“Okay,” he said as her body slumped. “This is good.”
She covered her mouth with one slender hand and buried her face, leaning from her armless chair to his, half-sharing his seat. Her tears fell silently with only the occasion hiccup. He nodded and mouthed it was okay to the waitress when she brought their drinks. A few people sent them empathetic glances, but he ignored them. At last, Harper sniffed a final time and straightened, covering her face with a cloth napkin.
“I’m sorry.”
“I’m not even going to bother stating the obvious.”
She set the napkin down, and even though her eyes were puffy, she looked clearer, more at peace, and all the more vulnerable for having showed him the tears. Normal Harper would have averted her gaze, apologetic for being too sensitive. This time she didn’t. Instead she searched his eyes, looking for something. He didn’t know how to ask her what it was, but his gut tightened, his pulse notched upward, and his instincts led him into leaning forward.
Every fraction of a second that brought him closer, he expected her to jerk away, but at the very last of those seconds she closed her eyes. He took her delicate chin in his fingers and tilted her lips to his, slipping a kiss onto her mouth with all the certainty he could fake.
She yielded. Her lips molded to his, soft and salted from her tears. He maneuvered the angle of her head with his touch, and she allowed it, following the kiss, playing along with the changes of pressure and stoking sparks. Fire flickered to life in his stomach. Unlike the potent lightning of their first kiss, this one wasn’t over in a flash. She didn’t pull away. She opened her mouth before he did.
The lightning struck then.
Deep, surprising, and hot, it left behind more smoldering and more flame, steady, bright, intense. Their tongues danced, and hers was every bit as talented, as enticing as he’d imagined. She suckled his, she gave him hers; he slid his fingers from her chin to her ear and pulled her head closer. She groaned—a tiny, satisfied sound to which his body responded with age-old life.
He pulled away slowly and then pressed back for one more tango before he relinquished the kiss.
“What is this?” she whispered. “I don’t even know if this is appropriate.”
“We’re figuring out feelings. Everything’s appropriate.”
She smiled half an inch from his mouth. “Don’t use hyperbole on me, cowboy. I can think of a lot of things that wouldn’t be appropriate here.”
“I’ll find us a place where they would be.”
“Whoa. What happened to my sensitive, take-it-slow cowboy?”
“He’s my alter ego. I sent him to the corner.”
“Can I talk to him again?”
“Aw, hell.” He grinned, loving this side of her. “What do you need him for?”
“To tell him it’s time to order cheesecake. Maybe real food, too, but I definitely like cheesecake after a cowboy kisses me. With lots of chocolate.”
“Hmpf. So much for the seductive power of the bad boy. Where’s a dumb romance novel when I need one?”
She only giggled at him.
They ordered and ate their meals, keeping the light, teasing tone they’d adopted after the kiss and limiting their conversation topic to Harper’s new relationship with Cecelia Markham, the woman Cole had met at the gallery showing.
They finished dinner and the waitress took their cheesecake orders, clearly relieved that everything remained all right after the earlier crying spell. Once she was gone, Harper excused herself to the ladies’ room, and Cole finally took his moment to cover his eyes and blow out the confusion of the day. For all his bravado, he didn’t feel that confident about what to do with his growing feelings for Harper. He could see the looming problems. She wasn’t staying. He wasn’t leaving. Was it really fair to start anything when it was doomed to fail? A relationship that had never been truly real with Amelia had been strange enough. Trying to make a real relationship with Harper couldn’t help but be a cosmic mistake.
But how could he stop?
“Cole—look what I found.”
She slid into her seat, handing him a large blue-and-green poster advertising the Lion’s Club high school art competition.
“Where’d you steal that from?”
“The front desk.” She gave a guilty smile. “I’ll bring it back, but this is in less than two weeks. Do you know if Skylar ever talked to her mom about getting in?”
“Not a clue. Nothin’ she’s mentioned to me.”
She thought a moment. “How is she? Skylar?”
He almost didn’t understand the question. How was Skylar Thorson? She was a fourteen-year-old nice kid. “She’s . . . fine? She still has that stray pup—”
“She does! Her folks let her keep it?”
“Yeah. She named her Asta. I guess it’s the name of Bjorn’s childhood dog, and he couldn’t say no.”
“See! You do know how she is.”
“I know she has a dog.” He truly was bewildered at the conversation.
“But she wanted so much to be in that art show.”
His head spun at the topic change. “Okay. How do you know that?”
“From the look in her eye when she saw this poster the day she found her dog. And from the disappointment when she saw the contest was for public school students.”
Well that explained it. She’d deduced something from nothing. He didn’t know any more about the way women worked than most men did, but he understood that women had some sort of belief in the gods of voice tone and eye rolls.
“Sure. Of course.”
“You’re such a guy. Don’t you pay attention?”
“I’m real glad you noticed I’m a guy. And I believe the right answer here is, ‘no, I admit I never pay attention.’ ”
Her smiles, after all the tension and worry that had kept them at bay since she’d arrived home, were a relief. She aimed one at him now filled with mock pity.
“You’ve been trained up well by someone, cowboy. Lucky for me.”
“Long as you’re happy, sweetheart.”
Their cheesecake arrived, hers topped with extra chocolate and his with butterscotch and walnuts. She dug in without hesitation, and when she closed her eyes and groaned, he only wished he could make her react that way again for him. He forced the thoughts away.
“Seriously,” he said, returning to the unsexiest topic he could. “Why are you thinking about Skylar?”
A wisp of embarrassment crossed her features but then she looked him in the eye. Her lips closed over her fork a second time and slicked it clean. He swallowed.
“I know it sounds dumb,” she said, mumbling over the mouthful of cheesecake. “I feel a connection with her. She’s a lot like I was when I was kid—a little lost and kind of misunderstood.”
“I shall call her Mini-Me.” Cole used his best Dr. Evil voice.
“Don’t you dare make fun of me.”
“I’m not. I couldn’t resist, sorry. I’ll be good, but you didn’t honestly feel lost and misunderstood, did you?”
She said nothing for a long moment. She didn’t even take another bite of cheesecake.
“You wouldn’t know because you were the only one who ever seemed to understand. You stuck up for me when people made fun of my daydreaming and my drawing.”
“I did?”
Harper had been famous for having her head in the clouds and her nose in a sketchbook, but he’d thought everyone found her cool and insightful and nice. That was simply how he’d looked at her and why he’d liked being around her. And what he found so steady about her now. She hadn’t changed. He teased her, but her concern about Skylar and everyone and everything else was what made her special.
“Until you started dating Amelia.” She averted her eyes with a self-conscious smile. He caught her chin again.
“Really?”
“This is stupid. It was more than a dozen years ago.”
“But I want to hear. Was I a jerk after I dated her?”
�
�No! No. You were . . . busy. That’s about the time we stopped riding around the two ranches like wild cowboys and grew up, that’s all. I missed my friend. But here he is, so it’s all good.”
He glanced around their table. Nobody was looking. He shoved his chair back, grabbed her hand, and removed the fork from her fingers. With a firm tug he pulled her to a stand and backed her into the hidden corner behind their table.
“We were good friends. I think we still are. But what if your friend wants more of this?”
He didn’t kiss her slowly this time. He pressed his way into her mouth without waiting for an invitation, bracing for her to shove him away but prepared to stand his ground. She gave a squeak of surprise but then met his insistence with her own demanding tongue. Sparks flew across his scalp and down his spine.
Her mouth was hot and sweet with chocolate, cream, and wine. Her tongue slid against his expertly, playful and stunning. The flying sparks gathered in his stomach. His body hardened so quickly, his lack of control shocked him more than Harper did. He’d meant to act the macho cad for a few teasing seconds to divest her of any memories of them as kids. Instead, she banished their childhood ghosts all by her little lonesome.
When she did push him away, he was no longer braced for it. She held him at a literal arm’s length, her tongue on her upper lip, her breath loud enough for him to hear it, and unsteady as a newborn filly.
“Stop. This is so not smart.”
“Felt pretty smart to me. Would it help to go someplace less public?”
“After I finish my cheesecake.”
“I’m glad to know where I stand in the hierarchy.”
“Pretty far below chocolate. But above almost everything else.” She touched his lip with a soft fingertip.
“And tell me again,” he said. “Where’s your good old friend now?”
“Still right here, I hope,” she whispered. “Although he’s shocking me. No matter how much I keep fearing he’s going to kiss like a . . . well, a brother, he—”
“Doesn’t. You’d better be about to say ‘doesn’t.”
“He absolutely, unequivocally, so doesn’t.”
BY THE TIME she and Cole got back to Rosecroft, Harper’s brain was in a state of agitated confusion and guilt. Her sister’s ex-boyfriend could kiss like an angel, and then turn her on like nobody she’d ever been with—and she’d been with more guys than she wanted anyone to know about. She felt like she’d sold out to the devil himself. The bottom line was, a person simply didn’t go after her sister’s old boyfriend.
Still, she didn’t pull her hand away when Cole held it on the way home. And she managed to live with the cocktail of bliss, guilt, and worry that made up her roiling emotions even though they consumed every thought all the way home. She wasn’t expecting Skylar to nearly bowl her over as she stepped through the door.
“You’re back! How’s Miss Joely?” Skylar all but ran into her in the foyer, stopping short and scooping up the black-and-white pup that was three times bigger than when Harper had first seen it.
“Hey, Skylar.” Cole answered for them both. “If nobody’s called here with other news, things are pretty much the same.”
“Nobody called.”
“Skylar! Hi.” Harper gave the girl a one-armed hug and set her suitcase on the slate tile so she could pet the dog. “This little girl has sure grown. Congratulations on getting to keep her.”
She scratched the puppy behind its perked-up ears, and each of her fingers got thoroughly doggy kissed. Skylar flushed with pleasure and pride.
“My mom made me make signs to put around town, and I had to report her missing to the sheriff. But after ten days, nobody called or anything. I named her Asta.”
“It’s a beautiful name. Cole told me you named her after one of your dad’s old dogs.”
“Yeah. She’s really smart. She’s pretty much house trained, and she can already herd the chickens, but she doesn’t know why she’s doing it.”
“They’re incredible dogs. So, how are you?”
“Okay. It’s nice you’re back again.” As soon as the words were out, she looked as if she wished she hadn’t said them. “I mean. I wish you didn’t have to come back. You know?”
“I know, sweetie. I know. I hate this.”
“Are they going to be okay?” Skylar bit her lip.
“Amelia says she’s very hopeful about our mom. Joely’s not doing as well. All we can do is pray she stabilizes, and then the doctors can figure out more.”
“They won’t let me go see them.”
“Do you want to?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. Yeah, kind of. Like I should tell them to get better myself. Mrs. Crockett—your mom, I mean, she’s always been cool to me. But my mom says it’s best if no kids are there.”
“Skylar, honey, if you want to go, you tell me. I’ll take you. You’re not a kid. But you don’t have to, either. It’s not very much fun to see them. They got pretty badly hurt.”
“My dad said they . . . ” She stopped and shook her head.
“They what?”
“Miss Joely especially doesn’t look like herself.”
Tears pricked Harper’s eyes, but she held them at bay. All the excitement over Asta had faded from Skylar’s features, replaced by sadness and worry that she’d say something to get herself in trouble. Harper wasn’t about to let Skylar think she’d made anyone cry.
“She doesn’t. She looks very beaten up. And she needs all the good thoughts and prayers she can get. You tell me anytime what you want to do.”
“Okay.”
“Come on. I want to see my grandma. Is she still up?”
“She’s waiting for you. And I’m supposed to go home now that you’re here.”
“Oh.” Harper looked at her watch. “It’s only eight thirty. What if I call your mom and ask if you can stay? I want to ask you something.”
The girl’s eyes brightened. She glanced from Harper to Cole, flushed a little—so the crush hadn’t diminished—and nodded. “Okay. What do you want to ask?
“Let me get my stuff put away and give Grandma Sadie a kiss hello, then we’ll talk.”
Chapter Thirteen
SOMEONE HAD BEEN working overtime in the kitchen. The room gleamed like one of Amelia’s ORs. And the cookie jar, which had never been empty when they’d all been kids, was filled to rim with some kind of amazing chocolate shortbread something. Chili simmered in a Crock-Pot, and bowls of creamy cheddar cheese and thick sour cream were covered and waiting in the refrigerator.
“I wish we’d known about this,” Harper groaned, as she lifted the lid on the aromatic chili. “Who’s the wonderful elf that did all this?”
“Grandma Sadie and my mom,” Skylar said.
“You want some?” Harper asked as she got out mugs for coffee.
“No. I ate some earlier.” She sat at an empty spot at the kitchen table. “Oh, but, thank you.”
The manners she’d been drilled in again. Cole set a glass of milk and the cookie jar in front of her.
“Eat up,” he said. “Get your strength for Harpo’s grilling.”
The teen frowned. “About what?”
“Stop teasing her.” Harper admonished Cole. “There’s no grilling. I want to talk to you about your art. I’ve been thinking about it ever since I was here last month.”
“Really?” Skylar picked up a thick, rectangular cookie as if this were no big deal, but her hands shook. “I’ve been drawing as much as I can. Cole showed me pictures of your paintings. They’re amazing.”
“Thank you, sweetie, that means a lot. What I really want to know is if you ever asked your mom about that art show and competition that’s coming up in two weeks.”
She looked genuinely surprised. “You remember that?”
“I do.”
Her features closed up. “I told her about it. She barely paid attention. She said she’d heard about it, and it was only a fund-raiser for the public school district. It’s not som
ething she wants to support—didn’t I tell you that’s how she’d be? I’m pretty sure she thinks public schools are where the devil teaches or something.”
“I doubt she thinks that.” Harper reined in a smile. “She wants to make sure about the quality of what you and your brothers are learning that’s all.”
“Well she’s not a good art teacher, I’ll tell you that. She lets me get art books and books on photography from the library, but she thinks that’s all I need. I have a friend, Christy, who goes to our church, but she’s in the regular middle school. They have painting class, and drawing class, and even a pottery class for art. Our co-op for homeschooling has an art class or art activity once a month. It’s completely lame.”
From the way Skylar’s voice ramped up in volume and frustration, Harper knew she’d pulled a cork out of a dam. Her heart went out to the teen again.
“It sounds frustrating. But I don’t see why the people running this competition wouldn’t let some students from outside the public school join. It’s more money for them.”
“My mom says the co-op needs her money, and she’d rather spend it there. She already pays taxes to the school district.”
A tidal wave of sympathetic frustration rushed over Harper. How many times had she heard her father complain about the cost of materials for her extra-curricular art classes because he’d “already paid taxes, so why don’t the schools use their money with more discretion if they were going to offer these kinds of courses?”
She’d hated that argument. She still hated it.
At least someone was trying to raise money to help fund the arts. School districts all over the country—certainly in Chicago—were struggling to hang on to any art and music programs.
“Do you have anything you would want to put into the exhibit if you could enter?” she asked.
Skylar sat back in her chair and bit her lip in sudden uncertainty. “I don’t know. I didn’t let myself think about it.”
“If I talk to your mom, will you think about it?”
“Uh, yeah. But I don’t have anything framed or with a mat on it even.”
The Bride Wore Denim Page 17
