Michael's Discovery - By Sherryl Woods Page 0,40
oven and give you a lift home? Or can you stay for dinner?”
“Not tonight. I have some thinking to do. And don’t worry about the lift. I’ll call a cab.”
“Let me do it,” she said, already moving toward the phone.
Michael shrugged into his jacket and jockeyed the wheelchair into the garage.
“I’m not opening that door yet,” his mother warned. “The cab company said it would be at least ten minutes. I wish you’d just let me take you.”
“This is fine, Mom.”
“One of these days you’ll be driving yourself places again,” she said with confidence. It was the first time she’d ventured any sort of comment about his future.
“I hope so.”
“I know so,” she said emphatically. “Now give me a kiss.” She bent down and accepted his kiss. “I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
She regarded him intently. “Finding your biological parents won’t diminish that.”
He smiled. “I know that.”
“Just thought I’d mention it, in case it was on your mind.”
“Have I told you lately how incredible you are and how lucky I am to have you in my life?”
“You never had to say it,” she said, though there were tears in her eyes. “Mothers can usually see straight into their children’s hearts.”
“You can,” he told her. “I’m not so sure Kathleen Devaney could.”
“You won’t know that until you see her again.”
Michael sighed. “Will you be disappointed in me if I decide against it?”
“I could never be disappointed in you as long as you make your choice for the right reasons,” she said with conviction.
The arrival of the taxi saved him from having to think about what his mother would consider valid reasons for leaving things just as they were.
But finding Kelly waiting on his doorstep pretty much guaranteed that he wasn’t off the hook for the day, after all.
Michael didn’t look especially overjoyed to see her, Kelly concluded as he exited a taxi and made his way up the walk to where she waited. She wasn’t sure what had drawn her back to his place after she’d finished with her last client. Maybe it had been his distraction during their morning session. More likely, it was the uneasy conversation they’d had the night before. She’d avoided asking about the search that morning, but it had clearly been on his mind. He’d hardly said two words to her during the entire session.
“What brings you back?” he asked as he maneuvered the wheelchair past her and into the foyer. “Did you forget something?”
“No.” She’d been waiting for a half hour and in all that time she hadn’t managed to come up with a halfway plausible excuse for returning aside from wanting to see him. “If you’re busy, I can leave.”
“I’m not busy,” he said. “Are you hungry? We could order a pizza or something.”
She was surprised by the invitation. “Are you sure you don’t mind me being here?”
“To be perfectly honest, I’m glad you’re here.”
His response startled her, but she didn’t want to make too much of it. “Oh?”
“I was over at my mom’s. She gave me a lot to think about, but to be frank, I’m not looking forward to all the soul-searching required.”
“If you’re looking for a distraction, maybe I should go rent us a couple of videos, too.”
He grinned. “Perfect.”
“Action, romance or comedy?”
“What do you think?”
“One action movie for you, one chick flick for me,” she concluded. “That’s only fair.”
He nodded. “What do you want on your pizza? I’ll order while you’re gone.”
“Nothing slimy.”
Michael laughed. “Besides anchovies, what exactly does that exclude?”
“Onions and mushrooms.”
“Fine by me. I’ll get half pepperoni and half sausage.”
“You have beers or sodas?”
“Plenty of both,” he confirmed.
“Then I’ll be right back.” She started down the walk, then turned back. “When was the last time you went to the movies, just so I don’t get something you’ve already seen.”
“The last movie I saw was Lethal Weapon.”
“Which one?”
He stared at her blankly. “There was more than one? Movies weren’t something I paid any attention to once I hit my teens. I was too wrapped up in sports.”
Kelly laughed. “I can see you have a lot of catching up to do.”
It took her less than twenty minutes to pick up Lethal Weapon II, along with Die Hard and Pearl Harbor, and for her, the romantic comedy Return to Me, which she’d already seen twice before. She grabbed a package of microwave popcorn at the checkout counter while she was at it.
Back at Michael’s, she arrived at the same time as the pizza. She paid the delivery man, then juggled everything