With the pool filling, she flopped down onto the deck chair beside Arabella. “So, how’s the job hunt?”
“I start at the hotel tomorrow.”
Harper’s eyebrows rose. “I knew you were putting applications in everywhere, but Brady didn’t tell me you were applying there, too.”
“He didn’t know. They put me in the trainee program.”
“Well, that’s great!” Harper beamed.
“What’s great?” Brady stepped out onto the patio. He was loosening the tie that Arabella still found hard to believe he wore to work every day.
She’d never thought her brother was particularly a suit-and-tie sort of guy. But as the hotel concierge, he was living up to the task as well as the look.
Harper tilted her face for his kiss. “Arabella’s gotten into the trainee program at Hotel Fortune. She starts tomorrow!”
Brady gave her a sideways look. “Wondered how long it’d take you to get around applying there.”
She lifted her chin. “Why’s that?”
“’Cause that’s where your crush works.”
She stared him down, refusing to react. When it came to her brothers, she had that down to a fine art.
When it came to Jay Cross?
Pure and utter failure.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she said with just the right amount of boredom. She got up and turned off the hose because the pool was almost overflowing. Then she lifted the lid on the grill to check the coals and the twins and the dog raced out to join them.
Clad in only their swim trunks, the boys sent water splashing over Arabella when they jumped pell-mell into the pool.
“Guys!” Harper chided as she reached down to calm the dog who’d scrambled under her chair. “Don’t splash Auntie Bella.”
Arabella just laughed, though, because the cold water dripping down her front did feel refreshing.
“I need to grab towels,” Harper said, heading to the door. “Brady, can you help?”
As a ploy to get her fiancé alone for a moment it was pretty transparent and Arabella didn’t bother hiding her amusement.
“Bring the burgers, too,” Arabella called after them because the charcoal in the bottom of the kettle had turned a perfect ashy shade around the edges. She put the lid back in place to keep in the heat and with one leap, jumped squarely into the center of the pool, splashing the boys much more thoroughly than they’d splashed her.
They rolled with giggles and before long, the pool was nearly empty thanks to the waves of water they splashed back and forth at Arabella. She was soaked to the skin when she dragged the hose back over to fill up the small play pool again. “I ought to pour bubble bath in there with you. Would save time later tonight!”
“That it would,” Harper agreed, finally returning with a stack of folded bath towels in her arms. Brady followed. He carried the tray of burger patties and concentrated on the task of removing the plastic wrap covering the tray with unusual ferocity.
Harper handed Arabella one of the towels and set the rest a safe distance away. Arabella easily recognized the linens from her mom’s supply. They were the “good” towels patterned with a hideous pink crest on one side from her mom’s royal-watching phase several years ago.
Evidently, their mom had sent Brady off to Texas with more provisions than she’d provided Arabella. She seriously doubted Brady would have chosen to steal the towels.
“Earth to Arabella.”
She looked up. “What?”
Harper was grinning. “Delivery for you inside.”
Arabella frowned. She wasn’t expecting anything. But she quickly mopped her wet legs and feet before going through the kitchen to the front room of the house.
Jay was sitting on the couch.
No wonder Harper had been grinning.
Arabella bunched the towel against her midriff but it didn’t do diddly to squash the swirling squiggle inside her. “What are you doing here?” It was much more a demand than a welcome.
“Delivery.” He reached into a paper bag at his feet and pulled out three jars of his grandmother’s jam. He set them on the coffee table.
“That wasn’t necessary.”
“Maybe not.” He pushed to his feet and her swirling squiggle squiggled faster. “But an explanation is.” He stepped around the coffee table and only through sheer willpower was she able to keep her feet rooted where they stood when he reached out to lift a hank of wet, tangled hair from her shoulder.
Then she just shivered and was glad that she had the towel to clutch in front of her.
“It’s been a complicated week.”
She would not let herself be curious about the reasons why. Particularly when she wasn’t convinced his words were anything more than an excuse. Though why he’d feel a need to make an excuse at all was beyond her comprehension.
His hand moved and she couldn’t help her faint jerk, but he’d merely released her hair and was pushing his fingertips into his pockets.
Not reaching for her at all.
She finally took a step, turning away slightly. She tucked one end of the towel beneath her rear and perched gingerly on the arm of the sofa. She pressed the other end of the towel against her wet hair.
He paced to the end of the couch, stepping around the colorful tower of building blocks that the boys had built the night before. It was a miracle that Murphy hadn’t knocked it down by now.
“My whole life is...was...complicated,” he said in the void of her continued silence.
I think you should know that...
...my life is complicated.
Well, that at least fit. She lowered her hand to her lap. “What’s so complicated about it?” Did he have a wife in the wings somewhere? A passel of children he’d run out on? “You work at a hotel in a town where nothing seems complicated.”
His frowning gaze roved over her and she shivered again. She was too light on the curve-quality to go winning any wet T-shirt contests but she was nevertheless excruciatingly aware of how thin and wet her tank top was. And just how much it showed.
It was probably her imagination that his
