A Forever Kind of Family (17 page)

“You’ll have to tell her that when you come to Jacob’s birthday party next week.” Kenna gave in and selected a cookie.

“Isn’t the party a family thing?”

“Mostly,” Kenna agreed. “But you’re connected to Oliver and Oliver’s connected to Ryan and Ryan is Daniel’s cousin, which means that you’re family, too.”

The logic was convoluted, but because she liked Kenna, she was willing to be persuaded. “In that case, we’ll be there.”

“Good,” she said.

“Kee?” Oliver said, abandoning his blocks and cars and toddling over to the table where she’d put the plate of cookies.

“Yes, you can have a cookie,” Harper told him.

He took two from the plate, one in each fist.

“One for Jacob,” she said, because she knew he’d eat both if he wasn’t encouraged to share.

He toddled back over to Jacob and held one of the cookies toward his mouth, as if to feed it to him. His little friend didn’t seem overly interested—until Coco snatched the treat out of Oliver’s hand. Then, of course, Jacob started to cry, which made Oliver cry, too, and Coco—not understanding that she’d started the whole thing—began to bark.

Kenna picked up her son to settle him down, then sat him on her lap and offered him another cookie. Jacob took two tiny bites, then wriggled to get down so that he could go back to playing with Oliver, who was driving toy cars on the carpet. Coco sat on her butt, her eyes focused on the plate, her tail wagging hopefully.

Then the back door opened, and she raced in that direction, barking a happy greeting for Ryan, who had been outside cutting the grass.

Sure enough, when he came through the living room half a minute later, the puppy was dancing around his feet. “It’s got to be ninety degrees out— Oh.” He paused in the doorway when he saw Kenna sitting on the sofa.

Harper glanced at him, noting the way his broad shoulders strained the seams of his T-shirt, his hard body glistened with perspiration, and his square jaw was dark with stubble. He looked hot and sexy and just a little dangerous, and every nerve ending in her body tingled.

“I didn’t realize we had company,” he finished.

“I’m not company—I’m family,” his cousin’s wife reminded him.

Oliver, distracted by the sound of their conversation, had abandoned his play and raced to the doorway, lifting his arms toward Ryan. “Up.”

Ryan took an instinctive step back. “Sorry, buddy—I need a shower first.”

Oliver’s brow furrowed. “Up,” he insisted.

Harper crossed the room to intercept the little boy. “Uncle Ryan needs a bath,” she explained, as he was more likely to understand
bath
than
shower
. “He’s all sweaty and stinky.”

But he wasn’t really. Sweaty, yes—but not in a bad way. And not stinky at all. He smelled like a man who had been working outdoors, and the scent of sun-kissed male and fresh-cut grass wasn’t unappealing. In fact, it was almost arousing.

Oliver tried to copy holding his nose. “Baff.”

Ryan chuckled and rumpled his hair. “Yes, I’m going to have a bath,” he promised.

Then his gaze shifted to Harper, skimmed over her from head to toe, making a different promise, and she felt as if it was ninety degrees
inside
the house.

“Excuse me, ladies,” he said.

Harper set Oliver back down beside Jacob to resume his play. Kenna waited until she heard Ryan climb the stairs to the second level before she turned to her and said, “So how was it?”

“How was what?”

“Sex with Ryan.”

Harper choked on her tea. “What?”

Her friend laughed. “Come on—the air was buzzing with electricity when he walked in here. And the way he looked at you...” She fanned her face with her hand.

Harper wished she had a fan herself as heat rushed into her cheeks. “Please tell me it isn’t that obvious.”

Kenna smiled. “I’m sorry, sweetie, but it’s that obvious.”

* * *

Harper was cleaning crumbs from the seat of Oliver’s high chair when Ryan came back downstairs after his shower.

“Is Oliver down for his nap already?”

She nodded. “He was falling asleep in his chair.”

He looked at the spotless table. “I guess I missed lunch?”

“There are a couple of sandwiches in the fridge.”

He moved toward her, deliberately crowding her against the counter. “Do I smell better now?”

She inhaled deeply. “Mmm...you smell good,” she confirmed. “But you really didn’t smell so bad before.”

“You said I was sweaty and stinky,” he reminded her.

“I was trying to refrain from jumping you in front of your cousin’s wife.”

“Kenna knows the Garrett men are irresistible.”

“Apparently.” She moved past him and took the plate of sandwiches from the fridge, setting it on the table for him.

But he wasn’t as interested in his lunch as he was curious about the reason for the obvious pique in her tone. He turned her to face him, looked at her questioningly.

“She guessed that we’re sleeping together,” Harper told him.

“And that bothers you?”

“A little.” She moved back to the fridge to pour him a glass of lemonade, set it beside his plate.

He might have smiled at the domesticity of her actions if it hadn’t been so apparent that she was upset. “Why does it bother you?”

“Maybe it wasn’t that she figured it out so much as that she wasn’t surprised. After all, what woman could resist Ryan Garrett for more than two days?”

“You held out for years,” he felt compelled to point out.

“But in the end, I succumbed. Just like every other woman.”

“There aren’t any other women,” he said, starting to realize what was bothering her.

“Not right now,” she acknowledged. “But in all the years that I’ve known you, it seemed as if you were with a different woman every time our paths crossed.”

“You can’t really be upset that I went out with other women during a period of time in which you made it clear you weren’t interested in going out with me.”

“I can,” she said. “I know it’s not rational, but I can.”

“Do you think you could maybe give me more of an explanation than that?”

She exhaled a frustrated breath. “You remind me of my father.”

His brows lifted. “That’s a little...disconcerting.”

She smacked his shoulder. “I don’t mean like that.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re so effortlessly charming. You don’t even have to try, and women fall at your feet.” She looked pointedly at the floor, where Coco had plopped herself down by his toes and was looking up at him with adoring eyes. “Or maybe I should have said ‘females of all species.’”

“Coco doesn’t count—she loves everybody.” He scooped up the dog, because he couldn’t resist those eyes, and tucked her into the crook of his arm. The puppy exhaled a soft blissful sigh. “And I’m not your father, Harper. I wouldn’t ever treat you—or any woman—the way your father has treated your mother.”

“I know,” she said. “Logically, I do know that. But it isn’t always easy to be logical when you’re involved with someone on a personal level.”

It was the closest she’d ever come to admitting that she had feelings for him. He knew that she did, of course. Over the past couple of months, as they’d got to know one another better, they’d naturally grown closer—and the physical intimacy they shared was only one part of that.

He tipped her chin up and touched his mouth to hers. “That’s okay—I don’t mind if you’re occasionally illogical. It proves you care about me.”

“Of course I care about you.”

He couldn’t help but smile at the begrudging tone. It wasn’t much of an admission of her feelings, but it was a start.

Chapter Twelve

K
enna and Daniel had a beautiful home on a larger-than-average-size lot, but the backyard didn’t look nearly as spacious with the number of people who were milling around it.

Harper knew the birthday boy and Kenna and Daniel, of course, and Ryan’s parents were there, too. But while several other faces looked familiar, she was at a complete loss to connect names with those faces.

“Those name tags would come in handy right about now,” Harper said to Ryan, after Ellen stole Oliver away so they were free to mingle. At least that was the explanation the older woman had given for taking the little boy, but Harper suspected Ryan’s mother was also worried about the upcoming custody hearing and wanted to spend every minute she could with him.

“You’ve met most of them before,” he reminded her.

“Maybe,” she acknowledged. “But there have to be close to fifty people here.”

“Forty-three,” Kenna said.

Harper turned to face her friend. “You said it was going to be mostly family.”

“Thirty-four of them are family—thirty-one from the Garrett side.”

“Wow—I guess our numbers really have expanded over the past few years,” Ryan said.

“And they’re still growing.”

Ryan looked at her with raised eyebrows.

Kenna shook her head. “No. Not me. Not yet.”

“Who?”

“Rachel and Andrew’s baby is due in November and I just found out that Lukas and Julie are going to be parents again early in the New Year.”

“Is there something in the water?” Harper wondered.

Her friend chuckled. “That’s what Nate asked about Pinehurst, when Matt, Jack and Luke all hooked up with their respective spouses within a calendar year.”

“Is that Matt over there—talking to Justin?” Ryan asked.

Kenna nodded. “He was coming down for a weeklong medical conference anyway, so he brought Georgia and the kids to visit with their North Carolina relatives.”

Something must have caught the corner of her eye, because she turned her head slightly and nodded. “Daniel’s signaling for me to bring out the burgers,” she said. “Please—eat, drink and be merry. There are snacks on the tables, beverages in the coolers and dinner will be ready soon.”

It was easy enough for Harper to identify Matthew, because Ryan had said he was talking to Justin. As for his wife, she didn’t have a clue. “Which one is Georgia?”

“The one beside my cousin Tristyn.”

“That would be helpful if I knew who Tristyn was.”

“She’s holding the baby in the pink overalls. But the baby—Kylie—belongs to her sister Lauryn. She’s sitting on the swing with Maura—Andrew’s daughter.”

She remembered Maura from the funeral, because the little girl had spent a lot of time with Oliver. And wrestling on the ground beside Maura were two little boys, probably around eight years old. “Twins?”

Ryan followed her gaze, nodded. “Quinn and Shane—they’re with Matt and Georgia.”

“Oliver’s enough of a handful some days—I can’t imagine what we’d do if there were two of him.”

“Actually, Matt and Georgia have four—the twins, Pippa and Aidan.”

Harper looked at Georgia with a new respect. “How does she do it?”

“You’d have to ask her.” He slid an arm across her shoulders. “Come on—I’ll introduce you.”

They spent a few minutes chatting with Georgia and her husband, when he came to join them. Harper was surprised to learn that Georgia had been married before and that only Aidan, the youngest, was Matt’s biological child. Through further conversation with other people throughout the afternoon, she learned that Matt’s brother Lukas had adopted his wife’s son from a previous relationship, and Nathan’s fiancée had a nine-year-old son from her first marriage.

No wonder Ryan hadn’t balked at the idea of raising his best friend’s orphaned little boy—he understood, probably far better than Harper did, not just the importance of family but that the definition was not limited by biology. The Garretts were made up of a lot of different pieces, but they all seemed to fit seamlessly together to make the whole. And as she mingled with Ryan, she wondered where she fit with the group—or if she could.

After everyone had eaten, Daniel carried out an enormous slab cake with
Happy 1st Birthday, Jacob
spelled out in blue letters. Kenna carried a matching oversize cupcake decorated simply with a number 1 on it and set it on the tray of Jacob’s high chair.

The birthday boy looked from the cupcake to his audience, as if he wasn’t quite sure why so many people had gathered to watch him eat his dessert. But as camera flashes went off, he smiled, clearly accustomed to the spotlight.

The baby shoved his hand into the cake, making a face as icing squished through his fingers. Then he bent over and put his mouth directly on the cake, so that icing smeared his nose and his chin. He looked up as another flash went off, then clapped his hands together, spraying icing in the process. By the time he had eaten his fill of the dessert, there was as much on his face and in his hair as had ended up in his mouth. And when he was done, his dad just scooped him out of the chair, stripped his clothes away and dunked him in a little plastic pool that had been set up for the little ones to play in.

While he was doing that, Kenna cut up the big cake for the rest of their guests. Oliver, unwilling to wait for cake, was eyeing the remnants of a fruit platter on the picnic table. His hand was curled in a fist and, judging by the color of the juice that dripped down his arm, he’d already snatched a piece of watermelon from the tray.

Before Harper could take a step in that direction, Ryan’s mother was there. Ellen guided Oliver’s hand to his mouth, encouraging him to eat the fruit. Then she unfurled his fingers and carefully wiped each one on a paper napkin.

The little boy was in good hands with Ryan’s family—competent, caring and loving hands. He was one of those pieces she’d been thinking about earlier. As soon as he’d become part of Ryan’s life, he’d been accepted as part of theirs by the rest of the Garrett clan. Harper was grateful to know that although he’d lost his parents, he’d grow up with a strong sense of family, of knowing he belonged.

Yes, she was pleased for Oliver—and just the tiniest bit envious.

* * *

“You’ve been quiet since we got back,” Ryan said to Harper, after they’d returned from the party and settled Oliver into bed.

“I was just thinking.”

“About anything in particular?”

“About how lucky you are to be part of such a close-knit family.”