When Harriet Came Home Read Online Free PDF

on her cigarette with quick, jerky puffs.
    “Those things will kill you,” Harriet said.
    Cindy crossed her arms, thin shoulders lifting. “So will having children. But kids don’t come with a warning sign, do they? Nobody tells you having a kid will change your life forever.”
    Actually, every parent tells you that, Harriet thought, but she held her silence. After a few puffs, Cindy stubbed the cigarette out and tossed it down the waste disposal sink.
    “You won’t tell Brett, will you?” The waste disposal unit grinded into action. “He doesn’t like me smoking around Jarrod.”
    “Why do you do it?”
    Cindy shrugged. “Helps keep the weight down. Helps keep me sane, too. Not much to entertain me when I’m stuck here with Jarrod and all he wants to watch is Tele-bloody-tubbies.” She jerked her head toward the window above the kitchen sink. “Luckily I’ve got my own real live show here.” She gave Harriet a salacious wink.
    Harriet moved to get a better view out the window. About twenty metres away from the house a new building was going up next to the pool. The concrete slab had been poured, and three men were busy with the framework. Harriet’s gaze skimmed over the first two men and skidded to a halt on the third.
    Adam. He wore jeans and a thin white singlet which clung to his broad chest. His tanned biceps bunched as he hammered away, and his skin glowed with perspiration under the warm sun. Harriet’s mouth went bone-dry. A rush of heat boiled over her, licking her skin, surging inside her breasts, her thighs. Her response was instantaneous. She had no control over it. One look at Adam’s body and desire ignited in her.
    Her fingernails scraped along the edge of the sink as she fought to control her shaking legs. Jeepers, what was going on with her! One look at a buff guy and she went into a swoon? No way. Adam might have had that effect on her once, but that was ten years ago. Since then she’d had a respectable number of boyfriends and was never short of male company. Then again, none of her past boyfriends had ever made her hot and woozy like this.
    She turned away and caught Cindy’s smirk. “Not bad, huh?” Cindy said. “I could watch him all day.”
    Harriet stared daggers at her sister. “Don’t tell me you’ve been coming on to him?”
    Cindy pouted. “Oh don’t get your knickers in a knot. There’s no crime in looking, is there? Men do it all the time.”
    Cindy seemed to be happy with Brett, but Harriet knew her well. Her sister was a natural flirt. To her a man’s attention was as necessary as oxygen. But Adam wasn’t just any man, especially after everything that had happened.
    “I know you don’t think so,” Harriet said through clenched teeth, “but ten years ago I did you a favour. I hope you remember that. Now, I’m going out to talk to Adam. In private.”
    She returned to her car and picked up a basket she had left there. She couldn’t face Adam again without her secret weapon. Wedging the basket under one arm, she walked round the side of the house and approached the building site. Two of the men were straddled halfway up the frame, hammers clanging in the afternoon air. With the sun in her eyes she couldn’t tell if Adam was up there.
    The hammering paused. A wolf whistle rang out from above. Warmth tickled her cheeks. Obviously that wasn’t Adam. No, there he was, rising up from behind a pile of timber, suddenly close to her. Too close.
    She sucked in a breath as their gazes clashed and his face altered. She could see the sweat beading the line of his close-cropped dark hair, could feel the heat radiating off his bulky shoulders, and smell the tang of hard work rising from his chest. A work belt clung to his hips. A smattering of hair flecked his gleaming pectorals above the singlet. With his chiselled face, his impressive biceps and long legs, he could have been a pin-up for one of those beefcake calendars. Mr November, with those grey Scorpio eyes