Some Like It Hot by Susan Andersen

Author:Susan Andersen [Andersen, Susan]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Romance
ISBN: 9780373777761
Google: AZsBmQDiptUC
Amazon: 0373777760
Goodreads: 17251425
Publisher: HQN
Published: 2013-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

DAYS LATER, WHILE telling Mary-Margaret about the discounts she’d negotiated for the Village with several more Razor Bay retailers, it occurred to Harper that her mother hadn’t called to break the news that their grant application had been approved.

She couldn’t believe she’d forgotten to follow up on it. During her first two visits to the compound after giving her mom the go-ahead, she’d fully expected to hear the news and share in the excitement. But that hadn’t happened, and somehow, between one thing and another, it had drifted from her mind.

Clearly, Mary-Margaret had yet to hear. If she had, Harper was pretty darn sure every employee and volunteer at the Village would’ve spread the news by now.

Pulling her phone from her purse as soon as she entered the parking lot a short while later, she called the foundation.

Her mother’s assistant put her on hold. Unlocking her car, she threw her purse on the passenger seat and was leaning against the car when Gina finally picked up. “Hey, darling. Sorry to keep you waiting.”

Harper had been raised from the cradle to always, always be polite and diplomatic. And still she heard herself demand, “What the hell, Mom? You haven’t told Cedar Village yet that we approved their application? You said you’d call them the day after we talked!”

Silence throbbed in her ear long enough for her to reconsider her words and the inflection with which she’d spoken them. Then her mother’s voice, several degrees cooler than it had been an instant ago, said, “Your Grandmama Summerville would spin in her grave to hear that tone in your voice, young lady.”

“I’m sorry.” Well, she was...and she wasn’t. For a generously sized part of her didn’t feel at all apologetic. It merely muttered rebelliously.

“I’m sorry, as well,” Gina Summerville-Hardin said with a quiet graciousness that chafed Harper’s conscience. “When you called that night I was in bed. I’m afraid it quite slipped my mind by morning.”

Harper’s well-taught manners clapped their flippers together like the trained seals they were, barking their longing to apologize yet again. Your turn, they yapped. Tell her you’re sorry that she’s sorry. Abjectly distressed that you distressed her. Full of remorse regarding Grandmama’s grave whirling.

Yet beneath that impulse lurked Bad Harper, and she had to fight that bitch to a standstill to bite back the words crowding her throat. Bad Harper cared for neither her mother’s nor Dead Grandmama’s concerns. She wanted nothing more than to snap, “Hey, it’s hardly as though I woke you from a sound sleep that night. Weren’t you the one who told me you were reading? And since when have you forgotten a single thing to do with the foundation?”

She was disconcerted to realize that she didn’t quite believe her mother was telling the truth. Still, what was she going to do, call the very dignified, very upstanding Gina Summerville-Hardin a liar?

“Hey, there,” a deep voice suddenly drawled behind her, and Harper barely stifled a guilty start. She wasn’t fast enough

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