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“Strategizing to protect the womenfolk?” David said in an exaggerated drawl. “Not that I don’t agree, son, but Roz isn’t going to care for that.” He jerked a thumb toward the ceiling. “She won’t either.”
“I don’t want them going postal over it, that’s all. If we could downplay it some. It was just dishes and kitchen crap.”
“A personal attack, Harper, not on you but on your property, in your home. That’s how it is, and that’s how they’ll see it.” Mitch waved a hand at him before he could speak. “We’ve dealt with worse, all of us, and we’ll deal with this. The important thing is to figure out why it happened.”
“Maybe it’s because she’s crazy,” Harper snapped back. “That might be a small, contributing factor.”
“Takes after his mama when he’s riled up,” David offered. “Mean and stubborn.”
“I’ve noticed. She’s been seen walking in the direction of the carriage house in the past.” Mitch leaned a hip on the table. “You saw her yourselves when you were kids. We can assume she did, at some point in her life, go there. We can assume it was after Reginald Harper brought their love child here to pass him off as his legitimate heir.”
“And we can assume she was crazy as a crack monkey,” David added. “From the way she looked.”
“Yet, from what we know she’s never bothered with the place since Harper’s lived there. How long?”
“Shit, I don’t know.” He shrugged, drummed his fingers on the thighs of his ragged work pants. “Since college. Six, seven years.”
“But she goes in now, destructively. She may be crazy, but there’s a reason. Everything she’s done has a root and a reason. Have you brought anything in there recently? Anything new?”
“Ah, no.” But the idea made him pause and consider instead of stew. “Plants. I rotate plants, but I’ve done that for years. And the usual stuff, you know, groceries, CDs, clothes. Nothing particular or unusual.”
“Anyone?”
“Sorry?”
“Have you had anyone over who hasn’t been there before? A woman?”
“No.”
“Now that’s just sad.” David swung an arm around Harper’s shoulders. “Losing your touch?”
“My touch is still gold. Just been a little busy.”
“And before it happened, you were?”
“Watching the game upstairs in the bedroom, reading. Zonked out, and the next I know it’s crash, boom, bang.”
He heard Lily’s happy call and winced. “Damn it, here they come. Mitch, let’s put those away, put this all away until—”
He broke off, cursing himself for not moving faster, when Lily ran in just ahead of Hayley. She zipped straight for him, all grins and upstretched arms.
“She heard your voice,” Hayley said as he picked Lily up. “Her face just lit.”
“His touch is gold,” David said dryly, “with toddlers.”
“It’s sure her favorite way to start the morning.” She went to the refrigerator for juice, and when she turned with the bottle and Lily’s cup in her hands, spotted the photographs. “What’s all this?”
“It’s nothing. Just a little late-night adventure.”
“Good God, what a mess! You have a party and not invite us?” Then she blinked, and paled as she leaned closer. “Oh. Oh, Amelia. Are you all right? Are you hurt?” She dropped Lily’s cup as she swung toward him. “Harper, did she hurt you?”
“No. No.” He patted the hand she was running over his face, his arm. “It’s just dishes.”
David bent to retrieve the plastic cup, wiggled his eyebrows at Mitch on the way up, and said, “Aha,” under his breath.
“But look at your things.” She snatched up a photo. “Your sweet little kitchen. What is wrong with her? Why does she have to be so damn mean?”
“Being dead probably ticks her off some. I think Lily wants her juice.”
“All right, all right. If it’s not one thing it’s six others with her—Amelia, not Lily. I’m getting fed up.” She poured the juice, secured the lid, then handed it to Lily. “There you are, baby. Just what are we going to do about this?” she demanded as she rounded on Mitch.
“Innocent bystander,” he reminded her and held up his hands.
“We all are, aren’t we? But that doesn’t mean a damn to her, apparently. Bitch.” She sat down, folded her arms.
“Feel better?” David asked her, and poured her some coffee.
“I don’t know what I feel.”
“Just dishes.” Harper settled Lily in her highchair. “And according to David, ugly ones.”
Hayley worked up a smile. “They weren’t too ugly. I’m sorry, Harper.” She touched his hand. “I’m so sorry.”
“Sorry about what?” Roz asked as she came in.
“There’s the bell for round two.” David gestured with the coffeepot. “I think I’ll make crepes.”
SHE COULDN’T CONCENTRATE. Hayley went through the routine of waiting on customers, ringing up sales on automatic. When she didn’t think she could stand making inane chat with another living soul, she went into Stella’s office to throw herself on her mercy.
“Give me some manual labor, will you? Something hot and sweaty. Get me off the counter, please. I keep feeling this bitch attack coming on, and I don’t want one to spew onto the customers.”
Stella pushed back in her chair to give Hayley the once-over. “Why don’t you take a break instead?”
“I stop doing, I’ll start thinking. Then I’ll start seeing those pictures of Harper’s kitchen in my head again.”
“I know it’s upsetting, Hayley, but—”
“It’s my fault.”
“How is Harper’s kitchen getting trashed your fault? And did you have anything to do with the broken vase in my living room, because no one in my house is taking responsibility. At the moment, I Dunno is taking the rap.”
“I Dunno is the classic whipping boy.”
“Between him and Not Me, nothing is safe, nothing is sacred.”
Blowing out a breath, Hayley dropped into a chair. “All right, I will take a break, just for a minute. Can you take one, too, talk to me?”
“Sure.” Stella swung away from the spreadsheet on her computer monitor.
“When I left your place last night I went to Harper’s. I talked myself into taking some action, making a move, going up a step, you know? He wants to think of me as Cousin Hayley, or Lily’s mama, or whatever the hell he thinks, fine. But I’ll give him a taste and see what he thinks of that.”
“Woo-hoo. And?”
“I laid one on him. Standing right there in his kitchen, moved in and gave him one of those here’s-what-you’re-missing-so-why-don’t-you-come-get-it kisses.”
Stella’s lips quivered up into a smile. “And did he? Come and get it?”
“You could say. The kiss he gave me back was more of the since-you-opened-the-gate-I’m-galloping-right-on-in variety. He’s got a really amazing mouth. I sort of figured he did, but having a couple of good samples made me realize I’d underestimated. Considerably.”
“That’s good, isn’t it? It’s what you wanted.”
“It’s not about what I want. Or maybe it is.” She pushed back to her feet, but there was nowhere to pace in the tiny office. “Maybe that’s just the point. In his kitchen, Stella. I kissed him in his kitchen, and a few hours later, she’s in there wrecking the place. It doesn’t take a math whiz to put that two and two together. I opened the gate, all right, but she’s the one who came in.”
“You’re mixing metaphors. I’m not saying you’re entirely wrong,” she added, and stretched out from the chair to open her little cooler for bottled water. “But I am going to say it’s not your fault. She’s a volatile presence, Hayley, and none of us is responsible for her actions, or what happened to her.”
“No, but try telling her that. Thanks,” she said when Stella handed her one of the bottles.
“What we’re doing is trying to find out, maybe to make it as right as it can be made, but we have to live our lives while we do.”
“It’s about sexual energy and emotional attachments. That’s what Roz thinks, and I think she’s on to something.”
“You told Roz about you and Harper.”
She took a long, deep drink. “No, no, I mean in general. And there isn’t any ‘me and Harper,’ not really. Roz and Mitch think it’s the sexual buzz and the developing emotions that get her stirred up, at least in part. So I’ve got to work off some of this buzz and these feelings.”
“Even if you could, you’re not taking Harper’s buzz or feelings into account.”
“I can take care of that. It’s when they’re directed at me. Otherwise, she’d’ve slapped at him before.” Her fingers tightened on the bottle, but she caught herself before the gesture pushed water over the lip. “You can bet he’s done more than kiss a woman in his kitchen in that house before last night, and she didn’t get bent out of shape.”
“Again, no argument. But if it does connect to you and Harper, then it must mean something. Maybe something important. The way Logan and I, the way Mitch and Roz mean something important to each other.”
“I can’t think about that. Not now. I just want to work off this edge. Give me something physical.”
“I want all the excess stock cleared out of greenhouse one, brought around front for a display. One table for annuals, one for perennials, and marked thirty percent off.”
“I’ll get right on it. Thanks.”
“Be sure to remember you thanked me when you collapse from heat exhaustion,” Stella called out.
SHE LOADED FLATS and pots on a flatbed cart and hauled them around to the front of the building. It took her four trips. She muscled over the tables she wanted, positioning them where they’d be most likely to catch the eye of someone driving by. Possible impulse sales, she decided.
She still had to stop from time to time, talk to customers or direct them, but for the most part, she was blessedly left alone.
The air was close and heavy, the sort that brewed itself into thunderstorms. She hoped it did. She’d relish a bitching good storm. It would suit her mood exactly.
Still, the work kept her mind busy. She played the game of identifying and reciting the name of each specimen as she unloaded. Pretty soon she might be as good as Roz or Stella at recognizing plants. And she was pretty sure by the time she finished the work, she’d be too worn out to think about anything.
“Hayley. Been looking for you.” Harper’s brows drew together as he got closer. “What the hell are you doing?”
“Working.” She swiped a forearm over her sweaty brow. “That’s what I do around here.”
“It’s too hot for this kind of work, and the air quality’s in the toilet today. Get inside.”
“You’re not my boss.”
“Technically I am as I’m part owner of this place.”
She was a little breathless, and the damn sweat kept dribbling into her eyes. It only made her more irritable. “Stella told me to set this up, and I’m setting it up. She’s my immediate supervisor.”
“Of all the stupid—” He broke off, strode inside.
And straight into Stella’s office. “What the hell’s wrong with you, sending Hayley out in this heat hauling stock around?”
“Good God, is she still at it?” Alarmed, she pushed back from her desk. “I had no idea she’d—”
“Give me a goddamn bottle of water.”
Stella grabbed one out of her cooler. “Harper, I never thought she’d—”
But he held up a hand to cut her off. “Don’t. Just don’t.”
He marched out again, stormed outside, straight to Hayley. She took a swat at him when he grabbed her arm, but he pulled her away from the front of the building.
“Let go. What do you think you’re doing?”
“Getting you into the shade for a start.” He propelled her around the back, through tables and potted shrubs, between greenhouses, until he came to the shaded banks of the pond.
“Sit. Drink.”
“I don’t like you this way.”
“Right back at you. Now drink that water, and consider yourself lucky I don’t just toss you in the pond to cool you off. I expected better of Stella,” he said when Hayley glugged down water. “But the fact is, even though this is her second summer, she’s a Yankee. You were born and raised down here. You know what this kind of heat can do.”
“And I know how to handle it. And don’t you blame Stella for anything.” But she had to admit, now that she’d stopped, she felt a little queasy and light-headed. Giving in, she stretched out flat on the grass. “Maybe I overdid it. I got caught up, is all.” She turned her head, looked over at him. “But I don’t like being pushed around, Harper.”
“I don’t like pushing people around, but sometimes they need it.” He pulled off his fielder’s cap and waved it at her face to stir the air and cool her. “And since your color’s several shades under fire engine now, I’d say you did.”
It was hard to argue when it felt so good to stretch out on the grass, and so sweet to have him fanning her with his sweaty old cap.
The sun was behind him, but filtered through the high, thickly leaved branches so that it dappled over him, made him look romantic and handsome sitting in the summer shade.
All that dark hair, curling a bit at the ends from the heat and humidity. And those long, chocolate brown eyes were so . . . delicious. The blades of his cheekbones, the full, sexy shape of his mouth.
She could lie here, she thought, for hours just looking at him. The idea was foolish enough to make her smile.
“You get away with it, this once. I had a lot on my mind, and good, sweaty work helps me deal with it.”
“I got another way to deal with it.” He leaned down, then stopped, cocked his head when she brought her hand up between them.
“We’re on the clock here.”
“I thought we were on a break.”
“Work environment.” The work, however draining, had done the trick. She’d made her decision. It wasn’t about what she wanted, but about what was right. “Besides, I realized that sort of thing isn’t a good idea.”
“What sort of thing?”
“The you and me sort.” She sat up, shook her hair back and made sure she smiled at him. It would drop the base out of her world if they stopped being friends. “I like you, Harper. You mean a lot to me, to Lily, and I want to stay friends. We add sex to that, sure, it’d be nice for a while, but then it’d just get awkward and sticky.”
“It doesn’t have to.”
“Odds are.” She touched his knee, gave it a brisk rub. “I was just in a mood yesterday. I liked kissing you. It was nice.”
“Nice?”
“Sure.” Because she knew that expression on his face—or rather the lack of expression—meant he was angry and fighting it back, she bumped up the smile several degrees. “Kissing a good-looking guy’s always nice. But I’ve got to think beyond that kind of thing, and the best thing for me is to leave things just the way they are.”
“Things aren’t the way they were. You already changed that.”
“Harper, a couple of smoochies between friends isn’t such a big.” She patted his hand, started to get up, but he clamped his fingers around her wrist.
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