Fixed Up (16 page)

What just happened?
One hand pressed against her stomach where a lead weight had taken up residence. The other hand, palm sweating, shook slightly as she dialled Luke's number. It rang for a long time, the dial tone drowned out by the pounding in her ears.

‘Harper?' Luke's deep voice, warm and familiar sent a ripple of longing through her. She fought against it, hardening her heart.

‘I had a call from Cliff King's assistant, teeing up a meeting. She said you'd pulled some strings on my behalf. Is that right?' She hadn't realised until she said the words aloud how much she hoped it wasn't true, that Cathy had made a mistake.

‘I told you the day we met at King of the Castle I knew the owner. I used to play rugby with his son—'

‘But did you wrangle a meeting for me? I need to know.' She snapped at him through gritted teeth.
Please say no.

‘Yes. What's this all about Harper? I thought you wanted to meet with him. You were so disappointed he'd cancelled on you. I wanted to make sure he didn't do it again or that he didn't fob you off to one of his underlings.'

‘So you what, bought him a drink? Promised him a great deal? Slapped each other on the back and congratulated each other on your importance? How do these things work, exactly?'

There was a hefty silence from Luke's end of the phone. Followed by an audible exhalation of breath. Luke spoke quietly now. ‘I thought I was helping you out. It's what people do in
business
.' Even through her anger, Harper felt the chill down the phone. ‘It's called networking.'

‘I can do my own networking, thanks.' What was she saying? She had no contacts and wouldn't know a network if it sat on her face.

‘Seems you're quite the one-woman success story.' There was a cold edge to his voice now. ‘Hope you don't find it too lonely at the top.' And he was gone.

Lonely at the top? She'd deal with that when she made it to the top.

And she would make it, but not because Luke Colton had done a bit of back slapping over drinks at the old boys' club.

She'd make it on her own. On her merits. Harper loosened her grip on the phone and placed it carefully down on the benchtop, shaking her fingers out to relax her tense hands. She closed her eyes and made an effort to roll the tension out of her neck and shoulders. How dare Luke do this to her! Belittling her efforts and accomplishments by stepping in and taking over. She'd never once asked for his help and he had no right to interfere.

More than anything, this confirmed how different they were. This proved he didn't know her at all. If he understood her—if he loved her—he'd never have gone behind her back to talk to King, to poke his nose into her business. How could he think she'd be happy to get ahead riding on someone else's coattails?

Stuff him. Stuff them all. She wouldn't go to the meeting. Cliff King could sit there and wait for her the way he'd made her wait for him. She didn't want to do business with someone who didn't take her seriously, someone who hadn't bothered to show up the first time and was only seeing her now because another man had twisted his arm.

***

Luke checked his watch for the thousandth time. He sweltered, stuck in the truck after leaving his office way too early for the drive across town to pick his mother and Joan up from their last DIY class. He turned up the aircon power until it belted out cold air. Now it was too cold, but there was no way in hell he wanted to get out of the truck and walk into that classroom.

Ten minutes later he took another look at his watch. Where were they? Class had finished now, damn it.

He'd spent the morning at work, looking over a new contract, talking to his lawyers and interviewing a possible new recruit for the senior management team. It felt good to be busy and to have something constructive to do to take his mind off Harper.

Harper
. He tried not to think about her. But when she'd phoned him, his hopes had leapt sky high, only to crash as she chewed his ear off about the King thing.

Harper should be thanking him, not going ballistic he'd made her life easier.

‘Where are they?' Luke growled aloud. He looked at his watch and switched off the engine. He had a meeting back at his office in forty-five minutes and he wasn't in the mood to muck about. He got out, shoved his keys into his pocket and strode into the community centre. His footsteps echoed down the empty hallway as he stomped along the wooden floor towards Harper's classroom. At the door he paused, loitering, his hand jingling his keys in the front pocket of his jeans.

Last time ever, he thought, as he took a deep breath and pushed the door open.

Inside was carnage. It had been a few days since he'd entered the classroom and one side of the room had a couple of completed bench seats pushed against the wall. On the other side, the A-frames were set up for wallpapering practice, a ladder off to the side. Joan and Shelia were here, enthusiastically slapping paste on the wallpaper. Neither one looked as if she intended to go home any time soon.

He tried to catch his mother's eye, but as fate would have it, it was Harper's gaze who met his; her big brown eyes narrowing at the sight of him. She stopped what she was doing and made her way over.

They stood silently for a bit; he not trusting himself to speak, Harper with her jaw clamped tightly shut. He fought his overwhelming need to pull her into his arms and kiss some sense into her. Powerless to resist the appeal of her DIY ‘uniform' of white T-shirt, faded jeans, leather boots—even accessorised with a nail gun pointed straight at his heart.

‘I thought class had finished,' he said, with a tight shrug of his shoulders.

‘Last day. They don't seem to want to leave, so I said they could do one final activity.' She fiddled with the nail gun.

Luke held his ground, pretending to observe the activity around him as he searched for something to say. ‘When's your meeting with Mr King?'

Harper's eyebrows rocketed up her face. ‘I can't believe you brought that up
here
.'

Neither could he. His Tourette's again. But now that he had, the floodgates opened and it seemed as good a time as any to let rip. Hell, it might be the last chance he got to speak to her again. The words hissed out of him, aware of the women in the classroom going about their business.

‘I called Cliff King because I know him well—well enough to know he wouldn't have called you back for months and maybe not even then if you'd left it up to him. I didn't tell you because I thought it would make a great surprise.'

‘I was surprised all right. Surprised it didn't occur to you that I'd want to run my business my way. It's irrelevant now, anyway. I've decided not to go to the meeting.' Harper had put the nail gun down and stood with her hands on her hips. She tossed her head.

‘You're kidding.' Filled with dismay, Luke took a step forward. ‘You've got the meeting, you
have
to go. You won't get another chance to wow him. You should try to see it from a different angle.' He reached out to her but conscious of curious glances from the students, pulled away again.

‘I refuse to work for someone who does business that way.'

‘What way's that? The successful way?'

‘The boys' club way. No girls allowed.' Harper's voice rasped at him, as she shot a look at her class. Over the other side of the room Luke saw Shelia moving the ladder closer to the A-frame but turned his attention back to Harper. ‘So,' she said, her eyes blazing, ‘I'm not going. I'll save my presentation for someone more deserving.'

He'd have laughed at her naiveté if he wasn't so damned angry with her. ‘That's just chopping off your nose to spite your face. Tell me you're not going to do that, just to get back at me.'

‘It's got nothing to do with you. Why would it have anything to do with you?'

‘Because you can't even look me in the eye. I'm up here, Harper, not in your boots.' He stared at the top of her beautiful, difficult head. Her hair was glossy and he remembered how soft it felt beneath his fingers. She lifted her head and glared at him, opened her mouth to speak and was drowned out by a shriek from the other side of the room.

Luke's gaze darted towards the source of the sound and for a second he froze, his blood pounding in his ears. ‘Mum!' His voice was a roar as he lunged across the room, pushing his way forwards, panic rising at the sight of an overturned ladder.

His mind flooded with the memory of crimson drenching the ground around a too-still body, the sound of an ambulance siren arriving too late, the taste of bile choking his throat. With his heart slamming violently in his chest he pushed his way to where his mother lay on the floor. In desperation his shaking hands found her throat and groped for her pulse point under the back of her jaw.

Shelia groaned—
thank God
—batting his hand away as she tried to sit up. ‘I'm not dead.' She winced, jerking away as he patted her down for injuries. ‘Ouch,' she squeaked. ‘My arm.' She sat on the floor on a bed of ripped and crumpled wallpaper, her face pale, cradling her left arm. ‘I think I've broken my arm.'

Hot, pent-up anger ripped through Luke. Black spots danced before his eyes. Beside him Harper was making soothing noises to Shelia as she helped her to her feet and onto a chair. ‘There's a first aid cabinet in the storeroom. Could someone please get Shelia a glass of water,' she said. Joan put the ladder to rights and another woman he didn't know started clearing away the wallpaper.

How could they all be so calm?
His words shot out of him. ‘This is all your fault, Harper.' He saw her gasp, her eyes widen. ‘This would never have happened if you'd listened to me. I said you needed extra help here or someone would get hurt and I was right.'

‘I'm so sorry.' Harper's hands shook as she passed the water glass to Shelia, spilling several drops, which landed on the paste-covered floor.

Shelia looked shocked even through her pain. ‘Luke, that's enough.'

‘No,' he said. ‘I've stood here for weeks and thought Harper was stretched too thin. She's been a disaster waiting to happen, all because she's too proud to ask for help. She's independent to the point of dangerous and she thinks she can do everything herself. Well, she's just been proved wrong.' Luke knelt down beside his mother's chair and gently took the water glass out of her hand and placed it on the floor. ‘Are you okay to stand now? I'm driving you to the hospital.'

A white-faced Harper peered at Shelia from the other side of the chair. ‘I'm coming too, just to make sure you're all right.'

‘No you're not,' said Luke. ‘You're not going near her. Joan, take Mum's other arm, we're going
now
.' Without a backwards glance at Harper, Luke led his mother and aunt towards the door, his arm wrapped around his mother, instinctively protecting her injured limb. The people in his life were all that mattered to him. He'd wanted Harper to be one of them but she'd made it clear she didn't want anything he had to give.

The classroom echoed with their footsteps as they made their way past the stunned and silent women who'd been Shelia and Joan's classmates for the last couple of weeks. Several of them shot him puzzled looks, but he ignored them, disregarded Harper's apparent distress and focused on his mother.

‘That was a bit over the top,' murmured someone. Hilary, perhaps? Harper couldn't tell. She stood, Shelia's abandoned water glass in hand, staring at the door, which had slammed behind Joan, Luke and a wobbly-looking Shelia.

The rush of adrenaline that had kicked her into action when she first heard Shelia cry out dissipated, leaving a sudden chill sweeping right through her to the tips of her fingers and toes. She clutched the glass with frozen hands, disorientated for a moment, her mind needing a jump start to process what had happened.

‘Harper? Are you okay?' The question pulled her back into the here and now and she resisted the urge to run into the storeroom, slam the door and hide. Straightening her shoulders, she faced the class.

‘Ladies, I think we'll call it a day now. We were over time anyway, which is perhaps how that accident occurred.' She thought she sounded calm and professional, surprising herself, as her thoughts were fuzzy and her stomach roiled. Her fingertips had turned white where they gripped the glass and she forced herself to place it down, gently, on the front desk. She tucked her hands out of sight behind her back, hoping she looked normal as the women went about the act of quietly tidying up.

It seemed to take ages for the room to clear, but at last, with a solemn farewell, the last of the students had packed up her things. The door closed, leaving Harper to her silent misery.

She slumped into a chair.
How had that just happened?

She and Luke had been arguing, that's how, and she hadn't been doing her job properly. She'd let her personal life interfere with her professional life. Something she'd never, ever, done until she met Luke.

Luke
. The memory of his words, the look of anger on his face as he said them, shredded her heart. For all her previous bullshit, she realised now that Luke's opinion mattered to her.

He may have been interfering and ridiculously overprotective, but somehow, despite her thinking she had him firmly in his place, he'd become important to her. So important that she wanted to curl up and cry with the pain of it all.

She thought she'd had the upper hand all along, and maybe she had for a while, but now things had changed. Irreversibly. She'd lost his approval, lost his respect. He'd never again look at her with that open admiration.

Or with that killer Luke smile.

God. He'd never smile at her again. He hated her.

Harper rubbed a hand over her face. She was going to throw up. She pressed her hands into her stomach and took a few deep breaths, slowly counting to ten. She had to get it together.