“In a nutshell. Yes.”
Queen Bee kept it together, she was cool and in control and unflappable. But now, her life had been stripped away to expose the tender vulnerability beneath. Queen Bee was just a mask that had hidden the scared, lonely, and unlovable pregnant teenager who’d had no one to turn to. Bree’s throat prickled with heat that rapidly spread upward.
“Erin. That’s enough.” Piper’s voice contained the command of the police officer she’d once been. “How much of a friend were you to Bree when she returned to Oban? Did you go out of your way to reconnect? Did you invite her out with you and Shaye and Holly and later, Kezia, and make her feel welcome?”
“No. Not often.” Erin shot Bree a guilty glance. “Guess I didn’t make much of an effort.”
“So why should she have trusted any of you with something so personal? Not knowing if you’d blab her secrets all over town. God knows, it took a while for me to confide in my own family about what really happened when Dad died, let alone you lot.” Piper’s intense gaze landed on each of them in turn. “To paraphrase Shaye, ‘judge not lest y’all be judged’. And the thing with some secrets is once you keep one long enough, it gets harder to show that fucker’s ugly face to those you care about.”
“I second that,” said Shaye. “And now I feel bad, ‘cause Erin wasn’t the only one who didn’t make an effort to be there for you. I was so busy trying to prove myself straight out of culinary school that I missed a bunch of stuff going on with my friends—and we are your friends. Even though at times we may’ve sucked.”
“That’s what I was trying to communicate in my own special way.” Erin reached over the table to pat Bree’s hand. “I just didn’t put it as diplomatically as Shaye-Shaye.”
Everyone but Erin rolled their eyes.
Bree found her mouth tugging up in a tremulous smile, then it slipped away again. “Piper’s right. I kept the secret of Carter to myself for so long that it grew and grew, becoming this huge, overwhelming thing with no possible good outcome. You’re not the only ones to blame for not making an effort. I deliberately kept part of myself distant when I came back to Oban, terrified I’d let something slip.”
“You were scared Harley would come back and want to claim his son?” Kezia’s brow crumpled.
Shaye, Piper, Holly, and Erin all made amused sounds, ranging from a snicker to a full-on belly laugh.
“Sorry,” said Holly with a twist of her lips. “We forget you haven’t known the twins for like, forever. Remember that time Ford and Harley babysat their little cousin when they were fourteen? Lani was three, I think, and Ford said she clung to him like a monkey and cried every time Harley even looked at her. Next time Lani needed watching, only Ford got asked.”
“That’s right,” Piper said. “Harley’s always avoided anyone under the age of ten. He should’ve considered getting a tatt near his junk, saying: Not for Reproduction.”
“Tacky. But true.” Bree’s stomach sank, even as she forced her lips into a wry smile. “And I don’t believe he’s changed in the last few years.”
“Nope.” Shaye slipped an arm around Bree’s shoulders. “But we have, I hope. We’ve got your back, Bree.”
“Absolutely, cara,” said Kezia. “Whatever you need.”
“Thank you.” Humbled, Bree blinked back tears. “Carter’s going to stay with me over the holidays, and I’m glad he’ll get a chance to meet my wonderful group of friends.”
“Listen to us, we’re like the girls on Grey’s Anatomy.” Holly raised her coffee mug in a toast. “You’re my persons.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Piper said with a grimace. “We’re all Meredith and Christina clones. Just don’t expect me to dance it out while I’m hauling this seven-pound baby around.”
Bree arched an eyebrow. “Seven-pound baby, thirty-five pounds fat-on-your-ass from muffins.”
Piper made a shooting motion at Bree and laughed. “Queen Bee stings again.”
The others laughed with them then squabbled over Erin’s last two muffins. For the first time since Amy and Carter arrived, Bree’s appetite returned, and she cut the muffin into neat quarters.
Her mother was wrong. These women were her friends, and more importantly, they were her persons.
Chapter 6
Karma had apparently decided that riling Bree the day before qualified for an ass kicking. This morning had been a write off. Harley tugged the baseball cap lower over his eyes and studied the newly washed-down wall of his father’s workshop. Sunshine beat against his shoulders as he rolled them back in a bid to ease the crick in his spine.
Thanks to a certain blue-eyed blonde invading his dreams, he hadn’t slept well. He’d risen at dawn, but instead of working on the new canvas propped in the corner of his room, he’d drawn another sketch of Bree. Then he’d hurled the sketch pad to the other side of the room, where it had knocked over a glass on the nightstand. This led to Piper hollering at him from the top of the stairs for waking her up when, “Goddammit it, don’t you know West Junior kept me up half the night bouncing on my bladder”?
Bailing before breakfast the only option, he’d used Ford’s spare key with the intent of raiding his brother’s fridge—only to be confronted with the sight of his naked ass delivering breakfast-in-bed to his beloved.
Try to water-blast that image out of his head. Nasty.
So today was as good a day as any to tackle preparations on the workshop wall. He had to admit, in between the shock of finding out about Carter, the pressure of being artistically constipated, and distracted by the desire to get his hands on Bree Findlow again, he was juiced to get started on the mural. And unlike Bree, whose talent with a brush lay with the fine detail of a watercolor or acrylic, Harley loved the bold strokes of a big project.
Big and bold equalled freedom. Nothing to keep you penned in or restricted; everything could and would hang out.
“You’re doing it then?”
His dad leaned against the workshop corner, keychain dangling off his fingers, ready to unlock the garage and get on with the day’s work of grease and oil and the stench of exhaust.
Harley’s nose wrinkled. “Looks like it.”
“’Bout time you added another coat of paint over your handiwork.”
Rob angled his head toward the wall close to where he stood. Faint outlines of black lettering ghosted through the puke-green paint. Paint sixteen-year-old Harley had paid for and applied with a two-inch brush in punishment for his first and last graffiti rebellion.
“This time, when you sign your name to it, I won’t give you a hiding for messing up my perfectly good wall.”
Harley snorted. “Yeah, yeah.”
His dad wouldn’t even push his wife’s chubby tortoiseshell cat off an armchair if it were sleeping, let alone ever raise a hand to one of his sons. No. Rob Komeke had more effective ways of gaining his boys’ respect and love.
“Not gonna take up too much of your time though, is it?” His dad pursed his lips. “From your real work, I mean.”
A short, sharp squeeze of affection gripped Harley’s chest. Even though he’d never shown the slightest inclination—or talent—toward anything that required said oil or grease, his dad had never tried to make him feel guilty. Or denied that his art was real work.
“I’m hoping it’ll help prime the pump again.”
“Ah. I hear women can be good for that, too. At least”—his dad widened his eyes to communicate someone was coming up behind Harley—“the right woman…Hello, Bree, and young Carter.”
Harley swung around, his gaze skipping over the sulky pout on Carter’s face to Bree, who looked fresh and feisty in a white dress with a summery pohutukawa flower print.
“Hey. Nice dress,” Harley managed to croak, because, damn.
The dress skimmed over Bree’s curves and flowed around her thighs, stopping just above her knees. When he kissed the sensitive crease behind them, it made her squirm. And man, did he love making her squirm. Especially when his mouth skim
med up her silky inner thighs… Harley dropped the water blaster nozzle.
Bree shot him a baffled glance. “Thanks. It’s from Kip’s sister’s shop in Bounty Bay up north. She’s got some beautiful clothes so I grabbed this online…” Her voice trailed off, a tinge of pink appearing on her cheeks as if she’d just realized she was talking fashion to three males.
Harley’s dad, in his usual smoothing-things-over mode, stepped in. “How are your holidays going so far, Carter?”
“Boring.”
The boy did look as if at any moment he’d collapse into an eye-rolling puddle of ennui.
“What are you up to today then?”
“We’re going to get some milk from the store. There’s nothing to do here, and Auntie Bree doesn’t even have a Playstation.” He shot Bree a look of pure betrayal.
Rob’s sharp-eyed gaze zipped between Harley and his new grandson.
Harley’s heartrate kicked up a notch. Ah, hell no. He’d seen that look on the old man’s face many, many times when he and Ford were kids. They’d learned, eventually, that complaining to their dad was a sure-as-shit-fire way to end up doing chores.
“Bree, love, you grab that milk and head on back to the gallery. Harley will make sure the boy doesn’t have a chance to get bored. He could use the help.”
Bree’s eyes widened, her teeth dragging against her lush lower lip. “Oh. Well, I…”
Yeah. Since leaving Carter with a rookie who’d never been responsible for more than a goldfish—and look at how that’d turned out, with a fishy funeral only a week after he’d gotten it—was a stupid idea. Maybe he wasn’t cut out to do the father thing, but for fuck’s sake. He could mind a kid for a couple of hours.
“We’ll be fine,” Harley said. “Long as he can be a man about getting paint on his clothes.”
“I can be a man.” Carter squinted at him, lip curling, chest puffing out a little under his white tee shirt. His gaze zipped to the wall, where Harley had started stirring the primer, getting ready to fill the electric paint sprayer. The lip curl transformed into a grin.
“Can I use the paint gun?”
“If you make it out of probation.”
“What’s probation?”
“I’ll tell you after your auntie leaves.” Harley lifted an eyebrow at Bree, who stared at the pair of them as if they’d grown antlers and big red noses. “We got this.”
Her smooth brow furrowed, but she stepped away from Carter with a smile. “Have fun, boys.”
“Men,” said Carter. “We’re men.”
“Right.” Bree gave Harley the onceover, and damn if her gaze didn’t linger on his mouth before she strode around him in the direction of Russell’s grocery store.
“I’ll be inside if you need me,” his dad said. “I’ll shout us some man-sized sausage rolls from the café for smoko.” He disappeared around the back of the building, leaving Harley alone with his son.
Piece of cake. Not.
Harley cleared his throat and pointed at the workshop wall. “I’m turning this wall into a mural of Ranginui and Paptuanuku. They’re the Sky Father and Earth Mother in Maori legend—”
“I know who they are. My dad told me. He’s Ngāi Tahu. His mountain is Aoraki and his lake is Pūkaki.”
Tiny, but vicious needle pricks stabbed into Harley’s gut at the sound of another man’s whakapapa—his ancestral heritage—coming from his son’s mouth. He faced the boy, taking in the width of the kid’s shoulders, his long legs sticking out from under his shorts, hinting of height to come in a few years. Clear grey eyes stared at him, sizing up Harley as much as he sized up the boy.
“What do I call you?” asked Carter.
“Harley.”
“Not Uncle Harley?”
“I’m not your uncle.”
“No.” The boy stared at his flip-flop-covered feet. “I already have three uncles.” A loaded pause. “And a dad.”
“Yeah. You do.” Harley crouched by the twenty-liter paint can. He patted the spray gun next to it and forced his mouth into a neutral and hopefully not scary as hell smile. “What’s say we load up this bad-boy and let her rip?”
Carter slouched over to his side and peered into the can. His nose wrinkled. “Why is it orange?”
“It’s sienna and a trick of the trade, so—” Harley clipped the “n” off the last word so fast his teeth nearly bit his tongue. “Mate,” he amended. “Gives the colors I’ll use later a lift—makes them pop.”
“Sweet as.”
The first hint of enthusiasm in the boy’s voice eased some of the tension wiring through Harley’s spine. “Wait ‘til you see the sprayer in action; that’s sweet as.”
“Can I have a turn? After probation?” Carter dragged his teeth over his bottom lip, a gesture so close to his mother’s only a few minutes ago that it set Harley’s heartbeat off in a thundering race.
“I’ll show you first, ay?” Harley gripped the stick and stirred the undercoat. “Otherwise, we’ll both end up covered in orange paint.”
Carter screwed up his face. “We’d look like Oompa-Loompas, and Auntie Bree would give me a growling—and you, too.” The thought of Harley being scolded by Bree, who was five inches shorter and more than thirty kilograms lighter, must’ve tickled the kid’s funny bone because he giggled like crazy.
The sound sent shockwaves through Harley.
His and Bree’s son. They’d made a little person together.
And damn it to hell if he wasn’t starting to warm to the kid.
***
Bree was never more thankful to her friends than she was during the last seven days. They’d organized a rotating shift of kid-minding duties during business hours, because as much as she wanted to, she couldn’t afford to pay Jean a full-time wage. Nor could she shut-up shop for two weeks and spend the whole time with Carter. Not now. Not when she’d finally cooked up a plan that might save the gallery.
But it’d been a weird week—due mainly to Harley and Carter. They’d hung out together. Daily. Voluntarily.
Bree flipped the “open” sign to “closed,” stepped outside, and locked the gallery door. She caught a glimpse of her reflection in the picture window. Wispy tendrils of hair escaped her French plait and stuck to her slightly sweaty neck—still flushed with an annoying heat after Harley had sauntered over to sit on a bench overlooking the harbor twenty minutes ago. He’d raised the ice-cream he’d held in a toast and then took a long, sexually innuendo-loaded lick at the dripping cone. At least, she’d interpreted it as a sexually innuendo-loaded lick.
Maybe he just really liked hokey-pokey ice cream.
Maybe she just had sex on the brain.
Ugh.
Bree brushed a speck of lint from her top and straightened her spine. She had one hour before they were due at Denise and Rob’s for dinner. Before that, she had to convince Carter to come home for a quick shower. And after a day spent romping around in the sand with his two new besties, Zoe and Jade, he’d need it.
But the thought of verbally or physically wrestling with Carter to get him under a spray of hot water filled Bree with premature exhaustion. Nine-year-old boys were tiring. But she was thankful that today she’d only have to deal with sand, not orange primer.
As she strode toward the small playground across the road from Due South, where Kezia had arranged to meet, Bree couldn’t help smiling. The first morning Carter had spent with Harley, instead of a clean but grouchy boy returned to her at lunchtime, she’d received a paint-splattered boy who’d insisted on dragging her to the Komeke’s workshop to proudly show her the section of wall he’d spray-painted. Bree asked if he’d had fun, and the boy had shrugged. “I guess. Harley said I can watch him sketch the mural on the wall tomorrow. I said maybe.”
He’d asked to go the next day and every day since then.
And did Harley enjoy spending each afternoon with his son? Hell if she knew. Bree avoided the salon where Harley worked until lunch, and then kept clear of the workshop wall until
quitting time at 5:00 p.m. She assumed he skulked back to the Westlakes’ to work on his latest canvas before the light faded after that.
Bree’s smile vanished. She hoped he was working on a painting; otherwise, the little plan she’d concocted wouldn’t work.
“Hey!”
Bree stopped in her tracks and glanced around. Harley was crouched at the corner of the workshop, rinsing his brushes. Once again, without a shirt on. Seriously? The man was a public nuisance, exposing all that smooth, tan skin covering rippling…
Her teeth clicked together, and she peeled her lips apart into a cheery I’m not at all staring at your chest hair smile. “Gorgeous afternoon, isn’t it?”
“It is.” A flash of straight white teeth. The man was waiting like a cat about to pounce at the first sign of her weakness for him. “Looking for the kids?” he asked.
“Yes. I’m meeting them and Kezia at the park. Carter’s been playing on the beach with the girls.” She deliberately turned her head from Harley and the painted trunk of a kauri tree he’d been working on that afternoon, scanning the sand for playing kids.
How he ever made any progress with the constant interruptions from Carter and other curious locals, she didn’t know. What she did know? The mural would be absolutely stunning when it was finished. And when it was complete, Harley would be gone before the last painted leaf dried. Her pulse flickered unevenly. She looked forward to that day, of course.
“Kezia’s in the workshop, talking to Ford,” said Harley. “Kids are around back, up in the tree. It’s a wonder you didn’t hear them giggling.”
Nope. She hadn’t heard a thing. Too busy obsessing about the gallery—and how far she’d go to save it.
“Oh. How high up the tree?” The tree in question was an old macrocarpa and a favorite for the local kids to scale. Hairs lifted on her nape, either from the breeze skimming off the bay or the images of shattered bones and emergency rides in a helicopter flashing into her mind.
“High enough. What’s the point in climbing, otherwise?”
“There is no point in climbing trees.” Bree hot-footed it across the sidewalk to the workshop. “Climbing trees is dangerous.”
Drawing Me In: A New Zealand Secret Baby Second Chance Romance (Due South Series Book 7) Page 8
