STORM: A Standalone Romance (97 page)

Penelope

I used to be an artist. I studied art in college and worked at a Fifth Avenue advertising firm for a while before my parents…before everything changed. I hadn’t picked up a paintbrush or a piece of charcoal since then. Every once in a while I would do a quick sketch, but it was usually as part of designing a cake for a customer at the bakery. But that wasn’t really what I’d been trained to do.

Being here, being in Ashland, Oregon, made me wish I had my brushes at my fingertips.

Nothing had inspired me as much as seeing the landscape here. The trees were so tall, so green, and so beautiful. The mountains were…there were no words for them. It was a beautiful place, so different from the flat landscape of home. I mean, Texas has its own beauty. But there are only so many rocks and sagebrush and dusty canyons a girl can paint. Here…this place was a different story. There was so much I could put on a canvas just sitting in this bedroom Harrison had so politely escorted me to last night, just sitting in this chair, staring out the window at the lush garden behind the house.

I wish I had a sketchbook and couple of pieces of charcoal.

I sighed, reluctantly forcing myself to my feet. JT was up. I’d heard him call up the stairs when he woke, looking for anyone willing to help him fix something for breakfast. I could just imagine the mess he and Harrison were getting into at that moment. I guess it was time to go down and rescue them.

But when I came down the stairs and stepped into the kitchen, they were humming right along, the wonderful scents of eggs and bacon and pancakes filling the house.

“Morning,” Harrison said, winking playfully at me.

“Harrison taught me how to make eggs,” JT said from the high stool where he was sitting.

“Great. Now you have no excuse for not eating something halfway healthy when you come in from school.”

JT laughed, but the pleasure had gone out of the morning for me. I kept forgetting that JT wasn’t coming home with me. His afternoon snacking habits were no longer my problem.

“Have a seat,” Harrison said, “and I’ll bring you a plate.”

I did, tucking my leg under me as I settled at the kitchen nook, my eyes moving to the scenery outside. These windows overlooked the front of the house, the driveway and front hedges. Not as enticing as the back yard, but beautiful none the less.

“I’m going to have to wander over to the office for a couple of hours,” Harrison said as he set a plate overflowing with pancakes and bacon in front of me. “But I’ll be back before seven and we’ll head over to my mother’s for dinner.”

I nodded, only hearing half of what he’d said.

“We get to meet my grandmother tonight, Penny. That should be fun.”

I looked over at JT and forced a smile. He seemed to really be enjoying himself these last few days. And he deserved it after everything that’d been going on. So I forced a smile and tried to look pleasant as I dug into a plate of food I really didn’t have the appetite for.

After Harrison left, JT settled himself in the game room—an entire room there on the first floor that was filled with game consoles, game accessories, flat screen televisions, and everything else a teenager would need to enjoy a few games—and I could hear the familiar sounds of machine guns firing and animated characters dying.

I wandered the house almost like JT had done the night before, running my fingers over pictures of Harrison with his family members, paintings on the wall by modern artists I recognized, over exotic art work scattered here and there among the more mundane items like magazines and discarded newspapers. I was once told you could tell a lot about a person by the things in his house. I found myself wondering if this house spoke more to Harrison, or his designer, or, perhaps, the women in his life.

The more I looked around his house, the more I realized I really knew nothing about Harrison. I mean, the real Harrison. I knew he knew enough about literature to teach high school English, which also meant he had at least a bachelor’s degree in something along those lines. I knew he was intelligent, that he was smart enough to create a multi-billion dollar company out of his father’s small, failing furniture business – the latter of which I learned when I did some research on the Internet. And I knew that family was deeply important to him, important enough that he came all the way to Texas to find JT.

But that was pretty much the sum of all I knew about him. I didn’t know who he spent his time with here in Oregon. I didn’t know what he did in his spare time, except for the obvious fact that he had an entire room filled with video games. I didn’t know what he liked to read, what he liked to talk about, who he gathered around him when he needed support.

It bothered me that I didn’t know these things. I tried to remind myself that it really wasn’t my business. I was here as a courtesy. Once JT was healed and comfortable hanging out with Harrison, my presence would no longer be necessary. Harrison made that kind of clear last night when he escorted me to a guest bedroom instead of his own. Whatever it was going on between us, it wasn’t permanent and it clearly didn’t mean enough to him to continue it here.

Not that I wanted it to continue. Or maybe I did.

All I knew was that I wanted to know more about him. And I wanted him to welcome me into his bed here in his home. I hated that I wanted this, that I wanted him, but I did.

I dressed carefully after a long shower that did nothing to soothe away the tension that had taken up residence in my shoulders. I wanted to make a good impression on Harrison’s family. So I began at the basics, using an expensive, perfumed lotion Susan gave me for Christmas some time back. Then I dug out the makeup kit that I put aside when I came home from New York and rarely touched again. Who needs to wear makeup while slaving over cakes and donuts and cupcakes? Then I piled my hair on top of my head in a simple French knot with small curls framing my face. Another trick I learned in New York for all the dinner parties and charity balls my job had required me to attend.

I convinced myself that I no longer missed New York. But standing in the bathroom staring at this other person in the mirror reminded me of how much I’d hated the prep but loved the results.

In the bedroom, I slid the dress I’d chosen from its hanger, my fingers sliding through the silky material with anticipation. I remembered buying this dress, how it’d hurt to part with the money, but how perfect it felt the first time I put it on. That was four years ago. The dress was sadly out of fashion now. But it still looked perfect hanging from my curves. It was red with a sweetheart bodice, a high waist, and a flirty skirt that ended at my knees in the front and a few inches above my ankles in the back. I slid on a pair of black pumps and smiled at the finished product.

I still cleaned up pretty well.

I grabbed the black shawl I’d also thought to bring and stepped out into the hallway. I hadn’t realized that Harrison was home. When I came upstairs, he was still at the office. But there he was, stepping out of the double doors at the end of the hallway dressed in a suit that hung just perfectly from those broad shoulders and slender hips. My knees went weak for just an instant as I watched him, unaware of me for the moment, moving with more grace than a man should be allowed.

And then he looked up and our eyes met. Those words he spoke to me that day in the hotel brushed through my mind…

You’re the only woman I want.

…and my belly began to tighten and quiver all at the same time.

“Hey,” he said, coming toward me as his eyes moved slowly over the length of me. “You look…amazing.”

“Thanks. You don’t look too bad yourself.”

I meant it as a little tease, but it came out so breathlessly that I think he could tell exactly where my thoughts were going because he slid his hand over my upper arm and drew me close to him, his other hand snaking around my waist. His lips were on mine in an instant. I moved close to him, sliding my fingers into the hair that barely brushed the collar of his shirt. His mouth was cold and minty, the product of a recent tooth brushing. But it warmed up quickly, the mint an added tingle on the tip of my tongue as I explored just as intently as he did.

But then he was pulling away, clearing his throat as he did.

“We should probably go see if JT needs any help.”

“Oh. Of course,” I mumbled, caught a little off guard by his abrupt movement.

He pressed his hand to the small of my back and pushed me gently toward the stairs. I moved away from his touch as soon as we headed down, my head spinning with thoughts I didn’t want to entertain floating through my mind. Like, why did he kiss me like that if he didn’t want to be with me? And, why did he keep pulling me close only to push me away?

JT was already in the living room when we entered, dressed in a suit I didn’t recognize. By some miracle, he’d managed to get the pants on without have to cut a slit in them, which was pretty impressive since he’d need a whole new wardrobe of jeans when the cast came off. His tie was a little askew, but somehow it worked on JT.

“It’s about time,” he announced as we walked into the sitting room. “I’ve been ready for like hours.”

“I doubt it’s been hours since you were still playing video games when I went up,” I said, brushing a piece of hair off his forehead. “You look handsome, though.”

“Thanks,” he said, pushing the hair back down on his forehead.

Harrison chuckled.

We left a moment later, Harrison helping JT into the car and stowing his chair in the trunk. It was a fairly short drive. His mother’s house was just a few miles from his, situation lower on the same hill.

“I grew up here,” he said over his shoulder to JT. “My father bought this house when my brother was ten and I was five, so it’s really the only home I remember.”

“Cool,” JT said, his go to word for just about every situation.

“It was originally just a three bedroom colonial, but he added on to it over the years. And my mother had it renovated a few years ago.”

“Cool,” JT repeated.

“You’ve lived here all your life?” I asked.

“Except for the few years I spent at Stanford, yeah.”

“You never struck me as the small-town kind of guy.”

“Ashland might seem like a small town, but there’s a lot of culture here.”

“I’m sure there is. But you seem more like a worldly kind of guy, the guy who likes to travel and see as much of the world as possible.”

“That I’ve also done. The company requires me to travel quite often.”

“And you’ve never wanted to live anywhere else?”

He’d pulled to a stop in front of his mother’s house. He stared forward for a moment, his hands wringing the steering wheel like he wanted to rip it off the car, or something. Then he looked at me and began to speak, but JT interrupted.

“Can we go inside? I’m starving.”

Harrison studied me for a moment longer, then nodded.

“Yeah, I’m hungry too.”

I waited as Harrison put JT back in his chair, then the three of us walked to the front door together. It was opened by a tall, distinguished man Harrison called Edward. It took me a minute, but I figured out he was the butler when he took our jackets and directed us quite stiffly to the sitting room.

“Harrison!”

Libby rushed up to her brother, high color on her cheeks. But before she could speak, another man, this one tall and dark with green eyes that were so much like Harrison’s that he could only be his brother. He was just an inch or so shorter, but his shoulders were just as wide. His jaw was thinner, accenting his high cheekbones. And he had a little bit of a sparkle in his eye when he came over to introduce himself.

“You,” he said, taking my hand before I could react, “are one of the most beautiful women I have ever seen.”

I blushed even as I watched him bend low over my hand and brush dry lips against my knuckles.

Wow, what a charmer!

“Randy,” Harrison said, his voice so cold that I could almost imagine seeing frost slip from between his lips.

The charmer turned to Harrison, a bit of bashfulness overcoming his handsome features.

“Hello, Harrison,” he said.

“What are you doing here?”

“Come to visit mother. Imagine my surprise when she told me you had a son.”

Harrison’s eyes narrowed, and there was so much tension in his expression that his face might shatter if he moved. It made me wonder what had happened between these two that had caused such bad blood.

“And this must be the son in question,” Randy said, turning to JT. “Hey, I’m your uncle.”

“Hi!”

JT took his hand, the smile on his face so wide I knew exactly what he was thinking. Our parents were only children, so we didn’t have aunts and uncles. JT was suddenly being given family like he’d never had before, and he was loving every moment of it.

Randy leaned close to JT and said, “So, when you get out of that chair, we’ll have to go do some uncle and nephew things, like hitting a few bars, picking up a few chicks.”

“Awesome,” JT said. “Can’t wait.”

Randy laughed as he straightened, but the laughter died as he glanced at Harrison.