Cody worked alongside her, friendly enough, but still with a glimmer of reproach in his attitude.

And that was how the week continued. The ease they’d known the previous week had gone, leaving them back to being two members of the day shift who got along fine as long as they stuck to work issues.

‘You need some sleep,’ Karin told her on Friday as they were winding up and handing over to the night shift. ‘Hope you’ve got a quiet weekend ahead.’

‘A birthday party with the brat pack.’ Yikes, was Cody still going to join her family for that?

Apparently so. Sunday afternoon at Jason’s again, and Cody was playing cricket. Again. Harper was having a wine with her sister and sisters-in-law. Again.

She couldn’t believe Cody had turned up after the week they’d had keeping their distance with each other. It didn’t make any sense. As soon as the game stopped, she was going to bail him in a corner and demand to know what he thought he was doing.

Jason handed her a refilled glass. ‘What’s the lover’s tiff about, then?’

‘You want to wear this?’ Harper held her glass up.

‘That’d be a waste.’

‘Then go play with the kids.’

Surprisingly, he did, and Harper started to relax a little.

Until Suzanne picked up where their brother had left off. ‘Want to talk about it?’

Silly girl. She should’ve known better with her family. ‘No.’

‘So something’s happened.’

The wine was chilled to perfection, but suddenly she wasn’t enjoying it. ‘Why does everyone think because Cody and I aren’t falling all over each other there’s something wrong? We work together, we’re not soul mates.’

Gemma looked from her across to where Cody was bowling the ball and back again. ‘Could’ve fooled me. You’ve both had the hots for each other right from that day the gunman held his weapon to your head. The way Cody carried you up the path to your apartment was so tender and loving, it made me all gooey inside.’

Harper could recall in a flash every detail, every sensation of those strong arms holding her against that wide chest. Now she knew his body better, she wanted more. Lots more. ‘“Loving” is a big word. We’d hardly talked until that day.’

‘If it fits,’ Gemma quipped. ‘You two sure look like it does.’

‘What’s really the problem?’ Suzanne asked.

Everything. Nothing. She wasn’t telling them the nitty gritty of their argument when she hadn’t figured it out herself, but she could raise what would eventually become the final devastating issue between her and Cody. ‘He wants kids.’

‘You’ve discussed this?’

‘He told me the weekend we rode out to Pencarrow Head.’ How could she have been so stupid as to think she could manage this? Could walk away from the best thing she’d ever known? Cody was…the man she’d fallen for. In a flash. Probably from the first time she’d taken notice of his hot bod in scrubs. He was everything she wanted in a man and a whole heap more.

Talk about setting herself up to get hurt. She couldn’t blame anyone else. She also couldn’t continue with the relationship—if it was still there.

‘Writing this relationship off before you have a full and frank discussion with Cody is a bit like cutting your own throat when you’re actually happy.’

Sisters could be so annoying and interfering. ‘You think after Darren I’m going to put my heart on the line when I already know Cody has desires for a family of his own?’

‘There are other options. Adoption. Surrogate mothers. It goes on all the time.’

‘Why would Cody do that when he doesn’t have to?’

‘Because he loves you.’

Harper leapt to her feet, the wine flying through the air. ‘Don’t say that!’ she yelled at Suzanne. I can’t cope with that. ‘What would you know? Next you’ll be saying I love him.’

‘Don’t you?’

Yeah, she did. She’d finally admitted it to herself. But for her family to see it, that made it harder to pretend otherwise. ‘Shut up.’

‘There a problem here?’ Cody had strolled across the lawn to stand a couple of metres away. He might have thought his expression was neutral but Harper would have sworn she could detect hurt lurking in his eyes and in the slight downturn of his mouth.

He’d overheard Suzanne. Or her. More likely her. She’d been the one yelling. ‘Yes. Annoying sisters who don’t know when to mind their own business.’

‘Time for a bike ride, out where we went the other day.’ Cody held out his hand. ‘You need a jacket.’

‘Excuse me?’ She stared at him. Dropped her gaze to that extended hand. Extended in friendship? What else? But go with him on a ride so that he could quiz her about what he thought he’d overheard?

‘Harper?’ Cody asked. ‘Jacket.’

So he wasn’t taking no for an answer. Not that she’d given any response. She felt incapable of one. Had no damned idea what she should be doing. Going back to where they’d had their first kiss hummed with danger.

Behind her there was utter silence.

The easy option would be to go with him. At least as far as the gate. She had to get away from the girls. Needed time to think without their crazy input.

Harper grimaced as Cody revved the bike and headed for the main road. How much of that argument with her sisters had he heard? She cringed when she thought he might’ve overheard the ‘love’ word.

For the first time holding on to him was a nightmare. Putting her arms around him made her want to cry for what they might’ve had. For that love she held for him but couldn’t share. On an indrawn breath, she laid her face against his back. She felt his strength wherever she touched him; the strength that had drawn her to him in the first place.

It was as though she had to feel him, to smell him, be with him for one last day to store memories to take out in the middle of the night over the coming weeks and months.

The ride was torture. Time was running out. After today, they’d definitely be over. She would call it off. Falling in love with Cody had wrecked the hopeful fallacy that she could have fun with him without getting hurt.

*

At Pencarrow Cody helped Harper off the bike and walked beside her along the beach. He said nothing, but his head was spinning, his gut churning. She hadn’t denied she loved him when Suzanne had pressed her. Gees. He jammed his fingers through his hair. Jeez. What was he supposed to do with that little gem of information?

Even as he wanted to lift her into his arms and spin them round in circles while grinning and kissing her, he fought not to run for his bike and take off as fast as it could go in an attempt to outrun the fear driving up through him. He couldn’t do this, whatever ‘this’ was. He wanted to love Harper back, to have the whole family, home and Sundays playing cricket thing. He really, really did. But what if he lost Harper like he’d lost Sadie? What if someone like that lowlife with his gun happened again? What if…? A hundred questions exploded through his brain, none of them stopping for an answer.

They reached the end of the beach, both pausing to stare around as though they had no idea why they were there. Well, hello, I don’t. I dragged Harper here and now I don’t know what to do, what to say.

He certainly wasn’t about to tell her he was frightened of what might be blooming between them. If it still was after the last hour.

Finally he asked, ‘Why did your marriage break up?’ Why that question? He’d no idea, but it seemed a good place to start.

‘Darren left me because I couldn’t have babies.’ Her voice was quiet but determined. As though she wanted this over.

‘You hadn’t told him before you married?’

Now her voice rose and anger spat at him. ‘Thanks a bunch. You honestly think that I’d hide something so important from the man I loved?’ She dropped to sit on the damp sand. ‘You believe I kept quiet in the hope he’d accept it once we were married?’

‘That’s not what I said

. Not quite,’ he admitted with a hint of guilt. ‘I know you better than that.’

‘I thought you did.’ She shook her head. ‘But really, I know very little about you, and the same could be said the other way round.’

He stared down at her, his heart beating hard and loud. ‘So Darren just changed his mind?’

‘Yes. After we’d been married for two years. After all his promises about finding other means to have our own family.’

Cody squatted down beside her. He wanted to take her hands in his, but even as he began to reach for her his old fear prevailed. Why touch her when he didn’t want to continue a relationship with her? As in, a marriage and happy-ever-after relationship? Who said you don’t want it? He did want it, badly, but he couldn’t do it. Today, after hearing what she’d said to Suzanne, he knew he couldn’t. Knew that he’d always live with the fear of something bad happening to her, of him losing her one way or another.

Tags: Sue MacKay Billionaire Romance
Source: readsnovelonline.net