by Piper King
“You know I’d love to be here,” Zoe says, squeezing back. “But this week is the only time Jack can get away from work right now.”
“I know,” I say with a smile. “You two go have an amazing trip. And don’t forget to have lots of sex on the beach.”
“Already on the itinerary.” Zoe grins. “Sorry I couldn’t chat more at the wedding. I hope you had a nice time?”
I wrinkle my nose, smile, and frown at the same time, which I’m sure gives off the impression of a confused bulldog in pain. Of course, I had a mostly nice time at Zoe’s wedding. Mostly. There was that incident with Noah Hall that I can’t seem to get off my mind, but I don’t want to spoil Zoe’s good mood with that kind of nonsense. Because to her, it is nonsense. Noah and I have been bickering nonstop since she moved into town, and she’s probably sick of hearing me complain about him.
But Zoe doesn’t miss my expression. Even though we’ve been friends for less than a year, we’ve become close enough that she knows what I’m thinking even before I do.
“Did something happen with Noah?” she asks with a frown. “I told Jack we shouldn’t force him to escort you.”
“Kind of.” I nibble on my bottom lip. “But it’s dumb, and you need to get going. Jack is waiting for you outside, isn’t he?”
“What did he do?” Zoe rolls back her shoulders and puts on her fight-mode face. She’s a feisty one, Zoe, even though she doesn’t realize it half the time. It’s why Jack Hall fell in love with her and why the rest of Redwater followed close behind. Her feistiness is charming.
“Nothing major,” I say, even though it felt pretty freaking major at the time. “He lured me onto the dance floor and then ran to gossip with Luke about how he was playing me all over again. Just typical Noah.”
“Wait a minute.” Zoe’s eyebrows pop to the top of her head. “You’re telling me you actually danced with Noah Hall? Who are you and what have you done with my best friend?”
“I blame the booze.”
“Careful,” she says with a suggestive wink, “or you’ll end up blaming the booze for a hell of a lot more than a dance.”
She was referring to herself, of course, and how she and Jack came together thanks to a heavy dose of local whiskey. But even though I know she doesn’t really mean it, my cheeks blaze with a newfound heat. I would never sleep with Noah Hall. And what’s more, he’d never sleep with me.
“He was just messing with my head again. You know how he is. He tricked me into almost forgetting what an ass he is.” I lean against the counter and take a deep breath. I don’t need to explain my actions. I’m not the one who did anything wrong. But knowing that doesn’t stop me from feeling an intense need to explain away my momentary lack of hatred.
“Hmm,” she says as Jack honks the horn from outside. With a quick glance over her shoulder, she grabs her suitcase from the floor and gives me a quick hug. “I better get going. I’ve made Jack wait long enough. Do me a favor, okay? Promise to stay away from Noah Hall while I’m gone.”
“Don’t you worry.” I slip my pinky into hers and squeeze tight. “I have no intention of ever seeing that asshole again.”
Two hours and one long hot bath later, a distant crash interrupts my exciting evening plans of magazine reading and hot cocoa drinking. It’s enough of a noise to have me bolting up out of my recliner by the electric fireplace. Usually, I don’t hear much from the B&B in my little guest house on the back edge of the property. It’s close enough so that I can be there in a flash if a guest needs me—when it’s actually open, of course. But I’m also far enough away for privacy and silence. When my grandmother ran the place, she lived in the main building, but I have no desire to listen to strangers snoring every night of my life.
With a frown, I drop the magazine onto the coffee table and peer out the gauzy curtains at the dark building across the lawn. Nothing looks wrong. If I didn’t live in the tiniest and safest town in all of America, I might be worried some burglars decided to ransack the place. But I do, so that can’t be it.
Hopefully that can’t be it.
Still, my heart hammers inside my chest as I grab my coat and a flashlight. The blustery wind tears into the guest house when I open the door and trek out into the wintry night. Shivering, I pad across the lawn and unlock the back door. Once inside, it doesn’t take long to figure out what caused the noise. Or rather, it’s clear where it came from, but I can’t say I have the slightest clue how it happened.
The attic floor has caved in, and an old refrigerator now squats in the middle of the guest room below it. White dust rains down from above. I hold onto the doorframe, taking deep breaths in through my nose. Don’t cry, I tell myself. Don’t you fucking cry, Harper Harrison.
But it’s hard to stop the tears. This is way worse than some teenagers stealing the television from the front room. After all the hard work, after all the months of planning and hoping and dreaming, the plans to reopen of my grandmother’s bed and breakfast have come crashing down around me. Literally.
I don’t know what the hell happened, but there’s one thing I do know for sure.
I can’t open the place like this.
I have to do something. Now.
With tears spilling down my cheeks, I autodial Zoe’s phone until I remember she’s out of the country. Shit. She’d know what to do. But I sure as hell don’t have time to wait until she’s back from her honeymoon.
Who the hell else could I call? There’s Jack, of course. But he’s with Zoe. That only leaves Luke. He might be the most distant and least friendly of the Hall Brothers, but he’s also the most level-headed, the calmest, the most collected and in control. And with my heart racing like a horse on steroids, that’s exactly what I need right now.
I make the call, and he answers in only moments. When I fill him in on what’s happened, he instructs me to back out of the building—very slowly—and wait in the yard until he arrives. But when he arrives, I want to punch him. Because it’s not Luke who pulls into my driveway.
It’s fucking Noah Hall.
4
Noah
Harper Harrison is an angel under the pale winter moonlight. The wind whips through her long, gorgeous hair while a light dusting of snow falls around her. Her lips and cheeks are red, and her coat hits just above the knee, highlighting her very shapely calves and some…lace. It seems she’s not wearing much more than a nightie underneath. I try not to stare, but I can’t help myself.
And it might be a bit of an understatement if I say she’s not particularly pleased by my unexpected arrival.
I’m probably the last person on the planet she wants to see right now.
Luckily, it was pretty easy to convince Luke I needed to come instead of him, what with my dumbass love confession at the wedding. This is my chance to make amends for my past mistakes. Once and for all. I’ll fix whatever’s wrong inside her bed and breakfast, setting her up for a successful Grand Opening. After that, she’ll have to forgive me.
At least that’s the plan.
“What are you doing here?” she shouts into the wind when I hop out of the company van. “Where’s Luke?”
“With Jack gone this week, Luke’s schedule is pretty tight. So, he’s handed this one over to me.” I tighten the tool belt around my waist and head toward the building, but Harper jumps in front of me to block the path.
“Nuh-uh.” She shakes her head hard and fast. “No way. I won’t get it fixed if this is the only option.”
“Come on, Harper.” I try to sidestep her, but she moves in a flash. “Luke said you have a refrigerator in one of the rooms. It’s not like you can ignore it until it goes away.”
“No, probably not.” She lifts her chin. “But maybe if I ignore it long enough, then you’ll go away.”
I sigh and drop my hands to my sides. “Is this about the wedding? Because I didn’t mean what you thought I meant.”
“You flat-out told Luke you’d play a game with me. Unless you were referring to Monopo
ly, then I’m pretty sure I know what you meant.” Harper pulls her coat tighter around her shivering body, her cheeks and lips even redder than before.
“Let’s go inside,” I say. “You’re cold.”
“Why? So you can pretend to help me in order to win a stupid bet? I don’t think so.”
Maybe this is a bad idea. I should have known how she’d react to seeing me drive up to her bed and breakfast, especially after my comment last night. In my fantasy, I rocked up on a white horse, raising my screwdriver in the air as I rode in to save the day. And then she thanked me appropriately, of course. Nakedly.
I blink to rid my mind of my dirty thoughts. Because boy are they dirty where Harper is concerned.
“I’m here to do a job,” I say. “You can let me do it for you or you can call in someone from out of town. Just keep in mind they might take longer to sort this out for you, and I know you’ve got your big opening on Friday.”
Harper puffs out her bottom lip, which makes me want nothing more than to bite it. Though, if I did, she’d probably think it was an insult. Even if I told her she was the most beautiful woman in the entire known universe, she’d somehow twist it into something else. And then throw a mug of cinnamon cocoa in my face.
“Okay, listen,” she says after a long and tired sigh. And that’s when I know I’ve got her. “This is a really big deal for me, opening back up Grandma’s place. This isn’t a joke, Noah. Okay? We can fight about anything and everything else. Just please promise me you haven’t come here to screw me over.”
I don’t hate you, Harper, is what I really want to say.
But I don’t.
Because I’m a fucking coward when it comes to Harper Harrison.
“I don’t fuck around when it comes to the Hall Brothers.” I reach out a hand as a symbol of the truce she’s so close to accepting. “I’m not going to do something stupid and put the business at risk because of it.”
Even though every word of that is true, my explanation doesn’t cut to the true heart of the matter. Because while I’d never screw over my own business, I’d never in a million years dream of ruining hers. I’ve watched her build this place up with Zoe’s guidance, and I’ve seen how much it means to her to breathe some life back into the her grandmother’s place.
I want her to succeed. And I know she will.
If she’ll just let me help her.
“Okay,” she finally says after nibbling on her lip for a full minute. “But if you do even the slightest thing wrong, Noah Hall, I swear to god I’ll…well, I don’t know what I’ll do, but I’ll do something so bad you’ll wish you’d never even heard the name Harper Harrison.”
I shoot her a full-faced grin and wink.
She narrows her eyes suspiciously, clearly still doubting my intentions. But instead of pushing me away again, she whirls toward the building and motions for me to follow. Inside, I let out a low whistle and pat the tool belt by my side. Harper’s situation is a biiiiiit worse than I imagined. There’s a fridge in a guest room, alright, and a gaping hole in the ceiling. I look up, frowning at the white dust raining down around us.
“What was going on when this happened?” I ask slowly. “What caused the floor to cave in?”
She shrugs. “I don’t know. I was hoping you could tell me that. I was in the guest house minding my own business when it happened.”
That’s not good. Floors don’t just cave in randomly. There’s always a cause, and in this case, I worry the explanation might be worse than Harper thinks. There could be structural damage to this property, perhaps due to termites. If that’s the case, then she most definitely will not be able to open up shop again on Friday. In fact, she might not be able to open up for a long, long while.
“So, can you fix it?” she asks, looking up at me with wide and hopeful eyes. My gut clenches. There’s no way in hell I can tell this girl that she has to close down her grandmother’s place for good. Besides, it might not be termites. It might be something else, something much easier to fix…
But that’s a fucking long shot, and I know it.
“I need to take a look at the hole from a different angle,” I say. “We need to get a better idea of what caused the fridge to fall through the floor. Otherwise…”
“Otherwise what?” she asks.
“Otherwise, we can’t be sure this won’t happen again,” I admit.
She blinks at me and then blinks up at the hole. Realization begins to dawn on her face, and tears begin to slip from her eyes. With a shake of her head, she backs away from me and crumples onto the bed.
“I’m going to have to cancel the opening, aren’t I?” Her voice wavers as if she’s about to break down into sobs, and I have to grit my teeth to stop myself from rushing to her side. I want to comfort her. I want to stop the tears. And I want to do whatever it fucking takes to make this right for her.
“That’s not what I’m saying, Harper,” I say softly. “Listen to me. I’m just going to take a look at the damage upstairs tomorrow morning when it’s daylight and make a plan from there. I’m sure we can find a way to make this work for your opening. Though I might need to hire a few freelancers to get the work done in time, depending on the extent of the damage.”
She shakes her head, my words doing nothing to stop the sudden flood of tears. “I can’t afford that. I poured all my savings into the renovations. This is such a disaster. I should have known I could never make this place successful. It was a pipe dream. A long shot.”
I know all about pipe dreams and long shots. When my brothers and I started up our construction business, we were all certain we would fail. What the hell did any of us know about running our own company? None of us ever went to college. We grew up in Redwater and stayed in Redwater, and the only thing any of us knew was how to work with our hands. Our dad taught us everything we needed to know about the life of a builder. He’d been one himself. But that’s all we had.
We managed to make it work. Somehow.
So, even though I have no idea in hell how I’m going to fix this for Harper, I know I will.
“Don’t worry about that, Harper,” I say. “The bed and breakfast will be open for business on Friday. I give you my word.”
5
Harper
“Luke?” I bark into the phone as I pace back and forth across the hardwood floor. “Why the hell did you send your brother instead of coming yourself?”
After a good night’s sleep and some coffee, I’ve realized just how much I do not want Noah Hall fixing the bed and breakfast. I originally called Luke. He told me he’d be right over. And then he sent Noah instead. Despite his repeated insistence that he wants nothing more than to help me, I find it almost impossible to believe.
Actually, I don’t find it almost impossible. I find it totally impossible.
Noah Hall and I have been fighting for years. One of us lobs an attack. And then the other responds in kind. It’s been almost nonstop. And the timing seems particularly suspect after his little “joke” at Zoe’s wedding.
What if he’s just pretending to help while planning on ruining my grand opening?
I mean, I did help Zoe steal some equipment from their business back when she and Jack were sparring like lovestruck idiots.
Maybe this is his way of getting payback.
“Our schedule is pretty booked up with Jack out of town,” Luke says in his calm yet gruff voice. “I’ve taken on all the managerial admin shit for now, and I have a few clients who need some projects finished up this week. As much as I want to help you out, Harper, I just don’t have the time.”
“Can’t Noah take on that stuff?” I rub my eyeballs with my fists. I’m exhausted. I barely got any sleep last night, what with all the tossing and turning and worrying I did over the state of the B&B. “I mean, you do know how much he hates me, don’t you? He’s liable to make the hole in the floor worse instead of better.”
Luke sighs. “Paperwork and client relations have never been Noah’s strong suit.
”
Well, I can’t argue with that. Despite how much I hate to admit it, Noah’s strength is on the manual side of things. And not just in repairs or slabbing concrete onto bricks. I’ve seen the furniture he’s built for some of his clients. He does beautiful work. Though I’d never tell him that.
“Okay, but that doesn’t change the fact he hates me,” I say.
“He’s not going to screw you over, Harper,” Luke says. “He’s a pain in the ass most of the time, and I know you two have a weird and awkward history. But just trust me that he is one-hundred percent serious when it comes to his work.”
“Yeah, that’s what he said, but—”
“He’s going to be there any minute now. Give him a chance to prove himself to you.” Luke sighs on the other end of the line, and I can tell this back and forth is tiring him out. He’s never had much patience for nonsense, especially not when it comes to Noah. So, if he of all people thinks his brother will behave himself, then there might be something to it.
But that sure as hell doesn’t mean I have to be nice.
“Morning, Harper,” Noah says when he rolls up in the van. As soon as he steps out into the crisp morning air, the scent of him envelopes me like a warm blanket. I mean, an annoying blanket. There’s something different about him. Usually I don’t notice the way he smells, but today there’s a strong and musky mint cloud following him around.
“Are you wearing cologne?” I ask without even thinking.
I fight the urge to pop my hand over my mouth. Shit. I wish I could take that question back. I don’t want him to think I notice how he smells. Because, knowing Noah, he’ll revel in it. And probably think it means way more than it does.
And as expected, he smirks.
“I certainly am.” He leans closer and waves his scent toward me. “What do you think?”
“I think you smell like sweaty feet.”