“You said he could handle it,” Whitney snapped.
“Whitney, enough!” Evan stepped in between them. “It was an accident. Jeremy didn’t mean any harm. So back off. Now.”
Whitney turned her glare on her husband. Her nostrils flared, and her lips turned ugly with tension. “If my own husband could have bothered to get me a drink, then none of this would have happened.”
Evan stepped forward, his feet right along the edge of a flagstone as if it were a battle line drawn between them. Paige jumped in before either combatant crossed it.
“It’ll wash out, Whit,” she said, in a mediator’s tone. A psychologist, Paige was pleasant and chatty in a let’s-fill-any-awkward-silences kind of way. “I’ve got that book that tells how to get out just about any stain. Although I don’t think margarita mix even stains.”
“Fine,” Whitney snapped. “You can wash it for me.”
“Whitney.” Paige said her sister’s name softly, but firmly. “I think it’s time for us to thank Will for a great barbecue and head home.”
Harper itched to take her down a peg—a hundred pegs would be even better—and she was glad to see Paige stand up to her sister.
Anger lines stretched past the frames of Whitney’s sunglasses. She tossed her cell phone into the bag beside her chair. “Good idea. I can’t wait to clean up and forget about this whole day.” Whitney threw on the see-through flowered cover-up that matched her swimsuit and slipped her feet into high-heeled sandals.
Harper glanced over her shoulder, realizing that Will had climbed out of the pool and was now standing close enough to Jeremy to put his hand on his shoulder. Sebastian stood beside Will, holding Noah in his arms. Daniel and Matt flanked Evan. Battle positions.
Evan didn’t look at all happy about leaving, with a muscle in his jaw jumping as he stared at his wife. But he was clearly too much of a gentleman to send her home without him. Besides, continuing the fight in front of everyone would put a damper on the whole group, and Evan would care about that, too, Harper was sure.
“All right,” Evan said, his voice clipped and tight. “I’ll take you home, Whitney. Paige, are you sure you don’t want to stay?”
“I can drive you home later,” Daniel offered.
But she simply shook her head. For some crazy reason, Harper had the sense that Paige didn’t want to leave Evan alone with his own wife. “Thanks for having me, Will. It was great to meet you, Harper and Jeremy.”
On his way out, Evan stopped beside Harper and said, “I’m sorry about what happened.”
But, honestly, at this point she was the one feeling sorry for him, going home with that woman. How on earth he could ever have wanted to marry her was honestly beyond Harper.
Then again, she knew people’s stories weren’t exactly linear, were they? Look at hers and Jeremy’s, for example. Who could have predicted this would be their life?
Again, she found herself wishing she knew more of Will’s story. But though he was always sweet and kind—and so sexy that she could hardly catch her breath around him—he wasn’t exactly an open book. She figured he must have his reasons, foremost among them the fact that they were just two people enjoying each other’s company for a little while.
“None of that was your fault, Jeremy,” Will said to her brother, breaking her out of her musings. “That’s just Whitney. Ignore her. We’ve all learned to do that over the years.”
“Whitney’s temper tantrums always make me hungry,” Daniel said with a hard and fast shake of his head, as if he were literally trying to shake Evan’s wife out of his system. “Why don’t you start the grill, Will? How do you like your meat done, Jeremy?”
“Rare,” Jeremy called out.
Matt grinned at Jeremy. “Jump in the pool and wash that margarita off your shirt. Last one in’s a rotten egg,” he shouted and landed with a cannonball in the pool, with Daniel right behind him.
Noah squirmed in Sebastian’s arms. “Me too! Me too!”
She could have kissed every last one of them. And Evan, too, not just for his simple apology, but also for the way he’d stepped in to end Whitney’s harangue before it got even worse.
As Matt joined the others in the pool for a game of Marco Polo, Will held out his hand to her and together they headed over to take care of getting food on for everyone. The barbecue was an entire counter with two grills, one with a curved top, the other a simple metal grill. A pot of water for corn on the cob bubbled on the range. The fridge held steaks, hot dogs, hamburgers, potato salad, green salad, and all the fixings, which was way more food than they could possibly eat, even if Evan, his wife, and Paige had stayed.
“What do you want? Steak, hamburger, or—” He grinned and waggled his eyebrows up and down in an exaggerated fashion. “—hot dog?”
She laughed, glad the sensation washed away a lot of her anger and frustration over what had just happened. As if he could read her mind, he turned serious again.
“I apologize for that, Harper. I should have warned you about Whitney and made sure not to put Jeremy in that position.”
“He isn’t your responsibility. I should have been watching. And I was the one who said it was okay.”
He shushed her with a kiss. “Stop. Evan’s wife’s attitude isn’t your fault.”
Finally stopping to take a breath, she realized he was right. Just as he was right about so many things when it came to her brother. She hadn’t had anyone to bounce things off in so long. Even though she knew this thing with Will wasn’t going to last forever, did that mean she couldn’t appreciate him while he was here?
“Is she always like that?”
Will began turning knobs on the grill. “In the beginning of their marriage? Maybe not. At this point, it’s pretty hard to remember how things used to be. All I know is that in the past year or so, she’s been worse than ever. Honestly, I don’t know how he can live with her. Whatever happens between them, though, we’ve got his back.”
She’d seen that—the way the men had surrounded Evan, making it clear that they were there if he needed them.
“We’ve all known each other a long time,” he told her. “Matt and Evan were ten. Daniel, Sebastian, and I a year older. Some bullies were picking on Matt.” He shrugged. “Something had to be done.”
Harper glanced at the huge muscles in Matt’s arms as he chased down Sebastian in the big pool. “Matt needed help?”
Will grinned. “He was a scrawny kid.”
She had a hard time picturing it. “So you rescued him.”
An expression she couldn’t quite read flashed across his face, but he wasn’t smiling anymore as he said, “Evan ran for the principal.”
“Smart boy.”
“That’s why he’s the money man.” But his face darkened even further. “We all eventually ended up living with Daniel’s parents. Susan and Bob raised us.”
“All of you?” Wonder laced her voice.
“It wasn’t a great neighborhood. Things happened.”
His answer was so understated, his features so expressionless, that she felt a little hitch in her chest. She wanted to ask what things, but at the same time, she didn’t want to make a mistake by pushing too hard. Not when Will had just revealed more to her about his past than he had at any time in all the weeks she’d known him.
“So we stuck together.” He blew out a hard breath, and then the cocky grin was back. She’d never been happier to see it. “The Mavericks.”
They weren’t brothers, not by blood the way she and Jeremy were. Yet she knew they would do anything for each other.
Meeting them shed new light on Will. He’d once said his word was his bond, that he always kept his promises. Seeing him with his closest friends showed her that it was no boast or throwaway phrase. He’d clearly been through hard times with these men, and he was there for them no matter what. Just the way he’d been there for Jeremy time and time again.
And though she kept trying to tell herself that this thing between them was just a casual thrill ride, she couldn’t help but hope that he’d be there for her, too.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
“So,” Susan mused on the phone, “I hear things are progressing nicely with you and your new lady.” She’d waited a couple of days after the Memorial Day barbecue to call him, but Will had guessed it was coming after every one of the other Mavericks had already weighed in on the subject of Harper.
Evan had called Will first to apologize again for his wife’s snapping at Harper and Jeremy. He’d made an excuse about a migraine that Will wasn’t buying, but he’d forced himself to let it go. Evan ended the call by telling Will not to screw things up with Harper. Matt was next on the horn to say that Noah kept talking about the pretty lady who had played with him in the pool. The boy had been terribly sad to learn she couldn’t be their new nanny because she already had an important job. Then Sebastian claimed he still couldn’t get over Will finally dating a woman with looks and brains. And finally Daniel had called to say, “You look happy, Will. I like her.” Which said it all.