Harmony fixed her own features into a scowl. She decided she’d go with angry.
Joseph met her glare with one of his own. “You don’t scare me. I’ve dealt with it all from toddlers to teenagers to triplets. Now spill it.”
“What’s to tell? I think you got the highlights from my conversation with Blake.”
“Let’s start with that jerk. Who is he?”
“He was one of the producers as well as the director of ‘At Home with Harmony.’”
“And you went out with him?”
“For several months.”
“And then you found out he was married?”
A sliver of pain slipped through the anger she’d donned like armor. “Yes. I couldn’t believe I worked with him all that time without ever knowing he had a wife and children. No one else knew either.”
“How did you find out?”
She felt her lip begin to tremble and bit down to steady herself before answering. “She came to the set unexpectedly one day. Blake was very polite to her, but I could tell he was furious. Afterward, he pretended he thought I knew.”
“And so you quit seeing him?”
“I severed both professional and personal relationships with him. I had to stay long enough to film the last couple of episodes for the season, but the minute we were finished, I was out of there.”
Joseph was silent for a moment, taking it all in, no doubt. She waited silently for the recriminations she was sure were coming.
“Harmony,” he said at last. “I still don’t understand what you think you did wrong. You didn’t know he was married and when you found out, you broke things off with him immediately.”
Surprise made her mouth drop open. When she realized she was gaping at him, she shut it with a snap. “I never should have been fooled by him. I was stupid for not realizing sooner. He told me we had to keep our relationship a secret because it was unprofessional. And the worst part is, he never paid me any personal attention until the last few months we worked together. I know now that he wanted to make sure I took him with me if a larger network bought out the show. I’m an idiot to have fallen for his lies. I’m abysmally stupid for thinking that he could be as wonderful as he seemed and still…”
“Still what?”
“Still be in love with me.” Her anger had burnt itself out, leaving her with a hollow feeling deep inside. She closed her eyes and wished for real that Joseph would leave her now.
Instead, he was taking her hands in his, his skin rough but warm against hers. “Sweetheart,” he began, “we all get fooled sometime. You can’t possibly blame yourself for that.”
Sweetheart. No one had ever called her that before. With Blake it had always been “babe” or “beautiful.” Harmony thought she’d rather be a “sweetheart” any day.
“Listen, Joseph, it’s nice of you to try to make me feel better, but…you can’t. I appreciate the help you gave me with Blake tonight. Now you’ve seen that I’m all right, you should go.”
“All right, but you’re coming with me.”
“What?”
“Blake could be watching your house, waiting for me to leave.”
“Oh, I don’t think he’d go that far…”
“You said yourself he’d follow you to Mars if he thought there was something in it for him.”
The thought of Blake coming back bothered her. She wasn’t afraid of him, but she was tired of dealing with his steamroller tactics. Even so, she wasn’t about to become some helpless, clinging damsel in distress for Joseph to rescue. “I’ll be fine. I’ll make sure all the doors and windows are locked.”
Joseph stared at her. “Has anyone ever told you, you’re more stubborn than a two-year-old.”
A trill of surprised laughter escaped her. “No, I don’t believe anyone has ever told me that.”
“I’m giving you two choices,” Joseph said. “You can either stay at Hope’s house or mine.”
“You’re giving me two choices? Ha. To put it in language I’m sure you’ll understand, Joseph: you’re not the boss of me.”
In the end, she chose Hope’s house.
TITLE
Orchard Hill: volume three
Chapter 7
Hope was very nice about the whole thing, considering that Joseph just showed up on her doorstep with Harmony that evening. Her eyes grew big when she opened the door and saw her brother with an overnight bag in one hand. With his other hand, he was holding onto the arm of a clearly outraged Harmony.
“Can Harmony stay with you tonight?” he asked abruptly.
“Um…sure.” She took a step back and motioned them inside. “Come in. Oliver and I were just watching a movie.”
Harmony glared at Joseph. “You see, she’s busy. I’ll be fine at my house.”
“Ignore her,” Joseph ordered his sister. “She needs a place to stay for the night, and she won’t stay at my house.”
Hope’s mouth dropped open and her gaze went back and forth between them. She obviously wanted to say something but was at a loss.
Oliver stuck his head out of the living room and said, “Hi Joseph, Harmony.”
“I’m sorry to interrupt your evening, Oliver,” said Harmony, with a scorching glance at Joseph. “But I wasn’t given much choice.”
“Is…is there a problem at Harmony’s?” asked Hope, a bit timidly.
“Yes,” replied Joseph at exactly the same time that Harmony said, “No.”
Hope and Oliver exchanged looks. “Which is it?” Oliver ventured.
Harmony’s eyes narrowed and she pointed at Joseph. “The only problem is that my bathroom no longer has a door.”
Joseph’s face darkened further, which Harmony thought a remarkable feat. “If you had come out when I asked you, I wouldn’t have had to take it off the hinges.”
“Who asked you to be my keeper, anyway?”
“What would you have done, if I hadn’t been there to escort your ‘visitor’ out? Did you think about that?”
“I was doing just fine before you got there.”
“Sure, if being pawed over by that jerk is your definition of ‘just fine.’”
“All right, all right,” cried Hope, stepping between them. “I think it’s time to retreat to your neutral corners. Oliver, can you take Harmony’s things to the spare bedroom? It’s down the hall there, just past the bathroom.”
Oliver grabbed the overnight bag and led Harmony down the hall. He opened the bedroom door and allowed her to precede him into the room.
“I really am sorry to have interrupted your time with Hope,” Harmony told him as she slipped off her jacket.
He answered her apology with a grin. “Don’t worry. Hope and I see each other all the time. We work at the same place, you know. I think you’ve actually done me a favor.”
Harmony raised her eyebrows. “A favor? How do you figure that?”
“I don’t think I’ll have to worry about living down some of my mistakes with Hope anymore.”
She laughed, relieved to feel the tension in her shoulders lessen. “Well, I’m glad I could help you out there.”
****
Hope pulled Joseph out onto the porch and asked him what was going on. He explained to her as briefly as possible.
“So you came charging to the rescue, and that didn’t go over so well?” Hope summed up for him.
“That is one stubborn woman,” he complained. “I’m only doing this for her own good.”
“I don’t mean to tell you your business, Joseph, but I don’t think this is a good way to run a romance.”
“Romance? There is no romance between us. I told you she wasn’t interested.”
“How could that be, when you make it so tempting?”
Joseph took a deep breath and blew it out. “Look, Hope, I know you wanted this to work out, but I don’t think it’s going to. She’s just too pig-headed.”
“Ha, then she’s perfect for you, isn’t she?”
“You can’t force people to fee
l a certain way, Hope. Just give it up.”
“Give it a little more time.”
“I don’t want to talk about it now. I’m going home. Call me if you need anything.”
From the guest bedroom, Harmony heard the whole exchange. It wasn’t as if Joseph were whispering or anything. She peeked through the blinds, watching him climb into his truck and drive away. It was better this way, Harmony told herself. She wasn’t the type of person Joseph needed, anyway. He needed someone who thrived on chaos and knew how to handle children.
She heard Oliver and Hope saying their good-byes. When they were finished, she picked up her overnight bag and went back out. She met Hope in the hallway.
“I’m so sorry about this, Hope,” she began.
Hope shrugged. “Don’t worry. I’m used to Joseph.”
“He totally blew the whole incident out of proportion,” Harmony insisted. “If you wouldn’t mind giving me a ride home, I can get out of your hair.”
Hope’s eyes widened. “Are you kidding? Joseph knows my car. If I drop you off, he’ll have you back on my doorstep in five minutes flat.”
Harmony stomped her foot. “I don’t want to offend you, Hope, but your brother is the bossiest man I’ve ever met.”
Hope laughed. “He takes his position as head of the family very seriously. Joseph thinks he’s got to take care of all of us.”
“But I’m not part of the family,” Harmony reminded her.
Her eyes softened. “Apparently you’ve achieved honorary status. He cares about you. He wouldn’t have been so upset if he didn’t.”
Harmony felt the anger draining out of her, leaving nothing but exhaustion. “I just want to go home.” She hoped that didn’t sound as childish as she thought it did.
Hope looked thoughtful. “What do you have going on tomorrow?”
That question was too easily answered. “Nothing. I just finished my manuscript and sent it off to my editor.”
“Then why don’t you stay. We’ll have a slumber party.”
“Don’t you have school tomorrow?”
“Yeah, but it’s early. We can still have some fun before bedtime.”
It did sound better than returning to an empty house and, in spite of what she’d said to Joseph, she thought Blake might just come back. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to spend one night with Hope.
They stayed up much later than they intended, doing each other’s nails and watching movies. Harmony couldn’t remember when she’d laughed so much, and the evening really did her poor broken heart good. She thought she might even owe Joseph some thanks—not that she’d admit that to him. To thank Hope, she got up early and made French toast for breakfast.
The Velasquez children were filing out of the house on their way to school the next morning when Hope dropped off Harmony. They surrounded the car, and Hope rolled down the window to talk to them.
“Aunt Hope, can you give us a ride to school?” asked one of the triplets.
“Sure,” she replied. “Hop in.”
Noah and Peter went to a different school, so they greeted Hope and Harmony, and then moved on to the bus stop. “Noah’s car must not be working again,” Hope confided to Harmony.
“Thanks for the ride home,” said Harmony as she climbed out of the car. Hope waved and pulled away.
Before she went into her own house, she saw Abby come out, obviously in a hurry. Her unzipped backpack caught on the step railing. Books, pencils and other odds and ends scattered across the sidewalk.
Abby gave a cry of frustration and began to gather her things together. Harmony ran to help her. As they returned the items to the backpack, the school bus went past.
“Oh no.” Abby sank back on her heels. “Now I’ve missed the bus. This is already turning out to be a terrible day.”
“Don’t worry,” soothed Harmony. “I can give you a ride.”
The teen’s face brightened. “Really? Are you sure you don’t mind?”
“Not in the least.”
“I’m usually more organized than this,” Abby explained as placed the last book in her backpack. “But the triplets are mad at me. They stole my towel, hid my shampoo and put soap on my toothbrush. By the time I straightened everything out, I was running way behind.”
“Why are the triplets mad at you?”
With a sigh Abby stood and hoisted her backpack to her shoulder. “They want me to make Halloween costumes for them, only I don’t know how. I can sew a little, but I can’t make what they want.”
“What do they want?” asked Harmony, curious.
“Dad said they have to be appropriate for the harvest celebration party at church, so that means no blood or gore or weapons. That limited the options for those three.”
Harmony laughed. “I’ll bet.”
“They want to be princesses—but not just any princesses. For Dori, Lucy and Belle, it has to be pop star princesses. So they want me to make them each a fancy dress covered with sequins and rhinestones and such. I told them it was beyond my skills, but they won’t believe me.”
“They’ve really got their hearts set on this, don’t they?”
“Yes, they do,” agreed Abby. “And they’re going to make my life miserable until they get what they want.”
“How are things going with Ethan?” asked Harmony, hoping to raise the girl’s spirits with a different topic.
It worked. Abby’s face turned crimson, but she smiled. “Pretty good. He’s a really nice guy, and in a few months I’ll be sixteen. Then we can go out for real. But for now the group date thing is good. Thanks for convincing Dad about that.”
“I didn’t convince him,” objected Harmony. “He almost bit my head off for suggesting it.”
“Anyway, it was your idea. We all had a great time, and a bunch of us are going to go to the movies again this weekend.”
“I’m glad it worked out.”
Abby gave her all the details on the way to school. When she got out of the car, she was a much happier girl than when she’d come out of the house that morning.
Back at home, Harmony wandered about aimlessly. She checked and re-checked her email, but there was no reply from her editor yet, other than a quick note saying she’d received the manuscript. It was too early to expect anything more.
Her mind kept returning to the costumes the triplets wanted. She had an idea that might just help the triplets learn to behave. At first she told herself not to interfere. What did she know about children anyway? But eventually, Harmony found herself going through her fabric stash. She pulled three lengths of a satiny material in pink, blue and yellow. That would do.
Harmony spent the morning making three small dresses. She had a pretty good eye for size, so she was hopeful they would fit. When she stopped to look at the time, she was amazed to see she’d worked straight through lunch.
This was a lot different than how’d she’d thought her day would go, she reflected as she sorted through the meals stored in her freezer and found one to microwave for a late lunch.
After eating, she switched her attention from sewing to planning her menu for the harvest celebration party. She was at the kitchen table with cookbooks from her extensive collection spread around her when there was a knock on the door. Lifting her head she saw Peter Velasquez standing there. She motioned him in.
He came in and plopped himself into one of the chairs around the table without being asked. “Can I hang out here for a little while today, Harmony?” he asked.
“Of course, but wouldn’t you rather be at home?”
Peter slumped in his seat. “Not if the Terrible Trio is there.”
“Oh dear, what have they done now?”
“They want me to play tea party with them. Noah’s lucky he works after school.”
“Did you leave poor Abby alone with them?”
He grinned weakly. “I guess I did, but I couldn’t take it anymore. They’re so obnoxious.”
“It sounds like the trio could use some manners coaching.”
“Definitely,” agreed Peter emphatically. “I hate to ask, but do you have anything to eat, Harmony? They served tater tot casserole for lunch today. It was the worst.”
“I’ll see what I can do.” Harmony got up and rummaged through her refrigerator. “How about a sandwich?”
“Perfect. I can make it if you want.”
Orchard Hill Volume Three Page 7
