~

 

“Yeah, you’re probably right,” Harvey tossed the words back over his shoulder.

Somewhere in the back of his mind what she’d said annoyed the hell out of him. It normally didn’t bother Harvey what anyone thought of him, words were words, accusations were accusation — so why the hell was it different with her?

“I came here to…”

“I know why you came here, sweetheart,” Harvey growled. “But I’m not interested.”

Jordan felt as if she didn’t know which way was up. The audacity of the man was breathtaking.

Sure, he was good-looking — with a day’s worth of stubble wrapped around his square jaw, and those soulful chocolate Brown eyes that he couldn’t even be bothered to turn in her direction since she’d arrived.

Six foot odd of muscled beefcake that screamed hunter gatherer, provider, a manly-man protector at every feminine cell within her body, but that wasn’t the damn point.

“You are so far up your own backside that it’s scary,” Jordan tossed back on a chuckle of disbelief.

“Sure I am,” Harvey growled.

“Oh, you are,” Jordan snapped back.

She tossed her hands onto her hips, and she didn’t give a damn that he wasn’t even looking at her because it felt good to do it. The damn audacity of the man was astounding, treating her like she was some schoolgirl with a crush.

For the second time that day and the first time in a long time, the spark of fire within her belly had ignited into a flame. The rush to anger wasn’t immediately followed by the slap in the face of caution, and she didn’t feel the need to hold back from telling him how she really felt.

“Don’t you have a kid to take care of?” Harvey growled.

While he didn’t like the tone of her voice, he knew he needed to hear some more of it. Hell, she could be as mad as she liked and say whatever she wanted because the sound of a voice was making him warm inside.

That urge to pull her closer was scratching within him like his bear did. He didn’t know why, he didn’t care why, but he came to the realisation that it was probably a bad thing.

 He could get lost in listening to the sound of her voice, and if he was to keep his sanity then he needed it to go away.

He needed her to go away.

The thing was; that right then he kind of wished that she was a shifter groupie. Then they’d both know where they stood. But she wasn’t, he could tell. If anything the thought of it had probably repulsed her.

“The tone of your voice makes that sound like an accusation,” Jordan bit back. What she didn’t say was that the accusation had felt like a slap in the face to her.

Jordan didn’t understand why he made her feel that way. Why should she care what he thought about her parenting skills or the lack of them?

Why the hell did it matter to her what some jerk thought about her?

“Sweetheart, that would be your guilt talking and not my tone of voice,” Harvey offered back.

He hadn’t meant it that way, but he guessed that she’d heard what she wanted to hear, and that wasn’t his fault. If she was that touchy on the subject then maybe she knew her own failings.

“Firstly, don’t call me sweetheart. I’m not your sweetheart, now, nor will I ever be your sweetheart. So get over yourself,” Jordan was about to let him have it, both barrels, and why not? “Secondly, how I look after my daughter is none of your damn business, and I have a mind to knock your damn teeth down the back of your throat just for saying what you said.”

“I’ll get you a ladder,” Harvey growled.

There was a part of him that wanted to chuckle at the thought of little Miss Five-foot nothing bunching up her little fist and taking a swing at him, and then there was a part him that felt guilty, a sense of shame in his words, and he had the damn urge to drop to his knees and beg for her forgiveness.

He just didn’t get what the hell was happening to him.

“You’ll what?” Jordan bit down on her words and another blast of anger that had detonated inside of her.

“I don’t think you’re going to reach me from down there, sweetheart,” he tossed back.

Harvey still had the urge to turn towards her. He wanted to see that spark of fire in her eyes, the same spark had been the when she’d thought she was protecting Macy from him and Owen, and yet, that was the last thing that he needed. Because he knew that she looked so damn sexy when she did.

“You really are a piece of…”

“Hold that thought, sweetheart,” Harvey chuckled. But his bear wasn’t chuckling; his bear was growling, and it was as antsy as hell.

“Wow, you really do need to get over yourself.”

“You really need to go away and let me get back to work.”

Harvey didn’t give a damn about work. He did give a damn about her walking away again.

The urge to sniff the air and find her scent had turned into a need. That need was strong, too strong, and the longer that she stood there, the more that need grew within him.

His bear grumbled and growled. The beast wanted out, and he couldn’t let that happen.

Harvey needed her to go and to go now.

“Screw you,” Jordan hissed back.

She turned away from him and stalked back into the woods. She was done trying to play nice. For all she cared the man could go to hell.

Harvey closed his eyes as his fingers curled into fists on the workbench in front of him and he tried with all of his might, with every last bit of his willpower not to care that she was walking away again.

Not to sniff the damn air and take her scent.

Not to chase the hell after her and beg for her forgiveness for being such a jerk.

It didn’t work.

Harvey wasn’t strong enough to resist.

He craned his head back on his neck and sniffed the air. His heart thumped his rib cage before lodging in his throat.

Every muscle in his body locked up as his mind spun.

Harvey’s bear didn’t just raise its head, it rushed at him head on, and tried its damnedest to burst free of his skin.

Harvey knew one thing and one thing only — things had just got a whole lot worse.

 

~

~

~

 

Jordan stomped through the woods like every twig, every blade of grass that had fought for existence in the overgrown shaded ground, offended her.

She was riled, worse than riled, she was angry with herself for even bothering to try to make it right between them, and she was furious with him for being such an egotistical asshole and taking the olive branch from her only to slap it right back in her face.

Jordan didn’t rush to violence, but she had the urge to slap his face at the same time that she wanted to curl into a ball in the middle of the bed and stay like that for a good long while.

People were supposed to have a fight or flight reaction, so why the hell did she have both at the same time?

“Wait!” The man’s voice was so deep, so full of his bear’s growl, so strangely familiar to her senses that she knew it couldn’t be anybody else but Harvey.

“Go to hell!” She tossed back over her shoulder.

She was still stomping across the uneven ground, still walking away from him as fast as her legs could carry her, and she was damned determined that the last thing that she was ever going to do was to come face-to-face with that man again.

She wanted to take that olive branch and shove it right where the sun didn’t shine.