by Nora Roberts
“Things aren’t the way they were. You already changed that.”
“Harper, a couple of smoochies between friends isn’t such a big.” She patted his hand, started to get up, but he clamped his fingers around her wrist.
“It was more than that.”
His temper was winning, she could see it. And from the few times she’d watched it fly, she knew it was formidable. Better he was mad, she thought quickly. Better for him that he was mad or disgusted or even hurt for the short term.
“Harper, I know you’re probably not used to having a woman put on the brakes, but I’m not going to sit here and argue about whether I’m going to have sex with you.”
“It’s more than that.”
More. And that single word had her heart trembling. “It isn’t. And I don’t want it to be.”
“What’s this, some kind of game? You came to me, you moved on me. And now it’s that was nice, but I’m not interested?”
“That’s the nutshell. I’ve got to get back to work.”
His voice stayed calm and cool; a dangerous sign. “I know what you felt when I had my hands on you.”
“Well, for God’s sake, Harper, of course I felt something. I haven’t had any action in months.”
His fingers tightened, then released. Let her go. “So, you were just cruising for a fuck buddy.”
It wasn’t her heart that bumped this time, but her belly. “I did something on impulse I realized I shouldn’t have done. You want to make it crude, go ahead.”
Her vision wavered, so she seemed to be looking at him through a rippling wave of heat. The anger inside her spiked up, so acute it all but scored her throat. “Men always take it down to fucking, lying and cheating and buying their way to it. And once they have, the woman’s no more than a whore to be used again or tossed away. It’s men who are the whores, plotting and planning their way to the next rut.”
Her eyes had changed. He couldn’t say how, but he knew he wasn’t looking at her through them. The heat of his temper froze in fear. “Hayley—”
“Is this what you want, Master Harper?” With a sly smile, she cupped her breasts, caressed them. “And this?” She slid a hand between her legs. “What will you pay?”
He took her shoulders, gave her a quick shake. “Hayley. Stop it.”
“Do you want me to play the lady? I’m so good at it. Good enough to be used to breed.”
“No.” He needed to stay calm, though he could feel his own fingers tremble. “I want you exactly the way you are. Hayley.” He gripped her chin, kept his eyes focused on hers. “I’m talking to you. We’ve got things to do around here, then you’ve got to go get Lily. You don’t want to be late picking up Lily.”
“What? Hey.” Frowning, she pushed at his hand. “I said I didn’t . . .”
“What did you say?” He moved his hands back to her shoulders, rubbed them gently up and down. “Tell me what you just said to me.”
“I said . . . I said I did something on impulse. I said—Oh God.” The color drained out of her face. “I didn’t. I didn’t mean—”
“Do you remember?”
“I don’t know. I don’t feel right.” She pressed a clammy hand to her belly as nausea rolled. “I feel a little sick.”
“Okay. I’m going to get you home.”
“I didn’t mean those things, Harper. I was upset.” Her knees wobbled when he helped her to her feet. “I say stupid things when I’m upset, but I didn’t mean them. I don’t know where that came from.”
“That’s all right.” His tone was grim as he took her weight to walk her around the front. “I do.”
“I don’t understand.” She wanted to lie on the grass again, lie in the shade until her head stopped spinning.
“We’ll get you home first, then we’ll talk about it.”
“I have to tell Stella—”
“I’ll tell her. I didn’t bring my car. Where are your keys?”
“Um. In my purse, behind the counter. Harper, I really feel . . . off.”
“In the car.” He opened the door, nudged her in. “I’ll get your purse.”
Stella was behind the counter when he hurried in. “Hayley’s purse. I’m taking her home.”
“Oh, Harper, is she sick? I’m so sorry. I—”
“It’s not that. I’ll explain later.” He snatched the purse out of Stella’s hand. “Tell Mama, tell her to come. Tell her I need her home.”
Though she protested she was feeling better, he all but carried her in the house, then jerked his chin at David. “Get her something. Tea.”
“What’s the matter with our girl?”
“Just get the tea, David. And Mitch. Get Mitch. Come on, lie down in here.”
“Harper, I’m not sick. Exactly. I just got overheated or something.” But it was hard to argue with a man who plopped you down on a sofa.
“It’s the ‘or something’ part that worries me. You’re still pale.” He ran his knuckles down her cheek.
“It could be because I’m completely embarrassed by what came out of my mouth. I shouldn’t have said those things, Harper, even if I was mad.”
“You weren’t that mad.” He looked around as Mitch came into the room.
“What’s going on?”
“We had . . . a thing.”
“Hey, baby, what’s the matter?” Mitch walked to the sofa, crouched down.
“Just the heat.” The sick weakness was passing, and let her work up an embarrassed smile. “Made me a little crazy.”
“It wasn’t the heat,” Harper corrected. “And you’re not the one who’s crazy. Mama’s on her way. We’re going to wait for her.”
“You didn’t drag Roz away from work over this? Just how bad do you want me to feel?”
“Quiet down,” Harper ordered.
“Look, I don’t blame you for being mad at me, but I’m not going to lie here and—”
“Yes, you are. Lily doesn’t have to be fetched for a couple hours. One of us will go get her.”
Since her only response was a dropped jaw, he turned as David brought a tea tray into the room. “You can get Lily from the sitter’s, can’t you?”
“No problem.”
“Since she’s my daughter, I’m the one who picks her up, or delegates,” Hayley snapped.
“Color’s coming back,” Harper observed. “Drink your tea.”
“I don’t want any damn tea.”
“There now, sugar, it’s nice green tea.” David soothed as he set the tray down and poured. “Be a good girl now.”
“I wish y’all would stop fussing and making me feel like an idiot.” She sulked, but took the cup. “But since you ask, David, I will.” She continued to sulk as she sipped, then cursed under her breath when she heard Roz come through the front door.
“What’s the matter? What happened?”
“Harper’s on some sort of rampage,” Hayley said.
“Harper, you rampaging again?” Roz rubbed her hand over his arm as she brushed by him to study Hayley. “When are you going to grow out of these things?”
“Roz, I’m sorry for all this trouble,” Hayley began. “I got a little overheated and wonky, is all. I’ll put in extra time tomorrow to make up for today.”
“Oh good, then I won’t have to fire you. Now somebody tell me what the hell’s going on.”
“First, she was working herself up to a good case of heat exhaustion,” Harper told her.
“I overdid just a little, which isn’t the same as—”
“Didn’t I tell you to quiet down once already?”
She set the cup down with a snap of china on china. “I don’t know where you get off taking that tone with me.”
The glance he sent her was as mild, and as formidable, as his tone. “Since it’s not working, I’ll just tell you to shut the hell up. I got her into the shade, got some water in her,” he continued. “We talked a couple minutes, then we had an argument. In the middle of it, it wasn’t her talking anymore. It was Am
elia.”
“No. Just because I said things I shouldn’t have—”
“Hayley, it wasn’t you saying them. She sounded different,” he told Mitch. “Different tonal quality, you could say. And the accent was pure Memphis. Not a trace of Arkansas in it. And her eyes, I don’t know how to explain it exactly. They were older. Colder.”
Everything inside Hayley sank and shivered. “It’s not possible.”
“You know it is. You know it happened.”
“All right.” Roz sat beside Hayley. “What did happen, Hayley, from your point of view?”
“I wasn’t feeling quite right—the heat. Then Harper and I got into an argument. He just pushed my buttons, that’s all, and I slapped back. I said things. I said . . .”
Her hand shook, groped for Roz’s. “Oh God, oh God. I felt—away, detached. I don’t know how to say it. And at the same time, I was filled with all this rage. I didn’t know what I was saying. It was like I stopped saying anything. Then he was saying my name, and I was irritated. For a minute I couldn’t remember. My—my brain felt a little dull, like it does when you first wake up from a nap. And I felt a little queasy.”
“Hayley.” Mitch spoke gently. “Has this happened before?”
“No. I don’t know. Maybe.” She closed her eyes a moment. “I’ve been having these thoughts, these moods, that don’t seem like me. A lot of bitchiness, but it just seemed like I was feeling bitchy, that’s all. God, what am I going to do?”
“Stay calm,” Harper advised. “And we’ll figure it out.”
“Easy for you to say,” she shot back. “You’re not possessed by a psychopathic ghost.”
seven
“A LITTLE LIKE old times,” Stella commented as she settled down in the upstairs sitting room with Roz and Hayley. And a bottle of cool white wine.
“I should be getting Lily her supper.”
Roz poured the wine, then chose one of the sugared green grapes from the platter David had put together. “Hayley, you not only know she’ll be fed, but that she’ll handle all those men just fine.”
“And it’s good practice for Logan. We’re thinking maybe we’ll try to have a baby.”
“Really?” For the first time in hours Hayley felt pure pleasure. “I think that’s great. You’ll make a beautiful baby, and Gavin and Luke would just love having another brother or a sister.”
“Still in the talking stage, but we’re leaning toward the acting on it stage.”
“Feeling better?” Roz asked Hayley.
“Yeah. A lot. Sorry I cracked on you.”
“I think we can make allowances. And give you some leeway. You didn’t want to talk about what Mitch called the trigger—what you and Harper were arguing about. You needed your panic time and your weepy time, and you’ve had them.”
“And then some. Nothing clears men out of the room faster than female hysterics.”
“Which, I believe, was something you wanted anyway.” Roz raised her brows and popped another grape. “You didn’t want to discuss this with Mitch. Not what you argued about, or what you said to Harper—or rather what Amelia said.”
Rather than meet Roz’s eyes, Hayley kept hers fixed on the platter as if the cure for cancer was coded in among the glossy grapes and strawberry flowers. “I don’t see what’s important about what was said. The important thing is it happened. I think we should all—”
“That’s enough nonsense.” Roz’s voice was mild as May. “Everything’s important, every detail. I haven’t pushed Harper on this, but I will. I’d prefer to hear it from you and it’s been each one of us most intimately involved with this thing. So suck up your pride or whatever it is, Hayley, and spill it.”
“I’m sorry. I took advantage of you.”
“And how did you do that?”
Hayley took a bracing gulp of wine. “I hit on Harper.”
“And?”
“And?” That stumped her for a minute. “You took me into your home, me and Lily. You treat us like family. More than. You—”
“And don’t make me regret it by putting strings around it that I never tied on. Harper’s a grown man, and makes his own decisions about a number of things, including the women in his life. If you hit on him I have no doubt he knew how to block or hit back.”
As Hayley remained silent, Roz settled back with her wine, tucked her legs up, sipped. “And unless I don’t know or understand my son as well as I think, I’d bet on the latter.”
“It happened in the kitchen. I made it happen. Just kissing,” Hayley said quickly when she realized how it sounded. “I mean Lily was right there and it was the first time . . .”
“The kitchen,” Roz murmured.
“Yes, yes. You see?” She shuddered. “And that same night, she tore his kitchen apart. So I realized this wasn’t something that could happen just because I’ve got the . . . because I’m attracted to Harper. I told him that I wasn’t interested after all, and I probably hurt his feelings. But it’s better his feelings get hurt than something else happen.”
“Mmm-hmm.” Roz nodded as she watched Hayley over the rim of her glass. “I don’t imagine he took it well.”
“Not exactly, so I was like, what’s the big deal.” She set her glass down so she could gesture freely with both hands. “Then he said something deliberately crude, and it upset me. Because it wasn’t like that. It was just a kiss—well, two,” she corrected. “But it wasn’t like we stripped down naked and had monkey sex on the kitchen floor.”
“Difficult when Lily was there,” Roz commented.
“Yeah, but even so, I’m not like that, even though I got pregnant with Lily the way I did. And it might seem like I’m a big ho, but—”
“It doesn’t seem,” Stella cut in. “Not for a minute. We all know what it is to need someone. Whether for the moment, or for more. Personally, I don’t care to hear you talking about a friend of mine that way, or to intimate that I would.”
Roz smiled, stirred herself to lean forward and tap her glass to Stella’s. “Nice.”
“Thanks.”
“I forgot where I was,” Hayley said after a moment.
“You were arguing with Harper,” Stella said helpfully. “You big ho.”
It made her laugh, settled her down. “Right. We were arguing, then it happened, the way I said. I sort of faded back, and there were these things coming out of my mouth I didn’t put there. About how men are all liars and cheats, and just want to fuck you, and treat you like a whore. It was ugly, and it wasn’t true. Especially not about Harper.”
“The first thing you have to remember is it wasn’t you saying it,” Stella reminded her. “And the second is, it fits with what we know of her, and the pattern of her behavior. Men are the enemy, and sex is a trigger.”
“During the argument, before Amelia’s participation, Harper said something to make you feel cheap.”
Hayley picked up her glass again, looked at Roz. “He didn’t mean it the way I took it.”
“Don’t make excuses for my boy.” Roz angled her head. “If he was perfect, he wouldn’t be mine. The point is, you felt that way, and she moved in.”
“Roz, I want you to know, I’m not going to pursue this thing with Harper. This personal thing.”
“Is that so?” Roz raised her eyebrows. “What’s wrong with him?”
“Nothing.” Blinking, Hayley looked to Stella for support and got a smile and a shrug. “Nothing’s wrong with him.”
“So you’re attracted to him, nothing’s wrong with you, but you’ve dumped him before things really got started. Why is that?”
“Well, because he’s . . .”
“Mine?” Roz finished. “Then what’s wrong with me?”
“Nothing!” At her wit’s end, Hayley spread a hand over her face. “I can’t even believe how embarrassing this is.”
“I expect you and Harper to work this out, and to leave me entirely out of the equation. I will make one observation, as his mother. If he knew you were showing
him the door in order to protect him from possible future harm, he’d turn right back around and kick that door in. And I’d applaud the action.”
“You won’t tell him.”
“It’s not my place to tell him. It’s yours.” She pushed to her feet. “Now I’m going downstairs, and I’ll discuss this with Mitch over our dinner. Meanwhile, I think you have another hour coming—for sulking time. After that, I expect you to straighten up.”
Stella gestured with her glass as Roz walked out, then took a slow, satisfying sip. “She’s just frigging terrific, isn’t she?”
“You weren’t a lot of help,” Hayley complained.
“Actually, I was. I agreed with everything she said there at the end, but I didn’t mention it. Seems to me, keeping my mouth shut was helpful. Hey, you’re doing really well with this sulking hour,” she added. “And you’re only a couple minutes into it.”
“Maybe you should shut up again.”
“I love you, Hayley.”
“Oh, shit.”
“And I’m worried about you. We all are. So we’re going to figure this out. Go team and all that. In the meantime you’ve got to decide what’s best for you in regards to Harper. You can’t let Amelia drive the train.”
“It’s tough when she’s already highjacked it and put on the engineer’s hat. She was inside me, Stella. Somehow.”
Stella got up, moved to the couch to sit beside Hayley, to drape her arm over her friend’s shoulders.
“I am seriously freaked,” Hayley whispered.
“Me, too.”
SHE FELT LIKE she was tiptoeing on eggshells. Only the eggshells were sharp as razor blades. She questioned everything she did or thought or said.
It all seemed like her, she decided as she undressed for bed. She’d tasted the pasta salad, the garden-fresh tomatoes at dinner. It was her head that had throbbed with a tension headache, and her hands that had tucked Lily into the crib.
But just how long could she go on being so hyper-aware of every single action, every breath she took without going a little loopy herself?
There were things she could do, and she was going to start doing them the next day. The first order of business was to weigh down her credit card with the purchase of a laptop. The Internet was probably full of information on possession.
