by Jane Porter
“They’re becoming teenagers.”
“They’re only eleven.”
“And a half.” She smiled. “They told me they were born in early May. Apparently they are hoping to do something fun with you for their twelfth birthday... something about going to Orlando?”
“I have not agreed to Orlando. I would never agree to Orlando. Flathead Lake, yes. Florida, no.”
“Why not Orlando?” she asked.
“Too many people. Don’t like crowds. Not a big fan of amusement parks.”
“Have you ever been to an amusement park?”
“No.”
“You can’t blame them for being curious.”
“They’re Montana kids. They’re just as happy camping and fishing. So if they really want to go somewhere for their birthday, I’ll take them to Flathead Lake. Amy’s parents have a cabin there and we can fish and hike.”
“Molly fishes?”
“For their tenth birthday I gave each of them new poles and tackle.”
Harley squashed her smile. She couldn’t imagine her Emma or Ana ever being excited about a fishing pole and tackle, but her girls were good athletes and had loved skiing and snowboarding and having adventures with their dad. That’s how they’d died, too. Setting off on an adventure with their dad.
David should have never taken off in that bad weather. Never, never, ever.
But he never did listen to her. He was always so sure he knew what was best.
Her smile faded.
She realized Brock had stopped talking and was looking at her. “What are you thinking about?” he asked.
She shook her head, unable to talk about the kids, or how they died, or how selfish their father had been, piloting his own plane when there had been severe weather warnings.
“Nothing,” she whispered, pushing back the flood of memories, heartsick all over again. Emma and Ana and Davi, her little boy. Gone. All gone.
She turned to the cabinet, stared blindly at the boxes of tea, waiting for her vision to clear.
“I’m sorry,” Brock said, after a moment. “I forgot that this is a difficult subject for you.”
“It’s okay,” she said thickly. She turned to face him a few moments later. “I’m sure you know it, but you’re lucky. You have such sweet, smart kids. You should be proud.”
“I’d be prouder if they didn’t run away from school and if they’d tell me the truth when one of them gets hurt.”
“Maybe they’re scared that if they tell you the truth they’ll get in trouble.”
“I’ve never hit them. There’s no reason for them to be afraid of me.”
Harley regarded him a moment, still feeling the ache of grief that accompanied thoughts of her children. “Maybe they just need you to talk to them more. Reassure them that they can trust you—”
“Of course they can trust me. I’m their father.”
“You can be a little intimidating,” she said gently, thinking that right now he looked about as soft and receptive as the granite counter slabs in the kitchen. “Maybe just try to talk to them as a friend.”
His big arms crossed over his chest, drawing the knit shirt tight at his shoulders, revealing those hard carved abs again. “I’m not here to be their friend.”
Suddenly JB’s words came to Harley’s mind. Mr. Sheenan’s been a bachelor too long. Is that what this was?
She dropped her voice, softening her tone. “Don’t you want to know who they are? Don’t you want to know about their ideas... their feelings... their dreams?”
His upper lip curled. His expression was openly mocking. “For a woman who never had kids, you certainly seem to have a lot of opinions on how to raise them.”
She flinched, caught off guard.
She shouldn’t have been caught off guard, though. She’d pushed, wanting to help, but her attempt had backfired, and he’d lashed out at her instead.
It was a good lesson. Not just because he’d hurt her feelings, but because she wasn’t a counselor, a family member, or a friend. She was his employee and day after tomorrow she’d be gone.
Dropping the teabag in her mug, Harley vowed to mind her own business until then.
She counted to ten as she filled her mug with hot water, and then counted to ten again.
When she was confident she could speak calmly, she faced Brock. “I never said I’d never had kids. I said I don’t have children now.” She looked Brock in the eye, held his gaze. “My children died with their father in a small plane crash three years ago February. And maybe you don’t need to be friends with your kids, but I loved being friends with mine.”
Blinking back tears, she grabbed her mug and headed to her room to sip tea and read in bed and think of anything and everything besides her children who were angels now.
Brock cursed under his breath as Harley disappeared.
He’d hurt her again and he hadn’t meant to hurt her as much as get her to stop, back off. He wasn’t accustomed to being lectured, and she’d given him an earful and he’d had enough of her dispensing advice.
He didn’t need advice, not when it came to parenting his children. Mack and Molly were his kids and he was raising them the way he thought best.
But with Harley gone from the kitchen, he could still feel her surprise and hurt. He could still see the bruised look in her eyes when she’d turned away.
Shit.
This is exactly why he didn’t date and avoided polite society. He didn’t fit in polite society. He was better away from people, better on his own.
Angry with himself, he went to the barn to do his nightly check before bed. As he entered the barn, his dogs were immediately at his heels and followed him from stall to stall as he greeted each horse, stroking noses, giving treats, trying not to think about Harley or what she’d told him.
She’d been a mother. She’d had kids. Her children had died.
He cringed all over again, disgusted with himself, not just for his put-down, but for his need to put her in her place.
What was wrong with him?
Why did he have to shame a woman?
If his mom were alive she’d be horrified. She’d raised her boys to be gentlemen. She’d taught her five sons that women were equals and deserving of protection and respect.
He certainly hadn’t been respectful to Harley tonight.
Heart heavy, he returned to the house, locked up the doors, and turned off unnecessary lights but he couldn’t settle down in front of the TV, not when his conscience smacked him for being a heel.
Brock climbed the stairs two by two, and then the narrow staircase to the third floor bedroom he’d carved from the attic.
He knocked on the closed door with a firm rap of his knuckles.
She opened the door after a long moment, peeking out from behind the door. Her long hair was loose, a thick golden brown curtain about her face, and from behind the door he glimpsed a bare shoulder, her skin creamy and smooth.
She must have been changing when he’d knocked.
Just like that, his body hardened, pulse quickening.
He wanted her and he couldn’t remember when he’d lasted wanted anyone.
“I didn’t know,” he said shortly, glaring down at her, now unhappy with himself for being unable to manage the way he responded to her. In the eleven years since Amy died he’d never had an issue with lusting or physical desire, but something about Harley annihilated his famous self-control. “And I’m sorry. I’m sorry for being rough with you and not being more... sensitive. As you might have noticed, I’m not a very sensitive guy.”
“I share the blame,” she said. “I shouldn’t have been offering advice. I won’t do it again.”
They were the right words but somehow they didn’t make him feel better.
“Why didn’t you tell me you had kids?”
“It’s not something I talk about anymore.” She tugged her robe up, over her shoulder, concealing her delectable skin. “I’ve discovered that people treat you differently
if they know. She’s the lady who lost her husband and three children... I could hear people whisper that, or look at me with pity, and I’ve found that it’s just better for people not to know. That way there’s no awkwardness.” She made another little adjustment before stepping from behind the door, firmly tying her sash at her waist. “Which is why I didn’t want you to know I had children. I liked coming here to work knowing that my past didn’t matter, that my grief was my grief alone, and that this Christmas I’d get through the holidays with a minimum of fuss.”
“And then my kids came home,” he said quietly.
“Your eleven-year-olds.” Her lips curved but her expression was haunted. “My oldest was eleven when she died.” She drew a slow breath. “Eleven is such a great age, too.”
Brock could see how hard she was trying to keep it together, trying to be calm and strong, and her strength and courage moved him far more than tears ever could.
He’d wanted her moments ago because she was beautiful and desirable and now he just wanted to hold her to comfort her.
But he couldn’t.
There was no way he could make a move, not even to comfort. She was his employee. He was responsible for her.
“Tell me about your kids,” he said.
Her head dipped. Her voice dropped. “It’s hard to talk about them. Hurts.”
He heard her voice crack and his chest grew tight. It was all he could do to not reach out and caress her cheek. “It doesn’t help to talk about them?”
Her head shook and she lifted her head, looked up at him, eyes bright. “I’m still mad they’re gone. I don’t know why they’re gone.”
It was the tear trembling on her lower lashes that did him in.
He reached out to wipe the tear from her lashes and then the tear from the other side and when he couldn’t catch the tears because they were falling too fast he did the only thing he could think of. He drew her toward him and kissed her.
The kiss wasn’t meant to be sexual, and her lips were cool and they trembled beneath his. Brock was afraid he’d scared her, but then she slowly kissed him back, the coolness of her mouth giving away to a simmering heat.
He liked the way she kissed him back, her lips opening to him, and he took her mouth, craving her warmth. She tasted both sexy and sweet and he drank her in, feeling more than he wanted to feel, feeling more than he ever expected to feel and he leaned into her, backing her against the doorframe, his big body pressed to hers, needing to get as close as he could.
Harley didn’t understand the kiss, only that it was fierce and real, and it opened something inside of her, something blistering, and dangerous, because it silenced her brain and muted all thought.
Suddenly there was nothing but this moment, this man, this kiss.
There was no past, no future.
Nothing but this wild need burning inside her.
The wild need was unlike anything she’d ever felt, maybe because it wasn’t about a particular sensation, but all sensation. She needed to feel and feel and feel because it’d been forever since she felt anything but cold, and anger, and pain.
The rational Harley would have stopped him at a kiss, but the rational Harley was gone. This other Harley was in her place, wanting the kiss, wanting his hands, wanting his knee pressing up where she was so very warm.
She arched against him and kissed him back, craving everything he could give her. She’d felt nothing for so long and now this... this inferno, need so great she didn’t think she’d ever get enough.
He devoured her mouth, his tongue plunging in, stroking, teasing. Her hands rose to his chest and she clung to him, legs weak, heart pounding. His hand tugged at her robe, pulling it open, exposing her breasts. He lifted his head briefly to gaze down at her, and his dark hot gaze so carnal hungry that she felt as though she were melting.
“You’re beautiful,” he groaned, head dropping to kiss her again, as he cupped one of her breasts, fingers playing her taut nipple as if he’d known her body forever.
In a strange way she felt as if she’d known him forever, too, and she would have given him everything, and all of her, but a shout came from below.
“Dad! Dad! Where are you?”
Brock reluctantly lifted his head. Harley felt a pang as he shifted back.
“Molly,” he said, as the girl continued to shout his name.
“Dad, if we promise never ever to be stupid again, can we please have some dinner?”
Molly’s wail was both funny and quirky and sweet, just like the girl herself and just like that, reality returned, practically slapping Harley across the face.
What in God’s name was she doing?
Brock took a reluctant step back and dragged a hand through his black hair. “Bad timing,” he muttered.
“Maybe it’s good timing,” Harley answered, legs trembling. She’d come so close to losing her head. She’d come so close to losing control...
Shocked and more than a little mortified, Harley dragged the edges of her robe closed. Face hot, cheeks flaming she moved inside her room. “Go to her,” she said. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” And then before he could say a word, she closed the door as fast as she could.
CHAPTER SIX
Brock stood in the middle of Molly’s room, grimly listening to the twins recount their tree-chopping adventure, grinding his jaw to keep from expressing horror when he realized just how close his daughter had come to losing an eye... or worse.
“That was as stupid as you could get,” he said bluntly, giving his children a severe look as they sat side by side on Molly’s bed. “And so damn dangerous—”
“I know,” Mack agreed. “I can’t believe I let Molly talk me into it.”
Brock made a rough sound of disapproval. “Don’t blame your sister. That’s pathetic, Mack. It is. You have a brain. Use it.”
The boy nodded, gaze dropping but Molly stared back at her father. “We wouldn’t have to do it if you’d get us a tree,” she said, expressing little of the remorse she’d shown when he’d first entered her room fifteen minutes ago.
“That’s absurd,” Brock snorted “You can’t blame me for nearly losing your eye... or your head.”
“Why won’t you let us have a tree?” she persisted indignantly.
“We have real live trees growing outside. We don’t need to cut one and bring it inside.”
“Why not? They’re pretty,” Molly flashed. “And everybody has one. We want one, too.”
“Well, sneaking off with an ax into the woods isn’t the way to get one.”
“Then how do we get one if you won’t chop one down for us?” Molly demanded.
Brock was losing his temper. “I’m not discussing Christmas trees now.”
“But you never do. You never discuss anything we want to talk about. You just make up all these rules and expect us to follow them—”
“Yes,” he interrupted. “That’s right. I do. You’re the kids. I’m the adult. I make the rules. You obey. See how that works?”
“But your rules don’t make sense,” she protested under her breath.
“Of course they do,” he snapped.
“Maybe to you, but not to us. Some of your rules are just... mean.”
“Mean?”
Her head nodded, her lips pressing flat. “It’s like you’re the Grinch and you hate Christmas—”
“The Grinch?”
She nodded again. “You can’t stand for anyone to play or have fun. You hate it when we want to do something fun. Sometimes I think you don’t even love us!”
Brock’s jaw dropped. “What?”
“Maybe you even hate us!” she flung at him, scrambling off the bed and running to the adjoining bathroom where she slammed the door closed.
Brock stared at the bathroom door in disbelief before turning to Mack, who sat very still on the edge of his sister’s bed.
Mack glanced up at his dad and then looked down again at his hands which were knotting unhappily in his lap.
; Brock’s heart pounded as if he’d just run through very deep snow. “Is she being dramatic or does she really feel this way?”
Mack’s head hung lower.
Brock suppressed the queasy sensation in his gut. Did his kids really think he hated them? “Tell me the truth, Mack.”
“I don’t want to speak for her.”
Brock studied his son’s thin slumped shoulders and the curve of his neck. Mack had never been a big, sturdy kid, but he looked downright skinny at the moment. “Then don’t speak for her, speak for yourself. How do you feel? Do you really think I don’t love you?”
“I know you love us,” Mack said in a low voice. He hesitated a long moment. “But... ” His voice faded away. He didn’t finish the sentence.
“But what?”
“But sometimes you seem so... annoyed...by us. Like we’re a pain and always in your way—”
“No.”
Mack shrugged. “Okay.”
His son’s half-hearted response made Brock want to hit something, throw something, which wasn’t probably the right response. Brock drew a breath, and then another, trying to be patient, trying to understand when he couldn’t understand at all. He’d never dated anyone after their mother in order to protect and preserve Amy’s memory. He’d refused to spoil them so his kids would be raised with solid family values. And he’d only sent his kids away to school recently when it became clear that they needed to be pushed, socially, academically, if they were to succeed.
Brock crossed his arms, hiding his hard fists. “Don’t say okay just to placate me, Mack. You can speak up, have an opinion.”
The boy slumped even more unhappily. “I don’t want to make you mad. I don’t like making you mad.”
“You don’t have to be scared of me,” Brock retorted.
Mack looked up at him, worry in his dark eyes. “But you are kind of scary when you’re mad.”
Brock couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Dumbfounded, he stared at his boots, unable to think or speak. Were his kids really afraid of him? His gut churned. “Mack, I’ve never hit you. Never even spanked you. How can you be afraid of me?”