Alan added, “We’re glad you’re there to help Linc look after the children.”
“Me, too,” replied Harper. “Your grandchildren are a lot of fun.” She tipped her head to the side to make eye contact with the toddler in her lap. “Aren’t you, Maya?”
“I fun!” cried Maya, and gave Pebble a hug.
Jayden came flying back in with his pictures. Harper and the grands praised his work. “I think they’re very festive,” he proudly declared.
Jean said to Harper, “I hope we’ll get to meet you in person one of these days. We won’t be home from this trip until next summer. I don’t know if Linc has told you that we live in the Sacramento area.”
Harper nodded. “I think he mentioned that, yes.”
“But they’re thinking of moving to Portland,” Linc couldn’t resist putting in hopefully.
It pleased him no end when Alan backed him up. “Yes, we are,” the older man said and added, for Harper’s benefit, “Kevin was our only child...”
Jean sighed. “A beautiful, blessed, late-in-life baby.” Her eyes were misty as she recalled her lost son. “And yes,” she went on more briskly, “we’re very seriously considering a move to Oregon, where we can be near the children and Linc.”
“I’m holding you to that,” Linc warned. Maybe he was pushing it, but he wanted them nearby. He’d grown attached to them in the past year. And it would be so good for the kids, to have their Grandma and PopPop dropping by often.
“Very seriously considering it,” Jean repeated. “And lovely to get to chat with you a bit, Harper.”
“Great to meet you, too.”
Linc had to actively resist the need to hook an arm across Harper’s shoulders, maybe steal a kiss—just on the cheek. A couple of simple, affectionate gestures that would let Alan and Jean know how important Harper had become to him.
But he had a feeling Harper wouldn’t go for it. They were supposed to be keeping their relationship on the down-low around the kids. From Harper’s point of view, his cuddling up to her in the biweekly video visit with the grandparents would be sending the wrong kind of signal.
They needed to talk about the future some more, him and Harper. And as soon as he found the right opening, they would.
After a flurry of kiss blowing and goodbyes, Jean and Alan signed off. Harper hustled the kids into their winter coats and drove them off to the theater for the afternoon rehearsal.
Linc went to his office, where for once there were no emergencies in Portland that needed to be dealt with immediately. He sat at his desk, trying to decide whether to check in with his assistant at Stryker Marine or start dealing with emails and messages, when his cell rang.
A glance at the screen had his stomach sinking.
It was his mother, whom he should have called days ago—ideally last Friday, after his talk with his dad on Thursday night. Or at least at some point over the weekend.
Yet here it was, the following Tuesday, and he was still putting off reaching out to her.
Well, not anymore.
He hit the talk button. “Hi, Mom. This is a surprise.”
“Oh, I am sure that it is.” Sarcasm dripped from every word.
He kept his tone light. “It’s pretty late there, isn’t it?”
“It’s the middle of the night, Lincoln. The middle of the night and I can’t sleep. That is very much due to you. Your father, who said he would talk to you, apparently gave you the wrong message altogether. After which, he got back to me and said you would be calling me. That was several days ago. Radio silence from you, thank you so much.”
“Sorry, Mom.” And he was. Sorry about a lot of things—including that he’d ever gotten involved with Imogen Whitman in the first place and that his mother was disappointed in her life and just generally unhappy. “I apologize for not calling. I did tell Dad I would get in touch with you. I should have done that days ago.”
His mother let out a heavy sigh. “I just need to know when you are going to work things out with Imogen. Sarah is so upset and she says Imogen is miserable, longing to make it up with you. And yet you have refused to communicate with her. Lincoln, you blocked your own fiancée. I cannot believe you did that. I raised you better than that.”
So much for keeping it light. “Look, Mom. There is no point in my communicating with Imogen. We broke up. I don’t want to get back together with her.”
“Lincoln, it’s not all about you.”
“It’s 50 percent about me and all of me is through with Imogen.”
There was more huffing from his mother. “I cannot believe you’re doing this.”
“Well, I am. And I’m sorry to be a disappointment to you, but your disappointment is not going to force me to marry a woman I don’t love.” At that, his mother gasped. He went on, calmly, “Marrying someone I don’t love would be wrong and I think that you know it would.”
“You made a promise.”
“No, Mom. The promise happens when you stand up in front of the world and say, ‘I do.’ Imogen ended our engagement, thus saving both of us from making a promise we would only have broken eventually, anyway.”
“She didn’t mean to break up with you. She was upset and said things she regrets.”
A headache had formed behind his eyes. Linc pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger and rubbed to ease the ache. He’d known this conversation was coming. But that didn’t make having it any more bearable. “Look, Mom. This isn’t about you. It isn’t about Sarah. This is about Imogen and me and how it didn’t work out. That’s it. There’s nothing more to say on the subject. You are not going to change my mind. So just give it up. Please?”
That seemed to silence her. But not for long. With a hard huff of breath she demanded, “What am I going to say to Sarah?”
“I have no idea. The truth, maybe?”
“And what do you think is the truth? You have broken poor Imogen’s heart.”
“Mom, I think we’ve both said all we have to say on this subject. I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”
“Oh, that’s just lovely. Stonewall me. You’re just like your father.”
He tried one more time to get through to her. “Let’s talk about something else.”
“No. This is important. We need to figure out a way for you and Imogen to—”
“Stop!” He didn’t realize he’d practically shouted the word until he heard his mother gasp again. “I’m going to hang up now. Call me anytime, but not to talk about Imogen. I love you and I miss you. Goodbye.”
“Don’t you dare hang up on—” He disconnected the call, tossed the phone on his desk and dared it to ring again.
It didn’t, but he flopped back in his chair and glared at it for several more seconds anyway, because when it came to his mother, he really had no idea how to get through.
Grabbing the phone again, he called his dad with the video-chat app.
Warren actually smiled at the sight of him. “Lincoln. What a surprise.”
“Hey, Dad. I was just thinking about you, wondering if maybe you and Shelby might be able to make it out here to Valentine Bay for a Christmas visit this month? I would like to get to know Shelby a little. And Jayden and Maya should have a chance to know their grandpa on their mother’s side.”
Warren’s brow beetled up. “I’ll never be anyone’s favorite grandfather.”
“You don’t have to be the favorite, Dad. But with grandkids, you really need to put in the time.”
His father was quiet—until he said, “I’ll check with Shelby.”
“Excellent. We’ll be here until January 2. Anytime between now and then works for me and the kids. Let me know.”
* * *
At a little after five, Harper ushered Maya and Jayden in the front door. Jayden took off his hat and mittens and hung up his coat as he chat
tered away about how much he wanted it to snow.
Maya was exercising her independence. “I do. Me!” she insisted when Harper tried to help her out of her red puffer coat.
“Of course, you do,” Harper replied. She planted a quick kiss on Maya’s fat little cheek and stepped back to watch her take off her red-and-green beanie with the bouncing pom on top. Carefully, Maya set the beanie in the basket of hats and scarves by the door.
“How was rehearsal?”
Harper looked over to find Linc watching her from the open entrance to the living area. He had that look in those amber eyes, like he wanted to grab her and eat her right up. In three hours or so, he just might. A heated shiver skittered through her at the thought. “Never a dull moment,” she replied.
“Ready for the big opening?” The Christmas show opening was four days away, on Saturday at two in the afternoon.
“Nope, we’re not ready.” She hung up her own coat. “But then, we never are.”
“Hawp.” Maya tugged on the hem of Harper’s sweater. “Hewp.”
“What do you say when you want help?”
The little girl’s rosebud mouth curved in an angelic smile. “Pwease.”
So Harper helped her out of her coat. Maya hung it up herself on the kid-height set of hooks above the basket of hats and scarves.
Three hours later, Harper let Linc lead her to his bed—by way of a long, lovely detour against the shut door of the master suite, where he knelt at her feet, hooked her left leg over his shoulder and then used his skilled fingers and clever mouth to send her to paradise.
Twice.
The man was amazing in so many ways.
Later, after another half hour of delicious lovemaking on the bed, Linc pulled the covers up. Wrapped in the warm cocoon of blankets, with his arms around her, she asked him about his day.
He reported that he’d called his father and invited him and his wife to the cottage whenever they might be able to make it this Christmas.
“Did he say yes?”
“He’s going to talk to Shelby.”
She kissed his slightly stubbly jaw. “That’s great.”
He gave a grumbly sort of chuckle. “Proud of me, huh?”
“You’d better believe it—and I have to ask, what made you rethink the idea of inviting him?”
The question seemed to make him uneasy. “Uh. Long story...”
Chapter Nine
Again, Linc found himself debating how much to tell her.
But she knew him too well. “What’s going on, Linc?”
He could definitely scare her off if he reported what had gone down with his messed-up mom, not to mention sharing the story of the ex who refused to let go.
But the woman in his arms had taught him a lot—about the children he had a sacred duty to shepherd into successful adulthood, about how families worked and what bound people together. He wanted more with her.
When the New Year came, he wanted her with him. And to have any hope of convincing her that they should keep being together, he needed to be honest with her.
Her soft lips brushed the side of his throat. “Not going to tell me, huh?”
He lifted up enough to gaze down at her. “Just wondering where to start...”
“It can’t be that bad. Come on now, lay it on out there.”
So he did.
He told her everything: that his father had once had a thing for her mother and Marie Valentine had shut Warren Stryker down, that his mother was trying to get him to go back to his ex. He shared all the details, everything he’d been keeping to himself, even that his dad thought that he, Linc, ought to marry someone like her.
When he finally fell silent, she asked in a hushed voice, “Is that all?”
“Are you kidding? Isn’t it enough?”
“I am not kidding, no. However, you’re right. It’s a lot.”
“I just need to know you won’t run away screaming now you have a better idea of the hot mess that is my family.” He bent close and kissed her, thinking how she made everything better. One way or another, he needed never to let her go.
Was he moving too fast? Maybe. But losing Megan and Kevin had taught him that life could be brutal, brief and completely unfair. When a man found something really good, he needed to hold on to it.
She captured his gaze. “All families have issues. And I’m still right here in this bed with you, no plans to take off running.”
He realized he’d been holding his breath. “Whew. That’s what I needed to hear.”
She studied his face. “Your mom sounds so unhappy...”
“She is—and pretty much always has been. I used to feel sorry for her, for the way my dad cheated on her and traded her in on a trophy wife. I still hate that he did that to her, but she’s had years to deal with it, to move on, to make a life that works for her. And yet here we are, a decade later, and she’s still an emotional disaster, more concerned over making Sarah Whitman happy than she is about creating a loving relationship with the grandkids she hardly knows.”
“Or supporting your happiness,” Harper suggested softly.
“Right. That, either.”
Her eyelashes fluttered down. She became very engaged in not quite looking at him.
He tipped her chin up with a finger. “What? Just say it.”
“Okay...” She hesitated, but then forged on. “It sounds like you and Imogen aren’t really through.”
“That’s not true. It’s over between her and me. I’m done.”
“But she isn’t.”
“You’re going to think I’m callous, but Imogen is my ex. It’s over. That means she’s not my problem.”
She stared at him for a long time. But then at last, she nodded. “Okay, I get that. And you did explain to me before that you didn’t love her—which is just sad, by the way.”
“Yeah, it really is.”
She took his face between her hands. “I see what you’re saying. She wasn’t the right person for you and you’re glad that it’s over.”
“Yes. And can we leave this subject behind now?”
“All right.”
“Thank you.” He rolled to his side, taking her with him, so they were facing each other, eye to eye. “Well, that went pretty well.”
“You think?”
“Hey, I just dumped a bunch of not-so-great information on you concerning me and my family—and you took it in stride.”
Those beautiful dimples appeared. “The truth is hard to share sometimes.”
On the nightstand, her phone pinged with a text.
He curled a silky swatch of her hair around his index finger. “You need to check that?”
At her half shrug, he reached over, picked it up and handed it to her.
She smiled as she checked the message. “It’s just Mia.”
“Of Acevedo Hybrid Homes?”
She rolled to her back again and thumbed out a reply. “Yeah. She and I keep in touch. I like her. We kid around, sending each other design problems—fun stuff, specific challenges that crop up when you work with shipping containers.”
“So it’s a design problem she just sent you?”
“Mmm-hmm.” Stretching out an arm, she slid the phone onto the nightstand again. “She already has a solution, but she likes choices. So tomorrow morning I’ll look over what she’s sent and give her a few other ways she might go.”
He pulled her into his arms again and kissed the tip of her nose. “They’re missing the boat not hiring you before you run off to Seattle.”
Now she frowned. “We’ve already addressed and dismissed that pipe dream.”
It was far from the response he’d been hoping for. “It’s not a pipe dream if it comes true.”
“You just want me to come to Portland so we can keep spending our nights cra
wling all over each other.”
“You are so right. I like what we have, and I do not want it to end.”
Her serious expression became downright severe. “We have an agreement, Linc.”
“We do. And part of our agreement is that things can change.”
“I think...” Her pretty mouth twisted as she pressed on his chest with both hands.
“What? Say it.”
“I, um, I think that, yes, you and I really like each other, and the sex is amazing, and I adore Jayden and Maya. And maybe you see this—you and me, together—as a way to make a more solid family for the kids.”
Okay, that hurt.
Yeah, he did see her as a very good thing for his nephew and niece. But that was not the main point, no way. “You really think I want you as a nanny with benefits?”
“That’s not what I said.”
“Good. Because that’s not what this is about. Yes, I love that you love the kids and that they feel the same about you. But that’s not the reason I want to keep seeing you when the holidays are over. Harper, this is about you and me and this thing we have that I’ve never had before. It’s about finally getting a taste of what being with the right person could mean. It’s about not letting something special slip away when all the obstacles are surmountable.”
She pressed two fingers to his lips and whispered, “It sounds so good when you put it like that.”
“It’s only the truth.”
She held his gaze. “I have more I need to say.”
“I don’t want to hear how it can’t work out for us.” But she just kept staring at him, reproach in those big eyes. “Fine. Go ahead.”
“I need you to see the other side of it, the part where I’m still trying to figure out who I am in this world and where I fit in. The fact that a few weeks ago, you were engaged to someone else. You and me, well, what if we’re just a rebound for you? And what if, for me, we’re only a distraction, an interlude—a way for me to avoid figuring out what to do with my life?”
“We’re not.”
“We can’t let ourselves get all swept away in some romantic ideal, we can’t go all insta-love and happy-ever-after about this.”
A Temporary Christmas Arrangement Page 14