“Start with why you’re still here instead of going back to your life in New York.” He raised his beer, pointing his index finger with a shovel no more horse shit at me stare.
That snuffed Harley’s flippant, “Maybe I like it here,” comeback. And maybe he was overdue for a little heart-to-heart kōrero with his dad.
“I’ve done some thinking since Pania’s tangi. Now that she’s gone, now that I’ve spent more than a couple of days with you and Mum and Ford, I think it’s time to return home.” He flicked the tab on his beer. After a long draw, he wiped his lips and said with a straight face, “And maybe I’ve missed choking on one of your bargain-basement beers every now and then.”
“While your taste in beer is still questionable, we’re glad you’re home. We’ve missed you.”
Harley nodded, fingers tightening on the aluminium can. Unlike Ford, who’d quickly slotted Rob and Denise firmly into the role of Mum and Dad, Harley always held a substantial chunk of himself apart. That chunk of self-protective distance enabled him to break away from his whānau…and from Bree. That first year in New York had been the hardest twelve months of his life. It wasn’t that he didn’t love his adoptive parents or his twin—and he refused to dwell on the scars left behind from cauterizing his relationship with Bree—because he did. But love couldn’t be trusted. Where there was love, there was also the potential for bruises and pain…both physical and emotional…and for anyone involved.
“Bree’s here, too,” he said.
His dad sipped beer and watched him with steady interest. The last few notes of the CD faded, and the stereo whirred while the discs switched. Then the distinctive reggae intro to Bob Marley’s “Is This Love” pounded out. Shitty coincidence—and, of course, Harley wasn’t the only one to pick up on the irony.
He blew out a breath, his stomach twitching in a mini-revolt that couldn’t solely be blamed on cheap beer. “And she’s pregnant.”
The smirk that’d appeared on Rob’s mouth smoothed out, and he lowered the can. “That right?” he asked softly. “How far along?”
Harley told him, and his dad nodded.
“What’s Ford’s take on it, then?”
Because as much as Harley and his twin gave each other shit, Ford would always be Harley’s first port of call in an oncoming storm.
“He told me I needed to man up and take responsibility for Bree and the baby—which I was already planning on doing.”
“Uh huh. Like Amy told me you’d offered to pay for Carter’s tuition in some fancy school and then university when he’s older.”
“Is there anything you can’t weasel out of people on first meeting them?”
“Nope,” said his dad, totally unrepentant. “Not when it involves one of my sons or a mokopuna.”
And the light that came into his father’s eyes at the Maori word for grandchild was a punch low in Harley’s gut. “Dad. I’m not ready for this.”
Rob slapped a hand on his thigh with a snort. “No man’s ever ready to become a father, you git.”
Harley set his jaw, the muscles of his shoulders bunching into tight knots. He’d never actually had a conversation with his parents about the likelihood of them ever gaining a mokopuna from his branch of the family tree, but they’d sure heard him make many “ball and chain” type jokes at the expense of married friends over the years. He’d figured they’d put two and two together. “I mean, I didn’t—don’t—want to be a father. I never intended to have kids.”
His dad just gave him a droll look. “Then you shoulda kept your pecker in your pants. Only way to be a hundred percent sure.” Then, before Harley could earn an ear clip for back-talking an elder, Rob continued, his voice dropping into a you listen to me son tone. “You think I don’t know where you’re coming from and where you been, boy? You think you’re the only one whose father walked out when he was a kid?”
Harley frowned. “Grandpa George died in Vietnam.”
“So he did. But he left my mother months before he was deployed—left her with two boys and a baby girl to raise on her own. I was the eldest, only six at the time, and the only one of my siblings to suspect something was wrong. Mum wouldn’t talk about it later, see? She was gutted he’d abandoned us all, and after he was killed in combat, it soothed her ego some to be the grieving widow rather than the dumped wife.”
“You never said anything.”
“Does it help you to know we both had deadbeat dads?”
“Guess you turned out all right,” Harley said with a grudging smile.
His dad pulled a face. “I was old enough to understand why Mum cried all the time, to see my little brother sobbing at night because he didn’t understand why Daddy had to go away. I hated my father for a long time.” He glanced down at the can in his hands and twisted it around in his grease-smeared fingers. “Wasn’t all that keen on being a dad, myself, and a little part of me was secretly relieved when Denise found out she couldn’t have children. Then you and Ford came along.”
“Double trouble.”
A chuckle from his dad and Rob lifted his gaze to Harley. “I was terrified when we brought you back here. Two unhappy five-year-olds with a shit load of baggage, thanks to my sister.” His mouth thinned for a moment with the memory. “I had no bloody clue how to deal with the fallout. No bloody clue how to be a father, let alone your dad. But I learned.” He leaned forward, bracing his forearms on his knees. “And I never once regretted it.”
“You’re saying I can learn to be a dad?”
“I’m saying you’re already a father—both to young Carter and to the baby you and Bree made. Your mum and I raised you right, so I know you’ll take care of this child. But as to whether you plan on the steeper learning curve of being a dad, of marrying Bree and giving your name to this baby, that’s up to you.”
Harley jerked, sloshing beer on his shirt. Panic, like a sour dose of bile, rose in his throat. He swore and looked up to see his dad with a small smile on his lips.
“The M-word still makes you squeamish, ay? And so it will, until one day it all makes sense—with the right woman, that is.”
“Nothing makes sense right now.” Harley drained the can just so this conversation would come to an end and strode over to the workshop’s trash can. “And I won’t compound my problems by making any more rash decisions.”
His dad shrugged. “That’s okay. You’ve got another seven months, give or take, to figure out what’s really important.”
Harley threw the can into the trash with a little more force than he’d intended. “I know what’s important—my work, my whānau, my freedom. In that order.”
“None of which matter without aroha.”
Love? Now he knew where his twin had gotten the whole L.O.V.E indoctrination from. “I’ll take that under advisement.”
His dad rose and nudged the stool aside with his work boot. “You do that. Meanwhile, I’ve got a job to do, and apparently, so do you.” He picked up the spanner he’d left on the ute’s radiator. “Go tell your mum about your new son or daughter. She should hear it from you.”
“Yeah.”
“And Harley?” his dad called out as Harley walked out under the wild spread of stars piercing the night sky. “Kia kaha e taku tama.”
Be strong, my son.
The familiar constricting bands of tightness returned to Harley’s chest, as they did every time his mind drifted toward the subject of fatherhood and the baby growing in Bree’s belly. And as it did almost every time, two questions flashed like forked lightning from those storm clouds.
Was he strong enough to walk away from Bree and this baby?
Or was he strong enough, foolhardy enough to risk staying and fucking everything up?
Chapter 16
If Bree thought facing up to a classroom of strangers when she’d come to Oban at age nine was scary, it was nothing compared to fronting up to a girls’ breakfast five days after the mud-wrestling incident.
Worse—it was no longer a girls
’ breakfast, because Harley was cozied up between Kezia and Shaye at their usual table at the Great Flat White Café.
Erin—who waited tables, worked the cash register, and made a mean latte if Simon the barrista was snowed under—spotted Bree slinking inside fifteen minutes late. Erin pointed at the counter then flicked her thumb at their table. Bree gave her food and caffeine order then mentally hoisted up her big-girl panties and strolled over to the table.
“Sorry I’m late.” Bree slid into a chair between Holly and Kip-the-hottie-barman’s fiancée, Carly. She directed a slitted glance to the opposite side of the table. “Getting in touch with your feminine side, Harley?”
Not at all perturbed, he stretched out his arms and laid them along the backs of Shaye’s and Kezia’s chairs. And damn if Bree’s gaze didn’t track the ripple of his biceps as he moved. As if there was anything feminine about a man dressed in a grey marl Henley that clung to his broad chest, and who had at least two days of scruff darkening his jaw. Scruff that prickled deliciously against her breasts and stirred up a flood of anticipatory tingles as they’d scraped along her inner thighs.
A crescent of a smile appeared on Harley’s mouth. “I do like to touch the feminine side now and again.”
“Come to the dark side, instead.” Carly raised her cappuccino in a toast. “We have pie. Bacon and egg pie.”
“Freshly made this morning. Everyone loves our B&E.” From the head of the table, where she could dive out to assist if necessary, Erin smirked at Shaye. The competition between the two women, who were good friends but culinary rivals just the same, had been going on since primary school. Erin’s Oban-famous muffins had landed a first-place certificate in the Easter gala bake-off, and the youngest Harland sister had never forgotten—or forgiven—it.
“Harley’s an honorary girl this morning.” Shaye pointedly ignored Erin’s comment. “My perfect niece was a bit unsettled last night, so when he wandered in looking like a zombie, I offered to buy him breakfast.”
“He ordered the B&E. Just saying.” Erin held up her palms and grinned when Shaye flicked a death by slow roast stare in her direction.
“Piper’s not coming?” Bree switched topics before Erin and Shaye got into a battle-of-the-recipes tournament that often took over the whole conversation.
Shaye shook her head. “Nope. Because someone made her and West a cooked breakfast in bed this morning.”
Harley gave a broad-shouldered shrug and picked up his coffee cup. “Unlike the Westlakes, I can use ear plugs when Michaela wants her breakfast at three a.m.”
“Aw, look at my soon-to-be brother-in-law being adorable to Mickey’s sleep-deprived mummy and daddy,” crowed Holly.
Then the other women were off and running with a breakdown of Michaela’s eating, sleeping, and pooping habits, according to the Gospel of Shaye, who got bragging rights as the baby’s number-one auntie.
The whole time the women were talking, right up until Simon started delivering their meals—and thankfully, Bree’s first coffee of the day—Harley watched her pretending not to watch him. Bree carefully stirred in a packet of sugar and told herself that her regular order of Eggs Montreal wasn’t making her feel queasy. Distracted by Harley’s appearance at breakfast, where she’d planned to tell her friends about the baby, she hadn’t considered the effect of salmon on her delicate stomach.
“Gesù, you’re making me so clucky.” Kezia ate the last mouthful of her French toast. “Zoe and Jade are already begging for a baby brother or sister.”
Harley looked up from his plate and cut Bree a single meaningful glance. One that encompassed her played-with-but-barely-eaten Eggs Montreal and the rest of her friends, who were most of the way through their meals.
“Why are you here?” she mouthed across the table.
“Back up,” he mouthed back.
Her throat thickened. Even if she’d wanted to swallow another mouthful of the Hollandaise-drenched eggs, she couldn’t have. Harley was here as her back up? As if they were an ordinary couple about to share some good news with their friends?
Because they weren’t. They were nowhere near a couple, ordinary or otherwise. So how, exactly, was she supposed to explain to her friends that she was carrying the baby of a man who apparently didn’t want to spend any more time in his kid’s life than the few minutes it’d take to set up an automatic monthly payment into Bree’s bank account?
“Something wrong with your breakfast?” Erin’s brow puckered at Bree’s plate.
“My bacon was a little under-done,” said Shaye before Bree could answer. “Just saying.”
Kezia, who, with two nine-year-old daughters, would know all the tricks to conceal a disliked food group, laid down her knife and fork. “Cara, are you unwell? You’re very pale.”
“It’s the salmon. I’m sorry, I’m sure it’s delicious but”—Bree pushed the plate away—“I can’t tolerate the smell of fish or seafood at the moment.”
“At the moment?” The note of suspicion in Erin’s voice triggered the rest of the table’s attention.
Bree’s peripheral vision caught Carly’s napkin freezing mid-air. The redhead lowered it to her plate and shifted on her seat—out of vomit range if the nervously bared teeth were any indication.
“I swear I got food poisoning from a hot dog at the Bluff Oyster festival this year,” she said. “Should’ve stuck to the seafood. Lesson learned after I hurled for twelve hours straight—lucky my sweetie was there to hold my hair off my face.”
Harley leaned back in his chair, folding his arms across his chest. Bree could’ve read the mood of a sketched stick-man easier than the neutral line of his mouth and hooded gaze that skipped from woman to woman as they offered sympathetic vomiting stories. He was her back up, he’d said. But he wasn’t about to blurt out the truth to her friends.
“It’s not food poisoning,” Bree said quietly.
Something on her face or Harley’s, probably the bunching of his jaw, must’ve given them away.
Kezia leaned forward, her dark curls spilling over her shoulder. “Morning sickness?” she whispered.
“Yes.”
Carly gave a low whistle, and Shaye’s jaw sagged mid-chew. Erin spluttered into her chai tea, while Kezia continued to give Bree a long, evaluating glance—which, after a few beats, switched to an intense study of Harley’s profile. While Kezia never kept her soft-spot for Ford hidden, she hadn’t been in Oban long enough to get to know Harley on his few visits home. And since Kezia had made it clear that every woman in their group of friends was her sorella, she went on the offensive as only a big sister would.
“You did this?” she demanded. “This is your bambino?”
Harley’s big body didn’t shift out of its relaxed sprawl. Neither did he remove his fierce gaze from Bree’s face. “Yeah,” he said. “It’s my baby.”
The image slammed into Bree with the force of a freight train. Harley cradling an infant, stroking a fingertip from the babe’s fuzz-covered head to its tiny nose. “Tāku pēpi,” he whispered, and his mouth curved in a wondrous smile. My baby.
Heat crawled up her throat, scalding her cheekbones. Daydreams weren’t free. Daydreams were the salt poured onto the wounds of reality.
Bree straightened in her chair. “Kezia. We’re both responsible for this baby, same as we’re both responsible for Carter.”
“Dude,” said Erin, who, like Shaye, had known Harley as long as any one of their friends and therefore wasn’t shy about voicing the first thought that popped into her brain. “You really should make sure little Harley wears a raincoat.”
“Dude,” Harley mimicked. “I’m not an idiot. We used protection but accid—” He snipped off the last word, shooting Bree a wary glance, as if waiting for her to lunge down his throat for calling Carter and this new baby accidents. “But most forms of contraceptive aren’t foolproof.”
Holly slid her hand into Bree’s lap and squeezed her numb fingers. Holly’s brown eyes crinkled with warmth as she capture
d Bree’s gaze.
“Congrats, sweets. Ford and I can’t wait to meet our new niece or nephew.” She tapped her chest. “Built in babysitter right here.”
“And me and Del,” Shaye said. “And Piper and West will be thrilled to have a little playmate coming along for Michaela.”
Carly raised a hand. “Ditto for me and Kip. Y’all met Kip’s nephews Logan and Lucas last Christmas, so you know my man’s got some mean kid-wrangling skills.”
Kezia wasn’t so easily mollified, continuing to give Harley the stink-eye—the Italian edition, one fuelled by the confidence of having four big brothers and a tank of a husband, all willing to break bones to protect her.
“We will all be here to help raise the baby,” Kezia said. “What I want to know, since Bree’s father isn’t here to speak for her, is, will you do the same?”
Bree’s heart thunked against her ribs. Suddenly, she didn’t want him to admit to her friends that he had no intention of being anything but a father in name only. That he wanted her—cared for her, even—but didn’t love her. Didn’t need her in his life as a permanent fixture.
“I appreciate your concern, Kez,” Bree said. “But the two of us will figure it out.”
What was there really to figure out? Bank account details so Harley could pay the government-required child-support allowance? The thought of taking his money, of being one more bill payment name on his monthly bank statement, made her want to scream.
“But I truly appreciate the offers of support.” She encompassed everyone in her glance. Everyone except Harley.
More nauseating than the continued smell of seafood was the sympathy and worry in her friends’ eyes. It hadn’t escaped anyone’s notice that Harley hadn’t answered Kezia’s direct question.
Bree stood and gathered her handbag. “I’m going to head home for some dry toast. No, no”—she held up a palm to Erin, who turned toward the kitchen as if she were about to order up some for Bree—“and then I’ve got work to catch up on. You all finish enjoying your breakfast.”
Drawing Me In: A New Zealand Secret Baby Second Chance Romance (Due South Series Book 7) Page 23
