“I don’t think a wild cat would have slept the night on my bed,” she told him, glancing down at his hand as he took command of the gear stick. His skin was a deep brown from what she imagined was hours out in the sun each day, and his forearm looked muscular. She tried to switch her focus to the road ahead. “Actually, I take that back. He slept on my pillow.”
The children were chatting away in the rear, but she was listening only to their father. The man she couldn’t seem to tear her eyes away from no matter how hard she tried.
“You’re a real sucker, you know that?” Harrison’s eyes crinkled in the corners, gentle wrinkles forming as he laughed at her. “Definitely not a country girl yet.”
“I’d like to think I’m kindhearted,” she replied.
He shrugged. “Same thing, if you ask me. But it’s weird that a cat just appeared out of nowhere. He must belong to someone.”
“I told him he was welcome to stay, but I left a window open so he could come and go.”
“And you’re not pretending he’s yours?” Harrison asked, one hand on the wheel, the other slung out the window.
“Exactly.”
“You named him yet?”
“Lucky,” she said. “Because I don’t believe that black cats are bad luck, and he was lucky to find me and my large pitcher of milk.”
“He’s yours,” Harrison said with a laugh. “Once you name them you’re committed. Happens every time.”
Poppy laughed with him, because he was right, and because it felt nice not to feel sad for once. She’d spent the past month wondering what the hell she was going to do with her life, how she was going to rebuild everything she’d lost, and that hadn’t left much time for just laughing and being happy.
But Bellaroo Creek was her fresh start. It was her place to start over. So if she felt like laughing, then she wasn’t going to hold back.
* * *
Harrison was lying on his back, squished half inside a cupboard, with his wrench jammed on the fitting he was trying to tighten. He tried to ignore the swear words sitting on the tip of his tongue, shifting his body instead to get a better look at the leak.
“Harrison?”
Crap. He’d been in such a dream world that he hadn’t expected anyone to walk in on him, and now he’d smacked his head on the underside of the cupboard.
“Are you okay? Did you hurt yourself?”
Harrison grunted and shuffled out of the small space. He touched his head. “No blood, so I’ll live.”
He stared up at Poppy, who was wringing her hands together as if she wasn’t quite sure what to say.
“I, um, was wondering if you’d like to stay for dinner? I mean, you’ve been working in here for a while and I think the kids are getting hungry....”
“I’m not gonna let this beat me. You know that, right?” Even if he still had no idea why this darn plumbing was causing her such a problem every time she switched on anything in the bathroom.
“I didn’t mean that you were taking too long, because I really do appreciate it, but...”
“Sure.” Harrison shrugged. She was babbling like a crazy woman, or as if she was...nervous. He doubted that, especially after the way she’d stood up to him the day before, sassing at him for speaking his mind. “After wrangling these pipes, I think dinner would be great.”
She smiled. As if she’d asked him a tough question and he’d miraculously given her an answer.
“Well, that’s settled then. I’ll go tell the children.”
Poppy turned and walked away, and Harrison sat on her bathroom floor and watched her go. There was something about her, something getting under his skin that he didn’t want to acknowledge. Something that had made him offer to fix her plumbing, made him say yes to dinner, all those things.
And it was something he didn’t want to figure out.
She was his children’s schoolteacher, a new woman in the community, but that was all. Because he wasn’t looking for anything other than friendship in his life. His kids meant everything to him, and getting involved with a woman wasn’t in his future.
So why was he still sitting on the floor so he could watch her walk down the hall?
* * *
Poppy watched the children as they lay on their stomachs, legs crossed at the ankles while they stared at the television. She’d already given them crisps and orange juice, and now she was cooking dinner while they watched a cartoon and their father worked on the bathroom.
The old house was like nothing she was used to, and it was taking all her patience to work in the tiny kitchen, but in a way it was nice. Nice to be cooking for more than just one, to have had a great first day at school and to feel as if her life was finally moving in the right direction again.
“Something smells good.”
The deep, sexy voice coming from behind her made her hand freeze in midmotion. Hearing him speak put her almost as much on edge as looking at him did, no matter how much she wanted to pretend that she was just the teacher and he was just the father of two of her pupils.
“It’s nothing fancy, just pasta,” she told him, resuming her stirring.
She listened as Harrison walked into the kitchen, felt his presence in the too-small space.
“It smells fancy.”
Poppy watched as he came closer and stood beside her. He peered into the pan, using the wooden spoon she’d discarded to give the contents a gentle stir.
“Garlic and bacon,” she said, moving away slightly, needing to put some distance between them. Anything at all to stop her heart from racing a million miles an hour and quell the unease in her stomach. “I fry it in some oil before adding the sauce and tossing in the pasta.”
He nodded and put the spoon back where he’d found it, leaning against a cupboard and watching her cook.
“Anything not working in here?” he asked.
“Ah, no. Everything seems to be fine.”
“You don’t sound so sure.”
What she was sure about was needing him to look away, to go sit with his children instead of fixing his eyes on her while she was trying to concentrate.
“It’s fine. Everything works okay, I guess. It’s just different,” she confessed.
“To what you’re used to?”
Poppy sighed, then shrugged. “I’ve had a fancy kitchen and a modern apartment, and it didn’t make me happy, so I’m not going to let a rustic kitchen get me down.” It was the truth, and now she’d said it. “Lighting the gas with a match before I cook isn’t going to bother me so long as I can do a job I love and wake up with a smile on my face each day.”
Harrison was still staring at her, but his expression had lost the intensity of before. There was a softness in his eyes now, almost as if he understood what she was trying to say. What she was trying to get across to him.
“There’s something to be said for smiling in the mornings,” he told her.
Poppy looked away, not because she was embarrassed, but because she didn’t know what to say. When she’d chosen to come here, she’d decided to keep her past exactly that—she didn’t want it to define her future and didn’t want everyone knowing her business. But it sure was hard to get to know