Susan Andersen - Some Like It Hot

Oh, trust me, it was mine, as well.

Probably a less than brilliant idea to go there, however, so she shook the thought aside and injected some starch in her spine. Then, seeing an opportunity and not shy about taking advantage of it, she turned to him fully. “Listen, I only work three-quarter time at the inn. I’d love to volunteer some of my free hours to Cedar Village.”

“Yeah?” He studied her through shuttered dark eyes. “What do you have to offer?”

“I don’t know. What do volunteers generally do? I’m pretty much a jack-of-all-trades. But what I really rock at is organizing activities. And fund-raising.” When he continued to simply look at her with level, noncommittal eyes, she shrugged impatiently. People usually jumped at her fund-raising skills. “If that doesn’t work for you, I could always just provide a woman’s touch.”

“I wouldn’t mind a woman’s touch,” drawled a blond boy who was swabbing down the counter a few feet away, and his tone told Harper he wasn’t thinking motherly thoughts.

“That’s enough, Brandon,” Max said, but it was the look that Harper aimed at the youth that made the boy squirm. It was a thousand-yard stare she’d perfected when she was twelve, a nonthreatening but cool gaze that made the recipient completely question the wisdom of uttering the words that had warranted it in the first place.

“Sorry,” Brandon muttered.

“Not a problem.” She gave him a slight smile that was warmer without encouraging him to repeat his blunder. Then she turned back to Max. “This won’t help for today’s event, but I could tell you how to make your next pancake breakfast more profitable. And while I can’t promise anything until I talk to Jenny, maybe she’d let us offer the occasional supervised use of some of The Brothers’ resources.”

Max dug his wallet out of his back pocket, fished out a card and handed it to Harper. “Why don’t you give me a call and we’ll talk about it. But for now, you should go enjoy the rest of your day off.”

Sliding the proffered card into her own back pocket, she nodded, recognizing a dismissal when she heard one. “I’ll do that.” She glanced at the teen still stacking dishes next to her. “It was nice meeting you, Jeremy.” She nodded at the other boys who had stopped working to watch her.

Then she strode to the kitchen door and let herself out.

“Dude,” she heard one of the boys say as the door closed behind her. “She’s hot. Why’d you let her get away?” There was a beat of silence, then, “Oh, man. It’s not because she’s black, is it?”

Harper froze. Omigawd. Was it? That hadn’t even occurred to her, maybe because she’d spent the majority of her life in Europe where race wasn’t as big an issue—or at least didn’t have the history that it had in the States. But for all she knew—

“Hell, no,” Max’s voice said emphatically. “Listen, kid, men don’t hit on every hot woman they see.” He was quiet for a moment, then said slowly, “Besides, did she strike you as the kind of woman who would welcome me hitting on her?”

Yes! Embarrassing as it was to admit, she definitely would welcome that.

“Nah, I guess not,” the boy said.

“Oh, for c’ris—” Harper cut herself off, blew a pithy raspberry and stalked over to her car.

Her feet hurt from being on them all morning and she was cursing having worn her tallest wedged espadrilles as she blew through the front door of her cottage. Loggins and Messina played “Your Mama Don’t Dance” on the cell phone she’d deliberately left behind, and she crossed the room and snatched it off the little coffee table.

“Hi, Mom.” She kicked off her shoes and headed straight for the mini-fridge, where she pulled out a nice cold bottle of raspberry-green-tea-flavored artesian water. She rolled its cold plastic across her warm forehead.

“Hey, Baby Girl.”

Ever since her dad had died—and that had been a few years ago now—she and her mother had been at odds more often than not. So, hearing the nickname gave her a rush of pleasure. Tucking the phone between her ear and shoulder, she twisted the cap off the bottle and drank half of it down in one large swallow.

“For heaven’s sake, are you gulping something in my ear? Did your Grandma Hardin and I not teach you better manners than that?”

Harper tried not to feel resentful, she really did. She was thirty years old, for God’s sake; long past the age to be either scolded like a child or react as if she were one.

She inhaled and blew out a quiet breath, and still a vestige of attitude she simply couldn’t expunge colored her voice when she said, “Sorry. I just spent three-plus hours serving pancakes for a Cedar Village fund-raiser, and I’m tired and thirsty.”

There was an instant of silence. Then Gina Summerville-Hardin said softly, “How did that happen?”

Oh, God, it had been so easy, Harper still couldn’t quite believe it. She’d almost fallen off the picnic bench at Jenny’s dinner party when Max had presented the opportunity. “My boss’s boyfriend’s half brother is Max Bradshaw.”

The sudden silence was so absolute that Harper began to wonder if they’d lost the connection. “Mom?”

“Yes, I’m still here. The same Max Bradshaw who’s on the Cedar Village board?”

“Yes.”

“I was quite impressed with his dossier, being both a deputy and a veteran and all. He sounds like a very responsible man. Still, I must say I’m stunned at the coincidence.”

For a few seconds, her thoughts got hung up in that touch they’d shared over the sangria pitcher. Then she shrugged it off. “Well, Razor Bay is pretty small. It’s tougher to maintain my anonymity in a one stoplight town, but the upside is it’s easier to get to know the players, as there are just plain fewer of them. But, man. I thought I was lucky to get the job at The Brothers.” A dry laugh escaped her. “I had no idea how lucky.”

She’d taken the position because it was right up her alley, considering it was the kind of job she’d done before her dad’s death had pulled her into the nonprofit charity her parents had started when her father retired his engineering degree. But primarily she’d taken it because ever since she had joined the fold, her year-round job had become assessing the worthiness of the less-established charities applying for grants from Sunday’s Child. In this case Cedar Village had submitted a request to the family foundation for a grant that would enable them to hire an additional counselor, fill the gaps in their supplies and fix the roof on the classroom building where the boys kept up with their education even as they learned the skills they’d need to reenter society as fully functional young men.

Her dad was the one who had originated the policy of anonymous evaluations after his first few trips to meet grant applicants had resulted in lavish dog and pony shows presented strictly to impress him. He’d decided a better way to get the true measure of how a charity was run was to assess them anonymously in their day-to-day business.

“I still don’t understand why you took that job at all,” her mother said, pulling Harper from her reverie. “It doesn’t take you thirteen weeks to make your assessment.”

“Mom, I told you—the only other reason to be in a town this size would be to take a vacation, and who’d believe a single woman on vacay had a sudden yen to volunteer at a home for delinquent boys? How would she even hear of it? Besides, I kind of needed a vacation.”

“So you took a job?”

Harper bit back a sigh, because they’d had this conversation before. “I took a fun job, and it’s a break from lying to people. That is a vacation.”

“Yet you’re lying to these people, too, aren’t you?”

Harper was suddenly so weary she could barely hold her head up. What the hell had happened to them that they were so far apart these days? “Yes, Mother. You’re absolutely right. I’m a liar no matter what I do.”

“Darling, I didn’t mean it that way. I simply think if you’re unhappy, you should let someone else do that job and come home.”

“I’m not unhappy.” Yes, she got tired of the subterfuge sometimes, but she genuinely got the reasoning behind it. And she loved the new places, new people aspect of it. Loved getting to help charities that made things easier for kids. But her mother, who wanted her to quit traveling and settle down, would never believe that.

And she really didn’t feel up to justifying her choices yet again. “Whoops. There’s the doorbell. I’ll talk to you soon, Mom.”

“Harper, wait—”

“Gotta go. Bye.” She disconnected. Then, blowing out an unhappy breath, she tossed the phone on the table and flopped back on the couch.

This was the right way to do things, she assured herself. Her dad had done it so, and she still trusted his judgment unswervingly. As for the niggle of doubt her mother’s words had created?

Taking a steady, calming breath, she flicked it away.

CHAPTER FOUR

MAX WAS ON his way to Harper’s cottage the next evening when a movement in his peripheral vision caught his attention. Glancing left, he expected to see someone lounging in the inn’s hot tub. Instead, the spa appeared empty. Then another tiny shift along the water’s already bubbling surface drew his focus, and he saw a woman free-floating, only her neck and head supported by the edge of the tub.

Her warm, gorgeous coloring seized his attention, and it never even occurred to him to question her identity. He knew who she was by the hot jolt of electric pleasure that sparked through his veins. Veering off the path, he made a beeline for the little oasis of plantings where the tub resided just outside the inn’s pool house. This made things both simpler and more difficult.

Simpler because he wouldn’t have to be alone with Harper in her tiny bungalow. And harder because, well, hell—look at her. Close up, he could see the light brown skin of her breasts, framed by the deep V of her black-and-white patterned halter top, rising out of the bubbling water. The uppermost curve of her long, smooth thighs and her orange-tipped toes broke the waterline, as well.

He shook his head impatiently. He’d sworn to himself he would meet with her tonight and not think about sex.

Yeah, it was a stupid promise, but his word was his word, dammit. “How could you have made the pancake breakfast more profitable?” he demanded as he stopped at the tub.

And watched her give a start and damn near go under before she righted herself. Her head came up, and her shoulders shot out of the water as her butt lowered to sit on the submerged seat. And he realized she hadn’t merely been überrelaxed. “Aw, crap. Did I wake you?”

“What? No, of course not.” She yawned widely, then dropped the dripping hand she’d raised out of the water to cover her mouth and gave him a tiny lopsided smile. “Well, maybe. What time is it?”

He consulted the big tank watch on his wrist. “Going on eight.”

“It was around a quarter ’til when I climbed in the tub, so I guess I did drop off for a bit.”

He couldn’t help it; deputy was pretty much his default mode. “You know it’s not safe to sleep in a hot tub, right?”

“Yes, Papa.” She started to roll her eyes but apparently thought better of it, for she went all faux solemn-eyed on him and offered a polite smile instead. “Is there something I can do for you?”

A raft of dirty suggestions popped to mind, but since he wasn’t a damn fourteen-year-old—even if that was the way he invariably felt around her—he wisely swallowed them. Particularly since he didn’t know why he’d come to grill her in the first place. Hell, hadn’t he given her his card so she could be the one to get in touch with him?