by Maddie Jane
Whether she liked it or not.
Chapter 11
Shelia and Joan were waiting beside Luke’s truck in the car park, chattering like magpies.
‘We’re starting our own projects tomorrow, Luke,’ said Shelia. ‘Could we stop by King of the Castle and pick up the materials? We need two macrocarpa sleepers. And you’ll need to take the truck to class tomorrow.’
‘Actually, I thought I’d spend the day at the office tomorrow, catching up on some paperwork. You can borrow my truck though.’ He avoided his mother’s eye as he shut the car door. A bit too hard. He jumped into the driver’s seat. Shelia and Joan were looking at him, their eyebrows raised in comically similar expressions.
‘Are you all right?’ Shelia asked at last.
‘Yup.’ He looked in the rear-vision mirror then turned to look over his shoulder before backing out.
‘You’ve missed a few of Harper’s classes lately.’ Shelia gave Joan a knowing look, the meaning of which wasn’t lost on Luke. ‘We thought you liked … the classes. We thought there was a Plan.’
‘The Plan hasn’t entirely gone to plan, so I think it might be best if I don’t hang around tomorrow looking like a pathetic loser. Believe it or not, a guy can only take so much ego hammering in a week.’
Shelia looked at him in alarm. ‘But darling, Joan and I need you tomorrow. We can’t carry four heavy macrocarpa sleepers. Those things weigh a tonne. Please. Harper doesn’t think you’re a loser. On the contrary. She thinks you’re a total hottie,’ Shelia giggled, though it sounded suspiciously like a snigger. Joan joined in.
‘Is there a certain age when grown women officially become teenagers again, or can it happen any time?’ Luke snapped.
The giggling turned to cackling at his show of temper. His hands tightened on the steering wheel and he focused on the stretch of busy road in front of him. Half of Auckland was on a mission to get to the beach. It was going to be a slow drive back through town with these two on board. He sighed and switched the radio on. His mind drifted. He’d help his mother tomorrow. He could never deny her anything. Hadn’t been able to since the death of his father when it had become his responsibility to make sure she was looked after properly.
Luke’s chest squeezed tight, a familiar pain he’d carried along with the guilt since he was twelve years old.
If guilt over his father’s death hadn’t been enough, there was the money too. He’d inherited a fortune, initially held in trust, and he’d had to sit and watch his mother struggling to get by, knowing the money was set aside for him alone, unable to touch it and give it to her. That had changed on his twenty-first birthday. He was wealthy now and could give his mother anything she wanted.
He sighed again. There’d never been any question he wouldn’t help his mother with the bloody macrocarpa sleepers.
So here he was, the next day, loaded up like a pack mule, lugging Shelia and Joan’s gear into the classroom. He gave Harper what he hoped was a nonchalant nod—friendly in a casual, I’ve-seen-you-naked sort of way—as he dumped tool boxes and King of the Castle carrier bags on the workbench and sauntered out again for the sleepers. Once out of sight he ran his fingers through his hair. Harper looked particularly gorgeous today, from her bouncy ponytail down to the incredibly sexy tool belt she’d strung around her hips. Luke strode towards the truck. How the hell was he going to get through the session?
Frustration continued to build as class began. Harper stood up the front explaining how to make the sleeper bench seat, breaking it down into easy steps. Luke watched in excruciating silence as Shelia measured her sleepers and slowly, painfully cut them to the length she wanted her bench to be. Luke itched to help. Harper was extremely busy, dividing her attention between the fifteen women in the class. She needed another pair of hands.
Luke looked down at his large hands, clenched into fists. He examined the scars on his knuckles, distracted for a moment by memories. Then he looked up to where Harper was absorbed, patiently explaining to a young woman how to use the circular saw.
Luke stood and eased his way over to Shelia’s workbench, where she was drawing a wiggly pencil line measurement on the piece of wood. Luke flicked a glance in Harper’s direction. Still too busy to notice him. He took the pencil from his mother, re-measured the line and drew it on straight. He clamped the wood onto the bench, checked it was secure and set the circular saw to forty five degrees. This was fun. Shelia stood back and watched as he started cutting along the straight line.
‘Luke!’ An angry voice at his elbow brought him back to the moment. Busted. He hastily shoved his hands in his jeans pockets and slunk off to the window seat. Harper’s angry gaze burned into his back.
The next hour drifted by. Luke sent a few work emails and texted a couple of friends to meet him at the pub. He kicked his feet around restlessly all the while aware Harper was almost run off hers with questions and demands from her students. Perhaps this project was a little ambitious? A pretty blonde woman—Hilary?—at the side of the classroom was totally ballsing up the bevels on the side of her bench seat feet. She’d looked his way, a couple of times, her expression screaming ‘help’. He’d shaken his head. Her pleading look this time was more than he could resist. He checked Harper was occupied on the other side of the room and slunk round the perimeter of the classroom, to Hilary.
‘Is that right?’ she whispered.
‘No. But Harper will have my guts for garters if I help you.’
‘Please. Just show me where to mark the screw holes. I don’t want to get it wrong.’
‘Okay.’ Luke bent to pick up the carpenter’s pencil and turned to make sure Harper wasn’t watching. His heart bumped. Harper stood right beside him, hands on small hips, a furious expression on her face.
‘Mr Colton,’ she hissed. ‘What are you doing? I told you not to interfere in my class. Go and sit in the corner.’
Mr Colton? Sit in the corner? What the hell?
Luke straightened, dropping the pencil on the bench. Hilary tried to nudge him out of the way. ‘It’s all my fault. I asked him to show me something,’ she said.
‘No.’ Shit. In his peripheral vision he could see Shelia charging over to defend him. Even worse than being publicly chastised and sent to the naughty chair by Harper was having women fight his battles for him. This stopped now. ‘Hilary asked for help because you’re busy. This is an ambitious project for these women. They’re using unfamiliar tools and machinery here that have potential to harm and they’re using them unsupervised.’
Harper’s chest swelled at his words, the buttons stretching across her bust. Nice. Too late he noticed how her nostrils flared and her lips tightened. She addressed the room.
‘Ladies, remember on day one, I said there was a reason I taught women-only classes. Who can remember what that reason was?’
Much to Luke’s relief no one answered her. The women fidgeted and stared at the ground. Harper sighed and turned to Luke. ‘I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. We don’t need guys like you stepping in and doing everything for us.’ She nodded at the class, clearly looking for someone to agree with her. ‘We can work it out for ourselves or Hilary could’ve waited and asked me.’ Harper’s chest gave another small heave. ‘From now on you’re banned from my class altogether.’
Shelia gasped. ‘But he can stay till the end of the session? I need a lift home.’
Luke must have misheard his traitorous matriarch, who smiled apologetically at his confused double-take. It seemed he was outmanoeuvred on all fronts, with no choice but to drag what was left of his shredded dignity out the door.
But as he left, he couldn’t resist shooting Harper a hard, pointier-than-pointed look. ‘I’ll be back,’ he said.
***
And so now Harper added publicly humiliating Luke to the list of offences she’d committed against him. Though how it ranked alongside a) using him as free labour, b) using him as a sex toy, and c) kicking him out of bed, she wasn’t quite sure.
She suspected by the way he stomped out of the classroom she might have gone too far this time.
But he just wouldn’t butt out. And Hilary had been flirting with him. Tossing her platinum blonde hair and shoving her boobs in his face. While he lapped it up. He was trying to make Harper jealous. Wasn’t he?
And she was jealous. The acidity that rose from her stomach up to her throat would melt a car battery. But she wasn’t just jealous of how he’d stepped in and helped Hilary, even after she’d told him not to. She was jealous of how the women couldn’t help but defer to him. As if he was the authority on all things carpentry.
Because he was a man.
Jealous. Furious. Maybe it didn’t matter. Either way, she’d got him out of her classroom and she was back in the driver’s seat. She could teach these women, she was more than capable. And she’d do whatever it took to keep these classes her own. No outside interference necessary.
Yes, she was busy. Yes, this class was demanding of her time. Everyone liked individual attention. But Harper could manage on her own. She didn’t need Luke or anyone else undermining her. She chewed on her lip, battling old insecurities she’d thought she was well shot of.
The session flew after Luke’s ejection. Harper moved swiftly to ensure she gave everyone who needed it her full attention. She raced from person to person, always busy, always focused on the task at hand. Battening down any thoughts of Luke that tried to interrupt or distract her.
I’m too busy for complications. She didn’t want to even attempt to interpret her own feelings. Don’t have time for that.
Her feelings, like Luke, needed to know their place. They needed to stay tucked away. Banished to the corner of her classroom, her mind and her heart.
Her heart? When had her heart come into this?
She looked at her watch, croaked to the class. ‘Pack up time. Please put all the tools in the back room in the proper places.’ She forced herself to stand up the back of the class with a smile on her face, saying goodbye to all her students. Picking up a hammer here, screws and washers there. At last they left. Shelia scuttled out, dragging Joan behind her.
Her heart.
She couldn’t let Luke anywhere near her heart. Better it remained safely protected.
She sighed. Her day wasn’t over. She knew Luke would be back to confront her and she needed to wrap her heart in barbed wire before he got here.
Chapter 12
Luke had considered not going back to the classroom to talk to Harper, but he’d never been one to shy away from a fight.
And she still had the sexy tool belt on. Which helped. A lot.
‘I didn’t think you’d be back,’ she said, not meeting his gaze.
‘It seemed a waste of a good ‘I’ll be back’ not to.’ He looked at her, wondering if she got the Arnie reference. She stared blankly, jiggling a hammer for a second before shoving it into a loop on her belt. ‘And I thought we had a few things we should slug out in private,’ he said. ‘As in, not in front of an entire class of your students. Or even worse, my mother,’ he added as an afterthought.
‘What sort of things?’ Harper’s hand was back on the hammer, which made Luke extremely nervous. If forced to describe her right now, this very second, the words ‘armed and dangerous’ would be perfect.
‘I thought we probably needed to discuss this thing we’ve got between us, for starters.’
‘What thing?’ Her hand held the head of the hammer, lifting it and then letting it slide back through its loop. Lift, slide. Lift, slide.
‘You can pretend all you want, Harper, but there is a thing and it’s the reason we got naked together.’
For a second the hammer was still. Then lift, slide. Lift, slide.
‘People get naked for a whole lot of reasons. It doesn’t have to be a big deal.’
‘True. Only I get the feeling it is a big deal for you, which is why you turfed me out on my arse the way you did.’
Harper’s hand formed a fist around the hammer, her white knuckles the only indication she acknowledged his words. At least the lift–slide had stopped before it completely threw him off course.
‘Okay, so now we’ve talked about that. What else did you want to talk about?’ said Harper.
Luke took a deep breath. ‘Seriously Harper? That’s the best you can do? ’Cause the way I look at it, the problem here is who gets to wear the pants in this relationship.’
‘You’re assuming we have a relationship. You’re not my boyfriend, remember?’ Lift, slide. Lift, slide.
‘Hard to forget. But back to the pants. I’ve tried to wrangle it so we both wear the pants, but today you showed, yet again, that you prefer me pantsless.’
Harper’s eyes widened and she gave a bark of laughter. ‘That’s ridiculous.’
‘Maybe not so ridiculous. I get you have reasons for how you do things and that me bowling in with my big feet isn’t always to your liking, but I genuinely want to help you. I think what you’re doing here is great. Mum’s happy and really proud of that thing she’s making.’ Luke pointed to the pile of macrocarpa sitting on the workbench.
‘It’s a seat.’ Harper said. ‘A sleeper bench seat.’
‘Great. Whatever. My point is, I’m not trying to sabotage things. I want to help because I can see your resources are stretched and you need another pair of hands to help take your class. Not just to make it easier for you, but because there are health and safety issues to consider. Ladders, cutting tools. These are dangerous in inexperienced hands.’ Luke felt the familiar chest constriction. Pushed it away.
‘I know all this. I take the safety of my students very seriously.’
The lift, slide movement started up again, though it seemed to Luke a little jerkier than before. He held his hands up, palms out. ‘Good. You should. Accidents happen every day … and they happen fast …’ He scrubbed his hand across his face as if he could stop the flood of regrets. They stood in silence, the heat of the classroom stifling him. Harper stared at him, her head tilted on the side, a questioning look on her face. But when she finally spoke, her tone was light.
‘Okay—I’d like to get back to the issue of the pants.’ Her face held a whisper of a smile, though her hand was still wrapped firmly around the hammer.
‘Yeah?’
‘I’m not sure how it works anywhere else, but one thing I know for sure. In my classroom, I wear the pants.’
It felt like a compromise. Or as close as it was going to get today. Luke met her almost-smile with one of his own, felt himself go a little gooey on the inside as he looked at her. ‘Sure thing, Princess. You keep on rocking those tough-girl pants. Just do us both a favour and lose the hammer, okay?’
***
Luke. Pantsless. Oh the memories. What was the best tool to use to stab your own brain out? Because she couldn’t get him out of her head.
And the way he’d handled her disembowelling him—not literally, of course—in front of the class and yet come back to discuss it like a grown-up made her feel like the three-year-old. She should put herself in the naughty chair.
And now two days had passed with no sign of Luke, which felt odd. By Friday afternoon the weekend loomed long and lonely ahead. The fact that it could loom at all made her mad. Weekends never loomed before she met Luke. Thank goodness she had a thousand DIY jobs on her ‘to do’ list to keep her busy.
Only something niggled. And it seemed it started with a big fat ‘L’. For some unfathomable reason she wanted to see him. After their conversation the other day an idea had started to take hold and now it wouldn’t go away.
Maybe she could fit Luke into her schedule, as long as it didn’t clash with work. They could try spending time together in a neutral, non-work environment.
Crazy? Maybe. But maybe it wasn’t. Other than one dinner and what she’d started to refer to in her head as the night of the crazed nakedness, they’d only been together in work-like situations. In the classroom. Sawing up her tree. Back in her classr
oom.
Maybe she should try something else. Of her choosing. On her terms. See how it panned out.
It was a tough call. Weekends were precious: the only chance she had to tackle the larger more time-consuming jobs around her house. Would Luke be worth giving that up for? Harper toyed with the cell phone in her hands. Her finger poised over the call button. There was a concert in the park tomorrow, which might be fun. A day in the sun would be good for her. And if things didn’t work out she could fake sunstroke or pretend to get lost in the crowd. Limitless exit possibilities made the proposition more doable.
She pushed the button. Left a message. Swiped her sweaty palms on her jeans. Rang back. ‘PS,’ she said, ‘if it makes you feel safer, I’ll leave my hammer at home.’ Hung up again.
Satisfaction that she’d taken the initiative swept through her and suddenly the weekend didn’t loom as much. Even if he couldn’t make it, she’d done something positive.
The phone ringing in her hand startled her from her thoughts. Luke.
‘Hi,’ she said
‘I got your messages. What time tomorrow?’ Luke’s voice sent a surprising surge of longing through her. She gulped, swallowing air that prevented her from answering for a second. ‘Harper?’
‘I’m here. About twelve would be good. That’s when the first band starts. We could go from my place.’
‘Okay, I’ll see you then. And Harper?’
‘Yes?’
‘It’s a rock concert, so we’ll both need to wear the pants.’ And he hung up.
It was all on. She’d invited Luke on a date.
Or just a day out, she thought. Depending how you looked at it. Two people wearing pants and going to a concert in the park on a sunny summer day. She could do that. She could take the day off from sanding the floor and the sky wouldn’t fall.
Said sky was clear and blue the next day when Luke’s truck pulled into her driveway. She peered out the window and watched as he stepped out of the vehicle and walked towards the house. His confident swagger pulled her gaze to where his faded jeans hung on his slim hips. He wore a black T-shirt, which emphasised his arms and fitted snugly across his broad chest. She knew from recent experience that under that T-shirt were abs, if not actually of steel, at least of something pretty, jolly good. She knew this because she had a clear memory of her hands wandering along them. Slipping over skin. She’d liked it a lot and could possibly like it again.
