Some Like It Hot

by Susan Andersen

  Except for Harper’s voice and the occasional comment or question from the boys working on their car plans, the room was quiet for the next twenty minutes. Eventually Jim, one of the Village’s counselors, came in.

  “Hey,” he said easily. “So, this is where everybody disappeared to, huh? Aren’t the lot of you due for counseling and/or chores?”

  “Dude, do you mind?” Owen protested. “We’re in the middle of a book here!”

  Harper closed it and smiled at the teen. “We’ll pick up where we left off next time I come.”

  The boys grumbled, but the room cleared. On his own way out, the counselor stopped by the table where Max had begun cleaning up. “We were thinking of ordering pizza from Bella T’s to kinda keep the baseball high going. You in?”

  “You bet.” He pulled out his wallet, fished out a ten and forked it over. “I’m on duty tonight, but put this toward it.”

  Jim gave an ironic shake of his head. “Well, I guess that answers my second question, which was are you available to pick the pizzas up if we come up with the scratch.” He turned a hopeful look on Harper as she walked up.

  “Sorry,” she said. “I’m scheduled to take the inn guests kayaking, then I have my sunset yoga class. I’m happy to kick in some money, though.”

  “Appreciate it. No donation goes to waste.”

  “Speaking of which—does the pizza parlor give us any kind of discount?”

  He made a hell-if-I-know face. “Doubtful, but I can’t say for sure.”

  “I’ll ask Mary-Margaret. If they don’t, I’d be happy to give Tasha a call and see if she’s open to knocking a little off the total in the name of a good cause.”

  “That would rock.”

  “No guarantees, of course. My purse is in Mary-Margaret’s office,” she added. “I’m going to be taking off here in a few minutes, so is it okay by you if I leave my money with her when I go?”

  “You betcha.” He glanced at his watch and cursed. “Speaking of having to go—I’ve got a counseling session in about two minutes. Thanks for the donations, the bodda yas.”

  He left the room, but Max heard him call out, “Hey, Ryan! Wanna kick in on pizza for the boys?”

  “You do that often, don’t you?”

  Max looked at Harper. “Do what?”

  “Go the extra mile for the Village. This isn’t the first time I’ve seen you all digging into your own pockets for something for these kids.”

  He shrugged. “It’s a small nonprofit, and getting ends to meet is tough sometimes. We help out where we can.” He gave her a level look. “I didn’t see you turning Jim down. In fact, you asked if Tasha gave us a discount.”

  “So?”

  “It’s the first time you’ve included yourself. Just yesterday you would have asked if Tash gave you—meaning Jim or Mary-Margaret or any of us who put in time here—a discount.”

  She gave him a startled look as a flush washed roses atop the toasty brown of her cheeks. Then she smiled sheepishly. “Gotta admit the kids are hard to resist.”

  “That they are.” He watched her busy herself gathering together the few materials he hadn’t yet organized and leaned his weight on the hands he’d pressed against the tabletop. When hers came within touching range, he spread his fingers and nudged his pinky against hers.

  They both stilled. Then Max raised his little finger and outlined hers with its tip. “I should get that equipment back to the parks department.”

  “Mmm-hmm.” The agreement came out in a sultry little hum, and Harper cleared her throat. “That is—I need to get going myself.”

  But neither of them moved as both their gazes locked on his hand sliding over hers. It looked so primitive, so big-knuckled and banged up against the unmarred elegance of Harper’s, that Max’s first impulse was to yank it back and apologize.

  No, who was he kidding? Not that doing so wasn’t a genuine impulse, but it sure as hell hadn’t been his first...and probably not even his second. He laced his fingers with hers.

  “Soft,” he murmured and had to swallow a self-deprecating laugh. There was a fucking understatement if he ever heard one—the skin of her inner fingers was downright silky. It made him wonder what the places a guy normally considered soft on a woman would feel like.

  She was silent for a heartbeat, then nodded. “Isn’t it?” she murmured back. “It comes from bathing regularly in fairy tears.”

  “Yeah? You have to make an appointment for one of those? It must take those little suckers a long time to fill up a tub.”

  “They cry really big tears.” But she laughed as she slipped her hand out from under his and stepped back. “I really do have to get going.”

  “Sure.” He let her almost reach the door before he said, “We make a pretty good team, you and I.”

  She turned back and met his gaze. “Yeah?”

  “With the kids, you know? We work well together with them.”

  She nodded. “Yes. We do, don’t we. See you later, Bradshaw.”

  “Right. See you.” Max watched her disappear through the doorway, then thunked his fist against his forehead three times before dropping his hand back to brace against the table once again. He hung his head.

  “What the hell, dawg,” he said to the tabletop. He was standing here because he had a damn hard-on you could drive nails through concrete with, and trying to walk would likely cripple him.

  Ever since he’d severed the sexual potential with Harper the night she’d shown up at his house, he’d been kicking himself. So he’d had a headache and a set of scratches that had throbbed like a bitch in heat—it sure as hell hadn’t been those that had stopped him. The sad truth was, a momentary case of she’s-too-good-for-me had pulled him back. One minute his only thought had been how right she felt in his arms. Then out of the blue he’d started questioning what made him good enough to put his hands all over her. Weren’t these the same hands he’d dirtied over and over again picking fights with his brother and pulling far more triggers than he liked to think about?

  So, instead of moving them to his bedroom where they’d so clearly been heading, he’d made a big joke of his refusal.

  Okay, that had actually been kind of fun, since he wasn’t generally a joking kind of guy. But it was also dicked up, given the hit to his self-respect and all the cold showers he’d had to endure since then. And how wrong was it that he’d allowed a decision he’d known was whack even as he’d made it to mess up the one thing he wanted more than his next breath—to make love to Harper?

  Annnd reduced himself now to a guy with a hard-on from touching her fingers, for Christ’s sake.

  He shook his head. Jesus. He hadn’t been this pitiful with the ladies when he was twelve.

  He didn’t even want to think how long it would take to get his mobility back if he let his mind envision Harper naked in her bath.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  “SO, BASICALLY WHAT you’re telling me,” Tasha said beneath the conversations and clatter of Bella T’s, “is that Deputy Dawg diddled your fingers and got you all orgasmic?”

  “I know.” Harper nodded emphatically. “It’s ridiculous. Juvenile. Heck, it’s—”

  “Clearly true,” the strawberry blonde interrupted. “I mean, look at you, all flushy cheeked and pointy-nippled.”

  She could feel the heat in her cheeks, but she nearly gave herself whiplash checking out the second assertion. And, oh, God, it was a stone-cold fact; her nipples could have been carved from tungsten, so solid did they look poking out the stretchy cotton of her T-shirt, even through the additional layer of her bra.

  “I’m completely jealous, if you wanna know the truth,” Tasha said, once again reclaiming Harper’s attention. She sighed. “I wish I had someone who could do something as simple as play with my fingers and have me all primed to jump his bones. It’s been way too long, let me tell you.”

  “I know what you mean. I wouldn’t mind getting more than a little finger job, myself.” Harper gave a startled laugh
. “Okay, that came out sounding way dirtier than I meant.”

  Tasha gave her a solemn smile. “Especially when you know there’d be nothing little about it. Max’s fingers are like the rest of him—nice and big.”

  “You are so bad. You know I meant having my fingers diddled, not being diddled by Max’s—” This wasn’t helping to cool her down, and her sudden urge to tell Tasha every last detail about that crazy-hot kiss she and Max had shared just cranked the heat up that much higher. Every time she thought about it—and God knows she’d done that far too often—it jacked her temperature into the stratosphere.

  She stepped away from the counter. “Shutting up now. In fact, I should get to the inn before I’m late for my kayak tour. So can I tell the Cedar Village director that Bella T’s will give them a fifteen percent discount on their orders from now on?”

  “Wasn’t that the agreement, Ms. Silver Tongue?”

  She grinned. “Yes, it was.” No one had ever given her a nickname. Well, her mother called her Baby Girl sometimes, but no one her own age had ever called her anything but her name, and Harper had to admit she enjoyed Tasha’s teasing. “And thank you again. It is so appreciated. I’ll make sure Mary-Margaret knows to send you a monthly receipt for the discount, since it’s definitely a charitable write-off.”

  “Then it’s a win-win all the way around.”

  “Um, sorry to interrupt,” a male voice said, and Harper turned to look at the man who’d come up behind them without her hearing.

  He was average height, average weight, average coloring, which made him a forgettable-looking sort of guy. He shot her an apologetic glance before turning an even more apologetic one on Tasha.

  “Hey, Will,” her friend said cheerfully. “What’s up?”

  “I’m really sorry to do this to you on such short notice,” he said, “But I got a really great job offer in Seattle that I can’t refuse.”

  “You’re moving out?” She turned to Harper. “Will rents my extra studio apartment upstairs,” she explained, then turned back to the man. “That’s excellent news on the job, but I’m going to miss having you next door. You’ve been a great renter. When do you have to go?”

  He shifted uneasily. “The first of the month.”

  “Of September?”

  “Yeah. I’m really sorry it’s such short notice,” he repeated. “But you can keep the last month’s rent I paid up front.”

  The strawberry blonde blew out a breath. “I guess we all have to grab our opportunities when we can. Good luck to you, Will.”

  As if she’d just lifted the weight of the world off of them, his stiff shoulders relaxed. “Thanks. Meanwhile, I’ll ask around to see if anyone’s looking for a new place.”

  “I’d appreciate that,” she said, but her own shoulders slumped when he walked away. “Crap.”

  “You okay?” Harper reached across the counter to touch the back of her friend’s hand, which was braced against the top with so much force it had driven all the blood from her fingertips.

  “I’ve come to count on the studio for makeup revenue during the winter months. I can get by without it, but it makes my profit margin leaner.”

  “You want me to stick around for a while?” She had a feeling Jenny would understand if she blew off one tour.

  “No.” Tasha reached for a knife and pulled a bowl of big waxy green peppers toward herself. “I’m fine.”

  She didn’t look fine. She looked a little shell-shocked. But before Harper could say anything else, Tash gave a wave of her knife.

  “Go. Shoo,” she said. “Lead your tour. I’ve got work to do.”

  Still not knowing if leaving Tasha alone was the right thing, she rose onto her toes and leaned across the counter to plant a kiss on her friend’s cheek. The other woman gave her a little smile, and they bid each other goodbye.

  She called Jenny to fill her in on her way to the inn, then called Mary-Margaret to give her the news about the discount and discuss the paperwork involved in the type of contribution Tasha would be giving the Village. As she parked behind her cabin moments later and dashed in to change into her wet suit, she gave herself a lecture on the need to put everything—Tasha, the Village and Max—out of her mind for a few hours. It was time to focus on giving the guests who had signed up for this evening’s kayaking excursion the best tour she could.

  * * *

  THAT WAS EASIER said than done. Oh, she didn’t give a half-assed tour; she worked diligently to make sure that didn’t happen. But in between pointing out landmarks, or eagles who often had an entourage of crows and seagulls in their wakes, or the occasional osprey diving for fish from high in the sky, there were plenty of quiet moments. And not even the guests’ delight in the way the osprey dive-bombed the canal, shot out of the water and soared high back into the sky moments later with its catch in its talons, only to plummet a good ten feet while shaking salt water from its feathers, prevented her mind from wandering back to Max and the boys at the Village outside of town.

  It was during one of the quiet moments, as gentle waves from the wake of a passing boat lapped the side of her kayak and water rolled down the raised end of her paddle to drip like diamonds back into the canal, that she came to a decision. There was no reason to put off calling her mother to green-light Cedar Village’s grant application. She’d had longer than usual already to decide this was precisely the kind of charity Sunday’s Child loved to support.

  After the tour ended and the paddles and boats had been stowed in their proper places, she had just enough time to run back up to her cottage to peel out of her wet suit and pull on yoga pants and a Prana Leyla tank before heading back down to the big patch of lawn bordering the beach. She set out mats and greeted the students she knew by name as they trickled in, learning the names of three new inn guests and memorizing small details about each that would help her remember them when they met again.

  Wendy, the owner of Wacka Do’s hair salon, whom Harper knew from the party at Jenny’s, ran down from the parking lot at the last minute, her yoga bag banging off her thigh. Harper’s class was gaining popularity with several of the local women, so much so that Jenny had set up a special rate for them, the only stipulation being that they provide their own mats.

  At the end of the class, she bid her sister yogis Namaste. The moment the last woman left, she put the big tote of rolled mats away and headed straight up to her cottage for the night. She changed for the final time into a cami tank and pajama bottoms, then made a beeline to the tiny kitchen area to pour herself a glass of wine. Grabbing her cell phone out of her purse, she carried it and her drink onto the porch where she took a seat on one of the bentwood rockers. For a few peaceful moments she simply rocked and sipped her Walla Walla Valley Northstar merlot. Finally, blowing out a soft breath, she set her glass down on the deck, picked up the phone and called her mother, who answered on the fourth ring.

  “Hey, Mom. I hope I’m not calling too late. I forgot the time difference.”

  “Not a problem, darling, I’m just reading in bed.” Gina Summerville-Hardin’s voice traveled warmly down the line. “It’s good to hear from you. How are you?”

  “I’m really good. It’s astoundingly gorgeous here—I’m simply spellbound by how much. Which is ridiculous, right? Because how many places have we seen in all our travels?”

  “A million,” Gina said drily.

  “It feels like it sometimes, doesn’t it? Which is why it amazes me that a little speck of a town in Washington State can speak so loudly to me. Did you get the photos I emailed?”

  “Yes, it truly is quite spectacular, isn’t it? One doesn’t usually hear the word canal and think of mountains like that rising out of it.”

  “People who’ve lived here forever tell me it’s actually a fjord.” She shrugged, even though her mother couldn’t see. “Whatever you call it, it’s not only stunning, it’s peaceful.”

  Dead air ruled the line for a moment. Then Gina said, “Peaceful? That’s...not a word I g
enerally associate with you, Harper.”

  She laughed a little uneasily. “I know. Yet...it is.” And she realized that for maybe the first time in, oh, say, ever she wasn’t experiencing her usual fidgety urge to move on. Ordinarily, by this point in a project, she would have started to feel restlessness building along her nerve endings like an unscratchable itch. But, nope—she did a quick assessment. Not even a trace.

  How odd.

  And a little disconcerting, so she shook the thought from her mind and said, “Still, that’s neither here nor there. One of the reasons I’m calling is to give you the go-ahead on Cedar Village.” She could hear her own enthusiasm as she added, “They’re fabulous, Mom—exactly the kind of charity we’re always looking for.”

  “Excellent,” Gina said crisply. “I’ll get it in the works and see that their acceptance letter is in the mail by the end of the week. Does that mean you’re finally coming home?”

  Denial hit like a wreck on the highway, and she jerked as if she’d been in the car that had been hit. “No!”

  Then she pulled herself together and said in a more moderate tone, “I can’t, Mom. You know I’m contracted at the inn until after Labor Day.”

  “Surely they can find someone else.”

  She didn’t question her resistance to the suggestion, she simply replied, without any idea if she spoke the truth or not, “In the middle of their high season? I don’t think so. And I’m not a quitter, Mom—I don’t just stroll away from my commitments.”

  “I wish you felt the same way about your family. Kai and I see you less often than all those many acquaintances you love to make.”

  Harper blew out a breath. “Do we have to do this again? I don’t fault you for disliking travel, Mom. Why can’t you extend me the same courtesy for my love of it?”

  “But do you love it, Harper? Is that truly what you adore above all else? Or is all your traveling simply a way to honor your daddy’s memory?”

  “Of course not!” But even as she said the words, something suspiciously like recognition shuddered through her.