CHAPTER
SEVEN
COOPER was on his plane, headed back from Arizona. Normally he would just stay out west and move on to Florida for the following week’s race, but with MJ, he wanted to go back home for three days. It was reassuring to have Harley there now, but he still found himself worrying about his sister. In fact, he was almost more worried now that he was processing the barrage of information coming from Harley. She’d found out more about the kid in three days than Cooper could in three months. Hell, three years.
Harley had been quiet both times he’d met her in person, but in e-mail, she was anything but reserved. She was methodical, organized, and very detailed in telling him what she and Mary Jane were doing each day, along with school reports, a screen shot of MJ’s Internet history, and suggestions for limiting her spending to an allowance and monitoring her social networking. It made his goddamn head spin, but he appreciated the effort she was putting into the job and frankly, he did not have the time to accomplish on his own what she was doing.
He would call it an early success except for the fact that he couldn’t stop picturing Harley in a fetish club. It just seemed so damned intriguing. The more he tried to tamp down those thoughts, the more they seemed to pop up, along with frequent erections. The only saving grace was that he was busy working, but he was worried the affliction was only going to get worse at home. There he would be moving around his bedroom, his bathroom, aware that she was under the same roof. His plan was to avoid her at home, but that didn’t stop him from visualizing her naked, which was nuts.
Harley was a nice woman, taking care of his sister, and speaking of sisters, he had slept with hers, to his great satisfaction. So why was he suddenly hot for Harley? It was crazy.
She stood up to him just as much as Charity had, if not more. Sure, it was different in that she was telling it like it was with MJ, but it was still a turn-on that she had the nerve to do it. She’d been e-mailing him nonstop for three days.
Scheduled Mary Jane’s physical and eye exam for next Monday. Will you be picking her up or should we meet you there?
I can’t go that day. Business meeting.
It’s not optional. I’m sure you can reschedule your appointment.
He had practically felt the whip coming through the computer and cracking him. Damn.
Then she hit him with the guilt.
Your sister needs to know she is a priority to someone. Anyone.
Fuck. He knew she was right. So he was going to the goddamn doctor’s appointment, which sounded like all kinds of awful. He didn’t want to talk about his sister’s physical development because they were dangerously close to the whole puberty issue. He would rather have his car dropped on him than think about her as a future woman. About changes. The thought made his stomach sour.
No one else would have been able to get him to go, but Harley had a certain gift. Her brilliance with MJ only increased his attraction to her, which was just a kick in the nuts. He didn’t like having carnal thoughts about a woman he could not touch. Yet knowing she was under his roof, and was Charity’s twin, made him realize that he had to end things with Holly because she was one woman too many to have occupying his thoughts. He already had a set of sexy twins stuck in his head. He couldn’t juggle Holly as well. It wasn’t fair to her or good for his sanity.
Dialing Holly, he shifted in his seat, glad he had a private moment on the plane to make the call. Traveling alone was one of the few times he had any privacy.
“Hello, darling,” Holly said cheerfully. “I didn’t expect to hear from you tonight.”
“Well, I wanted to talk to you about something.”
“Uh-oh.” Her tone immediately changed to wary.
Cooper tried to think of the easiest way to put it. “Holly, I just don’t think the timing is right for us to be involved.” The last thing he needed to do was add someone like Holly into his already complicated life.
Despite what Mary Jane seemed to think, he wasn’t now and had never been a player. He didn’t take any sort of pleasure in dating multiple women or stringing a woman along. He was always very honest about his intentions and, he had to admit, he chose women who didn’t expect a commitment from him, because he couldn’t realistically give it. Sure, a lot of his fellow drivers were married and made it work, but Cooper didn’t want to be in love and never able to see his wife. Nor did he expect a woman to trot around the country with him. He had always figured once he retired he would get down to the business of finding a woman to spend the rest of his life with and together having some junior drivers to raise.
It had never felt wrong to indulge in a fling or two here and there with consenting women who knew full well what the outcome was going to be.
But what Harley had said had gotten under his skin, he had to admit. He needed to focus on MJ, and for the first time in a long time he felt uneasy with his reputation. He didn’t want his sister thinking he treated relationships as casually as their mother did.
All of it hurt his head.
“I see,” Holly said. “So this is a dismissal? I didn’t expect a ring, but I thought I’d have a better run than three sleepovers.”
“It’s not you, it’s me.” My God, had he really just said that? He hadn’t said something that insulting since he was a rookie. “I mean, having the responsibility of my sister is just about all I can handle right now. She saw you leaving a few weeks back and that makes me uncomfortable. What kind of an example am I setting, you know?”
“I can respect that. I don’t like it, but I can respect it.”
“Thanks.” This was where he usually offered the women he ended things with some sort of consolation prize, like track tickets or use of his condos in Daytona or Vegas for a weekend, but it felt wrong. Like he was buying her off. Their involvement had really been short and sweet and doing anything other than saying a friendly good-bye smacked of guilt.
“This doesn’t have anything to do with your new nanny, does it? I know a lot of men like that shy act.”
“What?” He felt offended that she was even mentioning Harley. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. She’s here to take care of my sister, not me.”
“She might have an ulterior motive.”
That made Cooper laugh as he reached for his sweet tea, seat belt cutting him across the gut. “Yeah, not this girl.” Harley couldn’t get away from him fast enough. “You take care of yourself, Holly.”
“Thanks, you, too.”
He had barely hung up when his phone rang again. It was MJ.
“Hey, what’s up?” She rarely called him, so it immediately gave him cause for concern. “Everything okay?”
“Yes. Can Harley and I come to Daytona next weekend? I need to work on my tan. You can get us tickets to the race.”
“What?” She had never asked to attend one of his races. Or to travel with him. In fact, she had complained about it when he had previously dragged her on the road with him. It made him feel suspicious, though he wasn’t sure why. “Let me talk to Harley.”
“Why?”
“Because I want to talk to Harley,” he said firmly.
“Fine. God. Chill.”
Cooper sighed. His face hurt to go along with his head hurting.
“Hello?”
“Harley, why does MJ want to come to Florida? Is there something I need to know?”
“No. She’s just tired of winter, that’s all. I also think she would like to be on site to have some material for her blog. If it’s an inconvenience or an unnecessary expense, you can say no. I told her the decision was yours to make.”
Even though it seemed like he should say no, he couldn’t actually think of any reason why. Harley would be with her and they could stay at his condo with him. It might actually be nice to have the company.
But there was the problem. How distracting would it be to have Harley in his condo all weekend?
Uh, very.
But if his sister wanted to spend time with him, he just couldn’t bring himself to say no. “It’s fine. Y’all can come down.”
“I’m sure Mary Jane will be thrilled.” There was a rustling sound, and then she said, “He said yes.”
MJ gave a whoop in the background, which made him laugh. “I’ll have Cami make the arrangements.”
“What time will you be home?” Harley asked.
“In an hour or so. Why?” No one ever asked him that. It felt odd. Good. Like someone gave a shit where he was and what he was doing.
“Mary Jane is going to learn her way around the kitchen, and she has her heart set on goat cheese quesadillas. I just wanted to gauge what time we should plan on serving dinner.”
Cooper didn’t even know what to make of that. “MJ is cooking? For real?”
“Sure. It’s a great skill to have. So we’ll wait for you and then go to the grocery store together.”
Hold up. “You want me to go to the grocery store?” Why did the thought of that seem both intriguing and horrifying?
“Of course. Mary Jane says you don’t know how to cook either, so it will be a good lesson for both of you.” She seemed totally confident in his inability to say no to her or his sister.
She was right. “I don’t have to wear an apron, do I?”
Harley laughed. “No. Only if you want to.”
“I don’t.” Though he wouldn’t mind seeing Harley in one. Surprisingly, he didn’t even mean naked. He just found the idea of her, in his kitchen, attractive.
God, he was fucked up in the head.
He said good-bye and hung up the phone, taking a long sip of his sweet tea, shaking his head at himself. Was he having some kind of midlife crisis?
Whatever it was, it sucked.
* * *
WHEN Cooper got home, he dropped his bag in his room, then went down to his sister’s room and knocked. He could hear music and laughter coming from inside, but Mary Jane didn’t answer. Knocking again, louder, he shuffled impatiently. Damn it. He was hungry and the idea of having to spend nine million hours to shop and cook made him surly. He wanted to order a meat-lover’s pizza instead.
But he had agreed to the plan, so his sister needed to get a move on. Cautiously, in case MJ was indecent, he slowly opened the door, scanning the room.
What he saw about made his eyes bug out of his head. Harley and Mary Jane were dancing. Or rather, Mary Jane was jumping around and fist-pumping. Harley was doing some kind of hip maneuver with her legs bent, a drop-it-down-low move that made Cooper forget how to speak. He’d seen a stripper or two in his day, and many a woman who liked to think she had the moves, but Harley really did. Her hips moved independently of the rest of her and it did really quality things to her ass, her jeans cupping her tightly.
There was some serious rhythm happening and it stunned him stupid.
But Mary Jane saw him, the smile falling off her face as she twirled, doing some weird shoulder move.
“Ah!” she screamed. “What are you doing, Cooper? Get out!” She came charging at him, and she shoved at his chest. “Get out!”
Harley had also spun around and was giving him a look of pure mortification. He smiled at her and tried to stop his sister from shoving him backward, but Mary Jane shrieked again. “Fine. Okay. Christ.” He passed the threshold to her room and let her partially shut the door, but he stuck his boot in it so she couldn’t close it all the way. “I knocked.”
“So wait for an answer.”
“You didn’t answer.”
“Because I didn’t hear you. Duh.”
“I texted you, too. Duh.” Cooper rolled his eyes right back at her. “Can I talk to Harley, by the way?” Not because he wanted to see her or anything. But because he wanted to see her. Damn. “I’m starving, let’s go.”
Mary Jane glanced behind her. “She went to the bathroom, I think. She’s not here.”
And he was born in the fucking cabbage patch. “I just saw her!”
MJ just stared at him.
“Fine. Can you tell her I’m home and ready to go? By the way, is everything going okay? You like her?”
“Yeah, it’s fine.” Her face was expressionless.
Cooper sighed. “Swell.” He tried to push the door open.
“Hey! What are you doing?”
“I would like a hello hug.”
Her eyes widened. “That’s weird.”
It was weird for them, but Cooper felt the need for direct contact with MJ. “Yeah, well, get over it. Give me a hug. I hate that I have to leave all the time. I’m glad to be home.” It had never bothered him much to travel every week because he loved his job, but now he had a reason to be sorry he was gone so much.
“Fine.” MJ opened the door and stepped out into the hallway, pulling the door shut behind her. She was in black yoga pants and a tight hot-pink T-shirt.
“Do you have a meth lab in there or what?” he teased, still wondering about the freakish need for privacy.
“Please.” She rolled her eyes. “Meth is for common criminals.”
Not reassuring.
“Let’s get this over with.” MJ reached up and put her arms around his middle and gave him a quick hug. “Happy?”
“Ecstatic.” He rolled his eyes right back at her. “I’ll wait for you both downstairs. In five minutes we’d better be pulling out of the driveway or I’m ordering a pizza.”
“No!” MJ rushed back into her room and slammed the door shut in his face.
Nice.
* * *
HARLEY was mortified Cooper had seen her dancing. It wasn’t just sway-to-the-music dancing, it had been down-to-the-ground, booty-grind, open-your-hips kind of dancing. She wasn’t even sure what had possessed her to give in to the egging on of a thirteen-year-old, but when Mary Jane had expressed disbelief that she’d been on the dance team in high school, Harley had felt the need to prove she had rhythm.
So now her boss had seen her drop it low, and she was worried that he might fire her for inappropriate dance moves. Or worse, realize that she was capable of total hotness and that he had been duped in Asheville. But neither one of those things seemed to occur to him. He didn’t look anything other than tired and a little grouchy when she and Mary Jane found him in the kitchen, coat on, shoes on, keys in hand. He certainly didn’t look like he had suddenly been made aware of her extreme sexiness and wanted to take her on the kitchen counter.
But he was a gentleman, so despite his clear surliness he did say, “Hi, Harley. How was your weekend? You settling in okay?”
“Yes, thanks. How about you? It looked like you had a great finish.” Yes, she had watched Cooper race. Yes, she had secretly cheered him on.
He shrugged. “I’ve had worse. But thanks.” He gestured toward the door that led to the garage. “After you, ladies. And I’m warning y’all, I’m hungry so I may not have the deepest well of patience. I apologize in advance.”
“We’ll hurry.” Harley followed him into the garage and opened the back door to his SUV.
“What the hell are you doing?” he asked. “Sit in the front.”
“I was going to let Mary Jane sit in front.” Harley was the help, after all. But dutifully, she got in the front passenger seat and Mary Jane climbed in the back.
Cooper snorted. “She’s a kid. You’re an adult. She can sit in back. Besides, she didn’t call shotgun.”
“Shotgun?” Mary Jane asked, pausing in applying lip gloss to look at them both curiously.
“Are you for real?” Cooper asked. “You don’t know what shotgun is?”
Mary Jane shook her head.
Cooper gave Harley a look. “Do you know what shotgun is?”
“Of course. I have a twin sister. It was an all-out front seat war my entire childhood.” Maybe mentioning Charity was a mistake, but it wasn’t like she could spend the next few months pretending she wasn’t a twin. It was a huge part of her identity and influence in her upbringing.
Cooper glanced at Mary Jane in the rearview mirror as he hit the button for the garage door and started the car. “We need to fill in some gaps in your childhood education. Shotgun is—”
“Got it,” Mary Jane said, looking down at her phone. “I am reading the definition on the urban slang dictionary. I understand the definition, though I don’t get the appeal.”
Cooper made a face. “Of course you’re looking it up online. So where are we going?”
Harley watched Cooper’s mansion appear in front of them as he backed down the drive to the street. It still amazed her in its grandeur. It was like a Tuscan villa plopped down in the suburbs of Charlotte and it never seemed quite like it matched Cooper to her. But she wasn’t sure why she felt that way because in the few times she’d been around him, he’d always been surrounded by luxury. It reminded her that she didn’t know Cooper Brickman. She just thought she did because she’d been watching him race for years. One night in bed told her truths about a man’s character, but not how he lived his life.
“Find the nearest grocery store,” Mary Jane commanded her phone.
“I know where the damn grocery store is,” Cooper complained. “I just thought maybe you girls had a specific plan.”
“I have a list,” Mary Jane said. “That’s a plan. So go to the nearest grocery store then.”
Harley opened up her purse on hearing how grumpy Cooper sounded. She still had snacks in there from her days caring for toddlers. Fruit chews and cereal puffs went a long way. She unearthed a granola bar. “Want this?” she asked him, holding it up for him to see as he drove.
He glanced over and looked like he was about to say no, his head already shaking. But then he rethought it, and said, “Actually yes.”
She unwrapped it, pulling the sides down but leaving the bottom of the plastic for him to hold on to. She passed it over to him.
Cooper made a funny face. “Thanks, Mom.”
There it was. The maternal thing. She oozed it. Geez. It was a sickness.
“Sorry. Habit.”
But he gave her an indecipherable look. “No, I like it. It’s nice.”
Harley was nice. It was a compliment, but it was so short of what she wanted to hear, it was a much-needed bucket of cold water.
Shopping with Cooper and Mary Jane was like herding kittens. They went off in all directions and touched everything. Both seemed excited by the endless possibilities the produce department offered, and with a granola bar in him, Cooper had lost the furrow between his eyebrows. He was also putting an insanely large amount of food into their cart.
“Ooh, I love mangoes. And strawberries. And asparagus.”
Mary Jane was poking the packages of tofu in the cooler. “What is this?”
“Tofu. It’s bean curd.”
“Gross.”
Cooper was squeezing the avocados. “God, these feel weird.”
Amused, Harley told him, “We look with our eyes, not our hands.”
He laughed. “Okay, I’ll stop fondling the produce.”
He could transfer that need to touch to her if he liked. She would be fine with that.
“Oh, Harley, here are the peppers,” Mary Jane called. “Your vegetable soul mate.”
Cooper pushed the cart toward his sister, raising his eyes at Harley. “Your vegetable soul mate?”
“I love peppers.”
“She’s going to marry them,” his sister told him.
“This is North Carolina, not France,” he said. “I doubt you’ll be able to get a marriage license for that here.”
Oh, Lord. “It’s just an expression,” Harley assured him. “I wasn’t planning to exchange actual vows with a pepper. I’m not that desperate yet.”
She meant it as a joke, but Cooper gave her a searching look. “You shouldn’t be desperate at all. You’re a beautiful woman. But more importantly, you’re kind.”
Way to embarrass her. And while she did one hundred percent know he meant it as a compliment, it just always seemed like a consolation prize. She wasn’t interesting or sexy or adventurous. She was kind. Blech. Next he’d tell her she had a good personality.
“Oooh,” was Mary Jane’s opinion. “Cooper is jelly of the peppers.”
Fortunately, that distracted him from the fact that her cheeks were hot and she wasn’t sure what to say.
“What the hell does that mean?” Cooper asked.
“‘Jelly’ is slang for jealous,” Harley told him.
“That’s just stupid,” Cooper said to his sister.
“Don’t call me stupid.”
“I didn’t call you stupid, I said that word is stupid.”
Mary Jane stuck her tongue out at him.
“Did you see that?” Cooper asked Harley.
Seriously? Yet Harley had to admit she was enjoying herself. She liked Mary Jane a lot, and Cooper was, well, adorable and sexy and confident. “Do I have to put you both in a time-out?” she asked, giving him a smile. “If you settle down, we’ll be out of here sooner.”
Mary Jane had wandered off to grab a container of cashew nuts.
Cooper gave Harley a sly smile. “I guess I just need you to keep me in line, don’t I?”
They weren’t standing all that close to each other, but something about his tone gave Harley pause. It felt like he was flirting with her. But she was clearly just imagining it because that was what she wanted to hear. She responded the way she would to a friend or his sister, making a motion like a whip. “I can’t help it. I have the mom voice.”
But Cooper’s eyes had darkened. “That’s not what I meant.”
Harley licked her lips. “No?” she asked, nervously.
His gaze was trained on her mouth.
“Are we done?” Mary Jane asked, stepping between them and dumping an armful of random items into the cart.
“Yes,” Harley said, looking down, her heart racing. “We’re done here.”