Patchwork Family in the Outback

But now... Harrison was as handsome as any man she’d ever laid eyes upon, and the way his jeans clung to his butt when he walked away, the cowboy hat on his head, his checked shirtsleeves rolled up to show off tanned arms...it was making her think all kinds of sin.

“You must be Ms. Carter!”

Poppy blinked and tried to forget all about the man walking toward his truck. She was a teacher, and she had more parents to meet.

She’d be seeing Harrison again after school, and he’d be in her home. In her bathroom.

So no more thinking about him until then.

CHAPTER FOUR

POPPY SAT WITH Katie and Alex, watching out for their dad to arrive. He was only a few minutes late. The other children had all gone right on time, and now she was enjoying the sun and the company.

“Here he comes!” Alex called out, and ran to the edge of the pavement, waving to his dad.

Harrison jumped out and scooped his son straight up and into his arms. “I’m so sorry, Poppy,” he said, running a hand through his hair as if he’d just realized he didn’t have his hat on. “I had a run-in with a pretty pissed-off bull, and—”

“Daddy!” Katie had her hands on her hips. “You said a bad word,” she hissed, “and she’s our teacher, so you need to call her Ms. Carter.”

He nodded as if she was absolutely right, but when his eyes met Poppy’s they were filled with laughter. She had to bite down on her lip to stop from laughing herself.

“Anyway, long story short, he was determined to make his way to the ladies, which wasn’t going to happen,” Harrison told her.

Poppy did burst out laughing then—she couldn’t help it. She was talking to a real-life cowboy when she’d never even been close to a real ranch before. “Do you have any idea how hilarious that sounds?”

He gave her a puzzled look. “Funny now, but not so amusing when you’re staring a three-thousand-pound, adrenaline-filled beast in the eye.”

She started to walk alongside Katie as they all headed for the truck. “Harrison, the closest I’ve come to dealing with wildlife is an ant infestation in my old classroom,” she told him. “So believe me when I tell you how hilarious you sound to my sheltered city ways. Hilarious, but exciting, for a change.”

She could have sworn a dark look passed across his face, but it was gone so quickly she couldn’t be certain. Had she said something wrong?

“Although in saying that, I did kind of adopt a cat last night, so maybe I’m getting used to the whole country way of life already.”

Harrison opened the front passenger door to his truck, but pointed for Katie to get in the back. “What do you mean, you adopted a cat? It’s not like we have shelters for unwanted pets around here.”

Poppy rolled her eyes, wishing she wasn’t standing quite so close to him. He was at least a head taller than her, and she couldn’t stop staring back into his dark brown eyes. They were dark but soft, like melted chocolate.

She snapped herself out of her daydream. Could she really forgive the entire male population so soon after declaring them all to be worthless idiots to whom she’d never again give the time of day? The answer to that question was no.

“I heard a noise last night and a black cat was just sitting there, like it was his house and he wanted to come in.”

“But not wild?” Harrison asked. He gestured for her to get in the vehicle. “I’ll drive you down the road—you know, so I can fix the bathroom.”

Heat hit Poppy’s cheeks and she hoped the blush wasn’t noticeable. What was it about this guy getting her all in a fluster, especially at the mention of coming into her home? And the thought of sitting beside him in such a close space, despite the fact that his children were in the back.

“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 someone without thinking about what her life had been like only a month earlier.

“What’s for dinner?” Katie appeared in the kitchen, rising on tiptoe as she tried to see what was cooking.

“Pasta with a carbonara sauce,” Poppy told her, using her elbow to playfully push her from the kitchen. “Hang out with Alex for a few more minutes and it’ll be ready.”

The little girl grinned, gave her dad a cheeky wave and disappeared again.

“You might think this is nothing fancy,” said Harrison, pointing at the sauce Poppy was stirring, “but to them it’s fun to be somewhere different for dinner. They’re usually just stuck with me on the ranch.”

She swallowed a lump. It was now or never, and she couldn’t help herself.

“So there’s no Mrs. Black?” she asked, knowing full well what the answer was going to be.

“No,” Harrison replied, his eyes dark and stormy, his expression like stone. “There’s no Mrs. Black, unless you’re talking about my mom.”

If only her question was that innocent, but they both knew it wasn’t. What Poppy didn’t know was why she’d asked at all.

Maybe she just wanted to hear it from him, so she could actually believe that he didn’t have a wife...that he really was what the mom today had described him as—the town’s sexiest bachelor.

Sauce. What Poppy needed to do was focus on the carbonara sauce.

“Anything I can do?” His soft, deep drawl made her skin go hot, then suddenly cold, as if an icy breeze had blown through on a warm summer’s day.

“I’d love for you to put those plates on the table,” she said, nodding toward where she had them stacked. “And to be honest, I wouldn’t mind celebrating my first day at school with a glass of wine.”

Plus she wouldn’t mind settling her nerves a little with the bottle of sauvignon blanc she had in the fridge.

“Glasses?” he asked, carrying the plates to the table.

Poppy groaned. “Still to be unpacked, I think.” One of the few things she hadn’t actually transferred from box to cupboard. But if she wasn’t mistaken... “Hang on, try the box at the bottom of the pantry,” she instructed. “I can’t leave this sauce.”

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