She plunked a spoon down in front of him.
“Are you going to let me help make breakfast?” he asked calmly.
“No help is required. You don’t think you’re getting anything more than Corn Flakes, do you?” She took a breath. “Which reminds me. I hate Corn Flakes. You can cart all of the purchases you made up to your place, and those that I’ve used up I’ll pay you for.”
“What’s wrong, Bree?”
His baritone had that…implacable tone, misleadingly gentle and coaxing. She slipped into the chair opposite him. “Nothing’s wrong.”
“The lady sounds as prickly as a hedgehog, but her fingers are trembling and her eyes have the look of a wounded fawn again.” Quietly he added, “Did I hurt you?”
She reached for the pitcher of milk. A drop or two spilled as she tried to pour it into her bowl of Corn Flakes; Hart had a napkin, waiting for her. She set down the pitcher. “Look. I just feel…” She hesitated. For an instant, she felt lost, staring into a pair of dark blue eyes that rested on hers as though they loved the fragile quality in her face. “I don’t want you to think I’m making too much of this,” she said uncomfortably. “I mean, people do this kind of thing all the time without-”
“Without what?”
“Without…” She motioned helplessly with her hands, having completely forgotten what she meant to say. “Anyway, last night is hardly likely to repeat itself. I really don’t know what got into me-”
“I do.”
She flushed to the roots of her hair. “Hart-”
“It was the most special night I can ever remember. You were beautiful, Bree. A beautiful, loving, giving, passionate woman. You’ve got spirit and humor, and I haven’t the least idea what you’ve been running from-but you don’t have to run from anything. You’ve got the strength to carry you-you just need someone to tease it out of you once in a while. And last night was not a one-night stand, so quit trying to make it sound like one.”
She was staring at him, a jumble of words jammed in the back of her throat all trying to get out at once, when there was a knock on the door.
It opened. A familiar face peered in first, a woman with faintly graying auburn hair tied back in a loose bun, a soft tentative smile and worried lines on her forehead. Behind her was another familiar face. The man was just short of six feet, with steel-and-charcoal hair and a slight paunch, and in addition to a wrinkled cotton shirt, he was wearing a scowl.
Bree lurched up from her chair. “Mom! Dad! What a surprise!” she said weakly.
Chapter Eight
“Darling! You’ve got your voice back!” Addie Penoyer’s words came out in a delighted rush, tears filling her eyes as she surged toward her daughter. “I can’t believe it!”
Bree hugged her mother back, suddenly laughing. “I couldn’t either. It just happened last night, or you know I would have called you, Mom.”
“I don’t care, as long as it happened. Darling, I know I should have called to tell you that we were coming, but I kept telling Burke that we just couldn’t let you stay down here alone-we had to do something…” Addie tripped just slightly over the word alone; Bree turned tomato-red, and behind her she heard Hart’s chair scrape back.
“Look. Mom…” Bree started uncomfortably, but Addie, staring over her shoulder at Hart, wasn’t wearing the maternally disapproving expression Bree expected. Maybe Hart had miraculously donned clothes in the past thirty seconds? Searching her mother’s face, Bree saw Addie bite her lip slightly, glance at Bree again with joy and relief in her eyes, then gulp in a little breath. She squeezed Bree’s shoulder, and then with a tentative smile offered a slim hand to Hart. “Mr…?”
“Manning. Hart, please, Mrs. Penoyer.”
Bree pivoted around, startled to see Hart’s normally cocky demeanor destroyed. His complexion was ashen and his movements jerky as he courteously took her mother’s hand. And for some reason, he had draped a kitchen towel around his bare shoulders. The flowery pattern didn’t do a thing for him. “Mrs. Penoyer.” Hart cleared his throat. “I know how this must look to you, and I don’t want you to think…”
Addie waved a hand in midair. “My daughter is talking again, Mr. Mann-Hart. If you think her father and I care about anything else-”
“Agreed,” cut in an ominous tenor from the door. “Just because a man’s clothes are strewn all over my daughter’s backyard, I wouldn’t want you to think we see any reason to be the least upset.”
Another time, Bree would have been fascinated, watching Hart turn from pale ashen to dove gray. At the moment, she was too mortified. Thirty seconds of silence filled the cabin. Each one lasted about a year and a half. Nervously locking her arms under her chest, Bree turned back to her father. “Look. Dad…”
“I have every intention of marrying her, Mr. Penoyer,” Hart interjected swiftly.
Bree’s eyes whipped up. “Have you gone out of your mind?” she whispered. The situation was mortifying, embarrassing and downright awful, but it certainly wasn’t a death sentence.
You’d never know it to look at Hart, though. Gone was the arrogant playboy, the cocky grin. He looked awkward; actually, he looked a little silly, holding on to the towel that didn’t even begin to cover his chest, anyway. And he positioned himself in front of Bree as if he intended to protect her from dragons. For heaven’s sake, it was just her father.
“I don’t for a minute blame you for coming to certain conclusions, Mr. Penoyer. I realize how this must look to you,” Hart started gravely.
“You can bet your sweet petunias how it looks,” Burke agreed.
“Dad-”
“I take full responsibility-”
“Hart.”
“You’re telling me something I don’t know? A month ago, my daughter was engaged to another man-did she tell you that?”
“No.” Hart’s eyes shifted sharply to Bree’s. “But it wouldn’t have made any difference. She never belonged to him. I wouldn’t care if she’d been engaged to forty-seven men, and I really wouldn’t care if it was yesterday.”
“Listen,” Bree said firmly. Hart’s stare was unnerving; you’d think there was suddenly no one else in the room. It was easier to whirl around in her father’s direction. “Dad, if you would relax for just a minute,” she began.
Burke ignored her. “My daughter,” he said heatedly to Hart, “has never once in her entire life given us cause to worry about her behavior-”
“Bree was not to blame,” Hart said swiftly. “I was. But just because we’ve only known each other a short time, sir, doesn’t mean that we haven’t developed feelings for each other. My intentions-”
“Oh, my God,” Bree muttered at the old-fashioned word. Hart had clearly flipped out. She stepped determinedly between the two men with a frantic glance at her mother. “Look, both of you. I would appreciate it if you would-”
Hart very gently lifted her to one side. “Mr. Penoyer, if I could talk with you on the porch for a moment-”
“Over my dead body,” Bree said flatly.
“I think that’s an excellent idea,” Burke told Hart, ignoring Bree, then stalked out the door. Bree tried to dart out after him but was forestalled by Hart. Actually, he came very close to shutting the door in her face…right after he’d tapped a forefinger to her nose in an affectionate gesture that he might have intended to be reassuring.
She could hear raised voices the minute both men were outside, and Hart must have had his hand on the outside door handle, because she couldn’t open it. Turning to her mother, she rolled her eyes heavenward. “I just don’t believe this.”