by A. C. Arthur
What was he trying to do? Was this his way of getting the date he’d paid for?
“All work and no play makes Harper—” Garrek started before being interrupted by Jack, who came running out onto the porch with a baseball bat in one hand, a ball in the other.
“I’m ready, Uncle Garrek! Had to get my baseball stuff. My dad says I’m getting good at hitting,” Jack told Garrek as he looked up at him with admiration.
Lily shook her head, as if Jack’s words made no sense at all. “Dads are supposed to say nice things to their children,” she told him.
The look Jack shot her over his shoulder was filled with just enough annoyance that Harper finally grinned. She could easily recall how often she’d solicited that very look from Craig and Marlon when they were younger.
“Shall we get going before another world war starts?” Garrek asked her.
He was also grinning, probably remembering his interactions with his siblings when they were younger as well. That thought had Harper wondering what type of child Garrek had been. As an adult, he struck her as being serious and self-assured. Today, he was also devilishly handsome in his khaki shorts and Orioles baseball jersey. But that definitely wasn’t something Harper should be thinking about.
“I’m really busy,” she began, but he was already shaking his head.
“It’s just lunch, Harper. And the children will be with us, so you have nothing to worry about.”
As if she was worried about being alone with him.
Except that she was. Kinda.
“Fine,” she finally replied with a huff. “Picnic lunch it is. But we’re taking my truck down to the lake.”
She wanted at least that much control over this situation that had seemed to sneak up on her.
* * *
Garrek didn’t remember the lake.
In the last week, he realized there was a lot about Temptation that he hadn’t remembered. This town had once been his home, but now it seemed like a totally different place. One he’d never imagined himself in again. Yet here he was. He hadn’t thought too much about why in the last few days, but had focused instead on the current matters at hand. He had a house and an inheritance. A niece and nephew, and two more on the way. His brother, whom he hadn’t spent time with in years, and a sister-in-law who was just as spirited and remarkable as his sisters.
He also had a woman whom he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about, no matter how hard he tried. At this moment, that woman was instructing Jack on how to properly swing a bat.
“Ready for the first pitch?” Garrek asked from about ten feet away.
Jack had on his helmet and was standing with his small legs spread, his elbows slightly lifted as he did exactly what Harper told him. To Garrek’s right, still sitting on the blanket where they’d had their lunch twenty minutes ago, Lily sat playing with the doll she’d brought along. The doll—Susie—was being stubborn and wouldn’t finish her carrots. “Children need their vegetables,” Lily said patiently to Susie.
“They sure do,” Harper said before picking up one of the baby carrots from the plastic bowl and popping it into her mouth.
This made Lily smile and take a carrot herself. She put it into her mouth and chewed while looking at Harper and nodding.
“Ready!” Harper yelled to him and, thankful for the blast of reality, Garrek readied himself to toss the ball.
Jack looked serious, biting on his lower lip as he made eye contact with Garrek. He was concentrating, just like Harper had told him. Watching the pitcher, preparing himself for when the ball left Garrek’s hand. Knowing all this, Garrek wanted another couple of seconds before tossing the ball. Not too fast and not too slow, straight toward his nephew’s bat. Jack took the swing and tapped the ball so that it soared a whopping two feet in front of him. He dropped the bat at that point and jumped up and down, his cheers of joy causing an infectious reaction as Garrek lifted his own arms in victory as well. Harper clapped and leaned down with her hand up to meet Jack’s for a high five.
“I did it! I did it!” Jack was yelling when Garrek came to stand close to him. “I hit the ball, Uncle Garrek! Ms. Harper showed me how!”
“You sure did, buddy,” Garrek said as he too gave Jack a high five. “Good job!”
“I get to have cookies now,” Jack exclaimed and immediately took off to join his sister on the blanket, where he grabbed the plastic bowl filled with cookies.
Harper was smiling when Garrek turned from Jack to her. The gentle breeze lifted the edges of her hair, rays from the sun causing her brown eyes to look a bit lighter today.
“You like to play sports?” he asked.
It wasn’t the smoothest or most logical question to ask, but for whatever reason, she always managed to make him forget the way he usually acted around women.
She shrugged and lifted a hand to tuck the flyaway strands of hair behind her ear. “I grew up with my grandfather, uncle and two male cousins. I had to like sports.”
Garrek knew that Harper’s mother had died when she was young and that her grandfather, uncle and aunt had raised her. He also knew that the town considered her a hopeless tomboy who would eventually turn into an old spinster, hence the reason the Magnolia Guild had attempted to find her a date.
“I liked planes,” he replied.
“That’s why you became a pilot?”
She remembered what he did for a living. Garrek would take that as a point in his favor, considering she was the first woman to ever hyperventilate and then run away from his kiss.
“It’s all I ever wanted to do,” he said.
“Like I wanted to build things. It’s good to have a dream and be able to realize it,” she said and stuffed her hands into the front pockets of her jeans.
He’d never known a woman could look so sexy and enticing in something as simple as worn jeans and a T-shirt. But Harper did. Each day he’d watched her work or simply walk from the house to her truck, climb up on a ladder or stand with clipboard in hand instructing her staff. She always looked good. That fact no longer amazed him; it aroused him. Every time.
“Dreams are what life is made of,” he said. “My mother used to tell us that.”
“Your mother was a very smart and dear woman. That’s what I heard. I didn’t know her, but my aunt Laura did.”
Garrek nodded. He’d been bumping into a lot of people in town who had known his mother and the rest of their family. They knew about his father’s rumored affair and the demise of the Taylor family’s reality show. What they didn’t seem to know was that the Taylor sextuplets had thrived after they were no longer on television. Despite all that they’d been through, they’d made it past the turmoil and were now happy, healthy, successful adults. At least that’s what Garrek had been telling himself all these years.
“She was a great mother and an even better friend,” he replied.
Harper nodded. “You miss her.”
“I do,” he admitted.
“Is that why you came back to Temptation?”
“No” was his quick reply.
She tilted her head to stare at him, her questioning look clear. She wanted to know why, but she wouldn’t push. He liked that. He liked her. Much more than he should.
“I came back to claim the house my father left to me. I’d like your help in doing that,” he said, once again surprising himself—and from the look on Harper’s face, her, too.
Chapter 6
Adberry House was breathtaking.
Harper stood at the bottom of the front steps and looked up at the sprawling structure in awe.
“Joffrey Adberry fought in the Civil War. He left his family—Ester, his wife, Margaret and Ellen, his daughters, and Sarabelle, his mother-in-law—here in this house. They owned twenty-two slaves, fifteen horses and a hundred-acre tobacco field,” she said, knowing the story of this antebellum
home as if it were her own personal history.
“My father bought this house two months before my mother died. They’d been divorced for fifteen years by that time. In a letter to her, he wrote about how she’d always loved this place and the dream of seeing all her children running around this land instead of working on it. She wanted a garden and tall trees and to have parties for the people of the town to share this piece of history with them. He planned to give it to her. But he was too late.”
Garrek sounded distant as he spoke, even though he was standing only two feet away from her. It had taken three days for them to arrange a time that was suitable for them both to meet here. She wasn’t sure what other business Garrek had in town, but she knew her schedule had quickly turned hectic when, as she’d feared, the wood floors on the back porch buckled after two days of rainstorms, so the entire porch had to be redone. In addition, while renovating one of the upstairs bedrooms, they’d come across a leak that required major roof repairs. She was exhausted, and it was almost nine o’clock in the evening. But she’d agreed to this time because Garrek had gone to dinner with Gray, Morgan and Mr. Simon from the historical society.
When Marlon had gone for coffee and doughnuts this morning, he’d overheard Millie talking to Clarice about seeing the Taylors at dinner. Clarice Conyers owned the Java Shop. She was also Connie from the Magnolia Guild’s younger sister. Marlon had delivered the details of this conversation directly to Harper, even though she wasn’t totally sure why.
“My father says a man who loved his wife completely would give her the moon and the stars if he could. Your father giving your mother this house says a lot about his feelings for her,” she told Garrek. She hoped it made him feel better than he sounded at the moment, but his expression didn’t change.
“He cheated on her and then walked away from all of us. That said a lot about his feelings, too” was Garrek’s cool reply. “Let’s get inside before it rains again.”
This was said just as curtly, but Harper dismissed that because while he’d spoken, he’d also grabbed her hand in his and led them up the old steps.
They didn’t creak eerily, but the boards were loose and in obvious need of repair. The numerous columns that stretched for at least eight feet from the floor of the porch to the first landing still seemed sturdy but were definitely in need of a paint job. Night had just settled over the town, but there were two lanterns on either side of the oak double doors, and they were lit—which meant there was electricity in the house. She wondered if that was some of the business Garrek had been taking care of in the past few days.
This house had been empty for years, as evidenced by three of the eight first-floor windows being broken. And none of that took precedence over how her hand felt small and yet comfortable in his.
With his free hand, Garrek reached into the front pocket of his pants and pulled out a ring holding three keys. He unlocked the door and let her walk inside first. It was dark for a few seconds, and then the foyer was illuminated.
A grand staircase rose about fifteen feet from the front door. Just like in Gray and Morgan’s Victorian, there were rooms on both sides of the staircase, but these rooms were much larger. After closing and locking the door, Garrek led her into the first room on the right. This was the formal living room, complete with a grand fireplace and coffered ceilings. They moved in silence to the other room, her hand still in his. Harper could picture a piano in the far left corner. A couch in the center, a pair of high-backed chairs across from it. These ceilings matched the other room, the floors old and dusty, but of a sturdy wood that would take some grunt work to refurbish.
The tour continued into the parlor and then the kitchen, pantry and dining room. They took the stairs and walked down hallways from one room to the next, ten in total.
When they were in the last room, Garrek finally spoke.
“This is mine now,” he said solemnly.
“So what do you want to do with it?” Harper asked.
When he’d first told her about the house that day by the lake, he hadn’t gone into any detail. He’d only said that the deed to the house had been transferred to his name one week after his father’s death. And because she’d immediately grown excited by his invitation for her to see the house with him, Harper hadn’t pressed him with what she now thought was probably a pertinent question.
“What do you want to do with it?” he asked in return.
“Me?”
“Yes. If it were yours, what would you do?”
“I would restore it,” she answered without hesitation. “Bring back every beautiful and old-fashioned part of this place and make it just as regal and palatial as it had been.”
“Just like that, huh?” he asked and then released her hand.
She missed it immediately. The warmth and the steady feel of someone by her side. She’d never craved such a thing, because she’d never felt it before. Now, in the short span of time she’d been allowed the pleasure, she wanted it back. But she would never say that to him.
Harper shook her head. “I wouldn’t question the restoration. But I would plan, meticulously.”
She moved away from him then, going to a window seat in the far corner. “I’d definitely need to meet with Mr. Simon to go over the historical preservation requirements. But you’ve already done that, haven’t you?”
He hunched his shoulders. “Nothing detailed. Just the basic legalities,” he said in a noncommittal tone.
“What else would you do?”
Harper ignored the sense that he was more interested in her thoughts on his house than he should be. Simply because she would love to get her hands on this place. With that in mind, she decided to answer his question from a professional standpoint.
“I would definitely want to refinish all the wood floors and crown molding. And clean the chandeliers downstairs and in the master bedroom until they sparkled.” She ran her hand along the wall that was still covered in a thick wallpaper that had yellowed over the years but still showed the damask print. “I would take my time and make everything just right.”
“What if you didn’t have the time?” he asked. “What if this wasn’t part of your plan?”
Harper jumped then. She’d been staring at the walls and drifting into her own thoughts of restoring this place. She hadn’t realized that he’d left the spot where he’d stood near the door to follow her across the room. But the warmth of his breath on her neck and the feel of the front of his body pressing against the back of hers was unmistakable. The quick jolt of lust was intense and rendered her speechless for a few seconds.
“What if tonight was all you had?” he continued, and moved his arms to wrap slowly around her waist.
He pulled her back to him then, one hand flat against her abdomen, the other a little farther up, resting just beneath her breasts.
“If tonight you had to do what you’d been thinking about doing for what seemed like forever. Would you plan meticulously? Do your research? Try to make it great?”
His voice had fallen to a husky whisper, and the temperature in the room had shifted from a pleasant coolness to a strangling heat.
“I’m a disciplined man, Harper. I’ve had to be. All my life, I’ve had to walk the straight line.” His lips were at her ear, the heat of his breath sending ripples of desire straight down to her toes. “Couldn’t do anything wrong in school. Had to get the best grades and move on to a prosperous future. All to keep my mother happy, since my father had broken her heart so completely.”
She couldn’t speak. Didn’t know what to say. As he talked his hands moved. One continued upward to cup her breast, the other moving down until he was kneading her thigh. At her sides, Harper clenched her fingers. She closed her eyes and tried like hell to take a deep, cleansing breath, but it didn’t work.
“I cannot do the right thing now. I keep trying and I cannot,” he said and then let h
is tongue run along the outer lobe of her ear. “I cannot...” he whispered again.
“Don’t.”
This was not why she was here. It was actually the last thing on her mind. Well, no, that wasn’t totally correct. Ever since that kiss behind the barn—or, technically, the dream she’d had the first night she’d met him—Harper had wanted to be in this very position. She’d wanted—against all the warnings and the stifling fear—to be in Garrek’s arms. To be aroused and taken by this man who had mysteriously walked into town and into her life.
Still, she had to wonder, where was the pain? It always came at this point. The tight clenching in her chest. The shortness of breath. The panic that threatened to choke the life out of her. Where was it?
His hand covered one breast, squeezing until she whimpered. His other hand moved inward, until his finger stroked between her legs.
Harper should have felt light-headed. It’s how she’d felt in this situation before. Her heart should be beating rapidly, and her fight-or-flight instinct should be kicking in.
“Don’t what? Harper, I need to hear you say it,” he continued, this time dragging his tongue to the inside of her ear.
Her knees threatened to buckle, and she clenched her teeth and fingers this time. Tell him! The words were screaming in her head. Tell him to stop and get the hell out of here!
No! a louder voice yelled. Tell him not to stop. Don’t let him stop. Please don’t let him...
“Don’t stop, Garrek,” she whispered. “Just this once, don’t, please.”
She was giving him her consent. Once the words were out, Harper moved her hands to rest on each of his, guiding his movements, encouraging them. The feel of his fingers gripping her breast made her feel hot all over. She licked her lips and gasped as both their hands cupped her mound. It was a wanton position, one she’d never imagined herself in, but oh, it felt so good.
He was kissing her neck now, his tongue moving in circles, leaving a path of moisture along her heated skin. It was quiet except for their breathing, and she thought she should say something. Didn’t people normally talk during times like this? During foreplay? Sex talk, maybe? Did she even know how to do that?
