by A. C. Arthur
“No,” he replied instantly. “I don’t know what to do with it. If it’s a historical landmark like Simon and Harper believe, then I don’t just want to sell it to the highest bidder without any regard for what happens to it. So I’ve been researching and thinking about my next move.”
He’d also been thinking about the beautiful woman whose brown eyes had lit up with excitement as she talked about how she would restore the house if it were hers.
Gray looked at Garrek and then back to the paper. His gaze then traveled to the table before he shook his head.
“All of this is not information about this house.”
“No. It’s about the money Dad left me. I’m trying to figure out where it came from.”
Gray dropped the deed on the table and sighed. He rubbed a hand down the back of his head as he stared at all the paperwork.
“I’ve been trying to figure that out myself. His lawyer read the will. I have a copy of it. We all got everything that was described on that document. All the bank accounts matched the amounts that were initially distributed to us. But then there’s the envelopes and the additional money,” Gray said.
“What was he doing that he didn’t want reported on his financial statements? And why was he doing it? Was it just so he could leave us more money? We didn’t need it.”
“Guilt,” Gray told him. “I’ve thought about this over and over, and all I can come up with is guilt.”
“He took care of his family until the end,” Garrek said, even though the words sounded hollow to him.
“He sent checks and gifts and showed up at events, but he didn’t have the guts to say what needed to be said.”
Garrek ignored the irritated tone in Gray’s voice. “What was that? Would we have really heard an apology that was meant for Mom? What was he supposed to say to us, Gray?”
Shaking his head once more, Gray moved away from the table. “You always were his champion. You and Gen always wanted us to welcome him with open arms.”
“People deserve forgiveness,” he said quietly.
In his mind Garrek was thinking about himself, about how deeply he felt he’d let his mother down and how he prayed each night that she would forgive him.
“Look, I’ve spent the last few months wondering about this and trying to find an answer. But we all have our own lives to lead, Garrek. You shouldn’t be focusing only on this. It’s over.”
“Is it? I mean, a big part of your life now, Gray, is seeing that all the things Dad had planned for this town are completed. The community center is about to reopen. The wing at the hospital is coming along, and you’re living in the house where we were born. And what about the rest of us? I know what’s in my envelope, what he wanted me to have, but what about the others? Whatever Dad wanted us to realize as a result of his last gifts seems far from being realized.”
“Your life is far from over, Garrek. So whatever it is that’s going on outside Dad’s will and this town, you need to realize that,” Gray said solemnly. “I’m here for you. No matter what it is, you can tell me.”
He’d thought about it. Hadn’t he? The night he’d taken the flight into Richmond, then rented a car so he could drive the rest of the way to Temptation, hadn’t he wondered what he would say to Gray? And to his other siblings? Yeah, Garrek had thought about it. He’d decided and then changed his mind and then decided once more. This wasn’t their problem. It was his. He’d done this to himself, and he would get himself out of it. And they would never have to know how much of an idiot their brother was and how no matter what their mother had said, he’d been destined to fail.
Destined to act in the same irrational and irresponsible way his father had.
* * *
This was ridiculous.
And...painful.
“You’re going to thank me later,” Wendy said the moment Harper walked out of the back room.
She’d worn loose-fitting sweatpants and a tank top to the girls’ day out that Morgan had insisted she attend. Now, she wanted nothing more than to lie naked on her bed with a fan blowing cool air directly onto her.
“I’m going to hate you forever,” Harper replied instead.
She was walking as slowly as possible, trying her best not to let the still-stinging skin between her legs bother her too much. The effort was futile.
Morgan at least had the decency to cover her mouth as she grinned. Wendy, on the other hand, with her vivacious personality and overwhelming sex appeal, laughed outright.
“No, I promise you, after today, all you’ll need is one night in his bed, and both of you will be thanking me,” Wendy continued.
Morgan’s sister wore red shorts—very short shorts—and a red tank top that dipped extra low in the front. As if her generous cleavage wasn’t enough to hate on, she wore three long, thin gold necklaces that each dangled seductively over her display. Wendy’s thick black hair was pulled back from her face by a bedazzled headband, while gold bangles jingled each time she moved either of her arms.
Morgan was a little more understated in her pink maternity capris and flaring white top. While Wendy wore red wedge sandals, Morgan had opted for pink flip-flops with huge bows. Harper had rounded out the trio with her fresh-out-of-bed look that included a black tank top with yellow paint splashes on it.
They walked out of Shae’s Spa and Salon on Weatherly Street and crossed the parking lot to where Wendy’s cute little convertible was parked next to Harper’s Ford F-150. Their vehicles said it all—Wendy was clearly the more feminine one, while Harper could change the tires on both vehicles in less than half an hour.
Morgan gasped, and both Harper and Wendy stopped in their tracks.
“What is it?” Harper asked Morgan.
“Are you in labor?” Wendy inquired. “You’d better not be. Not after you’ve been waxed and buffed to perfection.”
Morgan held the lower part of her stomach as she shook her head at her older sister.
“Just kicking,” Morgan told them. “These two are going to be kickers for some NFL team, making their dad supremely proud.”
Harper touched Morgan’s elbow in an effort to hold her steady just in case the next kick sent her off balance. Morgan was shorter than Harper and Wendy, and before she’d grown pregnant with the twins, she’d been a wispy size.
Wendy took her sister’s other arm and they continued their trek to the car.
“See, this is why I’m not having any children. Having another human being kicking me is not my idea of fun,” Wendy said.
“But lying on a table and letting a very strong woman with a light beard smack oil all over your body, and then cause horrific pain to your most private area, is cause for celebration? You’re nuts,” Harper told her.
Wendy laughed raucously again.
They came to the passenger side of her car, and she used her key to open the door before they both helped Morgan in. “Look, like I said you’re gonna thank me later.”
“I doubt that,” Harper quipped.
“Okay, well, after your next date with Garrek, I want to be the first person you call and I want every single detail.”
Harper froze.
It was nearing six o’clock in the evening, and the humid late-June day was slowly easing into an only slightly less suffocating evening. Despite the lethargy the heat caused in her, the mention of his name made her heart pound instantly.
“There is no next date with Garrek,” she said after swallowing and realizing that her immediate silence made her declaration seem untrue.
Wendy leaned against the car then, folding her arms over her breasts and eliciting clanking from her bracelets. In the passenger seat with the door still open, Morgan even looked up to her with a questioning glare.
“What?” she asked them. “We’ve never had a first date, so how could there be a next one? Besides, there’s nothing going
on between us anyway. Dating has never been discussed.”
Saying that should have made her feel some kind of way, especially considering what had happened in that house four nights ago. But it didn’t, because she’d already accepted that what she and Garrek had done was a mistake. It was a totally satisfying mistake—she recalled the first orgasm she’d ever experienced—but nevertheless one she didn’t foresee happening again.
“Oh, honey, please. That date was discussed and paid for in full the night of the Sadie Hawkins dance,” Wendy quipped. “He was out at your place the very next night, and I heard from a really reliable source—Andy, who works for you and has always had a crush on me—that he also saved you from being run down by a truck. Seems like some chick-flick scenario to me.”
Morgan, whom Harper almost expected to stop them from talking about her brother-in-law behind his back, nodded her agreement. “And he told us that he was meeting you at the Adberry house the other night. So that also classifies as a semidate.”
“That was...” Harper trailed off because she was about to say “business,” but Garrek hadn’t asked her to do any work on the house. Instead, he’d asked her for something else, and she’d readily given it to him. “I mean, we just talked about the house. About what could be done with it.”
“And then he went into hiding and you worked yourself so hard even your crew insisted you take today off,” Morgan added.
That wasn’t true. Yes, her crew had been pretty irritated with her working them for a ten-hour shift on Saturday, but they all had Sunday off so Harper hadn’t seen it as such a big deal. And this morning she’d decided to help her dad out at the farm instead of going over to Morgan’s house with the rest of the crew. Okay, if she were being brutally honest, her father had asked for her help this morning, after Uncle Giff, Aunt Laura, Marlon and Craig were at the house last night for dinner. Damn those two meddling cousins of hers.
“Look, I’m telling you two honestly that there is nothing going on between me and Garrek,” Harper said with what she thought was stark definitiveness.
Morgan looked at Wendy, who returned her sister’s gaze and added a shake of her head.
“Wait till he sees the results of today’s spa treatment,” Wendy told her, “You’ll be eating those words, and Garrek—well, honey, he’ll be too busy doing something else with his mouth, and his hands and his...”
Harper rolled her eyes at Wendy’s crude statement and bade them both a good evening. She pulled out of the parking lot in her truck, thinking how much she hated living in a small town where nothing she did or said could be kept a secret. She was irritated with her family’s interference.
And she was driving directly to the B&B where Garrek was staying, because they had to straighten this thing out once and for all.
Chapter 8
“Harper,” Gray said when he opened the door to Garrek’s room. “What a surprise to see you here.”
He said he was surprised, but the look on his face said he’d been thinking along the same lines as his wife and sister-in-law. That only made Harper angrier.
“I’m here to see Garrek,” she said as if that fact wasn’t painfully obvious.
“And Garrek is here,” Gray replied. “I’m guessing he would like to see you, too.”
Harper would say Gray’s guess was wrong, because Garrek was standing by the window looking as if she were the absolute last person in the world he wanted to see. His thick brows were furrowed, his strong jaw set and his gaze pierced like a million tiny pricks against her skin. Definitely not the most cheerful welcome she’d ever received.
“What’s wrong?” he asked. “Did something happen?”
“Nothing happened,” she told him. “I just think we need to talk.”
“Interesting,” Gray chimed in with a nod.
She’d been so caught up in Garrek’s gaze and the strange sound of alarm in his voice that she’d almost forgotten Gray was still there.
“It’s about the house, then,” Garrek stated as if that were the only thing they could possibly have in common. “You have more ideas about what I can do with the house.”
“Right,” Gray said with a knowing nod to his brother and then a smile for Harper. “I’ll leave you two alone to talk about the house. See you at my place tomorrow, Harper. And Garrek, I’ll see you at the community center opening on Wednesday night.”
“Yes. I’ll be there,” Harper answered and then looked to Garrek to see if he would give the same reply.
She was going to the community center reopening the day after tomorrow, but she hadn’t thought about whether or not she would see Garrek there.
Gray walked out of the room, quietly closing the door behind him, and Harper’s heart began to race. She was alone in Garrek’s room with him. They were standing in the living room area, where there was a floral-print couch and a burgundy chair that matched the large rug. All the rooms at the Sunnydale Bed-and-Breakfast had a traditional, old-fashioned feel that matched the vintage Victorian house that had been passed down in the Reed family for generations.
Just beyond the living room furniture was an alcove where a pedestal oak table and four chairs sat facing one of the two bay windows in the front of the house. The table was full of papers, a tablet and a half-empty bottle of water. About seven feet to the right of that table was a queen-size four-poster bed. The one that Garrek slept in.
“I didn’t tell anyone,” she blurted out, because she really needed to hurry up and get this over with. The quicker she could say her piece and leave this room, the better it would be for them both.
“You didn’t tell anyone what?” he asked, still in the original spot where he’d been standing.
“About us—I mean, what happened between us the other night. I went home, and the next day I went to work. I didn’t say a word. So whatever is going around town about us is just a rumor. That happens in Temptation. People see other people together and they get the wrong idea. But that doesn’t stop them from going on and on about something that’s really nothing. You know what I mean?”
His head tilted slightly to the side, but he didn’t answer. Which, to Harper, meant he didn’t have a clue what she meant.
“What I’m trying to say is that I know we only have a professional relationship—if you’ve decided that you want me to work on the Adberry house for you. I hadn’t heard from you about that, so I’m not sure where that stands. But just so you know, I don’t have any thoughts about anything else going on between us.”
There, she’d said it. And since he still wasn’t moving or saying anything—which was becoming just a little annoying to her—she prepared to turn and leave.
“I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do with the house,” he finally said when her back was to him. “I’d been thinking about selling it, but I knew I couldn’t do that in the condition it’s currently in. That’s why I asked you to come see it with me.”
She turned slowly to face him once more.
“No, if you sell it as is, you’ll get only a fraction of what it’s really worth. To clarify, you’re still likely to get a high price for it. But if you invest the time, energy and, yes, money, to bring it back to its original glamor, your profits will soar.”
“I don’t have a house,” he told her, and then finally, he moved.
He took the few steps from the table to the burgundy chair and sat down with a deep sigh, as if he’d been on his feet all day.
Harper was dressed down as a result of the girls’ dayWendy had invited her to. Garrek was dressed casually enough in shorts and a T-shirt, but even that made him look like some gorgeous athlete. She doubted very seriously that her old sweats and tank top made her look like Beyoncé.
She moved until she was standing behind the sofa, hopefully hiding a good portion of herself from his view.
“I don’t own any property, either, but I’m sure
Fred Randall can help you when it’s time to put the house on the market. His office is down on Carroll Street, right around the corner from city hall. His wife, Millie, is a busybody, but Fred’s pretty nice and he’s fair. He’ll be straight with you about what to expect for the property.”
“I meant that I don’t have a house to live in,” Garrek said as he looked over to her. He leaned forward, letting his elbows rest on his knees, and shook his head. “I’m stationed on Whidbey Island in Washington state. I have navy housing on Seaplane Base. I don’t own that.”
Harper knew all about military housing. For the first four years of her life she’d stayed there with her mother and father. Not that she remembered any of that time, but there were pictures, and her father talked about that time fondly. Still, after her mother had passed away, that was the last place Arnold Presley wanted his daughter to be.
“It’s an important job you’re doing in the military,” she said, because she could have sworn it was regret she heard in his voice.
Her father and grandfather had been proud servicemen. Never, not once, did she get the impression that either of them were sorry for the time they’d dedicated to the armed forces. Nor had she ever seen such despair on their faces when they’d talked about their time in the service.
“I know that,” he said. “But I should have a home. Gray has a home for his family, and my mother made one for hers.”
That was true, she thought. But Harper really didn’t know what to say next. This wasn’t what she’d come here for, and although she could never forget how it felt to have Garrek buried deep inside her, she really didn’t know him all that well as a person.
“I don’t know,” he said. “Just thinking aloud, I guess.”
“That’s fine,” she told him and moved from behind the couch to come around and sit gingerly on the farthest edge from him. “My dad stayed in base housing with my mom. I think they were happy there.” She shrugged. “The pictures made it look that way, at least.”