“You sent all six kids?” Harmony’s question was filled with awe and hero worship that made me as uncomfortable as a nun in a strip club.
I nodded. “They all went to camp that summer, and I saw what a difference it made in their lives. They still talk about that summer, and it was four years ago.”
Harmony held her hand up. “Wait. How do you know these kids?”
“I met Patrick and Liana my first week on the job. They were malnourished and neglected. I’ve kept tabs on them. Their foster parents are great people; they have four biological children and took in Liana and Patrick so that they wouldn’t be separated. With six kids they just can’t afford things like camp, or sports, or extracurricular activities. I help out when I can.
“But that’s just two kids. I wanted to do more. I wanted to start a camp where underprivileged, at-risk kids could go, free of charge. That idea has changed over the years. What started as a goal to host a camp once a year, turned into owning my own property with six weeks of camp over the entire summer. A few months ago I put the down payment on the place up at Emerald Cove and since then things have moved quickly.”
“You’re funding this alone?” Her question didn’t surprise me. I made a decent living, but it wasn’t like I was going to be making the Forbes list in my lifetime.
“So far, yes.” I hadn’t talked to anyone about what I was about to say, not even my parents. “But there is an offer on the table from someone who wants to make a large, an obscenely large, donation. And if I accept it, it’ll be game changing.”
A silence hung in the air.
“Okaaaaay…so, that’s good, right?”
I ran my fingers through my hair. That was the million-dollar, or in this case five-million-dollar question. “Maybe.”
“You don’t know if it’s a good thing or not?”
“No.”
“Wow.” Harmony sighed and blinked slowly. “You really are bad at this.”
I wasn’t sure what she was referring to, but whatever it was, she was most likely right. Around her, it felt like I was bad at everything. Especially keeping my mind on things that didn’t involve stripping her naked, exploring every inch of her sweet curves, and driving myself into her.
An X-rated slideshow was playing in my mind when I heard a whoosh of air before a slap landed on my arm.
“What the…?” I reached up to touch the spot where her palm had just touched.
“You can’t ignore me when I’m sitting in your truck and we’re having a conversation!” she screeched.
My jaw clenched as the desire to show her just how much I wasn’t ignoring her shot arousal through me. That reaction was exactly why I knew that my new plan of action was the right one to take. Even though it was killing me that now wasn’t the time to implement it.
“Believe me, I’m not ignoring you.” The huskiness in my tone was a byproduct of the need raging through me. I hoped Harmony wouldn’t pick up on it before I got it under control.
“Oh.” Harmony’s lips made a perfect circle and her eyes widened.
Too late.
The air surrounding us crackled. It was so thick with undeniable chemistry, pent-up desire, and combustible attraction you could cut it with a knife.
“What am I bad at?” My only shot at getting out of this unscathed was to answer her and do my best to extinguish the heat being generated between us. If not, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to stop myself from touching the flame.
A moment of confusion crossed her delicate features before a knowing look replaced it. “Oh, right. Talking. You’re bad at having a conversation. Getting information out of you is like pulling teeth.”
That wasn’t the first time I’d heard that, and it probably wouldn’t be the last.
“Do you do it on purpose?”
Was she asking if I intentionally lacked basic social skills? Because the answer was no. I just felt like most of the time people talked and no one was really listening. Most people cared about themselves, not what was going on with you. Most people would rather hear themselves talk than listen to you. I didn’t see the point in wasting my energy. And I was a private person. I always had been, which had made growing up in Wishing Well a challenge, to say the least. Plus, silence had never bothered me. In fact, I’d always found an eerie peace, a strange comfort in sitting in silence.
“Do what on purpose?”
Her brow scrunched and her nostrils flared. I wasn’t a mind reader, but I had a feeling she was calling me some not-so-flattering names in her head. I braced myself, expecting her to lose her shit, but instead she took a deep breath and continued in a tense but calm manner, the same one that my mom used to use when she started counting to three whenever my brothers and I were going to get in serious trouble.
“Withhold information. Do you do it to piss people off?”
“No.”
Holding out her finger, she pointed it at me in an accusatory gesture. “So, you’re not trying to piss me off right now?”
“No.” To prove it to her I asked, “What do you want to know?”
“Everything!” She blurted out as if I was an idiot for even asking.
“Can you be more specific?”
“Fine.” She spun towards me and crossed her arms. The movement caused Romeo to have to shift to keep his head on her lap. His new position didn’t look nearly as comfortable, but hey—I got it. If I had the choice between comfort and having my head between Harmony’s legs, it’d be no contest.
“Let’s start at the beginning. We’ve been working on a camp for underprivileged kids. A camp that you own, and that your aunt and uncle are going to be the caretakers of.”
So far this was all information we’d covered, but since I didn’t feel like meeting the same fate as the kid on the basketball court, I refrained from pointing that out.
“Yes.”
“And you didn’t tell me this because…?”
This question could lead me down a path I wasn’t quite ready to travel with Harmony. If I answered her honestly, I would have to tell her that for as long as I could remember, I’d intentionally kept her at arm’s length. She would inevitably ask the follow-up question of why, and that wasn’t somewhere I wanted to go…yet. But there was no way I could lie to her.
“I didn’t tell anyone except my parents and brothers.”
“Bullshit! Trace knows and your mysterious investor knows.”
“Trace knows because a week ago I decided to expand the camp to incorporate running an animal rescue. When my mom was notarizing the paperwork she mentioned your brothers were handling Old Man Stiller’s place and that they were having some trouble with a few special needs animals. I’m assuming she told him.”
Harmony crossed her arms and the effect was the same as if she was wearing seven push-up bras. Part of what made me good at what I did was the ability to maintain eye contact with someone while still scanning the area for anything suspicious or dangerous. It was a skill that I’d honed over my years on the job to what some considered a master level. An art form. I used that expertise now and drank in the heavenly sight. Moonlight danced over the rounded curves of her full, plump chest. My mouth watered, jeans tightened, and palms itched to touch her luscious mounds.
Her brows raised and her tone still held a large dose of attitude as she asked, “What about the investor?”
“My guess is my dad is responsible for that one. It’s his cousin’s son.”
Kyle was a lot more than that. He was an Oscar winning actor and one of the most famous people in the world.
“The investor is your dad’s cousin’s son?” She said the last three words slowly as if she was trying to put the puzzle pieces of what I was telling her in place.
I was starting to see what she meant. Every question I answered just led her to ask another question. Leaning back against the seat I ran my fingers through my hair and sighed. Maybe I was really bad at talking. Most people didn’t push as much as Harmony did. In fact the only other per
son who did was my mom. If this was going to go the way conversations with her did, I might as well just lay it all out there and save us both the frustration.
“Right. Kyle Austen Reed is my second cousin. My dad’s been talking to him a lot recently because Kyle’s researching a role for a movie where he’ll be playing a small town sheriff.”
Harmony released her arms and I didn’t know if I was more relieved or disappointed that her breasts were no longer on display like the lights in Times Square.
Her hands flew up and she waved them animatedly. “Holy crap! How do I always forget that you’re related to Kyle Austen Reed?”
Most people did. It’s not like we were close. Kyle had a strained relationship with his dad, who was my dad’s cousin. We hadn’t grown up together and had only really been around each other at about a half a dozen family reunions we’d attended in our lives.
“So wait, Kyle Austen Reed wants to invest in the camp and you’re not sure if that’s a good thing?” Harmony stared at me as if there was a very good chance she needed to call the men with strait-jackets to take me away.
“This started out as a small project. Now it’s growing faster than I can really wrap my mind around. I just want it to be…to stay…true to what my vision is.”
“And you’re scared that if Kyle Austen Reed—”
“You can just call him Kyle,” I stated flatly.
If he was going to be a part of this discussion I didn’t need to hear all three of his names every time he was mentioned. It was how everyone, including tabloids, interviewers, and even other celebrities referred to him but to me he was just Kyle, my cousin from California.
“Sorry, force of habit.”
She shook her head slightly and brushed a strand of hair behind her ear. The motion caused the cab to fill up with the scent of wildflowers and strawberries that was uniquely Harmony. I inhaled before I could stop myself. It was the sweetest smell in the world.
“Okay, so you’re scared that Kyle will donate the money with strings attached? That he’ll come in and think he can run the show?”
“No. He’d never do that.” Kyle was a stand-up guy. He hadn’t let fame and wealth change him. In fact, he’d used those things to help people. “The only thing he asked was that one week a year his charity, The Angel Alliance, would be able to host a camp for disabled kids and their families.”
“Oh yeah, I think I saw something on Access Hollywood about the Angel Alliance. Kyle married a single mom and her daughter, Angel, is paraplegic.” She snapped her fingers. “Oh and Angel’s only like ten or something but she has a really successful YouTube channel where she reviews movies. In fact I think that’s how the reporter said Kyle met them. It was a meet and greet his publicist set up because she’d seen her videos.”
“Yep, that’s how they met.”
Harmony held her hands to her chest as she collapsed back against the door, her eyes shutting as she exclaimed with an exhale. “Oh my God. That is so romantic.”
A sudden caveman reflex hit me. I wanted to be the only man putting dreamy looks on her face. I must not have been hiding my possessive urgency all that well, because when she opened her eyes she frowned.
“What?” she asked defensively. “You don’t think I can appreciate romance just because I don’t fall for every line that gets thrown at me down at the Cow? I grew up with eight brothers. I know that guys will say anything to get what they want. I just don’t fall for cheesy pick-ups from guys that only want to get laid, but that doesn’t mean I’m not a romantic.”
“I know.”
“You know?” She crossed her arms again and I had to hold in a groan of pure, unadulterated male appreciation at the display.
“Yes.”
“You think I’m a romantic?” Her tone was dripping with disbelief.
“No…”
Her expression turned smug. “That’s what I though—”
“I know you’re a romantic,” I finished.
“Really? Why do you think I’m a romantic?”
It was obvious she thought she was calling my bluff, but what Harmony didn’t know was that I never bluff.
“I know you’re a romantic because you notice things about couples that are happy—really happy—together. You see what real love is. True love. I’ve seen you watch from the sidelines when my dad pulls my mom on the dance floor any chance he gets and stares at her like the sun rises and sets in her eyes, that his whole world revolves around her smile, and you practically swoon. Or when your dad forgets he’s in church and pats your mom on the rear because when he’s next to her, even after over thirty years together, he can’t keep his hands to himself, and instead of you thinking it’s gross, you think it’s sweet. Or when you would tear up when you’d see Old Man Stiller walk to the cemetery every morning at five-thirty to have coffee with ‘his sweetheart’ even after she’d been gone—”
“You saw that?” she asked in a whisper.
“Yeah, I ran in the mornings, too, remember?” Harmony, like me, had run track in high school and the cemetery was on the five-mile loop around town that most of the track kids ran.
“But the rest…your parents…my parents…you saw me?”
“I see you. I’ve always seen you.”
“But…” There was confusion clouding her normally clear green eyes as she shook her head back and forth slowly. Then, in the blink of an eye—literally, she blinked her eyes and when she opened them—it was gone.
Straightening her back she inhaled. “If Kyle won’t come in and try to take over, why wouldn’t you want to accept his money?”
The subject changed so fast I was suffering from conversation whiplash. “What?”
She was all business as she explained, “You said you’re not sure if his donation is a good thing or a bad thing, but if he won’t try and take over, what’s the downside?”
Oh, okay. Now I saw what was going on. As someone who always needed to have the upper hand, I recognized this one-eighty as a power move. I tried not to grin at the knowledge that I’d knocked the unflappable Harmony Briggs off-balance. It was kind of hot and a lot adorable.
“Control,” I rasped, not able to disguise the gravelly husk that only Harmony inspired in my voice. “I need to be in control. Always.”
“Oh,” she breathed, before announcing loudly and a little too brightly, “That makes sense. Well, it’s late. See you later.”
With that the door flew open, Romeo jumped out and in a flash she was waving at me from her front porch and then disappeared inside before I’d even got the words, “See you Monday,” to form in my head.
I wasn’t exactly sure what had just happened between us, but it was something. Something I would be investigating soon. Very soon.
Chapter 17
Harmony
“There never was a horse that couldn’t be rode, or a rider that couldn’t be throwed.”
~ Loretta Reed
“At least I have you,” I cooed as I continued running my fingers through the hair of the only man in my life. Or, I guess, more accurately…fur.
Romeo snuggled up closer to me on the couch. Leaning down, I kissed the top of his head that was settled on my lap. Sitting back up, I tried to focus on my favorite movie. But even Julia Roberts telling Sally Field that she would rather have thirty minutes of wonderful, than a lifetime of nothing special wasn’t enough to cheer me up. Not that Steel Magnolias was really a cheering up kinda movie, but usually I was able to lose myself in it.
Tonight that wasn’t happening. Julia and Sally weren’t distracting me. The pint of Ben & Jerry’s Half Baked I’d inhaled had been disappointingly unsatisfying. I’d even gone the bubble bath and candle route, but unfortunately Calgon hadn’t taken me away.
In a Hail Mary pass, I switched over to my second favorite movie. This time it was a comedy that never failed to pull me into its world. After about thirty minutes I had to admit defeat. Not even Rupert Everett showing up and pretending to be Julia Robert’s fiancé,
hilarious as it was, could capture my attention.
It was my birthday. A beautiful, summer Saturday night. I was at home, alone (present canine company excluded), eating ice cream, in my pajamas, on my couch, watching a chick flick. Which you would think would be the reason I was upset, but none of those things were actually what was bothering me.
Cara, Destiny and I had spent every birthday together for the last eighteen years. Even when Cara was in the hospital, if it was one of our birthdays we always spent the entire day together. Just the three of us. As we got older our tradition evolved into more of a pizza and a movie, dinner and drinks, drinks and dancing, or some other activity that the birthday girl chose.
This was the first time in all the years we’d been friends that we weren’t all together for one of our birthdays. I wasn’t so naïve to believe our tradition would last forever, and I was fine with that. When Destiny had called earlier, half asleep, and said that Delilah was fussy and she would have to make it up to me, I hadn’t blinked an eye. But, when Cara had called and said that she wasn’t feeling well and couldn’t make it, the words had hit me like a punch in the gut.
Last week in the hospital, I’d noticed that Cara had gotten really tired, really fast. Here it was, just over a week later and she was calling to say that she didn’t feel up to hanging out. On my birthday. Which was very un-Cara-like. She was the reliable one. The sentimental one. The one who valued all of our traditions the most. That was a red flag in my book.
When she’d been diagnosed with a rare strain of Leukemia when we were twelve, I’d known it was bad, but I had no idea how bad. Now, I knew.
I’d been by her side while the disease tried, and thank God, failed to kill her. I’d been by her side when the treatments seemed like they were trying to kill her. I was there when she had no appetite but the doctors forced her eat. I was there when she couldn’t keep down the food she’d been forced to eat. I was there when they gave up on that and had to feed her through a tube. I was there when she was too weak to walk. I was there when she would cry in her sleep because of the pain. I was there to see the flash of terror in her eyes when the doctors would deliver bad test results.
Discovering Harmony (Wishing Well, Texas #3) Page 12