Not Quite Perfect (Oakland Hills Book 3) (3 page)

The floor was quiet. Doors, most of them closed, broke up the walls on either side. He frowned. He needed an open-door policy when he was on site to get a feel for the place. Later, when he was gone, they could shut them again. He made another note in his book to remind Liam to send out an email. A second email, he hoped, since Zack already had asked him to do it once.

He wouldn’t knock on doors just yet. Soon Liam would introduce him to the employees so they knew he had permission to nose around. He made another note to get a hard copy of the building floor plan. And a set of keys. The closed doors could be storage, for all he knew, or computer rooms.

One door at the end of the hallway was open, though, and he could see the edge of a cubicle wall inside. He glanced at his watch, saw he still had more than an hour to fill, and headed over to say hello, adjusting his new security badge so it was prominently displayed on the pocket of his suit jacket.

The first cubicle was empty, but the huge monitor and high-tech drawing pad in front of it told him this was some kind of computer design area. The cubicle across from it looked the same and was also empty.

It was 9:04 a.m., and lots of expensive equipment was going to waste.

He made another note.

Then he walked past the carpeted wall to the next cubicle and saw, finally, a living human being: a girl with curly brown hair, peering at a huge monitor.

He frowned. She looked really young, maybe nineteen. Although he liked to talk to everyone, he didn’t do so until he’d introduced himself to the managers first, especially if the person was just an intern. In his experience, interns loved to gossip. Great for him, but it could get them into trouble.

“Oh! Hey,” she cried, jumping away with a hand on her chest. “Is this your spot?” She wore a cropped denim jacket heavily adorned with colorful appliqués and jewelry. And cut-off red Bermuda shorts over knee-high combat boots.
 

Definitely an intern. “My spot?”

“Sorry. I was just curious.” She moved to leave. “I should get back to work.”

He didn’t move out of her way. “This isn’t your department?”

Her large gray eyes, heavily adorned with blue eyeliner, sharpened. “Not exactly. Who are you?”

“I’m a consultant.”

“Ah, I should’ve guessed,” she said.

“Oh?”

“The suit. None of the artists would wear suits,” she said. “Were you looking for somebody? The folks in here don’t usually come in until later.”

“No, I was just taking a little unofficial tour. I just arrived.” He wasn’t sure why he was explaining himself. Time to kill, he supposed.

Her eyes danced. “I was kind of doing the same thing.”

“Are you new?”

She gave him a mischievous grin. “I hope so.” She leaned closer to him. “Don’t tell anyone you saw me, okay? Please?”

“You’re not supposed to be in here?”

“Are you going to tell on me?” she asked.

“I might.” He had to bite back a smile. Something about her made him want to laugh.

Her grin widened. “But you might not?”

He sobered.
Get serious
. He couldn’t treat this job as a paid vacation just because he was so grateful to get out of New York for a little while. If he was overwhelmed with amusement, it was only because he was talking to a teenage girl in combat boots who, for all he knew, had broken into the building. He should make a note about security.

“What’s your name?” he asked.

“Like I’m going to tell you.”

“Excuse me?”

“I think I’d better run, don’t you?” As she asked this, she grabbed his shoulders, spun him sideways, and fled past him. She smelled like orange blossoms.

Caught by surprise, he grabbed the wall of the cubicle for balance. “Hey!”

“Enjoy the rest of your tour,” she shouted from the hallway.

He blinked, not sure what had just happened. He picked up the landline on the desk, hit the reception button, and described the young woman roaming free on the second floor.

“Oh! You went upstairs?” Virginia asked.
 

“Yes. Do you know her?” How many teenage girls in combat boots could there be?

“Combat boots?” Virginia asked.

He pressed on. “Do you often have unauthorized visitors in the building?”

Silence.

“Virginia?”

“No,” she said, her voice faint.

“Well, you do now,” he said. “What’s your procedure?”

“My procedure?”

“Not yours, the company’s.” He closed his eyes. This wasn’t like him. He wasn’t the police—he was a regular guy, the type of guy they could confess to, ask for help. To get that kind of rapport, he had to win them over slowly, not barge in with his notebooks blazing. “Never mind. Sorry to bother you.”

She breathed out in relief. “Okay.”

He hung up and let his gaze fall on the workstation. For a second, right before it disappeared under a screen saver of a cat flying past in a superhero suit, he glimpsed a window filled with multi-colored geometric shapes that formed the first three letters of the Fite logo.

He hit the mouse to bring the image back, but it required a password, and he was stuck watching the flying cat.

Either the curly haired intruder had been working on the design at the workstation, or somebody else had been here just before her. If he hung around, he might be able to ask who she was, why she was—

He rubbed his face. Later. Liam was due soon. This time he’d wait for him, and save his exploring for after a complete tour.

He exited the computer room, walked down the refurbished hallway, and returned to his office downstairs, unpleasantly distracted by the memory of shapely bare knees and combat boots.

He sat behind his new, empty desk, shaking his head.

Of all the times and places to discover his sex drive had returned. On the job with a teenager. Years of nothing—
nothing
—and now…

He didn’t know if he should cry or thank God.

* * *

“Did you test the temperature?” April’s mother, Trixie, pointed at the tiny bottle in her hand. They stood in the kitchen of Liam and Bev’s house next door, listening to the rising volume of Merry’s cries in the living room.

 
April laughed. “Listen to her. What a drama queen.”

Her mom touched her arm. “Hold on, sweetie. We have to test it. It might be too hot. Dribble some of it on the inside of your wrist.”

April’s stomach tightened. She was an organic-hemp-wearing Northern California girl, but she’d rather not squirt her sister-in-law’s breast milk onto her bare flesh. “Be my guest.”

Her mother smiled. “You get used to it.” She took the bottle, shook a few drops onto her own wrist, and handed it back.

The liquid inside the bottle was grayish white, not at all what color real milk should be. April had seen plenty of it before, but she never got used to it. “All right?”

“It’s fine,” her mother said.

“Thank God,” April muttered, striding out to the living room, wielding the bottle at arm’s length in front of her. Liam sat with Bev on the sofa. The baby, her face as red as a cherry lollipop under her jet-black hair, screamed in his arms. Liam had the expression of a man tied to the tracks in front of a speeding train.

“She sure can belt it out,” April said. “Maybe she’ll be an opera singer.”

Liam snatched the bottle. “What took so long?” He aimed it at the little open oval of Merry’s mouth.

Instead of sucking, she continued to howl. When Liam pushed the bottle deeper into her mouth, spiraling it between her lips, Bev reached over and pulled it out.

“She’s too upset,” Bev said, her voice rising. “Just wait a minute.”

Liam reclaimed the bottle and looked down at his daughter. “Listen, sweetheart, I’ve got what you want right here.”

April gestured at Bev’s chest. “Maybe she wants it on tap.”

Liam shot her a furious look. “Do you mind?”

“Just a suggestion,” April said.

Tears trickled down Bev’s cheeks. Bev had that combination of fair skin and smooth black hair that April had admired ever since she’d seen a print of the Mona Lisa as a kid. Bev was sweet, too, having taught preschool before inheriting Fite Fitness, and was possibly the nicest person April had ever met. Liam had totally lucked out, hooking up with someone like her.

Bev wasn’t her usual happy self today, however. “The nurse said if she doesn’t learn to like the bottle now, she might never learn,” she snapped at Liam. “How can I go back to work if she never learns?”

“She’s not even two months old yet,” Liam said. “Are you saying we’ve already ruined her?”
 

April watched the two parents glaring at each other and thought they needed to learn how to chill. No wonder the baby was crying. “Can I have a turn?” she asked.

Liam aimed his furious gaze at her. Merry kicked her tiny legs.
 

“To give you a break,” April continued, reaching out to rescue her niece from her brother. Poor thing. She knew what it felt like to have him on your case. “Go get a beer. Maybe a prescription sedative.”

“You just want to show off,” Liam said.

April smiled, flattered he’d noticed how she had a magic touch with the little squirt. “All right with you, Bev?”

When Bev bit her lip and nodded, April lifted Merry into the crook of her elbow. And then, plowing ahead with her theory that her niece was screaming because her dad was an uptight head case, she waved away the bottle and carried the baby out the front door. Stool, who’d come over with her from her mother’s house with the Chihuahuas, followed her onto the landing. Ever since the morning she’d moved back home, he’d stuck to her like glue. Fear of abandonment could strike the hardiest of souls.

Perhaps it was the shock of cold wind blasting through the Golden Gate across the bay and into her little face, or perhaps it was the distance from her neurotic parents, but little Merry stopped crying.

“Oh,” Meredith Bailey Johnson said. Actually, it was more like a gasp, but April decided it was her first word and smiled, rubbing the baby’s soft, wet cheek against her own.

“Cold, isn’t it?” April pivoted in her boots until they were aiming west. “The wind blows off the Pacific. That’s San Francisco over there.”

“Oh,” Merry said again. “Oh, oh, oh.”

April leaned back and looked into her face. “Are you cold?”

Merry gaped at her with her wide blue eyes as if she’d been drunk all night and just noticed she was in bed with somebody unfamiliar.

April totally knew
that
look.

“Wuh,” Merry said. Her face was pimpled and splotchy.

“You don’t look so good,” April said. She flinched, realizing she’d insulted her only niece. “I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t say shit like that.”

The fight had drained out of Merry. She continued to gaze at April, but under flickering eyelids.

“I shouldn’t swear, either,” April whispered, glancing at the house. “Our little secret, okay?”

She had lots of those these days. Sneaking into Fite early every day was taking its toll on her cheerful disposition. She missed the sleep, hated lying to her mother about her fictional new obsession with sunrise jogging, and knew that any one of these days very soon, Liam was going to find out.

Silence. Merry was asleep.

“You seem smaller when you shut up.” April kissed her on the forehead, right on the spots. “Good reason to keep making noise. Don’t want people walking all over you.”

Another gust of wind hit them, so April opened the door and stepped inside. Liam jumped up and strode over, reaching for the baby. He didn’t say anything, but April could see his jaw clenching as he took Merry from her arms.

“She’s asleep,” April said.

“Probably went into shock,” Liam said, tucking her under his unzipped sweatshirt against his chest. “It’s November, not July. You’ve got to be careful with newborns.”

Buried up to her chin under her dad’s sweatshirt, Merry opened her eyes. Outraged by the relocation, she opened her mouth and sucked in a deep breath to resume howling.

“Oh, no,” Liam muttered during the brief silence.

April grinned. “Thar she blows.”

Merry’s crying drowned out whatever Bev said as she came over and handed Liam the bottle. Poor Bev. She looked like she hadn’t slept in a week, and crusty white streaks marked each of her shoulders.

April held out her arms. “Let me take her outside again. She likes it.”

“Isn’t it too cold?” Bev asked.

“I’ll wander around inside, then,” April said, clasping her finger’s around Merry’s little chest under Liam’s sweatshirt.

“No—” he began, but Merry had stopped crying as soon as April touched her.

April lifted her all the way out, cradling her fuzzy head with one hand, and felt her own heart swell. Big blue eyes gazed into hers. She’d loved Merry before she was born, but the compliment her niece paid her by not crying whenever she held her was especially charming. What a fantastic kid. The best in the world.

“Let’s bail this popsicle stand, kiddo,” April whispered, walking away. Stool, as usual, padded at her side.

Liam stood and grabbed her arm. “Hold it. I think there might be something wrong.” He leaned over and touched Merry’s cheek. “She’s all hot.”

“She’s been crying,” April said. “And you had her in your sweatshirt.”

“She needs to eat, that’s all,” Trixie said, shoving the bottle into Merry’s newly closed mouth.

April pulled away from both of them. “Stop. She doesn’t need anything. She’s fine. Totally fine.”

“She’s right,” Bev said. “Let April hold her. I just can’t listen to her cry anymore.”

“But we can’t rely on her every time—” Liam began.

“I don’t care about every time,” Bev said. “This is right now. As in, right now I’m taking a shower. I’ve got dried spit-up in my hair.” She got up, came over to kiss Merry on the forehead, and gave April a sad but grateful look before leaving the room.

April wandered around the house until Merry was deeply asleep. Then she tucked the limp little body into her car seat, set it next to the washing machine off the kitchen, and rejoined the others around the breakfast table. Bev, with damp hair and rosy cheeks, sat close to Liam. They held hands, looking happier than they had in months. Trixie was sipping her tea, smiling at them, then at April as she sat down.