by Beth Andrews
The more she thought about it, the angrier she got. How dare he say those things to her, things she wasn’t ready to hear? How could he kiss her? She wasn’t free.
Without even realizing it, she threw the brownie. It hit him square in the chest.
He looked down at the chocolate on his sweatshirt, then to the porch where it landed, then, finally, to her. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”
His words, so quiet, so honest, and filled with compassion, with concern, had tears pricking her eyes. But she wouldn’t cry. She’d cried enough for one year, had sobbed out her heartbreak over losing her husband. Now was the time for healing.
But not the time for moving on.
She threw another brownie at him, this time missing his head by inches. “I’m not upset. I’m mad.” Another throw, this one he caught neatly before it smacked his face. “What did you think, that because I’m...alone...I’d be...easy?”
The next brownie bounced off his shoulder.
“Harper,” he grumbled, “there is nothing easy about you.”
“Damn right there’s not.” She threw another one. And another, pelting him again and again while he silently stood there. “I’m not some lonely, pathetic, needy widow.”
He strode up to her, took the last brownie from her hand and threw it out into the yard. His face was red, whether from anger or because he was embarrassed, she didn’t know. Didn’t want to know because if he was blushing, she might start feeling guilty. Might soften toward him.
As if sensing she wasn’t above using the plate to coldcock him, he snatched that away, too, tucked it under his arm. “I’m sorry,” he said, his voice incredibly gentle despite his hard expression. “Go on inside now. Cassidy’s calling you.”
Only then did she hear Cass’s voice.
“Mommy! Mama! Someone get me out of here!”
Here being her crib. If Harper knew her daughter, Cass was holding onto the rail, bouncing like Winnie-the-Pooh’s buddy Tigger trying to get enough height to reach blessed freedom.
“Cass,” Harper breathed with a frantic glance into her house. She turned, winced at the chocolate crumbs on Eddie’s shirt, the smear of it on the side of his neck. Blinking furiously to contain the tears she’d promised herself she wouldn’t let fall, she swallowed. Swallowed again. “Could we...could we forget any of this...all of this...ever happened?”
“Believe me,” he said, handing her the plate, “I wish it never had.”
She didn’t move as he walked down the sidewalk, climbed into his truck.
Forced herself to stay rooted to her spot as he drove away.
Inside her house, she leaned against the door and slid to the floor, let the plate fall with a clatter. Her legs were weak, her knees shaking. She’d yelled at him. Yelled and screamed, accused him of thinking she was some sort of...of...harlot, and then, as if that hadn’t proved she was, indeed, a raving lunatic, she’d thrown an entire batch of brownies at him.
All because he’d kissed her.
“Mommy! You coming?”
“One minute, baby,” Harper managed to say, though it felt as if she had a marble stuck in her throat. “Hang on. And no bouncing.”
“Okay!”
Her reaction hadn’t been that overboard, had it? Not considering her circumstances. For one thing, she’d been taken by surprise.
She nibbled on her lower lip. Okay, maybe she hadn’t been that shocked when he’d made his move. It hadn’t exactly come out of nowhere. And she had touched him first. Sure, it was just a hand to the arm but some could construe that as flirting.
With a groan, Harper brought her knees up and laid her head on them, covered her face with her arms. She really, really wished she hadn’t whipped those brownies at him.
She could use some chocolate right now.
She’d flirted with him. Had encouraged him by not putting a stop to it before his mouth had touched hers.
Because she’d been stunned. She pressed the palms of her hands against her temples. Hard. Oh, who was she kidding? She’d wanted him to kiss her. Was attracted to him.
She didn’t want to be.
She hadn’t been kissed by a man in almost a year. The last time Beau kissed her, had been the morning he’d died. He’d been running late and hadn’t had time for breakfast. He’d poured coffee into his travel mug, rubbed Cass’s head, given Harper a quick peck on the cheek and hurried out the door.
A sob broke free. Then another. She pressed her fist against her mouth to muffle the sound, bit down hard on her knuckle. How she wished she’d pulled him into a hug, had kissed him properly, held on to him for as long as possible. But she’d been distracted trying to get ready for an early morning meeting, had been irritated he couldn’t help get Cass fed or drop her off at daycare.
Now he was gone and she could no longer smell him on his pillow. Didn’t expect him to be there, next to her, when she awoke. She’d stopped listening for his car to pull into the drive at the end of the day. Couldn’t clearly remember the sound of his laugh.
Rocking back and forth, she lost her battle against the tears. They coursed down her cheeks, her shoulders shaking with the effort to keep from crying out. From calling her husband’s name aloud.
“Maaamaaa!”
Harper lurched to her feet, staggered before regaining her balance. “Coming.” Her voice was a croak. She sniffed, wiped the wetness from her face and tried again. “Coming, honey.”
It was okay, she assured herself. She had no reason to feel guilty, no reason to feel as if she’d cheated on Beau. Yes, Eddie kissed her, but there was one thing she needed to remember, one very important fact. She hadn’t kissed him back.
* * *
“YOU READY?” EDDIE asked Maddie when he stepped into her kitchen.
She looked up from the laptop she had set up on the island. “Come on in,” she said dryly. “You know I love nothing more than when one of my brothers lets himself into my house.”
He scowled at her. Ornery, contrary cuss that she was, she grinned.
“I need a beer,” he muttered.
A beer, ten beers, maybe a couple shots of whiskey. Would that be enough to wash away the taste of Harper? To deaden the humiliation he’d endured?
He twisted the lid off a beer, drank deeply. If he didn’t have to be present and responsible for his kid in approximately three hours, he just might find out.
He’d been rejected before, more than once, but not since he was a kid. He’d gotten better at reading the signals, of knowing whether or not a woman would welcome his kiss.
Christ, he’d been wrong on all counts with Harper.
It was humiliating. And disappointing.
He lowered the bottle, tipped it toward his sister. “You ready or not?”
“So charming. That must be why I agreed to spend my Friday night with you.”
“You want charming, go to dinner with Leo.”
“Please, Leo never buys.”
True. Thirty years old and the man was still a mooch.
She shut the laptop lid. “What’s the hurry?”
“I’m hungry.”
“So get a snack.”
“Here?” Maddie was even worse than he was at keeping food in the house. “I told you I’d pick you up at six. It’s six.”
And she still had on her work clothes—faded jeans and a T-shirt, her long, dark hair pulled back in a messy ponytail.
“Hey, some of us worked a full day instead of taking off at two.”
“You know I had to leave early to go to Max’s school.”
“Yeah, I know. And you should know that when I finished work at four-thirty, I had to come home, get Bree, then take her across town to her friend Claire’s house where, on the way, my darling daughter informed me that this wasn’t just a sleepover. It was a slumber party.”
“What’s the difference?”
“In this case, the difference is that the slumber party is in celebration of Claire’s birthday.”
He nodded. H
e’d been there. “You had to stop and get a gift.”
“It took your niece half an hour just to pick out the card. When I got home, Neil called and wanted to video chat before his game.”
Neil played for the Seattle Knights, the reigning Stanley Cup champions, though he was looking to get traded to a team closer to Maddie and their daughter.
“How’d it go with Lena?” Maddie asked.
“Fine,” he said into the bottle.
“I’m still surprised you agreed to let her see him on relatively short notice. Usually you make her put in a request a month in advance.”
He wasn’t as bad as all that. Was he? “She wanted to see him.”
Maddie raised her eyebrows. “Wow. Did hell freeze over and I missed it on the news?”
“She’s his mother.”
“Yes, but that doesn’t usually matter to you.”
“Did it matter to you when Neil wanted to see Bree before the two of you got back together?”
She pursed her lips. “Sometimes,” she admitted. “This is good, right? Max needs his mother in his life.”
Eddie gripped the bottle so hard, he was surprised he didn’t crush it. “He has me. He has Mom and Dad and Pops and you and his uncles and Bree.”
Maddie patted his arm, reminding him of Harper doing the same thing not twenty minutes ago. “He does have all of us but sometimes, kids need more. That’s what I’ve learned since Neil came back. I thought I was enough for Bree, wanted to be all that she needed but it turned out, she needed her dad in her life. And funny enough, he needed her. Maybe even more so.”
“Lena left.” He couldn’t help pointing out that fact, wanting to throw the bottle. He drank more instead. “She walked. Doesn’t that count for something?”
“Weren’t you the one who said Neil had rights when he first came back?”
“Fathers do have rights.”
“Sorry, but you can’t have it both ways. You can’t say that Neil could come back simply because he has a di—”
“Watch it.”
“Divine right as a father.” She batted her eyelashes at him. She couldn’t pull sweet off, though. She was too strong. Too self-assured for anyone to believe she didn’t know exactly what she was doing or saying at any given moment.
“Lena’s here, isn’t she? She’s with Max.”
Even if part of the reason he’d given in was a secret hope that if he did, she’d return to Chicago satisfied with her time with Max and leave it at that.
That she’d leave them alone.
“You have a double standard,” Maddie said, “when it comes to father’s rights and Lena’s rights as a mother.”
He bristled. “I just don’t want my kid to get hurt.”
She rolled her eyes. “No one wants that, bonehead. But kids are resilient. And maybe Lena’s changed.”
“Why? Because Neil did?”
“I’m not sure he changed so much as finally figured out what’s really important. And luckily he realized that being in his daughter’s life was way more important than throwing money at her. But he had his reasons for acting the way he did. Maybe Lena does, too.”
“Maybe.” Though he didn’t want to consider that possibility. He scratched his neck, frowned at the chocolate on his finger. He’d stopped at his place, changed into a clean shirt before coming here but he hadn’t checked his reflection in the mirror. “Are we getting something to eat or not?”
“How could I refuse when you’re so charming and guaranteed to be such scintillating company?”
“You want entertained? Go out with Pops.”
“That’s all right. I’ve heard all of Pops’s stories anyway. Besides, you know how much I enjoy trying to decode your grunts and one-word responses. Let me change real quick and we’ll head out.” She grinned, fast and wicked. “I’m starving. And in the mood for steak. Really expensive steak.”
Glowering at her back as she left, Eddie finished his beer. And prepared to pay through the nose for their dinner.
10
“I DIDN’T KNOW where else to go,” Harper blurted, still frazzled and overwrought an hour after her meltdown with Eddie.
Sadie raised her eyebrows. “You have no idea how warm and fuzzy that makes me feel,” she said, stepping aside to let Harper and Cass in the log-style home she shared with James. “Especially since you blew off my dinner invitation.”
“Glad I could make your night,” Harper said, hefting Cass higher onto her hip. Cass stared wide-eyed at Sadie. Well, she did make a statement in a bright lime-green sweater that fell off the shoulder to reveal the strap of a white tank top, and faded, ripped jeans. “Where’d you get those jeans? The 1984 store?”
“The retro look is in,” her cousin informed her haughtily. “Is that why you’re here? To critique my outfit?”
“Sorry, it’s just...I’m freaking out. Seriously freaking out.” She thought about Eddie’s kiss. And her horrible reaction. She started breathing faster. And faster. “Quick,” she wheezed, “get me a paper bag to breathe in.”
“Hey, it’s okay.” Sadie shut the door and wrapped one arm around Harper’s shoulder, guiding them into the huge living room. “You don’t need a paper bag. You need a glass of wine.”
“I haven’t even told you what happened. How do you know I need a glass of wine?”
“Because all problems can be solved with a glass of wine. It’s a rule.” Sounded like a good one to Harper.
“I got chicken,” Cass told Sadie, holding up the fast food bag containing her dinner. “And French fries.”
“My favorites,” Sadie said. “You want to eat them now?”
“No,” Cass said as Harper set her down. “I want Zoe and Prince.”
“They’re out back playing. I’ll call them in.” Sadie took Cass’s dinner into the kitchen while Cass waited, her nose pressed against one of the floor-to-ceiling windows. A moment later, Sadie opened the kitchen door and whistled sharply.
Cass puckered her lips. “Whoo wee!”
Zoe, James’s German shepherd/Husky mix, ran onto the wide deck followed by Sadie’s new puppy, Prince, a little black puffball with a white patch on its nose. Cass jumped up and down, clapping her hands.
Zoe raced in, sniffed Cass’s feet while Sadie carried in Prince. Crouching by Cass, she held up the puppy. “Look. Cass came to play with you.”
“Hi, Prince!” Cass cried, hugging him hard around the neck. The puppy, all too-big feet and floppy ears, wriggled—probably trying to save itself from being choked to death. “Hi! Did you miss me?”
“Cassidy, be gentle,” Harper admonished, reaching down to loosen her daughter’s hold.
“I want him,” Cass said, her face puckering into a frown. Which only made her look even more adorable.
Harper could not win here.
“She’s fine.” Sadie put the puppy into Cass’s outstretched arms then patted Zoe’s head when the older dog nudged her leg. “If she holds him too tightly or if he wants down, he’ll let her know.”
Amazingly, Prince went limp once in Cass’s clutches.
Probably some instinctive sense told him he’d be better off playing dead.
Cass flopped onto the floor. Prince raised his head and licked her cheek.
She gave a rolling belly laugh that made Harper smile.
“He licked me.”
“He’s kissing you.”
And kissing brought her thoughts right back to Eddie. Her smile faded, her stomach cramped. Crap.
“Sit down,” Sadie said. “I’ll get that wine.”
Harper sat on the edge of the leather sofa only to jump to her feet again. She paced the length of the room, then, to change things up, the width. Zoe, lying on the rug, lifted her head then, giving a doggie version of a shrug, put it down and shut her eyes.
James’s house had vaulted ceilings and an entire wall of floor-to-ceiling windows. She wasn’t sure she’d like to live with “all wood, all the time,” but for a log home, it was cozy and warm. R
usset-colored pillows softened the brown of the couch, a sage-green rug added warmth to the room, as did the fire burning in the stone fireplace.
“Here you go,” Sadie said, returning with two glasses of white wine.
Harper debated. She was driving and she had the most precious thing in her life with her, but if she had only one glass and didn’t leave for a while, she’d be okay.
Still, she allowed herself only a small sip.
She resumed her perch on the sofa, maintained a ready position in case Cassidy decided to test Harper’s theory about fire being hot.
“All right,” Sadie said, dropping next to Harper with the grace of a prima ballerina. “What happened?”
“Eddie Montesano kissed me,” Harper said in a breathless rush at the same moment James stepped into the room from the kitchen, his hair windblown, his hands in his jacket pockets. A look of surprise, and some sort of horrible glee, was on his handsome face.
Her face heating, she glanced at her wine. Wondered if there was enough liquid in there to drown herself. Since there wasn’t, she tossed aside her earlier vow to sip, to savor, and took a large gulp. “Is there any way you could pretend you didn’t hear that?”
“Afraid not,” he said with a grin. He was taller than Eddie, handsome with his dark eyes and neatly trimmed goatee. But the wicked gleam in his eyes made her nervous. Oh, God, he wouldn’t tell Eddie he knew, would he?
Double crap.
Hearing a male voice, Cassidy scrambled to her feet and ran over to James, the puppy at her heels. “Hi. Hold me.”
“I think I can handle that.” He lifted Cass, held her with the same natural ease Eddie did. “There. I can’t resist a pretty blonde.”
“I hungry. Let’s eat chicken.”
“Her dinner’s on the counter,” Sadie told him. “Would you mind...?”
He looked from Sadie to Harper then nodded. “Got it. Girl talk.”
“His mother taught him well,” Sadie told Harper as James carried a delighted Cass into the kitchen. “Now, let’s get back to this kiss.” Crossing her legs under her, she leaned forward. “Start from the beginning. First kisses are the best.”