SLOW PLAY (7-Stud Club #4) - Christie Ridgway Page 0,58
he ate. Then he got up to pour them each more coffee and his gaze caught on the wooden spoon tossed in the sink. That thing he’d burn at the first opportunity.
When he sat back down, her gaze was on him again. “Are you feeling okay?”
“I’m feeling fine.” He picked up his mug, thinking to hide from her green, assessing eyeballs. Was she wondering the state of his mind now that she’d spent a second night? He could tell her, he supposed. He could tell her that he was firmly in the neutral zone. As pleased as any man might be, of course. But not any more pleased.
But he’d rather hold back, because as his sister said, Kelly men kept their emotions close. It was the right way to go, because this was just temporary with Harp, of course. A revisit of old times.
When you loved her, but didn’t admit to it, a voice in his head reminded him.
When she’d left and he’d wandered about like a rootless idiot for a long time after.
“Where are you going next?” he asked, to remind himself it would be Las Vegas tomorrow or the next day or next week, but then somewhere farther than that, he was certain. A place that made her unreachable.
She was already unreachable. When she walked out his door today, he’d make sure he accepted that truth and would keep clear of her the remainder of her stay in Sawyer Beach.
“I’m going to a farmers market that’s about twenty miles north,” Harper said now, her green eyes bright. She couldn’t hide her happy frame of mind. “It’s new. You want to check it out with me?”
Of course, fool that he was, he said yes.
It was still early when Harper slipped into her family’s house. But, being they were a farming family, she knew everyone was already up. Grandpop would have taken himself and his cane out to the orange or avocado groves. Her grandmother would be in her bedroom doing her morning meditation. She found her mom in the kitchen, with the air of a woman on her third cup of coffee.
“Hi, Mom,” she said, trying to erase the I-had-wild-sex-last-night look off her face.
With the man she’d fallen in love with again. There was no dodging that truth.
Maybe she had a new career ahead of her, because her mom sent her a distracted smile and said, “Did you and Sophie have fun?”
The food hall with Sophie and friends had been fun. But then she’d run into Mad. “Mom, did you know that Mad recently posed as an assassin and saved a woman from her husband’s deadly designs?”
Rebecca wiped a cloth over the countertops. “I heard about that terrible man and his poor wife. But I didn’t know Mad was involved.”
“Well, he was.” So I rewarded him myself with some very raunchy sex. And then sweet sex, that felt tender and possessive and that dangerously touched her heart. Harper put a hand to her head and decided on spilling the beans. “The fact is, Mom, I stayed with Mad last night.”
“Oh?” Her mother now busied herself folding dishcloths into perfect rectangles that she hung from the towel bar.
Puzzled, Harper gave her mom a more thorough once-over. “I robbed a bank on my way home,” she added, testing the older woman’s listening skills. “The cash is stashed in my trunk. I’m thinking of using it to buy a mink coat.”
“That’s nice, honey.”
“Mom,” Harper said. “Mom.”
Rebecca finally turned, blinking. “I’m sorry, did I miss something?”
“Just a bank robbery and a mink coat. What’s going on?”
She made a vague gesture, still looking distracted. “I keep retracing my steps…” Then she blinked again. “Maybe you know.”
“Know what?”
“Yesterday afternoon, when we were dismantling our booth at the end of the Sawyer Beach farmers market, I thought I put two leftover cartons of herb bundles into the back of Mike’s truck, but they didn’t make it home. Or did I put them in your car?”
“Nope. No room. That’s where my stacks of cash are stowed.”
Her mother appeared confused. “What?”
“Never mind. But no, I don’t have those cartons.”
Rebecca groaned. “I’m afraid I’m losing my mind like old Aunt Harper.”
“What are you talking about? Where did Aunt Harper’s mind go?”
“She had some memory issues as she aged. One time she left home without telling anyone where she was going and they found her fifty miles away naked as the day she was born but carrying a suitcase full of walnuts.”