by Kim Law
Harper flushed at the comfortable intimacy that had developed between her and Nick.
“I’m sorry,” Nick murmured. His ears turned pink. “I didn’t even think.”
“It’s not like we didn’t know—”
“Jewel,” Harper bit out.
“I’m just saying—”
“Out.” Harper pointed to the hallway, hoping her sister would actually obey for once. And shockingly, when Chastity grabbed their mouthy, younger sibling by the elbow, Jewel allowed herself to be led from the room.
As silence descended, Harper turned back to Nick. He looked as embarrassed as she felt.
“I really am sorry,” he said. “I didn’t even think. I just”—he shrugged—“it came naturally.”
“I know.” She took the two bottles of wine from him. It had come naturally to her, too. “Don’t think anything of it. I’ll have to take some teasing from everyone later on, but it’s already set the tone that I wanted to create tonight.”
She looked up at him as they both remained in the open doorway and ignored the tiny voice in her head telling her that he was even better for her than she’d thought. That he could fix her if only she’d let him.
Because she knew that to be untrue. She neither could be fixed nor did she deserve to be.
“I’ll put these on ice,” she said, still staring up at him. Her feet didn’t want to move.
“How about we set the tone a bit more first,” he murmured.
She nodded as if her neck and brain weren’t connected, and made an embarrassing little breathy sound when Nick pulled her to him. He kissed her again, right there in her parents’ foyer, as if the two of them hadn’t just spent nearly every minute of the last seventy-two hours together.
“And then there was the time the neighbor’s cat had seven kittens,” Chastity said.
“They were going to turn them all in to the shelter!” Harper exclaimed. “I had to do something.”
Nick laughed as Harper’s dad went into the story about how an eight-year-old Harper worked tirelessly to talk everyone she’d known into taking a kitten. The man spoke with his entire being, putting much animation into the story, and Nick also picked up on the fact that his eyes never went long without seeking out his wife at the other end of the table. There was love in this room. The real kind of love.
“We ended up with two of them,” Glen Jackson finished.
“I remember them,” Nick said. He looked across the table to Jewel for confirmation. He’d played with those cats when he’d visited. “Bert and Ernie, right?”
Jewel nodded with a small tip of her head. “Excellent memory.”
“Jewel hated those cats,” Chastity added.
“I know!” This came from Harper, who sat at Nick’s side. “But that’s because they hated her first. They liked everyone in the family but Jewel.”
Nick sipped his wine as he listened to the conversation continue around him. They were all so normal. So real. The kind of family that would have been nice to grow up with. And this dinner was a great idea—just having a standard, once-a-month thing. It was special in a way they probably didn’t fully recognize yet. The tradition might have started due to Harper’s loss, but something told him that it would continue for years to come. Her mom and dad practically beamed as the girls batted insults and memories back and forth. It was a welcoming space to be in.
He wondered if maybe it wasn’t too late to do something similar with his own family. They didn’t all live in the same area, but possibly they could make an effort to get together three or four times a year. He had no skills in the kitchen, of course, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t start the tradition once he moved back home. Potluck at Nick’s house.
He smiled into his wineglass as he imagined the outcome. Probably four bags of chips, a store-bought tray of some sort of meat, and whatever Nate decided to prepare. Nate was the only legitimate cook among the boys, and Dani had pretty much given up kitchen duties after handling it all herself for years. Of course, Gloria would be good for something.
But still, maybe it would be better to hold it at the farm with Gloria in charge. It was time to move beyond what that house used to be, and his dad and Gloria had already made good headway in that direction. It was no longer simply the house his mom had lived in.
Chastity started a new story, her hands waving as she got into the guts of it, telling everyone about the time that Harper talked Chastity’s boyfriend into jumping off of Harper’s favorite diving cliff. “If I remember correctly”—Chastity turned to Nick—“you once saw her jump off that very spot.”
Nick stared at Chastity, unsure what to say. How did she . . .
She laughed. “Oh yeah, we all knew you had a crush on her. I was out there that day, too—though you probably never saw me, given that you were only looking at Harp.”
Humiliation burned the back of Nick’s neck, and he fired a look at Jewel.
“I didn’t tell them,” she said. “You were an open book. Your tongue hung out whenever she walked into the room.”
“I even knew,” Patti muttered from her seat down by her mom. “And I was in elementary school.”
Harper snorted into her hand. “I will admit that Patti knew because I told her. I said that if any boy ever looked at her like that, she should kick him in the nuts and run.”
“Harper Ann,” Harper’s mother chastised.
“I know.” Harper spoke with a bored monotone and hung her head. “Don’t say ‘nuts’ at the table.”
They all laughed, and Chastity picked her story back up where she’d been interrupted. When she finished, their dad lifted his glass in a toast. “To good wine and better company. Thank you for coming over with our Harper today.”
“And thank you for having me.” Nick lifted his glass in return. “I’m not much of a cook, so anytime I can get a good meal, I’m in.”
Harper’s fingers landed on his thigh, and he slipped his hand under the table to cover hers.
Chairs were scraped back after that, and her Dad stood. “Time to do the dishes,” he announced. “One of the girls helps Marg cook each month, and another helps me clean up.”
Jewel rose with her dad. “I’m up, Dad. Let’s get this done before my dinner decides to make a reappearance.”
Nick rose, as well. “Let me help. You take the night off, Mr. Jackson. Put your feet up.”
“Well, there’s no need,” her father started. He looked flustered. “You’re our guest.”
Nick picked up his and Harper’s plates. “I’d love to help, really. I haven’t gotten to harass Jewel enough today. It’ll give me time to make up for that.”
Harper’s father paused, unsure what to do. Finally, he looked to his wife for answers. She nodded in permission, and the man put his palms up in surrender. “Then thank you, young man. I’ll take you up on it. And given that I have a free few minutes, I think I’ll take my woman out for a walk. Been a while since we’ve done that.”
The older Jacksons headed out the front door while Chastity, Patti, and Harper stood awkwardly, all seemingly unsure whether they should offer to help since Nick was, or not.
“Get out,” he told them. He waved a hand toward the door. “You wouldn’t be on dish duty if I wasn’t here, right?”
“Absolutely not,” Patti agreed. “It was my turn last month, and that’s when we had lasagna. Baked-on cheese is not my friend.”
“Then go.” He looked at Harper and nudged his head, telling her to leave, too. With a small nod, she and her sisters took off, same as their parents. The Jacksons lived in an upscale subdivision near the lake, and there was a walking path that wound through a park and play area before ending at the water. At this time in the evening, it would be a lovely walk. He wished he could take it with Harper.
“I’ll be back soon,” she told him before disappearing out the door.
Nick lifted the plates in his hand. “I’ll be here.”
As he and Jewel made several passes from dining
room to kitchen, he couldn’t help but glance through the windows on each trip. The girls hadn’t gone far. They’d stopped at the tree he and Jewel used to climb when they were kids. And he couldn’t pull his eyes off Harper as she shimmied her way up to a high branch. The smile on her face was contagious.
“You still like her, huh?”
Nick froze, unwilling to look at Jewel, though she now stood directly at his elbow.
She laughed. “I know you’re sleeping with her.”
“Oh.” The word slipped out. What the crap was he supposed to say to that? “I . . .”
“She didn’t tell you that I heard you two going at it at the motel?”
Horror washed over Nick as he finally turned to his friend. He knew his mouth hung open, but he seemed to have lost the ability to close it.
“Hey, feel proud. Those were some hella-good noises coming from that room. In fact, if Bobby hadn’t been asleep on the other side of the country, I’d have called him up. We could have rung our own bells while you were ringing Harper’s.”
Nick stared down at her. “Are you going to talk like that when your kid gets here?”
“Maybe.” She eyed him with a sweet smile, but that sweetness was deceptive. “Depends on if I have to hear you banging my sister again.” She glanced out the window at the sound of Harper’s laughter, before turning her gaze back to Nick. “I wasn’t sure if you two had hooked up any more since that night until now. But that laugh?” She shook her head with something akin to awe on her face. “I haven’t heard it in eighteen months.”
“We’re just having some fun,” Nick muttered, unsure what else to say. He grabbed the last of the glasses and returned to the kitchen.
Jewel followed. “She needs some fun.” She peered out the window again. “You may not realize how bad it was for her. Those first few months”—she bit off her words as her eyes filled with tears, and Nick crossed the room and put an arm around her shoulders.
“She told me,” he said.
Jewel looked up. “Really?”
It occurred to him that he might have just admitted to something he shouldn’t have—he and Harper had done more than have sex. They’d talked. And she’d yet to talk to her family about the accident. “Just that it was a rough time for her,” he added, hoping to soften any hurt.
“It’s still a rough time for her,” Jewel told him. She watched Harper through the window for a few more minutes, before turning back to the sink and narrowing her gaze on Nick.
He’d bent to load plates into the dishwasher and tried to ignore her, but when she stayed put he slowly straightened and faced her. Her look pinned him in place.
“It is still just a crush, right?” Jewel asked. “You’re not thinking serious? Because she’s just now beginning to come out of it. I don’t want her hurt any more.”
“And what if she hurts me?”
“Nick.” Jewel gasped his name. “Really?”
He didn’t even know where that thought had come from. “I’m teasing, J. No. It’s not serious. I know that’s not what she wants or needs. It’s not what I want, either.”
Jewel nodded, but she looked less than convinced. She glanced over her shoulder to take in Harper once more. “Just be careful with her. I see the way you look at her.”
He didn’t even want to know how he looked at her.
“We can see that she’s better.” Jewel turned back to him and they began to work in sync as she handed him dishes and he loaded them. “And we assume you’re at the root of it. But at the same time, I still feel like she’s hanging on by a thread. As if the wrong word or thought could make her snap. She ran out of my doctor’s appointment the other day as if something was after her, and I have no idea why. So I’m just saying, I’m not sure how bad that snap will be if it happens.”
Nick made a promise to himself that he’d do his best to be there if the thread broke.
“I’d never do anything to hurt her, Jewel. You know that. You know me.”
“I know. And thank you.” She hugged him, her head barely hitting him midchest, then she smiled guilelessly up at him like the brat that she was. “And now I’m going to leave you to finish this mess all by yourself. I’m going outside to play with my sisters.”
Chapter Eighteen
Nick and Harper sat at the end of the dock on Wilde property Wednesday afternoon, feet dangling over the edge, faces turned toward the sun. It was the end of a long day, and they’d come down to the beach with a couple of beers and a need for nothing more taxing than lifting the bottles to their mouths. They’d spent the last three nights at his place, same as before, though this time they’d done little more than they were doing right then. But Nick had taken her into town for dinner last night. And this morning he’d noticed her toothbrush in the holder next to his.
He’d paused at the sight of it. Struck by the simplicity of the moment but at the same time by the difference a week could make. Less than a week, actually. And he’d wondered if she would consider extending this thing between them beyond next weekend. She might be willing to come to Butte occasionally. Or to meet up with him at whatever rodeo he’d be attending.
Or he could come back here. There were no rules on having a fling.
“You talked to your parents since Sunday?” he asked. He turned his head toward her, scanning the length of her body as she brought up legs up and stretched out on the dock.
“Only once. Which is shocking in its own right. Dad called before we went hiking yesterday. I think you convinced them. You were the perfect fake date.”
Nick didn’t want to burst her bubble, but nothing that had gone on on Sunday had been fake. Nor anything the rest of the time. “You were the one who did the convincing,” he told her. “But don’t think that my lack of being needed excuses you from returning the favor. Sunday night. Here.” He squinted down at her, trying to look menacing. “Don’t back out.”
She stretched her arms over her head and yawned. “As long as you’re not cooking.”
He laughed.
She remained stretched out beside him, and he wondered if he could talk her into getting naked right where they were. With boaters out, it wouldn’t be possible to ensure privacy.
Still.
He lowered to lie beside her.
“You’ll be riding at Augusta this weekend, right?” she asked.
Neither of them had been scheduled for a rodeo the weekend before. “I am.” He trailed his fingers up her inner thigh. “You going to watch me ride? Cheer for me?
Her eyes found his. “I’m not one of your buckle bunnies.”
“I know. Because you’re far too old.”
The corners of her mouth twitched, and she closed her eyes. She looked utterly at peace. “I’ll be watching,” she said quietly.
He leaned in and brushed his mouth just below her ear. “And cheering?”
“You are the man I want to see win.”
“And if I win, will you spend the night in my room?” he whispered. He nipped at her earlobe, taking pleasure in her soft moans and the way her lower body reached for his fingers as he continued to toy at her thigh. She had on a sweet pair of cutoffs today that he was ready to take off her.
“Or you could come to mine,” she answered.
Her words had him pulling away. “Yeah, that won’t happen.” He’d forgotten to mention his conversation with Jewel to her. “I’m never staying in your room again when your sister is around.”
Harper’s laugh rang out. She stared up at him, her smile beautiful. “Jewel told you?”
Nick rolled to his back. “Christ, woman. You could have warned me. Give a man a chance to prepare a response.”
“It didn’t occur to me that she’d bring it up.”
He raised his head to look at her. “You have met your sister, right? The girl who’ll do or say anything to get a rise out of someone?”
“You’re right. My bad. The next time she explains to me just what I sound like when you put your hands all over my
naked body, I’ll be sure to warn you.”
“I could make those noises for you now if you need a refresher course,” he offered. Then he rolled back over and tugged up the edge of her shirt. He went to work at the snap of her shorts.
“Or you could just make me sound like that now,” she murmured.
“I could.” Determination sprouted, and he wanted her naked. “If you give me a good reason.”
“And what kind of reason would you need?”
He unzipped her shorts and tugged them until they rode just below her hip bones. He could make out a pink sliver of panties, which gave him a nice buzz that started low in his body. Then he straddled her and shoved her T-shirt up over her chest, and growled at what he found. She had on another one of those lacy numbers that had the clasp in the front.
“Tell me that you like watching me ride bulls,” he said. He bent and put his mouth to her stomach. “That it turns you on to see me get whipped around by a wild animal”—his fingers slid up and closed over her lace—“that your panties grow wet at the thought of how strong I must be to stay on top of that big bad bull”—he worked his way upward—“and that all those same muscles will later be holding you.”
“The last time I watched you ride,” she said on a gasp, “those muscles didn’t hold me at all. You didn’t even touch me.”
“Oh, but I wanted to.” He kissed her neck. “And I did touch your lips.”
“Only because you fed me funnel cake.” Her breaths were coming hard, and he was ready to be inside her.
“I wish I had some funnel cake now.” He unhooked her bra with a single flick, and his dick sang hallelujah. “I’d sprinkle the powdered sugar all over your body”—he dragged a finger over the inside curve of one breast—“and I wouldn’t stop licking you until I had every last speck of it off.”
He cursed under his breath at the sight of her nipples tightening into sharp, hard buds, and leaned down, intent on having one in his mouth.