Spring River Valley: The Winter Collection (Boxed Set) (6 page)

She pursed her lips. “Not really.”

“Come on.”

He led her up the winding stairs to the second floor. To the left lay the bridal suite where wedding parties usually spent happy hour before making their grand entrance down the staircase to greet their guests. He steered Harper away from this plush salon toward a smaller room the employees used for getting changed. The place wasn’t fancy. It had a couple of chairs and metal lockers, a small bathroom, and hanging racks where the wait staff hung their uniforms.

He pulled two oversized gray jumpsuits out of the closet and handed her one.
The embroidered letters RAY adorned the left breast pocket of each suit.

“You can change in there.” He nodded toward the bathroom.

She eyed him skeptically for a second, but went in. Her startled yell a second later sent him running to the door.

“Are you okay? What happened?”

“Oh, God. I just saw myself in the mirror. You didn’t tell me I look like the Creature from the Black Lagoon.”

He stifled a laugh. Was she kidding? She was adorable with her hair slightly mussed and tendrils hanging out of her ponytail. Her smudged mascara made her eyes look big and smoky. “You look fine.”

“I think your wound is affecting your brain.” After a few interesting grunts and groans she emerged from the bathroom, her damp clothes thrown over one arm. She seemed to be swimming in Ray’s jumpsuit, but she’d managed to repair her hair and her makeup, he imagined with nothing more than spit and toilet paper. “You must never speak of this.”

He couldn’t stop himself from laughing. “Are you kidding? I should put this on YouTube. You look great!”

“I feel like an Oompa Loompa.”

“Well, the jumpsuits are meant to go over other clothes.”

“And they’re stiff and scratchy.” She looked down her front, probably without realizing what she was doing. The jumpsuits weren’t the only things that were stiff.

Grant swallowed. “Lose something?”

“I can see all the way to the floor.”

He longed for a look but held himself back. “I’m going to go change. Be right out.” Peeling off his wet shirt and jeans wasn’t easy, but he managed. It felt good to put on something dry that didn’t stick to him. When he emerged
from the bathroom, Harper was gone. “Hey? Where’d you go?” Had she left? “Hey, I didn’t mean it about YouTube.”

“I’m here.”

He followed her voice across the hall to the bridal suite. She was standing in the doorway leaning on the jamb, her arms crossed over her chest. “This is a pretty room,” she said wistfully.

The velvet couches, gauzy curtains
, and huge rustic paintings made the place look like Marie Antoinette’s bedroom. Grant didn’t understand the appeal, but the expression in Harper’s eyes made him realize it wasn’t the décor that had her misty-eyed.

“For what it’s worth, I think he’s an idiot.”

She sniffled a little, but he bet wild horses couldn’t make her admit she’d teared up. “Thank you.” She turned around and met his gaze. Her eyes shimmered like jewels. “He came back from Tahiti yesterday. Didn’t even call me.”

Bastard
. Grant didn’t voice his opinion, but he wanted to. More than that he wanted to kiss Harper and let her know a man who walked out on the woman he was about to marry wasn’t a man at all. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. I don’t know what I would say to him that I haven’t said already. Don’t feel sorry for me. I’m okay. I think I’m better off.”

“I know you are.” She was only inches from him, so close he could count her lashes and the few freckles on the bridge of her nose. “He’s the one who lost out.”

It happened quickly and not entirely without conscious thought on his part. Grant went from thinking about kissing her to doing it in a split second.
She melted into his arms as he pressed her back against the door frame and caressed her warm lips with his. Beneath the voluminous borrowed jumpsuit, her body was taut but curvy. Her softness hid a rigid frame that told him she wasn’t quite sure she should be letting him put his arms around her, letting him slip his tongue into her mouth. She tasted like mint and fresh air, and despite the dousing from the broken pipe, her hair smelled like roses.

S
he responded with a controlled eagerness that surprised him. She surged against him, and her hands found their way to his hair, to the back of his neck where she twirled the fine hairs at his nape, sending a shiver down his spine that resulted in an immediate reaction in his groin. He let his own hands travel down her sides to grasp her waist, to caress her ass. She moaned, and he dove deeper, wanting more. He’d been thinking about this for a week, and now his mind went blank. All he could do was whisper, “I want you,” and those three little words broke the spell of the bridal suite.

She pulled back and slipped out of his arms, pressing the back of her hand to her lips. “Wow.”

Grant backed up. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be, I
—”

“I’m a jerk. You don’t need this right now.”

“I probably don’t, but—maybe we, maybe I should go.”

“I…yeah. Okay. I’ll walk you out.”

“I’m—I never got my samples.”

“We’ll get them now.”

“Don’t worry about them. I need to…”

“Sure.”

“Call me.”

“Okay.”

“About the auxiliary dinner.”

“
Right. I will.”

She was halfway down the stairs
, and Grant just stood there, staring after her, wishing he could take back the last five minutes at the same time he wished he could relive them.

Elaine’s voice played in his head as he heard the lobby door open and close.
Poor girl.

* * * *

“This is all
your
fault.” Harper put her slippered feet up on Audrey’s coffee table and glared at the marshmallows drifting lazily in her hot cocoa.

“My fault? I didn’t tell you to strip down and kiss Grant. Though not for lacking of thinking it.” Audrey grinned over her own mug. Her glee at Harper’s description of the searing kiss she’d shared with Grant only served to make Harper feel worse about it.

“No, you got me thinking how cute he was and put the bug in my ear that I don’t have to feel guilty about cheating on Brad.”

“You’re not cheating on Brad.
‘Bad Brad’ left you. Don’t forget that. There is no shame in you moving on, at warp speed.”

“Yes, there is. I mean, how will it look if I
—”

“Oh
, no.” Audrey sat forward and plunked her mug on the table. “Don’t do that.”

“Don’t do what?”

“Worry about what people are going to think or say. We’ve been over this. You let other people’s opinions control you too much. Who cares if you start dating someone a week after Brad bailed on your wedding? The wedding police are not taking notes.”

“Maybe not
, but everyone else is. Uncle Mel was there—”

“You kissed him in front of your uncle?”

“No, he’d left, but he was there, fixing the pipes, and he kept looking at me like someone had died. I actually felt bad calling him.”

“You felt bad about calling your uncle the plumber, to come and do plumbing for which he got paid? You lost me.”

“I felt bad, like he was doing me a favor because he felt sorry for me. Everyone feels sorry for me.”

“They should. You got dumped.”

Harper cringed. “Thanks.”

“You know what I mean
, and you did.”

“People treat me like Brad died.”

Audrey grinned wickedly. “We can arrange that.”

“Stop.”

“Harper, darling, you have to stop trying to read everyone’s mind. I’m sure Uncle Mel does feel bad for you. Everyone does. I don’t get why that makes you feel guilty. You’re not taking anything from anyone. You still deserve their sympathy even if you don’t feel as bad as they think you feel.”

“I didn’t know you were a psychiatric nurse.”

“I might as well be.” Audrey picked up her mug again and sipped. “Grant is hot. He told you he wants you.”

Harper nodded.
His words had oozed into her brain like warm honey. His voice had been low and sexy, and she’d wanted so badly to say she wanted him too, but Mrs. Dawson’s face had popped into her head at that very moment, and something in the back of her brain told her she had no business with another man’s big strong hands on her ass until she had put things to bed with Bradley. They hadn’t officially broken up. They hadn’t spoken since that desperate phone call the night of the rehearsal dinner. She didn’t, for a second, believe she owed him anything, but she owed it to herself to end one relationship before she even dared to think about getting into another. “I think I need to slow down and deal with one thing at a time.”

“Start with Grant.”

“I can’t do that. If something is meant to happen between us, it’ll wait until things have settled down a bit and I know what I’m doing. Right now I’m still in free fall. I know it’s over with Brad, and I’m strangely okay with that, but I don’t think I’m ready for anything else.”

“I wish I could say the same. I’m ready for everything else. If there was even one halfway normal guy out there, I’d be all over that.”

“I think you’re becoming too picky.” Harper relaxed back into the cushions of Audrey’s couch, relieved the focus was off of her and Grant for the moment.

“Don’t go there.”

“Come on. What was so wrong with Jim from the Gym?”

“His gun collection freaked me out.”

“A lot of men go hunting.”

“They were Nerf guns.”

Harper fought not to laugh into her cocoa. “Commendable. He can’t hurt anyone with a Nerf gun.”

“He’s twenty-seven.
Still plays with Nerf guns.”

“
He’s young at heart?”

“Maybe I’m not. I’m an old fogey at heart. I want to date a grown
-up who doesn’t cook brains or name goats or have weird sexual hang-ups.”

“Good luck.”

“Tell me about it.”

“Oh, wait a second. I have an idea.”

“Don’t say you’re giving me Grant, because I might just take you up on it, and I know you’d regret it.”

“No.” Harper set her mug down and reached for her purse where she still carried Cassie Hall’s business card. “
Remember I told you I ran into the cupcake girl at the expo?”

“Cassie something?”

“Yeah.” Harper pulled out the pretty pink business card. “She told me she does matchmaking on the side.”

Audrey burst out laughing. “Are you kidding?”

“No, that’s what she said. She matches couples up. Maybe she can find you someone normal.”

“I thought matchmakers were all old mystical women who read your tea leaves and speak in heavy accents.”

Harper tossed the card at Audrey. “What could it hurt?”

Audrey glanced at the card
then tossed it on the table. “I don’t think I’m desperate enough for a matchmaker yet.”

“I’ll call her for you.”

“Don’t you dare! Now let’s get back to talking about you and Grant.”

“There is no me and Grant.”

Audrey winked. “Not yet.”

Grant dialed Harper’s cell number slowly, pausing between each number to consider exactly what he was going to say to her. The call was official business. Mrs. Moriarty, President of the Women’s Auxiliary Club, wanted to meet with her to discuss centerpieces and gift basket designs for the annual dinner, so he had a good excuse. He just couldn’t decide if he should lead with congratulations for getting the design contract or an apology for his clumsy attempt at an unwelcome pass the other night.

She had told him to call her, so he really didn’t expect her to hang up on him. He would have given anything to erase the three stupid little words he’d said to her.
I want you.
He hadn’t been lying. In that moment, with her in his arms, he’d wanted nothing more than to carry her to the velvet couch in the bridal suite and peel off that hideous janitor’s jumpsuit. The thought of her naked beneath the rough material had him hard even now, and that made him stop dialing altogether. He hung up and took a deep breath. “This is business. Just business.”

He dialed again, faster this time. It was just after noon, so he expected she’d be on her lunch hour from her regular job. He didn’t want to disturb her at work and add yet another infraction to his growing list. He really wouldn’t blame her if she bailed on their little partnership. He’d been totally out of line the other night.

He’d just convinced himself to hang up again when she answered. Her cheery hello made him wonder if she’d checked the caller ID. Maybe she sounded so chipper because she didn’t know it was him.

“Hi, Harper? It’s Grant. I’m sorry to bother you if you’re at work.”