Harlequin Superromance December 2013 - Bundle 1 of 2: Caught Up in YouThe Ranch She Left BehindA Valley Ridge Christmas

by Beth Andrews

  “They my boyfriends, too.”

  Harper winked at Max. “She’s fickle. Pretty much every boy under the age of twenty is her boyfriend.” She added air quotes around the last word.

  “Oh. I get it.” He sent Harper a small smile at their shared secret. “I’ll be your boyfriend,” he said to Cass.

  She looked at him as if she never doubted he’d come around. And how she got chocolate on her eyebrow, Harper had no idea.

  But at least she’d picked a winner for her latest conquest. Max was such a sweet kid, always the first to offer comfort when one of his classmates got hurt—physically or emotionally. He didn’t say much. There were days she didn’t think he said anything at all, but he’d sit next to an injured child just to...be there. Though he had his troubles focusing, she’d noticed he was very quick to pick things up, read situations and people clearly.

  Like father like son.

  “Me and Mommy made cookies,” Cass told him. She drank some milk, slammed the cup down like a cowboy at a saloon. “I stirred them. I the best stirrer.”

  “You are tops when it comes to stirring,” Harper said.

  Cass climbed down and ran around to the other side of Max’s chair. “Let’s play. I be the mommy and you the daddy.”

  Max was only halfway finished with his second cookie. “Why don’t you get out some of your puzzles instead?” Harper suggested to Cass. “You and Max can put them together in here on the floor.”

  “Okay, but I still the mommy.”

  “More milk?” Harper asked Max after Cass ran out of the room.

  He shook his head and she stood to put it in the fridge.

  “I make cookies with my nonna.” His voice was soft, as if confessing a crime. “She lets me turn on the mixer. And crack the eggs.”

  “I bet she loves having you help her.” Though Mrs. Montesano must have a few tricks up her sleeve to keep Max engaged in an activity that wasn’t computer or video game related. Harper had found he lost focus if she didn’t repeat what she wanted him to do calmly and patiently, and checked on him often to make sure he was on task. “What kind of cookies do you make?”

  He shrugged. Guessed they were back to his father’s way of communicating—shrugs, nods and the occasional grunt. But then he lifted his head and met her eyes. “All kinds. But chocolate chip are my favorite.”

  “Mine, too.” She wished celery sticks were her favorite but you couldn’t have everything in life.

  He broke a piece of cookie off, mashed it into his paper napkin. “My mom doesn’t make cookies.”

  “No?” she asked, super casually. This was the first time Max had ever mentioned his mother to her. She needed to be careful. “Well, not all moms like to bake cookies. But some dads do.”

  “My dad never makes cookies. He builds stuff.” Max finished his drink then lowered his glass to reveal a thick milk mustache. “My mom’s too busy to make them. She works all the time.”

  She knew from Max’s records that his mother lived in Chicago. He obviously didn’t have much to do with her. She wasn’t even listed as an emergency contact for him. Instead, Eddie had put down his parents and then his sister, Maddie.

  Harper retook her seat. “Do you miss her?”

  He shrugged. But his expression said he did miss her. Or at least, he missed having a mother in his life. “She called me the other night.”

  “So you get to talk to her on the phone a lot? What about video chatting? You know, like what we did when Hannah was sick?” Hannah had missed two weeks of school with a severe case of strep throat so her parents and Harper had set up a video chat between her and the class to cheer her up.

  “We used to,” Max said. “But Mom stopped.” He broke his cookie in half. Then in half again. “Dad told me you said I hafta stay after school every day,” he blurted.

  She heard the front door open followed by Cass’s voice, Eddie’s low response. “Didn’t your dad explain why I want you to stay after?”

  He shook his head. “Is it ’cause I was bad the other day? I’ll be good. I promise.”

  Eddie, you numbskull. What did you tell this boy?

  “I appreciate your apology but you’re not in trouble.”

  “I’m not?”

  “No. The reason I want you to stay after school is so I can give you extra help with your schoolwork.”

  He swung his leg, his foot brushing against the floor. Swish...swish...swish... “Oh.”

  “It’ll be fun,” she said.

  His look said, you have got to be kidding.

  She laughed. Reached over and squeezed his forearm. “Really. I promise I’ll do my best to make it as painless as possible.”

  “You ready to go, Max?” Eddie asked from the doorway.

  Just having him in the same room after what he’d said, what she’d imagined, was enough to give her heart palpitations. She wanted him gone so she could give her brain a mental scrubbing, rid her thoughts of him.

  But he couldn’t leave. Not quite yet.

  “Max,” she said, getting to her feet, “why don’t you go in the living room with Cass while I pack up some cookies for you to take home?”

  “Okay.”

  At the same time Eddie spoke. “We don’t need any cookies.”

  “That’s crazy,” Harper said as Max ran off. “A seven-year-old boy definitely needs cookies. Besides, I was hoping you and I could have a little chat.”

  He raised his eyebrows until they disappeared under the brim of his ball cap. “Another one?”

  Her mouth dried remembering their last talk. Staring at his throat—the only place she seemed capable of looking at without blushing—she nodded. “How about a beer to help you get through it? I won’t add it onto the mental list of ways you owe me.”

  He glanced longingly at the doorway then gave a resigned sigh. “I’m driving. But I’ll take a soda if you have one.”

  She grabbed a can from the fridge, handed it to him, careful not to let their fingers touch. “Look, I hope you don’t think I’m sticking my nose in where it doesn’t belong, but does Max get to see his mother often?”

  He paused in the act of taking a drink, his body stiff, his shoulders rigid. “No.”

  “Because,” she continued, though she was obviously treading on dangerous ground here, “we were talking about her and—”

  “You asked about his mom?” he asked, all flinty-eyed and suspicious.

  “That’s the thing.” She got a plate from the cupboard, began setting cookies on it. “Usually with Max I have to drag the words out of him to make sure his vocal cords are still working, but today he offered the information himself.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He said his mom didn’t make cookies. That she was too busy working.”

  “Lena’s a fashion buyer for a major department store in Chicago. She works a lot of overtime and travels often.”

  “He also said he spoke with her the other day.”

  “She called.” Eddie stared at the soda can, rubbed his thumb up and down the side, wiping off the condensation. “She wants to see him next weekend.”

  “He didn’t mention that.”

  “He doesn’t know.”

  “How can he not know?”

  “I didn’t tell him.”

  She wished she could coldcock him over his stubborn head. “Like you didn’t tell him you were the one who asked me to help him with his schoolwork? Or that the reason he needed to stay after school was for tutoring? He thought he was in trouble.”

  “I never said it was punishment.”

  “You never say much.” She set the plate down with a sharp crack. A cookie slid off. “Have you ever considered that’s part of the problem?”

  His eyes narrowed. “Lena’s been...und
er the weather. I don’t want Max to get his hopes up only to have him disappointed if she has to cancel.”

  Okay, so maybe he didn’t deserve a bump on the head. He was looking out for his son, trying to do what was best. Wasn’t that what all good parents did? The best they could?

  “What are you going to do if she does show up?”

  “I hadn’t thought it through that far.”

  Harper covered the cookies with plastic wrap. “It might not be any of my business, but I think it would do Max a lot of good if you talked to him about his mother.”

  “You’re right.” He took a drink. Set the can on the table. “It’s none of your business.”

  “All I’m saying is you might want to have a conversation with your son, a real conversation that includes actual words, about how he feels about his mother. He seemed very...conflicted.”

  Conflicted. Confused. Hurt. He needed someone to talk to.

  To talk to him.

  “His mother,” Eddie said, still in that low, soft voice, “left him when he was two years old because taking care of him interfered with her career. How do you think he feels?”

  Harper’s heart ached for Max. And maybe just a little bit for the hard-eyed man in front of her. “I don’t know. There’s no right or wrong way for him to feel and he needs to know that. And I think it’d do Max some good to express his feelings.”

  “Max is fine. I’ll take care of it.”

  “That’s your answer for everything, isn’t it? You’ll take care of it. You’ll fix it. You don’t want any help.”

  “I don’t need any.”

  “Must be nice. But the rest of us mortals get by with a little help from our friends.” She handed him the plate, held on when he reluctantly took it. “Oh, wait. You don’t have friends. You’re one of those lone wolf types.”

  For a moment, he looked as if he would argue, but then he tugged on the plate, pulling her a step closer. Her heart picked up speed, her eyes widened. A mix of fear, horror, excitement and, yes, attraction kept her immobile.

  With a sharp, and definitely wolflike, grin, Eddie leaned down. And howled.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  HARPER STARED AT him for a moment as if he was crazy but then, as Eddie had hoped, she smiled. Kept smiling. Better yet, she hadn’t stepped back, not like when they’d been on the porch. She hadn’t run away.

  Thank God. He’d been afraid he’d made a complete idiot of himself, baying that way. At least he’d done it softly so the kids couldn’t hear him.

  Still, he couldn’t help himself. She thought he was an island among men, a recluse who shunned all human interaction or some such bullshit, when in truth, he relied on others all the time. His family, mostly. He wasn’t sure how he would have managed after Lena left without his parents pitching in, his mother watching Max while Eddie worked, his brothers stopping by on the weekends for a beer or to watch a baseball game, Maddie having him over for dinner.

  He’d just meant that when it came to the situation between Max and Lena, he had things under control.

  Mostly.

  “I’m not sure whether to laugh because you’re joking,” Harper said, “or cry tears of joy to discover you have a sense of humor.”

  Wincing, he was the one who stepped back. Was that really how she saw him? What she thought of him?

  “Being quiet isn’t equal to being a humorless asshole.” He hoped.

  She went white. “No. I didn’t mean it like that.”

  He turned, ready to get his kid and get the hell out of there but she stopped him with a hand to his arm. “Eddie, I’m sorry. Really sorry. That’s the problem with being chatty. When your mouth’s open so much of the time, you’re bound to put your foot in it more often than not.”

  She sounded so sincere, so apologetic, he faced her. “Makes sense,” he said. And that was a big reason why he preferred keeping his mouth shut.

  He’d never acquired the taste for his own feet.

  Yet, thanks to his ego, he might have wedged his size tens in there nice and tight earlier. He’d told her exactly what was on his mind, hadn’t held back. He hoped that wasn’t a mistake.

  “You going to hold it against me?” he asked. “What I said on the porch.”

  She swiped up the kids’ cups, carried them to the sink, kept her back to him as she answered. “Of course not. I’m flattered.”

  She didn’t sound flattered. Didn’t act it either. She acted freaked out. Panicked. “Flattered?”

  Now she faced him, as serene as a nun at mass. But she linked her hands at her waist, which he’d noticed she did when she was nervous. “That you had a crush on me in high school.”

  “I didn’t have a crush on you.”

  She dropped her hands. “But you said you watched me at the games, that you used to...that you dreamt...”

  “You were a pretty girl in a short skirt, of course I watched you. You and the other cheerleaders. Plus a number of the girls from the softball team.” He scratched his chin. “And that chemistry teacher, the brunette with the big—”

  “Mrs. Wilton?” she asked, incredulous. “She was married. And at least thirty.”

  “Ancient.”

  As if realizing they were both past that age now, Harper snapped to attention, grabbed the dishcloth from the sink and started scrubbing the counter. “Well, I guess that clears that up.”

  Now she was mad he hadn’t been jonesing for her all those years ago? It was like he was walking on a tightrope. One wrong move—or in this case, one wrong word—and he was taking a header onto the concrete.

  Story of his life.

  What the hell? He’d already come this far today, sharing a few of his innermost thoughts, he might as well go for broke.

  “I didn’t think of you that way in high school—”

  “Yes,” she said, her voice tight and, if he wasn’t mistaken, offended. “You’ve made that perfectly clear.”

  “That may have been a mistake. Thanks for the cookies,” he added quickly, walking out before she could respond.

  He collected Max, having to sneak him out of the house when Cassidy’s back was turned. When they reached the sidewalk, they could still hear her screaming their names as if her little heart was breaking. It took all Eddie could do not to rush inside, see if he could calm her down. But Cass wasn’t his responsibility. He had no right thinking she needed comfort from him, not when she had Harper. Not when she wasn’t his daughter.

  They climbed into the truck and drove off, Max wasting no time before pulling out his video game, losing himself in the electronic world of pissed-off birds and Pokémon. Which suited Eddie fine. Silence was good for the soul. He didn’t understand most people’s desire to fill it constantly with music or the noise of a television. With endless, pointless conversation.

  You never say much. Have you ever considered that’s part of the problem?

  At the corner stop sign, he hit the brakes too hard and had to fling his arm out to stop Max’s forward momentum.

  “Sorry,” he muttered when his son looked at him questioningly. He drove on. “Squirrel in the road.”

  Max went back to his game.

  Eddie tapped his fingers on the steering wheel. Maybe Harper had been right about Max needing to talk about his mother. But it wasn’t easy. Eddie had never been big with words, always felt as if someone was judging them. Finding them, and him, lacking.

  But for his son, he’d try.

  “Harp...I mean...Mrs. Kavanagh said you told her your mom called the other day.” He glanced over but his kid kept right on playing. “Max.” They drove another block. “Max.”

  Finally, his son looked up, frowning with massive impatience as if he’d been interrupted during brain surgery. His own. “Huh?”

  “Why’d you te
ll Mrs. Kavanagh your mom called?”

  With a shrug that was more a twitch of his shoulders, Max slid down in the seat until his chin touched his chest.

  Shit. That hadn’t come out right. “It’s okay that you did. Do you...uh...did you have a nice talk with her?”

  “With Mrs. Kavanagh?”

  “No, with your mom.”

  Another shrug.

  “She’s going to be in town next weekend,” Eddie said. “She wants to see you.”

  Max looked at him, his eyes huge. “She does?”

  “Yeah.” He cleared his throat and hoped like hell he was doing the right thing. “Do you...do you want to see her?”

  Do you think about her? Do you miss her? Do you wish you were with her instead of here with me?

  “She didn’t come the last time,” Max said.

  “She was sick,” Eddie reminded him. But he hated how disappointed Max had been when Lena had called to say she couldn’t make it after all.

  Hated himself for being so relieved.

  “Maybe she won’t come this time either.”

  Eddie inhaled deeply. “I think she will. She sounded like she really wants to see you.”

  “She said she misses me,” Max whispered. “What will we do if she comes?”

  “She’ll probably want to take you out to eat, then you could do something fun like go to the movies.”

  Max rubbed the side of his nose, a sure sign he was doing some deep thinking. “Okay. Dad?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Can I sit next to you?”

  “Sure, bud.”

  Max undid his seat belt and slid over, buckled up again then snuggled against Eddie’s side. Eddie slid his arm around his son’s shoulders and held on tight.

  Prayed he’d never have to let him go.

  * * *

  THE KNOCK—THREE QUICK RAPS—late Friday afternoon, floated through the foyer, echoed in the living room where Eddie folded towels. They filled the air, had Max stopping midtwirl in some faux karate move, stilling his flying fists of fury. They tapped on Eddie’s brain like a hammer.

  Lena was there.

  “She’s here,” Max said in an awed undertone. He looked at Eddie, his eyes wide, his lips curving in the smile Eddie would never get tired of seeing. “She’s here, Dad.”