by Tawny Weber
Wasn’t it enough to have to deal with Nathan going away on his first trip longer than an overnight sleepover? Not only away, but away at camp on a tiny island in the middle of the freaking ocean. Okay, not quite the middle, but it was an island and it was surrounded by Pacific waters.
She was handling that, wasn’t she? Granted, she hadn’t told him that he was going yet. Once she did, she wouldn’t be able to change her mind. This morning Andi, with her usual efficiency, had forwarded the email showing the camp registration fee paid in full. Now Harper had no choice. But she hadn’t had a tantrum about that, had she?
Had she climbed onto the roof, yanked at her hair and screamed her throat raw yet over Brandon’s dramatic reentry into her life? Leave it to him to force his presence into Nathan’s life in a way she couldn’t stop. He would have known she’d tell him to take a flying leap if he’d contacted her about meeting Nathan, about being a part of her son’s life. He’d had his chance. He’d made his choice.
Now he’d never get to change his mind, or try to change hers. Her gaze slid to the red-and-blue-striped priority shipping box that’d been delivered an hour ago. She’d shoved it under the small kitchen desk, half-hidden but all too visible.
Harper grabbed her drink. Her teeth clenched tight on the straw as she sucked down a long sip of lemon-infused water and tried to settle the flood of emotions pouring through her. The water cooled her throat, but it didn’t help with the confusion storming through her chest.
Was she supposed to be sad? Was she supposed to grieve? And how did she tell her son that the father she’d never once mentioned was dead? Would he care? By trying to keep him from getting hurt, had hiding Brandon from Nathan actually hurt him?
And how was that for a convoluted guilt trip? Harper closed her eyes to the pain she didn’t understand and took a shaky breath. A part of her wanted to gather Nathan and run, hide. The rest wanted to climb in bed, pull the covers over her head and pretend that none of this was happening.
Since Harper was made of stronger stuff than that, she did neither.
Instead she finished dinner preparations.
“Mom, I’m starving. Like, I could eat a whole Tauntaun,” Nathan announced as he ran into the kitchen.
“I didn’t have time to stop by the planet Hoth for Tauntaun, so we’re having chicken instead.” Harper forced a smile. She had to struggle with some of the Star Wars references, but anything from the first three movies, she was solid on. She pointed a finger at her son before he could slide into his chair. “Wash. Then set the table.”
“’Kay.” He hurried to the kitchen sink, nudging the stool in with his foot and turning the water on before she could remind him of her opinion on kicking the furniture. “Chicken is way better than fish. Jeremy said his mom is making him eat something called hall butt tonight because he’s going to adventure camp.”
“Halibut.” Harper’s lips twitched and just like that, the bulk of the stress drained away. “And you hate eating fish.”
“I’d eat it if I went to adventure camp. It’d be different there, cuz I’d be catching it and all that stuff. Jeremy says they go fishing and hiking and all sorts of cool things. They even learn how to tie knots.” Nathan jumped down, not bothering to move the stool aside before hopping over to gather the dishes she’d already set out on the island. “Do you think they tell ghost stories around a campfire, too? That’d be cool. I know some good stories.”
Harper let the questions roll over her as she tried to figure out how to tell Nathan that his father was dead. Did she explain that before she told him he was going to camp? Or did she start with the camp news and let him revel for a while before she burst his happy little bubble?
“Mom?”
“Hmm?” Forcing herself to shake off the what-ifs and focus on what mattered—Nathan—Harper brought the salad to the table.
“Those are guy things, aren’t they?”
Guy things? She replayed the conversation as she handed Nathan a bowl of salad, then arched one brow.
“Are you trying to say that a woman couldn’t hike or fish or sail?” she asked, dishing up her own salad while giving her son a narrow look.
“Sure. Girls can if they want.” He stabbed a chunk of cucumber, then shot her a wicked smile. “Not you, cuz you don’t like anything that’s dirty or slimy. After we tried camping last summer, I heard you tell Andi that you’d rather eat slugs than sleep on the ground again. But I suppose some girls prob’ly like dirt and slime. It’s okay that you don’t.”
“Smart boy,” she murmured. Andi was right. She couldn’t be enough for Nathan. Not by herself, she admitted as a wave of guilt washed over her. This guilt was as familiar as her own skin. It’d come with the pregnancy hormones and never left.
“Eat your salad” was all she said.
“I met the guy who’s living at Mr. Lowenstein’s house.”
“So I saw.”
Oh, yeah. She’d seen the guy. A muscle-bound, Harley-riding guy with an intimidating stare, and most likely an IQ lower than he could bench-press. Starting on her own salad, Harper told herself to relax. She was sure he wasn’t dangerous. The Riviera Enclave was an exclusive gated community and the Lowensteins were vigilant in their screening. Added to that, the longest they ever sublet was a month. So the man might be a little intimidating, but he wasn’t likely to have any real impact on their lives.
“His name is Diego. He fixes things and secures stuff. He doesn’t got a kid, but he likes pets.” With the look of wide-eyed guile that he’d perfected, Nathan smiled at his mother. “That’s a good thing, right? In case we ever had to go on a job that’s overnight like the one you did in San Diego last summer for that music lady, there’d be someone next door to feed a pet. If we had one, I mean.”
Nicely done, Harper thought, appreciating how many creative ways he could make that pitch. While he rambled on about the care and needs of a kitten and debated the cuteness factor of gray tabbies versus orange, she pulled the warming chicken and finished fries from the oven.
“Chicken fingers?” Nathan exclaimed, pausing in his recital of possible cat names. His excitement slid into a frown as he noted the potatoes she was scooping onto the royal-blue Fiesta platter. “And fries? Why’re we having Saturday food? Isn’t today Wednesday?”
“Sure it is. But you’ll be at camp on Saturday, so we’re having Saturday food today instead.” Nathan’s jaw dropped. He gave a war whoop at the same time he shot out of his chair and launched himself into her arms.
His grateful enthusiasm was almost enough to drown out her concerns.
“You’re the best, Mom. The absolute best. Thanks. I’m gonna call Jeremy. Can I? Can I? I want to tell him so we can bunk together.”
“After dinner.” Harper held on a moment longer. Then because she knew she had to start getting used to it, she slowly let go. She scooped her fingers through the wavy mass of his hair, then tilted her head toward the table. “That way the two of you can talk as long as you like.”
That he’d still have words for later was just one of those things that always amazed her about Nathan. He’d talk through the meal about everything from camp to the LEGO project he was working on to baseball and back again. Unlike his mother, he never ran out of words. Never had to search for them.
But she was searching now. For the words, for the right way to tell him what she had to share. As he scooped his last fry through his ketchup, she still hadn’t figured it out. But like most of motherhood, she realized she’d have to figure it as she went.
“Leave the dishes for now, Nathan.” She laid her hand on his arm to keep him from jumping up from the table. “We need to talk.”
“Am I in trouble?” His face creasing, Nathan settled into his chair again.
“No, sweetie,” she rushed to say, sliding her hand down to mesh her fingers through his smalle
r ones.
He was growing so fast. Once, those fingers had been tiny as they’d wrapped around hers, his just-born eyes staring into her face as if she were his world. Those fingers had gripped hers as he’d taken his first teetering steps; that hand had held tight the first day of school.
She’d spent her entire life trying to protect him. To give him the best and keep him as happy as she could. Now she had to hurt him. God help her, she blamed Brandon.
Harper took a deep, shaky breath as she tried to fight back the tears clogging her throat, then gave her son a reassuring smile.
“You’re not in trouble. I just need to tell you something.”
“Something bad?” he ventured when she bit her lip, trying to gather the words she still hadn’t found.
She wanted to assure him that it wasn’t bad. She wanted to continue ignoring Brandon’s existence. His death shouldn’t change that.
Except that she couldn’t. And it did.
Once again, Brandon had managed to turn her entire world upside down, and once again, he hadn’t stuck around to watch the fallout.
CHAPTER FIVE
SO THIS MUST be what it felt like to get run over by a truck.
A very large, dirty truck overloaded with painful regrets and parental guilt.
Sitting on the edge of the bed, head resting in her hands, Harper used her fingers to try to massage away the pain throbbing a tango on her scalp.
He’d taken the news well.
Too well.
She’d told him that the man who’d fathered him was dead, and Nathan had simply nodded. He hadn’t asked any questions. He hadn’t been interested in Brandon’s heroics as a SEAL, or why he’d never been around. He didn’t care what was in the box of effects sent to him by the person who claimed to be Brandon’s best friend. The first time he’d shown any emotion was when she’d suggested he might want the glass-fronted rosewood case of medals to keep in his room, and that’d been to throw the case back into the packing box with a scowl.
Before she could ask if he wanted to talk about it, or if he had any questions, he’d demanded to know if they were done yet so he could call Jeremy.
Harper hadn’t known what else to do other than wave him toward the phone. Maybe he was just too excited about camp to focus on the other. Or maybe he simply didn’t care.
She’d spent the rest of the evening watching for signs while pretending not to. She’d done her yoga in the TV room while he chatted on the phone. She’d worked on her laptop in the dining room while he’d tossed his baseball in the backyard. And she’d curled up with him on the couch while he grumbled over his summer reading.
But she hadn’t seen a single sign of grief or confusion. He’d been his usual, upbeat self.
Maybe he was repressing something.
Or maybe he simply didn’t care.
“Mom?”
Harper jumped to her feet, hurrying down the hall to Nathan’s bedroom.
“What do you need, sweetie?”
“I can’t find my baseball.” In Thor pajamas, wrapped in the bedtime scent of coconut soap and bubblegum toothpaste, Nathan sat in the middle of his floor surrounded by LEGO pieces. “I wanted to use it as the power source, but it’s not here.”
“Power source, huh?” Harper knelt down next to him, careful to avoid jabbing a tiny plastic block into her knee. “Is this going to be a space station?”
“Yeah. It’s gonna be Kylo Ren’s hideout.” He didn’t look at her, but Harper didn’t need to see his eyes to conclude he was upset. “He’s gotta recover and learn to control his temper and figure out stuff.”
Kylo Ren. Harper’s breath came slow and painful as she tried to figure out how to ask her little boy if he was suddenly relating to the villain’s father issues. She wanted to gather Nathan tight in her arms and rock away any pain, soothe any confusion.
Her eyes burned as she looked at the top of her son’s tousled hair as it lay drying in shaggy waves. He wasn’t a baby anymore. And while she didn’t claim to understand much about the male ego, she knew her little boy was already too much a man to accept either words or hugs until he was ready for them.
She didn’t know what it said that she grieved over that more than anything else today. But there it was.
So she did what she always did. She sidestepped the emotional drama and went for the practical.
“You were playing with your ball when you were in the yard. Did you leave it out there?”
“Maybe.” His face creased as he continued to snap the tiny gray pieces together. “I think so.”
“I’ll find it,” she said, giving in to the urge to run her hand over his hair before rising.
“Can I listen to a story, too?” he asked before she reached the door.
“Percy Jackson?” Harper asked, reaching for the remote she kept on the spaceship-shaped shelving unit and aiming it for the CD player. Already queued to chapter 7, the narrator’s voice filled the room with the adventures of Percy and Grover. Harper waited another moment, but Nathan seemed content.
He wouldn’t be in a half hour when she called for lights-out, though. Not without his ball. He’d never had a blankie or teddy bear. Just like he’d never had a father.
He’d had her. And he’d had his baseball.
Since he’d probably left it in the backyard, she started her search there. It wasn’t until the evening air cooled her hot cheeks that she realized they were covered in tears.
Harper dried them with an impatient swipe of her hands, bending low to peer under chairs, stretching sideways to check behind the bank of variegated hosta plants and rich purple spikes of salvia.
It took her a few seconds to realize she was hearing more than crickets in the night. Was someone yelling hiyah?
She stepped through the iron fence and froze.
The new neighbor was in his backyard. Barefoot and shirtless, he wore what looked like black pajama bottoms. He simply flowed across the moon-drenched lawn. Kicks, turns, chops and punches flowed in a seamlessly elegant dance.
Was that martial arts he was doing?
Shirtless.
She couldn’t quite get past that one particular point.
It was too delicious.
But instead of licking her lips, Harper clenched her fists tight at her sides.
Why the hell was a man who looked like that living next door to her? More to the point, why did her libido choose now to wake up? Was it some cosmic joke that she’d remember now, despite her claims to the contrary, she was a sexually aware woman who had needs and desires?
Harper watched him do some sort of flip, feet in the air and his body resting on one hand. Muscles rippled, but he wasn’t even breathing hard as he executed an elegant somersault to land, feetfirst on the grass, knees low and arms extended.
Wow.
She’d bet all of her needs and desires could be handled quite nicely by her gorgeous, and quite physically impressive, new neighbor.
Harper would have growled if she weren’t worried the guy would notice the slightest sound and turn around. The last thing she wanted while she was going through this personal crisis was attention.
She wanted to blame Andi. Oh, not for the new neighbor. Arranging for good-looking neighbors wasn’t one of Andi’s oft-bragged-about skills. But putting the idea of sex and lust and, yes, dammit, craving, into Harper’s mind so her imagination ran wild when she looked at the new neighbor? That was totally and completely Andi’s fault.
Her stomach tightened with an edgy need she recognized as desire as the guy did a series of kicks, each one higher than the other with the last aimed straight overhead.
Again, wow.
He had tattoos.
A cross riding low on his hip and something tribal circling one bicep.
Who knew tattoos were so sexy?
Harper’s mouth went dry. Her libido, eight years in deep freeze, exploded into lusty flames so hot they scorched away all her spit. She couldn’t swallow, could barely breathe. She had to try twice to clear the tight knot of lust in her throat.
Wow, she thought for the third time.
Because some things definitely deserved repeating.
The man was incredible.
Gorgeous. She was pretty sure he was gorgeous. It was hard to tell, though, because her head was spinning.
He looked like some kind of pagan god—the ones who liked to deflower virgins—with that commanding air, impressive body and golden skin stretched over well-toned muscles.
Short black hair that spiked here and there over a face made for appreciative sighs. Sharp cheekbones rose high, accenting full lips. Thick brows arched over deep-set eyes, and he had a scar on his chin that glowed in the moonlight.
She heard herself gulp before she realized she’d done it.
Wondering where her spit had gone, Harper decided that she’d better get the hell out of there. Before he saw her. Before she did something to make sure he saw her.
But just as she turned to go, she spotted Nathan’s baseball sitting on a raised brick flowerbed. It was all she could do not to groan out loud. Her hint of a sigh must have been enough though, because the guy looked her way. Just a glance, not enough to slow the elegant ballet of kicks and punches. But enough to show that he knew she was there. He’d probably known all along.
“You looking for the ball?” His words were lightly accented with a familiar Hispanic lilt. They came low and easy like his smile, which made it all the more irritating that Harper was still too breathless to reply right away.
“Yes, my son lost it.” She eyed the distance between her nice, safe spot next to the fence and the ball. It wasn’t far, but she’d have to skirt awfully close to the man who was now, what? She narrowed her eyes. Was he praying?
Palms together, eyes closed, he lifted his hands high overhead so that long body stretched toward the moon. Shimmering light danced over a puckered scar riding high on his chest, glistened off the sharp-edged tattoo that circled his bicep like barbed wire before he lowered his hands to chest height. Eyes still closed, he took a deep breath. Wondering if he’d do it again, Harper edged a few inches inside the fence line. Before she’d taken a full step, though, his eyes shot open.