Нора Робертс - Red lily

“He doesn’t even care.”

“Yes, he does. Maybe what you saw hit you wrong because of the way you feel about him.”

“Stella, he kissed her.”

“He’s kissed me, too.”

“It’s not the same.”

“If you hadn’t met me before, and you saw him kiss me, what would you think?”

“Before or after I mentally ripped your lungs out through your nose?”

“Ouch. I’m not saying it didn’t look bad, but that you might have, possibly, misinterpreted. I’m saying that because I know Harper, and because of his reaction.”

“You’re saying I overreacted.”

“I’m saying, if I were you, I’d want to find out for sure.”

“He slept with her. Okay, okay,” she muttered when Stella stared at her. “Before, and before is before, blah blah. But she was so pretty. She had a great body, and those dark, exotic eyes. And this sheen, you know, this polish. Oh, hell.”

“You’re going to go talk to him.”

“I guess.”

“Want me to keep Lily while you do?”

“No.” Hayley let out a long sigh. “She needs her supper soon, and besides, if I take her with me we’re not as likely to yell at each other.”

“All right. You can call me if you want, let me know how it goes. Or you can just come back over. I’ll break out the Ben and Jerry’s.”

“Way I’m feeling, I’ll need a full quart.”

SHE HAD LILY’S hand in hers when she knocked on the door of the carriage house. He hadn’t been long out of the shower, she noted when he answered. His hair was still damp. But if the grim set of his face was any barometer, it hadn’t cooled him off.

“I’d like to talk to you.” She said it briskly. “If you have the time.”

He simply bent down to pick up Lily who’d already wrapped her arms around his leg. He turned, without a word for Hayley, and carried the baby back toward the kitchen. “Hey, pretty girl. Look what we got here.”

One-handed, he opened a cupboard, took out a couple of plastic bowls, then rooted through a drawer for a big plastic spoon. He set them, and Lily, on the floor where she immediately went to town banging.

“Want a drink?” he said to Hayley.

“No, no, I don’t. I want to ask you—”

“I’m having a beer. You want any milk or juice for Lily?”

“I didn’t bring her sippy cup.”

“I have one.”

“Oh.” The fact that he did threw her off, made her heart start to melt. “She could have a little juice. You have to dilute it.”

“I’ve seen the routine.” He fixed the juice, handed it to Lily, then got out a beer. “So?” He took a long gulp.

“I wanted to ask—No, I wanted to say that I know we haven’t made any sort of commitment to each other. But sleeping with someone is a form of commitment to me, enough of one that it’s insulting to see the person I’m sleeping with kissing and flirting with another woman. And I don’t find that unreasonable.”

He took another pull, slowly, thoughtfully. “You know if you’d put it that way to begin with, you wouldn’t have insulted me, or pissed me off. I’m going to repeat that I was flirting with Dory, but not the way you mean.”

“If you come on to all women the way—”

“Or coming on to her. And be careful or you’ll piss me off again. If you want to know what was going on, why don’t you ask?”

“I don’t like being in this position.”

“Well, neither do I. If that’s the way you want to leave it, I need to throw something together for dinner. I missed lunch.”

“Fine.” She started to bend down for Lily, then stopped. “Why are you so hard?”

“Why are you so mistrustful?”

“I saw you. She had her arms around you. She put her hands in your damn pockets and felt your ass. You weren’t exactly fighting her off, Harper.”

“Okay, you’ve got a point. It was something she used to do, and I didn’t think much about it when she did it today. I was thinking more how I was going to tell her I couldn’t pick things up with her, couldn’t see her beyond the friendship thing because I was with somebody else.”

“How long does it take to say that?”

“A little longer than it might otherwise if a woman’s got her hands on your ass.” She opened her mouth, but the way his eyebrows shot up had her closing it again, and waiting. “Right or wrong, Hayley. But I did tell her, before you came through the door.”

“Before? But . . . you didn’t even miss a beat, Harper. And the two of you were all . . .” She waved a hand, trying to find the phrase. “Touchy. And you kissed her when you went out to the car.”

His eyes narrowed. “You were watching us.”

“No. Yes. So what?”

“Too bad you didn’t manage to slip a listening device on me, then this conversation wouldn’t be necessary.”

She folded her arms and met his insult straight-on. “I’m not apologizing for my behavior either.”

“Fine. First, why should I have missed a beat? I wasn’t doing anything to feel guilty about. Next, Dory’s a touchy kind of person. She makes contact with people, which is probably why she’s good in PR. And yeah, I kissed her before she left. I’ll probably kiss her next time I see her. I like her. We have a history. We met in high school, ended up in college together—and ended up being an item for about a year. In college, Hayley, for Christ’s sake. When we stopped being an item, we stayed friends. If you can manage to whip some of the green out of your vision, you’d probably end up being friends with her, too.”

“I don’t like being jealous. I’ve never really been jealous before, and I don’t like it.”

“If you’d heard our conversation out by her car, you’d have heard her tell me that she hoped you and I would come into the city, have drinks, so she could get to know you. She said it was good to see me, and good to see me happy. I said pretty much the same, and I kissed her goodbye.”

“It’s just . . . you looked like a couple.”

“We’re not. That’s what you and I are. That’s what I feel,” he said when she only stared at him. “That’s what I want. I don’t know what I’ve done to make you doubt me, or that.”

“You’ve never actually said . . .”

He stepped to her, caught her face in his hands. “I don’t want to be with anyone but you. You’re the only one, Hayley. Is that clear enough?”

“Yeah.” She laid her hand on his, turned her head so that her lips pressed to his palm.

“So we’re good now?”

“It looks like. Um, you told her you were seeing someone. I mean me?”

“I didn’t have to. When you walked back out, she punched me in the arm. She said, ‘She’s taller than me, she’s thinner than me, and she’s got better hair.’ What is it about your breed and hair?”

“Never mind that. What else did she say?”

“That it was bad enough I was blowing her off, but it had to be over somebody who looked like you. I figured it for some sort of twisted girl compliment.”

“A nice one. Now I feel guilty. I bet I would like her, and that’s just a little bit irritating.” She brooded a minute, then beamed. “But I’ll get over it. I’m not going to apologize, exactly, because—hey, hands on your ass. But I’ll offer to cook you dinner.”

“Sold,” he said without hesitation.

“Got anything in mind?”

“Nothing. Surprise me. Us,” he corrected and scooped Lily up to hang her upside down. “I’ll get shortie here out of your hair. We have some havoc to wreak in the other room.”

And just like that, she thought, her life was back on level. With the sounds of growling from Harper, and wild giggles from Lily rolling out of the living room, Hayley opened the refrigerator to examine the contents.

Pitiful, she decided. A total guy assortment of beer, soft drinks, bottled water, what appeared to be an ancient fried chicken leg, two eggs, a stick of butter and a small, moldy hunk of cheese.

She opened the freezer, and hit the payload. Several carefully labeled containers of leftovers. David to the rescue. But it was a shame she couldn’t actually cook something, impress Harper.

Who’s pitiful? He flaunts another woman in your face and you grovel. Now cooking for him, like a servant. Women are nothing but servants to men. Their conveniences.

He lies as all men lie, and you believe because you’re weak and foolish.

Make him pay. They should all pay.

“No.” She said it softly when she found herself standing in front of the open freezer door. “No. Those weren’t my thoughts. And I won’t have them in my head.”

“You say something?” Harper called out.

“No. No,” she said more calmly.

There was nothing to say. Nothing to think. She would put a meal together and they’d eat. Like a couple. Or even, just a little bit, like a family.

The three of them. Only the three of them.

FEELING SO SETTLED was just a little spooky to Harper’s mind. They’d taken to having dinner together in the evenings. Sitting together in the kitchen, Lily strapped in the highchair he’d carted over from the main house, he and Hayley at the table with a meal, and conversation seemed so easy it made him nervous.

They were drifting into something solid, like a boat sailing toward shore in a light wind. He wasn’t sure whether when they hit it, they’d end up bruised and battered or safe and sound.

Did she seem edgy, too, under the casual? he wondered. Or was he projecting his own jitters?

It was all so normal, this eating together at the end of the day, talking about work or Lily’s latest accomplishment. Yet twined through the respite was an intensity, a feeling. A here we are, and here we’ll stay—at least for the night.

How much did he, did both of them, want to keep the “at least” in the mix?

“I was thinking,” he began, “that if things are slow inside tomorrow, I could show you how to hybridize.”

“I know a little. Roz walked me through a snapdragon.”

“I was thinking a lily. They’re a good specimen for it, and we could try one. I was thinking we could try for a mini, something in a kind of candy pink. And name it for Lily.”