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

by Beth Andrews

  He’d been rejected before, more than once, but not since he was a kid. He’d gotten better at reading the signals, of knowing whether or not a woman would welcome his kiss.

  Christ, he’d been wrong on all counts with Harper.

  It was humiliating. And disappointing.

  He lowered the bottle, tipped it toward his sister. “You ready or not?”

  “So charming. That must be why I agreed to spend my Friday night with you.”

  “You want charming, go to dinner with Leo.”

  “Please, Leo never buys.”

  True. Thirty years old and the man was still a mooch.

  She shut the laptop lid. “What’s the hurry?”

  “I’m hungry.”

  “So get a snack.”

  “Here?” Maddie was even worse than he was at keeping food in the house. “I told you I’d pick you up at six. It’s six.”

  And she still had on her work clothes—faded jeans and a T-shirt, her long, dark hair pulled back in a messy ponytail.

  “Hey, some of us worked a full day instead of taking off at two.”

  “You know I had to leave early to go to Max’s school.”

  “Yeah, I know. And you should know that when I finished work at four-thirty, I had to come home, get Bree, then take her across town to her friend Claire’s house where, on the way, my darling daughter informed me that this wasn’t just a sleepover. It was a slumber party.”

  “What’s the difference?”

  “In this case, the difference is that the slumber party is in celebration of Claire’s birthday.”

  He nodded. He’d been there. “You had to stop and get a gift.”

  “It took your niece half an hour just to pick out the card. When I got home, Neil called and wanted to video chat before his game.”

  Neil played for the Seattle Knights, the reigning Stanley Cup champions, though he was looking to get traded to a team closer to Maddie and their daughter.

  “How’d it go with Lena?” Maddie asked.

  “Fine,” he said into the bottle.

  “I’m still surprised you agreed to let her see him on relatively short notice. Usually you make her put in a request a month in advance.”

  He wasn’t as bad as all that. Was he? “She wanted to see him.”

  Maddie raised her eyebrows. “Wow. Did hell freeze over and I missed it on the news?”

  “She’s his mother.”

  “Yes, but that doesn’t usually matter to you.”

  “Did it matter to you when Neil wanted to see Bree before the two of you got back together?”

  She pursed her lips. “Sometimes,” she admitted. “This is good, right? Max needs his mother in his life.”

  Eddie gripped the bottle so hard, he was surprised he didn’t crush it. “He has me. He has Mom and Dad and Pops and you and his uncles and Bree.”

  Maddie patted his arm, reminding him of Harper doing the same thing not twenty minutes ago. “He does have all of us but sometimes, kids need more. That’s what I’ve learned since Neil came back. I thought I was enough for Bree, wanted to be all that she needed but it turned out, she needed her dad in her life. And funny enough, he needed her. Maybe even more so.”

  “Lena left.” He couldn’t help pointing out that fact, wanting to throw the bottle. He drank more instead. “She walked. Doesn’t that count for something?”

  “Weren’t you the one who said Neil had rights when he first came back?”

  “Fathers do have rights.”

  “Sorry, but you can’t have it both ways. You can’t say that Neil could come back simply because he has a di—”

  “Watch it.”

  “Divine right as a father.” She batted her eyelashes at him. She couldn’t pull sweet off, though. She was too strong. Too self-assured for anyone to believe she didn’t know exactly what she was doing or saying at any given moment.

  “Lena’s here, isn’t she? She’s with Max.”

  Even if part of the reason he’d given in was a secret hope that if he did, she’d return to Chicago satisfied with her time with Max and leave it at that.

  That she’d leave them alone.

  “You have a double standard,” Maddie said, “when it comes to father’s rights and Lena’s rights as a mother.”

  He bristled. “I just don’t want my kid to get hurt.”

  She rolled her eyes. “No one wants that, bonehead. But kids are resilient. And maybe Lena’s changed.”

  “Why? Because Neil did?”

  “I’m not sure he changed so much as finally figured out what’s really important. And luckily he realized that being in his daughter’s life was way more important than throwing money at her. But he had his reasons for acting the way he did. Maybe Lena does, too.”

  “Maybe.” Though he didn’t want to consider that possibility. He scratched his neck, frowned at the chocolate on his finger. He’d stopped at his place, changed into a clean shirt before coming here but he hadn’t checked his reflection in the mirror. “Are we getting something to eat or not?”

  “How could I refuse when you’re so charming and guaranteed to be such scintillating company?”

  “You want entertained? Go out with Pops.”

  “That’s all right. I’ve heard all of Pops’s stories anyway. Besides, you know how much I enjoy trying to decode your grunts and one-word responses. Let me change real quick and we’ll head out.” She grinned, fast and wicked. “I’m starving. And in the mood for steak. Really expensive steak.”

  Glowering at her back as she left, Eddie finished his beer. And prepared to pay through the nose for their dinner.

  CHAPTER TEN

  “I DIDN’T KNOW where else to go,” Harper blurted, still frazzled and overwrought an hour after her meltdown with Eddie.

  Sadie raised her eyebrows. “You have no idea how warm and fuzzy that makes me feel,” she said, stepping aside to let Harper and Cass in the log-style home she shared with James. “Especially since you blew off my dinner invitation.”

  “Glad I could make your night,” Harper said, hefting Cass higher onto her hip. Cass stared wide-eyed at Sadie. Well, she did make a statement in a bright lime-green sweater that fell off the shoulder to reveal the strap of a white tank top, and faded, ripped jeans. “Where’d you get those jeans? The 1984 store?”

  “The retro look is in,” her cousin informed her haughtily. “Is that why you’re here? To critique my outfit?”

  “Sorry, it’s just...I’m freaking out. Seriously freaking out.” She thought about Eddie’s kiss. And her horrible reaction. She started breathing faster. And faster. “Quick,” she wheezed, “get me a paper bag to breathe in.”

  “Hey, it’s okay.” Sadie shut the door and wrapped one arm around Harper’s shoulder, guiding them into the huge living room. “You don’t need a paper bag. You need a glass of wine.”

  “I haven’t even told you what happened. How do you know I need a glass of wine?”

  “Because all problems can be solved with a glass of wine. It’s a rule.”

  Sounded like a good one to Harper.

  “I got chicken,” Cass told Sadie, holding up the fast food bag containing her dinner. “And French fries.”

  “My favorites,” Sadie said. “You want to eat them now?”

  “No,” Cass said as Harper set her down. “I want Zoe and Prince.”

  “They’re out back playing. I’ll call them in.” Sadie took Cass’s dinner into the kitchen while Cass waited, her nose pressed against one of the floor-to-ceiling windows. A moment later, Sadie opened the kitchen door and whistled sharply.

  Cass puckered her lips. “Whoo wee!”

  Zoe, James’s German shepherd/Husky mix, ran onto the wide deck followed by Sadie’s new puppy, Pr
ince, a little black puffball with a white patch on its nose. Cass jumped up and down, clapping her hands.

  Zoe raced in, sniffed Cass’s feet while Sadie carried in Prince. Crouching by Cass, she held up the puppy. “Look. Cass came to play with you.”

  “Hi, Prince!” Cass cried, hugging him hard around the neck. The puppy, all too-big feet and floppy ears, wriggled—probably trying to save itself from being choked to death. “Hi! Did you miss me?”

  “Cassidy, be gentle,” Harper admonished, reaching down to loosen her daughter’s hold.

  “I want him,” Cass said, her face puckering into a frown. Which only made her look even more adorable.

  Harper could not win here.

  “She’s fine.” Sadie put the puppy into Cass’s outstretched arms then patted Zoe’s head when the older dog nudged her leg. “If she holds him too tightly or if he wants down, he’ll let her know.”

  Amazingly, Prince went limp once in Cass’s clutches.

  Probably some instinctive sense told him he’d be better off playing dead.

  Cass flopped onto the floor. Prince raised his head and licked her cheek. She gave a rolling belly laugh that made Harper smile.

  “He licked me.”

  “He’s kissing you.”

  And kissing brought her thoughts right back to Eddie. Her smile faded, her stomach cramped. Crap.

  “Sit down,” Sadie said. “I’ll get that wine.”

  Harper sat on the edge of the leather sofa only to jump to her feet again. She paced the length of the room, then, to change things up, the width. Zoe, lying on the rug, lifted her head then, giving a doggie version of a shrug, put it down and shut her eyes.

  James’s house had vaulted ceilings and an entire wall of floor-to-ceiling windows. She wasn’t sure she’d like to live with “all wood, all the time,” but for a log home, it was cozy and warm. Russet-colored pillows softened the brown of the couch, a sage-green rug added warmth to the room, as did the fire burning in the stone fireplace.

  “Here you go,” Sadie said, returning with two glasses of white wine.

  Harper debated. She was driving and she had the most precious thing in her life with her, but if she had only one glass and didn’t leave for a while, she’d be okay.

  Still, she allowed herself only a small sip.

  She resumed her perch on the sofa, maintained a ready position in case Cassidy decided to test Harper’s theory about fire being hot.

  “All right,” Sadie said, dropping next to Harper with the grace of a prima ballerina. “What happened?”

  “Eddie Montesano kissed me,” Harper said in a breathless rush at the same moment James stepped into the room from the kitchen, his hair windblown, his hands in his jacket pockets. A look of surprise, and some sort of horrible glee, was on his handsome face.

  Her face heating, she glanced at her wine. Wondered if there was enough liquid in there to drown herself. Since there wasn’t, she tossed aside her earlier vow to sip, to savor, and took a large gulp. “Is there any way you could pretend you didn’t hear that?”

  “Afraid not,” he said with a grin. He was taller than Eddie, handsome with his dark eyes and neatly trimmed goatee. But the wicked gleam in his eyes made her nervous. Oh, God, he wouldn’t tell Eddie he knew, would he?

  Double crap.

  Hearing a male voice, Cassidy scrambled to her feet and ran over to James, the puppy at her heels. “Hi. Hold me.”

  “I think I can handle that.” He lifted Cass, held her with the same natural ease Eddie did. “There. I can’t resist a pretty blonde.”

  “I hungry. Let’s eat chicken.”

  “Her dinner’s on the counter,” Sadie told him. “Would you mind...?”

  He looked from Sadie to Harper then nodded. “Got it. Girl talk.”

  “His mother taught him well,” Sadie told Harper as James carried a delighted Cass into the kitchen. “Now, let’s get back to this kiss.” Crossing her legs under her, she leaned forward. “Start from the beginning. First kisses are the best.”

  “I didn’t kiss him back.”

  Sadie’s eyes widened. “You denied him? Ouch.”

  “Well, I couldn’t just let him kiss me, could I?”

  “Why not?”

  “Because...because...” Harper finished her wine in one long swallow. Nodded firmly. “Because.”

  “Glad we got that cleared up.”

  “I can’t go around...kissing...the fathers of the kids in my class. No matter if those fathers are single or not.”

  “So you didn’t want to kiss him at all? Didn’t feel anything when he kissed you?”

  Harper lifted her glass, cursed when she remembered it was empty. “No.” The lie felt heavy on her tongue. Clumsy. She sighed. “I didn’t want to want to. But maybe I did. Just a teeny, tiny bit.”

  “And?”

  “And? And?” she repeated, sounding slightly hysterical. “I’m a married woman.”

  Sadie’s expression softened. “Oh, honey...”

  Harper’s eyes stung with tears. “What about Beau?” she whispered.

  “You felt guilty?”

  “Guilty. Dirty. It’s...wrong. It’s wrong of me to even look at another man, let alone seriously consider kissing one.” Thinking of one when her guard was down, letting some broad-shouldered, hooded-eyed man sneak into her thoughts. Her dreams.

  Those both belonged to her husband still.

  Sadie scooted closer so that her knee touched the outside of Harper’s thigh. “Do you really think Beau wouldn’t want you to move on with your life?”

  “He would.” He’d want her to find someone to spend her life with. He wouldn’t want her to be alone. “That’s not what this is about. I’m not against dating again or eventually meeting a man I can share my life, my heart and my daughter with. It’s just...I loved Beau, so much. Fully. If he was still alive, there’s no way I’d be having these thoughts about Eddie—”

  “You’re having thoughts about him?”

  “I guess. I mean, he’s handsome and a good father and thoughtful, if a bit reserved.” Harper’s blood went cold, her face numb. “Oh, my God, you don’t...you don’t think I’d have this attraction to Eddie if Beau was still alive, do you?”

  “Absolutely not. You might have appreciated Eddie’s looks but I doubt very much you’d spend much time thinking about him.” Sadie rubbed Harper’s upper arm. “Everyone knows you adored Beau, and he adored you.” Her voice lowered. Gentled. “But he’s gone.”

  “I know. And I’m getting over losing him.” She’d never get over him. Never forget him. “I guess I assumed it’d be a while before I was ready to move on—and I’m not even sure I am ready. Beau hasn’t been gone a whole year. Don’t I owe him, and what we had together, the respect of waiting a little longer?”

  “There’s no set time limit. The grieving process is different for everyone. It’s a matter of meeting the right person, not the right time. Look at my mom and Will. Mom loved Dad, but by the first anniversary of his death, she was married to Will and had just found out she was pregnant.”

  “Weren’t you upset?”

  “I was. But I was also happy for her. For us.” She shook her head. “I guess mostly I was conflicted. Looking back, I think Mom was, too. I don’t think she set out to find someone, she wasn’t trying to replace my dad. She just happened to meet a very nice man and fell in love.”

  Love.

  Just the thought of it sent panic skittering through Harper. She wasn’t ready to have those kinds of feelings for another man. She still loved her husband.

  “Maybe it’s just physical. It could be. I haven’t had—” she glanced into the kitchen where Cass sat on James’s lap at the center island “—sex in almost a year.”

  “Let’s say it is only sex,”
Sadie said, mimicking Harper’s low tone on the last word. “Is that so bad? You’re a grown woman. You have needs. You’re single. Eddie’s single. There’s nothing wrong with two unattached adults enjoying each other’s company.”

  Nothing except that he was Max’s father and Max was one of her students.

  She rubbed her fingertip around the edge of her wineglass. “I sort of yelled at him.”

  “You couldn’t have just given him the Heisman?”

  “You mean the Heimlich? He wasn’t choking. He was making a move.”

  “The Heisman is a move. Well, technically it’s a football trophy.” Picking up a pillow, Sadie stood and tucked it under one arm while lifting a knee and holding her other arm out straight. “You know...the Heisman.”

  “I panicked. Even if I was the type of woman who could have a physical-only type relationship—” which sounded so much better than affair “—I doubt he’s interested after I made a fool of myself and embarrassed him, accused him of thinking I was a woman of loose morals.”

  Sadie’s lips twitched. “Poor Eddie. He must’ve been horrified.”

  “No, I’d say the horror didn’t happen until I started throwing brownies at him.”

  There was a moment of blessed, stunned silence. Then Sadie burst into laughter. “Oh, that is priceless. Priceless, I tell you.”

  Harper let her head fall to the back of the sofa. Squeezed her eyes shut. “Oh, God, I made such a mess of things.”

  Still chuckling, Sadie patted Harper’s knee. “So you made a mess. You’ll clean it up. Or not. Either way, you’ll both survive. You just need to decide what you want.”

  That was the problem. Harper was afraid she already knew what she wanted. Who she wanted.

  She was too terrified to admit it. Even to herself.

  * * *

  THREE HUNDRED AND SIX DAYS.

  Joan’s entire body ached, each move, every breath painful. Her eyes were red-rimmed, gritty and raw. Exhaustion weighted her limbs, flowed through her veins like a drug.

  She was tired, so very tired of pretending everything was all right, that she was happy and whole. But she had to keep up the pretense. People counted on her, relied on her to be strong.