Wild About Harry (Hearts of the Outback Book 5)

by Susanne Bellamy

  He exaggerated the degree of pain with a loud ouch and his hand slapped against the wall in front of her—for support, of course—while his body occupied the rest of the width of hallway as he bent to rub his leg. As a ploy for sympathy, it was pretty pathetic, but as a way to stop Bri moving away, it worked well.

  Penned between the front door and his arm, Bri lowered her camera bag and touched his shoulder. It was the lightest of touches, one that connected them without commitment; a touch that said, “Sorry. Are you okay?” Soft words echoed that touch and Harry straightened without removing his hand from the wall.

  “Mmm, I’ll be fine. Do you think I might need a plaster on it, or a bit of TLC for my bruised and battered self?” Two minutes in Bri’s presence and already the thudding of his headache had lessened. In another two minutes he’d claim complete recovery, a miracle at her hands. There was surely magic of some sort in Bri if she could beat back the doom and gloom of Mavis. “Tell you what, while you relax in a bath, I’ll take Vicky out for a meal and bring back takeaway for you. There’s something I need to talk about with you.”

  Her gaze flicked up the stairs, but the sound of water running down the waste pipe reassured him. Vicky was otherwise engaged. “So long as we just talk.”

  “No more dancing tonight. Besides, I’m the walking wounded, remember?” She rolled her eyes and muttered something that sounded suspiciously like a threat to his manhood if didn’t move—now.

  He moved aside and watched as she climbed the stairs and disappeared around the turn on the landing.

  ##

  “Vicky’s grandmother actually told her that?” Bri sat on the top step of the back veranda and accepted a bottle of beer from Harry. She knew she sounded slow but what Harry told her was awful, terrible. She tried to understand the mentality of Vicky’s grandmother telling a young child her mother was in a box under six feet of dirt and refusing to console her because of her own grief.

  Bri tipped her head and looked into the night sky. The Southern Cross was high overhead, a reminder of nights spent with her father as he shared his passion for astronomy. Her childhood was filled with wonderful memories made with her parents and her sister, and of sleepovers with her grandparents. She’d known nothing but love. “I can’t imagine my Nana telling me such a thing if my mother had died. She would have wrapped her arms around me and made sure I knew I was loved.”

  Harry spread his hands wide. “Mavis has her beliefs, but they aren’t mine, and they weren’t Linda’s. I think her approach will do more harm than good to Vicky and I’ve refused to allow her to go to Linda’s grave with Mavis, but I’m worried about what nonsense her grandmother will spout while she’s here. Any suggestions how to handle the situation? I don’t want her suffering a repeat of the nightmares she had for months after her mother . . . died.”

  Bri leaned against the railing and looked at Harry. Light spilling through the kitchen window revealed a stiff jaw line and a frown that narrowed his eyes and made him seem older than his mid-thirties. “Progress, Harry. When I first arrived you couldn’t say that word.”

  “What word? Ah, yes.” He rubbed a hand across his mouth then leaned back against the railing on his side of the stairs. “I implied something different. Denial is a bugger of a thing.”

  Was that what he’d been doing all this time?

  Wrapped around by the night and the intimate pool of light in which they sat, she kept her voice low, hoping this time he would answer. It was a night made for sharing. “What happened to Linda?”

  Harry’s Adam’s apple bobbed up and down, twice. He looked away and Bri sensed he was seeing events unfold when he began to speak. “We were on holiday in Melbourne visiting one of my cousins. We’d gone into the city to buy a thank you present—he’d opened his home to us for the week we were there.” The hand hanging over his bent knee curled into a fist and he drew in a harsh breath.

  “If you were in Australia at the time you couldn’t fail to see it on TV—over and over and—

  “On TV?” Bri had imagined breast cancer or some awful ravaging disease had taken Harry’s wife at such a young age. Harry was talking about her death as though it were a spectacle; some kind of freak accident caught on camera and replayed into lounge rooms around the country. Something like the floods that had claimed lives or—

  Suddenly her stomach clenched and bile rose in her throat. Melbourne, eighteen months ago. Surely he couldn’t mean— Could he? Eighteen months ago she’d been organising a hen party for her best friend from school. The television in the hair salon was muted, but bizarre pictures of tragedy in a Melbourne mall had saddened them.

  “Linda was run down by a motorist on a rampage in the mall. She died in my arms before the paramedics arrived.” Harry’s voice had lost all colour, all tone, all warmth. It was the voice of a man who had survived, who could retell the horror only by distancing himself. By taking away all emotion and laying out the bare facts before her.

  Bri couldn’t find words, couldn’t find her voice. The tragedy she had viewed on screen was Harry’s reality. Harry had lived that awful day and his wife had died.

  Finally a single word fell from her lips. “Vicky?”

  As though swimming against a surging, incoming tide, Harry turned to her. “Vicky was in her stroller in the doorway of the shop, waving to me. She saw nothing. Linda had dropped her scarf and turned back to pick it up when the car hit her.”

  Bri nodded, why, she didn’t know. I’m sorry. That wasn’t right. The words were in her head. Useless words to comfort the speaker, meaningless to the bereaved. She tried clearing her throat. “You protected Vicky from knowing the worst of how her mother died.”

  Harry appeared more statue than living man. Only the rise and fall of his chest gave away the fact he was breathing. Until a muscle jumped in his cheek. “Maybe. I failed Linda.”

  Harry blamed himself?

  Understanding hit Bri like a bolt of lightning. How could Harry go into battle against his mother-in-law’s negativity when he felt responsible for the death of her daughter, his wife? It would be like trying to lift a boulder but never being able to get his arms around its girth. “You weren’t driving the car that hit her and you didn’t send your wife back into the mall to get her scarf.”

  “I’d given it to her for her last birthday.” The subtext was clear. He blamed himself that she was in the way of the car because she was rescuing the present he’d given her.

  “She chose to retrieve it; you didn’t ask her to. You aren’t responsible for what happened that day, only for what you chose to do after. You chose to look after Vicky and make sure she grows up a happy, lovely little girl. Just by caring for her you do the best you can every day. You read and play and take her for ice cream and Chinese food. And you love her so she knows she’s loved. No child could have a better father than you, Harry. Vicky’s lucky she has you.”

  Her fingers felt a pressure, a hard grip like holding onto a rope while dangling off the side of a ten-storey building. Surprised, Bri looked down and saw her hand engulfed in Harry’s. Had she taken his hand or had he reached for her?

  It didn’t matter. What mattered was that Harry seemed a little less rigid, less like a statue. His hand was warm and she covered it with her free hand.

  “How do you help Vicky to remember her mother? I’ll bet you talk about her, show her photos, tell her how much Linda loved her.” Bri knew he did; she’d heard the low murmur of voices, seen the framed photos decorating Vicky’s wall, and every other room. Every room in the house except his bedroom.

  Harry nodded. “I talk about her mother every day.”

  “I’m not religious, but I don’t believe that a body in a coffin is the person we knew and loved. Linda will live on so long as she’s in your hearts and minds. So long as Vicky holds onto her mother’s memory. Maybe that’s what you tell her. Her mother is in her heart, not under a pile of dirt.”

  Harry leaned his head against the upright pole and turned his gaze t
o the heavens. “That makes sense. Why didn’t I think of it? How did you become so wise about children?”

  “I’m not wise. There’s so much I don’t know about children of any age; what’s normal, what they should be doing by a certain birthday. But I did have a great childhood, filled with love. I always felt safe and loved, and you, Harry, you make Vicky feel like that.”

  He raised her hands to his lips and kissed her knuckles. “Bri, I could kiss you.”

  “You just did and no, you can’t.”

  His laugh was full throated and genuine. It bounced off the walls and filled her heart with joy. Harry was back. A small part of her noticed the danger and shrugged it off.

  Harry was back.

  Chapter Nineteen

  “Are you all organised for the dinner dance tomorrow night?” Bri closed the screen door behind him as Harry carried their mugs of coffee onto the back veranda. “I picked up your tux from the dry cleaner and hung it.”

  “Pretty much. Thanks for organising the tux. By the way, Amy said to tell you it’s been far too long and she’s looking forward to the chance to have Vicky stay overnight.” Harry had been looking forward to this conversation since the night of their dance lesson. He handed Bri a mug and glanced over the veranda railing. Vicky was playing happily in the sand clamshell with a bucket and spade and an ice cream container of water. Fully shaded by the new sail he’d erected just last weekend, it was the perfect distraction while he convinced Bri.

  “What?” Bri’s hand stopped midway to her mouth, the coffee sloshing perilously close to the rim. But—I’m looking after Vicky.”

  “If I have to go to the kindy party, you’re coming right alongside me.” Harry leaned against the railing and sipped. “I assume you have something suitable to wear.”

  “Now wait a minute, I didn’t say I’d come with you.”

  “Anything. That’s what you said, remember? You want me to go to that party, you’re coming with me. Besides, I have two tickets now and a freshly polished pair of dancing shoes that need a spin.” In spite of the fact he had engineered the situation to gain Bri’s agreement, there was a sense of satisfaction in reminding her that—broadly speaking and in the most general of terms—she had technically agreed. “It’s my understanding that anything covers—everything.”

  Her eyes narrowed and he could see the wheels spinning in her mind, saw the moment when two and two dropped into place and she accepted he’d won. “You set me up for that.”

  “Maybe I did, and maybe you were so keen to convince me to go you didn’t notice what you were agreeing to. But ignorance of the law is no excuse. I’m holding you to your word.” He even found it possible to look forward to the dinner dance with a degree of pleasure unknown in his life for a long while.

  She laughed and joined him at the railing. “Well, my bad. That’s what I get for jumping into things without looking.”

  “And maybe the pleasure of your company is what I get for meticulous planning.”

  “I’d call it devious manipulation.”

  He swept the air with his hand, rubbing away the charge. “Semantics only. You took on a master planner and now you pay the price.”

  Bri tipped her head and looked at him. “It’s funny, I hadn’t taken you for a masochist, but clearly you are.”

  “Bri, I’m an intelligent man, but at times I can’t follow your leaps of logic. How does being a master planner make me a masochist?”

  “Oh, come on, you’re making me go with you to a dance. Don’t tell me your toes and shins have forgotten that dance lesson?” A heartbeat—two—passed before colour rushed into her cheeks and her gaze slid away.

  “Best dance lesson I ever gave.” His toes and shins had long forgotten their trampling and grazing by Bri’s wayward feet. His lips would never forget the end of their tango. Clearly Bri hadn’t forgotten either. Whether the tango was to blame or not, their first kiss had fuelled Harry’s dreams every night since then. Unlike the night he met Bri, when he’d worried the attraction he felt was a betrayal of Linda, now he was no longer like the Tin Man. A flesh and blood heart beat in his chest, accelerated its rhythm when he held Bri in his arms, paused at the brush of her lips across his.

  What would Bri think if he cast her as the prince from Vicky’s ‘Sleeping Beauty’, chopping through briar hedges to wake him from his frozen slumber? He chuckled, enjoying the humour. It would tickle her fancy.

  Inclined to repeat the dance lesson, especially the last part, Harry set his coffee on the flat railing and reached for Bri. For the past year and a half, he’d feared feeling again, feared soft emotions that crushed him, reminding him of all he had lost. He’d shut down, closed off, and bolted the door on feelings.

  Survival training 101: Feelings leave a person open to pain and loss; do not feel. Allowing himself to do just that had been like a betrayal of Linda, but now, seeing how happy Vicky was with Bri in their lives, how much happier he had become in a few short weeks, he reconsidered. “Teaching you to dance was—nice. We should do a quick recap lesson.”

  “What, now?”

  “No time like the present.” He relieved Bri of her mug and set it beside his, then drew her into a waltz hold and hummed a couple of bars of the tune he’d used to teach her the steps. “Remember the timing, one, two, three?”

  “Yeah, I know.” She looked down at her feet.

  “Your feet won’t fall off if you’re not looking at them. I promise, but just to make it easier—” He pulled her a little closer. Just as then, her breath hitched and her breast brushed his chest. Now, if she looked down, her head would rest on his shoulder. Both touches were welcome. Both could lead to other touches—like kisses. He started humming, guiding her in a slow, barely moving waltz. A half-turn later, Vicky tugged on his trousers.

  “Daddy, I want to dance with you and Bri.” His daughter had impeccable timing. Impeccable and inconvenient, or maybe it was lucky. Harry had all but forgotten they were on the back veranda in broad daylight with Vicky playing in the sandpit a few metres away. He’d been too busy enjoying the feel of Bri in his arms, thinking about kissing her again.

  Bri stepped out of his arms and out of the way, ceding her place to his daughter.

  “Up you come, Pumpkin.” He swept Vicky into his arms, rocked from side to side and did a couple of fast twirls. She shrieked with delight, Bri clapped the pair of them, and Harry realised life was good and feelings just might be safe after all.

  ##

  “Ready to kick up your heels in public, Ms Middleton?” Harry took Bri’s hand and helped her out of the car, keeping a hand on her elbow as they crossed the gravel car park. In killer heels, she was not much shorter than him, but he worried she might twist an ankle on her way into the hall. His grip tightened as he reined in his ground-eating stride.

  “As ready as I’ll ever be, which is to say, never. Relax, Harry, I can feel your anxiety vibrating through your arm.”

  “I’m fine, ready to take to the dance floor with my dance partner.”

  “Seriously? You could have picked more sure-footed company for tonight.”

  “Bri, I couldn’t be happier with my date.”

  “Date?” Gentle ribbing took a sharp, left hand turn. One word, that was all it took for him to realise how much his attitude had changed in the four weeks Bri had lived with them.

  He had engineered a date.

  With Bri.

  To a parent function.

  And he wasn’t trying to back out or make lame excuses for her presence at his side. He cringed at the memory of the morning of the photo shoot and the innuendo and stark interest in their relationship. Because Harry didn’t date. Harry didn’t do anything since his wife died. Bri had changed all that, and now they were about to face the music. He chuckled at his phrasing. He was actually looking forward to the music because that meant dancing with Bri. They rounded the hedge separating the car park from the hall.

  Festooned with opaque and candy-pink lights for the parents�
�� evening, the hall entry beckoned. He allowed his hand to rest in the small of her back as they trod the red carpet, a short run of dyed, heavy-duty canvas supplied by parents who owned an outdoor and camping business. In the darkness, it looked half-decent, so long as he didn’t look too closely.

  He preferred to look at Bri, stunning in what she’d referred to as her LBD. The short, slim-fitting dress revealed curves his hands had touched during their dance lesson. Without meaning to his left hand slid across to the top of her hip, finding its home on the gentle curve. She stopped short of the entry to the hall and looked up at him. Visible through the double door entry, strings of lights changed colour and a retro disco ball revolved slowly, casting brilliant patches of moving light on walls, people in their glad rags, on white and pink balloon centrepieces and white linen tablecloths.

  “Harry, before we go in promise me you’ll dance with other women.”

  “Of course I will. I won’t monopolise you, but do you think I should set you loose in those high heels on unsuspecting males without shin guards? Wouldn’t that be negligent on my part?” He grinned, not meaning a word of it. On the other hand, the idea of other men dancing with Bri stirred an unfamiliar spark of possessiveness in his chest. Harry was honest enough to admit to it, but not to the reason. That hid behind the quip he dropped on Bri, the one that didn’t tell her how good it felt to have her by his side, a beautiful woman wearing high heels, who stirred his blood and made him feel what any red-blooded male would at the sight and scent of her.

  She mock-punched his arm, but the worried look remained as her gaze fell on the people already inside. “That’s mean, Harry. Maybe I won’t dance at all.”

  “Shall we turn around and head home right now?” He took her elbow and walked a couple of steps away from the door and the music and the dancing. That way lay a different attraction, one he wondered if Bri had factored into the evening.