Patchwork Family in the Outback

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“Something smells good.”

The deep, sexy voice coming from behind her made her hand freeze in midmotion. Hearing him speak put her almost as much on edge as looking at him did, no matter how much she wanted to pretend that she was just the teacher and he was just the father of two of her pupils.

“It’s nothing fancy, just pasta,” she told him, resuming her stirring.

She listened as Harrison walked into the kitchen, felt his presence in the too-small space.

“It smells fancy.”

Poppy watched as he came closer and stood beside her. He peered into the pan, using the wooden spoon she’d discarded to give the contents a gentle stir.

“Garlic and bacon,” she said, moving away slightly, needing to put some distance between them. Anything at all to stop her heart from racing a million miles an hour and quell the unease in her stomach. “I fry it in some oil before adding the sauce and tossing in the pasta.”

He nodded and put the spoon back where he’d found it, leaning against a cupboard and watching her cook.

“Anything not working in here?” he asked.

“Ah, no. Everything seems to be fine.”

“You don’t sound so sure.”

What she was sure about was needing him to look away, to go sit with his children instead of fixing his eyes on her while she was trying to concentrate.

“It’s fine. Everything works okay, I guess. It’s just different,” she confessed.

“To what you’re used to?”

Poppy sighed, then shrugged. “I’ve had a fancy kitchen and a modern apartment, and it didn’t make me happy, so I’m not going to let a rustic kitchen get me down.” It was the truth, and now she’d said it. “Lighting the gas with a match before I cook isn’t going to bother me so long as I can do a job I love and wake up with a smile on my face each day.”

Harrison was still staring at her, but his expression had lost the intensity of before. There was a softness in his eyes now, almost as if he understood what she was trying to say. What she was trying to get across to him.

“There’s something to be said for smiling in the mornings,” he told her.

Poppy looked away, not because she was embarrassed, but because she didn’t know what to say. When she’d chosen to come here, she’d decided to keep her past exactly that—she didn’t want it to define her future and didn’t want everyone knowing her business. But it sure was hard to get to know someone without thinking about what her life had been like only a month earlier.

“What’s for dinner?” Katie appeared in the kitchen, rising on tiptoe as she tried to see what was cooking.

“Pasta with a carbonara sauce,” Poppy told her, using her elbow to playfully push her from the kitchen. “Hang out with Alex for a few more minutes and it’ll be ready.”

The little girl grinned, gave her dad a cheeky wave and disappeared again.

“You might think this is nothing fancy,” said Harrison, pointing at the sauce Poppy was stirring, “but to them it’s fun to be somewhere different for dinner. They’re usually just stuck with me on the ranch.”

She swallowed a lump. It was now or never, and she couldn’t help herself.

“So there’s no Mrs. Black?” she asked, knowing full well what the answer was going to be.

“No,” Harrison replied, his eyes dark and stormy, his expression like stone. “There’s no Mrs. Black, unless you’re talking about my mom.”

If only her question was that innocent, but they both knew it wasn’t. What Poppy didn’t know was why she’d asked at all.

Maybe she just wanted to hear it from him, so she could actually believe that he didn’t have a wife...that he really was what the mom today had described him as—the town’s sexiest bachelor.

Sauce. What Poppy needed to do was focus on the carbonara sauce.

“Anything I can do?” His soft, deep drawl made her skin go hot, then suddenly cold, as if an icy breeze had blown through on a warm summer’s day.

“I’d love for you to put those plates on the table,” she said, nodding toward where she had them stacked. “And to be honest, I wouldn’t mind celebrating my first day at school with a glass of wine.”

Plus she wouldn’t mind settling her nerves a little with the bottle of sauvignon blanc she had in the fridge.

“Glasses?” he asked, carrying the plates to the table.

Poppy groaned. “Still to be unpacked, I think.” One of the few things she hadn’t actually transferred from box to cupboard. But if she wasn’t mistaken... “Hang on, try the box at the bottom of the pantry,” she instructed. “I can’t leave this sauce.”