Suddenly You
Suddenly You
Sarah Mayberry
Pippa White has always been out of bounds for Harry Porter.First she was going out with his best friend Steve. Then she had his baby. They might have broken up, but Harry would never betray a lifelong friendship by pursuing a woman he’s always found incredibly compelling. Would he?
Now, that was a move he hadn’t seen coming
In fact, Harry still couldn’t quite believe Pippa had shoved the envelope of money—payment he hadn’t asked for and wasn’t going to keep—down the waistband of his shorts.
Briefly he toyed with the idea of going after her, letting her know in no uncertain terms that he wasn’t interested in her money. He imagined himself chasing her down, backing her into a corner until she was forced to take the envelope back. She’d protest, no doubt, but he’d simply look into those rich chocolate-brown eyes of hers and—
He put the cash in his pocket and turned away from the thought that had been about to insinuate itself into his head. Pippa was off-limits. She was trying to raise Alice on her own. Pippa was all about responsibility and commitment. Nothing that Harry had to offer.
Walk away, mate.
Too bad his libido wasn’t getting the message.
Dear Reader,
I’ve written two sequels in my career so far—this one and One Good Reason—and both were completely unplanned. It wasn’t until I started writing about a character who I assumed would be a supporting player that I realized that I wanted to tell that story, too.
Harry came to life in All They Need, which tells the story of his sister, Mel, and Flynn, the man who teaches her that love is not about pain and shame. I loved Harry from the moment he opened his mouth. His tattoos, his attitude, his blue-collar decency. I talked about him with my editor, and she—wise, wise woman—said, “For some reason I see him with a woman who has a child.” My brain lit up like a slot machine hitting jackpot. Of course Harry had to fall in love with a woman with a child! What better way to rock the world of a committed party boy?
When I started thinking about who this woman might be, it occurred to me that the lives of men like Harry revolve around their mates. They party together, they hang together, they have each other’s backs. But what if one of those mates turns out to have done the wrong thing by an ex-lover who wound up pregnant? And what if Harry had always really liked this woman because she was smart and funny and sassy? Beneath his tough exterior, Harry is a huge pussycat. I figured he’d be powerless to resist the urge to step in and step up on his friend’s behalf.
Those basic ideas sent my imagination off. I loved writing this book! Pippa and Harry were so much fun. I hope you enjoy reading their journey. I love hearing from readers, so please feel free to drop me a line at sarah@sarahmayberry.com (mailto:sarah@sarahmayberry.com).
Oh, and in case you’re wondering, I’ve never fallen through the ceiling. But I have come very, very close!
Happy reading,
Sarah Mayberry
About the Author
SARAH MAYBERRY lives in Melbourne in a house by the bay, happily sharing her days with her partner (now husband!) of twenty years and a small black, tan and white cavoodle called Max. She adores them both. When she isn’t writing, she is feeling guilty about not being out in the garden more and indulging in shoe shopping and reimagining her soon-to-be renovated home. She also loves to read, cook, go to the movies and sleep, and is fully aware that the word exercise should be in that list somewhere, too.
Suddenly You
Sarah Mayberry
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
This book was written with the undeniable distraction of a new puppy in the house. So it would be remiss of me not to thank Max for the many hours he stole from my work while simultaneously making me laugh and gnash my teeth. Bless your little furry everything.
As usual, Wanda held my hand and gave sage counsel and helped me see the wood for the trees. There would be no me without you, my dear.
And Chris. What can I say? You really are the best. The funniest. The smartest. The sweetest. (There are more -ests, but I don’t want to embarrass you. You know where I’m going with this, though.)
Lastly, a big thanks to the readers who take the time to put fingers to keyboard to write to me. Your letters really do make my day.
CHAPTER ONE
BEER. ICY COLD, preferably accompanied by a big, greasy burger. Oh, yeah.
Harry Porter rolled down the window of his 1972 HQ Monaro GTS and grinned into the resulting wind as he sped toward the pub. A vintage Midnight Oil song played on the radio and he tapped out the rhythm on the steering wheel, the burble of the V8 engine providing a bass beat.
It was Friday afternoon, it was summer, he’d just been paid, and half a dozen of his best mates were waiting at the Pier Hotel ten minutes up the road to kick off the weekend’s adventures.
Life didn’t get much better.
Whoever was in charge at the radio station seemed to agree because Midnight Oil’s “Power and the Passion” was followed by Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” He was reaching for the volume to crank it higher when he spotted the bright yellow car in the emergency stopping lane to the left of the highway, its hood pushed up in the universal signal that someone was shit out of luck.
The mechanic in him automatically diagnosed the problem—in this weather, most likely the car’s cooling system—before returning his gaze to the road. Fortunately, being a mechanic wasn’t like being a doctor—Harry wasn’t obliged to stop for emergencies. Which was just as well, because he’d spend half his life riding to the rescue if that was the case.
Something tickled at the back of his brain as he approached the car. He realized what it was as he sped past. He knew this car—at least, he knew its owner. He hadn’t seen her for nearly six months, but that was definitely her bright yellow hatchback, a fact he confirmed when he looked in his rear vision mirror and saw Pippa White standing with her hands on her hips staring into the engine bay.
He swerved into the unsealed emergency lane and glanced in the rearview mirror as Pippa turned to watch his big black car reverse toward her. She was frowning, clearly trying to work out who was coming to her rescue.
The worried expression vanished from her face when he exited his car. It was replaced with the wry, appreciative smile he’d come to associate with her during the six months she’d dated his best mate, Steve.
Pippa pushed her heavy black-framed glasses up her nose and scanned him head to toe as he approached.
“You’re definitely not what I was expecting when I sent up a prayer for a guardian angel.”
“Long time no see,” he said easily.
Pippa’s smile slipped a fraction and he knew that—like him—she was remembering the last time they’d seen each other. Driven by god-knows-what stupid impulse, he had visited her at the hospital after the birth of her daughter, Alice. The most uncomfortable fifteen minutes of his life so far, hands down. She recovered quickly, pushing her glasses up her nose again.
“How have you been, Harry? How’s Hogwarts going? Cast any good spells lately?”
The Harry Potter/Porter jokes had gotten old around the time Ms. Rowling had made her second billion, but Pippa was one of the few people he allowed to get away with them. They’d always got on well and, unlike most of Steve’s girlfriends, he’d regretted it when things had gone pear-shaped and she’d disappeared off the scene. She’d always had something interesting to say, and she’d always laughed at his jokes, even when they sucked.
“Made some underwear disappear the other night, if that’s what you mean.”
She laughed appreciatively. “Dirty dog.”
“How about you? How are things?”
“I’ve had better days, you know.” She shrugged, her dark, wavy hair brushing her shoulders. A sparkly clip was pinned at one temple. Combined with her heavy glasses, it gave her an arty, slightly eccentric look that was reinforced by her old-fashioned floral dress and timeworn tan oxfords.
Not for the first time he wondered how she and Steve had ever hooked up. She was a million miles from the tight-T-shirted, tight-jeaned women his mate usually went for, and Harry had always figured Steve wasn’t exactly Pippa’s normal dating material, either. Which only made it more problematic that they’d created a little girl between them.
“How’s Alice?” he asked, glancing at the backseat.
The baby seat was empty, however.
“Mum’s visiting, so she’s got her for the day. I was supposed to be getting a few chores sorted, but Old Yeller had other ideas.” Her tone was heavy with irony as she gave her car a rueful glance.
“Let me guess—it overheated?”
“To be honest, I have no idea. One minute I was driving along, the next minute there was this bang and then steam and smoke was pouring out from under the hood …”
Harry frowned. Steam sounded right for overheating, but not smoke. He moved closer to lean over the engine bay. It took him only a moment to spot the oil dripping down the engine block and sprayed across the other engine components.
“Looks like you’ve blown a head gasket.”
Pippa joined him, peering at the engine. “That’s bad, right?”
“It’s not great. It basically means the engine is no longer sealed properly, so the oil that’s supposed to stop things from seizing up when they get hot leaks out.”
“Does that mean the engine is seized now?” She looked alarmed.
“Not if you pulled over immediately.”
“I did. Straight away.”
“Then it’s probably okay. But the only way to know for sure is to crack the engine block open and take a look.”
“That sounds expensive. Am I right?” A worried expression filled her brown eyes.
“It can be. Depends on parts, what they find when they get in there …”
She nodded. “Right. Well, I guess me standing here swearing at it won’t change any of that.”
Harry pulled out his phone. Since he couldn’t help her, the least he could do was organize a tow truck.
“Who normally services the car?” He knew most of the workshops in this part of the Mornington Peninsula, as well as a number of the tow truck operators.
“Oh, um, I don’t know the name off the top of my head. A place down in Mornington.” She waved a hand vaguely.
“Sweet Motors? Beachside Workshop?” he suggested.
Pippa shook her head, her gaze sliding from his face to the car. “I think I’ve got their card at home.”
“Do you want to get it towed to your place, then?”
“No, then I’d have to pay twice. I’ll just go home and sort it from there. But thanks for the thought.”
Her words were light but the frown creasing her forehead remained. Harry hesitated, but there was something about the way she was trying to be so casual about what was clearly a major hassle that made him want to help out. Even though it wasn’t his place, and they weren’t really friends anymore.
“My dad owns the workshop in Mount Eliza Village. I could give him a ring. I’m sure he wouldn’t mind helping out with a tow.” Technically, this was true, since Mike Porter had always been a soft touch for someone in distress, but it didn’t mean Harry wouldn’t cop some grief for his impulsive offer. He could almost hear his dad now: It’d be different if you actually worked for Village Motors, mate. Then you’d be within your rights to make offers on my behalf.
The fact that Harry had chosen to work for someone else once he’d finished his apprenticeship had always been a minor bone of contention between him and his father, although lately it seemed there was more weight behind his father’s comments and jokey asides.
Still, Harry was willing to wear the inevitable heat if it meant helping Pippa.
“That’s really nice of you, but I don’t want to put anyone out. Besides, my car club offers free roadside assistance. I can call them from home and get everything sorted.”
“You won’t be putting anyone out. The workshop is up the road. It’s no big deal.”
Pippa’s expression became determined. “Thanks, but I’ve got it covered.” She softened her rejection by touching his forearm briefly. “I appreciate you stopping, Harry. A lot of other guys would have kept going.”
He frowned. The reality was, if she’d been one of Steve’s other exes, he would have simply blown past without a second thought. He wasn’t sure why it was different with Pippa, except he’d always liked her. And—maybe—because he felt a little sorry for her, given her situation and the way things had turned out.
“Can I give you a lift home, then?” he heard himself offer. Even though every minute that ticked past chewed up his weekend and delayed the moment when he had an ice-cold glass of beer in his hand.
“Thanks, but Mum can come get me.”
Pippa tried to pull the hood stand from its notch on the side of the engine bay. Harry watched her struggle for a few seconds before leaning across her and pulling it loose. He got a whiff of hot engine oil and a rich vanilla scent—Pippa’s perfume most likely—as the hood shut with a dull thud.
“Where are you living these days?” he asked.
“Frankston South. Off Karrs Road.”
“Perfect. I’m driving past on the way to the pub.”
She started to protest again but he walked to the driver’s side of the hatchback and leaned in to grab her handbag.
“You need anything else before we lock it up?” he asked as he passed her the bag.
Her expression became rueful. “You’re not going to let this drop, are you?”
“Can’t be a knight in shining armor if the princess won’t get up on my horse.”
She scanned his face, almost as though she was looking for evidence of something. His sincerity, perhaps? Or maybe she was thinking more of his association with Steve.
“It’s just a lift, Pippa.”
“True. And I wouldn’t want to deprive you of the chance to play Sir Galahad.”
“Especially since the urge only hits once every five years or so.”
She laughed, the sound loud and honest. “I bet. I’ve got some shopping in the back that should come home with me.”
He followed her to the trunk and grabbed the bags.
“Thanks.”
“All part of the service.”
“There’s a service? And here I was thinking I was getting special treatment.”
She was so dry he couldn’t help turning on the charm a little. “That’s part of the service, too.” He winked, deepened his voice a notch.
Pippa laughed again as they headed for his car. “My God, Harry. No wonder half the women in Frankston love to hate you.”
They were on familiar ground now—Pippa giving him a hard time about the “revolving door” to his bedroom.
“You’ve been talking to the wrong women.”
“Sure I have.” She gave him a look over her shoulder before opening the passenger door.
Harry smiled. He hadn’t been so sure earlier, but now he was glad he’d stopped. It was good to see her again, and even better to help her out of a jam, even in a very minor way.
Digging his keys from his pocket, he prepared himself for a challenging, entertaining five minutes.
PIPPA PRESSED A hand against her belly as Harry stowed her shopping. For some unknown reason, seeing and talking to him again had made her nervous.
A different kind of nervous, obviously, than the way she’d felt when his black car had swerved into the emergency lane so abruptly. The Nepean Highway was a public enough road that she hadn’t been afraid for her personal safety, but she’d be lying if she said she hadn’t been a little concerned. Then her rescuer had unfolded himself from his car and she’d known she was in good hands.
The car dipped as Harry slid into the driver’s seat. Pippa eyed his worn jeans, faded black T-shirt and tattooed arms, acknowledging the irony that someone who looked so fierce could make her feel so safe.
At first glance, Harry looked exactly like the sort of man that should make a woman worry—the military-short hair, the honed power of his arms and shoulders, the sheer height and breadth of him. And, of course, there were those tribal tattoos snaking around his arms. Inky-black and impossible to miss, they marked him as an outlaw, someone who didn’t color between the lines.
Not exactly your usual white-knight material, yet she knew Harry well enough to know he was a big softie underneath his fierce exterior.
“Got a big weekend planned?” she asked as he started the car.
“Always.” The smile he flashed her was confident, bordering on cocky.
“Fathers of Melbourne, lock up your daughters.”
“Fat lot of good that’ll do.”
It was true. She’d seen Harry in action enough times to know he didn’t have to go hunting for women. They came to him, flicking their teased blond hair and sashaying their miniskirted hips. Watching him charm them out of their underwear had fascinated her—but then she’d long recognized that she had a self-destructive penchant for bad boys. Witness her six months with Steve, who was the blond, blue-eyed version of Harry—a teenage boy’s mind in a grown man’s body, all about fun and good times and no responsibility.
As always, thoughts of Steve Lawson tightened her stomach, so she pushed them away. There was no point getting herself all bunged up over a situation she could do nothing to change.
“Let me guess—you’re kicking off at the Pier. Then you’ll move on to the Grand or the Twenty-First Century, and you’ll wind up at Macca’s place playing pool in the garage till three in the morning,” she said.
“Sounds pretty good, except Macca’s moved in with Sherry and the pool table went west.”
It wasn’t hard to interpret the disapproving note in Harry’s voice. He and Steve had never been shy about their disgust with their mates who’d met the right woman, married and bowed out of their boys’ club.
“Oh, dear. Another one bites the dust. Next thing you know you’ll be taking on a mortgage and buying golf clubs, too, Harry.”
“When hell freezes over.”
He sounded so grimly determined she had to laugh. “How old are you?”
“Thirty.”
“Getting up there.”
He shot her a look before taking a right turn off the highway. “You sound like my sister.”
“Relax. I’m only yanking your chain. I honestly can’t imagine you settling down. You and Steve like your lives too much the way they are to change them.”
She bit her tongue, but it was too late. She’d drawn attention to the elephant in the room. A short silence followed. Harry glanced at her but she kept her gaze front and center.
“For what it’s worth, for a while there I thought you had him on the ropes.”
“The question is, would I have wanted him once I got him?” Again, the words were out of her mouth before she could stop them. She held up a hand immediately, signaling she knew she’d stepped over the line. “Pretend I didn’t say that, okay? Strike it from the record.”
Harry was the last person she wanted to vent to about Steve. The absolute last.
“So is Alice walking and talking and stuff yet?” Harry asked after a small silence.
“She’s six months old, Harry.” Was he really so clueless?
He raised his eyebrows, clearly wondering what he’d gotten wrong. Apparently he was that clueless.
“Babies don’t generally start doing any of that until twelve months,” she explained.
“Right. So what does she do?”
“At the moment? Eat. Sleep. Cry. Poo. She’s starting to crawl, too.”
“And that’s all going well, then?”
She laughed. He was trying. She had to give him points for that.
“She poos like a champion. And no one can reach the high notes like Alice when she’s really cranky.” Her street was coming up and she gestured with her chin. “This is me.”
He made a left turn.
“The one with the broken letterbox,” she said, indicating the fifties brick veneer that she’d been renting since she found out she was pregnant.
Harry pulled into the driveway, eyeing the unkempt, overgrown garden and the house’s faded sun awnings. Pippa felt an uncomfortable tug of shame over the shabbiness of it all. Between work and university and caring for Alice, she could barely stay on top of the inside of the house, let alone the outside. And no way could she spare any money from her already tight weekly budget to pay someone to worry about it for her.
She opened her mouth to explain, then shut it without saying a word. She didn’t owe Harry an explanation. He was breezing through her life. In all likelihood, she wouldn’t run into him again for another six months, probably even longer. Which was the way it should be.
“Thanks for the lift and the help with my car,” she said.
“Like I did anything to help with your car.”
“You destroyed my last vestiges of hope. Sometimes that’s very necessary.”
“Great. I’ll add that to my repertoire. ‘Crusher of hope.’ Has a real ring to it.”
“Actually, it sounds like a heavy metal band.”
He laughed. She smiled and slid out of the car.
“Have a good weekend, Harry, and a great Christmas.” It was only seven weeks away, after all, and it was unlikely she’d see him again before then.
“You, too, Pippa.”
She turned away, then spun back. “Nearly forgot my stuff.”
“Right.”
Before she could protest, Harry jumped out of the car.
“Don’t even think about carrying my shopping to the door for me, Harry. You’ve done more than enough.” Plus she wasn’t used to being fussed over like this.
Harry brandished the key at her. “This is an old-school car. No auto trunk release.”
“Oh.” She felt heat climb into her cheeks and attempted to cover her blush by pushing her glasses up the bridge of her nose.
A small smile played around Harry’s mouth as he lifted out the bags and set them on the lawn.
“I’m leaving it here because I don’t want you having conniptions again.”
“Trust me, neither of us wants that.”
“Look after yourself, okay?” His gray eyes were direct and honest.
“I will. You, too. And keep dodging those bullets. The world wouldn’t be the same if you were domesticated.”
“I’ll do my best, don’t worry.”
Once inside the car, he backed onto the street. Pippa raised her hand in farewell. He waved in return, then was gone, the sound of the engine fading into the distance.
She headed for the house. Running into Harry had been the highlight of her day, which was probably a sad indictment of how pitiful her life was, but what the hell.
“Mum, I’m home,” she called as she let herself into the house.
“We’re in the sunroom.”
Pippa dumped her things in the kitchen before following her mother’s voice to the room that overlooked the rear garden. The carpet was a faded floral—probably original—the walls a grubby cream. Huge windows let in the afternoon sun. Her mother was sitting on the Art Deco couch Pippa had rescued from the side of the road and reupholstered a few years ago, a crossword puzzle book open on her knees, while Alice lay on a quilt at her feet, fascinated with one of her own small, pink toes.
“I was starting to get a little worried,” her mother said as Pippa dropped a kiss onto her cheek.
“Sorry. I had car trouble.”
The vague concern in her mother’s eyes became real worry. “Nothing too bad, I hope?”
“Nothing I can’t sort,” Pippa lied, because she knew if she didn’t the next words out of her mother’s mouth would be an offer to help pay for the repairs.
Julie White had retired from teaching three years ago and was on a limited, fixed income. Despite her financial limitations, she’d bent over backward to help Pippa once she’d learned of her daughter’s pregnancy. Pippa had been doing her damnedest to stem the tide of her mother’s generosity in recent months—she point-blank refused to be the reason her mother had to cut corners in her retirement—and little white lies like this were becoming more and more commonplace in their conversations.
Still, Pippa figured it was better to tell a few porky pies now, than have her mother sell her small condo or car later on.
As she’d hoped, the fib worked. “Oh, good. Because the last thing you need right now is car trouble.”
“I know. How has little miss been while I was out?”
Pippa sank to her knees to rest a hand on her daughter’s warm belly. Alice gazed at her with big blue eyes, her mouth working.
“Did you miss Mummy?”
Alice beamed, both hands gripping Pippa’s wrist.
“She’s been a little sweetie,” her mother said.
“That’s because she’s a shameless little con artist. Aren’t you, Ali bear? Have you been charming your grandma?” Pippa kissed her daughter’s cheek before rising to her feet. “Are you staying for dinner?”
“I can’t. Not if I want to make it home before midnight. I promised Mrs. Young that I’d drive her to bingo tomorrow and I don’t want to let her down.”
Her mother lived in Bendigo, a three-hour drive north. Single since Pippa’s father died when Pippa was sixteen years old, she was heavily involved in her local community, volunteering at the local retirement village and a number of charity shops.
Pippa did her best not to act relieved as she said her goodbyes. At least she didn’t have to put on a brave face for the rest of the evening—the only upside she could find to her situation right now.
She waited until her mother’s car had turned the corner before walking slowly into the house, Alice a heavy weight on her hip. She fed Alice, then made dinner for herself. With her daughter settled in her bassinet, happily gurgling away, Pippa fired up her laptop and logged on to her bank account to work out how on earth she would get together enough money to fix her car.
It was a depressing exercise. Despite months of scrimping and saving, she had just enough in the account to cover rent, utilities and food for the next month, but precious little contingency. Certainly nothing near the amount that Harry had implied she might need.
She stared at the figures on the screen, elbows propped on the table, fingers digging into her temples as she racked her brain. There had to be some way to find the money.
She could ask for more shifts at the local art gallery where she worked, but that would mean bailing on classes at university and she had exams coming up … Plus she was already sailing close to the wind in the attendance department. The last thing she needed was to fail because she hadn’t attended the requisite number of hours in class. The whole point of getting her Diploma of Education was to escape this cycle of hand-to-mouth, one-day-at-a-time living by landing a decent-paying job. She was halfway through her diploma, but all her hard work would be a complete write-off if she failed because of skipping class.
Of course, if she had completed her teaching degree ten years ago when she’d graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree, none of this would be an issue. She would have a decent job, a good income, and Alice would have a stable home. But Pippa had turned her nose up at teaching then, even though her mother had encouraged her to have “something to fall back on.” Pippa had been convinced that something else was out there for her, something amazing and creative and exciting. She’d spent a decade searching and had nothing to show for it except a woefully empty bank account and her beautiful, painfully precious daughter.
A headache started behind her left eye and she willed away the panic fluttering in her chest. She might not be able to see it right now, but there was a solution to her problem. She simply had to wait for it to reveal itself.
If Steve was even close to being a responsible adult, you wouldn’t have to think twice about calling a mechanic.
Pippa hated the impotent, acidic burn she got in her stomach every time she thought about her ex. Hated how helpless it made her feel. How stupid.
For six incredibly foolhardy months, she’d been infatuated with a real-life version of Peter Pan. She’d laughed at his antics, been beguiled by his laid-back, take-things-as-they-come lifestyle and ignored the little voice in her head telling her nobody could live like that forever. Then she’d discovered she was pregnant, and Steve had turned from a funny, irreverent larrikin to an angry, resentful asshole. Six months of laughs, good times and fun had gone up in smoke and Pippa had been left holding the baby. Literally.
I don’t want this. I didn’t ask for it. I’ll give you the money to make it go away. But if you decide to keep it, it’s all on you. I don’t want anything to do with it.
His words on that fateful day still lived large in her memory. She’d hoped his attitude would change once he’d gotten over the shock of her announcement, but he hadn’t budged on his stance. She’d been forced to contact Child Support Services to pursue him for support payments. She hadn’t wanted to, had tried everything in her power to work it out with him, not wishing it to become official and complicated, but Steve had point-blank refused to even come to the table. Pippa had been left with no choice but to take steps to ensure Alice had what she needed.
In theory, the law had supported her cause, but Steve had arrived with the books for his house-painting business and told the caseworker he was barely staying afloat. Alice had been awarded a paltry fifteen dollars per week based on Steve’s hugely under-reported annual income. She’d listened with disbelief when her caseworker explained the outcome. She knew how Steve lived. He never denied himself anything, from holidays to Bali to a new truck to three-hundred-dollar sunglasses. But because he was self-employed, he was able to manipulate the figures to make it look as though he barely made ends meet. She’d walked away with nothing but disillusionment and the advice that she needed to file a change of assessment request to empower the agency to go after Steve through tax and bank records. She’d done so two months ago, and was still waiting to hear the result.
No surprises there. She had no doubt that Steve was doing everything to avoid, delay and prevaricate. Meanwhile, she and Alice teetered on the brink of insolvency.
Pippa rubbed her eyes. No matter how much she willed it, the figure on the screen hadn’t suddenly grown an extra decimal point. She abandoned the computer and picked up Alice out of her bassinet and then lay on the floor with her baby resting on her belly. Alice pushed up on her arms and stared, eyes bright with curiosity. As usual Pippa felt the bulk of her worries slip away as she looked into her daughter’s trusting face.
This is what’s important. Only this.
Everything else would take care of itself. University, the car, the bills … Things would work out. She’d make them work out. She might not be loaded, but she was thirty-one years old and she was resourceful and resilient. If she had to sic yet another government agency on Steve, she would. If she had to somehow squeeze in more work shifts around her classes, she’d do that, too. Whatever it took.
She cupped her hand around her daughter’s silken head and pressed a kiss to her cheek.
Whatever it took.
CHAPTER TWO
HARRY WOKE THE next morning feeling thirsty and thick in the head. No doubt the result of the many beers he’d sunk last night, along with the fact he’d crawled into bed in the early hours.
He lay in the morning sun trying to muster the energy to get out of bed and take care of both his thirst and complaining bladder.
Details from the night returned: Steve crowing as he won yet another game of pool at the pub, completely ungracious in victory. Nugga making a fool of himself chatting up a girl way too young for him. The hot brunette with the tight tank top—no bra—who had punched her number into Harry’s phone and told him to call her.
Yeah, it had been a good one. Not quite up to the glory days of five years ago, when there had been more of them and fewer girlfriends and wives at home, but still a good night.
After a few minutes of drowsing, Harry threw off the covers and shuffled into the bathroom to take care of business. He hit the kitchen afterward, pouring himself a huge glass of OJ and took it to bed, which was when he noticed the sand in the sheets. He grinned, remembering the last part of the evening, when he, Steve and Bluey had played an unholy game of tag on the beach, whooping and hollering as they ran in and out of the surf and up and down the sand. They’d finally been sent home by one of the boys in blue, with a heavy-handed suggestion that they all grow up.
Harry finished the juice in one long pull. He checked his phone for the time and saw he had a text from Nugga asking if he wanted to catch a wave or two at Gunnamatta. He thought about it for a second. He didn’t have any other major plans for the day beyond a vague idea that he might drop in on his sister, Mel, and her husband, Flynn. A surf was a safer bet—the moment his sister saw him she’d be sure to invent some gardening job that required muscle strain, sweat and four-letter words. Not that she wouldn’t be in there right alongside him and Flynn, pulling her weight, but still.
He texted Nugga to say he was on the way, then rolled out of bed and stretched until his shoulders popped. Ten minutes later he was out the door in a pair of board shorts, a towel under his arm, a pair of thongs on his feet.
He threw his wetsuit and board into the back of his old truck and wended his way through quiet residential streets until he hit the highway.
Harry saw Pippa’s car from a mile off, a bright yellow beacon on the opposite side of the road. He frowned as he sped past. He’d thought she would call her mechanic yesterday to take care of it. But maybe she’d had trouble contacting him at the end of the working week. She’d need to deal with it in short order, however, because the local council had strong feelings about abandoned cars. If Pippa wasn’t careful, her car would be towed and she’d have to pay a release fee on top of everything else.
Seeing Pippa’s car reminded him of something else that had happened last night. Maybe it had been stupid of him given the circumstances and how close-mouthed Steve had always been about Pippa and Alice, but when he’d hit the pub he’d taken Steve aside to let him know what had happened with Pippa. Harry had figured that if it was his ex, the mother of his child, he’d want to know. But Steve had simply nodded as though Harry was talking about someone he barely knew and changed the subject. No interest whatsoever.
Big deal. They’re not together. And she sicced some government agency on to him to squeeze more money out of him. He’s got every right to feel the way he does.
It wasn’t as though Steve had gone looking to be a father, after all, and no one knew better than Harry how messed up and angry Steve had been when Pippa broke the news. And yet … his mate’s indifference didn’t sit well with Harry.
But he wasn’t in the habit of sticking his nose where it didn’t belong. So Pippa would have to sort her car out on her own.
Except she didn’t.
When he drove to work on Monday morning the car was still there, and when he drove home at the end of the day. Tuesday, same deal. Wednesday morning he kept his eyes peeled and the moment he saw her hatchback, he pulled over. After three minutes of searching an online phone directory, he realized she must have an unlisted number. He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel for a few seconds, then waited for a break in traffic before doing a U-turn.
Five minutes later he climbed the steps to Pippa’s front porch. It was only after he’d knocked that he questioned what he was doing. She was an adult, after all. She didn’t need him ordering her life or breathing down her neck.
Too late. Footsteps sounded within the house, then the front door opened and a bemused Pippa stared at him.
“Harry. Hi.”
Her hair was tousled, her eyes heavy. A fluffy dressing gown swamped her body, her bare feet peeking out beneath the hem.
She should have looked a mess—mumsy and suburban—but she looked good. Soft and warm and gently pretty.
“What’s going on with your car?”
She blinked and it occurred to him that he may have actually dragged her out of bed.
“Sorry if I woke you, but you should know that the Peninsula council is all over abandoned cars like white on rice. If someone reports you, your car will be towed and impounded.”
“Oh. Right.”
Somewhere inside the house, a baby cried. Pippa glanced distractedly over her shoulder.
“I’m a bit slow this morning. I’ve been up since five with Alice. I only got her down again half an hour ago.”
She backed up a step and gestured for him to follow her.
“Come in.”
She was gone before he could explain he’d already said what he’d come to say, neatly sidestepping her way around a detached door leaning against the hall wall before disappearing from sight. He hesitated on the threshold, uneasy.
“Do you want a coffee?”
Pippa’s question echoed up the hallway. He shook his head, then realized she couldn’t see him.
“I’m fine, thanks.”
Harry entered the house, navigating his way past the detached door. He found Pippa cradling a blond-haired, blue-eyed baby in the bright kitchen, rocking from foot to foot as she attempted to soothe her.
“Shh, sweetheart, you’re all right. It’s all good.” Pippa’s voice was soft and achingly tender. She glanced at him. “There’s juice, too, if you’d prefer something cold.”
He was too busy staring at Alice to respond immediately. He hadn’t seen her since the day she was born. She’d been red and squashed-looking then, her eyes squeezed tightly shut, her hands clenched into tight little fists. Now, she was pink and plump, with pale, wispy hair. She looked like Steve. Almost disconcertingly so. It was weird seeing his friend’s features replicated on a tiny baby girl.
“She looks like Steve,” he said.
“Yes.”
The way she said the single word made him remember he had no business being here. Steve was his mate, after all. Harry owed his first loyalty to him.
He cleared his throat. “Anyway. The car. You should chase up your mechanic because the council are real sticklers about towing anything that looks like it’s been abandoned.”
“I didn’t realize. I thought I’d have a few weeks …”
A few weeks? To do what?
Then it hit him—her worry at the roadside, the slightly shabby house, the fact that she was a single mother.
She couldn’t afford to get her car fixed.
Hence her delaying tactics when he’d mentioned having her car towed, and hence her need to wait a few weeks before she had the funds to repair it.
He glanced around the room, racking his brain for a way to offer help without stepping on her toes—because he might not know Pippa that well, but he knew she had way too much pride to ask for help.
“Listen, Pippa, why don’t I get my dad to tow the car to your place? At least you won’t have to worry about it being impounded.”
She was shaking her head before he’d even finished speaking. “It’s great of you to offer again, Harry, but I’ll sort it. Thanks, though. And thanks for the heads up. I appreciate it.” She glanced at the wall clock. “I don’t want to hold you up.”
She was fobbing him off. Getting ready to send him on his way.
“How are you going to sort it?” he asked bluntly.
“Sorry?”
“How are you going to sort the car when you can’t afford to get it fixed?”
Her chin jerked with surprise. “That’s not what this is about.”
She was a terrible liar, her eyes blinking rapidly behind her glasses.
“So I should call A1 Towing and get them to take the car to my work and ask my boss to quote on it for you, then?”
She stared at him, her expression half frustrated, half chagrined. After a second she shook her head. “You don’t beat around the bush, do you?”
“I’m hoping I might have a chance of getting to work on time if we cut some of the back and forth out of the way.”
She gave a short, sharp laugh. “You always were honest to a fault. Okay, you’re right, Harry. I can’t afford to fix the car right now. I’m scraping some money together but the gas bill came in and I figure we need hot water more than we need a car. So maybe the council will impound my car and I’ll have to live with that until I can figure something out.”
Pippa shrugged as though she didn’t give a damn but her cheeks were pink and her shoulders tense.
He ran a hand over the top of his head, unsure where to go now that he’d gotten her to admit the truth. If it was one of his mates, he’d simply open his wallet and offer a loan on the spot. But as much as he liked her, Pippa wasn’t really his friend and he had no idea how she’d react if he offered her money.
“What about Steve?” Because it seemed to him that was the next natural step, no matter the tensions between them.
“No.”
One word, very firm.
“I know you guys have some issues, but he’d help out if he knew you needed it.”
“I appreciate that you’re trying to help. You’re very sweet. But I can handle this.”
“I’ll ask him. If it’d make it easier for you to swallow.”
He didn’t know why he was making a federal case out of it. It was her car, her life. She was free to do whatever she liked. Certainly none of it was his responsibility. So why was he offering to be her mouthpiece with his best mate?
Pippa sighed. “It’s incredibly generous of you to offer, but you don’t want to do that.”
“I wouldn’t offer if I didn’t mean it.”
“I know. But it won’t make any difference. Steve won’t want to help me.”
“Look, even if Steve’s pissed with you, he’ll step up.”
“It’s nice you believe that, but since he’s gone to the trouble of falsifying the books for his business to avoid paying child support, you’ll understand if I don’t hold my breath on that one.”
He was ready to jump to his mate’s defense. No way would Steve turn his back on his responsibilities. Alice was his kid, after all. His daughter.
Something stopped him before the denial left his mouth, however.
Maybe it was the world-weary note to Pippa’s voice and the steadiness of her gaze.
Or maybe it was the memory of the utterly blank, disinterested expression on Steve’s face Friday night.
“Like I said, I appreciate the heads up, Harry.”
A phone rang in the next room.
“I need to get that. It’s probably my boss….”
She slipped into the adjacent room. A few seconds later he heard her take the call. Harry glanced around the kitchen again, his gaze landing on a stack of textbooks on the table. He read the title of the top book—Teaching Studies of Society & Environment in the Primary School—before his attention was drawn to the large bowl in the center of the table. Filled with odds and ends, it clearly functioned as a tabletop junk drawer—and right on top was a key ring with two car keys.
In the next room, Pippa told someone she was ready and willing to do any and all extra shifts that were on offer. He could hear the strain in her voice. The fear.
He didn’t stop to consider it, simply pocketed the keys. When Pippa returned, he said goodbye and bowed out. Once he got to his car, he tossed her keys onto the passenger seat then drove to work.
He’d taken them on impulse, because the idea of walking away from her when she was clearly in need stuck in his craw, and because he couldn’t see any other way of convincing her to accept his help. Maybe it had been a mistake. Maybe he’d overstepped the mark, big time. After all, he had no vested interest in her or Alice or any of it.
But he couldn’t stop thinking about what she’d said about Steve, about him having engineered his finances to minimize his child support commitments. Harry couldn’t conceive of a circumstance where the mate he knew would do that. Steve was always first to buy a round of drinks or help out a friend moving furniture or some other favor. No way could all that generosity dry up when it came to his own flesh and blood.
Pippa must be exaggerating. It wasn’t as though things had ended well between her and Steve. She was probably bitter and angry with him. Disappointed, too.
Except she hadn’t exactly volunteered the information. Harry had had to push a few times before she’d spelled it out for him.
Deeply uneasy, he grabbed his phone and dialed his father at the workshop.
“It’s me. I need a favor. There’s an acid-yellow hatchback on the Nepean near the turnoff for the winery. Can you tow it to the workshop and I’ll come by to take care of it after work?”
“You think I’ve got nothing better to do than run around doing favors for your mates?” His father’s words were tough, but there was no rancor behind them.
“No. Can you do it?”
Harry half expected his father to have another go at him, but he didn’t.
“What’s the problem?”
“Head gasket, I think. I’ll do the work if you don’t mind me using the garage tonight.”
“I’ll make sure you’ve got the parts on hand. Who am I doing this for, by the way? Steve? That red-headed idiot?”
“Her name’s Pippa. She’s a single mum. I’m helping her out.”
A profound silence ensued on the other end of the line and Harry could practically hear his father’s brain grinding away.
“She’s Steve’s ex,” Harry added.
Just in case his father started getting crazy ideas.
“Fair enough. I guess I’ll see you tonight, then.”
“Thanks, Dad.”
“Don’t thank me yet. You haven’t seen my bill.”
There would be no bill. Mike Porter might look like a hard-ass, but he was the softest touch in town.
As Harry turned in to the parking lot at work, it occurred to him that instead of pulling out all the stops for Pippa himself, he could have simply called Steve and filled him in and let him take care of things. Proving to himself—and Pippa—that she was wrong.
If it hadn’t been for the blank look on Steve’s face the other night, Harry might have, too. But that look … that look combined with Pippa’s comments had sprouted some ugly ideas in his head, and the fact was, he wasn’t ready to have them confirmed.
He and Steve had grown up together. Played footy together. Had their first beers, their first fights, their first girlfriends together. He didn’t want to think that his mate was capable of letting down people he should care about so profoundly.
So Harry would help Pippa. And he would hold off talking to Steve until he’d had a day or two to digest. And he’d hope that someone, somewhere, had got it wrong.
TWO DAYS LATER, Pippa eased back onto the couch and propped her aching feet on a cushion. Alice lay on her play mat, batting at the Fisher Price mobile Pippa had bought from the local charity shop. It was Friday night and she was exhausted.
It wasn’t ordinary, run-of-the-mill exhaustion, either. Having no car meant everything had to be started early and finished late, which meant she was waking earlier, going to bed later. Alice’s day care might be around the corner and the gallery only a little farther than that, but when she threw in grocery shopping and other errands, plus getting to the university and back, Pippa figured she was walking more than ten kilometers a day. Great for her thighs and ass, not so great for her feet or her schedule.
In short, it sucked, hard. And she still had no idea how she would get her car repaired. She’d managed to scrape together nearly five hundred dollars, but the two mechanics she’d called had quoted a minimum of one thousand to fix a head gasket.
Pippa pressed her lips together, staring at her much-abused feet. There was no getting around it—she’d have to ask her mum for the money. She would pay her back, of course—but it would take time. And it was humiliating.
Thirty-one and running to Mummy. Well done, Phillipa. Way to be an adult.
To think that not so long ago she’d prided herself on being unconventional and marching to the beat of her own drum. Whenever one of her more conservative friends had asked if she ever worried about the future, about owning a house or being able to afford to retire or having a career, Pippa had laughed and assured them she didn’t lose sleep over that stuff because she was too busy enjoying the journey.
What a load of old bullocks.
She’d been off with the fairies, tripping around in a fantasy world. Alice had been a cosmic wake-up call that it was time to stop playing around and grow up—there was nothing like being responsible for a tiny, helpless human being to sort a person’s priorities out, quick smart.
Pippa propped an ankle on the opposite knee and massaged the arch of her foot, digging in her thumbs until it hurt. Her thoughts drifted to Harry’s visit the other morning. He’d been the last person she’d expected to find on her doorstep at 7:30 a.m. Definitely he was one of the last people she would have chosen to catch her in her fluffy robe, complete with tangled bed hair and smudgy glasses. There was something very unsettling about being caught unprepared for the day by someone as dynamic and charismatic as Harry.
Still, it had been nice of him to drop in and warn her about the council’s policy on towing abandoned cars. The bit where he’d forced her to confess that she couldn’t afford to have her car fixed hadn’t been so great, but since he’d followed it with yet another offer of help, she figured his heart was in the right place. Fortunately, she wasn’t that desperate a case yet—stress on the yet.
That’s right. You’re only at the mooching-off-your-retired-mother stage. Mooching-off-strangers is a highlight for coming months, yet to be enjoyed.
A knock echoed through the house. She almost welcomed the interruption, even though it meant she had to get to her feet. Anything was better than lying around brooding.
“Ow,” she said as she started up the hallway. “Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow.”
Funny how shoes that she’d thought were perfectly comfortable had turned on her after a few days of hard labor. Once she’d dealt with whoever was at the door, she would run herself a bath and soak her feet.
She pushed Alice’s stroller out of the way so she could reach the door. Because it was clearly her lucky day, the lock stuck and she swore under her breath.
Like the broken bedroom door, the dodgy lock had been reported to the landlord, but Pippa figured both would be repaired around the same time that Dairy Queen opened a concession in hell. The pitfalls of paying low rent in a working-class suburb.
She shouldered the door, pushing the lock up before twisting it. It gave grudgingly and she—finally—opened it to find Harry filling the frame for the second time in as many days.
“Harry,” she said, blinking up at six foot two of solid male dressed in an old gray surf T-shirt, faded jeans and steel-toed boots.
Why did she keep forgetting how big he was? And why did he keep turning up on her doorstep?
“These are yours.” He caught her hand and dropped a set of keys into it. “Before you say anything, it was my pleasure. Consider it an early birthday present for Alice.”
It took her brain a full ten seconds to process his words and understand their meaning.
“You fixed my car,” she said stupidly.
Sure enough, Old Yeller was in the driveway, brighter and larger than life.
“It was no big deal. Like I said the other day, it was the gasket. A few hours and the problem was solved.” “But … how did you get my keys?”
Then she remembered she’d left him alone in the kitchen while she took the phone call from her boss.
The first emotion to hit her was shame. She’d thought she’d been doing a decent job of covering how damned desperate she was, but clearly Harry had seen straight through her. That he understood exactly how powerless she’d been to change her situation and had been moved to act was galling and humiliating in the extreme.
Hard on the heels of shame came anger, a knee-jerk, defensive, irrational response to feeling so vulnerable and exposed. Who was he to take so much upon himself? To force his charity on her—stealing her car keys, no less—without asking if she wanted his help?
Finally, relief hit, so profound, so all-encompassing there was no room for anything else and she clenched her jaw to stop an instinctive, deeply pathetic sob from escaping. She curled her fingers around the keys, squeezing them tight, trying very, very hard not to cry with gratitude and relief. She blinked repeatedly but wasn’t entirely successful in vanquishing the tears.
“I don’t know what to say. You shouldn’t have. It’s too much. It’s amazing…. But it’s too much, Harry.”
“It was a couple of hours’ work, and Dad let me use his shop. Like I said, not a big deal.”
Pippa took in his tired eyes, five-o’clock shadow and fingernails still dark with grease. She knew from her inquiries that replacing a head gasket in a standard, four-cylinder car was an eight-hour job, minimum. He must have worked around the clock after hours to do this for her.
A thousand thoughts battled for supremacy, but there was only one thing she could say.
“Thank you. This means so much to me and Alice. You’ve literally saved my bacon.”
She held Harry’s gaze as she said it, wanting him to see how sincere she was, how grateful. It might embarrass her to have to be the recipient of his charity, but no way was she rewarding his generosity with anything other than sincere appreciation. The shame was her problem, not his.
He stuck his hands into his back pockets, stretching his T-shirt across his broad chest. “It wasn’t anywhere near as bad as it could have been. A clean replacement, no complications.”
He was clearly uncomfortable, which, oddly, made it easier to swallow her own discomfort. She felt a rush of fondness for her ex’s best friend. Harry had always been her favorite of Steve’s mates. No competition.
“You’re a good man, Harry.”
He frowned.
“If I can be a gracious receiver, the least you can do is accept my thanks,” she said.
“Thanks are fine. But we both know I’m no saint.”
“Did I call you a saint? I said you were a good man.” She stepped to one side. “Come in so I can make you even more uncomfortable with my gratitude.”
He glanced over his shoulder as though looking for an escape route.
“Come on. A little slavish gratitude won’t hurt you,” she teased.
His gray eyes creased at the corners as his mouth curled into a reluctant smile. He stepped over the threshold, brushing past her, and she caught the scent of clean sweat and spicy deodorant. Her gaze scanned his broad back before dropping to his butt.
She stopped the moment she realized what she was doing. Harry was Steve’s best friend. In every way that counted, he was completely and utterly off-limits. She didn’t need or want to register him as a man. She definitely didn’t want to notice he had a nice ass.
Even if he did.
Pippa shut the door, being careful to shoulder it so the lock slipped into place. She was aware of Harry watching her and she shrugged philosophically.
“This place is a bit of a work in progress,” she said and headed down the hall.
She heard Harry follow, his tread steady and sure. When they entered the kitchen she threw him a quick smile.
“One sec while I check on Alice.”
She ducked her head into the sunroom. Her daughter was chewing on the sleeve of her Onesie, a sure sign she was hungry. Pippa scooped her into her arms.
“We’ve got a visitor. You want to come and say hello?”
Harry stood in front of the photographic montage she’d made of the first few months of Alice’s life, his expression unreadable.
“Sorry about that,” she said. “Now, can I offer you a coffee or a tea? I think I may even have a stray beer in the fridge. And have you had dinner?”
“Coffee’s great, thanks.” He turned from the photographs, and his expression softened when he saw who she was holding. “Hello, little lady.”
Alice blew a bubble and gurgled in the back of her throat.
“That’s hello in baby-speak, in case you were wondering.”
Pippa settled Alice on her hip and crossed to the kettle to set it boiling. Acting on a hunch, she pulled out the leftover roast potatoes and chicken schnitzel from dinner and ferried them toward the microwave.
“If that’s for me, please don’t bother,” he said.
She slid the plate into the microwave before facing him.
“Tell me what you had for dinner and I’ll put it in the fridge.” She was aware of Alice latching on to one of the buttons on her bodice and she ran a finger distractedly over her daughter’s head.
He eyed her for a beat before responding. “Okay. I haven’t eaten yet, but I’ve got food at home.”
“If I can accept you repairing my car for me, you can accept a meal.” She hit the button to start the microwave and waved him toward one of the two stools tucked beneath the kitchen counter. “Especially when the reason you went hungry is because you were doing me a favor. Grab a seat.”
“I don’t remember you being this bossy.”
“Maybe you don’t know me as well as you think you do.”
“Maybe.”
He sat as she collected coffee-making paraphernalia from the cupboard.
She laid out a knife and fork for him, grabbed a glass of juice, too, then folded a paper napkin and placed it beside the cutlery.
“Don’t go to any trouble.” He seemed awkward as hell sitting there, waiting for her to feed him.
“Relax. It’s a paper napkin.” She went very still when his gaze dropped to her breasts.
In all the time she’d dated Steve, she’d never—not once—gotten the vibe that Harry was interested in her as a woman. His attitude toward her had always been strictly friendly—no eye drops, no ass checks, no speculative looks. If she’d been asked by someone to describe the way he treated her, she’d have said his attitude was fraternal. Big brotherly.
Yet right now, right this second, he was staring at her chest with a single-minded intensity that made her belly tighten with nervous self-consciousness.
The moment seemed to stretch. Then Harry lifted his gaze to hers and realized he’d been busted. Dull color stained his cheeks.
“Sorry. It’s just … your dress …” He gestured toward her chest, his gaze trained resolutely over her shoulder now.
She glanced down and discovered that the top two buttons of her bodice were undone, offering him an untrammeled view of her deep red bra and a whole lot of cleavage.
CHAPTER THREE
SHE GATHERED THE sides of her dress together in her free hand, heat burning its way into her face. “Sorry. Alice must have—She’s never done that before….”
It was true. Alice was always fiddling—with Pippa’s necklace, her earring, the collar of her shirt or the buttons on her coat—but she’d never unbuttoned anything before.
Pippa tucked her chin and tried to rebutton her bodice one-handed, very aware of the warmth in her cheeks. Unlike many of the women in her mothers’ group, she had been unsuccessful at breast-feeding. A series of infections and an inadequate milk supply led her pediatrician to recommend bottle-feeding Alice when her daughter was barely a month old. Consequently, Pippa wasn’t nearly as casual about flinging her breasts around as some of her friends. To her, they were about sex and intimacy, not sustenance.
And Harry had copped a very decent eyeful.
“Here, I’ll take her.” Harry held out his hands, ready to accept the baby so she could secure her dress.
“You’re sure?” she asked, surprised. He didn’t exactly seem the baby type.
“She hasn’t just eaten, right?”
“She won’t throw up on you, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“Then we’re cool.”
She had to release her dress to pass Alice to him, and Harry kept his eyes averted during the exchange. She quickly refastened her dress, fingers racing to push the buttons home.
“Sorry about that,” she said once she was decent. “Bit more than you bargained for.”
She couldn’t quite make herself meet his eye.
“Should I slip the kid a tip or would that be overkill?”
He surprised a laugh out of her. “I don’t think she needs the encouragement.”
“Guess it depends on where you’re sitting.”
She risked a glance at his face. He was smiling, a devilish glint in his eyes. She grinned.
“You’re hopeless.”
“Because I’ve got eyes in my head?”
“Something like that.” She glanced at Alice, who was happily balanced on his knee, her back supported by one of Harry’s big hands.
“Are you okay with holding her for a few more minutes or are you going to break out in hives from all the responsibility?”
“I can handle it.”
“Brave man.”
“Weren’t you making me dinner?”
She rolled her eyes comically before checking on the microwave. The timer was almost done and she opened the door to test the temperature of the potatoes. She was aware of Harry watching her as she worked and an odd little frisson ran up her spine. A couple of minutes later, she slid the plate in front of him, complete with gravy and a slice of fresh bread.
“Looks good,” he said.
“Well, it’s food, anyway,” she said modestly.
She enjoyed cooking, but she wasn’t about to volunteer for Masterchef or anything. Definitely her efforts veered more toward the everyday and practical than haute cuisine.
She reached for Alice, sliding her daughter off his thigh so he could eat his meal unhindered. At the last minute, Alice caught a fistful of Harry’s T-shirt in her small hand, clinging to it as though her life depended on it.
“Alice. Sorry, Harry. She’s not used to men, so you’re a bit of a novelty item.”
“It’s all part of being a babe magnet.”
She winced to let him know his joke was really bad before prying Alice’s fingers loose. Her daughter had a fierce grip, however, and it took Pippa a few seconds to convince her to let Harry go. She was very aware of the firm warmth of his chest beneath the fabric and how close she stood to him. It hit her that this was the most intimate she’d been with a member of the opposite sex since she’d gotten pregnant. A less than impressive reflection of her social life, but also a solid explanation for the way her heart suddenly pounded in her chest.
“You live to fight another day,” she said as Alice finally relinquished her prize.
“Phew,” Harry said. “Thought it was all over for a moment there.”
Pippa moved to a safe distance and gestured for him to eat. “Dig in. Don’t let it get cold.”
He dutifully picked up his cutlery and started eating. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly, trying to regain her equilibrium. From the moment he’d dropped her car keys into her hand she’d been off balance. Exposing herself and then prying her daughter off him hadn’t helped matters.
Funny, but she’d never thought of Harry as someone she could ever be nervous around. But then she’d never been alone with him at nine o’clock on a Friday night before, either.
Right, because so much is going to happen. He’s probably just waiting for his moment to pounce, single mothers being a huge turn-on for him and all. Add to that the fact you’re his best mate’s ex and you’re practically irresistible. It’s a wonder he’s still got his pants on.
The thought calmed her. The very idea of Harry being interested in her or her being interested in Harry was absurd. Beyond absurd, really, moving into insane territory.
Common sense restored, Pippa crossed to the sideboard to find her handbag. She grabbed her checkbook from the side pocket and found a pen.
Behind her, Harry made an appreciative noise. “This is really good. I love schnitzel.”
“It’s my Aunt Bev’s recipe. She married an Austrian.”
“Go Aunty Bev.”
She opened the checkbook to a fresh page.
Harry’s eyebrows rose as he registered what she was doing. “That had better not be what I think it is.”
“You have to at least let me pay for parts. I’ve gotten some money together, so I’m not a total charity case.”
“It was a gasket and some oil. A few bucks. Like I said, consider it Alice’s birthday present.”
“Except it’s going to be another seventeen-odd years before she actually needs her own car.” She fixed Harry with a level look. “I appreciate your generosity, and I know I can’t fully repay you for your time, but please let me make sure you’re not out of pocket.”
He gestured toward his plate. “You cooked me dinner. We’re square.”
She made a frustrated noise. Harry cut another slice of schnitzel and popped it into his mouth. He chewed slowly, purposefully, a steady, confident expression in his eyes that as good as said, “I just had the final word and you can’t do anything about it.”
He really was a cheeky bastard. Too cocky and smug and charming for his own good.
“I’ll find a way to pay you back, Porter.”
“You can try. But I don’t like your chances.”
She harrumphed to let him know she didn’t agree, then crossed to the fridge and refilled his juice glass. Alice started fiddling with her buttons again and Pippa switched her to the opposite hip in the hope that it might distract her.
“I have to ask—what’s with all the books on teaching?” Harry asked.
“I’m studying to get my Dip. Ed.”
“You’re going to be a teacher?”
“No need to sound so surprised. It’s not that shocking.”
“You’ve never mentioned it before, that’s all.”
She pulled a strand of her hair free from Alice’s grasping fingers. “I need a job. A real job, not a joke job that I can pick up and put down whenever I feel like it.”
Harry’s gaze went to Alice and she knew he understood.
“Do you like it?”
“Sometimes. I’ve had two class placements so far and they both went pretty well. No one died on my watch, at least.”
“Setting the bar pretty low there.”
“These days I find it’s best to have low expectations.”
They talked about her studies as he finished his meal, leaving nothing but a thin trail of gravy. Testament, she hoped, to how much he’d enjoyed it. Afterward, he set his knife and fork neatly side by side on the plate and carried it to the sink. She watched as he glanced around for the dishwasher—there wasn’t one—then proceeded to wash his plate.
“Wow. You’re actually house-trained. Who knew?”
There was a reluctant grin on his lips as he glanced over his shoulder at her. “Jesus, you’re a smart-ass. To think I used to miss you hanging around.”
If the look on his face was anything to go by, he’d surprised himself as well as her with his inadvertent admission. She smiled, oddly touched, as he focused on rinsing his plate. She’d missed him, too, when things had gone south with Steve. Harry’s irreverence and easygoing charm had always appealed to her. In another time and place, perhaps, they might have been friends. In this lifetime, however, it was never going to happen. Too many old loyalties on his side and too many bad associations on hers.
“I should get going,” Harry said as he set the plate on the drainer.
“Okay.”
She led him to the hallway, edging past the broken door. “Sorry about the obstacle course. The landlord assures me he’s going to fix this thing before the turn of the next century.”
This time, thankfully, the lock opened easily and she watched Harry step onto the porch.
“Thanks for dinner. And the show,” he said.
Trust him to bring up the moment with her bra again.
“And I’m the smart-ass?”
“Maybe it takes one to know one.”
“Maybe.” The smile faded from her lips as she held his eyes. “Harry, what you did tonight … I will never be able to tell you how much your generosity means. I feel as though I’ve had a visit from my fairy godmother or something.”
He shrugged modestly. “Honestly, I could do it in my sleep. It’s really not a big deal.”
“It is to me and Alice. A very big deal.”
On impulse, she stepped forward, stood on tiptoes and flung her free arm around his shoulders.
“Thank you for being so damn kind,” she said fiercely, pressing a kiss to the angle of his jaw. His shoulders were warm and firm beneath her arm and his five-o’clock shadow tickled her cheek. She inhaled the good, honest smell of him, touched all over again by what he’d done.
Before she could withdraw, his arms came around her, returning her embrace, and for a split second she and Alice were pressed firmly against his chest and side. Then he let go and she sank onto her heels. When she went to step away, however, she discovered Alice had once again grabbed Harry’s T-shirt and was not about to let go.
“Maybe you really are a babe magnet.”
Harry eyed Alice indulgently. “Nah. She’s just got good taste.”
He brushed his forefinger across the back of Alice’s knuckles. Alice lifted her face to his, eyes wide, her mouth open in an almost-smile. Full of curiosity and wonder.
“Come on, cutie,” he said gently, smiling in return.
He brushed her hand again and Alice let go, transferring her grip to his finger. Pippa stepped back, and after a long second Alice let Harry’s finger slip from her grasp.
“Should have known you’d be an expert at the cut and run,” she said.
“Lots of practice.”
For a moment they simply smiled at each other.
“I’ll see you around.”
“Yeah. Look after yourself, okay?” she said, a little alarmed to feel her throat closing over with unexpected emotion.
Although maybe it wasn’t that unexpected—he’d saved her ass tonight, after all.
“Sure thing.”
He raised his hand in farewell and headed for his car. She watched him, only belatedly realizing it must have been quite an operation to get both her car and his here. She wondered how many favors he’d called in and knew she’d never know. Just as she’d never know how much she really owed him for parts and labor.
Grateful tears stung the back of her eyes as she waved him off. Pippa wasn’t one of those people who had random good things fall in her lap every day, and she’d never considered herself particularly lucky, but there was no doubt the universe had been smiling on her when Harry drove past on the highway last week.
Suddenly she wished she’d said more to him, even if it would almost certainly have made him deeply uncomfortable. They’d been so busy giving each other a hard time, playing up their old dynamic, that she didn’t feel as though she’d properly expressed her feelings.
Right now, Harry was her hero. Pure and simple.
She felt a tug, and when she looked down she discovered Alice was once again undressing her. Clearly, she needed to either invest in some safety pins or a pair of mittens for her daughter. Or, alternatively, some truly excellent underwear if she was destined to be flashing all and sundry on a regular basis.
For a split second—the most fleeting of moments—she allowed herself to wonder what Harry had thought of the “show” she’d put on tonight. Then she as quickly pushed the thought from her mind.
After all, it was absurd to even think—
Shaking her head, Pippa went to put her daughter to bed.
HARRY DIDN’T CONSIDER himself a saint. Not by a long shot. He had his faults and flaws, and some of them were worse than others, but one thing he’d never done was look twice at a mate’s girlfriend or wife.
It simply wasn’t in his makeup. As far as he was concerned, there were more than enough single, ready and willing women in the world without him even considering a woman who was taken.
So why in the name of all that was good couldn’t he get the memory of Pippa’s creamy, curvy breasts out of his head?
It wasn’t just that she’d been wearing a cherry-red bra—not what he would have guessed was under her old-fashioned dress, that was for sure—although the way the bright lace had cupped her pale skin had been pretty damn memorable.
It was everything. The sway of her body as she’d moved around the kitchen, the way she’d tilted her head when she sent smart-mouthed zingers his way, the way she’d turned pink when she’d realized what her enterprising daughter had done.
Pippa White, it turned out, was sexy. In a quiet, subversive, get-under-a-man’s-skin kind of way. She might not put it all out there like the brunette who’d punched her number into his phone last week, but there was something about Pippa that made a man think about things he shouldn’t be thinking about when she was his best friend’s ex-girlfriend—or, better yet, the mother of his best friend’s child.
The worst thing was, Harry suspected he’d always been aware of her in that way on some level. When she’d been going out with Steve, Harry had always been able to pick her voice out in a crowd. Same with her laugh. And he’d whiled away more than one night lounging around a pool table with her, shooting the shit, laughing at her jokes and enjoying her sharp take on the world. Enjoying her.
Not gonna happen. Ever. So get that dirty little thought out of your head right now.
Harry pulled into his driveway and braked with more force than necessary, slamming the car door hard as he exited and headed for the house.
It was just as well he wouldn’t be running into Pippa again in the near future, because he wasn’t interested in being either the nobly-tortured, self-restrained chump or the dick-driven moron who threw away years of friendship for a roll in the hay. He liked things nice and easy. No complications. Lots of fun. Pippa didn’t fall under any of those headings.
He strode into the living room, automatically reaching for the remote to flick on the TV. He wasn’t really hungry, but he went into the kitchen and made himself a big bowl of ice cream. He sat on the couch and dug in, kidding himself that he was watching the cricket report when really he was thinking about the way Pippa had hugged and kissed him on her doorstep.
She’d called him kind, which was a pretty big joke given all he’d been able to think about was her breast pressed against his biceps. And when he’d returned her embrace—an impulse he hadn’t been able to control—he’d sucked in a lungful of her perfume and the warm, milky smell of her daughter.
Who—yeah—had totally been in Pippa’s arms while he was thinking about how soft her breast felt against his arm.
He was so kind. Practically a saint.
Disgusted with himself, he pushed his half-full bowl onto the coffee table and dropped his head against the cushion, trying to find some clarity. Or at the very least a little peace of mind.
He’d left as soon as he’d registered his own interest—he figured that counted in his favor. And he’d held her for only a second. And even though he wouldn’t swear on it, he was pretty sure he’d helped out with the car with absolutely no expectations. Just as, even now, a part of him itched to grab his toolbox and go over to her place to fix that ridiculous abandoned door leaning against the wall, as well as that stupid, half-assed lock she had to wrestle with.
So what? She’s Steve’s ex. Doesn’t matter what good deeds you want to perform, Boy Scout. She’s out-of-bounds.
She was. Even if she and Steve had ended things amicably, the same would be true.
Which meant it really was time to stop thinking about her.
Harry reached for the remote, cranked up the volume and pretended that that was what he was doing.
PIPPA PRACTICALLY LEAPED down the steps the next morning, eager to get into the day. She had a car again! She felt as though she was rejoining the modern world after a week in the Stone Age.
Alice talked to herself in the backseat as Pippa drove to the village, her head full of plans. Once she had restocked the pantry, she might make a run to the library to check if the textbooks she’d ordered for her classes had arrived. Then she should probably get a head start on the five-thousand-word assignment that was due before the end of the month.
But first there was something she wanted to do. She parked in front of the liquor store and strapped Alice into her stroller, then went inside and bought some beer. The salesman helped her stow it on the rack at the back of the stroller before she exited and crossed the road. A bell rang as she entered the cement-floored reception area of Village Motors and a young girl looked up from behind the counter.
“Hi. How can I help you?”
Pippa offered up her best smile. “Would it be possible to speak to Mr. Porter?”
The girl’s gaze flicked between Pippa, Alice and the beer. Lord only knew what she was thinking.
“I’ll see if he’s busy,” she said primly.
Pippa pushed the stroller back and forth while she waited, hoping to keep Alice distracted. When Alice started vocalizing, she squatted to play peek-a-boo, making her daughter smile.
“I’m Mike Porter. How can I help you?” a deep voice asked.
She glanced up to find a powerfully built older man with a graying horseshoe mustache and Harry’s eyes and nose towering over her. Like Harry, he was tall and broad. She would have recognized him as Harry’s father anywhere.
She stood. “My name is Pippa White. I own a bright yellow hatchback. Your son Harry repaired it for me….”
“Right. The head gasket.”
“That’s me. I wanted to drop by and say thank you for your help, and to offer you a small token of my appreciation.”
She collected the carton of beer from the luggage rack, offering it to him. His forehead pleated into a perplexed frown.
“You didn’t have to do that,” he said gruffly.
“I wanted to. I really appreciate what you and Harry did for us. I can’t tell you what a relief it is to have a car again.” Her arms were starting to get tired and she adjusted her grip a fraction. “Unless you like your beer frothy, you might want to grab this. I’m afraid my upper-body strength isn’t what it should be.”
“Sorry.” Mike took the carton, placing it on the counter. He looked uncomfortable and a little uncertain as he faced her. Pippa stifled a smile. Like Harry, he didn’t know what to do with her gratitude.
“Please take it. It’s a tiny fraction of what the repairs would have cost, and I really want to acknowledge your generosity.”
“Harry won’t like this. He was pretty keen to help you out.”
For some reason, his words sent a wash of warmth up her chest and into her face.
“I know. But he needs to accept that I’m pretty keen to thank you for that help, too.”
Mike’s gaze moved to Alice, his mustache twitching around his smile as he studied her round face. “This your daughter?”
“Yes. Alice.”
“How old is she?”
“A little over six months.”
His gaze returned to her and she could tell he’d made a decision. “Thanks for the beer, Pippa. It won’t go to waste. And I’ll be sure to direct Harry’s comments your way when he hears about it.”
She smiled. “You do that. I can handle it.” She slid her hand into her handbag and grasped her checkbook. “Now, I don’t suppose you could tell me what I owe for parts?”
Mike’s eyebrows shot toward his hairline. “You don’t need to worry about all that. Harry covered everything.”
“I know. That’s why I want to make sure he isn’t out of pocket. It’s one thing to give up his time, but I can’t let him pay for parts, as well.”
Mike shook his head. “Sorry, but that’s something you’ll have to take up with Harry.”
“Mr. Porter—”
“Mike.”
“Mike. Harry is a great guy, but I don’t feel comfortable having him pay out money on my behalf. I know I didn’t ask and he offered, but I can afford to cover the parts, and I really want to. It’s important to me. I’ve got Alice to look after now and standing on my own two feet means a lot.” She could hear the emotion vibrating in her voice and she swallowed. For a woman who had spent much of her adult life merely getting by, being responsible for another person was a profound shift. More than anything, she wanted to be up to the challenge, to be worthy of Alice. That meant not relying on her mother or anyone else. Definitely it meant not taking handouts if she didn’t have to.
“I understand where you’re coming from,” Mike said after a short silence. “Things were tough when we first had Justine, our eldest, but I still had my fair share of pride. I get it.”
“So you’ll let me reimburse you?” she asked hopefully.
He allowed himself a small smile at her persistence, but he shook his head. “I’ll tell you what the parts are worth. You can take repayment up with Harry.”
Which meant she had yet another battle on her hands, but so be it.
Mike pulled open the top drawer of a beaten-up filing cabinet. After a few seconds he extracted a folder and opened it.
“Okay. The gasket itself was fifty, but you’ve got an aluminum head, which had to be resurfaced before the gasket was replaced, so that was three hundred. Then there was five liters of oil at thirty, a new oil filter at twenty-five for a grand total of four-oh-five.” He glanced at her. “Which Harry can well afford, by the way.”
Pippa pulled out her phone and made a note of the figure on the notepad app. “So can I. Thanks for this, Mike. I appreciate it.”
“My pleasure. I appreciate you taking the time to drop in. Not sure I’ll feel the same once Harry hears what went down, but I’m still bigger than he is so he can suck it up.”
Pippa wasn’t too sure about him being bigger than Harry—it looked like a pretty close call to her—but she offered Mike her hand, said thanks once again, then pushed a dozing Alice outside. She paused, thinking about how Harry had shouldered four hundred and five dollars on her behalf without so much as batting an eyelid, yet his best friend wouldn’t even pick up the phone to discuss his daughter’s welfare.
Someone sure picked the wrong hell-raiser to fall into bed with.
It was a dumb thought and she pushed it away the moment it occurred to her. It wasn’t as though she’d ever had a choice between Steve and Harry—Harry hadn’t even been around when she’d started going out with Steve. He’d been on holiday, touring the U.S., and she and Steve had been seeing each other for nearly a month by the time he returned home.
She could still remember the day she’d first set eyes on him. He’d walked in the door of Steve’s place, two small silver rings shining in his right earlobe, tattoos black against tanned arms, and more than a little intimidating in a plain black T-shirt, worn jeans and steel-toed boots. Here comes trouble had been her first thought. Then he’d smiled and she’d seen the mischief, curiosity and intelligence in his eyes and she’d realized he was trouble—just not the kind she’d first anticipated.
Alice shifted, making the stroller rock, and Pippa snapped to. She had things to do. She didn’t have time to stand around lollygagging. Especially not over Harry.
Her step brisk, she headed for the supermarket.
CHAPTER FOUR
THE REST OF the day sped by. She left Alice with a fellow student she traded babysitting duties with while she went to the university to get a head start on her assignment, a dry-as-dust examination of “the effect of government policy on the new national curriculum.” She collected Alice midafternoon and swung by the gallery to check her roster for the next week. She’d requested extra shifts when she’d still been flailing around, trying to work out how to pay for car repairs, and she saw that her boss, Gaylene, had come to the party. The two extra shifts would mean some juggling of Pippa’s schedule, but the extra money would give her the opportunity to build a little nest egg so that the next time life threw her a curve ball, she wouldn’t feel quite so desperate.
In theory.
She thanked Gaylene, then checked the time. It was a little after five. She chewed her lip, then decided that this was as good a time as any to swing by Harry’s place to see if he was around. It was tempting to simply leave the money in an envelope under his door when she knew he’d be at work, but leaving it without talking to him smacked of cowardice, and she wasn’t afraid of him or the argument they were bound to have over her insistence on repayment. Far from it.
Pippa had only been to his place once when Steve had parked in the drive and honked the horn to let Harry know they were there to pick him up. Consequently, she knew the street but not the house number, but the big black muscle car in the driveway put paid to any doubts she might have had that she had the right place. The house itself was nondescript, a seventies brown brick with a neatly manicured lawn and a garage to the rear.
She pulled into the driveway, aware that her pulse had sped up and butterflies were doing a lap of her stomach in anticipation of the battle to come. She checked on Alice and discovered she was fast asleep. Well, Pippa was only going to be a minute, so there was no point disturbing her. She cracked the window to ensure there was a breeze and got out of the car.
The Red Hot Chili Peppers’ “Under the Bridge” filtered through the warm afternoon air as she made her way to the front door. She knocked and waited. Seconds ticked past and she grew more and more tense. Which was ridiculous. This was Harry, and she’d already established she wasn’t even remotely scared of locking horns with him.
When he didn’t appear, she knocked again and tapped her foot impatiently. When he still didn’t answer, she stepped back and regarded the house. The music told her that someone was home, and it belatedly occurred to her that he might not be able to hear her over the racket. She walked to the side of the house and peered up the driveway. The side door of the garage was open, and the music seemed to be emanating from there. Maybe he was working on a car or something.
She checked on Alice, then made her way past the house. The music switched to Pearl Jam as she neared the garage and she took a deep breath.
“Knock knock,” she said as she stepped into the doorway.
And promptly lost the power of speech.
Harry was lying on his back on an incline bench, part of what was clearly an elaborate home gym. His chest was bare, sweat glistening on the muscles, his legs bent at the knee, his feet planted wide. A pair of faded tracksuit pants cut off raggedly at the knee rode low on his hips, and his stomach muscles rippled with effort as he pumped a loaded barbell above his head.
He looked … amazing. Huge. Sweaty. Ridiculously masculine. For the first time she saw that the tribal tattoos that snaked around his arms also flowed onto the left side of his chest, licking up his side like sinuous black flames. His pecs were powerfully defined, his nipples flat brown circles. A dark trail of hair bisected his belly, traveling down from his navel and disappearing beneath his low waistband.
She swallowed and became aware that she was clutching the envelope in her fist and staring like a nun at a strip show. She blinked, cleared her throat.
She’d seen near-naked men before, after all. So what if none of them had looked like Conan the Barbarian? It was no big deal. She wasn’t even that into muscle-bound men anyway.
She cleared her throat a second time and knocked on the open door.
“Hey. Harry, you got a minute?” she called over the music.
The barbell crashed onto the uprights on either side of the bench as Harry registered her presence.
“Pippa.” He looked surprised—and, unless she was wildly mistaken, pleased. As though he was happy to see her.
He sat up, an action which caused his abdominal muscles to do amazing things, then leaned over to turn down the volume on the stereo. “What’s up?”
“I came by to drop this off.” She waved the envelope.
His gaze went from it to her, then he snagged a hand towel from the adjacent bench and wiped first his face then his chest.
“If that’s money, I don’t want it.”
“It’s four hundred and five dollars. Fifty for the gasket. Three hundred for resurfacing the head. Twenty-five for the oil filter and thirty for the oil.”
“You spoke to Dad.”
“I did. I took him some beer to say thank you.”
“You didn’t have to do that.”
“Yeah, I did. Just like I have to do this.”
She took a few steps into the room and slid the envelope onto the workbench that ran along the rear wall.
“Pippa …”
She held up a hand. “Harry, you need to let me do this. I am incredibly grateful for what you did, but it’s enough that you gave me eight-plus hours of your time. I can’t let you cover the parts, as well.”
He scowled and pushed himself to his feet, setting off another chain reaction of rippling muscles. She fought the need to take a step backward as he advanced on her, reaching to grab the envelope.
“I’m not taking this,” he said, thrusting it into her hand.
“Well, that makes two of us,” she said, pulling her hand away before he could release the money.
His scowl deepened. This close she could see that his skin was still damp. She could smell his deodorant, too, and see the veins in his arms where his muscles were pumped from his workout.
“I can’t take money from you. Put it toward something else,” he said.
“You put it toward something else.”
Like maybe a pair of workout pants that didn’t seem as though they were in imminent danger of falling off his narrow hips.
“You mentioned being a graceful receiver the other night. Here’s a newsflash for you—you could do with some lessons,” he said.
“I am grateful. But I’m not a charity case. I don’t need you paying my way.”
“Who said anything about you being a charity case?”
An inch of what looked like black boxer-briefs showed at his waist. She felt a little dizzy, a little overwhelmed by all the raw masculinity on display.
“If you don’t think I’m a charity case, let me pay for the parts,” she said, trying to stop her gaze from sliding down his body.
“No. I wanted to help you and Alice. I did. End of story. I’m not taking your money.” He grabbed her hand, slapping the envelope into it. “Save it for when the car breaks down next time, which it will, because it’s a piece of yellow crap.”
He was probably right, but her back went up anyway.
“Just because it’s not some big macho muscle car from the days when dinosaurs roamed the planet doesn’t mean it’s a piece of crap.”
“For the record, there weren’t many dinosaurs roaming Australia in the seventies. And that hatchback is a piece of crap, and we both know it.”
“Fine. Whatever. The point is, it’s my piece of crap, and it’s my responsibility. What you did was fantastically generous, but you need to let me cover the parts, Harry.”
“Not gonna happen.”
“Harry.”
He shook his head slowly, his jaw set. She glared at him.
“I’m not letting this drop,” she warned.
“Then I guess you’ve got a problem, because I’m not taking your money.”
For a split second Pippa almost caved. Almost. But then she thought about how desperate she’d felt this week, and how relieved and pathetic she’d felt when Harry had shown up last night. She didn’t want to be a damsel in distress. She needed to be strong, for both her and Alice’s sake. That was what getting her Diploma of Education was all about. That was why it was so important that Harry let her pay her way.
“You know what Mick Jagger says. You can’t always get what you want,” she said.
Then she stuffed the envelope down the front of his shorts and swiveled on her heel, but not before she saw the shock on his face. She raced out the door. She figured she had the shortest of leads before he came after her. Sure enough, she was nearing the car when she heard him calling her name.
She scrambled into the driver’s seat, jammed the keys into the ignition and hit the locks. Harry strode toward her, looking for all the world like an escapee from Gladiator.
“Sorry,” she mouthed as she reversed out of the driveway.
HARRY STOPPED IN his tracks, hands on his hips, a pissed/resigned expression on his face. She hoped the resigned part signaled he would accept her money.
She glanced in the rearview mirror to find that Alice was awake again, her blue eyes taking in the world. A smile crept onto Pippa’s face, quickly turning into a grin.
She’d stuck a wad of cash down Harry’s pants. She probably needed to get out more, but it was the most outrageous thing she’d done in months. Possibly even years. And it felt good.
You do need to get out more.
She was still buzzing with triumph when she turned onto her own street. Then she realized that the butterflies-doing-a-lap feeling was still there and in a flash of insight understood it wasn’t nervousness. Not by a long shot.
It was excitement—because she’d seen Harry.
That quickly her goofy smile was gone, as was the feeling of triumph.
Harry was Steve’s best friend. Furthermore, he was as feckless, as childish, as immature as her ex. Another overgrown teenager who viewed life as a big amusement park.
She didn’t want to be excited about seeing him. God, no.
She parked and got Alice out of the car. As it had the other night, holding her daughter’s warm, soft body grounded her. Alice was the ultimate invitation to live in the now, to experience only this present moment. Rubbing her cheek against her daughter’s, Pippa let whatever silliness had gripped her this afternoon slide away.
Harry was not someone to get excited about. Lovely and funny and generous as he was.
It’s hardly going to be a problem. There’s no reason on earth for you to see him again now your car is fixed and the money sorted.
She should have felt relieved, but she didn’t. She felt disappointed, which went to show that she really was an idiot.
HARRY RETURNED TO the garage. The envelope with Pippa’s money lay on the floor where he’d dropped it—after he’d pulled it out of his pants.
Now, that was a move he hadn’t seen coming. In fact, he still couldn’t quite believe she’d done it.
Briefly he toyed with the idea of going after her, letting her know in no uncertain terms that he wasn’t interested in her money. He imagined himself chasing her down, backing her into a corner until she was forced to take the envelope back. She’d protest, no doubt, but he’d look into those rich chocolate-brown eyes of hers and—
He bent and collected the money, pushing it into his pocket and turning away from the thought that had been about to insinuate itself into his head.
It wasn’t quite so easy to ignore he had the beginnings of a hard-on, however. All because of a schoolboy fantasy that involved Pippa and a hard wall.
What is going on with you?
It was a good question. He wasn’t sure what the answer was. Pippa wasn’t the sort of woman he usually went for. She was older, for starters. Smarter, too. Then there was the not-insignificant fact she was a mother.
He gave himself a mental shake. It didn’t matter why he liked Pippa or how different she was from his usual type. The important thing was that she was Steve’s ex, and therefore officially off-limits.
As if his thoughts had conjured him, he heard the distinctive, low rumble of Steve’s new truck pull into the drive. Guilt stabbed at him, but he rejected it instinctively. He hadn’t done anything wrong.
Yet.
And it was going to stay that way, because Steve was one of his oldest friends.
He reached for his T-shirt and pulled it on as he exited the garage. Steve was sliding from the cab of his shiny red truck, a six-pack under his arm.
“Yo. What’s up?” he called out. He was dressed in board shorts and a loose tank, his hair held back by a pair of sunglasses pushed high on his forehead.
“You been out today?”
“Hell, yeah. Suicide was going off,” Steve said, naming a brutal surf beach farther south on the peninsula. “You should have come, man.”
Harry shrugged. He’d been through this with Steve during that morning’s phone call. “Mel needed my help with installing the rose arbors.”
Steve tugged a can free from the plastic ring holding it to the six-pack, passing it to Harry. “Don’t know why Mr. Richy-Rich doesn’t hire a bunch of muscle to do it all for him. Not like he can’t afford it.”
“Flynn likes getting his hands dirty,” Harry said, shrugging to let Steve know that he didn’t want to get into yet another conversation about what Steve would do if he had the Randall millions at his disposal. The truth was, Harry’s brother-in-law never flaunted his wealth and Harry had long ago stopped thinking of him as anything other than a good friend and the man who’d made his sister smile again.
“Yeah, yeah, whatever. So, what are we up to tonight? The Pier? Or do you want to hit the Portsea pub for a change, crash at Nugga’s place?”
Harry led the way inside. “Not fussed. Whatever tickles your fancy.”
Steve sat on the couch and propped his legs on the table, crossing them at the ankles. “You think that little blonde chick will be working at the Pier tonight? The new girl?”
“Who knows?”
“If I had to give her ass a score out of ten, it’d be eleven.” Steve laughed and took a pull from his beer.
Harry drank a mouthful of his own can, his head full of everything that had happened with Pippa. He wasn’t used to feeling guilty, and he didn’t like it.
“So, did you call that girl from last week yet?” Steve asked.
It took Harry a beat to drag his head out of his own thoughts. “Didn’t get around to it.”
Steve made a disgusted sound. “Dude. What’s wrong with you?”
“You want her number, it’s yours.”
Steve paused with his beer halfway to his mouth. “Seriously? You’re not going to call her?”
Harry shook his head.
“Bloody hell. Never thought I’d live to see the day. You losing it in your old age, mate? Having trouble getting it up?”
“Thanks for the touching concern, asshole, but everything is in perfect working order.”
Steve laughed and reached for the remote, flicking on the TV. “Did you catch any of the cricket today?”
Harry paused before answering, unable to shake the sense of unease dogging him. He felt like he was holding back. And it was because of Pippa. Because of how she made him feel, and—more importantly—because of what she’d said about Steve.
He grabbed the remote from Steve’s hand and killed the TV.
“Hey. I was watching that.”
“We need to talk. About Pippa.”
The look of comic outrage on Steve’s face disappeared as he put on his poker face. “What about her?”
“I told you about her car breaking down last week. Well, I wound up helping her out. Had her car towed to Dad’s and fixed the gasket head for her after hours.”
Steve’s eyes narrowed. “Why’d you do that?”
“Because she couldn’t afford to have her car fixed, and she needed to get around.”
“Pity you’re not in the Scouts still. That’d earn you a merit badge for sure.” Steve lifted his beer in a mock-toast. “Here’s to Mr. Good Deeds.”
“I told Pippa that if she wanted, I’d let you know what had happened on her behalf. See if you couldn’t help her out, since she’s struggling at the moment.”
Steve leaned back in the chair and rested his right ankle across his left knee. “I bet she loved that.”
There was no mistaking the resentment in his tone.
“She told me not to. And when I kept pushing she told me you’d dodged paying child support for Alice, so she doubted you’d be helping with the car.” Harry didn’t say anything more, simply waited for Steve to set him straight.
His friend gave him a derisive look. “What? Is this the bit where I’m supposed to step in and defend myself? Sorry, mate, but I’m not playing that game.”
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Sarah Mayberry
Pippa White has always been out of bounds for Harry Porter.First she was going out with his best friend Steve. Then she had his baby. They might have broken up, but Harry would never betray a lifelong friendship by pursuing a woman he’s always found incredibly compelling. Would he?
Now, that was a move he hadn’t seen coming
In fact, Harry still couldn’t quite believe Pippa had shoved the envelope of money—payment he hadn’t asked for and wasn’t going to keep—down the waistband of his shorts.
Briefly he toyed with the idea of going after her, letting her know in no uncertain terms that he wasn’t interested in her money. He imagined himself chasing her down, backing her into a corner until she was forced to take the envelope back. She’d protest, no doubt, but he’d simply look into those rich chocolate-brown eyes of hers and—
He put the cash in his pocket and turned away from the thought that had been about to insinuate itself into his head. Pippa was off-limits. She was trying to raise Alice on her own. Pippa was all about responsibility and commitment. Nothing that Harry had to offer.
Walk away, mate.
Too bad his libido wasn’t getting the message.
Dear Reader,
I’ve written two sequels in my career so far—this one and One Good Reason—and both were completely unplanned. It wasn’t until I started writing about a character who I assumed would be a supporting player that I realized that I wanted to tell that story, too.
Harry came to life in All They Need, which tells the story of his sister, Mel, and Flynn, the man who teaches her that love is not about pain and shame. I loved Harry from the moment he opened his mouth. His tattoos, his attitude, his blue-collar decency. I talked about him with my editor, and she—wise, wise woman—said, “For some reason I see him with a woman who has a child.” My brain lit up like a slot machine hitting jackpot. Of course Harry had to fall in love with a woman with a child! What better way to rock the world of a committed party boy?
When I started thinking about who this woman might be, it occurred to me that the lives of men like Harry revolve around their mates. They party together, they hang together, they have each other’s backs. But what if one of those mates turns out to have done the wrong thing by an ex-lover who wound up pregnant? And what if Harry had always really liked this woman because she was smart and funny and sassy? Beneath his tough exterior, Harry is a huge pussycat. I figured he’d be powerless to resist the urge to step in and step up on his friend’s behalf.
Those basic ideas sent my imagination off. I loved writing this book! Pippa and Harry were so much fun. I hope you enjoy reading their journey. I love hearing from readers, so please feel free to drop me a line at sarah@sarahmayberry.com (mailto:sarah@sarahmayberry.com).
Oh, and in case you’re wondering, I’ve never fallen through the ceiling. But I have come very, very close!
Happy reading,
Sarah Mayberry
About the Author
SARAH MAYBERRY lives in Melbourne in a house by the bay, happily sharing her days with her partner (now husband!) of twenty years and a small black, tan and white cavoodle called Max. She adores them both. When she isn’t writing, she is feeling guilty about not being out in the garden more and indulging in shoe shopping and reimagining her soon-to-be renovated home. She also loves to read, cook, go to the movies and sleep, and is fully aware that the word exercise should be in that list somewhere, too.
Suddenly You
Sarah Mayberry
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
This book was written with the undeniable distraction of a new puppy in the house. So it would be remiss of me not to thank Max for the many hours he stole from my work while simultaneously making me laugh and gnash my teeth. Bless your little furry everything.
As usual, Wanda held my hand and gave sage counsel and helped me see the wood for the trees. There would be no me without you, my dear.
And Chris. What can I say? You really are the best. The funniest. The smartest. The sweetest. (There are more -ests, but I don’t want to embarrass you. You know where I’m going with this, though.)
Lastly, a big thanks to the readers who take the time to put fingers to keyboard to write to me. Your letters really do make my day.
CHAPTER ONE
BEER. ICY COLD, preferably accompanied by a big, greasy burger. Oh, yeah.
Harry Porter rolled down the window of his 1972 HQ Monaro GTS and grinned into the resulting wind as he sped toward the pub. A vintage Midnight Oil song played on the radio and he tapped out the rhythm on the steering wheel, the burble of the V8 engine providing a bass beat.
It was Friday afternoon, it was summer, he’d just been paid, and half a dozen of his best mates were waiting at the Pier Hotel ten minutes up the road to kick off the weekend’s adventures.
Life didn’t get much better.
Whoever was in charge at the radio station seemed to agree because Midnight Oil’s “Power and the Passion” was followed by Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” He was reaching for the volume to crank it higher when he spotted the bright yellow car in the emergency stopping lane to the left of the highway, its hood pushed up in the universal signal that someone was shit out of luck.
The mechanic in him automatically diagnosed the problem—in this weather, most likely the car’s cooling system—before returning his gaze to the road. Fortunately, being a mechanic wasn’t like being a doctor—Harry wasn’t obliged to stop for emergencies. Which was just as well, because he’d spend half his life riding to the rescue if that was the case.
Something tickled at the back of his brain as he approached the car. He realized what it was as he sped past. He knew this car—at least, he knew its owner. He hadn’t seen her for nearly six months, but that was definitely her bright yellow hatchback, a fact he confirmed when he looked in his rear vision mirror and saw Pippa White standing with her hands on her hips staring into the engine bay.
He swerved into the unsealed emergency lane and glanced in the rearview mirror as Pippa turned to watch his big black car reverse toward her. She was frowning, clearly trying to work out who was coming to her rescue.
The worried expression vanished from her face when he exited his car. It was replaced with the wry, appreciative smile he’d come to associate with her during the six months she’d dated his best mate, Steve.
Pippa pushed her heavy black-framed glasses up her nose and scanned him head to toe as he approached.
“You’re definitely not what I was expecting when I sent up a prayer for a guardian angel.”
“Long time no see,” he said easily.
Pippa’s smile slipped a fraction and he knew that—like him—she was remembering the last time they’d seen each other. Driven by god-knows-what stupid impulse, he had visited her at the hospital after the birth of her daughter, Alice. The most uncomfortable fifteen minutes of his life so far, hands down. She recovered quickly, pushing her glasses up her nose again.
“How have you been, Harry? How’s Hogwarts going? Cast any good spells lately?”
The Harry Potter/Porter jokes had gotten old around the time Ms. Rowling had made her second billion, but Pippa was one of the few people he allowed to get away with them. They’d always got on well and, unlike most of Steve’s girlfriends, he’d regretted it when things had gone pear-shaped and she’d disappeared off the scene. She’d always had something interesting to say, and she’d always laughed at his jokes, even when they sucked.
“Made some underwear disappear the other night, if that’s what you mean.”
She laughed appreciatively. “Dirty dog.”
“How about you? How are things?”
“I’ve had better days, you know.” She shrugged, her dark, wavy hair brushing her shoulders. A sparkly clip was pinned at one temple. Combined with her heavy glasses, it gave her an arty, slightly eccentric look that was reinforced by her old-fashioned floral dress and timeworn tan oxfords.
Not for the first time he wondered how she and Steve had ever hooked up. She was a million miles from the tight-T-shirted, tight-jeaned women his mate usually went for, and Harry had always figured Steve wasn’t exactly Pippa’s normal dating material, either. Which only made it more problematic that they’d created a little girl between them.
“How’s Alice?” he asked, glancing at the backseat.
The baby seat was empty, however.
“Mum’s visiting, so she’s got her for the day. I was supposed to be getting a few chores sorted, but Old Yeller had other ideas.” Her tone was heavy with irony as she gave her car a rueful glance.
“Let me guess—it overheated?”
“To be honest, I have no idea. One minute I was driving along, the next minute there was this bang and then steam and smoke was pouring out from under the hood …”
Harry frowned. Steam sounded right for overheating, but not smoke. He moved closer to lean over the engine bay. It took him only a moment to spot the oil dripping down the engine block and sprayed across the other engine components.
“Looks like you’ve blown a head gasket.”
Pippa joined him, peering at the engine. “That’s bad, right?”
“It’s not great. It basically means the engine is no longer sealed properly, so the oil that’s supposed to stop things from seizing up when they get hot leaks out.”
“Does that mean the engine is seized now?” She looked alarmed.
“Not if you pulled over immediately.”
“I did. Straight away.”
“Then it’s probably okay. But the only way to know for sure is to crack the engine block open and take a look.”
“That sounds expensive. Am I right?” A worried expression filled her brown eyes.
“It can be. Depends on parts, what they find when they get in there …”
She nodded. “Right. Well, I guess me standing here swearing at it won’t change any of that.”
Harry pulled out his phone. Since he couldn’t help her, the least he could do was organize a tow truck.
“Who normally services the car?” He knew most of the workshops in this part of the Mornington Peninsula, as well as a number of the tow truck operators.
“Oh, um, I don’t know the name off the top of my head. A place down in Mornington.” She waved a hand vaguely.
“Sweet Motors? Beachside Workshop?” he suggested.
Pippa shook her head, her gaze sliding from his face to the car. “I think I’ve got their card at home.”
“Do you want to get it towed to your place, then?”
“No, then I’d have to pay twice. I’ll just go home and sort it from there. But thanks for the thought.”
Her words were light but the frown creasing her forehead remained. Harry hesitated, but there was something about the way she was trying to be so casual about what was clearly a major hassle that made him want to help out. Even though it wasn’t his place, and they weren’t really friends anymore.
“My dad owns the workshop in Mount Eliza Village. I could give him a ring. I’m sure he wouldn’t mind helping out with a tow.” Technically, this was true, since Mike Porter had always been a soft touch for someone in distress, but it didn’t mean Harry wouldn’t cop some grief for his impulsive offer. He could almost hear his dad now: It’d be different if you actually worked for Village Motors, mate. Then you’d be within your rights to make offers on my behalf.
The fact that Harry had chosen to work for someone else once he’d finished his apprenticeship had always been a minor bone of contention between him and his father, although lately it seemed there was more weight behind his father’s comments and jokey asides.
Still, Harry was willing to wear the inevitable heat if it meant helping Pippa.
“That’s really nice of you, but I don’t want to put anyone out. Besides, my car club offers free roadside assistance. I can call them from home and get everything sorted.”
“You won’t be putting anyone out. The workshop is up the road. It’s no big deal.”
Pippa’s expression became determined. “Thanks, but I’ve got it covered.” She softened her rejection by touching his forearm briefly. “I appreciate you stopping, Harry. A lot of other guys would have kept going.”
He frowned. The reality was, if she’d been one of Steve’s other exes, he would have simply blown past without a second thought. He wasn’t sure why it was different with Pippa, except he’d always liked her. And—maybe—because he felt a little sorry for her, given her situation and the way things had turned out.
“Can I give you a lift home, then?” he heard himself offer. Even though every minute that ticked past chewed up his weekend and delayed the moment when he had an ice-cold glass of beer in his hand.
“Thanks, but Mum can come get me.”
Pippa tried to pull the hood stand from its notch on the side of the engine bay. Harry watched her struggle for a few seconds before leaning across her and pulling it loose. He got a whiff of hot engine oil and a rich vanilla scent—Pippa’s perfume most likely—as the hood shut with a dull thud.
“Where are you living these days?” he asked.
“Frankston South. Off Karrs Road.”
“Perfect. I’m driving past on the way to the pub.”
She started to protest again but he walked to the driver’s side of the hatchback and leaned in to grab her handbag.
“You need anything else before we lock it up?” he asked as he passed her the bag.
Her expression became rueful. “You’re not going to let this drop, are you?”
“Can’t be a knight in shining armor if the princess won’t get up on my horse.”
She scanned his face, almost as though she was looking for evidence of something. His sincerity, perhaps? Or maybe she was thinking more of his association with Steve.
“It’s just a lift, Pippa.”
“True. And I wouldn’t want to deprive you of the chance to play Sir Galahad.”
“Especially since the urge only hits once every five years or so.”
She laughed, the sound loud and honest. “I bet. I’ve got some shopping in the back that should come home with me.”
He followed her to the trunk and grabbed the bags.
“Thanks.”
“All part of the service.”
“There’s a service? And here I was thinking I was getting special treatment.”
She was so dry he couldn’t help turning on the charm a little. “That’s part of the service, too.” He winked, deepened his voice a notch.
Pippa laughed again as they headed for his car. “My God, Harry. No wonder half the women in Frankston love to hate you.”
They were on familiar ground now—Pippa giving him a hard time about the “revolving door” to his bedroom.
“You’ve been talking to the wrong women.”
“Sure I have.” She gave him a look over her shoulder before opening the passenger door.
Harry smiled. He hadn’t been so sure earlier, but now he was glad he’d stopped. It was good to see her again, and even better to help her out of a jam, even in a very minor way.
Digging his keys from his pocket, he prepared himself for a challenging, entertaining five minutes.
PIPPA PRESSED A hand against her belly as Harry stowed her shopping. For some unknown reason, seeing and talking to him again had made her nervous.
A different kind of nervous, obviously, than the way she’d felt when his black car had swerved into the emergency lane so abruptly. The Nepean Highway was a public enough road that she hadn’t been afraid for her personal safety, but she’d be lying if she said she hadn’t been a little concerned. Then her rescuer had unfolded himself from his car and she’d known she was in good hands.
The car dipped as Harry slid into the driver’s seat. Pippa eyed his worn jeans, faded black T-shirt and tattooed arms, acknowledging the irony that someone who looked so fierce could make her feel so safe.
At first glance, Harry looked exactly like the sort of man that should make a woman worry—the military-short hair, the honed power of his arms and shoulders, the sheer height and breadth of him. And, of course, there were those tribal tattoos snaking around his arms. Inky-black and impossible to miss, they marked him as an outlaw, someone who didn’t color between the lines.
Not exactly your usual white-knight material, yet she knew Harry well enough to know he was a big softie underneath his fierce exterior.
“Got a big weekend planned?” she asked as he started the car.
“Always.” The smile he flashed her was confident, bordering on cocky.
“Fathers of Melbourne, lock up your daughters.”
“Fat lot of good that’ll do.”
It was true. She’d seen Harry in action enough times to know he didn’t have to go hunting for women. They came to him, flicking their teased blond hair and sashaying their miniskirted hips. Watching him charm them out of their underwear had fascinated her—but then she’d long recognized that she had a self-destructive penchant for bad boys. Witness her six months with Steve, who was the blond, blue-eyed version of Harry—a teenage boy’s mind in a grown man’s body, all about fun and good times and no responsibility.
As always, thoughts of Steve Lawson tightened her stomach, so she pushed them away. There was no point getting herself all bunged up over a situation she could do nothing to change.
“Let me guess—you’re kicking off at the Pier. Then you’ll move on to the Grand or the Twenty-First Century, and you’ll wind up at Macca’s place playing pool in the garage till three in the morning,” she said.
“Sounds pretty good, except Macca’s moved in with Sherry and the pool table went west.”
It wasn’t hard to interpret the disapproving note in Harry’s voice. He and Steve had never been shy about their disgust with their mates who’d met the right woman, married and bowed out of their boys’ club.
“Oh, dear. Another one bites the dust. Next thing you know you’ll be taking on a mortgage and buying golf clubs, too, Harry.”
“When hell freezes over.”
He sounded so grimly determined she had to laugh. “How old are you?”
“Thirty.”
“Getting up there.”
He shot her a look before taking a right turn off the highway. “You sound like my sister.”
“Relax. I’m only yanking your chain. I honestly can’t imagine you settling down. You and Steve like your lives too much the way they are to change them.”
She bit her tongue, but it was too late. She’d drawn attention to the elephant in the room. A short silence followed. Harry glanced at her but she kept her gaze front and center.
“For what it’s worth, for a while there I thought you had him on the ropes.”
“The question is, would I have wanted him once I got him?” Again, the words were out of her mouth before she could stop them. She held up a hand immediately, signaling she knew she’d stepped over the line. “Pretend I didn’t say that, okay? Strike it from the record.”
Harry was the last person she wanted to vent to about Steve. The absolute last.
“So is Alice walking and talking and stuff yet?” Harry asked after a small silence.
“She’s six months old, Harry.” Was he really so clueless?
He raised his eyebrows, clearly wondering what he’d gotten wrong. Apparently he was that clueless.
“Babies don’t generally start doing any of that until twelve months,” she explained.
“Right. So what does she do?”
“At the moment? Eat. Sleep. Cry. Poo. She’s starting to crawl, too.”
“And that’s all going well, then?”
She laughed. He was trying. She had to give him points for that.
“She poos like a champion. And no one can reach the high notes like Alice when she’s really cranky.” Her street was coming up and she gestured with her chin. “This is me.”
He made a left turn.
“The one with the broken letterbox,” she said, indicating the fifties brick veneer that she’d been renting since she found out she was pregnant.
Harry pulled into the driveway, eyeing the unkempt, overgrown garden and the house’s faded sun awnings. Pippa felt an uncomfortable tug of shame over the shabbiness of it all. Between work and university and caring for Alice, she could barely stay on top of the inside of the house, let alone the outside. And no way could she spare any money from her already tight weekly budget to pay someone to worry about it for her.
She opened her mouth to explain, then shut it without saying a word. She didn’t owe Harry an explanation. He was breezing through her life. In all likelihood, she wouldn’t run into him again for another six months, probably even longer. Which was the way it should be.
“Thanks for the lift and the help with my car,” she said.
“Like I did anything to help with your car.”
“You destroyed my last vestiges of hope. Sometimes that’s very necessary.”
“Great. I’ll add that to my repertoire. ‘Crusher of hope.’ Has a real ring to it.”
“Actually, it sounds like a heavy metal band.”
He laughed. She smiled and slid out of the car.
“Have a good weekend, Harry, and a great Christmas.” It was only seven weeks away, after all, and it was unlikely she’d see him again before then.
“You, too, Pippa.”
She turned away, then spun back. “Nearly forgot my stuff.”
“Right.”
Before she could protest, Harry jumped out of the car.
“Don’t even think about carrying my shopping to the door for me, Harry. You’ve done more than enough.” Plus she wasn’t used to being fussed over like this.
Harry brandished the key at her. “This is an old-school car. No auto trunk release.”
“Oh.” She felt heat climb into her cheeks and attempted to cover her blush by pushing her glasses up the bridge of her nose.
A small smile played around Harry’s mouth as he lifted out the bags and set them on the lawn.
“I’m leaving it here because I don’t want you having conniptions again.”
“Trust me, neither of us wants that.”
“Look after yourself, okay?” His gray eyes were direct and honest.
“I will. You, too. And keep dodging those bullets. The world wouldn’t be the same if you were domesticated.”
“I’ll do my best, don’t worry.”
Once inside the car, he backed onto the street. Pippa raised her hand in farewell. He waved in return, then was gone, the sound of the engine fading into the distance.
She headed for the house. Running into Harry had been the highlight of her day, which was probably a sad indictment of how pitiful her life was, but what the hell.
“Mum, I’m home,” she called as she let herself into the house.
“We’re in the sunroom.”
Pippa dumped her things in the kitchen before following her mother’s voice to the room that overlooked the rear garden. The carpet was a faded floral—probably original—the walls a grubby cream. Huge windows let in the afternoon sun. Her mother was sitting on the Art Deco couch Pippa had rescued from the side of the road and reupholstered a few years ago, a crossword puzzle book open on her knees, while Alice lay on a quilt at her feet, fascinated with one of her own small, pink toes.
“I was starting to get a little worried,” her mother said as Pippa dropped a kiss onto her cheek.
“Sorry. I had car trouble.”
The vague concern in her mother’s eyes became real worry. “Nothing too bad, I hope?”
“Nothing I can’t sort,” Pippa lied, because she knew if she didn’t the next words out of her mother’s mouth would be an offer to help pay for the repairs.
Julie White had retired from teaching three years ago and was on a limited, fixed income. Despite her financial limitations, she’d bent over backward to help Pippa once she’d learned of her daughter’s pregnancy. Pippa had been doing her damnedest to stem the tide of her mother’s generosity in recent months—she point-blank refused to be the reason her mother had to cut corners in her retirement—and little white lies like this were becoming more and more commonplace in their conversations.
Still, Pippa figured it was better to tell a few porky pies now, than have her mother sell her small condo or car later on.
As she’d hoped, the fib worked. “Oh, good. Because the last thing you need right now is car trouble.”
“I know. How has little miss been while I was out?”
Pippa sank to her knees to rest a hand on her daughter’s warm belly. Alice gazed at her with big blue eyes, her mouth working.
“Did you miss Mummy?”
Alice beamed, both hands gripping Pippa’s wrist.
“She’s been a little sweetie,” her mother said.
“That’s because she’s a shameless little con artist. Aren’t you, Ali bear? Have you been charming your grandma?” Pippa kissed her daughter’s cheek before rising to her feet. “Are you staying for dinner?”
“I can’t. Not if I want to make it home before midnight. I promised Mrs. Young that I’d drive her to bingo tomorrow and I don’t want to let her down.”
Her mother lived in Bendigo, a three-hour drive north. Single since Pippa’s father died when Pippa was sixteen years old, she was heavily involved in her local community, volunteering at the local retirement village and a number of charity shops.
Pippa did her best not to act relieved as she said her goodbyes. At least she didn’t have to put on a brave face for the rest of the evening—the only upside she could find to her situation right now.
She waited until her mother’s car had turned the corner before walking slowly into the house, Alice a heavy weight on her hip. She fed Alice, then made dinner for herself. With her daughter settled in her bassinet, happily gurgling away, Pippa fired up her laptop and logged on to her bank account to work out how on earth she would get together enough money to fix her car.
It was a depressing exercise. Despite months of scrimping and saving, she had just enough in the account to cover rent, utilities and food for the next month, but precious little contingency. Certainly nothing near the amount that Harry had implied she might need.
She stared at the figures on the screen, elbows propped on the table, fingers digging into her temples as she racked her brain. There had to be some way to find the money.
She could ask for more shifts at the local art gallery where she worked, but that would mean bailing on classes at university and she had exams coming up … Plus she was already sailing close to the wind in the attendance department. The last thing she needed was to fail because she hadn’t attended the requisite number of hours in class. The whole point of getting her Diploma of Education was to escape this cycle of hand-to-mouth, one-day-at-a-time living by landing a decent-paying job. She was halfway through her diploma, but all her hard work would be a complete write-off if she failed because of skipping class.
Of course, if she had completed her teaching degree ten years ago when she’d graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree, none of this would be an issue. She would have a decent job, a good income, and Alice would have a stable home. But Pippa had turned her nose up at teaching then, even though her mother had encouraged her to have “something to fall back on.” Pippa had been convinced that something else was out there for her, something amazing and creative and exciting. She’d spent a decade searching and had nothing to show for it except a woefully empty bank account and her beautiful, painfully precious daughter.
A headache started behind her left eye and she willed away the panic fluttering in her chest. She might not be able to see it right now, but there was a solution to her problem. She simply had to wait for it to reveal itself.
If Steve was even close to being a responsible adult, you wouldn’t have to think twice about calling a mechanic.
Pippa hated the impotent, acidic burn she got in her stomach every time she thought about her ex. Hated how helpless it made her feel. How stupid.
For six incredibly foolhardy months, she’d been infatuated with a real-life version of Peter Pan. She’d laughed at his antics, been beguiled by his laid-back, take-things-as-they-come lifestyle and ignored the little voice in her head telling her nobody could live like that forever. Then she’d discovered she was pregnant, and Steve had turned from a funny, irreverent larrikin to an angry, resentful asshole. Six months of laughs, good times and fun had gone up in smoke and Pippa had been left holding the baby. Literally.
I don’t want this. I didn’t ask for it. I’ll give you the money to make it go away. But if you decide to keep it, it’s all on you. I don’t want anything to do with it.
His words on that fateful day still lived large in her memory. She’d hoped his attitude would change once he’d gotten over the shock of her announcement, but he hadn’t budged on his stance. She’d been forced to contact Child Support Services to pursue him for support payments. She hadn’t wanted to, had tried everything in her power to work it out with him, not wishing it to become official and complicated, but Steve had point-blank refused to even come to the table. Pippa had been left with no choice but to take steps to ensure Alice had what she needed.
In theory, the law had supported her cause, but Steve had arrived with the books for his house-painting business and told the caseworker he was barely staying afloat. Alice had been awarded a paltry fifteen dollars per week based on Steve’s hugely under-reported annual income. She’d listened with disbelief when her caseworker explained the outcome. She knew how Steve lived. He never denied himself anything, from holidays to Bali to a new truck to three-hundred-dollar sunglasses. But because he was self-employed, he was able to manipulate the figures to make it look as though he barely made ends meet. She’d walked away with nothing but disillusionment and the advice that she needed to file a change of assessment request to empower the agency to go after Steve through tax and bank records. She’d done so two months ago, and was still waiting to hear the result.
No surprises there. She had no doubt that Steve was doing everything to avoid, delay and prevaricate. Meanwhile, she and Alice teetered on the brink of insolvency.
Pippa rubbed her eyes. No matter how much she willed it, the figure on the screen hadn’t suddenly grown an extra decimal point. She abandoned the computer and picked up Alice out of her bassinet and then lay on the floor with her baby resting on her belly. Alice pushed up on her arms and stared, eyes bright with curiosity. As usual Pippa felt the bulk of her worries slip away as she looked into her daughter’s trusting face.
This is what’s important. Only this.
Everything else would take care of itself. University, the car, the bills … Things would work out. She’d make them work out. She might not be loaded, but she was thirty-one years old and she was resourceful and resilient. If she had to sic yet another government agency on Steve, she would. If she had to somehow squeeze in more work shifts around her classes, she’d do that, too. Whatever it took.
She cupped her hand around her daughter’s silken head and pressed a kiss to her cheek.
Whatever it took.
CHAPTER TWO
HARRY WOKE THE next morning feeling thirsty and thick in the head. No doubt the result of the many beers he’d sunk last night, along with the fact he’d crawled into bed in the early hours.
He lay in the morning sun trying to muster the energy to get out of bed and take care of both his thirst and complaining bladder.
Details from the night returned: Steve crowing as he won yet another game of pool at the pub, completely ungracious in victory. Nugga making a fool of himself chatting up a girl way too young for him. The hot brunette with the tight tank top—no bra—who had punched her number into Harry’s phone and told him to call her.
Yeah, it had been a good one. Not quite up to the glory days of five years ago, when there had been more of them and fewer girlfriends and wives at home, but still a good night.
After a few minutes of drowsing, Harry threw off the covers and shuffled into the bathroom to take care of business. He hit the kitchen afterward, pouring himself a huge glass of OJ and took it to bed, which was when he noticed the sand in the sheets. He grinned, remembering the last part of the evening, when he, Steve and Bluey had played an unholy game of tag on the beach, whooping and hollering as they ran in and out of the surf and up and down the sand. They’d finally been sent home by one of the boys in blue, with a heavy-handed suggestion that they all grow up.
Harry finished the juice in one long pull. He checked his phone for the time and saw he had a text from Nugga asking if he wanted to catch a wave or two at Gunnamatta. He thought about it for a second. He didn’t have any other major plans for the day beyond a vague idea that he might drop in on his sister, Mel, and her husband, Flynn. A surf was a safer bet—the moment his sister saw him she’d be sure to invent some gardening job that required muscle strain, sweat and four-letter words. Not that she wouldn’t be in there right alongside him and Flynn, pulling her weight, but still.
He texted Nugga to say he was on the way, then rolled out of bed and stretched until his shoulders popped. Ten minutes later he was out the door in a pair of board shorts, a towel under his arm, a pair of thongs on his feet.
He threw his wetsuit and board into the back of his old truck and wended his way through quiet residential streets until he hit the highway.
Harry saw Pippa’s car from a mile off, a bright yellow beacon on the opposite side of the road. He frowned as he sped past. He’d thought she would call her mechanic yesterday to take care of it. But maybe she’d had trouble contacting him at the end of the working week. She’d need to deal with it in short order, however, because the local council had strong feelings about abandoned cars. If Pippa wasn’t careful, her car would be towed and she’d have to pay a release fee on top of everything else.
Seeing Pippa’s car reminded him of something else that had happened last night. Maybe it had been stupid of him given the circumstances and how close-mouthed Steve had always been about Pippa and Alice, but when he’d hit the pub he’d taken Steve aside to let him know what had happened with Pippa. Harry had figured that if it was his ex, the mother of his child, he’d want to know. But Steve had simply nodded as though Harry was talking about someone he barely knew and changed the subject. No interest whatsoever.
Big deal. They’re not together. And she sicced some government agency on to him to squeeze more money out of him. He’s got every right to feel the way he does.
It wasn’t as though Steve had gone looking to be a father, after all, and no one knew better than Harry how messed up and angry Steve had been when Pippa broke the news. And yet … his mate’s indifference didn’t sit well with Harry.
But he wasn’t in the habit of sticking his nose where it didn’t belong. So Pippa would have to sort her car out on her own.
Except she didn’t.
When he drove to work on Monday morning the car was still there, and when he drove home at the end of the day. Tuesday, same deal. Wednesday morning he kept his eyes peeled and the moment he saw her hatchback, he pulled over. After three minutes of searching an online phone directory, he realized she must have an unlisted number. He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel for a few seconds, then waited for a break in traffic before doing a U-turn.
Five minutes later he climbed the steps to Pippa’s front porch. It was only after he’d knocked that he questioned what he was doing. She was an adult, after all. She didn’t need him ordering her life or breathing down her neck.
Too late. Footsteps sounded within the house, then the front door opened and a bemused Pippa stared at him.
“Harry. Hi.”
Her hair was tousled, her eyes heavy. A fluffy dressing gown swamped her body, her bare feet peeking out beneath the hem.
She should have looked a mess—mumsy and suburban—but she looked good. Soft and warm and gently pretty.
“What’s going on with your car?”
She blinked and it occurred to him that he may have actually dragged her out of bed.
“Sorry if I woke you, but you should know that the Peninsula council is all over abandoned cars like white on rice. If someone reports you, your car will be towed and impounded.”
“Oh. Right.”
Somewhere inside the house, a baby cried. Pippa glanced distractedly over her shoulder.
“I’m a bit slow this morning. I’ve been up since five with Alice. I only got her down again half an hour ago.”
She backed up a step and gestured for him to follow her.
“Come in.”
She was gone before he could explain he’d already said what he’d come to say, neatly sidestepping her way around a detached door leaning against the hall wall before disappearing from sight. He hesitated on the threshold, uneasy.
“Do you want a coffee?”
Pippa’s question echoed up the hallway. He shook his head, then realized she couldn’t see him.
“I’m fine, thanks.”
Harry entered the house, navigating his way past the detached door. He found Pippa cradling a blond-haired, blue-eyed baby in the bright kitchen, rocking from foot to foot as she attempted to soothe her.
“Shh, sweetheart, you’re all right. It’s all good.” Pippa’s voice was soft and achingly tender. She glanced at him. “There’s juice, too, if you’d prefer something cold.”
He was too busy staring at Alice to respond immediately. He hadn’t seen her since the day she was born. She’d been red and squashed-looking then, her eyes squeezed tightly shut, her hands clenched into tight little fists. Now, she was pink and plump, with pale, wispy hair. She looked like Steve. Almost disconcertingly so. It was weird seeing his friend’s features replicated on a tiny baby girl.
“She looks like Steve,” he said.
“Yes.”
The way she said the single word made him remember he had no business being here. Steve was his mate, after all. Harry owed his first loyalty to him.
He cleared his throat. “Anyway. The car. You should chase up your mechanic because the council are real sticklers about towing anything that looks like it’s been abandoned.”
“I didn’t realize. I thought I’d have a few weeks …”
A few weeks? To do what?
Then it hit him—her worry at the roadside, the slightly shabby house, the fact that she was a single mother.
She couldn’t afford to get her car fixed.
Hence her delaying tactics when he’d mentioned having her car towed, and hence her need to wait a few weeks before she had the funds to repair it.
He glanced around the room, racking his brain for a way to offer help without stepping on her toes—because he might not know Pippa that well, but he knew she had way too much pride to ask for help.
“Listen, Pippa, why don’t I get my dad to tow the car to your place? At least you won’t have to worry about it being impounded.”
She was shaking her head before he’d even finished speaking. “It’s great of you to offer again, Harry, but I’ll sort it. Thanks, though. And thanks for the heads up. I appreciate it.” She glanced at the wall clock. “I don’t want to hold you up.”
She was fobbing him off. Getting ready to send him on his way.
“How are you going to sort it?” he asked bluntly.
“Sorry?”
“How are you going to sort the car when you can’t afford to get it fixed?”
Her chin jerked with surprise. “That’s not what this is about.”
She was a terrible liar, her eyes blinking rapidly behind her glasses.
“So I should call A1 Towing and get them to take the car to my work and ask my boss to quote on it for you, then?”
She stared at him, her expression half frustrated, half chagrined. After a second she shook her head. “You don’t beat around the bush, do you?”
“I’m hoping I might have a chance of getting to work on time if we cut some of the back and forth out of the way.”
She gave a short, sharp laugh. “You always were honest to a fault. Okay, you’re right, Harry. I can’t afford to fix the car right now. I’m scraping some money together but the gas bill came in and I figure we need hot water more than we need a car. So maybe the council will impound my car and I’ll have to live with that until I can figure something out.”
Pippa shrugged as though she didn’t give a damn but her cheeks were pink and her shoulders tense.
He ran a hand over the top of his head, unsure where to go now that he’d gotten her to admit the truth. If it was one of his mates, he’d simply open his wallet and offer a loan on the spot. But as much as he liked her, Pippa wasn’t really his friend and he had no idea how she’d react if he offered her money.
“What about Steve?” Because it seemed to him that was the next natural step, no matter the tensions between them.
“No.”
One word, very firm.
“I know you guys have some issues, but he’d help out if he knew you needed it.”
“I appreciate that you’re trying to help. You’re very sweet. But I can handle this.”
“I’ll ask him. If it’d make it easier for you to swallow.”
He didn’t know why he was making a federal case out of it. It was her car, her life. She was free to do whatever she liked. Certainly none of it was his responsibility. So why was he offering to be her mouthpiece with his best mate?
Pippa sighed. “It’s incredibly generous of you to offer, but you don’t want to do that.”
“I wouldn’t offer if I didn’t mean it.”
“I know. But it won’t make any difference. Steve won’t want to help me.”
“Look, even if Steve’s pissed with you, he’ll step up.”
“It’s nice you believe that, but since he’s gone to the trouble of falsifying the books for his business to avoid paying child support, you’ll understand if I don’t hold my breath on that one.”
He was ready to jump to his mate’s defense. No way would Steve turn his back on his responsibilities. Alice was his kid, after all. His daughter.
Something stopped him before the denial left his mouth, however.
Maybe it was the world-weary note to Pippa’s voice and the steadiness of her gaze.
Or maybe it was the memory of the utterly blank, disinterested expression on Steve’s face Friday night.
“Like I said, I appreciate the heads up, Harry.”
A phone rang in the next room.
“I need to get that. It’s probably my boss….”
She slipped into the adjacent room. A few seconds later he heard her take the call. Harry glanced around the kitchen again, his gaze landing on a stack of textbooks on the table. He read the title of the top book—Teaching Studies of Society & Environment in the Primary School—before his attention was drawn to the large bowl in the center of the table. Filled with odds and ends, it clearly functioned as a tabletop junk drawer—and right on top was a key ring with two car keys.
In the next room, Pippa told someone she was ready and willing to do any and all extra shifts that were on offer. He could hear the strain in her voice. The fear.
He didn’t stop to consider it, simply pocketed the keys. When Pippa returned, he said goodbye and bowed out. Once he got to his car, he tossed her keys onto the passenger seat then drove to work.
He’d taken them on impulse, because the idea of walking away from her when she was clearly in need stuck in his craw, and because he couldn’t see any other way of convincing her to accept his help. Maybe it had been a mistake. Maybe he’d overstepped the mark, big time. After all, he had no vested interest in her or Alice or any of it.
But he couldn’t stop thinking about what she’d said about Steve, about him having engineered his finances to minimize his child support commitments. Harry couldn’t conceive of a circumstance where the mate he knew would do that. Steve was always first to buy a round of drinks or help out a friend moving furniture or some other favor. No way could all that generosity dry up when it came to his own flesh and blood.
Pippa must be exaggerating. It wasn’t as though things had ended well between her and Steve. She was probably bitter and angry with him. Disappointed, too.
Except she hadn’t exactly volunteered the information. Harry had had to push a few times before she’d spelled it out for him.
Deeply uneasy, he grabbed his phone and dialed his father at the workshop.
“It’s me. I need a favor. There’s an acid-yellow hatchback on the Nepean near the turnoff for the winery. Can you tow it to the workshop and I’ll come by to take care of it after work?”
“You think I’ve got nothing better to do than run around doing favors for your mates?” His father’s words were tough, but there was no rancor behind them.
“No. Can you do it?”
Harry half expected his father to have another go at him, but he didn’t.
“What’s the problem?”
“Head gasket, I think. I’ll do the work if you don’t mind me using the garage tonight.”
“I’ll make sure you’ve got the parts on hand. Who am I doing this for, by the way? Steve? That red-headed idiot?”
“Her name’s Pippa. She’s a single mum. I’m helping her out.”
A profound silence ensued on the other end of the line and Harry could practically hear his father’s brain grinding away.
“She’s Steve’s ex,” Harry added.
Just in case his father started getting crazy ideas.
“Fair enough. I guess I’ll see you tonight, then.”
“Thanks, Dad.”
“Don’t thank me yet. You haven’t seen my bill.”
There would be no bill. Mike Porter might look like a hard-ass, but he was the softest touch in town.
As Harry turned in to the parking lot at work, it occurred to him that instead of pulling out all the stops for Pippa himself, he could have simply called Steve and filled him in and let him take care of things. Proving to himself—and Pippa—that she was wrong.
If it hadn’t been for the blank look on Steve’s face the other night, Harry might have, too. But that look … that look combined with Pippa’s comments had sprouted some ugly ideas in his head, and the fact was, he wasn’t ready to have them confirmed.
He and Steve had grown up together. Played footy together. Had their first beers, their first fights, their first girlfriends together. He didn’t want to think that his mate was capable of letting down people he should care about so profoundly.
So Harry would help Pippa. And he would hold off talking to Steve until he’d had a day or two to digest. And he’d hope that someone, somewhere, had got it wrong.
TWO DAYS LATER, Pippa eased back onto the couch and propped her aching feet on a cushion. Alice lay on her play mat, batting at the Fisher Price mobile Pippa had bought from the local charity shop. It was Friday night and she was exhausted.
It wasn’t ordinary, run-of-the-mill exhaustion, either. Having no car meant everything had to be started early and finished late, which meant she was waking earlier, going to bed later. Alice’s day care might be around the corner and the gallery only a little farther than that, but when she threw in grocery shopping and other errands, plus getting to the university and back, Pippa figured she was walking more than ten kilometers a day. Great for her thighs and ass, not so great for her feet or her schedule.
In short, it sucked, hard. And she still had no idea how she would get her car repaired. She’d managed to scrape together nearly five hundred dollars, but the two mechanics she’d called had quoted a minimum of one thousand to fix a head gasket.
Pippa pressed her lips together, staring at her much-abused feet. There was no getting around it—she’d have to ask her mum for the money. She would pay her back, of course—but it would take time. And it was humiliating.
Thirty-one and running to Mummy. Well done, Phillipa. Way to be an adult.
To think that not so long ago she’d prided herself on being unconventional and marching to the beat of her own drum. Whenever one of her more conservative friends had asked if she ever worried about the future, about owning a house or being able to afford to retire or having a career, Pippa had laughed and assured them she didn’t lose sleep over that stuff because she was too busy enjoying the journey.
What a load of old bullocks.
She’d been off with the fairies, tripping around in a fantasy world. Alice had been a cosmic wake-up call that it was time to stop playing around and grow up—there was nothing like being responsible for a tiny, helpless human being to sort a person’s priorities out, quick smart.
Pippa propped an ankle on the opposite knee and massaged the arch of her foot, digging in her thumbs until it hurt. Her thoughts drifted to Harry’s visit the other morning. He’d been the last person she’d expected to find on her doorstep at 7:30 a.m. Definitely he was one of the last people she would have chosen to catch her in her fluffy robe, complete with tangled bed hair and smudgy glasses. There was something very unsettling about being caught unprepared for the day by someone as dynamic and charismatic as Harry.
Still, it had been nice of him to drop in and warn her about the council’s policy on towing abandoned cars. The bit where he’d forced her to confess that she couldn’t afford to have her car fixed hadn’t been so great, but since he’d followed it with yet another offer of help, she figured his heart was in the right place. Fortunately, she wasn’t that desperate a case yet—stress on the yet.
That’s right. You’re only at the mooching-off-your-retired-mother stage. Mooching-off-strangers is a highlight for coming months, yet to be enjoyed.
A knock echoed through the house. She almost welcomed the interruption, even though it meant she had to get to her feet. Anything was better than lying around brooding.
“Ow,” she said as she started up the hallway. “Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow.”
Funny how shoes that she’d thought were perfectly comfortable had turned on her after a few days of hard labor. Once she’d dealt with whoever was at the door, she would run herself a bath and soak her feet.
She pushed Alice’s stroller out of the way so she could reach the door. Because it was clearly her lucky day, the lock stuck and she swore under her breath.
Like the broken bedroom door, the dodgy lock had been reported to the landlord, but Pippa figured both would be repaired around the same time that Dairy Queen opened a concession in hell. The pitfalls of paying low rent in a working-class suburb.
She shouldered the door, pushing the lock up before twisting it. It gave grudgingly and she—finally—opened it to find Harry filling the frame for the second time in as many days.
“Harry,” she said, blinking up at six foot two of solid male dressed in an old gray surf T-shirt, faded jeans and steel-toed boots.
Why did she keep forgetting how big he was? And why did he keep turning up on her doorstep?
“These are yours.” He caught her hand and dropped a set of keys into it. “Before you say anything, it was my pleasure. Consider it an early birthday present for Alice.”
It took her brain a full ten seconds to process his words and understand their meaning.
“You fixed my car,” she said stupidly.
Sure enough, Old Yeller was in the driveway, brighter and larger than life.
“It was no big deal. Like I said the other day, it was the gasket. A few hours and the problem was solved.” “But … how did you get my keys?”
Then she remembered she’d left him alone in the kitchen while she took the phone call from her boss.
The first emotion to hit her was shame. She’d thought she’d been doing a decent job of covering how damned desperate she was, but clearly Harry had seen straight through her. That he understood exactly how powerless she’d been to change her situation and had been moved to act was galling and humiliating in the extreme.
Hard on the heels of shame came anger, a knee-jerk, defensive, irrational response to feeling so vulnerable and exposed. Who was he to take so much upon himself? To force his charity on her—stealing her car keys, no less—without asking if she wanted his help?
Finally, relief hit, so profound, so all-encompassing there was no room for anything else and she clenched her jaw to stop an instinctive, deeply pathetic sob from escaping. She curled her fingers around the keys, squeezing them tight, trying very, very hard not to cry with gratitude and relief. She blinked repeatedly but wasn’t entirely successful in vanquishing the tears.
“I don’t know what to say. You shouldn’t have. It’s too much. It’s amazing…. But it’s too much, Harry.”
“It was a couple of hours’ work, and Dad let me use his shop. Like I said, not a big deal.”
Pippa took in his tired eyes, five-o’clock shadow and fingernails still dark with grease. She knew from her inquiries that replacing a head gasket in a standard, four-cylinder car was an eight-hour job, minimum. He must have worked around the clock after hours to do this for her.
A thousand thoughts battled for supremacy, but there was only one thing she could say.
“Thank you. This means so much to me and Alice. You’ve literally saved my bacon.”
She held Harry’s gaze as she said it, wanting him to see how sincere she was, how grateful. It might embarrass her to have to be the recipient of his charity, but no way was she rewarding his generosity with anything other than sincere appreciation. The shame was her problem, not his.
He stuck his hands into his back pockets, stretching his T-shirt across his broad chest. “It wasn’t anywhere near as bad as it could have been. A clean replacement, no complications.”
He was clearly uncomfortable, which, oddly, made it easier to swallow her own discomfort. She felt a rush of fondness for her ex’s best friend. Harry had always been her favorite of Steve’s mates. No competition.
“You’re a good man, Harry.”
He frowned.
“If I can be a gracious receiver, the least you can do is accept my thanks,” she said.
“Thanks are fine. But we both know I’m no saint.”
“Did I call you a saint? I said you were a good man.” She stepped to one side. “Come in so I can make you even more uncomfortable with my gratitude.”
He glanced over his shoulder as though looking for an escape route.
“Come on. A little slavish gratitude won’t hurt you,” she teased.
His gray eyes creased at the corners as his mouth curled into a reluctant smile. He stepped over the threshold, brushing past her, and she caught the scent of clean sweat and spicy deodorant. Her gaze scanned his broad back before dropping to his butt.
She stopped the moment she realized what she was doing. Harry was Steve’s best friend. In every way that counted, he was completely and utterly off-limits. She didn’t need or want to register him as a man. She definitely didn’t want to notice he had a nice ass.
Even if he did.
Pippa shut the door, being careful to shoulder it so the lock slipped into place. She was aware of Harry watching her and she shrugged philosophically.
“This place is a bit of a work in progress,” she said and headed down the hall.
She heard Harry follow, his tread steady and sure. When they entered the kitchen she threw him a quick smile.
“One sec while I check on Alice.”
She ducked her head into the sunroom. Her daughter was chewing on the sleeve of her Onesie, a sure sign she was hungry. Pippa scooped her into her arms.
“We’ve got a visitor. You want to come and say hello?”
Harry stood in front of the photographic montage she’d made of the first few months of Alice’s life, his expression unreadable.
“Sorry about that,” she said. “Now, can I offer you a coffee or a tea? I think I may even have a stray beer in the fridge. And have you had dinner?”
“Coffee’s great, thanks.” He turned from the photographs, and his expression softened when he saw who she was holding. “Hello, little lady.”
Alice blew a bubble and gurgled in the back of her throat.
“That’s hello in baby-speak, in case you were wondering.”
Pippa settled Alice on her hip and crossed to the kettle to set it boiling. Acting on a hunch, she pulled out the leftover roast potatoes and chicken schnitzel from dinner and ferried them toward the microwave.
“If that’s for me, please don’t bother,” he said.
She slid the plate into the microwave before facing him.
“Tell me what you had for dinner and I’ll put it in the fridge.” She was aware of Alice latching on to one of the buttons on her bodice and she ran a finger distractedly over her daughter’s head.
He eyed her for a beat before responding. “Okay. I haven’t eaten yet, but I’ve got food at home.”
“If I can accept you repairing my car for me, you can accept a meal.” She hit the button to start the microwave and waved him toward one of the two stools tucked beneath the kitchen counter. “Especially when the reason you went hungry is because you were doing me a favor. Grab a seat.”
“I don’t remember you being this bossy.”
“Maybe you don’t know me as well as you think you do.”
“Maybe.”
He sat as she collected coffee-making paraphernalia from the cupboard.
She laid out a knife and fork for him, grabbed a glass of juice, too, then folded a paper napkin and placed it beside the cutlery.
“Don’t go to any trouble.” He seemed awkward as hell sitting there, waiting for her to feed him.
“Relax. It’s a paper napkin.” She went very still when his gaze dropped to her breasts.
In all the time she’d dated Steve, she’d never—not once—gotten the vibe that Harry was interested in her as a woman. His attitude toward her had always been strictly friendly—no eye drops, no ass checks, no speculative looks. If she’d been asked by someone to describe the way he treated her, she’d have said his attitude was fraternal. Big brotherly.
Yet right now, right this second, he was staring at her chest with a single-minded intensity that made her belly tighten with nervous self-consciousness.
The moment seemed to stretch. Then Harry lifted his gaze to hers and realized he’d been busted. Dull color stained his cheeks.
“Sorry. It’s just … your dress …” He gestured toward her chest, his gaze trained resolutely over her shoulder now.
She glanced down and discovered that the top two buttons of her bodice were undone, offering him an untrammeled view of her deep red bra and a whole lot of cleavage.
CHAPTER THREE
SHE GATHERED THE sides of her dress together in her free hand, heat burning its way into her face. “Sorry. Alice must have—She’s never done that before….”
It was true. Alice was always fiddling—with Pippa’s necklace, her earring, the collar of her shirt or the buttons on her coat—but she’d never unbuttoned anything before.
Pippa tucked her chin and tried to rebutton her bodice one-handed, very aware of the warmth in her cheeks. Unlike many of the women in her mothers’ group, she had been unsuccessful at breast-feeding. A series of infections and an inadequate milk supply led her pediatrician to recommend bottle-feeding Alice when her daughter was barely a month old. Consequently, Pippa wasn’t nearly as casual about flinging her breasts around as some of her friends. To her, they were about sex and intimacy, not sustenance.
And Harry had copped a very decent eyeful.
“Here, I’ll take her.” Harry held out his hands, ready to accept the baby so she could secure her dress.
“You’re sure?” she asked, surprised. He didn’t exactly seem the baby type.
“She hasn’t just eaten, right?”
“She won’t throw up on you, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“Then we’re cool.”
She had to release her dress to pass Alice to him, and Harry kept his eyes averted during the exchange. She quickly refastened her dress, fingers racing to push the buttons home.
“Sorry about that,” she said once she was decent. “Bit more than you bargained for.”
She couldn’t quite make herself meet his eye.
“Should I slip the kid a tip or would that be overkill?”
He surprised a laugh out of her. “I don’t think she needs the encouragement.”
“Guess it depends on where you’re sitting.”
She risked a glance at his face. He was smiling, a devilish glint in his eyes. She grinned.
“You’re hopeless.”
“Because I’ve got eyes in my head?”
“Something like that.” She glanced at Alice, who was happily balanced on his knee, her back supported by one of Harry’s big hands.
“Are you okay with holding her for a few more minutes or are you going to break out in hives from all the responsibility?”
“I can handle it.”
“Brave man.”
“Weren’t you making me dinner?”
She rolled her eyes comically before checking on the microwave. The timer was almost done and she opened the door to test the temperature of the potatoes. She was aware of Harry watching her as she worked and an odd little frisson ran up her spine. A couple of minutes later, she slid the plate in front of him, complete with gravy and a slice of fresh bread.
“Looks good,” he said.
“Well, it’s food, anyway,” she said modestly.
She enjoyed cooking, but she wasn’t about to volunteer for Masterchef or anything. Definitely her efforts veered more toward the everyday and practical than haute cuisine.
She reached for Alice, sliding her daughter off his thigh so he could eat his meal unhindered. At the last minute, Alice caught a fistful of Harry’s T-shirt in her small hand, clinging to it as though her life depended on it.
“Alice. Sorry, Harry. She’s not used to men, so you’re a bit of a novelty item.”
“It’s all part of being a babe magnet.”
She winced to let him know his joke was really bad before prying Alice’s fingers loose. Her daughter had a fierce grip, however, and it took Pippa a few seconds to convince her to let Harry go. She was very aware of the firm warmth of his chest beneath the fabric and how close she stood to him. It hit her that this was the most intimate she’d been with a member of the opposite sex since she’d gotten pregnant. A less than impressive reflection of her social life, but also a solid explanation for the way her heart suddenly pounded in her chest.
“You live to fight another day,” she said as Alice finally relinquished her prize.
“Phew,” Harry said. “Thought it was all over for a moment there.”
Pippa moved to a safe distance and gestured for him to eat. “Dig in. Don’t let it get cold.”
He dutifully picked up his cutlery and started eating. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly, trying to regain her equilibrium. From the moment he’d dropped her car keys into her hand she’d been off balance. Exposing herself and then prying her daughter off him hadn’t helped matters.
Funny, but she’d never thought of Harry as someone she could ever be nervous around. But then she’d never been alone with him at nine o’clock on a Friday night before, either.
Right, because so much is going to happen. He’s probably just waiting for his moment to pounce, single mothers being a huge turn-on for him and all. Add to that the fact you’re his best mate’s ex and you’re practically irresistible. It’s a wonder he’s still got his pants on.
The thought calmed her. The very idea of Harry being interested in her or her being interested in Harry was absurd. Beyond absurd, really, moving into insane territory.
Common sense restored, Pippa crossed to the sideboard to find her handbag. She grabbed her checkbook from the side pocket and found a pen.
Behind her, Harry made an appreciative noise. “This is really good. I love schnitzel.”
“It’s my Aunt Bev’s recipe. She married an Austrian.”
“Go Aunty Bev.”
She opened the checkbook to a fresh page.
Harry’s eyebrows rose as he registered what she was doing. “That had better not be what I think it is.”
“You have to at least let me pay for parts. I’ve gotten some money together, so I’m not a total charity case.”
“It was a gasket and some oil. A few bucks. Like I said, consider it Alice’s birthday present.”
“Except it’s going to be another seventeen-odd years before she actually needs her own car.” She fixed Harry with a level look. “I appreciate your generosity, and I know I can’t fully repay you for your time, but please let me make sure you’re not out of pocket.”
He gestured toward his plate. “You cooked me dinner. We’re square.”
She made a frustrated noise. Harry cut another slice of schnitzel and popped it into his mouth. He chewed slowly, purposefully, a steady, confident expression in his eyes that as good as said, “I just had the final word and you can’t do anything about it.”
He really was a cheeky bastard. Too cocky and smug and charming for his own good.
“I’ll find a way to pay you back, Porter.”
“You can try. But I don’t like your chances.”
She harrumphed to let him know she didn’t agree, then crossed to the fridge and refilled his juice glass. Alice started fiddling with her buttons again and Pippa switched her to the opposite hip in the hope that it might distract her.
“I have to ask—what’s with all the books on teaching?” Harry asked.
“I’m studying to get my Dip. Ed.”
“You’re going to be a teacher?”
“No need to sound so surprised. It’s not that shocking.”
“You’ve never mentioned it before, that’s all.”
She pulled a strand of her hair free from Alice’s grasping fingers. “I need a job. A real job, not a joke job that I can pick up and put down whenever I feel like it.”
Harry’s gaze went to Alice and she knew he understood.
“Do you like it?”
“Sometimes. I’ve had two class placements so far and they both went pretty well. No one died on my watch, at least.”
“Setting the bar pretty low there.”
“These days I find it’s best to have low expectations.”
They talked about her studies as he finished his meal, leaving nothing but a thin trail of gravy. Testament, she hoped, to how much he’d enjoyed it. Afterward, he set his knife and fork neatly side by side on the plate and carried it to the sink. She watched as he glanced around for the dishwasher—there wasn’t one—then proceeded to wash his plate.
“Wow. You’re actually house-trained. Who knew?”
There was a reluctant grin on his lips as he glanced over his shoulder at her. “Jesus, you’re a smart-ass. To think I used to miss you hanging around.”
If the look on his face was anything to go by, he’d surprised himself as well as her with his inadvertent admission. She smiled, oddly touched, as he focused on rinsing his plate. She’d missed him, too, when things had gone south with Steve. Harry’s irreverence and easygoing charm had always appealed to her. In another time and place, perhaps, they might have been friends. In this lifetime, however, it was never going to happen. Too many old loyalties on his side and too many bad associations on hers.
“I should get going,” Harry said as he set the plate on the drainer.
“Okay.”
She led him to the hallway, edging past the broken door. “Sorry about the obstacle course. The landlord assures me he’s going to fix this thing before the turn of the next century.”
This time, thankfully, the lock opened easily and she watched Harry step onto the porch.
“Thanks for dinner. And the show,” he said.
Trust him to bring up the moment with her bra again.
“And I’m the smart-ass?”
“Maybe it takes one to know one.”
“Maybe.” The smile faded from her lips as she held his eyes. “Harry, what you did tonight … I will never be able to tell you how much your generosity means. I feel as though I’ve had a visit from my fairy godmother or something.”
He shrugged modestly. “Honestly, I could do it in my sleep. It’s really not a big deal.”
“It is to me and Alice. A very big deal.”
On impulse, she stepped forward, stood on tiptoes and flung her free arm around his shoulders.
“Thank you for being so damn kind,” she said fiercely, pressing a kiss to the angle of his jaw. His shoulders were warm and firm beneath her arm and his five-o’clock shadow tickled her cheek. She inhaled the good, honest smell of him, touched all over again by what he’d done.
Before she could withdraw, his arms came around her, returning her embrace, and for a split second she and Alice were pressed firmly against his chest and side. Then he let go and she sank onto her heels. When she went to step away, however, she discovered Alice had once again grabbed Harry’s T-shirt and was not about to let go.
“Maybe you really are a babe magnet.”
Harry eyed Alice indulgently. “Nah. She’s just got good taste.”
He brushed his forefinger across the back of Alice’s knuckles. Alice lifted her face to his, eyes wide, her mouth open in an almost-smile. Full of curiosity and wonder.
“Come on, cutie,” he said gently, smiling in return.
He brushed her hand again and Alice let go, transferring her grip to his finger. Pippa stepped back, and after a long second Alice let Harry’s finger slip from her grasp.
“Should have known you’d be an expert at the cut and run,” she said.
“Lots of practice.”
For a moment they simply smiled at each other.
“I’ll see you around.”
“Yeah. Look after yourself, okay?” she said, a little alarmed to feel her throat closing over with unexpected emotion.
Although maybe it wasn’t that unexpected—he’d saved her ass tonight, after all.
“Sure thing.”
He raised his hand in farewell and headed for his car. She watched him, only belatedly realizing it must have been quite an operation to get both her car and his here. She wondered how many favors he’d called in and knew she’d never know. Just as she’d never know how much she really owed him for parts and labor.
Grateful tears stung the back of her eyes as she waved him off. Pippa wasn’t one of those people who had random good things fall in her lap every day, and she’d never considered herself particularly lucky, but there was no doubt the universe had been smiling on her when Harry drove past on the highway last week.
Suddenly she wished she’d said more to him, even if it would almost certainly have made him deeply uncomfortable. They’d been so busy giving each other a hard time, playing up their old dynamic, that she didn’t feel as though she’d properly expressed her feelings.
Right now, Harry was her hero. Pure and simple.
She felt a tug, and when she looked down she discovered Alice was once again undressing her. Clearly, she needed to either invest in some safety pins or a pair of mittens for her daughter. Or, alternatively, some truly excellent underwear if she was destined to be flashing all and sundry on a regular basis.
For a split second—the most fleeting of moments—she allowed herself to wonder what Harry had thought of the “show” she’d put on tonight. Then she as quickly pushed the thought from her mind.
After all, it was absurd to even think—
Shaking her head, Pippa went to put her daughter to bed.
HARRY DIDN’T CONSIDER himself a saint. Not by a long shot. He had his faults and flaws, and some of them were worse than others, but one thing he’d never done was look twice at a mate’s girlfriend or wife.
It simply wasn’t in his makeup. As far as he was concerned, there were more than enough single, ready and willing women in the world without him even considering a woman who was taken.
So why in the name of all that was good couldn’t he get the memory of Pippa’s creamy, curvy breasts out of his head?
It wasn’t just that she’d been wearing a cherry-red bra—not what he would have guessed was under her old-fashioned dress, that was for sure—although the way the bright lace had cupped her pale skin had been pretty damn memorable.
It was everything. The sway of her body as she’d moved around the kitchen, the way she’d tilted her head when she sent smart-mouthed zingers his way, the way she’d turned pink when she’d realized what her enterprising daughter had done.
Pippa White, it turned out, was sexy. In a quiet, subversive, get-under-a-man’s-skin kind of way. She might not put it all out there like the brunette who’d punched her number into his phone last week, but there was something about Pippa that made a man think about things he shouldn’t be thinking about when she was his best friend’s ex-girlfriend—or, better yet, the mother of his best friend’s child.
The worst thing was, Harry suspected he’d always been aware of her in that way on some level. When she’d been going out with Steve, Harry had always been able to pick her voice out in a crowd. Same with her laugh. And he’d whiled away more than one night lounging around a pool table with her, shooting the shit, laughing at her jokes and enjoying her sharp take on the world. Enjoying her.
Not gonna happen. Ever. So get that dirty little thought out of your head right now.
Harry pulled into his driveway and braked with more force than necessary, slamming the car door hard as he exited and headed for the house.
It was just as well he wouldn’t be running into Pippa again in the near future, because he wasn’t interested in being either the nobly-tortured, self-restrained chump or the dick-driven moron who threw away years of friendship for a roll in the hay. He liked things nice and easy. No complications. Lots of fun. Pippa didn’t fall under any of those headings.
He strode into the living room, automatically reaching for the remote to flick on the TV. He wasn’t really hungry, but he went into the kitchen and made himself a big bowl of ice cream. He sat on the couch and dug in, kidding himself that he was watching the cricket report when really he was thinking about the way Pippa had hugged and kissed him on her doorstep.
She’d called him kind, which was a pretty big joke given all he’d been able to think about was her breast pressed against his biceps. And when he’d returned her embrace—an impulse he hadn’t been able to control—he’d sucked in a lungful of her perfume and the warm, milky smell of her daughter.
Who—yeah—had totally been in Pippa’s arms while he was thinking about how soft her breast felt against his arm.
He was so kind. Practically a saint.
Disgusted with himself, he pushed his half-full bowl onto the coffee table and dropped his head against the cushion, trying to find some clarity. Or at the very least a little peace of mind.
He’d left as soon as he’d registered his own interest—he figured that counted in his favor. And he’d held her for only a second. And even though he wouldn’t swear on it, he was pretty sure he’d helped out with the car with absolutely no expectations. Just as, even now, a part of him itched to grab his toolbox and go over to her place to fix that ridiculous abandoned door leaning against the wall, as well as that stupid, half-assed lock she had to wrestle with.
So what? She’s Steve’s ex. Doesn’t matter what good deeds you want to perform, Boy Scout. She’s out-of-bounds.
She was. Even if she and Steve had ended things amicably, the same would be true.
Which meant it really was time to stop thinking about her.
Harry reached for the remote, cranked up the volume and pretended that that was what he was doing.
PIPPA PRACTICALLY LEAPED down the steps the next morning, eager to get into the day. She had a car again! She felt as though she was rejoining the modern world after a week in the Stone Age.
Alice talked to herself in the backseat as Pippa drove to the village, her head full of plans. Once she had restocked the pantry, she might make a run to the library to check if the textbooks she’d ordered for her classes had arrived. Then she should probably get a head start on the five-thousand-word assignment that was due before the end of the month.
But first there was something she wanted to do. She parked in front of the liquor store and strapped Alice into her stroller, then went inside and bought some beer. The salesman helped her stow it on the rack at the back of the stroller before she exited and crossed the road. A bell rang as she entered the cement-floored reception area of Village Motors and a young girl looked up from behind the counter.
“Hi. How can I help you?”
Pippa offered up her best smile. “Would it be possible to speak to Mr. Porter?”
The girl’s gaze flicked between Pippa, Alice and the beer. Lord only knew what she was thinking.
“I’ll see if he’s busy,” she said primly.
Pippa pushed the stroller back and forth while she waited, hoping to keep Alice distracted. When Alice started vocalizing, she squatted to play peek-a-boo, making her daughter smile.
“I’m Mike Porter. How can I help you?” a deep voice asked.
She glanced up to find a powerfully built older man with a graying horseshoe mustache and Harry’s eyes and nose towering over her. Like Harry, he was tall and broad. She would have recognized him as Harry’s father anywhere.
She stood. “My name is Pippa White. I own a bright yellow hatchback. Your son Harry repaired it for me….”
“Right. The head gasket.”
“That’s me. I wanted to drop by and say thank you for your help, and to offer you a small token of my appreciation.”
She collected the carton of beer from the luggage rack, offering it to him. His forehead pleated into a perplexed frown.
“You didn’t have to do that,” he said gruffly.
“I wanted to. I really appreciate what you and Harry did for us. I can’t tell you what a relief it is to have a car again.” Her arms were starting to get tired and she adjusted her grip a fraction. “Unless you like your beer frothy, you might want to grab this. I’m afraid my upper-body strength isn’t what it should be.”
“Sorry.” Mike took the carton, placing it on the counter. He looked uncomfortable and a little uncertain as he faced her. Pippa stifled a smile. Like Harry, he didn’t know what to do with her gratitude.
“Please take it. It’s a tiny fraction of what the repairs would have cost, and I really want to acknowledge your generosity.”
“Harry won’t like this. He was pretty keen to help you out.”
For some reason, his words sent a wash of warmth up her chest and into her face.
“I know. But he needs to accept that I’m pretty keen to thank you for that help, too.”
Mike’s gaze moved to Alice, his mustache twitching around his smile as he studied her round face. “This your daughter?”
“Yes. Alice.”
“How old is she?”
“A little over six months.”
His gaze returned to her and she could tell he’d made a decision. “Thanks for the beer, Pippa. It won’t go to waste. And I’ll be sure to direct Harry’s comments your way when he hears about it.”
She smiled. “You do that. I can handle it.” She slid her hand into her handbag and grasped her checkbook. “Now, I don’t suppose you could tell me what I owe for parts?”
Mike’s eyebrows shot toward his hairline. “You don’t need to worry about all that. Harry covered everything.”
“I know. That’s why I want to make sure he isn’t out of pocket. It’s one thing to give up his time, but I can’t let him pay for parts, as well.”
Mike shook his head. “Sorry, but that’s something you’ll have to take up with Harry.”
“Mr. Porter—”
“Mike.”
“Mike. Harry is a great guy, but I don’t feel comfortable having him pay out money on my behalf. I know I didn’t ask and he offered, but I can afford to cover the parts, and I really want to. It’s important to me. I’ve got Alice to look after now and standing on my own two feet means a lot.” She could hear the emotion vibrating in her voice and she swallowed. For a woman who had spent much of her adult life merely getting by, being responsible for another person was a profound shift. More than anything, she wanted to be up to the challenge, to be worthy of Alice. That meant not relying on her mother or anyone else. Definitely it meant not taking handouts if she didn’t have to.
“I understand where you’re coming from,” Mike said after a short silence. “Things were tough when we first had Justine, our eldest, but I still had my fair share of pride. I get it.”
“So you’ll let me reimburse you?” she asked hopefully.
He allowed himself a small smile at her persistence, but he shook his head. “I’ll tell you what the parts are worth. You can take repayment up with Harry.”
Which meant she had yet another battle on her hands, but so be it.
Mike pulled open the top drawer of a beaten-up filing cabinet. After a few seconds he extracted a folder and opened it.
“Okay. The gasket itself was fifty, but you’ve got an aluminum head, which had to be resurfaced before the gasket was replaced, so that was three hundred. Then there was five liters of oil at thirty, a new oil filter at twenty-five for a grand total of four-oh-five.” He glanced at her. “Which Harry can well afford, by the way.”
Pippa pulled out her phone and made a note of the figure on the notepad app. “So can I. Thanks for this, Mike. I appreciate it.”
“My pleasure. I appreciate you taking the time to drop in. Not sure I’ll feel the same once Harry hears what went down, but I’m still bigger than he is so he can suck it up.”
Pippa wasn’t too sure about him being bigger than Harry—it looked like a pretty close call to her—but she offered Mike her hand, said thanks once again, then pushed a dozing Alice outside. She paused, thinking about how Harry had shouldered four hundred and five dollars on her behalf without so much as batting an eyelid, yet his best friend wouldn’t even pick up the phone to discuss his daughter’s welfare.
Someone sure picked the wrong hell-raiser to fall into bed with.
It was a dumb thought and she pushed it away the moment it occurred to her. It wasn’t as though she’d ever had a choice between Steve and Harry—Harry hadn’t even been around when she’d started going out with Steve. He’d been on holiday, touring the U.S., and she and Steve had been seeing each other for nearly a month by the time he returned home.
She could still remember the day she’d first set eyes on him. He’d walked in the door of Steve’s place, two small silver rings shining in his right earlobe, tattoos black against tanned arms, and more than a little intimidating in a plain black T-shirt, worn jeans and steel-toed boots. Here comes trouble had been her first thought. Then he’d smiled and she’d seen the mischief, curiosity and intelligence in his eyes and she’d realized he was trouble—just not the kind she’d first anticipated.
Alice shifted, making the stroller rock, and Pippa snapped to. She had things to do. She didn’t have time to stand around lollygagging. Especially not over Harry.
Her step brisk, she headed for the supermarket.
CHAPTER FOUR
THE REST OF the day sped by. She left Alice with a fellow student she traded babysitting duties with while she went to the university to get a head start on her assignment, a dry-as-dust examination of “the effect of government policy on the new national curriculum.” She collected Alice midafternoon and swung by the gallery to check her roster for the next week. She’d requested extra shifts when she’d still been flailing around, trying to work out how to pay for car repairs, and she saw that her boss, Gaylene, had come to the party. The two extra shifts would mean some juggling of Pippa’s schedule, but the extra money would give her the opportunity to build a little nest egg so that the next time life threw her a curve ball, she wouldn’t feel quite so desperate.
In theory.
She thanked Gaylene, then checked the time. It was a little after five. She chewed her lip, then decided that this was as good a time as any to swing by Harry’s place to see if he was around. It was tempting to simply leave the money in an envelope under his door when she knew he’d be at work, but leaving it without talking to him smacked of cowardice, and she wasn’t afraid of him or the argument they were bound to have over her insistence on repayment. Far from it.
Pippa had only been to his place once when Steve had parked in the drive and honked the horn to let Harry know they were there to pick him up. Consequently, she knew the street but not the house number, but the big black muscle car in the driveway put paid to any doubts she might have had that she had the right place. The house itself was nondescript, a seventies brown brick with a neatly manicured lawn and a garage to the rear.
She pulled into the driveway, aware that her pulse had sped up and butterflies were doing a lap of her stomach in anticipation of the battle to come. She checked on Alice and discovered she was fast asleep. Well, Pippa was only going to be a minute, so there was no point disturbing her. She cracked the window to ensure there was a breeze and got out of the car.
The Red Hot Chili Peppers’ “Under the Bridge” filtered through the warm afternoon air as she made her way to the front door. She knocked and waited. Seconds ticked past and she grew more and more tense. Which was ridiculous. This was Harry, and she’d already established she wasn’t even remotely scared of locking horns with him.
When he didn’t appear, she knocked again and tapped her foot impatiently. When he still didn’t answer, she stepped back and regarded the house. The music told her that someone was home, and it belatedly occurred to her that he might not be able to hear her over the racket. She walked to the side of the house and peered up the driveway. The side door of the garage was open, and the music seemed to be emanating from there. Maybe he was working on a car or something.
She checked on Alice, then made her way past the house. The music switched to Pearl Jam as she neared the garage and she took a deep breath.
“Knock knock,” she said as she stepped into the doorway.
And promptly lost the power of speech.
Harry was lying on his back on an incline bench, part of what was clearly an elaborate home gym. His chest was bare, sweat glistening on the muscles, his legs bent at the knee, his feet planted wide. A pair of faded tracksuit pants cut off raggedly at the knee rode low on his hips, and his stomach muscles rippled with effort as he pumped a loaded barbell above his head.
He looked … amazing. Huge. Sweaty. Ridiculously masculine. For the first time she saw that the tribal tattoos that snaked around his arms also flowed onto the left side of his chest, licking up his side like sinuous black flames. His pecs were powerfully defined, his nipples flat brown circles. A dark trail of hair bisected his belly, traveling down from his navel and disappearing beneath his low waistband.
She swallowed and became aware that she was clutching the envelope in her fist and staring like a nun at a strip show. She blinked, cleared her throat.
She’d seen near-naked men before, after all. So what if none of them had looked like Conan the Barbarian? It was no big deal. She wasn’t even that into muscle-bound men anyway.
She cleared her throat a second time and knocked on the open door.
“Hey. Harry, you got a minute?” she called over the music.
The barbell crashed onto the uprights on either side of the bench as Harry registered her presence.
“Pippa.” He looked surprised—and, unless she was wildly mistaken, pleased. As though he was happy to see her.
He sat up, an action which caused his abdominal muscles to do amazing things, then leaned over to turn down the volume on the stereo. “What’s up?”
“I came by to drop this off.” She waved the envelope.
His gaze went from it to her, then he snagged a hand towel from the adjacent bench and wiped first his face then his chest.
“If that’s money, I don’t want it.”
“It’s four hundred and five dollars. Fifty for the gasket. Three hundred for resurfacing the head. Twenty-five for the oil filter and thirty for the oil.”
“You spoke to Dad.”
“I did. I took him some beer to say thank you.”
“You didn’t have to do that.”
“Yeah, I did. Just like I have to do this.”
She took a few steps into the room and slid the envelope onto the workbench that ran along the rear wall.
“Pippa …”
She held up a hand. “Harry, you need to let me do this. I am incredibly grateful for what you did, but it’s enough that you gave me eight-plus hours of your time. I can’t let you cover the parts, as well.”
He scowled and pushed himself to his feet, setting off another chain reaction of rippling muscles. She fought the need to take a step backward as he advanced on her, reaching to grab the envelope.
“I’m not taking this,” he said, thrusting it into her hand.
“Well, that makes two of us,” she said, pulling her hand away before he could release the money.
His scowl deepened. This close she could see that his skin was still damp. She could smell his deodorant, too, and see the veins in his arms where his muscles were pumped from his workout.
“I can’t take money from you. Put it toward something else,” he said.
“You put it toward something else.”
Like maybe a pair of workout pants that didn’t seem as though they were in imminent danger of falling off his narrow hips.
“You mentioned being a graceful receiver the other night. Here’s a newsflash for you—you could do with some lessons,” he said.
“I am grateful. But I’m not a charity case. I don’t need you paying my way.”
“Who said anything about you being a charity case?”
An inch of what looked like black boxer-briefs showed at his waist. She felt a little dizzy, a little overwhelmed by all the raw masculinity on display.
“If you don’t think I’m a charity case, let me pay for the parts,” she said, trying to stop her gaze from sliding down his body.
“No. I wanted to help you and Alice. I did. End of story. I’m not taking your money.” He grabbed her hand, slapping the envelope into it. “Save it for when the car breaks down next time, which it will, because it’s a piece of yellow crap.”
He was probably right, but her back went up anyway.
“Just because it’s not some big macho muscle car from the days when dinosaurs roamed the planet doesn’t mean it’s a piece of crap.”
“For the record, there weren’t many dinosaurs roaming Australia in the seventies. And that hatchback is a piece of crap, and we both know it.”
“Fine. Whatever. The point is, it’s my piece of crap, and it’s my responsibility. What you did was fantastically generous, but you need to let me cover the parts, Harry.”
“Not gonna happen.”
“Harry.”
He shook his head slowly, his jaw set. She glared at him.
“I’m not letting this drop,” she warned.
“Then I guess you’ve got a problem, because I’m not taking your money.”
For a split second Pippa almost caved. Almost. But then she thought about how desperate she’d felt this week, and how relieved and pathetic she’d felt when Harry had shown up last night. She didn’t want to be a damsel in distress. She needed to be strong, for both her and Alice’s sake. That was what getting her Diploma of Education was all about. That was why it was so important that Harry let her pay her way.
“You know what Mick Jagger says. You can’t always get what you want,” she said.
Then she stuffed the envelope down the front of his shorts and swiveled on her heel, but not before she saw the shock on his face. She raced out the door. She figured she had the shortest of leads before he came after her. Sure enough, she was nearing the car when she heard him calling her name.
She scrambled into the driver’s seat, jammed the keys into the ignition and hit the locks. Harry strode toward her, looking for all the world like an escapee from Gladiator.
“Sorry,” she mouthed as she reversed out of the driveway.
HARRY STOPPED IN his tracks, hands on his hips, a pissed/resigned expression on his face. She hoped the resigned part signaled he would accept her money.
She glanced in the rearview mirror to find that Alice was awake again, her blue eyes taking in the world. A smile crept onto Pippa’s face, quickly turning into a grin.
She’d stuck a wad of cash down Harry’s pants. She probably needed to get out more, but it was the most outrageous thing she’d done in months. Possibly even years. And it felt good.
You do need to get out more.
She was still buzzing with triumph when she turned onto her own street. Then she realized that the butterflies-doing-a-lap feeling was still there and in a flash of insight understood it wasn’t nervousness. Not by a long shot.
It was excitement—because she’d seen Harry.
That quickly her goofy smile was gone, as was the feeling of triumph.
Harry was Steve’s best friend. Furthermore, he was as feckless, as childish, as immature as her ex. Another overgrown teenager who viewed life as a big amusement park.
She didn’t want to be excited about seeing him. God, no.
She parked and got Alice out of the car. As it had the other night, holding her daughter’s warm, soft body grounded her. Alice was the ultimate invitation to live in the now, to experience only this present moment. Rubbing her cheek against her daughter’s, Pippa let whatever silliness had gripped her this afternoon slide away.
Harry was not someone to get excited about. Lovely and funny and generous as he was.
It’s hardly going to be a problem. There’s no reason on earth for you to see him again now your car is fixed and the money sorted.
She should have felt relieved, but she didn’t. She felt disappointed, which went to show that she really was an idiot.
HARRY RETURNED TO the garage. The envelope with Pippa’s money lay on the floor where he’d dropped it—after he’d pulled it out of his pants.
Now, that was a move he hadn’t seen coming. In fact, he still couldn’t quite believe she’d done it.
Briefly he toyed with the idea of going after her, letting her know in no uncertain terms that he wasn’t interested in her money. He imagined himself chasing her down, backing her into a corner until she was forced to take the envelope back. She’d protest, no doubt, but he’d look into those rich chocolate-brown eyes of hers and—
He bent and collected the money, pushing it into his pocket and turning away from the thought that had been about to insinuate itself into his head.
It wasn’t quite so easy to ignore he had the beginnings of a hard-on, however. All because of a schoolboy fantasy that involved Pippa and a hard wall.
What is going on with you?
It was a good question. He wasn’t sure what the answer was. Pippa wasn’t the sort of woman he usually went for. She was older, for starters. Smarter, too. Then there was the not-insignificant fact she was a mother.
He gave himself a mental shake. It didn’t matter why he liked Pippa or how different she was from his usual type. The important thing was that she was Steve’s ex, and therefore officially off-limits.
As if his thoughts had conjured him, he heard the distinctive, low rumble of Steve’s new truck pull into the drive. Guilt stabbed at him, but he rejected it instinctively. He hadn’t done anything wrong.
Yet.
And it was going to stay that way, because Steve was one of his oldest friends.
He reached for his T-shirt and pulled it on as he exited the garage. Steve was sliding from the cab of his shiny red truck, a six-pack under his arm.
“Yo. What’s up?” he called out. He was dressed in board shorts and a loose tank, his hair held back by a pair of sunglasses pushed high on his forehead.
“You been out today?”
“Hell, yeah. Suicide was going off,” Steve said, naming a brutal surf beach farther south on the peninsula. “You should have come, man.”
Harry shrugged. He’d been through this with Steve during that morning’s phone call. “Mel needed my help with installing the rose arbors.”
Steve tugged a can free from the plastic ring holding it to the six-pack, passing it to Harry. “Don’t know why Mr. Richy-Rich doesn’t hire a bunch of muscle to do it all for him. Not like he can’t afford it.”
“Flynn likes getting his hands dirty,” Harry said, shrugging to let Steve know that he didn’t want to get into yet another conversation about what Steve would do if he had the Randall millions at his disposal. The truth was, Harry’s brother-in-law never flaunted his wealth and Harry had long ago stopped thinking of him as anything other than a good friend and the man who’d made his sister smile again.
“Yeah, yeah, whatever. So, what are we up to tonight? The Pier? Or do you want to hit the Portsea pub for a change, crash at Nugga’s place?”
Harry led the way inside. “Not fussed. Whatever tickles your fancy.”
Steve sat on the couch and propped his legs on the table, crossing them at the ankles. “You think that little blonde chick will be working at the Pier tonight? The new girl?”
“Who knows?”
“If I had to give her ass a score out of ten, it’d be eleven.” Steve laughed and took a pull from his beer.
Harry drank a mouthful of his own can, his head full of everything that had happened with Pippa. He wasn’t used to feeling guilty, and he didn’t like it.
“So, did you call that girl from last week yet?” Steve asked.
It took Harry a beat to drag his head out of his own thoughts. “Didn’t get around to it.”
Steve made a disgusted sound. “Dude. What’s wrong with you?”
“You want her number, it’s yours.”
Steve paused with his beer halfway to his mouth. “Seriously? You’re not going to call her?”
Harry shook his head.
“Bloody hell. Never thought I’d live to see the day. You losing it in your old age, mate? Having trouble getting it up?”
“Thanks for the touching concern, asshole, but everything is in perfect working order.”
Steve laughed and reached for the remote, flicking on the TV. “Did you catch any of the cricket today?”
Harry paused before answering, unable to shake the sense of unease dogging him. He felt like he was holding back. And it was because of Pippa. Because of how she made him feel, and—more importantly—because of what she’d said about Steve.
He grabbed the remote from Steve’s hand and killed the TV.
“Hey. I was watching that.”
“We need to talk. About Pippa.”
The look of comic outrage on Steve’s face disappeared as he put on his poker face. “What about her?”
“I told you about her car breaking down last week. Well, I wound up helping her out. Had her car towed to Dad’s and fixed the gasket head for her after hours.”
Steve’s eyes narrowed. “Why’d you do that?”
“Because she couldn’t afford to have her car fixed, and she needed to get around.”
“Pity you’re not in the Scouts still. That’d earn you a merit badge for sure.” Steve lifted his beer in a mock-toast. “Here’s to Mr. Good Deeds.”
“I told Pippa that if she wanted, I’d let you know what had happened on her behalf. See if you couldn’t help her out, since she’s struggling at the moment.”
Steve leaned back in the chair and rested his right ankle across his left knee. “I bet she loved that.”
There was no mistaking the resentment in his tone.
“She told me not to. And when I kept pushing she told me you’d dodged paying child support for Alice, so she doubted you’d be helping with the car.” Harry didn’t say anything more, simply waited for Steve to set him straight.
His friend gave him a derisive look. “What? Is this the bit where I’m supposed to step in and defend myself? Sorry, mate, but I’m not playing that game.”
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Sarah Mayberry
Тип: электронная книга
Жанр: Современные любовные романы
Язык: на английском языке
Издательство: HarperCollins
Дата публикации: 16.04.2024
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О книге: Pippa White has always been out of bounds for Harry Porter.First she was going out with his best friend Steve. Then she had his baby. They might have broken up, but Harry would never betray a lifelong friendship by pursuing a woman he’s always found incredibly compelling. Would he?