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It was a maneuver, and shame on her, but she looked over her shoulder, looked dead into his eyes. And smiled. “Is that better?”
“Yeah. Better. A lot.”
As she’d hoped, his gaze skimmed down, lingered on her mouth. Classic move, she thought. Classic results.
“I’ll . . . show you how to do the rest.”
He looked blank for a moment, like a man who’d forgotten what he was doing in the middle of a task. She couldn’t have been more delighted.
Then he stepped back, reached in his tool bag for the grafting tape.
That had been so nice, she mused. Line to line, heat to heat, for just a few seconds. Of course now she was all churned up, but it felt good, felt fine to have everything swimming around inside her.
But as penance for her calculation, she behaved herself, played the eager student as she positioned the bud chip on the stock so the cambium layers met as snugly as her body had met Harper’s.
She bound the chip to stock using the tape around and over the bud as instructed.
“Good. Perfect.” He still felt a little breathless, and the palms of his hands were damp enough that he wiped them on the knees of his jeans. “In six weeks, maybe two months, the chip will have united, and we’ll take off the tape. Late next winter, we’ll cut the top of the stock, just above this bud, and during the spring the grafted bud will send out a shoot, and we’re off and running.”
“It’s fun, isn’t it? How you can take a little something from one, a little something from another, put them together and make more.”
“That’s the plan.”
“Will you show me some of the other techniques sometime? Like what you do in the grafting house?” Her body was angled, her head bent over the next rootstock. “Roz and Stella showed me some of the propagation techniques. I’ve done some flats by myself. I’d like to try something in the grafting house.”
Alone with her there, in all that moist heat. He’d probably drown in a pool of his own lust.
“Sure, sure. No problem.”
“Harper?” She knelt to join chip bud with rootstock. “Did you ever think, when your mama started this place, it’d be what it is?”
He had to focus, on her words, on the work, and ignore—or at least suffer through—his body’s reaction to her.
Lily’s mama, he reminded himself. A guest in his home. An employee. Could it be any more complicated?
Jesus, God. Help.
“Harper?”
“Sorry.” He wrapped grafting tape. “I did.” When he looked up, looked around, beyond the fields and nursery beds, to the greenhouses, and sheds, he calmed. “I guess I could see it because it was what I wanted, too. And I know when Mama puts her mind to something, puts her back into it, she’s going to make it work.”
“What if she hadn’t wanted it, or put her mind to it? What would you be doing?”
“Just what I’m doing. If she hadn’t decided on this I’d’ve started it myself. And because I wanted it, she’d’ve got on board, so I guess we’d have pretty much what we have here.”
“She’s the best, isn’t she? It’s good that you know that, that you understand how lucky you are. I see that between you. You don’t take each other for granted. I hope Lily and I have that one day.”
“Seems like you already do.”
She smiled at that, and rose to go to the next rootstock. “Do you think you and Roz are the way you are with each other, to each other—and your brothers, too—because you didn’t have a daddy most of your life? I mean, I think I was closer to my own daddy because it was just the two of us than I might’ve been otherwise. I’ve wondered about that.”
“Maybe.” His hair, a thick tangle of black, fell forward as he worked. He shook it back, momentarily annoyed he’d forgotten a hat. “I remember her and my father, how they were together. It was special. She’s got something like that with Mitch—not the same. I guess it’s never the same, not supposed to be. But they’ve got something good and special. That’s what she deserves.”
“Do you ever think about finding somebody? Somebody good and special?”
“Me?” His head whipped up, and he narrowly missed slicing his own finger with the knife. “No. No. Well, eventually. Why? Do you?”
He heard her sigh as she moved down the nursery bed. “Eventually.”
WHEN THEY WERE finished, and she had gone, Harper walked back to the pond. He emptied out his pockets, tossed his sunglasses on the grass. Then dived in.
It had been something he’d done—with or without clothes—since childhood. There was nothing like a quick dip into the pond to cool you down on a sticky summer day.
He’d been on the point of kissing her. More than, he admitted, and sank under the surface, along the lily pads and yellow flags. It had been more than a kiss—even a hot and greedy one—that had run through his mind when he’d had his hands on her.
He had to put that aside—well off to the side—as he had been for more than a year now. She looked to him for friendship. God help him, she probably thought of him as a kind of brother.
So he’d just have to keep tamping down his less than brotherly feelings until he beat out the last of the sparks. Or burned up.
Best thing for him to do was get himself back into circulation. He was spending too much time at home, and too much of that time alone. Maybe he’d go into the city tonight, make some calls, meet some friends. Better yet, make a date. Have dinner, listen to music. Charm himself into some willing female’s bed.
The trouble was, he couldn’t think of any particular female he wanted to be with, over dinner, with music, or in the bed. That right there, it seemed to him, illustrated his pitiful state of affairs. Or lack of them.
He just wasn’t in the mood to do the dance that ended up between the sheets. He couldn’t bring himself to call another woman, put on the show, go through the pretense, when the woman he wanted was sleeping in his own house.
And as far out of his reach as the moon.
He pulled himself out of the water, shook like a dog. Maybe he’d go into town though. He picked up the rest of his things, shoving them in his dripping pockets. See if any of his unattached friends felt like catching a movie, eating some barbecue, hitting a club. Something, anything, to take his mind somewhere else for a night.
BUT WHEN HE got home, he wasn’t in the mood to go out. He made excuses to himself: It was too hot, he was too tired, he didn’t feel like the drive. What he really wanted was a cool shower and a cold beer. He was pretty sure there was a frozen pizza buried with the leftovers David was always giving him. There was a ballgame on TV.
What else did he need?
A long warm body with miles of leg and smooth skin. Luscious lips and big blue eyes.
Since that wasn’t on the menu, he decided to drop the temperature of the shower to cold.
His hair was still dripping and he wore nothing but ancient cutoffs when he wandered into the kitchen for that beer.
Like the rest of the house, it was small-scale. He didn’t need big, he’d grown up in big. And he liked the charm and convenience of his little rooms. He thought of the converted two-story carriage house as a kind of country cottage. The way it sat away from the main house, surrounded by the gardens with their curving paths, shaded by old trees, gave it the kind of solitude and privacy that suited him. And kept him close enough to the main house that he could be on hand if his mother needed him.
If he wanted company, all he had to do was stroll over. If he didn’t, he stayed put. More often than not, he admitted, he stayed put.
He remembered when he’d decided to move in, and his biggest decorating plan had been to paint all the walls white and be done with it. Both his mother and David had been all over him like white on rice for that one.
They’d been right, he had to admit it. He liked the silvery sage walls in his kitchen and the stone gray counters, the distressed wood of the cabinets. He supposed the color had inspired him to juice the place up a little with the pieces of old pottery or china sitting around, the herbs growing on the windowsill.
It was a nice space, even if he was just eating a sandwich over the sink. He liked standing here, looking out at his own little greenhouse, and the explosion of the summer gardens.
The hydrangeas were as big as soccerballs this year, he noted, and the infusion of iron he’d given them turned them a strong, unearthly blue. Maybe he’d cut a few, plunk them down somewhere in the house.
Butterflies were massing around the garden he and his mother had planted to lure them. A flurry of colorful wings flashed over the welcoming bloom of purple coneflower, the sunny coreopsis, fragrant verbena, and the reliable asters. Backing them was the elegant dance of daylilies.
Maybe he’d cut a few of those, too, and take them over to the house so Lily could have them in her room. She liked flowers, liked when he took her walking in the gardens so she could touch them.
And her eyes, blue like her mama’s, got so big and serious when he recited the names. Just like she was taking it all in, filing it away.
Christ, who’d have thought he’d be so gone on a kid?
But it was so cool the way she’d march along with her little hand in his, then stop and reach up, that pretty face turned to his, that pretty face full of light because she knew he’d swing her up. Then the way she’d hook her arm around his neck, or pat his hair. It just killed him.
It was amazing to love, to be loved in that open, uncomplicated way.
He took a pull of the beer, then opened the freezer to look for the pizza. He heard the quick knock on the front door seconds before it opened.
“Hope I’m interrupting an orgy,” David called out. He strolled in, cocked his head at Harper. “What, no dancing girls?”
“They just left.”
“I see they ripped your clothes off first.”
“You know how it is with dancing girls. Wanna beer?”
“Tempting, but no. I’m saving myself for an exceptional Grey Goose martini. Night off, heading into Memphis to meet some people. Why don’t you cover up that manly chest and come along?”
“Too hot.”
“I’m driving, got AC. Go on, put on some dancing shoes. We’re going to check out some clubs.”
Harper pointed his beer toward his friend. “Every time I check out some clubs with you, somebody hits on me. And they’re not always female.”
“You heartbreaker. I’ll protect you, throw myself bodily on anyone who tries to pat your ass. What’re you going to do, Harp, stew around here with a beer and Kraft’s mac and cheese?”
“Kraft’s mac and cheese is the packaged dinner of champions. But I’m going with frozen pizza tonight. Besides, there’s a game on.”
“You are breaking my heart. Harper, we’re young, we’re hot. You’re straight, I’m gay, which means we cover all available ground and double our chances of getting lucky. Between us we can cut a mighty swath down Beale Street. Don’t you remember, Harp?” He took Harper by the shoulders, gave him a dramatic shake. “Don’t you remember how once we ruled?”
He had to grin. “Those were the days.”
“These are still the days.”
“Don’t you remember how once we puked our guts up in the gutter?”
“Sweet, sweet memories.” David hitched himself up to sit on the counter, took Harper’s beer for one sip. “Should I be worried about you?”
“No. Why?”
“When’s the last time you had your pipes cleaned?”
“Jesus, David.” He took a gulp of beer.
“Used to be a time when the nubiles were lined up three deep on the path to your door. Now the closest you come to a bang is nuking Kraft’s in the mike.”
It was too close to the truth for comfort. “I’m on sabbatical. I guess I got tired of it,” he said with a shrug. “Besides, things have been pretty busy and intense around here for a while. The business with the Bride, especially finding out she was like my great-great-grandmother. Somebody screwed with her, messed her up. Careless, you know, callous, the way it’s playing out. I don’t want to be careless anymore.”
“You never were.” Soberly now, David boosted himself down. “How long have we been friends? Almost for fucking ever. I’ve never known you to be careless with anyone. If you’re talking sex, you’re the only person I know who stays friendly with a lover once the heat blows off. You’re not careless with people, Harper. And just because Reginald was a bastard—most likely—doesn’t mean you’re doomed to be.”
“No, I know. I’m not obsessing about it or anything. Just sort of taking stock. Just chilling awhile until I figure out what I want for the next phase.”
“You want company, I can take you up on that beer and whip up something considerably less revolting than frozen pizza.”
“I like frozen pizza.” He’d do it, Harper thought. He’d blow off his plans, just to hang, to be a pal. “Go, there’s a martini with your name on it.” He slapped a hand on David’s shoulder to lead him to the front door. “Eat, drink, make Barry.”
“Got my cell phone if you change your mind.”
“Thanks.” He opened the door, leaned on the jamb. “But while you’re steaming along Beale, I’m going to be sitting in the cool, watching the Braves trounce the Mariners.”
“Pitiful, son, just pitiful.”
“And drinking beer in my underwear, which cannot be overstated.” He broke off, felt the punch straight to the belly when Hayley and Lily came around a turn of the garden.
“Now that’s a pretty sight.”
“Yeah. They look good.” The baby wore some sort of romper thing, pink and white stripes, with a little pink bow in her hair—dark hair, like her mother’s. She looked sweet as a candy stick.
And Mama—tiny blue shorts, a yard of leg, bare feet. Some skinny little white top and wraparound shades. A different kind of candy altogether. Maybe it was sweet, but it was sure as hell hot.
He tipped up the beer to cool his throat, and Lily spotted them. She let out something between a yell and a squeal—all delight—and pulling away from Hayley made a beeline toward the carriage house as fast as her little legs could manage.
“Slow down, sweet potato.” David moved forward to scoop her up, give her a toss. She patted his face with both of her hands, gabbled at him, then reached for Harper.
“As always, I’m day-old paté when you’re around.”
“Hand her over,” Harper hitched her onto his hip where she kicked her legs with joy and beamed at him. “Hey, pretty girl.”
In response, she tilted her head to lay it on his shoulder.
“What a flirt,” Hayley commented as she walked up. “Here we are having a nice walk, having a little girl-talk, she spots a couple of handsome men, and blows me off.”
“Why don’t you leave her with Harper, put on a party dress and drive on into Memphis with me?”
“Oh, I—”
“Sure.” Harper kept his voice carefully neutral as he jiggled Lily. “She can hang with me. You can bring that Portacrib thing over and I’ll put her down when she’s tired.”
“That’s nice, I appreciate it. But it’s been a long day. I don’t think I’m up for a trip to Memphis.”
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