She realized as she drove into the Cedar Village parking lot that she’d secretly hoped to find Max’s vehicle there. Too bad it was a wish doomed for disappointment. She did luck out, however, when she opened the admin building’s door moments later and discovered she wouldn’t have to hunt Mary-Margaret down to one of the many other buildings. Spying the older woman through her open office door, she crossed the reception area and leaned into the room. “Got a minute?”
“Harper!” Mary-Margaret gave her a big smile. “Of course I do—come in. Throw the stuff on the chair on the floor and have a seat.”
She did as directed and sat facing the older woman across the desk.
“I got some wonderful news today,” Mary-Margaret said. “We got the grant from Sunday’s Child!”
“Good!” It was a huge load off, but unfortunately just one of many. “Listen, about that,” she said, rising to her feet. “I need to tell you some—”
“Your mother informed me that you authorized it a few weeks ago, and she forbade you to tell anyone that you were a representative of Sunday’s Child until she contacted us.”
Harper abruptly sat back down. “She did? Please believe I wasn’t trying to snow anyone.”
“Of course you weren’t! Mrs. Summerville-Hardin said that in the usual course of events, you’re in and out of a prospective charity in a week. I’m so thrilled that you continued to volunteer here even after you approved the application. And that you’ve given us all those other fund-raising ideas on top of it.”
“Oh, no, I love Cedar Village. Everyone here is doing such a phenomenal job with the boys. I’m just sorry it took my mother so long to let you know how happy we are to have you under the Sunday’s Child umbrella. Usually—”
“You mustn’t worry about it, dear. She explained a little of her reasoning for holding off—”
You certainly know more than I do, then.
“—and I can’t fault her for it.”
She’d give a bundle to know what spin Gina had put on the situation. She was rather stunned that her mother had gotten so chummy. While her calls to break the news generally tended to be warm, she always maintained a professional reserve.
Still, that was hardly the important thing here. That would be the fact that her mother had finally come through.
“That said, however,” the director continued, “I must admit I’m taking my first real breath in months.” She laughed a little, shaking her head. “Who am I kidding? In years.”
By the time Harper left, she felt more settled. Perhaps she could get a little work done when she got home after all.
As she drove past The Anchor on her way back to the inn, however, she spotted Max’s SUV parked on the street in front of the bar. Heart starting to race, she whipped into the lot.
She had to pause inside the bar’s door a moment later to let her eyes adjust. When she could see a little more clearly, she looked around.
And didn’t see him.
Damn. The medical center was next door—perhaps he’d had an appointment there. Because he wasn’t in any of the few booths or at the tables or the bar.
But apparently her eyes weren’t as up to speed as she’d assumed because a movement down near the end of the room caught her eye, and she spotted Max taking aim at the dartboard just beyond the first group of tables she’d looked at. He looked exactly the way he had the day they’d met: all big and stern and humorless. And her heart did the same thing it had then: pounded out a holy-crap-holy-crap-holy-crap rhythm.
She wove between tables in the half-empty room, making her way down to his end of the bar, taking her gaze off him only long enough to avoid stumbling over the chairs in her way. She watched as he let a dart fly.
Then he took a step back, and she saw the woman he’d been blocking. She was tiny. Blonde. Stacked. And she smiled up at Max as she leaned into him, pressing one of her lush breasts against his bare forearm.
As if she’d strode straight into an invisible force field, Harper stopped dead. Oh, God. This wasn’t a scenario she’d considered. And she didn’t have the first idea how to address it.
Oh, hell, yes, she did. By getting the heck out of here before he saw her!
But just as his movement had drawn her eyes, her abrupt halt must have drawn his. For he suddenly turned his head and pinned her in place with a cool, noncommittal gaze. As if she were a stranger.
One he didn’t like very much.
Something inside her splintered. All at once she was angry and hurt all over again. Only this time she wasn’t going to lose it, she told herself firmly. This time—she ratcheted up her chin and forced herself to meet his cool gaze straight on—she was going to hold on to her dignity no matter what.
In truth she would have cut and run in a nanosecond. But that was before he’d have been aware of it.
Quietly sucking in a breath, she said evenly, “I don’t want to interrupt your game. But I wonder if I might talk to you?”
“Knock yourself out.”
Her back stiffened, but she managed to keep her voice calm and collected. “Very well. When I said I didn’t owe you anything earlier? I was upset—and wrong. I do owe you an explanation, and when you have a moment to hear me out, I’d be happy to tell you anything you’d like to know.” She waited, searching his dark eyes, but his lack of expression didn’t miraculously change with her concession.
“Maybe later,” the blonde said, hanging from Max’s brawny arm, one of her breasts once again squished against his forearm. The cleavage the position exposed all but spilled out of her low-cut top. “We are kinda busy.”
When Max didn’t say anything, she nodded. “Of course.” With a minute hitch of her shoulder, Harper turned on her heel and walked away.
She probably should have felt some kind of relief as she left the bar. She’d been spared having to come up with the words to explain her reasons for keeping him in the dark. But she wasn’t relieved at all. Part of her just wanted to yank the bleached blonde away from him and snatch the bimbo bald.
But mostly, she felt even more heartsick than she had when he’d stormed out of her cottage earlier.
* * *
“I THOUGHT SHE’D never leave.”
As if someone had suddenly popped the balloon he’d been trapped in, Max’s paralysis broke, and he looked at Rachel, the woman who’d attached herself to him earlier when he’d grabbed the darts and started taking out his anger with Harper on the bar’s board.
The blonde gave him a saucy grin and held out a dart. “You were two for three on hitting the bull’s-eye. Here’s the deal breaker, big boy, the one that separates the men from the boys.”
He accepted the dart, but his mind wasn’t on making his shot. It was on Harper.
Dammit, why did she have to come in here and be all reasonable and gracious? For a moment, after he’d gotten his breath back from looking over to see her strolling his way, he’d been pleased as punch that she’d seen him with another woman. Hell, before she’d shown up, he’d even thought that maybe he could take Rachel back to her place and use her to scrub the woman he really wanted out of his head.
But when Harper’s gaze had gone to Rachel’s overripe tit pressed against his arm, he’d only wanted to yank free. To move Rachel back several steps. And he’d known in that instant that sex with the little blonde was never gonna happen.
Even then, however, he’d stood there like a fucking coat rack, unable to say a word. It was like when he was a kid and his ma would go on about all the injustices in their lives. Half the time he’d just wanted to tell her to shut up, already. To let it go. But his vocal cords would just freeze themselves solid.
Jesus, Bradshaw. He gave his shoulders a little shake. You haven’t been that dumb kid for years.
He threw the dart without taking the time to line up his shot, and it hit the small pie area near the triple ring. “Huh,” he said. “Guess I’m still playing with the boys.” He took a step away from Rachel. “I’ve gotta go.”
Ignoring her protests, he headed across the room, picking up his pace as he neared the door. By the time he pushed out into the sunshine he was damn near jogging.
He looked for Harper’s rental on the street but saw no sign of it. So he strode around the side of the building to The Anchor’s parking lot.
It wasn’t there, either.
“Shit.” Pulling his keys from his pocket, he went back to the street where he’d parked his vehicle. He supposed he could call her, but he didn’t want to do that. He’d go see if she’d gone home.
Five minutes later he was happy to find her car in the lot behind her cottage and pulled his own alongside it. When he climbed her stairs a moment later and saw her in practically the same position she’d been in the last time he was here, he exhaled the breath he hadn’t even realized he’d been holding. “Déjà vu.”
She glanced over her shoulder, then slowly straightened, pivoting to face him.
He nodded at the screen door. “Can I come in?”
“Yes. Of course. Please do.” Sliding her hands into her capri pockets, she watched as he opened the door and stepped inside. “Can I get you something to drink?”
“No. I just want that explanation you said you’d give me.”
Her shoulders hunched up for a moment, perhaps due to the cold roughness of his voice. They promptly leveled out, however, and if he hadn’t been trained to pay attention to body language, he might have fooled himself into believing she was coolly unaffected.
God knew her level gaze looked perfectly composed when it met his. “I’m going to grab myself a glass of wine,” she said and waved a hand at the few pieces of furniture. “Please. Make yourself comfortable.”
Trying not to mourn the formality from a woman who was rarely formal, he dropped down on the couch. He’d no sooner done so than he had to raise his right cheek to fish a folder out from under his butt. He set it atop several similar files stacked on the cushion next to him.
She came back with a goblet of red wine and sat on the coffee table in front of him. It was the last place he expected her to sit, and he spread his knees to keep from touching her in the close quarters. Then he stilled, mentally kicking himself for his own tell.
But if she noticed, it didn’t show. She took a sip of her wine, then lowered the glass, pressing its bowl between her breasts. “When I couldn’t find you earlier,” she said in a low voice, “I went out to the Village to talk to Mary-Margaret. My mother finally called to tell her they’d gotten the grant.”
He crossed his arms across his chest. “That’s nice.”
“And not what you’re interested in hearing.”
“No, it really is nice.” He dropped his arms—then, not knowing what to do with his hands, gripped his thighs. “No one deserves financial help more than they do.”
“I agree. But I also know that’s not what you came here to talk about.” She took another sip, then set her wine aside and blew out a breath. And met his gaze.
He nearly jerked at the electricity that jolted through him when those big eyes locked on his. He’d managed not to react when she’d done the same thing in the bar, but the longer they were in the same room together, the harder it was to rein in his emotions.
“I didn’t expect to get so caught up in everyone’s lives when I came here,” she said in her husky contralto. “Not yours or Jenny’s or Jake’s or Tasha’s, either. Most of the charities I’m sent to assess are in urban areas, and I’m there for a week, tops. I enjoy the people I meet, but it’s a much shallower connection than I’ve found with you all.”
She glanced away for a second, then looked back at him. “I wasn’t prepared for you on so many levels,” she said. “Remember when we met at that park on Jake Bradshaw Photo Day?”
He nodded tersely. Christ, yeah. In repose, she’d looked so coolly somber and had held herself like a princess. He’d immediately wanted her but had been struck dumb in her presence.
“I’ve always been a pretty tactile person,” she said. “My dad used to tease me that I communicate more through touch than most people do with words. You probably don’t remember me patting your arm—”
“I remember,” he said gruffly. As if he’d forgotten a single moment with this woman.
“Well, when I touched you that day—” she licked her lips “—it was like putting my hand on a stove burner I thought was turned off but was actually cranked on high.” She shook her head. “No—it was more like coming into contact with a live wire. I felt that touch down to my toes.” She pinned him in place with solemn eyes. “I still do.”
He shifted.
“I have feelings for you,” she said. “I’m not sure that I’m ready to define them, but they’re very real. Frankly, though, Max? I’ve followed the same protocol for the position I hold at Sunday’s Child since I took over when my father died. It was put in place when my parents started the foundation—and it’s worked just fine up until I came to Razor Bay. So while I like to think that if I’d known you and I were going to have such a connection I’d have done things differently, I honestly don’t know whether I would have or not. The thing is, it’s the way my dad liked it.”
“And you were Daddy’s girl.”
“Yes.” She reached out to touch his hard wrist bones. Then her hand dropped away, and her back straightened as she looked him in the eye. “But if you believe nothing else, believe this. I had no agenda when I slept with you.”
“I know.” He blew out a breath. “Hell, I knew it even when I made that crack about us being fuck buddies, and I’m sorry for that. It was rude and crude, and I’m not proud that I only said it to make you feel as lousy as I was feeling.”
“It’s all right.”
“No. It’s not.”
“You’re right. It really isn’t.” Her eyes flashed. “That was a horrid thing to say.”
“My only excuse is that I felt blindsided and played. But I shouldn’t have been so quick to assume the worst. You’ve done things for me no one else has ever done. Even more than showing me how to eat better and going to a lot of trouble to plan my birthday party, because of you I feel like I’m much more a part of the community than I ever was before. So maybe—” He hesitated but then exhaled a gusty breath and plunged in. “Maybe we should see where this thing between us takes us. Go on a date even.”
He straightened away from the couch. Damn. Until the suggestion came out of his mouth, it hadn’t occurred to him that while the two of them had done a lot of stuff with the Cedar Village boys and had burned up the sheets, they’d never been on a simple date together.
“I’d like that. But I need to tell you something else.”
Shit. “Tell me it’s not that you’re married.” But, no. Kev had definitely said she wasn’t in a serious relationship. He gave his head a little shake. He wasn’t thinking straight.
“No.” She laughed a little. “But that stop-moving-and-die thing I told you about? I know it’s superstitious as all get-out—yet I believe it. So the idea of not traveling on a regular basis? I think it’s the main reason that every time I think of having something deeper with you, I panic a little.”
He frowned. “Why panic?”
“Because you’re clearly settled in Razor Bay. And I’m—” She gave him a helpless look. “Max, I’m basically the definition of a rolling stone.”
“We’re not talking about getting married,” he said with a wry smile. “So why don’t we just see where this goes.” But a wisp of unease twisted through him.
Because a woman with a yen to always be on the move?
Well, that was pretty much the antithesis of the white picket fence/someone to put him first relationship he’d always longed to find.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
BELLA T’S PIZZERIA was such a madhouse Harper was surprised when Tasha not only spotted her, but actually interrupted her frenetic yet somehow graceful ballet between the order counter and her brick ovens to dash over.
“Hey, girl,” the strawberry
blonde said. “It’s going to be another five minutes before your order is ready.”
She nodded. “They told me it would be twenty minutes when I called it in. I thought if I got here early I could just hang out.” She stepped out of the way of a harried mother who was trying to keep her place in the order line and at the same time corral two rambunctious boys who kept dashing away. “I didn’t realize it’d be so crazy busy.”
“First night of Labor Day weekend and Razor Bay Days, babe.” Tasha shrugged. “It’s gonna get crazier.”
Spotting the Cedar Village boy whom Max had recommended for an after-school job bussing tables, she asked, “How’s Jeremy working out?”
“Great, actually. He’s a big, good-looking kid and I was half afraid he’d spend most of his time flirting with the teenage girls. But much as they’d like it if he did, he pretty much keeps his head down and gets the job done.”
“I’m glad to hear it.” She hesitated, then said, “Listen, I want to apologize again—”
“Harper. Honey. Give it a rest,” Tasha said. “You apologized. I accepted.” She shot her a wry smile. “It’s not like you came to town to steal corporate secrets. Or the recipe for my top-secret pizza sauce.”
“You and Jenny are certainly more forgiving than Max originally was.”
“Well...yeah.” She laughed. “Jenny and I aren’t doing the horizontal cha-cha with you. Rules skew when you throw wild monkey sex into the equation.”
“No fooling. I found that out the hard way.”
“Oh, here’s your order. Thanks, Tiff.” Tasha took the two-foot-tall stack of pizza boxes from her helper and checked it against the original order. “Tiffany put this on the inn’s tab so it looks like you’re good to go.” She turned back to Harper. “Come on, I’ll carry it out to your car for you.”
“You’re up to your eyeballs in work. You don’t have to carry my order!”
Some Like It Hot Page 22
