In Too Deep

by Tracey Alvarez

  With as much dignity as he could muster, West tucked the container under one arm and exited the kitchen. Unfortunately, the heat of his skin didn’t affect his ears ability to pick up Bill’s chuckle and parting comment, “Yep, that boy’s ass-over-tea-kettle for the Harland girl.”

  And his mother’s thoughtful, “Well, you never get over your first love, do you?”

  Chapter 12

  Piper’s face, hot as slapped sunburn, wouldn’t return to normal.

  She’d have to hide in her room indefinitely, calculating dry dive statistics to keep her brain from playing a visual loop of West’s naked body. Man, that out-of-this-world orgasm must’ve ruptured a few brain cells, because dive statistics just weren’t working.

  Off-key singing drifted out of the kitchen and the piercing trill of the phone was cut off by her brother’s impatient, “Yep?”

  How would she ever look Ben in the eye without him guessing what she’d been up to with his best mate? How could she ever look West in the eye? She’d thrown herself at him, and if it weren’t for Ben’s terrible timing she’d be in West’s bed right now.

  Doing stuff.

  Stuff that flamed her face again when thinking about what stuff they could’ve been doing.

  Incredible orgasm or not, her body still ached for West’s touch. She was hollow, craving the sensation of his body moving against hers, inside hers. But allowing these desires to multiply did nothing to stem the cold little voice asking, Are you sure West wanted you? Or were you just a convenient alternative to him jerking off in the bathroom again?

  Piper studied her distorted reflection in the office window. Wild spiked hair, because she hadn’t thought to run a comb through it yet. A pair of rumpled knee-length shorts. Her tee shirt pulled over damp skin and clinging to her half-an-apple-sized breasts.

  She snatched her comb off the desk and dragged it through her hair, the scratch of its teeth on her scalp a welcome distraction from the sick feeling flooding her stomach.

  What had West thought when he’d touched her breasts? Was she still too boyish and angular for him? Had he compared her to the more well-endowed women he’d slept with? Women who weren’t still shaped like a kid’s pencil-drawn stick figure.

  God. No wonder he’d made no effort to get rid of Ben and had rushed from the house.

  Two sharp taps on her door.

  “Piper? You ever coming out?” The words contained a smidgen of anxiety—a Ben-ish way of checking she wasn’t hurt.

  She opened the door. “I was resting. My stomach’s still a bit sore.”

  Ben leaned against the hallway wall, keeping his weight on his good leg. “Gav’s not the most popular guy around town at the moment.”

  “And West’s hailed as a hero, righteously defending the poor city girl who took a tumble. I could’ve dealt with the great dickless wonder once I’d caught my breath.”

  Ben’s unflinching brown-eyed gaze nailed hers. “West’s actions weren’t about defending some random girl on the opposite team.”

  “Sure they were.” Piper crossed her arms up high, tucking her fingertips under her arms. “If it’d been Shaye or one of the other women Gav had gone after, he would’ve done the same.”

  Ben snorted. “You see him lay into Ford when he accidently tripped Holly? Or even Gav the first few times he shoved Kezia?” Ben’s voice roughened on the last example, an undercurrent in the tone of his words. “He went after Gav like a psycho, because Gav hurt what he considers his.”

  Her fingers curled into fists, knuckles stabbing into her armpits. Oh Lord, Ben had picked up the sexual tension throbbing between her and West after all. Surely he hadn’t guessed everything though?

  “West has no claim on me and vice-versa.” She angled herself to slip past him.

  Ben moved forward, blocking her exit with a hand on either side of the doorway. “Then perhaps you should clarify that? Make sure he understands you’re still leaving in less than a month’s time—that you’re only a temporary distraction.”

  Piper’s heart, only moments ago leaping at the thought of West’s male possessiveness, plunged to the floor, a leaden weight. “He knows. But thanks so much for your concern.”

  “I am concerned—for both of you. Tell me you’d give up your life in Wellington to stay here with West in the ‘dead-zone’ as you called it, in the place where Dad died—”

  “Dad’s got nothing to do with this—”

  “No?” Ben’s bulk towered over her in the doorway as her shoulders hunched. “Then why is it you’ve been here almost three weeks and you’ve never once visited his memorial.”

  “How do you know whether I’ve been up there or not?”

  “Have you?”

  She shook her head, blinking away the image of an engraved plaque set in a rock pile at Oban’s cemetery. River rocks, smooth and speckled grey, a cairn marking empty ground because her father’s body had never been recovered.

  “You’re right,” she said after a strained moment passed. “But speculating about whether I could, or would, live on Stewart Island again is irrelevant, because I am only a temporary distraction for West. There’s nothing between us except a knee-jerk attraction, no more serious than all the other one-nighters I imagine you both indulge in.”

  “And if you think you deserve that from West, it’s another reason you should keep your distance.”

  Piper stood in front of him, drilled a sharp finger into his chest. “What if he’s a temporary distraction for me, too? What if I just want hot, uncomplicated sex with West to take my mind off the boredom of being here?”

  Ben recoiled with a grimace. “Jeez, Stubby. Too much information.”

  Pressing her advantage, she gently shoved him so she could exit the room. “You brought it up. And get over yourself—I’m not a twenty-seven-year-old virgin, and this isn’t the Dark Ages. I can have sex with anyone I like.”

  “So, go have it with someone other than West. There’s plenty of other guys in Oban.” He jerked back and smacked his forehead. “What am I telling you? Just save everyone the anxiety and keep your legs crossed until you’re back in Wellington.”

  “Yeah, that’ll help.”

  Ben sighed and leaned against the wall again, tipping his head back until it thunked against it. “I’m not telling you what to do and I’m not going all big-brother-ish on your ass—well, maybe a little. But picking up where you and West left off nine years ago is a ridiculous idea—and stop gawking, I’ve always known you two have a history—so you’re fooling yourself if you think you can do the friends-with-benefits thing and walk away without one or both of you getting fucked up.”

  Like she’d been left fucked up last time. But if Ben knew it, who else did? Piper swallowed the thorny lump in her throat. “You know, I think that’s the most you’ve said to me in one conversation since I’ve been back. If you weren’t so immune to genuine warm emotion, I’d think you actually cared.”

  “Hmmph.” Their gazes clashed, but Ben kept his lips tucked together in a hard line. Finally he pushed himself away from the wall. “That was Mum on the phone before. She wants you to stop up there and deliver a casserole to Bill and Claire.”

  “Great. Another golden opportunity to be given the third degree,” she grumbled.

  “It’s all part and parcel of being in the Harland family. And like it or not, you’re part of this family.”

  “It sure doesn’t feel like it most days.”

  “Feelings have sweet stuff-all to do with fact, as Dad would’ve said.” Ben limped away to the kitchen, his voice drifting back out through the open doorway. “Sucks to be on the other side of the two-way glass, ay, Constable Harland? Wait till Mum hits her stride. You’ll beg for the thumb-screws.”

  Her brother spoke the God-honest truth.

  Piper tugged on her cap and headed to her mother’s, ostensibly for the casserole but aka The Oban Inquisition.

  ***

  Piper knocked on the back door of her mother’s house and en
tered to find her bustling around in her kitchen.

  “Darling, I’ve told you, you don’t need to knock.”

  “Habit, otherwise my mind starts thinking it’s B and E.”

  “Breaking and entering? Ooh, did I get it right?” Her mother rinsed a pile of peeled potatoes in the sink. “I watch that reality police show sometimes. It’s so exciting.”

  If you didn’t take into account the daily drudge of paperwork, drunks, verbal abuse, paperwork, the mundaneness of checkpoints, juveniles who knew enough about their rights to be a pain in the rear, and paperwork—yeah, it could appear her life was full of car chases, drug busts, and foot races with bad guys.

  But why disillusion her mum? “You got it—” she said with a quick smile. “B and E, breaking and entering.”

  “This is your home too—you don’t have to worry about B and E. You’re always welcome.” Glenna sent a keen glance in her direction as she lined up the washed potatoes next to the chopping board.

  Piper moved further into her mother’s lair, leaning on the island counter in front of her. “So, the Westlakes’ casserole?”

  “All in due time. Take a seat.” She nodded at the three bar stools by Piper’s legs. “I’ve got to boil and mash these spuds for the cottage pie, then a quick bake in the oven at three hundred and fifty—” Glenna caught Piper’s eyes glazing over and chuckled. “Or gas mark 4 if you’re on The Mollymawk.”

  “Still going on about it, are you?” Piper slumped on one of the barstools. “I’ll never live it down.”

  “Not likely.” Glenna slid a knife from the rack and picked up a potato. “Luckily your knight in shining armor saved the day, hmm?” She leveled a you may as well tell me now stare at Piper and chopped the first potato in half without glancing down.

  How her mother could multi-task interrogating while controlling a lethal instrument was a skill to be envied. Unless she was the one being interrogated. But Piper had experienced many variations of her mother’s fishing techniques growing up, so she replied with a neutral, “Wasn’t it, though?”

  “Ryan’s a good man.”

  And would she disagree? Not a chance.

  Piper affixed a bland expression on her face. “Yes. And it’s generous of him to help Ben out.”

  “Hmmph.” Chop, chop. One potato quartered. “Kind, also, to let you stay so long with him.”

  “Very kind,” she agreed.

  Chop. “And you’re being a thoughtful guest?”

  “Yep.”

  “You’re not leaving your stuff around? No make-up cluttering the bathroom vanity or bras drying over the towel rail?”

  Chop. Chop.

  Like Piper’s boring B-cup sports bras would incite a lustful response from West. “No, Mum, I’m keeping my underwear out of sight.”

  Glenna’s mascara-slicked lashes lowered as her gaze turned speculative. Oh, here we go. Bringing out the big guns from under her sweet apron with the embroidered flowers on the pocket.

  “I see the way you look at him.”

  She could plead ignorance and ask, “What way?” but she didn’t know if she had enough of her mother’s acting talent to pull it off with a straight face. Safer to remain silent.

  “It’s the same way you looked at him way back then.” Glenna picked up another potato and positioned it on the board, resting the knife along its length. She paused and looked down at the utensil in her hands. “You look at West the same way I looked at Michael when we were young. He was my first love too, you know.”

  “Mum.” Piper slid off the barstool and moved around the counter.

  Her hand hovered an inch from her mother’s shoulder and she tried to push past the blockage in her mind and go in for a bear hug. But she saw him there—her dad—in the same position, his big, broad shoulders filling the kitchen, Glenna’s laughter as he tugged her into his arms, running his stubbled jaw along her neck, kissing her soundly.

  In the years since her father’s death she’d never once heard Glenna say his name. She always referred to him as “your father,” or “my husband,” or “Mr. Harland.”

  Never “Michael.”

  Glenna dropped the knife and caught Piper’s hovering hand, pressing the back of Piper’s fingers to her flushed cheeks. “I spotted this thing between you and Ryan before either of you did, so don’t look so surprised.”

  Piper moistened her lips. “You did?”

  Her mother nodded, squeezing Piper’s hand. “Here, you finish these, I’m shaking.”

  “Sure.” She patted Glenna’s shoulder. “Why don’t you pour us a glass of wine?”

  “Before three in the afternoon?”

  “After the day I’ve had, Mum, I think we can risk moving Happy Hour forward a little.”

  “Chardonnay, then?”

  “Perfect.”

  While her mother poured the wine, Piper chopped potatoes and transferred them into a pot.

  Glenna slipped onto a barstool and slid a glass of wine across the counter. “You were fifteen.”

  Piper looked up from filling the pot with water. “What?”

  “When West noticed you weren’t just Ben’s little sister anymore.” She leaned forward, lacing her fingers under her chin. “It was on one of those picnics we used to go on to Kahurangi Bay. Your father—I mean, Michael—insisted on bringing a bunch of Ben’s friends along for a seafood feast. Do you remember that day?”

  Actually, she’d blocked it from her mind, stomping it underfoot when they’d taken the three couples to Kahurangi Bay. The day Glenna mentioned, that day, should come with its own disclaimer: Piper’s most mortifying moment. Ever.

  She took a big swallow of wine. “I remember.”

  “You were wearing that cute little bikini and you just had to compete with the boys who were diving off the top of Michael’s boat—”

  “Mum—”

  “And you can’t have knotted the top’s ties properly—”

  “—that, and I had absolutely no boobs to keep the top in place. Gawd.”

  The memory yawned open—standing on top of the highest point of her dad’s boat, looking down into the clear water, droplets sparkling in the sun as the group of teenagers dog paddled and frolicked below. West staring up at her, the grin on his face making her shiver, making her feel warm in places that should’ve been cold from the water below.

  “Watch me!” she shouted and propelled herself off the cabin into a cannonball, hoping to splash a tidal wave of water over West and the other boys.

  She had.

  Only, losing her bikini top in the process hadn’t been part of the plan. The others hooted and whistled, while West swam over, told her to hold on to the boat’s ladder while he clambered on-board and grabbed the nearest tee shirt, which happened to be his Chilies one.

  “Well, boobs or not, I saw the way he looked after you that day, the way he looked at you.”

  Piper transferred the pot to her mother’s stove and turned on the element. “I think we’ve established that West is a kind man, that he used to be a kind boy.”

  Glenna shook her head, the gold hoops in her ears swaying. “He wasn’t just being kind that day. You were so embarrassed you never noticed.”

  “So, how did he look at me then, Mum?”

  “Like you were his.”

  The blossom of warmth in her chest solidified into a hot throb. Once she’d thought that too. She’d thought they’d belonged together. That West would one day own Due South and she’d help her dad and Ben run dive tours. They’d get married under the colorful blooms of a fuchsia tree and tell their future kids about how their mum and dad started off as mates, and ended up as soul-mates.

  The hero-worshiping dreams of true love, as seen through the eyes of a fifteen-year-old. A wildly gullible fifteen-year-old, as it turned out.

  “And he’s looking at you that way again.” Glenna raised her wine-glass at her. “Point in case, the way he went after Gav today.”

  “I’ve already had this conversation with B
en. West just did the macho guy thing and you’re both reading way too much into it.” Wiping her hands on the kitchen towel, Piper picked up her wineglass. “And whatever happened back when we were teenagers is ancient history.

  “So something did happen back then.”

  Crap. Once again she’d underestimated her mother’s sneakiness. She took another swallow of wine, wondered what the reaction would be if she drained the whole glass and poured another.

  “You used to tell me everything,” Glenna sighed. “How Johnny Martin screamed like a girl when you scared him. How Jake Cummins promised to write you when his family left Oban and how he never did.”

  Piper forced out a laugh. “Oh puh-lease, Mum. I was like twelve—naturally I told you everything.”

  And she’d continued over the years to tell her mother about the Johnny Martins and the Jake Cummins clones that came and went in her life. The terrible blind date who thought her being a cop meant she’d get his traffic violations wiped. The funny, and sometimes plain weird, anecdotes from her job that her mum enjoyed. She populated her phone calls with these kinds of stories.

  “You didn’t tell me how West broke your heart just before Michael died.”

  Piper lowered her glass to the counter with shaky hands. “How did you know that?”

  “Puh-lease, as you say. I am your mother. You think I didn’t notice when you’d been crying all night? That I didn’t notice West stopped coming by the house?”

  “Did Dad know that we were, ah, more than friends?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “I’m surprised you didn’t tell him.”

  Glenna rotated the wineglass stem between her fingers. “Your father had other things going on at the time.”

  “His preoccupation with the free-diving Nationals?”

  “Yes. That was certainly on his mind.”

  Piper remained silent, but the one question she’d never found the courage to ask burned on her tongue. “Mum.” She lifted her gaze to see her mother watching her with shiny eyes. God. But if she didn’t ask now, she never would. “Before I left Oban you told me that you and Dad had an argument, and that you went to the Komeke’s late that night and slept in their spare room.”