The Love Lottery

He bit back a smirk. So she had heard his tales about their encounters. He had to admit they made good radio. Harlan had always had an ability to turn his personal stories into listener experiences. For years, he’d shared the lurid, boring or funny stories of his life, building a career out of those stories. Sometimes, yes, it nagged at him that he had been so open, but his listeners loved it. “I’m just keeping my radio audience entertained.”

“At the expense of my reputation, and that’s something I take very seriously,” she said, her voice hard and low. For a second, he wondered if she was upset about more than a few jokes on his morning show. “I would appreciate it if you would keep your thoughts to yourself.”

“I’m a radio personality, Miss Watson. Expressing opinions is in my job description.”

“Find something else to opine about.” She gritted her teeth, then a forced smile flitted across her features. “Please.”

He tipped his hat her way, but didn’t make a verbal promise. He had a job to do, and a radio station that desperately needed a boost in ratings and advertising dollars. That came first. “So what brings you to my porch today?”

Another smile curved across her face, one Harlan would classify as crafty. “I’m here to find out if you have made a decision yet on my chairs.”

That again. This woman was as persistent as a gnat on a horse’s ass. “They are not your chairs, Miss Watson. And they are not for sale.”

She’d kept coming as she’d talked and now she stood at the end of his walkway, that one hand on a hip that was cocked a little to the side, giving her a jaunty air. Coupled with the knee-length flouncy skirt she wore and the low-heels that gave her legs a sweet curve, it made a pretty picture, he had to admit. Something within him stirred. Something that hadn’t stirred in a long time. A real long time.

Damn. He’d be smart to keep that in the back with the table saw, too.

“Now, that’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard,” Sophie said. “Last time I made you an offer, you had four chairs on your porch. Now you have six. What are they doing, breeding?”

“I can assure you, ma’am, that they are not.”

“Well, either way, it seems you have a problem. And I’d like to take it off your hands.”

The way her green eyes were sparking at him, he could think of a hundred other things she could take off his hands besides his furniture. Once again, he added something else that needed to stay in the toolshed. The beautiful but intensely frustrating Sophie Watson pushed his buttons—and not in a good way. He could only imagine the hell a man would endure being in a relationship with her.

“I don’t have a problem. Unless I count you.” He paused. Added, “Ma’am.”

Seemed nicer that way. And Harlan Jones’s mama had raised him to be a nice man.

“The way I see it, I’m trying to take a problem off your hands.” She gestured toward the chairs. “Two of them, in fact.”

“Why on earth do you want my chairs?” he said. “Last I checked, you thought I was the lowest scum of the earth.”

She strode up his walkway, as bold as a peacock. Mortise padded over, tongue lolling, apparently forgetting Sophie wasn’t in his fan club, especially since that little debacle at her barbecue party. She didn’t pay the dog the least bit of attention. Mortise should be counting his blessings. “My opinion of you hasn’t changed. And believe me, if there were other chairs in this town available, I’d be buying those. But I want a local flair for my coffee shop and these—” her teeth gritted a bit “—are quality examples of local craftsmanship.”

Even though it was clear the compliment had cost her, a swell of pride rose in his chest. All these years, he’d been making furniture in his spare time, and up until now, he’d kept everything for himself, save for a few pieces he’d given to his brother. He hadn’t meant to make so many chairs—it was just something about the art of creating the curves that had seemed to bring him a peace since he moved here, and before he knew it, he had more than he had room for. The compliment, coming from a near stranger, almost knocked his boots off.

“Mr. Jones,” she went on, “I am offering you good money for a good product. You and I both know those chairs would have a far better life sitting outside my shop being enjoyed by people than they would sitting on your porch, wasting away.”

“They’re chairs, Miss Watson. They don’t live.”

Sophie climbed the four steps to his porch and ran a delicate hand along the arm of one of the flat-backed cypress wood chairs he’d made. The exact one he’d placed out there this afternoon, in fact. His best one yet. The way she touched it, he had the fleeting thought that she, unlike any woman he’d ever met, could appreciate the work he put in, the parts of himself that were blended with the wood, the glue, the screws. The dreams he’d once had that still stubbornly rose to the surface when he was transforming a plain piece of wood into something with beauty and use. Dreams, he reminded himself, not a reality he should entertain.

“You can’t tell me that these chairs don’t live for you, Mr. Jones,” she said quietly. “Because they sure look like they do to me.”

“You really like the chairs?” he asked, then cursed himself for letting the question slip out. He shouldn’t give a damn what people thought. He wasn’t in this for anything other than a little stress reduction.

She glanced up at him, and smiled. “Of course I do. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t keep trying so hard to buy them.”

He’d had a good reason not to sell her the chairs five minutes ago. And last week, when she’d come by, and the week before that. But darned if he could remember it now. “They’re just a passel of wood and glue,” he said, glancing over at them and seeing the imperfections—the slight dent where he’d sanded too hard, the miniscule change in spacing between the slats. “Nothing more than places to seat your … seat.”

As he said the last word, he resisted the urge to peek a glance at her curved seat, as she walked around the chairs and examined them. He did not need to get involved with this woman, or any woman right now. He had a busy radio station over at WFFM that needed his full attention. Running WFFM and hosting his daily show consumed his days, and most of his nights. The station had been struggling for years, and when his brother called him after his boating accident a few weeks ago and asked Harlan to temporarily take over as CEO while Tobias recovered,

Harlan hadn’t even hesitated. Tobias needed him and he would be there, simple as that.

In recent phone calls, Tobias had mentioned that the station had been hurting lately. Tobias had underestimated.

Once Harlan got a look at the books, he realized the company wasn’t just a little in the red—it was drowning in a pool of debts. Tobias’s own income was a pittance, and that told Harlan that his brother was scrimping to get by. Typical of Tobias, he hadn’t said a word. Harlan had buckled down at the office and told his brother not to worry, that he’d have WFFM back on top in no time.

Turned out, it would have been a sight easier to wrangle a herd of cats into a horse trough. But his brother needed him both physically and fiscally, and when push came to shove, family always came first. Tobias had to focus on healing his injuries, not his radio station, and that meant Harlan would step up to the plate. Take care of your brother, that had been his mama’s dying wish. And so Harlan had and would continue to, no matter what it took.

Which was why he shouldn’t be getting distracted by pretty women or pretty furniture. Or anything else. Tobias was counting on him to be one hundred percent committed, and not get off on some tangent with some nails and a hammer. Not to repeat the mistakes of their father.

Harlan Jones may be a lot of things but he wasn’t the kind of man who let down those he cared about. They came first. Everything else ran a distant second.

“Certainly you won’t mind if I buy a pair, Mr. Jones,” Sophie said. Mortise sat right beside her, either keeping an eye on her or trying to make a friend, Harlan wasn’t sure. Across the yard, Tenon gave up on the squirrel and started watching the events on the porch. “I’m sure the other chairs won’t even miss them. They can breed a few more next week.”

She was determined. But she’d met her match in the stubborn department when it came to Harlan Jones. He wasn’t starting a furniture business, not today, not tomorrow, not ever.

“I’m rightly sorry to say this, again,” he said, wondering why she seemed so damned determined to rid him of a bunch of chairs that he’d built solely as a hobby, “but they are not for sale. Particularly to you.”

A gust of protest left her. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“I’m not in the practice of doing business with people who don’t like my dogs. And who clearly don’t like me.” Mortise glanced up at him, and wagged. The dog, apparently, had forgotten Sophie Watson’s twenty-minute rant last week when she’d discovered her transplanted rosebushes. Harlan hadn’t.

She sputtered again, clearly ready to argue back. Then she paused, and that crafty smile returned. “Then are they available for rent?”

“Rent?”

“You have no more room on your porch, Mr. Jones. And if you intend to make more furniture—or have any more clandestine furniture reproduction—here, then you are going to need more space. And I happen to need something exactly like this for in front of my shop. So, I would like to rent some of your chairs and give you the space you need.”

“No.”

She pursed her lips. “Give me one good reason why.”

“Because.”

“That’s not a reason at all.” She shook her head. “You can’t be serious. I’ve just made you a business offer here. What kind of businessman doesn’t at least negotiate?”

“I’m not in the furniture business.”

She quirked a brow at that.

“And I’m not negotiating.” Or explaining himself.

Mortise stood, his tail wagging, all friendly-like. Harlan snapped his fingers to call the dog back, but it was too late—Mortise had already crossed to Sophie and pressed his body against her leg, his tail slapping against her legs, sending loose fur flying around them like dandelion fluff. Then Harlan realized why Mortise was being so friendly—

The small white bag still dangled from Sophie Watson’s fingers. A temptation that had the dog sniffing the air and pressing closer.