Suddenly You

by Sarah Mayberry

  Nowhere in their conversation last night had they covered other people. He’d made it clear he wasn’t looking for a relationship. She’d told him that was more than obvious and that neither was she. She hadn’t thought to ask if their short-term, just-for-fun-and-orgasms fling was to be exclusive for its duration.

  Probably she should have, because the idea of being one of many women that Harry serviced on a casual basis made the gorge rise in her throat. She wasn’t stupid, she knew the man had a past. Hell, she had a past, too—probably not as prolific and high-rotation as his, but she was no nun. No amount of experience would ever reconcile her to sharing her lover like a bicycle in a public lending scheme.

  Pippa went to work feeling vaguely anxious and unsettled. As the day wore on her unease only grew. She kept checking her phone to see if Harry had called, then catching herself and giving herself yet another mental lecture.

  So much for being “able to separate sex and love and romance and friendship.” Every anxious minute that ticked by made a mockery of her bold, emancipated words last night. She’d been riding her very highest horse, smugly pointing out to him that she understood exactly what the parameters of their relationship were. Determined to prove to him and herself that she wasn’t like his other women.

  And yet here she was, not even twenty-four hours later, fretting over if he was going to call and if he was hers exclusively.

  Not good. Distracting, undermining and draining. This was why she’d warned herself off Harry in the first place. Her life was already a crisis waiting to happen. She needed less drama, not more.

  By four in the afternoon she’d almost convinced herself that it would be a good thing if Harry never called again. Then she looked up from taking a phone call and found Harry walking toward her, his stride long and confident, big shoulders dipping from side to side with each step. She was powerless to stop the delighted smile that curved her mouth.

  “What are you doing here?” She’d mentioned she’d be working at the gallery last night but he hadn’t appeared to pay particular attention to the information. Clearly, however, he’d filed it away.

  “I wanted to see if you and Alice felt like dinner at the Brewery tonight?”

  Pippa’s smile dimmed a little. The Mornington Brewery was a local bar that offered boutique beers, wood-fired pizzas and live music. She would have loved a night there with Harry.

  “I can’t. I’m looking after another little boy. I have this reciprocal arrangement with a woman from university....”

  She braced herself for Harry’s disappointment. No doubt this was the first time he’d been turned down in favor of a night with two six-month-olds. He was used to shaping his life to suit himself, not bending himself around responsibilities and obligations.

  “How about I bring pizza and beer to you, then?”

  He said it easily, utterly accepting. A surge of wholly unwarranted relief swept through her.

  “You heard the bit about me babysitting the kids, right?”

  “Will there be a chance of me getting you naked?”

  Pippa shot a glance to the side to make sure no one had overheard his question. An older couple were examining some jewelry in a nearby showcase but they didn’t appear to be listening.

  She returned her focus to Harry. “I’d say your chances were good to very good. Becca’s picking Aaron up at nine.”

  “Then I’ll see you at seven with beer and pizza. Any requests?”

  “No anchovies. Extra olives.”

  “Done.” He turned to go, then swiveled back. “You still have that lacy red bra?”

  “Yes.”

  “Think you could wear it tonight?”

  “Um, sure.”

  “Good.”

  His gaze swept down her body. She was wearing a striped shirtwaist dress with her black eyelet boots—hardly siren stuff—but the expression in his eyes made her feel like Pamela Anderson, Sophia Loren and Marilyn Monroe all rolled into one. Heat bloomed between her thighs. She swallowed a lump of pure lust. Harry’s mouth tilted into a knowing smile. He knew exactly what he did to her.

  He turned to exit again but there was something she needed to ask him before this thing between them spun into another night.

  “Harry…” She slipped from behind the desk and made her way to his side, acutely aware of the older couple and how echoey the space was.

  Harry raised his eyebrows, waiting for her to speak. She tried out a few phrases in her mind, but she’d always been a direct person, and—to date, anyway—Harry had always seemed to appreciate her forthrightness.

  “Are you sleeping with anyone else at the moment?”

  He blinked, then a slight frown wrinkled his forehead. “No. Are you?”

  She snorted her amusement. “Right. That’s why I have a spare set of batteries under my bed.”

  His frown disappeared. “I’m a one-woman-at-a-time kind of man.”

  “Okay. Good to know.”

  It was good to know. A huge relief, actually. She could consign those visions of him with other women to the dustbin in her mind.

  Until their fling had run its course, naturally.

  “I’ll see you later,” she said, stepping away from him.

  She didn’t have eyes in the back of her head, but she knew he watched her walk all the way back to the desk. She loved that she turned him on so much. She loved the way he looked at her. And the fact that he remembered what bra she’d been wearing weeks ago… Yeah, that was pretty hot, too.

  It was her turn to watch him walk away now, and she did so with gusto, mapping his broad shoulders and back with her eyes before lavishing her attention on his backside.

  If she was a poet, she would write an ode to his butt. She’d talk about how muscular and round and perfect it was, and how she wanted to sink her teeth into it, it was so damned sexy…

  “Excuse me, miss?”

  She tore her gaze from Harry’s derriere to focus on the elderly gentleman who had approached the desk.

  “Um, yes?” She smiled and pushed her hair behind her ear, feeling flushed and more than a little caught out.

  “We were wondering if we could take a look at the opal rings in the cabinet?”

  “Sure. Yes. Absolutely. Let me grab the keys....”

  She cast one last glance toward the door as she tugged open the drawer in her desk to find the keys, but Harry was gone.

  Well. She would see him again tonight. Hugging the knowledge to herself, she went to open the cabinet.

  * * *

  HARRY TAPPED HIS hands on his steering wheel, gazing out the side window at the stucco facade of Steve’s town house. Where the hell was he?

  He knew via Macca that Steve had been finishing up a job today, but Steve never worked past five on the weekends. It was nearly six-thirty now, and Harry had been waiting over an hour.

  He glanced in the rearview mirror. It was possible Steve had seen Harry’s car parked out front and kept on driving. Or maybe he was being paranoid, and Steve simply had other plans for the night.

  Harry let his head drop back. He’d worked himself up to this all day and he wanted it done. Not that he had high hopes they would resolve anything, but he had to at least try. Fifteen years of friendship demanded it.

  He went over what he’d decided to say in his head for the tenth time. He’d apologize for getting in Steve’s face about Pippa and Alice. As much as Steve’s behavior made him grind his teeth, at the end of the day it was none of Harry’s business. He wasn’t Steve’s conscience, and he’d said his piece on the subject. The rest was up to Steve.

  That just left Pippa. He didn’t fully understand why Steve was so cut up about Harry’s interest in her. It wasn’t as though Harry had even looked sideways at her while she was with Steve, and it had been more than a year since they’d broken up.

  Harry thought back to the days immediately following Pippa’s announcement that she was pregnant. Steve had been furious, white-hot furious. Harry had thought then and s
till thought now that it had a lot to do with what things had been like for Steve as a kid. Jack Lawson had been a hard bastard and he’d taken his nasty temper out on Steve and his brothers and sisters on a regular basis. Many was the time Steve had slept on the floor in Harry’s bedroom to avoid going home.

  Harry figured that the prospect of becoming a father scared the living crap out of Steve. Added to the fact that his mate had a pathological need to always be in charge of his own destiny, it had made for a pretty potent knee-jerk reaction to Pippa’s pregnancy.

  But Steve had had plenty of time to freak out. He needed to stop being an asshole and start being the guy Harry knew. The guy who was the first to offer a lending hand to a mate and the first to reach into his pocket for a good cause. Punishing Pippa and Alice for the shortcomings of his own childhood was pure crazy. As was burning a friendship that had endured fifteen years of ups and downs.

  Harry stared at the roof-lining of his car, wondering how in hell he would deliver all of the above in a way that would make Steve stop and listen. No brilliant ideas came to him.

  He checked his watch. He needed to go get pizza. He picked up his phone and dialed Steve’s number. It went straight to voice mail—surprise surprise.

  “We need to talk. Call me, okay?”

  He tossed his phone onto the passenger seat and started the car, knowing that the chances of Steve returning his call were less than zero.

  Fifteen minutes later, the car was redolent with super supreme fumes and he was heading back up the highway toward Pippa’s place. He had a six-pack of pale ale and the heady expectation of Pippa in a lacy bra to look forward to. He was turning on the radio when his phone rang. He punched the radio off again and took the call.

  “Yo.”

  “Harry. It’s me. Where are you? You sound like you’re in a wind tunnel.” Mike Porter’s voice sounded too loud over the hands-free speaker.

  “I’m in the car, and you say that every time, Dad.”

  “That’s because you sound like you’re in a tunnel every time.”

  “Yeah, yeah. What’s up?”

  His father was not a chitchatter, and neither was Harry.

  “Wanted to give you a heads up, in case you heard anything through Leo or one of the guys at work. I’ve been talking to a business broker about putting the workshop up for sale. The ad should go out next month.”

  It was so out of left field that for a moment Harry was speechless.

  “You still there?” His father’s voice echoed around the car.

  “Where the hell did this come from?”

  “Your mother and I have been talking about it for a while. She wants to see the world while we still have our own hips and teeth. I figure she’s put up with enough lost weekends and late nights.”

  “So you’re selling up your life’s work because she wants to go on a cruise?”

  “Gotta loosen the grip sometime. Might as well be now as later.”

  Harry ground his teeth. His father wasn’t saying it outright, but this was about him, about his refusal to step into his father’s shoes.

  “Look, I know you’re pissed with me, Dad, but don’t cut off your nose to spite your face.”

  To his surprise, his father laughed.

  “I know this will come as a shock to you, Harry, but you’re not the center of my universe. This has been a long time coming.”

  Harry frowned at the road ahead. “It’s your business, Dad. You can do whatever you like with it.”

  He didn’t say it, but his tone said the rest: it’s yours to screw up, too.

  “It is. It definitely is. You got a big night planned?”

  “Dinner with a friend.”

  “Well, have a good one.”

  “Yeah. You, too.”

  The phone went dead. Harry felt as though someone had walked up behind him and smacked him on the back of the head with a piece of four-by-two.

  His father was selling his workshop. The business he’d sweated over for decades.

  Harry almost drove past Pippa’s place, only realizing that her house was approaching at the last second. He made a sharp turn into her driveway and then simply sat staring blindly at her house.

  His mum must have been pressuring his father. That was the only explanation. Because his father lived for that workshop.

  After a few minutes the porch light came on and the front door opened. Pippa peered out at him, a bemused smile on her face. He collected the pizzas and beer and climbed out of the car.

  “It is you. I thought maybe Knight Rider had come to visit,” Pippa said as he approached the house.

  “Just me.” He forced a smile.

  She tilted her head as he climbed to the porch, her gaze scanning his face.

  “Is everything okay?” She was wearing the same striped dress she’d had on at the gallery earlier in the afternoon. Her feet were bare, her hair loose around her shoulders. Her heavy black glasses framed her warm brown eyes.

  She looked good—familiar and sexy and relaxed.

  “Yeah.” He offered her the pizza boxes. “I got super supreme with extra olives and no anchovies, and Hawaiian.”

  She hesitated a second before taking them. “I love Hawaiian. Good choice. Come and meet Aaron, who hasn’t slept a single wink since Becca dropped him off.”

  She led him to the kitchen where he found Alice and another baby with a profusion of dark hair lying together on a quilted throw rug.

  “Isn’t she a little young to be dating?” he asked.

  Pippa laughed. “She’s well chaperoned. And Aaron has trouble sticking his thumb in his own mouth. I think we’re good for another decade or so.”

  The table was already set with paper napkins, plates and cutlery. Pippa flipped the lids back on the boxes and handed him a bottle opener for the beers. He knew from experience that she was a drink-her-beer-from-the-bottle kind of woman—his kind, in other words—and he flipped the cap off a beer and passed it across to her.

  “Fantastic. I’ve been thinking about this all afternoon,” she said.

  The moment the words were out of her mouth her cheeks turned pink. He eyed her as he took a mouthful from his own beer. It amused him no end that she was so quick to blush out of the bedroom and so shameless within.

  “Me, too.”

  She pressed her lips together and gave a rueful shake of her head. “Giving away the game again, White. When are you ever going to learn?”

  He laughed. His shoulders dropped a notch. She was easy company.

  “I’m about to eat my body-weight in pizza. Close your eyes if you’re easily grossed out,” she said, reaching for her first slice.

  She asked him about his day at work, then told him about hers, making the ordinary entertaining with her witty observations. They were both on their second beer when she pushed her plate away and drew her foot up so that her knee was against her chest and her heel rested on the seat of her chair.

  “You going to tell me what’s wrong now or do you need to stew on it a little longer?”

  He looked down at the half-eaten pizza on his plate. Pippa didn’t need to know about his dad’s crazy decision. What did it matter to her if his father was making a huge mistake? She had enough of her own stuff to deal with.

  “Okay. More stewing it is. I’ll have another slice, then,” Pippa said lightly.

  He poked a finger at a piece of pineapple. “My dad wants to sell the workshop.”

  “I take it this is a surprise to you?”

  He huffed out a laugh. He was aiming for wry but it came out sounding a little bitter.

  “You could say that. He’s poured his lifeblood into that place. It’s his dream—his own place, his rules, his way.”

  “Did he say why he wants to sell?”

  “He and Mum want to travel, start winding down.”

  “How old is he?”

  “Fifty-nine.”

  She shrugged. “Not out of the question for retirement.”

  “You’ve seen
him. He’s hardly on his last legs. He loves that place, Pippa.”

  She cocked her head. “Are you sure that this is about him?”

  “I know Mum’s been campaigning to go on a cruise. I figure she’s cheerleading him on this one.”

  “I meant are you sure this isn’t about you? Since you’re not interested in taking on your father’s business, he was bound to have to sell it at some point. Or simply shut it down.”

  “No way. He’s built it up too much to just walk away from it.”

  “So if you don’t want it and he can’t sell it or shut it down, what should he do with it, then? Keep working until he falls over?”

  He stared at her for a beat, then dropped his gaze to his plate. She was right. He’d left his father with nowhere to turn.

  “I still don’t think this is what he wants.”

  “I’ve only met your father once, but he didn’t strike me as the kind of man who does anything he didn’t want to.”

  He ran a hand over his head.

  “This was always going to happen, Harry, right?” she said, her voice soft with sympathy.

  “I hate the thought of him giving it up.”

  She reached across the table and curled her fingers around his. “At the end of the day, you have to live your life. He can’t live his for you, and you can’t live yours for him.”

  Harry straightened in his seat. “You want the last slice of Hawaiian?”

  She gave him a small smile. “Did we just reach your deep and meaningful threshold?”

  He lifted a shoulder. “Talking won’t change anything.”

  “Sure. But sometimes it can make you feel better.”

  She stood and collected their empty bottles. She dropped a hand on his shoulder and gave it a warm squeeze before heading for the sink. Harry watched the sway of her hips, thinking about what she’d said. He was still pissed and frustrated, but not anywhere near to the degree he’d been when he arrived. Talking to her, having her listen, had taken the edge off.

  “Thanks,” he said.

  She smiled at him. Pippa was so down to earth and funny and honest. She never pulled her punches. She drank beer out of the bottle. And he was pretty damned sure he’d just caught a glimpse of a red bra strap at her neckline.