Harlequin Romance September 2013 Bundle: Bound by a BabyIn the Line of DutyPatchwork Family in the OutbackStranded with the Tycoon

by Kate Hardy

  “I’m not gonna let this beat me. You know that, right?” Even if he still had no idea why this darn plumbing was causing her such a problem every time she switched on anything in the bathroom.

  “I didn’t mean that you were taking too long, because I really do appreciate it, but...”

  “Sure.” Harrison shrugged. She was babbling like a crazy woman, or as if she was...nervous. He doubted that, especially after the way she’d stood up to him the day before, sassing at him for speaking his mind. “After wrangling these pipes, I think dinner would be great.”

  She smiled. As if she’d asked him a tough question and he’d miraculously given her an answer.

  “Well, that’s settled then. I’ll go tell the children.”

  Poppy turned and walked away, and Harrison sat on her bathroom floor and watched her go. There was something about her, something getting under his skin that he didn’t want to acknowledge. Something that had made him offer to fix her plumbing, made him say yes to dinner, all those things.

  And it was something he didn’t want to figure out.

  She was his children’s schoolteacher, a new woman in the community, but that was all. Because he wasn’t looking for anything other than friendship in his life. His kids meant everything to him, and getting involved with a woman wasn’t in his future.

  So why was he still sitting on the floor so he could watch her walk down the hall?

  * * *

  Poppy watched the children as they lay on their stomachs, legs crossed at the ankles while they stared at the television. She’d already given them crisps and orange juice, and now she was cooking dinner while they watched a cartoon and their father worked on the bathroom.

  The old house was like nothing she was used to, and it was taking all her patience to work in the tiny kitchen, but in a way it was nice. Nice to be cooking for more than just one, to have had a great first day at school and to feel as if her life was finally moving in the right direction again.

  “Something smells good.”

  The deep, sexy voice coming from behind her made her hand freeze in midmotion. Hearing him speak put her almost as much on edge as looking at him did, no matter how much she wanted to pretend that she was just the teacher and he was just the father of two of her pupils.

  “It’s nothing fancy, just pasta,” she told him, resuming her stirring.

  She listened as Harrison walked into the kitchen, felt his presence in the too-small space.

  “It smells fancy.”

  Poppy watched as he came closer and stood beside her. He peered into the pan, using the wooden spoon she’d discarded to give the contents a gentle stir.

  “Garlic and bacon,” she said, moving away slightly, needing to put some distance between them. Anything at all to stop her heart from racing a million miles an hour and quell the unease in her stomach. “I fry it in some oil before adding the sauce and tossing in the pasta.”

  He nodded and put the spoon back where he’d found it, leaning against a cupboard and watching her cook.

  “Anything not working in here?” he asked.

  “Ah, no. Everything seems to be fine.”

  “You don’t sound so sure.”

  What she was sure about was needing him to look away, to go sit with his children instead of fixing his eyes on her while she was trying to concentrate.

  “It’s fine. Everything works okay, I guess. It’s just different,” she confessed.

  “To what you’re used to?”

  Poppy sighed, then shrugged. “I’ve had a fancy kitchen and a modern apartment, and it didn’t make me happy, so I’m not going to let a rustic kitchen get me down.” It was the truth, and now she’d said it. “Lighting the gas with a match before I cook isn’t going to bother me so long as I can do a job I love and wake up with a smile on my face each day.”

  Harrison was still staring at her, but his expression had lost the intensity of before. There was a softness in his eyes now, almost as if he understood what she was trying to say. What she was trying to get across to him.

  “There’s something to be said for smiling in the mornings,” he told her.

  Poppy looked away, not because she was embarrassed, but because she didn’t know what to say. When she’d chosen to come here, she’d decided to keep her past exactly that—she didn’t want it to define her future and didn’t want everyone knowing her business. But it sure was hard to get to know someone without thinking about what her life had been like only a month earlier.

  “What’s for dinner?” Katie appeared in the kitchen, rising on tiptoe as she tried to see what was cooking.

  “Pasta with a carbonara sauce,” Poppy told her, using her elbow to playfully push her from the kitchen. “Hang out with Alex for a few more minutes and it’ll be ready.”

  The little girl grinned, gave her dad a cheeky wave and disappeared again.

  “You might think this is nothing fancy,” said Harrison, pointing at the sauce Poppy was stirring, “but to them it’s fun to be somewhere different for dinner. They’re usually just stuck with me on the ranch.”

  She swallowed a lump. It was now or never, and she couldn’t help herself.

  “So there’s no Mrs. Black?” she asked, knowing full well what the answer was going to be.

  “No,” Harrison replied, his eyes dark and stormy, his expression like stone. “There’s no Mrs. Black, unless you’re talking about my mom.”

  If only her question was that innocent, but they both knew it wasn’t. What Poppy didn’t know was why she’d asked at all.

  Maybe she just wanted to hear it from him, so she could actually believe that he didn’t have a wife...that he really was what the mom today had described him as—the town’s sexiest bachelor.

  Sauce. What Poppy needed to do was focus on the carbonara sauce.

  “Anything I can do?” His soft, deep drawl made her skin go hot, then suddenly cold, as if an icy breeze had blown through on a warm summer’s day.

  “I’d love for you to put those plates on the table,” she said, nodding toward where she had them stacked. “And to be honest, I wouldn’t mind celebrating my first day at school with a glass of wine.”

  Plus she wouldn’t mind settling her nerves a little with the bottle of sauvignon blanc she had in the fridge.

  “Glasses?” he asked, carrying the plates to the table.

  Poppy groaned. “Still to be unpacked, I think.” One of the few things she hadn’t actually transferred from box to cupboard. But if she wasn’t mistaken... “Hang on, try the box at the bottom of the pantry,” she instructed. “I can’t leave this sauce.”

  Harrison strode across the kitchen in a few long steps, commanding her attention. As if she needed more distracting....

  “This box?”

  She nodded. “Yep, that’s the one.”

  She dragged her eyes from him and focused on the food again. She took the sauce from the stove, added the cooked pasta to the pot she had waiting and poured all the sauce in, too. She gently tossed it, refusing to give the dinner she’d cooked any less attention than it deserved. This was one of her favorite comfort foods, although she usually did the pasta from scratch when she personally needed comforting, and she was just hoping the Black family would like what she’d rustled up.

  * * *

  Harrison poured wine into the two glasses he’d found and placed them on the table before going to herd his kids in for dinner. They were still mesmerized by the television.

  “Let’s go, dinner’s ready.”

  Katie had the adopted black cat on her lap, stroking it over and over again, and it was purring so loudly he could hear it from the doorway.

  “Put the fleabag down and come sit up,” he ordered, trying not to smile at the horrified look his daughter was giving him. “On second thou
ght, perhaps you should wash your hands first.”

  “It’s okay, Lucky,” Katie crooned to the cat. “Don’t listen to anything he says, all right?”

  He watched as she placed the cat down gently, as if he was breakable, before standing up and flouncing past him. More teenager than kid.

  “He is not a fleabag,” she hissed.

  “I was just teasing, sweetheart. Now go wash up, then sit at the table for dinner.” Harrison gestured for his son to do the same, then joined Poppy back in the kitchen.

  “Finally ready,” she told him, her cheeks flushed from standing over the range.

  He jumped forward to take the large dish from her, their hands colliding as his fingers closed around it. “Let me take this.”

  Poppy’s eyes met his, blue irises flashing to the food and back to him again, as if she had no idea what to say or why they were standing so close.

  “Thanks,” she finally said, taking a step back while brushing the hair from her face and tucking it behind her ears.

  Harrison transported the dish to the table, wishing he didn’t feel quite so comfortable being in this woman’s house. He was used to telling himself why he didn’t need female company in his life, why he was better off alone, but Poppy was reminding him of all the reasons his thinking could be flawed.

  What his wife had done to him, the way she’d hurt him, would never go away. But it didn’t mean he needed to feel guilty for spending an evening in the company of the new local teacher. So long as he protected his children from being hurt again, he had nothing to fear.

  “Katie seems very fond of animals,” Poppy said, making him turn.

  She walked to the edge of the table and reached for her glass of wine, taking a small sip.

  Harrison pulled out his chair but waited for her to sit down first. His children came bounding back into the room and jumped into their seats before he had a chance to do the same for them.

  “Katie loves animals more than anyone I’ve ever met,” he told Poppy, grinning at his daughter across the table. “I tease her about it, but she has a real way with them. Has had since she was little.”

  Poppy reached for Alex’s plate and started to dish out their meals. “Do you like helping your dad on the ranch, Katie?”

  She nodded. “Yeah, but I don’t like it when it’s calving time and some of the babies don’t have a mom, ’cause then they’re just like me, except they don’t have a dad, either.”

  Harrison’s body went tense. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t help the jolt of anger that hit him just hearing his little girl say those words. “It’s one of the reasons we have quite a few pet calves,” he said, pushing the fury away and taking a deep breath. “Because Katie is so good at caring for them.”

  “So you help nurse them?” Poppy asked his daughter.

  If she’d noticed the bitterness flashing through him, she did a good job of disguising it. Just when he thought he was over his anger at their mother for leaving the kids, Katie went and said something like that.

  “Daddy lets me feed them with a bottle, and we get to name them,” Katie said, smiling as Poppy passed her a plate full of pasta.

  “Which is why we have an entire field full of pet cows,” Harrison explained, smiling across at his daughter. “As I tell the kids, as soon as you name them it’s very hard to say goodbye.”

  “Because they get made into steak,” Katie announced.

  Poppy’s eyes met his. He was certain she hadn’t been expecting that response.

  “That’s right.” Harrison twirled his fork into his pasta and tasted it. “And this,” he said, pausing to swallow his mouthful, “tastes as great as it smells.”

  Poppy’s eyes were still trained on him. “So that’s why you told me off for naming the cat.”

  “Exactly.”

  She grinned and held up her glass. “I meant to say a toast before we started.”

  Harrison touched his napkin to his lips and followed her lead. “Sure.”

  Poppy raised her glass. “To surviving my first day of school and to new friends.”

  He nodded. “And to me winning the fight with the bull today.” Harrison winked at her across the table, then wished he could take it back. Why the hell had he done that?

  Because it had come naturally, and he hadn’t even thought about it. Even though he hadn’t flirted with anyone for longer than he could remember.

  Poppy was staring straight down at her plate now, focused on her food, and he felt like a fool for embarrassing her. Especially after she’d been so nice, asking them to stay for a meal.

  “So what do you think of Bellaroo so far?” he asked, trying to keep the topic neutral. “Everything you thought it would be?”

  Poppy laughed, holding her hand in front of her mouth. He kept eating and waited for her to reply, tuning out the chatter from Katie and Alex. From what he could gather they were arguing about the name for the next orphaned calf.

  “I guess I didn’t realize how quiet it would be here,” Poppy told him frankly.

  “You never did visit before you took the job, did you?” he asked, knowing the answer but wanting to hear it from her.

  “I just trusted my gut that it was the right place for me,” she said. “And I was told there were no other applicants, so I didn’t exactly have to audition for the part.”

  Harrison could tell from the shine in her eyes that she was upset—that just talking about her move here had touched a nerve—yet she’d tried to joke her way out of it.

  “At the time, I thought it was a sign, because I needed to get away from...” Her voice trailed off, as if she was trying to decide whether or not to tell him the truth.

  “I didn’t mean to pry,” Harrison said, knowing what it was like to want to keep a secret, to want to keep memories buried.

  “You’re not,” she said, touching a knuckle to each eye, pushing away the first hint of a tear. “They’re questions that I’m going to be asked, and I want to answer them honestly.”

  Was she a criminal? Had something happened in her past that they should have known about before they gave her the job at the school?

  Harrison picked up his fork again and continued to eat, more for something to do than the fact that he was still hungry. Because listening to Poppy had taken his mind off his stomach.

  “Last year was a little rough for me,” she admitted, playing with the edge of her napkin, yet bravely looking at him as she spoke. “I, well, my husband got us into a lot of trouble, and I lost everything I’d worked so hard for.”

  She was married? “You’re married?” How had she not mentioned this earlier, and why the hell did he care, anyway?

  Poppy grimaced. “Unfortunately, yes.”

  Wow. He hadn’t even seen that coming. “So your husband won’t be joining you here?”

  Poppy laughed, but it didn’t sound like a happy noise. “Let’s just say that me coming here was as much to get away from him as anything.” She shook her head and glanced at the children. “One day I’ll tell you all about it.”

  Maybe they had more in common than he’d realized. “We could trade crappy spouse and divorce stories,” he joked. Unless she’d walked out on her man, as his wife had him....

  “Believe me, mine’s up there with the best of them.”

  Harrison grinned, relieved. “Yep, me, too.”

  * * *

  Poppy stood at her front door and waved as Harrison pulled away from the curb and headed for home. It had been a nice evening, and she was pleased she’d asked them to stay, but she was still thinking about their conversation over dinner.

  She’d told herself over and over again that talking about her husband wasn’t productive, that she’d be better off pretending he didn’t exist. But doing so was easier than saying so.

&nbs
p; After the way Chris had hurt her, the lies, the pain... Poppy shuddered and shut the door behind her, leaning against it and sliding all the way to the floor.

  The man she’d pledged to spend the rest of her life with, the one person in the world she’d trusted above all else, had hurt her so badly that it still took her breath away.

  Tears fell slowly down her cheeks, drizzling down her jaw. Poppy shut her eyes, tried to force the memories away, but nothing worked. The cold shiver that took over her body whenever she thought about him descended, as it always did.

  And she was alone. After thinking she’d found her soul mate, trusting him like she’d never trusted anyone before, she was alone. And she was broke.

  She’d lost her apartment, her husband and everything else she’d worked so hard for. But she wasn’t going to let it define who she was, because the one thing he hadn’t taken from her was her future. And the person she was, beneath everything she’d lost.

  “I’m healthy. I’m a teacher. I make a difference,” Poppy whispered, eyes still shut tight as she repeated the words that always got her through her pain.

  A meow made her blink away her tears. The cat was sitting near her feet, staring at her as if he was trying to figure out what the heck she was doing on the floor in the hall.

  “And I’m a mom,” she whispered, pulling herself to her feet and bending to pick up the cat.

  Even if it wasn’t to the baby she’d been so excited about carrying.

  “A cat’s better than no one,” she told her new furry friend.

  And she could tell him everything without fearing the consequences.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  HARRISON CURSED AT his dog as she ran out and disobeyed his command. He went to yell at her, then stopped himself. Just because he was in a crappy mood didn’t mean his dog deserved to be scolded. He could see from the look on her face that she was confused.

  “Go way back,” he instructed, giving up on his whistling.

  The dog glanced at him before following his command, perfectly this time. He walked up slowly, waited for her to push the last few cattle through then closed the gate behind them.