She Loves Me (Harmony Pointe #3) - Melissa Foster Page 0,64
noticed a flyer for a seventh-grade father-daughter dance on top of the pile of papers Jolie had discarded. She wondered if Jolie had mentioned the dance to her mother, or if she just let things like that go like they didn’t matter. Piper knew how much they mattered. She’d been proud to show off the father she idolized at her own father-daughter dance when she was around Jolie’s age. Much to her sisters’ disappointment, she hadn’t worn a dress, but she’d still gone, and she would have been sad if she’d had to miss it.
Piper grabbed Jiggs’s leash. “Harley, while the girls are scarfing down the rest of the cookie dough, why don’t you and I take Jiggs out?”
A rakish grin spread across his face, and he reached for the crutches. “Absolutely. We’ll be right back.”
As they made their way down to the water with Jiggs, Piper asked herself if she was butting in where she didn’t belong. For all she knew, Jolie could have already talked to Harley about the dance.
“I thought I’d have to wait another half hour to be alone with you,” Harley said as Jiggs sniffed around the grass.
He put his crutches in one hand and swept an arm around Piper, pulling her into a mind-numbing kiss. When he deepened the kiss, she pressed her hands to his chest, pushing away with the need to get the dance off her chest.
“Hold those kisses. I need to talk to you about Jolie. Did you know there’s a seventh-grade father-daughter dance coming up?”
“No. Should I?” he asked.
“Yes, I think. Or maybe not. Jolie threw a flyer for the dance in the trash tonight. Maybe Delaney knows about it, but what if she doesn’t? Since Jolie didn’t mention the dance to us, I wondered if that might be something else that’s weighing on her.”
He looked up at the house with a serious expression. “You think so?”
“Maybe? I know they don’t see their father, but this kind of thing has to affect the girls. Don’t you think?”
Harley’s jaw clenched. “Yes, definitely. Every time I think about the girls having issues because of their dickhead father, I want to tear him apart.”
“Luckily, they have Uncle Harley to show them how a man should treat little girls.” She touched his hand and said, “Big girls, too. Maybe you should text Delaney and ask her about it?” She walked with Jiggs down to the water’s edge. “For all we know, she and Jolie have already dealt with this kind of thing.”
“I can do one better than that. I’ll ask Jolie to be my date for the dance. I may not be her father, but I’m her uncle, and I’ll proudly take her. When is it?”
She returned to his side and said, “It’s a month away, so your ankle should be fine by then.”
He put his arm around her, tugging her against him, and said, “You don’t mind giving me up for an evening, do you?”
“I think I can handle it.” He was so open and loving, she wondered how he’d stayed single for so long. Most women loved guys like that. Although she’d never been one of them, Harley made her think about wanting to be, and that desire to change made her a little anxious.
“I doubt those dances go on too late.” He held her tighter and said, “I’ll make it up to you afterward.”
He lowered his lips to hers, kissing her anxiety away.
“Hey!”
Piper jumped at the sound of Jolie’s angry voice, but Harley kept his arm firmly around her. Jolie stood on the deck with her hand on her hip and a scowl on her face. Sophie stood beside her, happily bouncing on her toes.
Jolie crossed her arms, her hip jutting out in pure preteen angsty fashion. “Why did you lie to us?”
“We didn’t lie,” Harley said.
“We’re not . . .” Piper stopped herself from the knee-jerk reaction of saying they weren’t boyfriend/girlfriend, when in fact that was exactly what they were. “This is new,” she explained, hating that they’d done anything to upset Jolie when she was already dealing with so much.
Jolie huffed out a breath. “Uh-huh. How new?”
“Since the nachos?” Sophie asked. “I knew that would work, Uncle Harley!”
“We’re not babies. We’re old enough to understand that you’re boyfriend and girlfriend,” Jolie said vehemently.
“We don’t think you’re babies,” Harley said, making his way to the deck swiftly on his crutches.
“Jolie, we don’t think you’re too young to understand,” Piper said. “Things between us have changed since we told you