how are you settling in?” he asked even though he already knew the answer. The tenants had been singing her praises and he hadn’t had any more tap dancing on his ceiling or middle-of-the-night irate phone calls. Which left him free to concentrate on his work, which should have taken up every second of his time as it had for the past five years of his life. Instead he’d actually caught himself daydreaming about Brett—the way she smiled, the way she’d looked with the sun haloing her short dark hair, the sound of her laughter, the way she lit up a room with her presence.
“Nicely.”
“What?” he asked absently, distracted by the cutest little dimple he’d just noticed at the corner of her lush mouth.
“I said I’m settling in nicely.” She hoped she didn’t sound as breathless as she felt. Michael was staring at her strangely again. His hazel eyes were fascinating enough as it was without adding that seductive look to the mix. Unable to help herself, she lifted her hand to rub her mouth as she asked, “Do I have dirt on my face or what?”
“No.”
“You were looking at me so intently.” He’d been staring directly at that corner of her mouth. She leaned forward to check her reflection in the glass beside the front door.
“You look fine,” he huskily assured her. “Better than fine.”
“Sure I do,” she said dryly. The man was either being kind or he was just plain blind. She knew the baggy sweatshirt had seen better days. So had she. She looked like an elf on a chain-gang crew. She hadn’t brushed her hair since this morning. Forget lipstick. She hadn’t worn any since Wednesday and this was Friday. Yeah, she was a regular Cindy Crawford look-alike.
“Don’t you go trying to lift anything else this heavy,” he scolded her, reaching out to brush her bangs away from her eyes. “Ask for some help next time, okay?”
She nodded dazedly. The merest brush of his hand and her knees went weak. The rattling radiators had nothing on the clatter of her heartbeat. She stood there after he’d walked away, her mind racing as fast as her pulse, filling her thoughts with images of Michael scooping her up in his arms and taking her to bed.
“Girl, you look like you got hit by lightning,” Keisha noted dryly as she walked in the front door to the building.
“Yeah.” Brett dreamily sighed. “I feel that way, too.”
“Oh-oh.”
“Why is it oh-oh?”
“I saw the way you-looked at Michael. He may not have owned this building long, but I told you I work as a security officer at the library’s main branch. Anyway, Michael is well known in security circles. Likes working alone, always solves his cases. Nothin’ slips past him.”
“That’s good, right?”
Keisha shrugged. “Girl, he doesn’t let anyone slow him down. As in females. He changes them often and likes them gorgeous.”
“Gorgeous, huh? Well, that lets me out of the running,” Brett noted ruefully.
“Don’t you be down on yourself. You got plenty going for you. I never seen a girl knows as much about hardware as you do.”
“I may know about hardware, but I don’t have any of my own,” Brett replied, waving her hand toward her small breasts.
“You never heard of those push-up bras they’ve got? My sister works in a lingerie store. Talk about hardware.” Keisha grinned and rolled her eyes. “We’re talking heavy-duty stuff here. We’ll go over there my next day off.”
“I don’t know…”
Keisha waved away Brett’s uncertainty. “I gotta get over there to pick out my Christmas present from Tyrone anyway.”
“You pick out your own present?”
“Only since he bought me a steam iron last year.”
Brett winced in appreciative understanding.
“So this year I pick out my own things. Safer that way. How ‘bout you? Got your shopping done yet? Christmas is only three weeks away.”
“I know. It’ll be here before you know it. I’m just about done with my shopping.” Despite the fact that Brett had no family, she did have a large list of people she remembered at the holidays. Since money was tight, it was always a challenge coming up with gift ideas under five dollars, but she managed. After all, practice makes perfect, and Brett had had plenty of practice at making a dollar stretch.
“You know what you’re gonna ask Santa for?” Keisha inquired.
The mental image of Michael with a bow around his neck flashed into Brett’s mind, followed by a picture of their children gathered around the tree. “Santa can’t give me what I want,” Brett whispered in a slightly melancholy voice, before dismissing the unobtainable image from her thoughts. “Tell me more about that lingerie shop your sister works in…”
While Brett was speaking to Keisha outside, inside his apartment Michael was talking to his dad, or attempting to.
“Fuji has better phones,” his father was saying. “I can hear you now.”
“So what do you know about a Janos family curse?”
“Curse? Have you been betting on the horses again?” his father demanded.
“No. I only bet on the horses once in my life, Dad. That’s not what I’m talking about.”
“Then what are you talking about?”
“I got a package from Hungary. From someone who claims they are a relative.”
“Must be your Great-Aunt Magda. What did she send you?” his father demanded suspiciously.
“An engraved metal box with a silver key in it. And she sent along a letter.” Michael read it to his father. “Do you know what this is all about?”
“There is a spell,” his father confirmed before static broke into the line.
“Wait, I didn’t hear what else you said,” Michael shouted. “The line is breaking up again. Did you say that there really is a curse?”
“Not a curse. A spell…was meant to be bahtali.”
“I don’t understand. Are you still there?”
The only answer he got was static.
“Can you hear me?” Michael shouted.
“The entire building can hear you,” Brett wryly noted from the doorway to his apartment.
“How did you get in? Never mind. I’m on the phonelong distance.”
“I’ll try to call you when we reach Hawaii,” he heard his dad say over the briefly clear line.
“Dad, wait!” Michael said into the phone. “What about the bahtali?”
