for c’ris—” Harper cut herself off, blew a pithy raspberry and stalked over to her car.
Her feet hurt from being on them all morning and she was cursing having worn her tallest wedged espadrilles as she blew through the front door of her cottage. Loggins and Messina played “Your Mama Don’t Dance” on the cell phone she’d deliberately left behind, and she crossed the room and snatched it off the little coffee table.
“Hi, Mom.” She kicked off her shoes and headed straight for the mini-fridge, where she pulled out a nice cold bottle of raspberry-green-tea-flavored artesian water. She rolled its cold plastic across her warm forehead.
“Hey, Baby Girl.”
Ever since her dad had died—and that had been a few years ago now—she and her mother had been at odds more often than not. So, hearing the nickname gave her a rush of pleasure. Tucking the phone between her ear and shoulder, she twisted the cap off the bottle and drank half of it down in one large swallow.
“For heaven’s sake, are you gulping something in my ear? Did your Grandma Hardin and I not teach you better manners than that?”
Harper tried not to feel resentful, she really did. She was thirty years old, for God’s sake; long past the age to be either scolded like a child or react as if she were one.
She inhaled and blew out a quiet breath, and still a vestige of attitude she simply couldn’t expunge colored her voice when she said, “Sorry. I just spent three-plus hours serving pancakes for a Cedar Village fund-raiser, and I’m tired and thirsty.”
There was an instant of silence. Then Gina Summerville-Hardin said softly, “How did that happen?”
Oh, God, it had been so easy, Harper still couldn’t quite believe it. She’d almost fallen off the picnic bench at Jenny’s dinner party when Max had presented the opportunity. “My boss’s boyfriend’s half brother is Max Bradshaw.”
The sudden silence was so absolute that Harper began to wonder if they’d lost the connection. “Mom?”
“Yes, I’m still here. The same Max Bradshaw who’s on the Cedar Village board?”
“Yes.”
“I was quite impressed with his dossier, being both a deputy and a veteran and all. He sounds like a very responsible man. Still, I must say I’m stunned at the coincidence.”
For a few seconds, her thoughts got hung up in that touch they’d shared over the sangria pitcher. Then she shrugged it off. “Well, Razor Bay is pretty small. It’s tougher to maintain my anonymity in a one stoplight town, but the upside is it’s easier to get to know the players, as there are just plain fewer of them. But, man. I thought I was lucky to get the job at The Brothers.” A dry laugh escaped her. “I had no idea how lucky.”
She’d taken the position because it was right up her alley, considering it was the kind of job she’d done before her dad’s death had pulled her into the nonprofit charity her parents had started when her father retired his engineering degree. But primarily she’d taken it because ever since she had joined the fold, her year-round job had become assessing the worthiness of the less-established charities applying for grants from Sunday’s Child. In this case Cedar Village had submitted a request to the family foundation for a grant that would enable them to hire an additional counselor, fill the gaps in their supplies and fix the roof on the classroom building where the boys kept up with their education even as they learned the skills they’d need to reenter society as fully functional young men.
Her dad was the one who had originated the policy of anonymous evaluations after his first few trips to meet grant applicants had resulted in lavish dog and pony shows presented strictly to impress him. He’d decided a better way to get the true measure of how a charity was run was to assess them anonymously in their day-to-day business.
“I still don’t understand why you took that job at all,” her mother said, pulling Harper from her reverie. “It doesn’t take you thirteen weeks to make your assessment.”
“Mom, I told you—the only other reason to be in a town this size would be to take a vacation, and who’d believe a single woman on vacay had a sudden yen to volunteer at a home for delinquent boys? How would she even hear of it? Besides, I kind of needed a vacation.”
“So you took a job?”
Harper bit back a sigh, because they’d had this conversation before. “I took a fun job, and it’s a break from lying to people. That is a vacation.”
“Yet you’re lying to these people, too, aren’t you?”
Harper was suddenly so weary she could barely hold her head up. What the hell had happened to them that they were so far apart these days? “Yes, Mother. You’re absolutely right. I’m a liar no matter what I do.”
“Darling, I didn’t mean it that way. I simply think if you’re unhappy, you should let someone else do that job and come home.”
“I’m not unhappy.” Yes, she got tired of the subterfuge sometimes, but she genuinely got the reasoning behind it. And she loved the new places, new people aspect of it. Loved getting to help charities that made things easier for kids. But her mother, who wanted her to quit traveling and settle down, would never believe that.
And she really didn’t feel up to justifying her choices yet again. “Whoops. There’s the doorbell. I’ll talk to you soon, Mom.”
“Harper, wait—”
“Gotta go. Bye.” She disconnected. Then, blowing out an unhappy breath, she tossed the phone on the table and flopped back on the couch.
This was the right way to do things, she assured herself. Her dad had done it so, and she still trusted his judgment unswervingly. As for the niggle of doubt her mother’s words had created?
Taking a steady, calming breath, she flicked it away.
CHAPTER FOUR
MAX WAS ON his way to Harper’s cottage the next evening when a movement in his peripheral vision caught his attention. Glancing left, he expected to see someone lounging in the inn’s hot tub. Instead, the spa appeared empty. Then another tiny shift along the water’s already bubbling surface drew his focus, and he saw a woman free-floating, only her neck and head supported by the edge of the tub.
Her warm, gorgeous coloring seized his attention, and it never even occurred to him to question her identity. He knew who she was by the hot jolt of electric pleasure that sparked through his veins. Veering off the path, he made a beeline for the little oasis of plantings where the tub resided just outside the inn’s pool house. This made things both simpler and more difficult.
Simpler because he wouldn’t have to be alone with Harper in her tiny bungalow. And harder because, well, hell—look at her. Close up, he could see the light brown skin of her breasts, framed by the deep V of her black-and-white patterned halter top, rising out of the bubbling water. The uppermost curve of her long, smooth thighs and her orange-tipped toes broke the waterline, as well.
He shook his head impatiently. He’d sworn to himself he would meet with her tonight and not think about sex.
Yeah, it was a stupid promise, but his word was his word, dammit. “How could you have made the pancake breakfast
