The bouquet was enormous.

She smiled as she picked up the card, her eyes blurring with tears as she read it.

For my new mummy on her first Mother’s Day. Love, Oliver xoxo

She looked at Ryan. “Crayon?”

“Oliver doesn’t yet have the dexterity to hold a pen.” She shot him a look and he said, “Okay, but he wrote on the back.”

She saw the blue scribble there.

She kissed the little boy on the cheek.

“Thank you for the pretty flowers, Oliver.”

“Shouldn’t I get a thank-you, too?” Ryan asked.

“Thank you,” she said.

His brows lifted. “What about a kiss for me?”

She took a step closer and let her gaze settle on his lips. She’d thought about Oliver’s mum all day, how much she admired her friend’s willingness to go after what she wanted. She wished she could be that fearless and reach for what she wanted.

Ryan was so close, all she had to do was rise up on her toes and brush her lips against his. Then take his hand and lead him to her bedroom.

Could she be fearless enough to do it?

Those Engaging Garretts! The Carolina Cousins

A Forever Kind of Family

Brenda Harlen

www.millsandboon.co.uk

BRENDA HARLEN is a former attorney who once had the privilege of appearing before the Supreme Court of Canada. The practice of law taught her a lot about the world and reinforced her determination to become a writer—because in fiction, she could promise a happy ending! Now she is an award-winning, national bestselling author of more than thirty titles for Mills & Boon. You can keep up-to-date with Brenda on Facebook and Twitter or through her website, www.brendaharlen.com.

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One of the best things about setting this book in the fictional town of Charisma, North Carolina, was that it gave me an excuse to visit that beautiful state and some wonderful friends who call it home.

In particular, I would like to dedicate this book to the lovely and immensely talented Virginia Kantra, with much appreciation for carving time out of her busy schedule to have lunch with me … which somehow extended to dinner … and I think there might have been wine …

Contents

Cover

Excerpt

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Extract

Copyright

Chapter One

The baby was crying.

Harper Ross jolted awake, her heart pounding and her throat aching.

After eighteen days—and eighteen nights—she should have been accustomed to Oliver’s middle-of-the-night outbursts, but she wasn’t. By this time, she’d expected to feel more comfortable with the baby and more confident about her ability to care for him, but she didn’t.

As the assistant producer of an award-winning television show, she wasn’t just competent but confident. When she was in the studio, she was in charge and in control. When she was with her best friend’s orphaned little boy, though, she felt completely helpless.

She didn’t know what to do for him, how to console him—or if anything could. She was completely out of her element with the child. When she’d learned that she was now responsible for sixteen-month-old Oliver—she’d panicked. She didn’t know the first thing about caring for a child. She didn’t know what to feed him, when to put him to bed or even how to change a diaper.

Thankfully, she knew how to research, and the internet was overflowing with information—including step-by-step video demonstrations of diaper changing. But there was still so much she didn’t know, and every free minute she had, she spent reading childcare manuals and psychology textbooks.

She wouldn’t have minded the steep learning curve so much except that her co-guardian—Ryan Garrett—had stepped into his role with no apparent difficulty, his ease with the child highlighting her own ineptitude. And although Ryan usually dealt with Oliver’s middle-of-the-night demands, he didn’t seem to be responding tonight.

She and Ryan had given up their respective apartments and moved into Melissa and Darren Cannon’s house so that Oliver would be able to stay in familiar surroundings, but she knew that nothing could ease the loss of his parents.

She drew in a slow deep breath and pushed her legs over the edge of the mattress, swallowing around the lump in her throat. Her best friend’s baby needed so much more than she could give him, but she was trying. Of course, she might be more successful if she could get more than a few hours of uninterrupted sleep in any given night, but so far that hadn’t happened.

Oliver had apparently started sleeping through the night when he was five months old, but he hadn’t done so even once since the accident. According to Ryan’s mom, who had become their go-to source for all child-related questions, his nighttime waking was neither surprising nor cause for concern. His life and his routines had been disrupted and it was reasonable that he would be upset and confused. Harper’s understanding of that didn’t make her any less cranky.

And as the baby continued to cry, his sobs punctuated with heartfelt entreaties for “Ma-ma-ma-ma-ma,” she wanted to cry right along with him. Instead she padded across the hall.

Other than the soft glow of the night-light that emanated from the baby’s room, the hall was in complete darkness. She had no concept of time: how long she’d been sleeping or—

The unfinished thought was snatched from her brain along with the air from her lungs when she collided with a wall.

Not a real wall, but the wall of Ryan Garrett’s chest.

Solid, strong, naked.

And wet.

His hands, strong and steady, caught her hips as she stumbled backward. She felt the imprint of every finger through the whisper-thin cotton of her boxer-short pajama bottoms, and the heat of his touch made her skin tingle and her pulse race in a way she hadn’t experienced in a very long time—and definitely didn’t want to be experiencing now.

She sucked in a breath and inhaled the clean, fresh scent of a man just out of the shower. Which explained why he was wet—but not why he was wandering around the house half-dressed.

“I just turned off the shower when I heard Oliver crying,” he responded to her unspoken question. “I was trying to get to him before he woke you up.”

“Too late.” She winced as the baby’s cries hit the next decibel range. “So maybe you could take the time now to put some clothes on?”

Her tone was sharper than she’d intended, but she didn’t apologize for snapping at him. She knew it wasn’t his fault that the child’s cries had awakened her, but she was half-asleep and his half-naked torso was waking up parts of her that she didn’t want awakened, so she wasn’t in a mood to be fair.

“I’m wearing pants,” he said, following her into the baby’s room. And though it was too dark for her to see the sexy half smile on his face, she could hear it in his voice. “In fact, I put them on just for you.”

As if pajama bottoms sitting low on his hips could be classified as pants.

The man knew how attractive he was. After all, he was a Garrett, and it wasn’t a hardship to look at any one of them. To describe Ryan as tall, dark and handsome would be accurate but completely inadequate. Those complimentary but generic words didn’t begin to do him justice. He was at least six-foot-two, because he towered over her own five-six frame even when she was wearing heels. His hair was thick and soft and the color of dark roasted coffee beans; his brows were the same shade, straight and thick over eyes that were probably noted as hazel on his driver’s license but were actually mossy green with flecks of golden amber. His jaw was strong and square and often covered with stubble. She didn’t usually like the unshaven look that seemed to be in vogue these days but couldn’t deny that it suited him, somehow increasing rather than lessening his appeal.

But Harper had grown up surrounded by beautiful people, so she wasn’t readily enamored of a handsome face or an appealing physique—and Ryan Garrett had been blessed with both. Far more dangerous, at least to her way of thinking, was the quick mind and easy smile that added to the package. As if that wasn’t enough to stack the odds in his favor, he was also friendly and charming and kind. And if her brain had been more awake than asleep, she would have spun on her heel and gone back to her own bed. Instead she followed him into the baby’s room.

She turned on the lamp beside the rocking chair while he went directly to the crib and lifted Oliver into his arms. The baby’s heart-wrenching cries immediately ebbed to shuddery sobs as he snuggled against Ryan’s strong chest.

Harper hovered a few feet away, feeling useless and ineffectual as she watched him soothe the distressed child. His voice was low and even, and the sexy timbre was enough to stir the blood in her veins.

She knew only too well how it would feel to be cradled in his strong embrace, to lay her cheek on his chest and feel the beating of his heart. She knew because she’d spent one incredibly magical night in his arms—then the sun had come up, bringing not just morning but the harshness of reality.

“What’s wrong, buddy?” Ryan crooned to Oliver softly. “Are you wet? Hungry?” He patted the baby’s bottom. “Yep—a diaper change is definitely in order.”

She watched him work, noting how Ryan held Oliver in place on the changing table with one hand splayed on the boy’s tummy while he rummaged on the shelf beneath for a clean diaper. He made it look so effortless and easy, while she worked up a sweat trying to prevent the little guy from wriggling off the edge whenever she attempted the task. Which was, admittedly, not nearly as often as Ryan did.

Over the past two and a half weeks, they’d started to establish a routine. He took care of Oliver in the mornings while she was at work, and when she got home from the studio, he would go into his office for a few hours. They hadn’t created a specific schedule for grocery shopping or laundry yet, but Harper was pretty sure that, in the past week, Ryan had done the bulk of those chores, too. She usually started dinner before he got home, and after they finished eating, they worked together to clean up, followed by bath time for the baby. But when it was Oliver’s bedtime, he’d made it clear early on that he preferred falling asleep in Harper’s arms.

Ryan glanced over his shoulder at her now as he finished fastening the tabs on the diaper. “Go back to bed, Harper. I’ve got him.”

Since her alarm would be going off at 4:45 a.m., she wanted to do exactly that. When she’d gone back to work a few days after the funeral, Ryan had offered to be the one to get up in the night with Oliver so that she could sleep through. It wasn’t his fault that she heard every sound that emanated from Oliver’s room, across the hall from her own.

Thankfully, she worked behind the scenes at Coffee Time with Caroline, Charisma’s most popular morning news show, so the dark circles under her eyes weren’t as much a problem as the fog that seemed to have enveloped her brain. And that fog was definitely a problem.

“Do you want me to get him a drink?” she asked as Ryan zipped up Oliver’s sleeper.

“I can manage,” he assured her. “Go get some sleep.”

Just as she decided that she would, Oliver—now clean and dry—stretched his arms out toward her. “Up.”

Ryan deftly scooped him up in one arm. “I’ve got you, buddy.”

The little boy shook his head, reaching for Harper. “Up.”

“Harper has to go night-night, just like you,” Ryan said.

“Up,” Oliver insisted.

He looked at her questioningly.

She shrugged. “I’ve got breasts.”

She’d spoken automatically, her brain apparently stuck somewhere between asleep and awake, without regard to whom she was addressing or how he might respond.

Of course, his response was predictably male—his gaze dropped to her chest and his lips curved in a slow and sexy smile. “Yeah—I’m aware of that.”

Her cheeks burned as her traitorous nipples tightened beneath the thin cotton of her ribbed tank top in response to his perusal, practically begging for his attention. She lifted her arms to reach for the baby, and to cover up her breasts. “I only meant that he prefers a softer chest to snuggle against.”

“Can’t blame him for that,” Ryan agreed, transferring the little boy to her.

Oliver immediately dropped his head onto her shoulder and dipped a hand down the front of her top to rest on the slope of her breast.

“The kid’s got some slick moves,” Ryan noted.

Harper felt her cheeks burning again as she moved over to the chair and settled in to rock the baby.

“It’s a comfort thing,” she said, not wanting to go into any more detail than that. She knew that it had started when Melissa was trying to wean him and Oliver stubbornly refused to drink from a cup. Her doctor had suggested that he was rejecting the cup because he wanted the skin-on-skin contact of nursing. So Melissa cuddled with him as if she was nursing but gave him milk from a cup.

After a few weeks, he would happily drink from the cup so long as his hand was on her skin—and yes, she confided, that usually meant her breast. But over time, even that had become unnecessary. Losing his mother had obviously rekindled that need for skin-on-skin contact, and Harper had no intention of refusing Oliver the little comfort she could give him.

“Maybe I need to be comforted, too,” Ryan teased.

She rolled her eyes. “Then maybe you should call Brittney.”

He looked at her blankly. “Who?”

“The woman you were with the night I called to tell you about Melissa and Darren’s accident,” she prompted.

The confusion in his eyes cleared. “That was Bethany.”

“I’m going to have to write down the names of all of your girlfriends in order to keep them straight.”

“That won’t be necessary,” he said. “Because there’s no reason for you to cross paths with any of them.”

“Fair enough,” she agreed. “So long as you’re back from whatever bed you tangle the sheets in by five thirty so that I can go to work, I don’t care where you sleep.”

“That’s what time you leave every morning? Five thirty a.m.?”

She nodded.

Because Oliver had been waking so frequently in the night, Ryan usually slept like the dead after he got the baby settled back down and returned to his own bed. So while he knew Harper’s day started early, he hadn’t realized it was quite so early. “That’s insane.”

“Look on the plus side,” she suggested. “It will save you those awkward morning-after goodbyes.”

She’d made it clear from their first meeting that she didn’t hold the highest opinion of him. Even at twenty-one, not yet graduated from NYU, Harper Ross had been a woman with plans and ambitions. Ryan had been finishing up his business degree at Columbia and preparing for an entry-level position at Garrett Furniture. And although there had been some definite chemistry between them, she’d made it clear that she wanted more than a man content to work in sales.

Even when she’d found out that his family owned the multimillion-dollar company, she hadn’t been impressed. In fact, she’d accused him of coasting through life on his family name and money. There was probably some truth to that, but Ryan had grown up with a workaholic father who missed more family dinners than he attended. As a result, he’d vowed not to live his life the same way and he refused to apologize for the fact.

He also refused to let her put him on the defensive about his personal relationships.

“The only awkward morning-after I ever experienced was with you,” he told her.

Harper drew in a sharp breath and glared at him over the baby’s head. “We agreed to never talk about that night.”

“I didn’t agree to any such thing,” he denied. “You decreed it and I chose to go along.”

She glanced down at Oliver, who, despite their heated exchange, had immediately settled back to sleep. “So why are you bringing it up now?” she challenged.

It was a good question—and one he wasn’t sure he knew how to answer. Because even if he hadn’t explicitly agreed that the subject was off-limits, he had gone along with her request that they both forget it had ever happened.

Except that he’d never really forgotten about that night. Yes, he wanted to—because it was more than a little humbling to share an incredible sexual experience with a woman who made it clear that it was never going to happen again—but his efforts had been unsuccessful.

No, he hadn’t forgotten about that night, but he’d pretended that he could. And he’d never said a word about it to anyone. Until now.

“Because it’s there,” he finally said in response to her question. “Even if we don’t talk about it—it’s there.”

“It was one night more than four years ago,” she reminded him. “Ancient history.”

“If it was so long ago and so unimportant, why didn’t you ever tell Melissa about it?” he challenged.

“What?”

“You always said that there were no secrets between best friends, that you told her everything. So why did you never tell her about that night?”

“Because I didn’t want things to be awkward between us.”

“Us who? You and her? You and me?”

“All of us.” She kept her focus on the baby. “If I’d told Melissa, she would have told Darren. Then anytime we were all together, it would have been awkward and weird.”

“You don’t think it was awkward and weird anyway?”

“Not at all,” she denied.

“You don’t feel any residual attraction when we’re together?”

“Hardly.”

His gaze narrowed at the dismissive tone, but he noticed that she didn’t look at him as she spoke. Her gaze had dropped to his shoulders, skimmed down his torso. Even in the dim light, he could tell that she was checking him out—and appreciating what she saw. “You’re a smart woman, Harper.”

She dragged her eyes from his bare chest to meet his again. “Thank you,” she said, just a little warily.

“So you must realize that a lot of guys would take that statement as a challenge.”

“It was merely a statement of fact.”

He told her what he thought of that in a single-word reply.

She rose from the chair with the sleeping baby. “I’m putting Oliver in his bed and going back to my own.”

He couldn’t resist baiting her, just a little. “Is that an invitation?”

“Has hell frozen over?”

She responded without missing a beat, and he found himself smiling as he watched her gently lay Oliver down on his mattress. What was it about this woman that, even while she infuriated him, he couldn’t help but admire her quick mind and spunky attitude?

He walked beside her to the door. “You still want me.”

“You really need to do something about that ego before—”

He touched a finger to her lips, silencing her words.

“You still want me,” he said again. “As much as I still want you.”

As he spoke, his fingertip traced the outline of her lips. Even after four years, he remembered the softness of her mouth, the sweetness of her kiss. He remembered the passion of her response to his touch and the feel of her hands moving over his body.

Her eyes darkened and the rapid flutter of the pulse point below her ear made him think that she was remembering those same things.

Then she blinked and took a deliberate step back. “Are you really hitting on me less than three weeks after we buried our best friends?”

“I was merely stating a fact,” he said.

“Your slanted interpretation of a fact,” she countered.

He slung an arm across the doorway, halting her retreat. “I hardly think you’re in any position to be talking to me about slanted interpretations when you’re deep in denial about your own feelings.”

She rolled her eyes. “Because I must be in denial if I’m not dragging you across the hall to my bed, right?”

“You wouldn’t have to drag me—I’d probably cooperate if you asked nicely.”

“Don’t hold your breath.”

Chapter Two

“...available dates for next month.”

The words nudged at Harper’s mind as if from a distance.

She recognized her assistant’s voice, but she wasn’t sure Diya was talking to her and she couldn’t summon the energy to respond.

“Did you hear me?”

The voice was closer now, sharper.

“Harper?”

She lifted her head, blinked her gritty eyes. “Yes, of course.”

Diya’s expression was concerned. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” She reached for the mug of coffee at her elbow and swallowed a mouthful, trying not to wince as the cold liquid slid down her throat. Obviously she’d zoned out for more than a couple of minutes if the coffee she thought she’d just poured was already cold.

She blamed Ryan for her lack of sleep the night before. After she’d put Oliver down in his bed and gone back to her own, she’d lain awake for a long time thinking about what he’d said—and silently damning him for being right.

Because she did still want him. Just being near the man made her blood heat and her heart pound. And there had been a brief moment in the doorway of Oliver’s bedroom, as Ryan had slowly and gently traced the outline of her mouth with the tip of his finger, when she’d wished he would stop teasing her and start kissing her. She’d wanted to lift her hands to touch him, sliding her palms over the rippling muscles of his belly, the hard planes of his chest. And yes, dammit, she had wanted to drag him across the hall and have her way with him.

Of course, he probably had the same effect on most females. Because how could any woman resist the intense focus of those green-and-gold eyes that made her feel as if he saw nothing but her? How could she deny the allure of that sexy half smile that promised all kinds of sensual pleasure? Harper didn’t think it was possible.

She knew that guys like that, who had women falling at their feet, were often selfish lovers—concerned only with their own satisfaction. She also knew that Ryan Garrett was not one of those guys.

However, one spectacular lovemaking experience more than four years earlier couldn’t change the fundamental fact that they were completely and totally wrong for one another. Like her favorite Godiva salted-caramel chocolate bars—he might be tempting and delicious, but she knew she would inevitably regret the indulgence. It was that knowledge that had finally given her the strength to move away from him.

Unfortunately, the memories of that long-ago experience churned up by his casual touch had kept her awake into the early hours of morning. And wasn’t it a sad reflection on her love life that, four years later, she could still recall every detail of that night?

She shook her head, as if to banish the unwelcome memories, and realized that while she’d been gathering her scattered thoughts, her assistant had taken her cold coffee cup away and returned now with a fresh, steaming cup.

“Thanks,” Harper said gratefully.

“You have—” Diya gestured to her own cheek “—paper creases on your face.”

So much for maintaining the illusion that she had been hard at work rather than sleeping at her desk. “I guess I dozed off for a minute,” she acknowledged.

“Why don’t you go home and get some proper sleep?” her assistant suggested gently.

“Because when I get home, I’m on baby duty,” she admitted.

“Babies nap—you have to learn to sleep when they do.”

It was the same advice she’d read in countless books, but it seemed to Harper that whenever Oliver was napping, there were a million other things to do before she could even consider sleep.

“That sounds simple enough,” she agreed. “But when I put my head down on a pillow, my mind refuses to shut off.”

“But when you put your head down on a desk, sleep comes?”

Her smile was wry. “Apparently.”

Diya shook her head. “What are you working on there?”

She had to look at the computer screen to remember. “Finalizing the shopping list for our cooking segment tomorrow morning.”

“‘In the Kitchen with Kane.’” Her assistant sighed dreamily. “That man is as yummy as everything he cooks.”

“And an absolute tyrant when it comes to his supplies and ingredients. Three of the items he wants for tomorrow— banana blossom, rau ram and Thai basil—are only available from that specialty cooking shop in Raleigh.”

“What’s rau ram?”

“Vietnamese coriander—which is apparently similar to cilantro, but Kane can’t use cilantro. He has to have rau ram.”

“Send the list to my phone—I’ll go.”

“Really?”

“Sure. My sister, Esha, lives in Raleigh and I was planning to stop by to see her this week anyway.”

“That would be a huge help,” Harper told her.

“I’m the assistant producer’s assistant—it’s my job to help,” Diya reminded her.

“Well, thank you for saving me a detour to the grocery store on my way home.”

“Anytime.”

But as Harper was making her way to her car, her phone chimed with a text message.

can u pick up milk for Oliver?

And she realized she was going to have to make that detour anyway.

* * *

Only a few weeks earlier, Ryan had texted his brother to tell Justin that he would pick up the beer on his way over to watch the game. Today he’d texted the woman he was living with to ask her to pick up milk for the baby.

Obviously his life had undergone some major changes, not the least of which was that he was now playing house with Harper Ross. Beautiful, smart, sexy and infinitely challenging Harper Ross.

He used to think he was smart, too, but his unrelenting attraction to his co-guardian suggested otherwise. He’d been attracted to other women—a lot of other women, and he’d taken a fair number of those other women to his bed. Whether a relationship lasted a few nights or several months, it would inevitably run its course. And when it did, he and the woman in question would part ways, usually amicably.

The problem, from his perspective, was that his relationship with Harper had never run its course. One night with her hadn’t been enough. Not even close. But after that first night, she’d made it clear there wouldn’t be a second.

And he’d accepted her decision. He hadn’t tried to change her mind. If she didn’t want him, there were plenty of other women who did. Unfortunately, countless nights with other women hadn’t helped him purge his desire for her. It was still Harper he wanted, her taste that he craved, her passion that he coveted. He’d hoped the yearning would fade with time and distance. Of course, their current circumstances ensured that he would have the benefit of neither of those to help assuage the ache inside him.

He heard a thump through the monitor on the counter and, glancing at the screen, saw that Oliver had kicked the headboard of his crib. The kid was a restless sleeper. He always started in the middle of the mattress, but he never finished there. He sometimes woke up on his belly, sometimes on his back, but never in the same position he’d started from. Ryan figured it was a good thing Oliver’s bed had four sides—otherwise the little guy might wake up in the hall.

As he dumped some pasta into a pot, he kept an ear tuned to the monitor, listening for any other indications that Oliver was waking up from his nap. For now, he was sleeping peacefully, blissfully unaware that the “mama” and “dada” he still called out for weren’t ever coming home again. Ryan tried not to dwell on that fact too much himself, but it was an unassailable truth that squeezed like a fist around his heart.

He missed his friend. He hated that Darren’s life had ended so tragically and prematurely only weeks after his thirtieth birthday. And there were moments, though he would never acknowledge them aloud, when he resented having his own life derailed by the responsibility of helping to raise Darren and Melissa’s child.

Those moments never lasted long—probably not more than a few seconds. Just long enough for the thought to form and guilt to slice him in half. Because how could he be mad at his friend for anything when Darren had lost everything? How could he begrudge caring for his best friend’s son when the little boy already owned his heart?

Maybe Ryan had never given much thought to being a father, but he knew that Darren had been as excited as Melissa when they’d learned she was expecting their first child. And even when Ryan had teased his friend about trading in his Audi for a minivan, Darren hadn’t minded. He’d been sincerely looking forward to Cub Scouts and soccer games and all the things that most dads did with their sons.

But he hadn’t had a chance to do any of them, so Ryan would. He’d even buy that minivan if he had to—but he really hoped he wouldn’t have to. A Jeep, maybe. Yeah, a Jeep had enough seats for carpooling and plenty of cargo space for all of the kids’ gear.

The timer on the oven buzzed. He lifted the pot off the stove and dumped the macaroni into a colander just as Harper came through the back door with the jug of milk he needed to make the cheese sauce.

Her heels clicked on the ceramic tile, drawing his attention to the sexy sling-back shoes on her feet. His gaze skimmed upward, following the curve of her calves to the flirty hem of her skirt, which twirled around her knees—

“Is Oliver still sleeping?”

He dragged his attention away from her legs. “Yeah, but he’s moving around in his crib, so probably not for long.” He dumped the pasta back into the pot and reached for the milk, frowned at the label. “This is nonfat milk.”

“So?” She kicked off her shoes and dropped her purse on the counter.

“So Oliver can’t drink that.”

“Why not?”

“Because babies need whole milk until the age of two, to aid in brain development.”

She huffed out an impatient breath. “Your message didn’t say to pick up whole milk—it just said milk.”

“I figured you knew.”

“Well, obviously you figured wrong,” she snapped at him, as she slipped her feet back into her shoes and grabbed her purse again.

“Where are you going?”

“To get whole milk.”

Clearly, he’d screwed up. Again. Eager to smooth things over, he told her, “Don’t worry. This’ll be fine for his pasta. I’ll go out later and—”

“You asked me to get it,” she reminded him, reaching for the handle of the door.

He slapped his hand on the frame so that she couldn’t open it. “Forget it. It’s not that big of a deal.”

But he could tell by the moisture shimmering in her eyes that it was—at least to her.

He wondered how it was that, only ten minutes earlier, he’d been thinking that they were managing okay and now Harper was on the verge of a meltdown—for reasons he couldn’t even begin to fathom.

“Haven’t you ever heard the saying ‘no use crying over spilled milk’?” he asked, striving for lightness in a desperate attempt to ward off her tears. “Well, I think the same could be said about nonfat milk.”

“I’m not crying,” she denied.

And maybe she wasn’t, but she definitely sniffled.

“Do you want to tell me what this is really about?” he asked gently.

She shook her head. “I’m just tired.”

Which was hardly surprising in light of the hours that she worked—not just at the studio but after Oliver was settled into bed at night. “It’s almost the weekend—you can sleep all day Saturday if you want.”

“I don’t mean physically tired, although I am that, too,” she admitted. “I mean tired of faking it.”

His brows lifted. “What exactly have you been faking?”

She drew in a deep breath and looked up at him. “That I know what I’m doing here, playing house, playing mommy, when the truth is, I don’t have a clue.”

He tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, then cupped the back of her head and gently drew her closer, until her forehead was against his shoulder. “You’re doing just fine. We’re doing just fine.”

She didn’t pull back, but she shook her head again. “You already do so much more than I do, and when you ask me to do one little thing, I screw it up.”

“No one’s keeping score, Harper.”

“If they were, you’d get all the points,” she said.

“That’s not true,” he denied. “You’d get points for having breasts.”

That, finally, earned him a watery smile.

“Now, why don’t you go get Oliver while I finish making the mac and cheese?” he suggested. “There’s enough for you, too, if you’re hungry.”

“Maybe.” And then, proving she hadn’t lost her sense of humor, she added, “But only if you’re making it with nonfat milk.”

* * *

She didn’t have any of the pasta.

Instead Harper made herself a salad and munched on lettuce and chopped veggies while Oliver shoved handfuls of macaroni in his mouth and smeared cheese sauce all over his face and the tray of his high chair.

Ryan had taken his bowl of pasta into the main-floor den to do some work while awaiting the start of a conference call. In the past, Harper might have resented the inherent flexibility afforded to him because his family owned the business he worked for. Now she was grateful.

Not just because it allowed them to share childcare responsibilities but because their offsetting schedules meant that they didn’t have to spend a lot of time together. Because their late-night encounter the night before had reminded her all too clearly how dangerous it was to be in close proximity to Ryan Garrett.

“Mo!” Oliver demanded, banging his now-empty bowl on his tray.

“Please,” Harper admonished.

“Mo!” he said again.

She got up to put some more macaroni in his bowl, shook her head when she placed it in front of him. “You are a mess.”

“Mess,” he echoed, and grinned to show off his eight tiny pearly-white teeth in a mouth stuffed full of macaroni.

Smiling, she ruffled the soft, wispy curls that fell over his forehead.

He needed a haircut—his first haircut. A few months earlier, Melissa had told her that Darren was pushing her to take Oliver to the barbershop because he was tired of strangers mistakenly assuming their son was a daughter, even when he was dressed all in blue. Melissa had resisted, because she was afraid that if they cut off Oliver’s curls, they might be gone forever. And just in case, she’d already snipped one of them and tucked it into a clear plastic folder in his baby book.

The baby book that Melissa kept in the top drawer of Oliver’s dresser so it was readily accessible to record her son’s every milestone. She’d documented everything from his weight and length at birth and the day he came home from the hospital to his first smile, when he rolled over, sat up, clapped his hands, waved bye-bye, got his first tooth and took his first step.

It was a meticulous record of her love as much as her baby’s growth, and Harper didn’t know if she should continue what Melissa had started or leave the book as she had left it. Either way, she knew she had to talk to Ryan about taking the little boy for a haircut.

Sooner rather than later if he was going to insist on putting things like cheesy macaroni in it.

“I think that’s a sign that you’ve had enough to eat,” she said to him.

“Mo!”

She shook her head. “No more. Not today.”

“Kee.”

She was starting to understand his unique baby language and that word was one of his favorites. “Let’s get you cleaned up first. Then you can have a cookie.”

She wiped his hands and his face—and his hair—with a wet cloth, ensuring that no traces of orange sauce remained. “There’s my handsome boy,” she said.

He grinned at her, melting her heart. “Kee.”

She laughed. “Yes, I’ll get you a cookie.”

While he was munching on his arrowroot biscuit, she tidied up the kitchen. Then she washed Oliver’s hands and face again.

“What are we going to do this afternoon?” she asked the little boy.

He banged his hands on his tray. “Bah-bah-bah.”

“I’m going to need a translation on that,” she said as she unbuckled him from his high chair. “Either you want to play ball or you want to pretend you’re a sheep—which is it?”

“Bah-bah-bah.”

“Blocks,” Ryan said from the doorway.

Harper glanced up as she set the little boy on his feet. He ran straight to Ryan, who swung him up into his arms. “Do you want to play with your blocks?”

“Bah-bah-bah.”

Harper frowned as she moved into the living room. “Do you think his speech is delayed?”

“No, I think he’s a sixteen-month-old with the limited vocabulary of a sixteen-month-old.”

He was probably right but she thought she’d check the vocabulary lists in her books again to be sure. “Your conference call is done already?”

He nodded. “I knew it wouldn’t take too long.”

She put the bucket of blocks on the carpet and sat down to play with Oliver. The little boy immediately upended the container. “Are you going into the office now?”

“Not today.”

She started the base of a tower for Oliver, aligning three square blocks for the bottom, then overlapping a second row to hold the blocks together. “Why not?”

“I thought I’d spend some time hanging out with Oliver this afternoon.”

“Big,” Oliver said again, offering her a blue block.

“He wants you to make the tower bigger,” Ryan told her, squatting down to add more blocks to the base of the structure she’d started to build.

“You just want to play, too,” she remarked.

He didn’t dispute her claim. “Do you have a problem with that?”

“You had Oliver all morning—it’s my shift now,” she reminded him.

“Just like no one’s keeping score, no one’s punching a clock here,” he said gently. “If there’s something else you’d rather be doing, I don’t mind honing my construction skills here.”

She hesitated, torn between the temptation to accept his offer, annoyance that he handled the little boy so effortlessly and guilt that if she let him, she would again be doing less than her share. “I do have some notes to write up for Caroline for next week’s shows.”

He shrugged. “Or you could take a nap so you’re not cranky tomorrow.”

“I’m not cranky now,” she snapped, her tone in contradiction to the words.

He just lifted a brow.

She turned on her heel and walked out.

Chapter Three

Harper hadn’t planned to fall asleep.

She’d decided that her notes for Caroline could wait, and she’d lain down on her bed to read another chapter in What to Expect the Toddler Years. She managed to keep her eyes open for four pages.

When she woke up, it was almost five o’clock and her grumbling stomach chastised her for not thinking about dinner before she’d put her head on her pillow. After a quick detour to the bathroom, she headed down to the kitchen to see what she could scrounge up for the evening meal.

But Ryan had apparently beat her to that, too, as he was peeling potatoes at the sink. Oliver was on the floor nearby, playing with some plastic lids. They both glanced over when she stepped through the doorway.

“I guess I should say ‘sorry’ and ‘thank you.’”

“Why?”

“The ‘sorry’ because I was tired and cranky. The ‘thank you’ for letting me sleep and getting dinner started.”

“No worries,” he said easily.

“What’s for supper?”

“Steak pie, mashed potatoes and corn.”

“Do you want me to finish the potatoes?”

“Are you going to eat any potatoes?”

“Probably not,” she admitted.

“Then you can make your salad.”

She got the ingredients out of the fridge and set to work.

* * *

Half an hour later, they were sitting down to dinner, just like a regular family.

Except that she had almost no experience being a regular family. She’d grown up in New York City, where her father was an actor and her mother was a talent agent. And for as long as Harper could remember, her parents had been going in opposite directions—to auditions and meetings and events. Occasionally one or the other would take her and her brother, Spencer, along for the ride, but more often they were left at home with the nanny.

The unconventional upbringing was something she’d had in common with Melissa. Her friend’s parents had split when she was in the third grade, and after that she’d done her share of moving from one home to another, never feeling as if she completely belonged in either. As a result, she’d been determined to provide a better upbringing for her son—and a “normal” home in which parents sat down to share meals with their children. Harper wasn’t convinced that was “normal” but she was willing to do her part to maintain at least the illusion for the little boy.

“This pie is delicious,” she said after she’d sampled her first bite.

Obviously Oliver agreed, because he was managing to put more of the steak and gravy in his mouth than on his face.

“One of my aunt Susan’s specialties,” Ryan told her. “I can only take credit for moving it from the freezer to the oven.”

“Between your mother and your aunts and your cousins, we probably have enough pies and casseroles and pastas to last until Christmas.”

“My family has always believed that food can help alleviate any crisis.”

“That much food would solve the hunger crisis in a third-world country.”

“My mother also knows that I can burn toast,” Ryan said. “And she probably didn’t want to make any assumptions about your cooking skills.”

“I can put together a decent meal if I have the time and the right ingredients,” she admitted.

“I wasn’t sure,” he teased. “Because I haven’t seen you eat anything other than salad.”

“That’s not true,” she denied.

“You’re right—salad and a taste of whatever else is put on the table.”

Since that was closer to the truth, she didn’t dispute it. Instead she said, “Even over and above the stocking of our freezer, your family has been amazing. Although there were so many people here the day of the funeral, I’m not sure I remember even half of their names.”

“I’ll make name tags for the next family gathering,” he teased.

“That would be helpful,” she said, her response perfectly sincere. “But for starters, which one of your bothers has the little boy—Jacob?”

“Jacob is Daniel’s son—but Daniel is my cousin. Braden and Justin are my brothers.”

“Justin is the doctor?”

He nodded.

“Is he married?”

“No.”

“But Braden’s married?”

He nodded again. “To Dana.”

“Do they have any kids?”

“Not yet.”

“And you have a sister who has a baby girl, right?”

“Nope—no sisters at all. You’re probably thinking of Lauryn, who is another cousin.”

She frowned. “But she referred to you as her daughter’s ‘uncle Ryan.’”

“It’s an honorary title.”

Harper shook her head. “No wonder I’m confused.”

“Andrew, Nathan and Daniel are my cousins through my uncle David and aunt Jane. Andrew is married to Rachel and the father of Maura. Nathan is married to Allison, who is the mother of Dylan. And Jacob’s father, Daniel, is married to Kenna.

“On my uncle Thomas and aunt Susan’s side, there are three female cousins—Jordyn, Tristyn and Lauryn. Lauryn is the only one married, and she and her husband, Rob, are the parents of Kylie.

“I also have three more cousins—Matthew, Jackson and Lukas—in upstate New York. Matt and his wife, Georgia, have four kids, Jack and Kelly have two, and Lukas and Julie have a toddler.”

“Name tags would definitely help,” she told him.

He just grinned. “What about your family?”

“Small,” she said. “And scattered. My dad has a sister who works for an insurance company in Wyoming, but she never married and doesn’t have any kids. His mother is down in Florida, but I haven’t seen her since I was a kid. My mom was an only child, so there’s just my parents, myself and my brother.”

None of whom had shown up for the funeral, despite the fact that Melissa had been her roommate in college and her best friend since.

Gayle Everton-Ross had expressed sympathy when her daughter called to tell her about the tragic heli-skiing accident that killed Melissa and Darren, but she hadn’t been able to talk long, because she was on her way to a meeting. Peter Ross had been busy on the set of the popular soap opera The Light of Dawn, and Spencer, an underwear model and wannabe actor, had been playing a bit part in an Off-Off-Broadway production.

“Are you close?” Ryan asked.

She shook her head. “Melissa was more my family than anyone I’m actually related to.”

“I have brothers and cousins,” he said again, “but Darren was my family, too.”

“I know.”

They finished their meals in silence. Even Oliver was quiet while he ate, more interested in his food than any attempt at communication. As Harper picked at her salad, she found her thoughts wandering. She’d met Ryan, through Melissa and Darren, more than six years earlier, but she wouldn’t have said that she knew him well. And while they were friendly enough, they weren’t friends—they were too different for that.

They’d occasionally hung out together, usually in a group, but they didn’t have much in common and never really hit it off. Even when Melissa and Darren got engaged and asked Harper and Ryan to be their maid of honor and best man respectively, they didn’t work particularly well together. She’d claimed he was too laid-back and he’d accused her of being too uptight, but they’d managed to put their personal differences aside for the benefit of their friends.

Then came the wedding night—when Harper ended up in Ryan’s bed. The next morning, they both agreed it was a mistake, and neither of them ever told anyone else what had happened.

When Oliver was born, the proud parents again turned to their best friends, asking them to be godparents and co-guardians of their baby. They’d both agreed, neither of them willing to let a little bit of personal history get in the way of their friends’ wishes. Of course, neither of them had anticipated that the guardianship would ever mean anything more than their names on a piece of paper.

Now, only a few months later, they had to figure out a way to work together for the sake of the little boy. Because the reality was that there wasn’t anyone else who could take care of Oliver.

She was certain of that because she’d spent a fair amount of time over the past few weeks trying to figure out if there were any other options—and desperately hoping, for Oliver’s sake, that there were.

Celeste Trivitt, his maternal grandmother, lived in France with her investment banker husband. She’d been devastated to hear of the accident that took her daughter’s life and immediately flew in for the funeral. Although she was happy to fuss over her grandson for a few days, she’d made it clear that her life was in Europe now. Oliver was lucky, she’d said to them more than once. He might have lost both of his parents, but he had Harper and Ryan to take care of him.

Quentin Trivitt, Oliver’s maternal grandfather and Celeste’s ex-husband, also came for the funeral—with his thirty-four-year-old wife, who was seven months pregnant with their first child. They’d said all the right things, expressing empathy for the “poor little boy” and his situation but at the same time making it clear that their focus was on their own yet-to-be-born child. They had no interest in raising a grandson, too.

On the other side, Oliver’s paternal grandparents were both living in an assisted-care facility in Greensboro. One of the attendants from the home had brought them to Charisma for the funeral and taken them right back again. Darren also had a sister, but neither Ryan nor Harper had ever met her and no one had known how to reach her to tell her about the passing of her brother and sister-in-law. Harper remembered Melissa telling her that Darren’s sister had been estranged from her family for a long time.

Harper pushed away from the table and carried her plate, with half of her meal still on it, to the counter. “Do you ever wonder...?”

Ryan began clearing the rest of the dishes. “What?”

She hesitated to say the words out loud, as if doing so might be disloyal to her friend, but she finally said, “If maybe Melissa and Darren should have chosen someone else to take care of Oliver?”

“Every day,” he told her.

“Really?”

He nodded. “But I figure they must have had their reasons for choosing us.”

“Maybe,” she allowed. “I’m just not sure I’m the right person to do this.”

“I have more than a few doubts about my suitability, too,” he said, surprising her with the acknowledgment. “But I’m not going to walk away without giving it my best shot.”

She squirted dish soap in the sink and turned on the faucet. “You think I want to walk away?”

“I don’t know—do you?”

She considered the question as she watched the sudsy water rise in the bowl. “Yes,” she finally admitted. “There is part of me that wants to do exactly that.”

“And another part?” he prompted.

Harper plunged her hands into the water and began to wash the pots. “We had a long talk when Melissa asked if I would be the baby’s guardian,” she said, not directly answering his question. “While she was pregnant, when he was still ‘the baby’ and not yet Oliver. I thought it was strange that she would be thinking about such things before her child was even born, but Melissa always did like to be prepared, to run her life according to a specific plan.”

“It’s a good thing she did,” Ryan said. “Because Darren wouldn’t know a plan if it bit him in the butt.”

She smiled at that. “True. Anyway, I asked her—why me? Aside from the fact that I was her best friend, what made her think I could ever be the right choice to help raise her child?”

Harper remembered every word of their conversation, could still hear the echo of her friend’s voice in the back of her mind so clearly that it made her chest ache and her throat burn.

“What did she say?” Ryan prompted gently.

“That she chose me because she knew if anything ever happened to her so that she couldn’t raise her child, I would love him as much as she did,” she confided. “And that’s the part that won’t let me walk away—the echo of Melissa’s voice in my mind, asking me to love her little boy for her. Because I already do.”

He touched a hand to her shoulder. “Then I’d say it’s obvious that she made the right choice.”

Harper still wasn’t convinced, but she knew that she wasn’t going to let down her friend. Not if she could help it.

* * *

Ryan considered it progress that he and Harper had actually managed to have a fifteen-minute conversation without sniping at one another. It was a minor step, and he knew they were going to have to do a lot better than that if they were going to figure out a way to make this guardianship situation work for Oliver, but at least it was a step in the right direction.

Considering that he’d known her for so many years, he really didn’t know her at all. And maybe that was his fault. He’d never made much of an effort, because it had seemed like too much of an effort.

The first time he’d met her, he’d been willing to consider all kinds of possibilities. Darren had assured him that it wasn’t a setup; it was just his girlfriend wanting his best friend to meet her best friend. And since Ryan liked Melissa well enough, he’d figured he’d like her friend, too.

And he had. Harper was attractive—even more so than he’d hoped. About five-five, he’d guessed, with brown hair and dark chocolate-colored eyes. She was a little on the skinny side, but her perfectly shaped lips enticed him to hang on to her every word.

They’d talked about college: she was studying journalism at NYU and hoped to work in television; he was in his final year of business at Columbia. She’d asked about his future plans, he’d said that he didn’t have any specific plans, and she’d shut down.

It wasn’t exactly the truth—he’d always known that he would go to work at Garrett Furniture, but he’d learned to be cautious about revealing his connection to the company. Too many women wanted to be with him because he was a Garrett and heir to at least part of the furniture empire of the same name.

Harper had decided then and there that he lacked ambition. Later, when she found out that he was one of the Garretts, the information had done nothing to bolster her opinion of him. In fact, she’d insisted that it only proved he was too lazy to make his own way outside the family business. He didn’t care what she thought—he liked what he did and enjoyed being part of the continued success of the company his grandfather had built.

Yet despite the obvious personality conflicts between Harper and himself, there was an undeniable sizzle in the air whenever they were together. It had been there from the start and was still there. Even when one or the other—or both—had been dating someone else, the air fairly vibrated with electricity between them. It was a phenomenon that he found as baffling as it was intriguing.

Not that he’d had any intention of ever acting upon it. Especially considering that Harper had always given a clear and unequivocal hands-off vibe...right up until the night that she’d begged him to put his hands on her.

And that was definitely not something that he should be thinking about now.

Going forward, he had to keep his focus on Oliver and not let himself be distracted by the memory of Harper’s warm, naked body wrapped around his.

“You are doing a great job with Oliver,” he said now, as he helped load the dishwasher. “But between your work schedule and the demands of a grieving infant, it’s obvious that you’re exhausted.”

“I’m so flattered that you noticed.”

His brow lifted in response to her sarcasm. “I’m dragging, too, and I’m only working part-time right now.”

“Part-time isn’t an option for me.”

“Then maybe you should think about taking some time off.”

“I did think about it,” she said bluntly. “I can’t.”

He pressed on anyway. “You went back to work only days after the funeral—when did you think about it?”

“In the time between learning about the accident and returning to work,” she told him. “I would have taken more time if I could, but there’s too much going on with the show right now. In fact, we’ve got Lucy Gibbs on the schedule for tomorrow morning, so I have to go in half an hour earlier because she likes to review all of the questions with me beforehand.”

“She can’t do that with someone else?”

“The last time she was on the show and I wasn’t there, she bullied and harassed one of our production assistants to the point that he almost quit.”

“She sounds charming,” he said drily.

She shrugged. “It doesn’t matter that she’s a prima donna when her name is money at the box office.”

“If you’re going in early, will you be able to leave early?”

“I’m going to try,” she said. “But there were a couple of day-care centers that I wanted to check out on my way back.”

He frowned. “You want to put Oliver in day care?”

“I don’t see that we have any choice.” She neatly folded the dishcloth and draped it over the towel bar inside the cupboard.

“Don’t you think we should talk about this—to see if we can’t figure something else out? For God’s sake, Harper, the kid just lost both of his parents and you want to abdicate responsibility for his care to strangers?”

“It’s not what I want. It’s what the reality of the situation demands.” She braced her hands on the edge of the counter behind her and faced him. “I don’t have the luxury of working for a company owned by my family,” she told him. “If I don’t go to work, I don’t get paid.”

“If the issue is money, I’ll pay—”

“No.” She cut him off sharply. “It’s not only about money.”

“I know how important your career is to you,” he said.

But Harper didn’t think he did. Because her career was more than important—it was what defined her.

She’d started as an assistant to the property manager at WNCC-TV fresh out of college and worked her way through the ranks to become an associate producer of the award-winning morning program Coffee Time with Caroline. In the process, she’d sacrificed weekends and vacations, missed get-togethers with friends, turned down more offers for dates than she’d accepted—and then skipped out early on at least half of those that she’d accepted.

Ryan, on the other hand, had been born a Garrett. He’d never had to make any sacrifices to secure his job at Garrett Furniture. Maybe he hadn’t started out as national sales manager of the company, but there hadn’t been a lot of obstacles in his path to the big office.

He didn’t have to worry that taking a few weeks off might jeopardize his position, but Harper knew that a leave of absence—even in the short term—could completely derail her career.

“I just don’t think we should rush into anything,” he continued, his tone conciliatory.

But she’d learned the hard way that if she didn’t take action, things didn’t get done. “How much longer should we wait? Another couple of weeks? A month?”

“More than three weeks,” he retorted.

She forced herself to take a deep breath before their discussion escalated into a full-blown argument. “I did some research and made some phone calls. I’m not suggesting we drop him off somewhere first thing tomorrow morning.”

He nodded slowly as he wiped Oliver’s hands and face. “What day cares are you considering?”

That he asked suggested that he might come around on the issue, and because she needed his cooperation to make it work, she answered in an equally careful tone. “First Steps and Wee Watch are the only ones that are on the short list so far. Little Hands looked good, too, but its location isn’t convenient for either of us.”

“Andrew’s daughter, Maura, went to Wee Watch.”

“So that would be your choice?”

“My choice would be to figure out a way to coordinate our schedules so that Oliver doesn’t have to go to day care.”

She folded her arms over her chest. “Well, I work every day from six a.m. until noon, sometimes with production meetings afterward. Can you work your schedule around that?”

“Do you understand the word compromise?”

“Yes, I do. But I’m not willing to compromise my job.”

“I’m not asking you to. I’m only asking you to pause to take a breath, to give all of us—and especially Oliver—some time to come to terms with everything that’s happened.”

“That sounds great in theory, but the last three weeks have been complete chaos and I need to get things settled and get my life back on track.”

“Do you really think anyone at work needs you more than this little boy—” he picked Oliver up out of his high chair “—does right now?”

“No—but at least at the studio, I know what I’m doing.”

It wasn’t something she’d planned to admit, especially not to Ryan. But the truth was, even after only three weeks, it was apparent that he was much more comfortable with Oliver and much better at anticipating the little boy’s needs than she was, making her feel not just inept but dependent on him.

And that was why she needed to focus on her work: because it was the only place right now that she felt competent and in control. When she was with Oliver and Ryan, she felt overwhelmed and helpless and all kinds of other emotions she wasn’t ready to acknowledge, much less put a label on.

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