Windy City Romance: Boxed Set: Prequel - Book III

by Barbara Lohr

  But not Cameron. “Bakery? One temptation I cannot pass up.” He sank his teeth into a brownie with a wicked smile that earned him only a tolerant glance from Kimmy– the kind a mother would give a misbehaving child. Under her disapproving eye, Harper had her pick of the plate. No use holding back now.

  “My, oh my.” Kimmy shook her head.

  “Never did believe in diets.” Harper could hardly get the words out around a mouthful of brownie.

  Kimmy folded her napkin into a neat square and then announced she had to “skedaddle.” Had to prepare for her show the next day. After setting Bella up in the TV room, Harper cleared the table. Felt like she was cleaning a crime scene. What would Connie think when she discovered what had happened to her beautiful roast?

  As Harper worked in the kitchen, being super careful with the china, Kimmy said good night to Cameron in the foyer. “Thank you for, well, dinner—or what there was of it.” Her words carried clearly.

  Wow, now that stung. Harper almost dropped a plate.

  “I’m just walking Kimmy out to her car, I’ll be right back,” Cameron called out.

  Putting some serious elbow grease into cleaning the crockpot, Harper worked out her anger. What was she doing here? Her earlier resolve dissipated, along with the smoke in the kitchen. She wanted to go home to Oak Park. Enough of the dysfunction in this crazy household.

  After loading the dishwasher, she left the crockpot in the sink and shepherded her charge upstairs where she drew a bath in the clawfoot tub. Bella had buckets full of bath toys, and Harper had fun playing with the plastic fish that squirted water.

  Didn’t take long for them to get into an all-out water fight. At the end, their hair was stringy and they were both giggling uncontrollably. Bella’s laugh eased Harper’s heart. Quickly, she got the little girl into her Tinkerbell nightgown and towel-dried her hair.

  “Can I do it?”

  “Sure.” Harper handed her the towel. Didn’t matter if Bella’s efforts only put more knots in her hair. In the end, Harper worked some conditioner through the little girl’s dark tresses. “You have beautiful hair, you know that?”

  Bella looked pleased. “I do?”

  “Gorgeous, sweetie. You are a gorgeous girl.” Probably like her mother. Spreading the towels on the edge of the tub to dry, Harper felt an unaccountable wave of sadness. She shook it off. A February wind blew outside as she chased Bella down the hallway and into her huge bedroom.

  “What book should we read?” Harper scrutinized the shelf.

  “Peter Pan,” Bella pleaded, pulling up the pink comforter.

  “Right, you’re the girl with the Tinkerbell pajamas,” Harper teased, grabbing the book.

  Before Harper started reading, Bella snuggled up next to her. “I’m sorry, Harper.”

  “For what?”

  “I took Connie’s note.” Bella’s lips trembled. “I made you make a mess.”

  Surprise gutted Harper. “Oh, honey. Why?”

  One tiny shoulder lifted. “I don’t know but I’m sorry. I’ll never do it again. Okay?” Bella’s eyes begged for forgiveness.

  Somehow Harper swallowed her disappointment. “That’s okay, Bella. Guess I should know how to cook a roast without the note. You don’t have to be a wizard to use a crockpot.”

  Darkness was falling. Outside on the long porch, the hanging ferns were outlined against the night sky. After snapping on the bedside lamp, Harper began to read. She practically knew the story of Peter Pan by heart. When she got to the part about the motherless boys, the pictures in the library came back to haunt her. Did Bella remember her dark-haired mother? What would it take for Cameron to allow the Goodwins to spend time with Bella? She needed people around who cared about her. Kimmy sure didn’t make the cut.

  By the time she reached the end of the story, she felt another presence in the room. Arms crossed, Cameron leaned against the doorframe. He looked beat. “Almost asleep?”

  Harper nodded. Bella’s hands were tucked under her cheek on the pillow. Snapping off the bedside lamp, Harper tiptoed through the door. Cameron bent to turn on a night light along the baseboard.

  As Harper glanced back from the hallway, Bella looked so peaceful. But this had not been a calm week. “Look, I am so sorry about dinner. I am such a klutz—”

  Cameron regarded her with steady eyes. “I hired you to care for Bella, not to cook.”

  “It’s not like I couldn’t if I tried.” She didn’t want to be a one trick pony.

  “And you’re doing great.”

  He was stretching it, and they both knew it. Cameron just didn’t want another nanny to leave. She got that.

  “But I know you want things to be nice for K...your friend.” Man, she had trouble just getting Kimmy’s name out.

  “Life isn’t something you read on a teleprompter, Harper, that’s for sure.” A bleakness swept his eyes but was gone so fast she wondered if she’d really seen that sadness.

  “Maybe I should pick stories more carefully,” Harper mused.

  “Why?” In the dim light, his blue eyes turned gray.

  “Some children’s fairy tales are so sad.”

  He pondered that for a moment. “But life’s sad. Right?”

  “Sometimes.” But her kind of sadness—having Billy Colton dump her—couldn’t compare to Cameron’s and Bella’s loss. In fact, she felt silly mooning over her boyfriend when this poor guy lost a wife he dearly loved.

  “Don’t worry about the story. Bella likes to have you read to her.” Reaching out, Cameron softly swiped one thumb under her left eye and glanced at his blackened finger.

  She probably had major raccoon eyes and cupped her heated cheeks. “The water fight.”

  Rubbing his fingers together, Cameron smiled. “Looks like Bella won.” Digging into his back pocket, he offered her a handkerchief.

  “Thank you.” The handkerchief smelled like his aftershave. She pressed it gently to her face.

  “Don’t beat yourself up. You’re good for Bella…and you’re good for this house.”

  Wow. His comment distracted her from the mixed signals her body was giving her. She tucked the handkerchief in her pocket.

  Hand on the banister, Cameron started downstairs. “I better lock up.”

  Was he embarrassed by his own compliment? Wanting to clear the mess in the kitchen before Connie got here in the morning, she followed him. Her breathing had almost returned to normal.

  When he stopped in the kitchen five minutes later to lock the back door, he paused. The light over the sink cast a golden glow on his hair. “Whatever are you doing?”

  “Cleaning up.”

  “Connie will take care of that.”

  “Oh, I don’t want her to start the day with this mess.”

  His slow grin sent warmth curling through her stomach. “Well, now, that’s very considerate of you, Harper. Your mama trained you well.”

  “My mama would tell me to clean up this mess or else. It’s not easy to burn food onto a Teflon surface.”

  Cameron’s gutsy chuckle tickled Harper’s funny bone. Soon they both were laughing until she was snorting like one of her brothers. Nice. Very feminine. She pulled out his hanky and wiped her eyes.

  “I declare.” Cameron pushed back from the counter. “Harper Kirkpatrick, this house needs more laughter.”

  “I think you’re right.” Gosh, he was so close. She could almost taste the spicy barbecue sauce on his warm breath. How had she missed his thick eyelashes? Cameron’s sculpted lips stopped laughing. A muscle twitched in his cheek. For one crazy moment, she thought he might kiss her.

  Even crazier, she wanted him to.

  This was so wrong.

  Giving his head a jerk, he bent and snapped the dishwasher closed, broad shoulders pulling on the oxford cloth shirt. Harper wielded Connie’s pot scrubber while wicked, random thoughts sent heat crackling through her body.

  He was easing away. “Night now.”

  When she looked up, Cameron look
ed dazed. “Good night. Sleep…” Harper clamped her lips shut. Good grief, she almost told him to sleep tight—the phrase that made Bella smile each night. A curious tilt of his head and he turned, footsteps slowly crossing the hall until she heard the third and the seventh stairs creak.

  Hadn’t taken long to learn the noises some stairs made.

  Or the tread of his feet on them.

  Picturing Kimmy in the Morning in Cameron’s arms made Harper’s chest ache. She attacked the pot with a vengeance.

  Chapter 10

  Following the disastrous dinner with Kimmy, Harper settled into a schedule. She took Bella to school and then dashed home to do research on eating disorders. The information wasn’t encouraging. One day, when she was trying to persuade Bella to try a chopped-up banana, the little girl threw her cereal bowl, splattering everything. The mess even hit the stove and refrigerator. Bella burst into tears. “My shirt! My new shirt!” Her little arms shot out like she’d been hit by a paint ball.

  Harper’s heart pinched. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

  “You’re mean.” Bella’s attempts to wipe off the mess only made it worse.

  Grabbing a dish towel, Harper wet the corner and began to dab. “Not on purpose, sweetheart. I’m just trying to help. Want to play badminton?”

  The lip was making its appearance but Bella retracted it with a smile. “Sure.”

  In her research Harper had learned that diversion was the best way of handling these incidents, not that it was easy.

  ~.~

  “Sometimes I am in totally over my head,” she told McKenna during one of their Sunday night chats.

  “This might not be about chewing or eating, although I’m no expert.”

  “You went to nursing school.”

  “Any experience I have is with infants, but I’ve seen enough to know that a lot of these disorders that crop up with kids can have a psychosocial component.”

  “You’re losing me.” Mind numb after another stressful Sunday dinner with Kimmy, Harper stretched out on her bed. At least this time Connie had been there for the preparation.

  “I’m talking about emotions. This eating aversion might come from Bella’s heart and head, not her body.” Her usually talkative sister fell silent for a couple beats. “Are you thinking of throwing in the towel, Harper? You can always come back to Chicago. You might find more design work in a larger city. You don’t have to stick it out in Savannah just because you went to school there.”

  Her bed creaked when Harper swung up to a sitting position. “I’m not leaving, McKenna. No way.”

  “That’s my girl.” Harper could hear the smile in McKenna’s voice. Had her sister been goading her on?

  “Helping with Bella’s eating issues and learning how to cook are two of my goals. I even have them penciled in on my calendar.”

  “Whoa! Cooking? Mom will be so proud.” McKenna hooted way too loud for Harper’s comfort.

  “If she’d ever let us near her stove, I wouldn’t be behind in all this.”

  “If you can read…”

  “…you can cook,” Harper supplied. But she’d never believed it. What the heck was a pinch of anything?

  But she dug in her heels after that talk with McKenna. Going home would mean failure. That wasn’t going to be her. She’d started hanging around the kitchen and it wasn’t Connie’s crusty personality attracting her.

  “Are you hungry or just curious?” Connie finally asked one night.

  “Both,” Harper admitted. “Sure would like to learn the basics. You know, how to cook a roast or chicken...that type of thing.” She didn’t want to explain that her mother had remained queen of her kitchen. The Kirkpatrick kids were strictly the set-the-table-and-cleanup crew.

  “Be glad to teach you a thing or two,” Connie said with a pleased smile. “Every woman should know how to cook. The way to a man’s heart—”

  “I’m not going there,” Harper broke in. Like Billy could have cared. He’d been a health food nut, so they’d always had plenty of tabbouleh and hummus around.

  “We’ll see. Whatever you think, men do enjoy home cooking. Just ask Jack.”

  Yeah, well, Jack was a little overweight in Harper’s book. That’s what Connie’s skills had brought her husband, not that Harper would mention that now. The housekeeper had pulled a hunk of meat from the refrigerator. Connie was oh, so casual when she said, “Fixing any meat is just a matter of having the right temperature. If you turn the crockpot dial to high, you might have a mess.”

  “Well, of course.” An incriminating heat burned Harper’s cheeks. Did Connie know about the debacle that Sunday?

  Hard to tell when Connie was bent over one of the crisper drawers. “Then you peel the carrots. Slice them up, along with the potatoes.”

  Harper grabbed a peeler, trying to look as if carrots and potatoes were the most interesting thing she’d heard about all week. Had Connie noticed the plastic sack of potatoes unopened in the vegetable drawer after the disastrous dinner? If the housekeeper had noticed, she was totally cool about it. Harper secretly felt that Connie liked her. She’d overheard the housekeeper tell her husband Jack that Harper had “staying power.”

  The potatoes were rough and cold in her hands while Harper hacked away with the peeler. Connie kept the lesson going and settled the roast into the crockpot like a baby. Amazing how she flitted from one task to another, talking in a low, melodious voice, like this was some initiation rite. “There now. Then you pour a can of onion soup over the roast and cook at medium.”

  After that day came a lesson with cinnamon chicken and then apricot-glazed salmon. Harper kept notes on bits of paper in a little box that used to hold her hair clips. Once she stopped hurting herself with cooking implements, she used the lesson time to mine Connie for information. Just curious, that’s all.

  “How did Bella’s mother die?” she asked Connie one day when Bella was at school and they were making celery seed coleslaw together.

  “Car accident.” Connie looked away. “Terrible. Just terrible.”

  Harper stopped shredding. The choked words conjured up a paralyzing image. Questions ricocheted through her mind. Questions she could never ask. A heavy sadness had seeped into the room.

  As time passed, Harper got to know Connie and her husband Jack. They lived in a small cottage out back that used to be servant quarters in the 1800s. Quite a pair. On their days off, they took in the countryside on their Harleys, of all things. The first time she was treated to this sight, Harper had to suppress a smile. Roaring off in helmets and black leather, they looked like a couple of bobble-head dolls. The next day Connie would fill Harper’s ears with stories about small towns Harper had never heard of before. They’d poke around antique stores and eat in roadside restaurants. Connie made even the smallest outing with her husband sound like an adventure. “Jack and I …”

  Connie and Jack were good friends. Someday Harper wanted that. Love and friendship.

  Her time with Billy started as friendship. They’d been in the same classes. A few beers one night and it progressed to more. They moved in together. Sure, eventually they used the L word. Looking back, she wondered if her feelings for him had been love – the kind her parents had for each other. The kind Connie and Jack shared.

  Harper hadn’t heard zip from Billy. Pictures of the two of them together remained in a box under her bed. But she sure didn’t pore over the photos at night, the way she had in the beginning. She was spending more time at her drawing board, not that she’d ever use the sketches—at least, not here in Savannah.

  Three times a week, Cameron dutifully joined them for dinner. Sundays with Kimmy shouldn’t have counted as one of the family meals, in Harper’s mind, but they did. Couldn’t Cameron see that those dinners only gave Kimmy a chance to bore them with an unending monologue? And the girl sure didn’t need any cue cards. Rail thin and picking at her food like a bird, she filled the silence with her incessant chatter.

  Harper began to
look forward to their Tuesday and Thursday dinners. Bella seemed a lot more relaxed with just Cameron and Harper there. Usually Cameron quizzed Bella about school. But the little girl could be evasive. “Nothing.” She’d run her spoon through the oatmeal. Her father never pressed her.

  Maybe Cameron just wanted to fill the silence when he turned to Harper one night and asked, “What did you do today?” Her weekly reports had fallen by the wayside at his request.

  “I, ah, took Bella to the park.”

  As his startled look, Harper added, “We didn’t meet anyone. Don’t worry.”

  Whether or not the Goodwins had called again, Harper had no clue. Connie usually took any calls and she’d already told Harper what the protocol was. Did Bella’s grandparents realize the meeting had been a mistake, one that Cameron would probably correct?

  Although she’d like to just treat her position like a temporary job, her curiosity grew with each passing week. Cameron never said anything about his own parents. Passing through the kitchen one Saturday afternoon, Harper found a woman sitting at the table with Cameron. He introduced her as “Lily, my sister.” The woman had a narrow face, like Cameron’s, and kind eyes when she smiled. “How long have you been here?”

  Harper had to count. “Five weeks maybe?” She looked to Cameron.

  Lily looked surprised and Cameron laughed. “Right, Harper might be a keeper.”

  “I should say.”

  “Uh, nice meeting you, Lily.” Flustered, Harper escaped into the hallway.

  “A keeper”? For sure she’d never stay if Cameron married Kimmy. The thought weighted Harper’s steps as she made her way up the stairs.

  The weather warmed enough for Harper to drive with the sunroof open. Bella shrieked with laughter while they bombed around town one afternoon, hair flying in the breeze. Then Bella started to wheeze.

  “Sorry, sweetie.” Heart pounding, Harper pulled over, grabbed Bella’s inhaler and climbed into the back seat. She held the device to Bella’s lips, her own breathing increasingly restricted by the scare.

  “I’m okay,” Bella pushed the inhaler away.