The women’s heads all turned to Piper at once for confirmation. Piper tilted her head. “He gets a little…stressed sometimes.”
They gave her a look that only a woman can give. One that was filled with understanding if not a touch of pity, then, as one, they located Tate and pinned him with a lethal glare. As if he felt their eyes on him, Tate, who appeared deep in conversation, glanced over and stopped mid-sentence. The slightly fearful look that crossed his eyes was comical. Piper pressed her fingers to her lips to keep from smiling. Tate looked to her questioningly. She shrugged and lifted her cup to her lips, feigning ignorance.
“So, have you two slept together yet?” Marie’s question caught Piper off guard and she nearly choked on her lemonade.
Once she got past the fitful coughing, Piper wiped the tears from her eyes and looked to the woman to see if she was serious. She was. Totally. A sister asking about her brother’s sex life? Talk about TMI.
“We um…uh…” A child suddenly appeared out of nowhere, scrambling into her lap and wrapping its spindly arms around her neck in a grip so tight she nearly lost her breath. But it had also saved her. That was the important thing.
“Save me! Save me!” The kid screamed. Piper’s eardrum cringed at the piercing wail.
“You kids!” Marie, Casey, and Leanne all jumped up at once as a rumble of tiny feet burst onto the deck, shaking the entire structure and screaming like lunatics. Hell, no wonder the kid in her lap was terrified. She had a mob after her. “Stay in the yard!” The women shouted, corralling the gang and ushering them away from the adults.
Piper was left holding the little girl whose little body had already begun to relax, but still clung to her. She felt eyes on her and looked up to see Tate watching her with an odd expression. After a moment, he looked away leaving her to wonder what it was all about.
“He cares for you.” The youngest sister, Georgette, who had remained curiously quiet since her arrival, was speaking to her. Piper shifted in her seat and wrapped her arms around the little girl. Using her as a shield from the shrewd, assessing gaze of what she determined was a ball busting woman before her? Of course not. Well, maybe.
“Excuse me?”
Georgette angled her head toward the house. Toward Tate. “My brother. He cares for you.”
“Oh.” Piper allowed herself a brief look his way. He had his back to her once again and was talking to a man slightly taller than him with hair a shade lighter. Collin? She wondered, taking a moment before she recalled that he was the brother married to Leanne. “We just work together,” she told Georgette, dismissing her claims.
“No, it’s more than that,” she insisted. Piper realized then that this woman was the kind that cut to the chase. She didn’t mince words. “For you too, I think.”
“Do you know how to braid hair?” The little girl asked abruptly, lifting her head and peering back at her with big brown eyes.
“Um, yes.”
“So, do you like him?”
“Can you braid mine?”
Piper’s attention was splitting in two directions: Georgette’s frank assessment and the girl’s innocent question. She chose the easier of the two. “Uh, okay.”
The girl graced her with a grin that showed off a gap where two teeth had recently fallen out. She twisted in her lap and made swift work of tugging out the pony tail someone had clearly put an effort into making. She hoped she wouldn’t get into trouble for undoing all that hard work. She used her fingers to split the hair, relying on avoidance to get her through this awkward moment.
Not one to be avoided, Georgette repeated the question.
“Sure. What’s not to like,” Piper stated noncommittally. Tate was handsome, hardworking, and a great lover if being sexed up over a sink in a public bathroom was any indication of his abilities.
Georgette shot her a look that said ‘You know what I mean.’ She switched tactics. “He hasn’t brought any women home before. Not since Casey, anyway.”
That brought Piper’s head up, her hands stilling mid-plait. “Casey?” she asked, trying not to sound too interested.
Georgette turned her knowing look to the pitcher of lemonade, pouring another cup and topping off Piper’s even though she hadn’t asked. “Just an old girlfriend. They broke up a couple of years ago. They were pretty serious,” she went on, casually answering one of the questions that had popped into Piper’s head at the mention of the word ‘girlfriend.’
“What happened?” Piper kept her head down and her eyes focused on what her hands were doing, but she was on autopilot, her thoughts completely focused on the man standing only a few feet away and the fact that he had actually, at one time, been in a serious, committed relationship. The idea seemed so incongruous with the image of the man she knew.
Georgette shrugged. “Don’t know the details. One day they were together, the next not. He never talked about it. I think it might have had something to do with him going to school, though. Maybe the distance,” she speculated. “All I know for sure is that at some point, he just stopped coming home.”
“Just like that?” Piper was stunned. What on earth could have happened to make Tate run away from his home and his family? Even though she’d heard that distance could tear apart relationships, she had a difficult time imagining someone throwing in the towel without a fight.
“Just like that. We didn’t see him for a while. He sent a couple of brief emails to Marie saying he was okay and not to worry, but that was it. Then one day he just pops up, says he’s been published and that was that. He wanted us to think he was happy, so we left it alone. Sometimes people just need space to figure things out on their own, you know?”
“You don’t think he’s happy?” Piper questioned, her mind buzzing over all this new information. She didn’t know why it interested her so much, or why she even cared about the answers, but she did. Far too much.
“Maybe not yet, but he’s getting there.”
Piper locked eyes with Georgette and for one long moment suspended in time, silent understanding passed between the two women. Was she saying that Tate was starting to be happy again? And that she was the cause of it?
“I swear those children are demented. What did we miss?” The three women reclaimed their chairs, completing the circle. Piper blinked, severing eye contact. Her hands trembled slightly as she finished off the braid.
“There you go, sweetie. All done.”
The girl ran her hand down the length of it and squealed. “I love it! Thanks!” She surprised her with a kiss on the cheek, then dashed away to rejoin the others where they played a game of tag in the grass.
When Piper looked back at the women, she found them all watching her, smiling. Even Georgette. Now why did that make her so nervous?
*****
It was growing late. The youngest of the children had been put down for bed in the upstairs guest rooms that Cindi had set up for whenever her grandchildren stayed over. She could tell by the look of pure adoration on the woman’s face that she loved them as much, if not more, than her own kids. The two oldest, May and Jake, were somewhere inside playing video games last she heard.
“Come on, everyone,” Cindi called out from the middle of the expansive yard. She stood in front of a crackling bonfire adding some debris to make it burn brighter. “Bring your chairs!”
Exhausted, Piper peeled herself from her seat. As the day wore on, her back had begun to ache more and more as fatigue began to set in. She longed for her bed. Her warm, cushy, inviting bed.
“I’ll take this. You grab the drinks.” Tate was suddenly there, taking her chair from her fingers before she could utter a weak protest.
When they found a suitable spot close to the fire, Piper handed off Tate’s drink to him. “Thank you,” he uttered, and when he plopped down in the chair, she noted the lack of one for her. Had he just scammed her chair?
“Uh, Tate, did you forget something?”
Tate looked up at her, then down at himself, patted his
pockets, thought about it, then lifted one thick shoulder. “Nope, I think I’ve got everything.”
Piper’s eyes darted around the group. She had to take several deep breaths and remind herself that she couldn’t light into him in front of all these nice people before should could finally speak, calmly and rationally. “What about my chair?”
“What about it?”
“You’re sitting in it.” Really, did he have a death wish? With every second that passed that he acted so innocent and ignorant of what he was doing, she was growing closer to throttling him. Hopefully, he wasn’t Cindi’s favorite, because by the end of the night, she might be one child short.
“Hmm, so I am.”
Piper clenched her teeth and shouted profanities in her head. Her answering smile was brittle at best. “And where do you expect me to sit?”
Looking up at her, Tate smiled and patted his thigh. “There’s a perfectly good seat right here.”
Piper gaped. “I am not sitting in your lap.”
“Why not?” Amusement glittered in his eyes. Those damnable blue eyes. “There’s a shortage of chairs. Looks like we’ll have to share. Unless you want to sit in the grass,” he offered, seeing her reluctance.
“Grass is comfortable enough.” She could sit in the grass. It might be a little lumpy, but at least she wouldn’t be making a fool of herself.
“I’m sure it is, but this is the country, babe.”
“So?”
“So, I don’t think you’re going to be very comfortable knowing that any minute a snake could slither up your pant leg. You’d be on edge all night.”
Even though she suspected he was pulling her leg, a violent shiver traced up Piper’s spine and her eyes darted around nervously, scanning the dark blades for any sign of movement. She had faced a lot of things in her life, and she wasn’t afraid of much, but snakes? This far north, she’d forgotten about that possibility. They were the one thing she couldn’t do, the one chink in her armor.
“Come on, babe, cop a squat.” Tate patted his thigh again and Piper muttered a few choice curses as she bent to his will and eased herself into his lap.
“No funny business,” she warned him when he urged her to sit back and relax against him as opposed to her perched position. Her back pressed against his chest and the backs of her thighs molded to his and she had to admit, for as hard-bodied as he was, Tate was pretty comfortable to sit on.
Cindi caught her eye from across the fire and winked at her. Piper smiled tightly. She suspected that Tate’s mother had already paired the two of them up in her mind. The amused looks she caught from his sisters only solidified that notion. Hopefully they wouldn’t be too let down when they learned that she and Tate were just business partners and, aside from a possible tentative friendship she suspected may be forming between them, nothing more would ever come of it.
Piper listened as everyone chatted about what they had going on at work, told stories about their kids, and got caught up sharing details of life in general. She didn’t talk much herself, mainly because she was an outsider and the last thing she wanted was for everyone to know her history. Lacking a good childhood and close, personal relationships like these people clearly had, she’d stand out more than ever.
In comparison, it was a good feeling, being surrounded by a family that clearly loved one another, warts and all. She’d never experienced anything like it. A part of her longed to stay there, in the sheltering embrace of this family unit, but she had to remind herself that it didn’t belong to her. She was just a visitor, an intruder. With Tate’s track record, she probably wouldn’t last much longer anyway. It would be best not to get too attached, but she feared she might have already done just that.
The desire to just exist in the here and now and shelve her concerns for later washed over her and rather than fight it, she allowed herself the rare opportunity to just relax and enjoy herself.
Every now and then, Tate would place his hand on her leg or rub small circles into her back while caught up in conversation as if the actions were simply done out of habit, but to Piper not a single one went unnoticed.
The easy connection they’d formed was completely unintentional and unexpected, but Piper had no desire to look too deep into what it might mean. Instead, she relaxed and focused her attention on feeling of contentedness she was experiencing from being surrounded by such a warm bunch of people. She listened intently and joined in the conversation wherever she could, until her eyelids grew heavy and began to droop. The day had finally caught up with her.
Tate’s arms came around her and tugged her closer, taking advantage of her moment of weakness. “Close your eyes,” he told her, cupping the back of her head and pressing it into his shoulder. She was too tired to argue. “I’ll wake you when it’s time to leave.”
With the fire at her front and his body wrapped around her, Piper was blanketed in heat and succumbed to sleep without protest. The last thought to cross her mind was how much she enjoyed the feeling of being in Tate’s strong arms and how she could get used to falling asleep this way every night.
13
Piper awoke to the sound of a horn blaring outside her apartment, only barely muffled by the ancient, single pane windows original to the building. As her brain slowly came online, she registered how well-rested she felt, a feeling that only came after a good night’s sleep. It was the most amazing feeling in the world and one she hadn’t experienced since…well, since she started working for the notorious Tate Larson.
Her thoughts drifted over the previous night’s events. She hadn’t been feeling great at the start of the day, which was to be expected when being visited by the figurative aunt from hell. The rest of the day wasn’t any better. She’d nearly cancelled on Tate, worried that she wouldn’t be very good company when submerged in such a funk, but she had to admit, she had been wrong.
His family was a breath of fresh air. Unlike any she had ever been around. The kind of family gatherings she had grown up with were something that would probably send a nice family like the Larsons packing before they even stepped out of the car.
People usually showed up drunk and only got drunker throughout the course of the day. Men brawled in the middle of the yard and the language was colorful enough to shock a sailor.
Unfortunately, the women weren’t any better. She could remember her own mother picking some good fights, and once when she was twelve she caught Kelsey Ranger fornicating behind the tool shed with Carl Henry. No amount of sex ed could compete with witnessing the real thing first-hand, that was for sure.
The biggest surprise was Tate’s transformation. He wasn’t outwardly rude or even pleasant, but she had definitely witnessed a change in him from the moment they set foot on his mother’s property. He was friendly, for one. He actually talked to people instead of barking orders, which was the only real way she knew him to behave. And he was attentive—that was the only way she could describe it. With small gestures, like bringing her pain meds and making up a plate for her when she refused to get up and do it herself, just to make sure she ate, he had taken care of her. It was dangerous, but she found herself thinking that if she saw more of that Tate Larson—like the playful one she’d glimpsed in the kitchen, or the sweet, loving one from last night—on a regular basis, she could easily see herself falling for him.
But that was a dangerous thing to do. Besides, the Tate from yesterday was a fluke and, now that the moment had passed, she had no doubt whatsoever that the Tate she knew, the one who snapped and snarled and growled at the slightest provocation, would be back the second he rolled out of bed. Which reminded her, she had better get moving before the slaver realized she hadn’t brought his coffee yet.
Letting out a huge yawn that made her jaw pop, Piper stretched languidly, soaking in the last vestiges of warmth and comfort her bed had to offer to prepare herself for the day ahead. Then, she froze.
Something felt off.
Sending out her mental feelers, Piper took note of eve
ry sound, every smell, every sensation. The city noises she had picked up on were sharper than she was familiar with, closer. The sheets clinging to her bare legs were softer, heavier, more luxurious. Her nose honed in on several smells: fresh linens, a hint of lemon, and one smell in particular that made the little hairs on her forearms stand on end.
Piper inhaled deeply, detecting the distinct, spicy scent of male. It was close. Familiar. Her body answered with a tingling and sudden rush of dampness between her thighs. It was then she registered that she was not alone. There was someone else in her bed. Was she even in her bed? Something inside told her she was not.
She ran through her most recent memories, taking inventory of all the places she had been last and who she was with. Unless she had completely skipped over an entire day, the last thing she recalled was curling up in Tate’s arms at his family barbeque.
As if to provide an answer to her dilemma, the body beside her rolled. A heavy arm draped across her stomach, pinning her to the bed. Inside, Piper panicked. What had she done last night? She couldn’t remember!
Slowly, she peeled her eyelids open and took a moment to stare at the white popcorn ceiling—not the tin with several coats of chipped and peeling paint that usually greeted her—confirming her suspicions that she had not made it home last night. She knew that ceiling. A quick visual inspection of the furniture only strengthened what she already knew to be true.
Instinct told her she needn’t bother to look to know who that arm belonged to, either. Christ, what a mess. The girls were going to have a field day with this one.
With slow movements, Piper began the careful task of extricating herself from his bed.
“Mmm.” Tate’s sleepy moan rumbled against her shoulder where he’d buried his head and his arm constricted around her waist, pulling her tighter against the line of his firm body.
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