Harley didn’t have to guess if Nadine was happy to see her daughter. She wasn’t. The woman gave a weary sigh and folded her arms over her chest in a defensive position.
“Why are you here?” Amelia demanded, looking just as defensive as her mom. “What happened between Dad and you?”
Those questions didn’t help with Nadine’s attitude, and she expressed some of that disapproval by aiming a glare at Harley before she shifted her attention back to her daughter.
“I came here to think,” Nadine snapped, which really didn’t explain much of anything. There were plenty of places more suitable for someone in her economic bracket.
“You’re in Marty’s cabin,” Amelia pointed out. She matched her mom’s snappish tone. “Why?”
Nadine opened her mouth, made a sound of frustration and shook her head. “I plan to stay here for a day or two to work some things out. Not here here with Marty,” she amended. “But at the ranch. Tracy has a cabin for me to rent.”
Harley looked at his own mother to see what her take on this was, but she only lifted her shoulder in a gesture that could have meant anything.
“Marty said you two had to talk,” Harley relayed, sliding his gaze between Nadine and his mother. “Care to share the topic of conversation with Amelia and me?”
Apparently, the answer was “no” because the women exchanged a glance and promptly followed it up with double head shakes. That sure as heck didn’t please Amelia, who huffed and stormed closer as she looked her mother straight in the eyes.
“What the heck is going on?” Amelia demanded.
Nadine didn’t keep the direct eye contact with her daughter. Nope. Instead, the woman dropped her gaze to Amelia’s stomach, and it was as effective as a mountain-sized red flag. Hell’s bells. Nadine knew about the possible pregnancy.
No way would Harley confirm or deny anything. Doling out that info to Nadine was Amelia’s call. However, he did motion for his mother to join him in the yard so he could ask her about the pee stick he’d found. It took a second motion of his hand before Tracy finally started walking toward him—slowly and with much hesitation.
“Excuse us a second,” Harley said to Nadine and Amelia.
He didn’t want Amelia to have to face Nadine’s possible wrath alone, so he’d keep this short.
“There was a pregnancy test in the bathroom by your office,” he whispered to Tracy once she was in front of him.
Considering the fact that Tracy had been here chatting with Nadine, Harley had to consider that his mom knew about Amelia possibly being pregnant. He wasn’t sure what Tracy’s reaction would be to that or to the test itself.
But what he saw on her face was shock.
Tracy’s eyes widened, and she made a shivery sound as she sucked in her breath. Of course, that shock could be because he’d just discovered her secret.
“Liv,” she managed to eke out.
“No,” Harley quickly assured her. “It’s not hers.” He paused, studying her expression to see if there was even a whiff of BS going on here. There wasn’t. “You really don’t know who put it there?”
Tracy didn’t look back at Amelia, which made him believe that she wasn’t privy to Nadine’s stomach-glancing suspicions. “No.”
Harley pushed a little harder, wanting to make sure he’d gotten to the bottom of this as far as his mother was concerned. “The test I found in the bathroom wasn’t yours? You’re not pregnant?”
The burst of air that left her mouth was a sort of laugh, the kind a person made when they’d just heard something stupid to beat all stupid. It was a welcome sound for Harley, and while it didn’t clear up who’d left the pee stick, it meant he didn’t have to worry about his mother becoming a mom for the third time.
“You found a pregnancy test in the bathroom?” Nadine asked, getting Harley’s complete attention. His mother’s, too, because they both turned in Nadine’s direction.
Crap.
Nadine knew something about it. Harley could hear it in every word of her question. Amelia saw it as well because she stepped back while glaring at her mother.
“What do you know about that test?” Amelia demanded.
Nadine didn’t get defensive, but her mouth did tighten a little before she said, “I found it in your house, and I brought it here to confront you.” She paused, probably because of the look on Amelia’s face. “After I got here, I realized it wasn’t a good time for a confrontation, so I tossed it in the trash in the bathroom. I didn’t know anyone would actually see it.”
“You’re pregnant?” Tracy asked.
“To be determined,” Amelia answered without looking at her. She kept her narrow-eyed gaze nailed to Nadine. “It wasn’t a good time for you to snoop in my house,” Amelia spelled out, her words clipped and raw. “In fact, there’s never a good time for that.”
Nadine nodded as if that’d been exactly the reaction she’d expected. “This is another reason I didn’t want to confront you. I knew it’d turn into a big blowup, and I don’t have the mental energy for it right now.”
No mental energy? Well, that was a first. Nadine hadn’t had any trouble in the past mustering up enough snootiness to blast Harley for being in Amelia’s life. And in her bed. Now that he’d maybe gotten Amelia pregnant, he would have thought Nadine would come at him with every snooty weapon in her arsenal. But nope. Which meant there was something hellish bad going on here. And it obviously had something to do with Marty, or else Nadine wouldn’t be at the ranch.
“You’re maybe pregnant?” Tracy pressed again while she nibbled on her bottom lip and studied Amelia.
Amelia groaned. She was obviously still battling the temper demon that her mother had sprung loose. “I won’t know until I see the doctor tomorrow.”
His mother seemed to go through a couple of stages of reaction. A little shaky at first, but by the time she started nodding, he thought there was some acceptance in there, too. Of course, the acceptance might end when she found out that he’d proposed to Amelia. His mother liked Amelia well enough, but she wasn’t blind to the trouble that Nadine would likely cause for him on a daily basis if he became the woman’s son-in-law.
“Okay, now that we’ve got that cleared up,” Harley said, “I’d appreciate it if one of you told Amelia and me what’s going on.”
Tracy and Nadine exchanged another volley of those glances, and Harley didn’t think it was his imagination that they were trying to mentally suss out what to spill or maybe how to spill it.
“The truth,” he added. “The whole truth. We’re past the point of doling out any half-assed answers.”
Dragging in a long breath, Nadine nodded and turned not toward him but Amelia. “A few months ago, I came here to talk to Tracy about how displeased I was about you seeing Harley. I thought Tracy could help convince Harley to end things.”
Oh, the anger came. Really bad pissed-off anger. But Harley knew this shouldn’t surprise him. Nadine would always see him as low and as useless as hoof grit. Even if she didn’t have a clue what hoof grit was.
“I told Nadine I wouldn’t interfere,” Tracy jumped in to say, probably because she saw the venom in Harley’s eyes and didn’t want it aimed at her.
“All right,” he said because he believed her, but he made a circling motion with his index finger for Nadine to continue with her explanation.
She did, after the longest pause in the history of long pauses. “When I came here to talk to Tracy, I met Marty.” Her forehead bunched up, and her mouth twisted as if she’d tasted something sour. “I’d had I guess you could call an infatuation with him, the way you do sometimes with celebrities, so I was...dazzled to meet him in person.”
“Dazzled?” Amelia prompted when her mother didn’t add anything else.
Nadine nodded. “Marty can be quite charming.”
Harley groaned, and he wondered how m
any women had fallen for that charm. The man certainly had a knack for separating women from their panties.
“You had an affair with Marty Jameson?” Amelia asked. It wasn’t anger in her voice. Nope, this was pure shock.
“No. Not an affair,” Nadine insisted. “A single dazzle-induced indiscretion. I got caught up in his whole celebrity status.”
That was snooty code for a one-night stand, something that Marty had no doubt had plenty of, but Harley figured it was the first and only time for Nadine.
“Did Dad find out?” Amelia asked. The shock was fading, and in its place came plenty of concern.
After another of those excruciatingly long pauses, Nadine nodded. As if she’d turned on a tap, her eyes filled with tears. “Yes. Someone told him. A ‘fan’ of Marty’s.” She put fan in air quotes, and her expression turned bitter. “Apparently, that fan also happened to be staying here at the ranch, and she snapped some pictures of Marty and me as we were coming out of his cabin.”
“The fan sent the pictures to Amelia’s father,” Tracy filled in after making a sound of frustration. “Nadine doesn’t know why the fan waited several months before doing that, but Patrick got them in an email.”
So, that explained her parents’ argument. However, it didn’t explain why Nadine had come to Marty today. Or how she’d been able to get in touch with him. Marty didn’t always broadcast his whereabouts to just anyone, including members of his own family.
“I was afraid this fan would try to blackmail Marty,” Nadine went on, “so I called him. He’d given me his personal number after, well, after. I came here to talk to him in person.”
Since Amelia didn’t look too steady on her feet, Harley slipped his arm around her waist.
“Oh, God,” Nadine said, touching her fingers to her trembling mouth. And she repeated that a couple of times before she blurted out, “Your dad is talking about divorcing me.”
* * *
AMELIA PACED ACROSS the guest cabin that she’d rented for the night. Since it wasn’t a big space, it didn’t take her long to get from one side to the other. Too bad, because it might have helped her burn off some of this restless, angry energy if she could pace to the point of exhaustion.
When she’d left her place that morning in Wrangler’s Creek, she’d thought the worst of what she would have to face would be Harley’s reaction to her possibly being pregnant. If she had just stayed home to wait for her doctor’s appointment, she wouldn’t have run into her mother. Wouldn’t have had the triple whammy of a possible baby, her mother’s affair and her parents’ divorce.
But maybe the divorce fell into the possible category, too.
There was no way to know since her father wasn’t answering his phone. Knowing him, though, he was probably doing some cleanup, making sure that the pictures of Marty and Nadine didn’t make it to social media. Or fixing things so that the photos didn’t lead to some kind of blackmail to keep them secret.
Amelia froze when there was a knock at her cabin door. She definitely didn’t want to go another round with her mother, and she didn’t want to see Tracy, either. But it was Harley who called out to her.
“It’s me,” he said.
She wasn’t sure she wanted to see him, either, but she couldn’t shut him out. Some women went through pregnancy alone. Not her, though, unless it was absolutely necessary. If she was indeed carrying Harley’s child, he would be as much of a part of that as he wanted.
Judging from his marriage proposal, he wanted to be a large part.
More likely, though, he had popped the question out of duty and without thinking it through. Harley was a decent man, but she didn’t want him pressured into doing something that could ultimately sour their friendship and make him resent her. Or worse, resent the baby.
Amelia opened the door, surprised that it was already dark outside. She’d closed the blinds and curtains, and she hadn’t once noticed the time. Not with so many thoughts and worries stewing in her head. One look at Harley’s face, though, and she realized he’d had his own worry stew going on.
The moment he was inside, Harley immediately pulled her into his arms for a hug. Thirty seconds ago, she wouldn’t have thought she needed such a thing, that a hug couldn’t have helped. But it did. It soothed some of her jangled nerves, and judging from the way his muscles relaxed, she thought that maybe it did the same for him.
“Sorry that I didn’t come by sooner,” he said, shutting the door behind him. “But I had some things to take care of. Besides, I thought you could use the alone time.”
Oh, yes. She’d needed these hours to herself. Too bad she didn’t feel any better about things, but at least no one else had had to put up with her gloom and doom mood.
“I talked to Marty,” he went on, and he led her to the kitchen, where he had her sit down at the table. He snagged two bottles of water from the fridge and took the seat next to her. “He’s had a chat with the fan who took the pictures of him and your mom. She promised to give him the photos and not send them to anyone else.”
That was indeed progress. “How’d Marty manage to get her to agree to that?”
Harley shrugged, and the corner of his mouth lifted into a quick smile, causing a dimple to flash in his cheek. “The man’s got charm.”
“Apparently so, if he could talk my mother into bed.” A reminder that added only another gallon of gloom and doom to her mood.
Good grief. Her mom had slept with Marty Jameson, the man who supposedly went through lovers as frequently as many people changed their sheets. When her mom had fallen from her snooty tower, she’d fallen long, hard and fast. Along with forgetting that she was a married woman.
“Yeah,” Harley agreed, as if he’d known exactly what Amelia was thinking. “The fan said she sent the pictures to your father because she thought it would cause trouble for your mother. She was jealous and didn’t want Marty seeing Nadine again. But when Marty pressed the fan, she admitted that she hoped your father would be willing to pay for the pictures.”
“He might have done that,” Amelia agreed, but then she paused. “But he could also use them if there’s a divorce.”
A divorce. Something she’d been trying to wrap her mind around for hours. Obviously, her mother hadn’t wanted to end her marriage or have a possible life with Marty or she would have told her husband what she’d done. Her mom had tried to keep it a secret. But now that the secret was out of the proverbial bag, that meant the divorce decision rested with her father.
“My parents aren’t overly affectionate with each other,” Amelia admitted, “but I didn’t expect their marriage to end. I didn’t think either of them would want to go through the scandal of a divorce. And they might not. My father might overlook a single dazzle-induced indiscretion just to avoid gossip.”
Of course, that was provided the gossip wasn’t already out there. Amelia wasn’t sure just how effective Marty’s pact with this fan would be.
Harley reached out, sliding his hand over hers. “FYI, your mother is still against us being together. Yeah,” he verified when Amelia groaned. “Apparently, Nadine still thinks she has the right to judge us. She said something along the lines of she didn’t want you using what she’d done to make a bad decision.” He flashed another quick smile. “Guess I’m the bad decision.”
Like the hug, the smile actually helped, and Amelia found herself smiling, too. Not in a happy rah-rah kind of way, but one more of resignation. Harley didn’t deserve her mother’s condemnation.
“I’m sorry,” Amelia said, her voice filled with the emotion that she’d been battling all day.
No smile this time. Harley just gave a heavy sigh and stood, pulling her back to her feet and straight into his arms. She thought he might give her a lecture to try to convince her that there was no reason for her to be sorry.
But instead he kissed her.
His mouth came to
hers, and she immediately felt the warm jolt of pleasure. Heat mixed with need. It was there even after all the years they’d been together. No kiss from Harley ever felt ordinary or like the same old move. And as it always did, it sent her body into overdrive.
This was so much better than a lecture on many levels, and the heat from his mouth leveled her, revved her up and sent her flying. Then he deepened the kiss and made her legs go weak.
She wanted to know how he managed to give her so much pleasure by using only his mouth. Of course, she couldn’t figure it out because he didn’t just keep the contact lip to lip. Tightening his grip around her waist, he angled them so they were hip to hip as well. All in all, it was an amazing fit of his body against hers.
“You’re trying to convince me to say yes to your marriage proposal,” she managed to say, mumbling the words against his mouth.
He pulled back a little and flexed his eyebrows. “Obviously, I wasn’t doing it right if that’s what you got from the kiss.”
Amelia couldn’t help herself. She smiled. “Oh, you did it right,” she assured him. “You always do it right.”
Now those flexed eyebrows turned a little cocky. “Always?” he drawled. Then, as if to claim that particular title, he kissed her again.
Since her body was already heated up to the point of scalding, she was the one to pull him back to her. Chest to chest this time. And she did some kiss deepening of her own. Part of her knew she should be trying to keep some distance between them so she could think with a clear head, but this was a heck of a lot more fun than thinking.
And that fun had led her to possibly being pregnant.
The reminder did stop her because this felt as if she was leading him on. Of course, he was likely trying to coax her to bed so he could finish this kissing the right way along with getting her to say yes to his proposal. But Amelia wasn’t ready for either of those things. Not with the pregnancy test looming over their heads.
When she eased back from him, she saw that Harley understood that bed coaxing wasn’t going to happen tonight. He wasn’t upset. Not even frustrated. Okay, maybe he was a little frustrated. She certainly was, and her body was trying to nudge her into stepping right back into his arms. However, he gave her a chaste kiss.
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