeful people to find out about his son.

Unfortunately, he hadn't been quick enough to give up his old lifestyle. Because there was still one amoral, vengeful person out there who might consider his son a viable target. And if Adrian dared to touch a hair on Alex's head, Michael would kill him. Swiftly and neatly. And never lose a moment's sleep. But Adrian knew that, so there was little chance he'd come after Alex. Still, Michael didn't want to underestimate him. There were other people, after all—or, at least, one other person—whom Adrian knew he cared about. So, one way or another, this thing would be over soon. Michael just hoped, when it was, the people he cared about were still around.

And he hoped they—or, at least she—still liked him.

The Sawyer home was the type of storybook house Hannah wished she could have grown up in herself, a three-story frame Victorian with diamond-paned windows and lots of interesting angles and a winding cobbled walkway that led from the driveway to the front door. In the absence of an English garden, which one might have expected with such a property, there were terra-cotta pots of greenery placed along the walkway and situated along the front porch, Michael's concession, she supposed, to more time-consuming landscaping. The front door was arched and painted dark red, and if she listened very hard to the wind whiffling through the trees, she could almost hear a voice whispering,
Nibble, nibble, little mouse, who's that nibbling on my house ?

That front door opened as she approached it, almost as if by magic, adding to the enchanted feel of the place. And where she had felt grateful to Michael the night before, when he gave her that staggering kiss good night that had completely erased the lingering bitterness of Adrian's mouth on hers—well, okay, and she also felt some other things in addition to grateful, things like careful and fearful and lustful—yeah, there'd been a lotta lustful in there, definitely—and doubtful and hopeful and lustful, and need-ful and forgetful and lustful—had she mentioned lustful?—and… and… and…

Where was she? Oh, yeah. Where she'd been grateful—among other things—to Michael last night for that kiss, finding him waiting for her at the front door with Alex standing on one side and a golden retriever, tongue lolling out of his mouth, sitting on the other, made Hannah feel strangely warm and fuzzy. All over.

And
warm and fuzzy
—never mind that
all over
business—wasn't what she should be feeling around Michael Sawyer. The
strangely
part, though, that was no surprise at all, since her feelings for him were exactly that. But warm and fuzzy? Nuh-uh. That way lay madness.

And, oh, she really wished the word
lay
hadn't cropped up in that sentence.

And, oh, she really wished the word
up
hadn't risen in
that
sentence.

And, oh, she really wished the word
risen
hadn't come up in
that
sentence.

And, oh, she really wished the word—

"Hello!" she called out before she even reached the porch.

"Hi, Ms. Frost," Alex greeted her before Michael had a chance.

The golden retriever, too, barked once in welcome, then stood with tail wagging, grinning at her. Alex had changed out of his school uniform and into a pair of blue jeans, the knees of which were buffed nearly white, and an oversized football jersey bearing the colors and logo of the Indianapolis Colts. Michael, too, had changed out of his work clothes and into a pair of baggy khaki trousers and a wine-colored sweater. Hannah was glad she'd gone casual herself, opting for a pair of charcoal-colored pants and a dove-gray sweater set. Well, it was casual for
her.

"We're really glad you could come to dinner tonight."

Alex added as she drew nearer. "'Cause Dad cooked lasagna."

"You shouldn't have gone to so much trouble," Hannah said as she stepped up onto the front porch.

Michael pushed open the door and started to say something, but the golden retriever squeezed through first, nudging Hannah's hand.

"That's Foley," Alex told her. "He's glad you could come, too."

"Hello, Foley," Hannah said, grinning when the dog started licking her fingers.

"It was no trouble," Michael assured her. "Lasagna is easy." He gave a little shrug and added, "Alex and I had a lot of fun, didn't we?"

Hannah turned to the little boy. "You helped?"

"With the spinach salad," he said.

Michael smiled. "He put in the chocolate chips."

Hannah smiled back. "Ooohhh. Sounds yummy."

"It was an experiment," Alex told her. "But I think it turned out really good."

In fact, all of dinner turned out "really good," Hannah had to admit after they'd finished it. Including the spinach salad. That hot caramel dressing made all the difference. No more boring spinach salads for her in the future, no way. Alex was definitely on to something. While dining, they talked about Alex's favorite subjects at school and his karate classes and the latest duel on
Yu-Gi-Oh!
And they talked about Michael's recent business trip to Washington, D.C., and his plan to add a sunroom to the back of the house come spring. And they talked about Indianapolis, where Michael grew up and with which Hannah was still familiarizing herself, even having lived here for two years.

In fact, they talked about all the mundane kinds of things that people—families—always talked about at dinner. At least, they were the kinds of things Hannah had always imagined people—families—talked about at dinner. And not once was she bored. Not once was she uncomfortable. Not once did she feel anything other than, as Alex had said, glad to have come. Because dinner with the Sawyers was exactly the type of dinner she had always fantasized about enjoying as a child. A dinner where she would come home from school and tell her parents of her day, and tease her little brother and sneak scraps to the dog under the table. For the first time in her thirty-six years, Hannah had the reality instead of the fantasy. And the reality, she thought, was even better than the fantasy. Because the reality included Michael.

And after Alex went upstairs to finish his homework and get ready for bed, the reality consisted of Hannah and Michael alone. And she knew she didn't want to leave just yet. She didn't want to return to her house. Her reality at home
wasn't
what she had fantasized for herself as a child. It didn't feel like home at her house. It didn't feel like this.

And that, she told herself, was Not Good.

Because instead of returning to the place where she lived her life—the place where she belonged—she wanted to stay here with Michael, in the place where he lived his life and where
he
belonged. She wanted to help him clean up, help him do dishes and keep discussing the day, as if this were the sort of thing the two of them did every evening. She wanted to kick off her shoes once they knew Alex was asleep, and then switch off the lamps and light some candles and snuggle on the sofa before the fire. She wanted to sit quietly at the end of her day with a man she—With a man she cared very much about. And for that reason, if no other, Hannah told herself she needed to go.

Because she didn't care about Michael in the idealized, storybook way. She couldn't care about him like that.

Because he wasn't an idealized, storybook man. As she had told him that night at the fund-raiser, Michael was much more than Alex Sawyer's father. And it was that
much more
that Hannah had to keep reminding herself about. Because although this side of him was soft and warm and fuzzy, his other side—with which she had a more than nodding acquaintance—simply could not be trusted.