“See you at the pub later?” Murray asked, ringing up her items. “Holly’s bragging something fierce that tonight’s the night the Madame B’Ovaries will grind Ford’s Thunderbirds into the dust.”
Bree massaged her forehead and winced. “I’ll have to beg off, I’ve got a migraine coming on.”
Murray made sympathetic noises and once again, as he always did, referenced one of his aunties, who swore chocolate gave her migraines. Bree nodded in all the right places and then escaped with her purchases. Unlike most of her friends, she wasn’t a huge fan of chocolate, but right now she’d dive face-first into a bowl of it if it would trigger those famous feel-good brain chemicals.
As luck would have it, Harley stood on the raised scissor lift by his dad’s workshop, forming kauri tree leaves by dabbing hedge-green paint onto the top of the wall.
From the forest floor on which Paptuanuku lay, stretching up her arms toward Ranginui descending out of the night sky, the vibrancy of colors—just common house paint, Harley told people who stopped to watch him work—and the detail depicting New Zealand flora and fauna was stunning. Bree couldn’t help a momentary twinge of both gut-wrenching envy and heart-felt pride. Was there anything the damn man couldn’t do? Not artistically, that was for sure.
Harley glanced over his shoulder, his gaze unnervingly locking onto her like a heat-seeking missile. He lowered his paintbrush. “Enjoy the paua fritters Laurie brought over?”
The fritters? She’d dumped those into the trash and emptied half an aerosol can of Hawaiian Breeze air freshener into her tiny apartment. “I did.”
“I remembered they were your favorite.”
Speckles of green paint dotted Harley’s face and hair, and a streak of it ran along his jawline and partway down the strong column of his throat. Bree tried to focus on the mural, not the sexy, paint-speckled man with whom she was forced into having this awkward conversation. Awkward, because while she made small-talk, on another, louder frequency her brain blasted the words “baby daddy” over and over.
“The fritters were great,” she said. “Really great. Thank Laurie for me again at the quiz night tonight.”
“I’m not going.” Harley dipped his brush in the paint can by his feet. “West’s asked me to stay home and baby-sit Piper tonight, since he’ll be late in, and she’s been a bit off today.”
“If Piper figures out what the two of you have cooked up, she’ll skin you both and make herself a new leather jacket.”
He shrugged. “Eh. I could use a quiet night in, anyway. You going?”
“Probably not. I’ve got some things to do.”
“Pages to color, Pinterest boards to update, Poldark to sigh over?” he teased.
“Yes. I’d better let you get back to it.” Bree stepped backward before she could blurt out something really stupid, like, “Curling up in bed with a box of tissues while I figure out what to do now that I’m carrying your second child.”
“Bree?”
She thought she heard a frown in Harley’s voice, even though she couldn’t meet his eyes to confirm it.
“Is something wrong?” he asked.
Lucky guess. Probably because she hadn’t called him out on assuming coloring, Pinterest and Poldark were her go-to bad-mood vices. Which they totally were. But he couldn’t possibly know her well enough to sense she was on the razor’s edge of a complete meltdown.
“I’m not feeling a hundred percent,” she said.
“Migraine?”
“Yeah.” And to completely throw him off… “And I think my period’s coming.” The menstruation excuse…an oldie but still a goodie, as so far as most men were concerned.
“Oh. Mmmm.”
She risked a glance at Harley’s face, and predictably, he had a back away slowly expression frozen on it.
“Feel better soon,” he said.
Men. Mention periods and they’d do just about anything to avoid a conversation about it. Bree gave him a half-baked attempt at a smile—one that if Harley hadn’t been worried she’d ask him to buy her tampons, he’d have realized was as two-dimensional as the one painted on Paptuanuku’s face—and walked away.
Thirty minutes later, dressed in her oldest, most comfortable, and definitely not-fit-for-any-other-human-eyes-to-see yoga pants, Bree scrolled through her contacts list and hit Carter’s number.
“Hi, Auntie Bree.”
Carter’s little-boy chirped greeting set her tear ducts into action, and she had to bite her lower lip to prevent a sob escaping.
“Hi, Carter,” she said. “Have you had dinner yet?”
“Yep. Dad’s mate Ari came ‘round, and he cooked pork and puha.” Carter snickered. “Aren’t you sorry you missed out?”
“Damn,” she said. “You know how much I love your dad’s stinky, boiled-to-death-and-pulled-from-a-ditch greens.”
Carter snickered some more then launched into a description of a high-speed chase his dad had been involved in a few days ago, followed by the everyday topics that fascinated her son, including but not limited to Samurai Dawn, random gruesome trivia gleaned from Shark Week, and his upcoming cricket game.
And…the tear ducts must’ve won the battle as Bree discovered her cheeks were wet.
“You’re coming, right?” Carter finally paused for a breath. “You and Harley?”
“Of course.” Bree ripped a tissue from the box beside her and jammed it under her starting-to-drip nose. “We’ll be there.”
“Sweet as. Oh. Mum wants to say hi.” And before Bree could make an excuse, a crackling shuffle came down the line, and her sister said, “Bree, how are things with you?”
“Great. Busy but great.” Bree held the tissue to her other nostril, hoping to avoid a sniff, which would totally give her away.
“Carter, I’ll talk to Auntie Bree in my room, okay?” Amy said.
Bree listened to the sound of muffled footsteps and a door clicking shut.
“You’re not great; you’re snotty. Which means you’ve either got a cold or you’ve been crying, and I know the difference, so tell me what he’s done.” Amy sucked in a huge breath and didn’t even bother waiting for an answer. “Oh my god, you slept with him again, Bee-bee? What the hell were you thinking? And don’t say you were thinking of his backside, because even I will admit the man fills out a pair of jeans in a very sexy way, but honestly. I thought you were smarter than to let this guy break your heart a second time.”
“My heart isn’t broken.” Maybe a little bruised around the edges, knowing Amy was right. She was smarter than that, and yet… “But I’m eight weeks pregnant.”
A grenade of stunned silence slammed down between them.
“What? How can you be eight weeks pregnant? He’s only been back from New York a month.”
Bree hit the speakerphone button on her phone and placed it on the couch beside her so she could grab another tissue. She honked into it viciously. “We spent a night together when he came to Oban for his mother’s tangi in late August.”
Another beat of silence, so Bree filled it with the words she knew flitted through her sister’s mind. “Tacky, huh? You’re right. I wasn’t thinking, and neither was he. We just…”
“Can’t stop making little Komekes every time you get together for a quickie?” Her sister sighed. “Sorry. I’ll deactivate bitch-mode and try out the little-used, supportive-older-sister function.”
“Thanks.” Bree balled yet another tissue and reached for the box.
“So, you, ah, used protection when you bonked his brains out?”
“I’m not an idiot, Ames.”
“Guess your man must have super-strong sperm that can bust through latex, huh?”
“Condoms only work ninety-eight percent of the time if used perfectly. We’re not perfect, so we fit into the two percent of screw-ups. Or something. It doesn’t matter, since I’m on the wrong end of every statistic, apparently.”
“You didn’t know?”
“No.”
“How c
ould you not know? There’re symptoms, right?”
Bree bit her tongue. It wasn’t Amy’s fault she’d never carried a child. That she didn’t understand how every woman’s body dealt with pregnancy differently. Piper had told them she figured it out even though her seasickness had masked some of the effects of morning sickness, while Kezia admitted she’d never experienced morning sickness with Zoe and had only suspected she was pregnant when she Googled “Reasons for sore boobs”.
“Most times. Without getting into the TMI zone, I didn’t pay much attention to being late since I’ve been under a lot of stress, and my cycle tends to go haywire with it. Anyway”—Bree curled her legs under her on the couch—“I got this.”
“You haven’t told him.” Her sister’s voice gentled.
“No. Not yet.”
“He’s not a kid anymore, Bee-bee. He needs to man up and face his responsibilities.”
Bree closed her eyes. “He’ll face them.”
She just didn’t want to be one of his responsibilities. And she certainly didn’t want the child growing inside her to become Harley’s burden, a mistake he was tied to unwillingly and duty-bound to support financially.
A long pause and then a soft intake of air came down the line. “Carter would love to have a little baby brother or sister.”
For a moment, Bree’s mouth curved into a smile. Every time she’d taken Carter out in the last few years, toddlers gravitated toward him like little sugar addicts spotting a candy bar, and surprisingly, her son was really good with them. So yes, Carter would be thrilled to have a sibling and—the proverbial penny dropped. An ice-cold penny that burned all the way down to her gut. But then the ice melted, exposing a solid determination.
“I’m sure Carter will be happy when I decide to tell him the news, but I’m keeping and raising this baby myself.”
“Oh. I didn’t mean…”
“You’re a wonderful mother to Carter, but I’m sorry, Amy, there’s not a day that goes by that I don’t regret giving him up.”
“I just thought with Harley not wanting this baby either,” her sister said stiffly, “that you’d realize Paul and I could provide a more stable, two-parent family for this baby, too.”
“I don’t know what Harley wants until I talk to him.” Bree’s spine stiffened, and she folded her arms tightly across her chest.
Silly to feel so defensive when Amy only verbalized what Bree knew in her heart was true. Harley wouldn’t want this baby any more than he would’ve wanted Carter, had he known about him. “And I’m more than capable now of providing a loving, stable home for a child, even if Harley won’t be involved in the day-to-day care of him or her.”
“You won’t even have a home if Christine sells the gallery from under you,” Amy said.
Her mother. God. She didn’t need Christine scheming to force Harley to buy the gallery out of guilt or obligation. Some skewed dowry gift to the bride’s family, even though commitment would be the last thing on his mind. “Please don’t say anything to her yet about the baby. Let her finish packing up her things back in Aussie; I’ll tell her in January when she flies back.”
“Of course I won’t say anything, hon. I’m just…worried for you. How will you cope if you can’t finance the gallery?”
Bree’s gaze travelled around her living room, skimming over the framed photos she’d taken over the years and the one photo she’d appeared in that sat on a tiny corner table. It was only a hastily taken snapshot on Piper’s wedding day—of Piper bookended by Shaye and Kezia, with Bree, Erin, Holly, Carly, and Tarryn clustered close to the bridal party with their arms around each other’s shoulders—but Bree loved it. She chose to believe she saw a unity there amongst her friends. And she chose to believe it even more now, when she could lose everything and end up a solo mother.
“I’ll cope. I’ll find a way. I always do.” Even if it meant renting out a room in one of the local’s homes and begging the Russells for Holly’s old job once the salon opened for business.
“You’ve made up your mind?”
“Looks as if I have.” Bree glanced down to see she’d placed a protective hand on her stomach. “And now I need to pull up my big-girl panties and tell the father.”
“Good luck with that. You could wear that slinky red top we bought last shopping trip—let the girls soften the blow.”
“Right.”
“Or you could distract him with some more adult-type games before you tell him, now that getting pregnant isn’t an issue.”
“What kind of sisterly advice is that?” Bree couldn’t help a snort of laughter. “To start with, you were telling me I was an idiot for having sex with him.”
“I said you’d be an idiot for letting him break your heart again, not for taking advantage of a man who gives you multiple orgasms.”
“Trust me,” Bree said. “I’ve no intention of getting my heart broken.”
“And the multiple orgasms? Which I noticed you didn’t deny, so the sex must be undeniably a-maze-ing.”
“It is—was—but after he finds out, that’ll be the end of the line for the orgasm train.” Because Harley was right, they could make each other feel good, but emotional entanglements were a no-no.
“A pity,” Amy said. “You could’ve used someone to regularly loosen off your tightly wound screws.”
There was a muffled “Mum!” from somewhere in her sister’s house.
“I’d better go.” There was a long pause. “You’ll be a good mum, Bee-bee. I’m sorry if I ever made you feel you wouldn’t have been.”
After Bree said goodbye and disconnected, she sat, palms laced tight over her stomach, combing through every possible scenario. With a sigh, she climbed off the couch and headed to her room to get changed.
Really, there was nothing for it other than to blow up Harley’s world and find out where she—and her unborn child—stood.
***
“You should be at the pub.” Piper faced Harley over the dining table and slid a card out of her hand, stared at it a moment and with a grimace slipped it in again. “Not stuck here playing Canasta.” She finally made up her mind and played a ten of clubs.
“You’re just pissy because I’m twelve hundred points ahead of you.” He eyed up the ten while hopefully appearing as if he wasn’t interested. “And you’re still a sore loser.” He did a quick scan of the two other tens in his hand and decided it wasn’t worth risking Piper’s X-ray eyes figuring out he was after it. He discarded a ten of diamonds.
“I haven’t lost yet, and hah”—she snatched the ten off the pack and started melding her cards in messy rows—“a mixed canasta.” She paused halfway through sorting the cards she’d won. “Course, you could go and pay Bree a visit.”
“Subtle, Pipe.” Harley closed his fan of cards into his fist. “But I’m happy enough here, kicking your ass in this old-lady card game.”
“Yeah, well, West wouldn’t be too happy if I suggested we play strip poker.”
Harley snorted, snatching another chilli-flavored potato chip from the bowl. Piper hadn’t touched the chips—totally abnormal for her—claiming her bowels had enough of a workout that day. Again with the TMI.
Of course, thinking about Piper being unwell drew his thoughts back to Bree and how pale she’d looked that evening. She’d had the odd migraine back in their student days, and it was one of those things that pissed him off, because he couldn’t do anything for her other than stay out of her way.
“Not that you can see any of my good bits now,” said Piper glumly. She finished sorting out the discard pile and picked up her hand, running a finger along the top of them.
“Your tits look good,” he said.
Piper’s gaze jerked up to his, and her face split into a huge smile. “Awww, you say the sweetest things, Harl.”
A knock sounded on the downstairs front door. Harley laid down his hand. “I’ll get that, shall I?”
“Please. By the time I even manuever out of the damn chair, they
’ll be gone.”
“Don’t go anywhere.” Harley stood up. “And consider throwing out one of those aces I know you’ve got in your hand.”
“In your dreams.”
Harley jogged down the stairs and along the short hallway to the front door. The outside light had come on, and the shadowy outline of a woman showed through the frosted glass. Bree. He didn’t know whether to be concerned that she’d walked all the way up to West’s if she wasn’t feeling well, or happy, because pathetically, he was just damn glad to see her.
He pulled open the door, and she blinked up at him, her usually full lips stretched in a thin smile.
“I’m sorry to interrupt,” she said before he could even say hello.
“Are you okay? Shouldn’t you be in a dark, silent room curled up in a ball?”
Bree winced. “Migraine didn’t come after all.” Her gaze zipped down to her feet. “Can I talk to you alone for a moment? Sorry, I know the timing’s terrible.”
“No, it’s all good. Come in. Piper and I are just ruthlessly competing over a game of cards.”
“Sounds as if she’s talked you into Canasta. She morphs into a greedy cow when she plays it.”
“I heard that.” Piper’s voice floated down from the top of the stairs. “And you’re one to talk.”
A fleeting smile—a real smile this time—flickered across Bree’s mouth.
Harley turned back to the hallway. “I’m just talking to Bree out here, so don’t sneak a look at my hand while I’m away.”
“Yeah, yeah. I’ll take another bathroom break while you two talk.” The invisible air-brackets around the word talk were almost visible.
He stepped back from the doorway and gestured inside, but Bree shook her head.
“Out here’s fine.”
Ah. He got it now. Here came the I regret our naked antics, so here I am to break it off with you speech. Not that they had anything to break off. It’d just been sex. Good sex. Okay, really good sex—the type of sex that could drive a man to his knees at the thought of not having really good sex with that really hot woman ever again. And he was both self-aware and selfish enough to want Bree back beneath him—or on top of him, he wasn’t fussy—soon.
Drawing Me In: A New Zealand Secret Baby Second Chance Romance (Due South Series Book 7) Page 16