Hard Hart: The Harty Boys, Book 1

by Cox, Whitley

  Her exasperated sigh niggled more frustration at the back of his neck. Why did everything have to be a fight? Why couldn’t she just do what she was told?

  Would you like her half as much if she did?

  “Yes, sir. Sorry, sir,” she replied with a yawn, appearing bored with him and his tyranny. “I’m going to go have a quick shower.” She glanced at him, mischief twinkling in those gorgeous blue eyes. “That is, if I’m allowed.”

  He simply grunted again, turned his back and walked into the kitchen.

  “Missed you too, baby,” she called back, her voice already down the hall. “So happy to be home.”

  Unable to throw anything or pound the wall, Brock gritted his teeth and turned on the wok, angry, but why?

  Because you care about her. Worry about her, and she’s turning you into a sap with feelings.

  “I’m not a fucking sap,” he grumbled around fifteen minutes later as he scooped rice out of the rice cooker onto two plates.

  “Who said you were a sap?”

  Her voice made him practically jump out of his skin, though thankfully he was able to hide his surprise and simply shrugged.

  “Hmm?” she asked, coming up behind him and resting her hand on his back for a moment. “Who said you were a sap?”

  His entire body responded on instinct to her presence, her scent, her touch. His balls tightened and his dick lurched as heat flooded his veins.

  “Nobody.”

  She leaned over the wok and grabbed a piece of broccoli, popping it into her mouth with a pleased hum. “All right then, Mr. CrankyPants.”

  He thrust a plate into her hands. “Go eat.”

  She saluted him. “Yes, sir.”

  Moments later, they were sitting across from each other at the dinner table—for some reason, Brock had decided that they were going to eat dinner at the table, rather than in front of the television—and he felt his foul mood slowly disappear with each bite. And that’s when it hit him: He’d been so busy all day, cleaning and moving Krista’s shit into his room, that he hadn’t eaten. Had he even had breakfast? He didn’t think so. He was “hangry,” as his mother called it.

  Son of a bitch.

  Now he just felt like an ass.

  Wanting to make amends and not ruin his chances of getting laid, or having Krista reconsider having moved into his room, he decided he needed to make peace. He needed to give her something she wanted, and that was a bit of communication and genuine interest.

  Taking a sip of his beer and clearing his throat, he asked, “So how’d your parents take the news about the baby?”

  But she didn’t respond. Instead, she quickly shoved more food into her face, her cheeks puffy like a chipmunk.

  “Krista … ”

  Slowly, she swallowed, and with the same speed lifted her eyes to his. “I, uh … I didn’t tell them.”

  What the hell?

  “Why not? I heard you talking to them on the phone yesterday, but then it was dinnertime and I didn’t get a chance to ask you.”

  Her lips twisted, and she dropped her gaze back down to the wood grain of the table. “Because I’m just not ready, okay?”

  “You have to tell them.”

  Was she ashamed? Embarrassed? Embarrassed of him?

  Her head snapped up, and she glared at him. “I don’t have to do anything. They’re my parents, and I’ll tell them when I’m good and ready. You have no idea what our relationship is like. How they’re going to take the news. So just back off.”

  Wow! Where’d the sudden bitch switch come from? Hormones? He certainly hoped so. She’s been so happy, albeit tired when she got home, this was like night and day.

  Maybe she was feeding off his lousy mood?

  He needed to lighten the mood and handle this, handle her delicately. So even though his killer stir-fry was calling to him, he didn’t flinch, didn’t pick up his fork. He didn’t even breathe.

  “Then tell me,” he finally said, his voice calm. He wasn’t letting her off the hook that easily. He wanted to know why she hadn’t told her parents.

  “Tell you what?”

  “About your parents. Your relationship with them. How are they going to take the news that you’re having a baby?”

  She reached for her glass of water and took a sip. “Not well.”

  “Why?”

  “Because … because I was the wild child. The rebel, the … the screwup. I was the one that dicked around in university for years, took off traveling to go and ‘find myself.’ Something that people in Tanner Ridge, the Matthews family in particular, just don’t do. We’re workers. We live to work, not the other way around.”

  She rolled her big blue eyes, clearly already fed up with the conversation topic.

  Too fucking bad.

  She went on, though it seemed painful to do so. “Compared to my brother, Vince, I’m a family embarrassment. He finished school with scholarships, both athletic and scholastic. Got accepted to numerous universities and then graduated law school with countless offers. He moved home and started working at my dad’s small practice. Picked right back up with his high school girlfriend, who’s a pharmacist, and the two are planning their wedding for next summer.”

  She shot him a sarcastic look. “Let’s just say that if I called them up right now and told them I was knocked up from a one-night stand, they’d be disappointed but not necessarily shocked. This behavior is almost expected from me now. Hell … ” She snorted. “They thought for sure I was going to get knocked up in high school.”

  He couldn’t see it. No, she wasn’t as responsible as he was, but few were. But she certainly didn’t strike him as the town bicycle or a careless person. Was it all in her head or did he really not know a damn thing about the woman he was having a child with? “What did you do that was so horrible that made you the black sheep?”

  She rolled her eyes for the umpteenth time. “For starters? I didn’t marry my high school boyfriend. Curt and I were together for three years, since we were fifteen.”

  Oh, good. Not the town bicycle. He didn’t think she was.

  Brock didn’t say anything but simply nodded, encouraging her to continue.

  “Then I went away to university, and he stuck around Tanner Ridge. We tried to do long distance, but it didn’t work. So eventually we broke up. I had some boyfriends and partners in university, hooked up a bit while I was traveling.” She must have caught his eyebrow rise. “I wasn’t a slut, if that’s what you’re thinking. I’ve had fewer partners than you, don’t forget.”

  Shit. Fuck. Damn. He needed to work on his blank face.

  Brock raised his hands in the air in surrender. “Sorry. I never said or even thought you were a slut. Please, continue.”

  She grunted, made a face, but then went on. “Anyway, after traveling I came back to Canada. Finished university but still felt lost. I moved home to Tanner Ridge for six months. That’s when I went to an RCMP information session. It lit a fire under my ass, and I finally discovered what I wanted to do. I spent those six months preparing for the police academy. Curt and I picked up again, and it was like no time had passed. He thought I’d apply for a posting in town or at least near Tanner Ridge, but I wanted to move. We broke up again. My parents were devastated that I moved. Devastated that Curt and I broke up. Devastated that I wasn’t going to be like every other girl in Tanner Ridge and marry my high school sweetheart, work for a few years before hopping on the baby train express.”

  He shook his head and picked up his fork, finally feeling like the conversation wasn’t so intense that he couldn’t eat and talk at the same time. “That doesn’t sound like a screwup. That just sounds like you didn’t follow their plans.”

  Her shoulders slumped, and she let out another big, tired sigh before cramming more food into her own mouth and tucking it into her cheek to speak. “You don’t know them. In their eyes, that is me screwing up.”

  “Have you actually heard the words ‘screw up’ from your parents or brother? D
o they call you that?”

  She looked down at her plate. “Well, no, but that doesn’t mean they don’t think it.”

  “Uh-uh,” he tutted. “Sounds to me like you’re putting words in their mouth. Maybe you’re the one that thinks of you as a screwup; they just think of you as Krista, their wonderful daughter who graduated university and became a cop. And you’re just projecting your feelings of insecurity onto them. Because it’s easier to blame others. Because in my opinion, you’re not a screwup. You’re a free spirit who decided to do things her own way. But you’re still a college graduate, a well-traveled person, and now you’re an officer of the law. How on earth could anyone consider you a screwup?”

  She gaped at him. “What the fuck, Dr. Phil?”

  His lip twitched. He was happy that she seemed to have ditched a bit of the bitchy mood. Hormones were the devil. “My mother’s a therapist, don’t forget. That shit was bound to rub off on me at least a little bit.”

  “Little bit,” she murmured.

  “You need to tell them.”

  “You need to back off.” Oh fuck, her hackles were back up. For some reason, the woman wanted to fight, needed to feel the heat and passion of an argument coursing through her veins. Even though Brock had been pissed off when she got home because she was late, he wasn’t looking for a fight.

  He looked her calmly, squarely in the eye. “How would you feel?”

  She sneered at him. “About what?”

  “If this was our baby having a baby, and he or she didn’t tell you?”

  Those damn rolling eyes. He was going to have to take her over his knee pretty soon. “You’re really grasping at some hypothetical straws. And I will tell them. Just not right now.”

  “When?”

  “When I’m good and fucking ready!” She pushed her plate away, growled at him, stood up from the table and left. Seconds later, a bedroom door slammed.

  Brock really hoped it was their bedroom door.

  * * *

  She definitely needed time to cool off. Something, a bee, a hornet, a wasp, something was in her bonnet. It would do nobody any good for Brock to follow her down the hallway and demand she continue their conversation from earlier. He chalked the majority of it up to hormones and the rest up to her feeding off his bad mood. He really needed to work on that.

  So instead, he finished his own dinner, wrapped hers up for later, did the dishes and then waited.

  It was nine o’clock and he was watching the news in the living room when he finally heard the bedroom door creak open.

  Good. She’d locked herself in their room. At least there was that.

  Quiet as a mouse, she padded her fuzzy slippered feet down the hallway. He glanced up to find a pillow-creased, tear-stained face with wild red hair frizzed out as if she’d stuck a fork in an outlet. She looked sad and beautiful and so damn tired.

  He turned off the television and popped the footrest back into his recliner, inviting her to move into his lap.

  With no hesitation, she perched her strong, petite frame on his thighs. Fuck, she smelled good.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  She nodded.

  “Care to tell me what that was about?”

  She lifted her gaze from where she’d been studying her intertwined fingers. “Shit at work.”

  His back stiffened.

  Slade.

  She ignored him. “And then I come home and you’re all grumpy. I plastered on a happy face even though I wasn’t happy, and then you get all Mussolini on me about telling my parents.” She wrinkled her nose and glared at him. “Not cool.”

  “What happened at a work? Was it Slade? What did he do?”

  She rolled her eyes again. Now he really was going to have to take her over his knee. A sigh escaped her. “Nothing … to me. But I ran into Wendy and Marlise, and we’re all going to go for coffee tomorrow. I asked them about their one-night stands with Myles, thinking I could get some information for our case, and they got all weird, said they didn’t want to talk about it at work. I know something’s up. Something happened when they slept with him.”

  Damn it. He’d told her to leave the digging to him and his brothers. He unclenched his jaw and rubbed her back. Now was not the time to get all tyrannical on her.

  “You think it was rape?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know. I mean, we both saw him put that pill in Ingrid’s drink at the Christmas party, which means he’s obviously not above drugging a woman to get laid.”

  The man shouldn’t be above anything. He should be fucking six feet under.

  “You’re going to meet them in a well-lit, heavily occupied public place, right?”

  There was that fucking eye roll again. “Yes.”

  “Good.” He ran his hand up and down her back, squeezing the nape of her neck until he felt the tension begin to dissolve. “Now, about your parents … ”

  Another sigh.

  “Just hear me out.”

  Her petulant look was just screaming to be dealt with. “I get how you feel. But this is their grandchild, and they have a right to know. If they’re as disappointed with you as you say they will be, I will fly to Tanner Ridge myself and deal with them. But I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised with their response.” He continued to knead the back of her neck.

  She glared at him. “You were in a dickish mood when I got home. What was so terrible about your day that made you grumpy? Did someone switch your beer for piss?”

  His lip twitched, and he wrapped her soft, rebellious hair around his hand, pulling until her neck tilted and she looked into his eyes. Her gaze softened, and that glimmer of defiance that he was coming to love so much returned. “I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “I was worried about you. About the baby. I don’t like you driving in the snow. Or going to work when I know Slade is going to be there.”

  Those big blue eyes batted thick lashes at him. And a slow, knowing smile flitted across her lips when she felt his cock jerk in his jeans. “Get over it, man.”

  A low growl rumbled deep in his chest. “Do you have any idea how many times you’ve rolled your eyes at me today?”

  Her lids sank to half-mast, and her nostrils flared. “At least three spanks’ worth?”

  “Try six.” And his mouth crashed down on hers.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The following day, Krista pulled into the parking lot of the swanky little café that overlooked the breakwater at Ogden Point. The lighthouse at the end of the long, manmade L-shaped jetty shone bright and white against a dreary gray sky while people and their dogs or companions braved the nasty wind and walked the path. Harsh gusts threatened to shove them into the frigid green water if they weren’t careful. The Juan de Fuca Strait sat in front of her with raging whitecaps on dark waves, and snow-capped mountains stood tall and authoritative in the backdrop on the Olympic Peninsula.

  Knowing that she had fifteen minutes to kill before the girls were set to arrive—reluctantly, but knowing that cocky, disgustingly responsible roommate of hers was right—Krista pulled her phone out of her pocket and dialed.

  “Hello?” her mother answered after the third ring.

  “Hi, Mum.”

  “Krista? Is everything okay, dear?” Apparently calling twice in the span of a week was cause for concern.

  She swallowed. “Uh … everything is just fine, Mum, how are you?”

  “Getting ready to tear the tree down.”

  “I thought you didn’t do that until New Year’s Day?”

  “Well, as neither you nor your brother live at home, and your dad and I are busy with work, I figured I might as well make the most of my day off.”

  Krista hummed a response and let her gaze focus on a seagull caught up in a wild gust of wind. “Um, Mum?”

  “What is it, dear?” She could see it now: Her mother had dropped whatever it was she was doing and wandered over to her chair in the living room, with her basket of knitting on one side and her stack of Danielle Ste
ele novels on the other, with half a cup of long-turned-cold coffee perched on the coaster Krista had made her in the third grade sitting on the end table. It was her television watching chair, reading chair, knitting chair. But most of all, it’s where Elaine Matthews went to think. The woman was anything if not predictable and set in her ways.

  “I, um … I’m pregnant.” Good job, hardly hesitated at all.

  Silence.

  “Mum? You there?”

  “Y-yes … I’m here.”

  “Did you hear me?”

  “Yes.”

  “And?” Well, now her mother was just being downright frightening. Krista hoped to God her dad was home, or at the very least a neighbor was within screaming distance, in case her mother went into cardiac arrest and needed medical attention.

  “D-do you know who the father is?”

  Riiiight—because she didn’t marry Curt, she was a giant hussy, spreading her legs for any man willing.

  Krista clenched her teeth. “Yes, Mum, I do. We’re living together.”

  Her exhale of relief traveled through the phone, only to send the hair up on the back of Krista’s neck. “When are you due?”

  “Early June.”

  “And you’re happy about this?”

  She couldn’t get a read on her mother’s tone. “It was a shock at first, for sure. Not exactly planned, seeing as I’m a rookie and all. But we’re happy about it now. Brock comes from a big family, three brothers, and his mother is wonderful. This baby is already very loved. And that’s what’s important, right?”

  More silence.

  “Mum?”

  “All I want is for you to be happy, Krista. And I don’t think you would have been if you’d stayed here.”

  Well holy hell, where was this coming from?

  “Um … thanks?”

  “Are you and this … Brock getting married?”

  Too good to be true. Here we go. Get ready to be called a screwup.

  Krista let out a weighted sigh.

  “Not at the moment. We’ve got some things to sort out first.”

  “But he makes you happy?”