“Then after Jolie’s game, you and I can do something fun.” Piper wrote Sophie? next to Jolie’s soccer sleepover.
“Pipe, if you need to work, I’m sure I can bribe one of the guys to help me out with the girls this weekend,” Harley said.
Harley hadn’t asked for help the whole time he’d been taking care of Jolie and Sophie, and he was always willing to help everyone else. Piper didn’t mind helping the man who never asked for a damn thing. In fact, she wanted to.
“It’s okay. Kase can handle things Saturday.” She scanned the list, seeing her work hours dwindle with each item. She knew her crew could handle the project, but as much as she loved the girls, she might lose her mind if she had too much downtime. She was used to working with her hands, swinging hammers and using power tools. It looked like she’d have to find another outlet for a while.
“Thanks, Piper,” Harley said, grabbing another slice of pizza.
“It’s okay. Let me know if anything else comes up that I should put on the schedule.” They’d spoken to Delaney before dinner, but they hadn’t said anything about a visit. “When am I taking the girls to see Delaney?”
“Friday after school,” Sophie answered.
Harley nodded. “That’s right.”
“Got it.” Piper scrawled Girls to Delaney beneath their school pickup. It looked like she’d have Sunday free. She’d catch up on work then. The girls went to school in Harmony Pointe. Even though it was a short drive from Sweetwater, it would take forty-five minutes or longer each way because of the lines in the school parking lot. At least she was working in Harmony Pointe. She wondered how Harley had taken care of all these things with the girls and still managed to run Dutch’s without asking for help.
Jolie finished her pizza and fed the crust to Jiggs, who was sitting between her and Sophie on the floor in front of the couch. Jiggs would eat anything. When Harley first adopted him, he’d eaten an entire jigsaw puzzle that Harley had left on the coffee table.
Jolie put her paper plate on the table and headed for the stairs.
“Hold on, Jo,” Harley said. “Plate in the trash, please.”
Jolie’s shoulders sagged again, but she came back and grabbed her plate.
“Get started on your homework,” Harley said as she headed into the kitchen.
“I know,” she said with an air of frustration.
“Hey!” Harley hollered loudly, but not unkindly.
Jolie threw out her plate and looked over.
“Love you, Jo.” Harley blew her a kiss.
Jolie rolled her eyes and hurried up the stairs, but not before Piper saw the smile appear on her pretty face.
Harley reached down with both hands and gently tipped Sophie’s face up. He leaned over her and said, “Love you, too, kiddo.”
“Love you, Uncle Harley.”
Jiggs put both paws up on the couch beside Harley and whimpered. Harley kissed Sophie’s forehead, then petted Jiggs. He sat back and winked at Piper. “We’ve got a lot of love in this house.”
It was strange to feel like he was including her in this, especially when she was still flipping out over seeing her pictures on his refrigerator. Sure, she had framed the same picture of them playing basketball and put it up in her living room, but she had lots of other pictures of family and friends there. The only other things hanging on Harley’s fridge were the girls’ school pictures, a picture of Delaney and their mother, one of Harley and his father, and a Polaroid of Harley sleeping with his arm around Jiggs in what she assumed was Harley’s bed. She hadn’t even known they made Polaroid cameras anymore, and she didn’t want to think about who had taken that picture. Probably one of the ladies he dated.
Jiggs jumped onto the couch, landing on Harley’s chest, his back feet in Harley’s crotch. Harley doubled over and moaned, but those big, strong arms were wrapped around Jiggs like he didn’t want his dog to jump off.
Sophie laughed. “Jiggsy!”
Piper couldn’t do anything other than stare at the man who glowered threateningly at her dates and fought like a pro with his fists, as he loved on his dog despite being curled in pain.
“Jiggs,” Harley croaked. “We have to work on your aim.”
She was right.
Harley was all cuddly cub.
Thank God.
If she was going to be subjected to Harley’s flirting, which was totally different when he was under the influence of pain medication than it was normally, she needed big, uncrossable barriers to remember why she wasn’t taking him up on his innuendos. Cuddly cubs were a big no for her. The last thing she wanted was a man who was looking to settle down.
She tried to figure out what had changed besides the addition of the pain medication. Usually when Harley said something flirtatious, he was reacting to a guy hitting on her or to their friends joking around about sex or relationships. But they weren’t with any of their friends now.
Oh shit . . .
She realized they were always in a group, doing guy things—watching sports, drinking at the pub, playing basketball. She stole a glance at him, catching him watching her with a darker, hungrier look than she’d ever seen. That new look called to the animal in her, sparking flames deep inside her. God, she loved the feeling of lust simmering hot and anticipatory, just waiting to ignite. Apparently even when it was coming from Harley. She couldn’t tear her eyes from his, despite knowing she couldn’t afford for their flames to become an inferno.
Sophie popped to her feet and said, “I need help with math.”
“I’m great at math!” Piper grabbed Sophie’s hand and dragged her away from Harley before Piper caught fire—or Harley noticed her momentary slip into Hornyville.
CHAPTER THREE
HARLEY HAD FORGOTTEN how much he hated pain medication. Piper had given him another dose at nine, and by nine forty-five he was high as a kite again, which made focusing on his phone conversation with his sister difficult.
“Soph got an A on her math test.” He was sitting on the couch with his foot propped on a pillow on the coffee table, and Jiggs was lying beside him. He scratched Jiggs’s head, trying to remember if the girls had said anything else worth mentioning.
“She told me. Are you sure you’re okay? You sound out of it.”
“I’m fine. Piper’s here, and she’s like a whirlwind of badass energy. She’s putting the girls to bed now.”
“Ah, now I see what’s going on,” Delaney teased. “You’re drunk on love.”
Harley chuckled. “Drunk on pain meds, maybe. But I’m fine, sis. How are you?”
“Recovering. Not fast enough, but appropriately. They took the drains out today. I shouldn’t look too scary to the girls Friday, but I’ll look tired.”
Delaney was an attorney, and like Harley, she wasn’t used to not being in control. She had opted to have immediate breast reconstruction, and Harley had learned that immediate didn’t mean they reconstructed her breasts at the time of surgery. It meant they started the process, putting in an implant during the mastectomy. It would be weeks before the reconstruction was complete.
“I’ve got weeks of discomfort ahead of me,” she said. “But I want details, Har. Is Piper pampering you? Are the girls being nice to her?”