by Tawny Weber
Did it?
“This is the first time you’ve even so much as hinted at interest in a man since I’ve known you. I’ve got to check this guy out. Find out how long he’s staying. Maybe I should change my flight, head to Greece tomorrow instead of this afternoon.”
“Don’t be silly. If you’re late for your grandmother’s birthday kickoff, you’ll hurt her feelings. Worse, you’ll lose her support,” Harper said quickly, trying to keep the desperation out of her voice, but definitely not wanting Andi here, boxing her in. “I’m sure he’ll be here when you get back.”
And maybe it’d be better to keep the relationship with the neighbor to a few waves, the occasional friendly hello.
Trying to set it aside and focus on the job at hand, she flipped through the catalog images she’d chosen for accent pieces while Andi continued her pitch.
Harper ignored her, but after a few seconds realized that she hadn’t paid attention to any of the photos, so she went through each image again.
“I’m just saying that you should explore the possibilities and see where it goes,” Andi finished.
Before Harper could decide if she wanted possibilities that went anywhere, Nathan bounded into the room. The tension that had knotted her stomach eased as she gave him a quick once-over. The knees of his jeans were slicked with green and his blue tee streaked with dirt, proof that he’d had fun playing at the park.
And just like that, sexy times were over. Or in this case, talking about the possibility of sexy times was over.
And that was fine by her.
* * *
“HEY, MOM.” BOUNCING in his new tennis shoes, Nathan automatically looked toward her desk. As soon as he saw the cell phone lit up in its cradle he grimaced. Turning fast, he checked the two-sided sign that hung from the doorknob. The side that said, “Join Me” faced out. Whew. When it said, “Quiet Zone” he had to keep his mouth shut and step lightly.
“It’s Andi,” his mom murmured. Her smile seemed normal, but she still had that look in her eyes. The one she’d had after dinner yesterday when she’d given him that talk. His stomach started hurting the same way it did when he was going to throw up when he thought about the things she’d said. So he tried really hard not to think about them.
“Is that Nathan? Let me talk to him,” Andi’s voice called out.
“Hey, Andi,” he called back, adding a wave even though she couldn’t see him. “Are you coming over?”
That’d be perfectly awesome. She’d keep his mom busy talking and cooking and stuff and make her laugh. Then mom wouldn’t look at him like she was all worried and stuff.
“Nope. No way.” Blowing that hope with a shake of her head, his mom tossed a stack of papers on the long table she used as a desk. “Gotta go. Have a safe trip—call when you have a chance.”
And there Nathan’s hope for escape went. Gone with the push of a button.
“Andi sends her love,” his mom said, looking at him like she had lasers for eyes and could see right into his brain. He knew she was searching for hurt feelings or sadness. Time for evasive maneuvers.
“Is Andi in Hercules yet?”
“Heraklion,” she corrected with a laugh, tapping her finger on the bill of his hat. “She’s flying there tonight.”
He liked the sound of Hercules better. Andi looked a little like Meg, Hercules’s girlfriend in the cartoon, too. Still, he knew wherever she was, Andi would bring him back a cool gift. She always did.
“I saw Diego’s bike out front when Jeremy’s mom dropped me off. You said he’s the one who found my ball, right, Mom?” Nathan moved it from hand to hand. He knew better than to toss it in here.
Busy zipping her design board in a leather case, his mom froze for a second, then nodded while tucking another pile of papers into the pocket of the case. “Yes, Diego found your ball.”
“We should thank him. That’s the polite thing to do.”
“I thanked him last night.”
“Yeah, but it’s my ball, so I should say thanks, too. I wasn’t born in a barn—I should show I have manners, right?”
Even though she wasn’t frowning, that little line dug in between her eyebrows. He knew that look. It was her no look. Before she could say it, he added his most persuasive smile—the one he saved for Santa visits and major trouble—and added, “Please.”
As he’d hoped, she couldn’t hold out against his please smile.
“Fine. I have to make a client call—then we can go next door and show off your manners.”
Nathan’s eyes flashed mischief. “Maybe we should take him a kitten. You know, to show our appreciation and stuff.”
He knew a long shot when he threw it out there, but he figured it was worth a try. Sooner or later, she’d take the hint.
“Oh, I don’t know about that.” Pulling him closer, she wrapped her arm around his neck and gave a gentle squeeze. “How about we make cookies instead?”
“Chocolate chip?”
She hesitated for a second before nodding.
“Go wash up while I make my call. Then we’ll see if we have chocolate chips.”
“I’ll check. I’ll get the ’gredients after I wash my hands.” With that and a whoop of joy, Nathan charged toward the downstairs bathroom. He almost used the pretty flower soap, but remembered before he got it wet that his mom would grump. He exchanged it for a squirt of liquid soap, then made sure to do a good job. The week was going too well to get in trouble over dirt.
He was going to adventure camp with his best friend. He had a cool new neighbor who looked like a superhero. And now he was getting homemade chocolate chip cookies.
With a quick wipe of his hands over his pants, he was ready for the cookie dough.
He made it only a few feet down the hall when his gaze landed on the red-and-blue-striped box sitting at the bottom of the stairs. He froze.
His mom was all upset and sad because of that stupid box. Because of the jerk whose stuff was in the box.
Nathan was a little scared at how mad he suddenly felt. Like the Hulk with tons of rage wanting to explode with punches and kicks and screams. His fists clenched, and his teeth did, too.
Mom said it was stuff from that man. Like he cared about a guy who’d dumped them before he was even born? Nathan wasn’t willing to call the guy a father or dad. He’d talked to Jeremy about it because his best friend actually had a dad, so he knew what was what.
According to Jeremy, a dad read bedtime stories and played ball and yelled and paid for the house and car and stuff. A father pretty much just paid support money but was around once in a while. Mostly on holidays and the summer.
The guy whose stuff was in the box hadn’t done any of that, so he wasn’t either one.
Besides, the guy was dead. What did Nathan care about a box of his stuff? Mom had told him there were medals and junk the guy’s friend said was proof he’d been a hero. But heroes didn’t do what that guy did. They didn’t walk out and leave their kid alone. They didn’t make the lady have a baby by herself, and never help with anything.
Nathan’s breath shook, his chest hurting like he couldn’t get enough air.
Heroes didn’t make his mom cry.
Nathan sniffed. He’d always figured that someday, if the guy came around, he’d tell him all that. And maybe he’d punch him a time or two.
But the guy went and died.
So that was that.
Nathan didn’t want his stuff. Not any of it.
He ground his teeth back and forth a few times until his eyes cleared and the threat of tears was gone. He took a big breath, just in case. As soon as he was sure he wasn’t going to cry, he yanked open the closet door, then grabbed the box. He pushed it all the way to the back corner and covered it with the picnic blanket. But that wasn’t enough. He started
to unzip his baseball duffel but stopped. He didn’t want that stuff in his bag. Nathan’s eyes narrowed on Jeremy’s bag, the one he’d left here yesterday. Mom put it in the closet because they wouldn’t have practice again until they got back from camp. Sure his friend wouldn’t care, Nathan ripped the zipper open and shoved the box inside, then put the blanket and his rain boots on top of it.
There. Shutting the door, Nathan leaned against it for a brief second. He kicked it with the back of his foot for good measure, then, considering it a done deal, ran for the kitchen.
“Cookies,” he called, ready to dive in.
CHAPTER SEVEN
HARPER WAS SURE that going next door, deliberately seeking out their neighbor—the man who’d made her think all sorts of naughty things that should be off-limits—was a mistake.
Yet here she was, walking toward the man’s front door with Nathan at her side and a Tupperware container in her hand. Trying to ignore her nerves, Harper smoothed the crinkle cotton fabric of her skirt over her hip. She adjusted the wide leather belt, then checked her necklace to be sure the clasp was in the back.
“This’ll be fun, huh, Mom? I’ll bet Diego lets us inside. I wanna see if he has a pool table like Mr. Lowenstein does.”
“We’re only staying long enough for you to show off your manners and to say welcome to the neighborhood.” And that could be done from the porch. “I’m pretty sure Mr. Lowenstein leaves all of his furniture here when he travels, so unless you saw him carry the pool table with his suitcases, it’s still here.”
“Bet he could,” Nathan stated, dancing backward up the step to the door to offer a gap-toothed grin before ringing the bell. “Mr. Lowenstein is a scientist. I’ll bet he comes up with all sorts of cool inventions.”
She knew just how disappointed he was that the neighbor’s science didn’t focus on gamma radiation.
“Do you think he has another car we didn’t see?” Nathan asked a few seconds after ringing the bell.
“I think not everyone runs to answer a door like some small boys I can think of.”
“If you run, you get there faster.”
One of his lifelong priorities, Harper thought with a smile.
A minute later, they were still staring at the wrong side of the door—or the right side, in Harper’s opinion—and Nathan looked ready to explode.
“Maybe he’s busy or he didn’t hear the bell,” she said, secretly thrilled even as she soothed Nathan’s disappointment. “We can try again later.”
Before she could write this off as an A for effort, the door swung open.
He had heard the bell.
He’d failed to put on a shirt, though.
She forgot all about her urgent desire to leave.
“Hey,” Diego greeted with a curious smile at odds with the caution in his eyes.
She wasn’t paying a lot of attention to his eyes, however.
She was much more interested in that body.
Because oh, my, he was built.
His shoulders were broad and muscular, his arms ripped. A dark sprinkling of hair covered his chest, bisecting his pectorals before leading down abs so flat and hard, she’d bet that she could bounce a quarter off of them.
His skin was a dusky gold, and marred here and there with scars. The tattoo she’d noticed on his arm the night before was actually a series of jagged tribal swirls intersected by a trident. The other, the rose-strewn word Honor that sat low on his belly, curving over his navel just above the waistband of his jeans. Harper’s fingers tingled as she imagined tracing them over that work of art.
Were the colors as smooth as his skin? Was there significance in the placement of the word? She wet her lips, not sure what it meant, but really, really curious.
Her gaze meandered its way up his chest again with a slow side trip across those shoulders before returning to his face.
The man was gorgeous.
He was also staring at her as if she was a gaping groupie offering door-to-door cherry-flavored hot oil rubs.
A sexual haze wrapped around her, tinting her vision, blurring her judgment. Her thoughts were filled with questions and ideas.
It wasn’t realizing that she wouldn’t mind getting her hands on that body that pulled her out of the haze. It was the look in his eyes that said he’d like it, too.
She had to call on every inch of poise she possessed to keep her feet glued to the step instead of running and the blush heating her neck from climbing.
“Hi,” she managed. That was the only thing she could think of to say, other than yowza. Which was probably inappropriate.
Probably.
Thankfully, Nathan never had a problem finding plenty of words.
“We’re like the Welcome Wagon. It’d be cooler if we had a real wagon, wouldn’t it? It’d be a lot more fun, too. But sometimes words don’t mean what they sound like. That’s what Mom says,” he said before slanting his mother a look that said he wasn’t fully satisfied with her explanation of why they didn’t really need to bring his wagon along to deliver the cookies.
“Welcome Wagon?” Diego leaned one shoulder against the doorjamb, letting the door swing wide as he looked from Nathan to her, then back again.
“You know, like saying we’re glad you moved to the neighborhood. Mrs. Petrillo brought over a pie and a bunch of papers and maps, and a plant and stuff when we moved here.” Nathan took the plastic dish from his mother’s hands. “We don’t make pie. Not from flour and sugar and stuff.”
Diego shifted his gaze to Harper while Nathan described their baking process. Those dark eyes watched, waiting. Like, what? He thought she was going to visually lick him again? Not likely.
Harper lifted her chin, daring him to make something of her temporary insanity.
He just grinned.
She wanted to be irritated but was too busy trying not to smile back.
“So it’s not the food that matters on the welcome thing. It’s the meaning that counts, right, Mom?”
“Mmm,” she agreed, finally tearing her gaze from Diego’s to look down and give Nathan a smile. “The meaning, or in this case, the gesture of offering something homemade as a housewarming gift.”
With a nod, Nathan held out the covered plastic dish.
“Here. We hope your house is warm and that you like the neighborhood while you’re here. We want to be friends. Cuz, you know, friends make the best neighbors.”
She thought she saw something uncomfortable flash in those dark eyes before Diego took the offering.
“Thanks.” He lifted the dish, trying to peer through the opaque plastic. “So if this isn’t pie, what’d you make?”
“Cookies. Me and Mom are good at those. I got to pick the kind, cuz it’s my turn. When it’s Mom’s turn, she picks things like oatmeal or lemon.” Wrinkling his nose at the healthy connotations of those flavors, Nathan shrugged. “They’re okay, but I like chocolate chip best. So that’s what we made you.”
“Get out.” Diego’s grin was filled with a boyish delight that surprised Harper with its sweetness. “You guys made me chocolate chip cookies? All the way from scratch?”
He peeled off the lid. Not to check, she realized. But to dig one out and pop it into his mouth.
“Good,” he declared around a mouthful of cookie. He tilted his head toward the interior of the house. “Come on in.”
“Oh, I don’t know...”
Nathan scrambled over the threshold and out of sight before Harper could finish her refusal.
“He likes the pool table.” She couldn’t help but smile when her son’s whoops sounded out. “Mark Lowenstein is teaching him to play eight ball.”
“Is he any good?”
Harper shrugged. She wasn’t much of a judge at games like that.
“We ca
n’t stay long.” In fact, she should find Nathan now so they could start making their excuses to go. “We simply wanted to offer an official welcome to the neighborhood.”
“Uh-huh.”
His nod was agreeable and his tone neutral.
And she knew perfectly well that he was laughing at her. What she didn’t know was how she felt about it. While she tried to figure that out, she made a show of looking around the foyer.
She’d seen it plenty of times before, though, so the elegant drop-leaf table, glossy black urn and spray of peacock feathers weren’t much of a distraction. There was a light layer of dust in the corners of the oak floor, proving that Diego wasn’t much of a housekeeper. There was a pair of polished black boots resting on the bottom step of the wide staircase and a navy blue duffel on the step above.
Was that why he wasn’t dressed? Was he on his way somewhere?
“We should go. You’re obviously busy.” She gestured toward the bag, then turned in the direction of the pool table, ready to call Nathan.
“Stay.”
Glancing over her shoulder, her eyes landed on that chest again. The small scar, puckered and wicked looking, accented the perfection of his golden torso. She almost sighed her appreciation before she caught herself with a shake of her head.
“Stay,” he said again, reaching into the duffel and pulling out a shirt. As he tugged it on, she had to give him points for sensitivity.
But as soon as the worn gray cotton covered those muscles, she missed the view. And she felt like an idiot.
Before she could repeat her desire to leave, he lifted the plastic container high and waved it in the air.
“I’ve got cookies,” he coaxed, his words filled with a cheerfully naughty innuendo that made Harper want to laugh.
“The question is, do you have milk?” she asked as she moved farther into the house. She ignored the nerves dancing in the pit of her stomach and the warnings clamoring in the back of her mind.
“Milk I have. Glasses might be an issue. I haven’t navigated the kitchen yet,” he admitted as he shut the door behind him with a thud, leaving the foyer in dusky shadows.
