CHAPTER 36
Aiden
The valley below, and the deck around me, explodes in a riot of cheers and applause as soon as the finale—perfectly timed to The Star Spangled Banner, I am actually an American, despite my accent—comes to an end.
Harper turns, bleary eyed, looking like she’s going to kiss me, so I shift her and stand up.
I clear my throat and move to the center of the deck, scanning the faces. The others got my message, via Steven, and made it up here. Good.
“I’ve an announcement,” I say as soon as the applause dies down.
“Good show, mate,” Ben says.
“Yeah, we all know it was you, no need to announce it,” Maxine huffs. I can’t help but smirk. This town will never not call me out on my shit, I suppose.
“That better not be what you dragged me up here for,” Shelly adds quietly.
“It’s not,” I say. Everyone waits and stares. I look at Harper and she says Well? With her sweet face. “Right. As you all know, you did not win the wager.”
A chorus of boos, led by Maxine, fills the evening air.
I hold up a hand, “Now, now, a deal’s a deal, fair and square. But I’ve made another deal.” I look at old man Newman. He’s smirking, the greedy bastard. “I’ve bought the old Sap Hill mansion from the Newmans.”
“You did?” Steven asks.
“‘Bout time someone fixed up that eyesore,” Maxine says.
Gary asks, hopeful, probably imagining the press coverage, and my taxes, “You’re moving here permanently?”
I hold up my hand yet again.
“I’m not going to live in it. I’m going to tear it down.”
The group explodes about how I’ve torn down enough, when will it end, how much money does one need and so on and so forth. I sigh and wait.
“Wait, wait, shut up, shut up!” Steven cries out.
I nod at him, “Thank you. I also bought the few rentals around it, so that whole side of Main Street is now mine.” Everyone waits, not understanding what I mean. “I thought I’d put in some retail.”
Most of the crowd frowns, Harper included.
I go on, “Your retail. We can rebuild the west side of the street on the east side. I talked to an engineer, we can even keep the existing gazebo in tact and simply move it over.”
I pause, waiting for questions. No one makes a sound. It’s so silent on the deck we can make out conversations near the lake below. I think I can hear the individual bugs in the damn trees.
Finally Shelly sniffs and asks, “So, I don’t have to close?”
I reply, “You don’t have to close.”
“Eeeeeee!”
“Damn it,” I say, startled. The cheers and squeals that the humans around me are producing right now should be studied by science. They’re hugging, crying, jumping. The reaction to this news is bigger and better than to the fireworks show.
But there’s really only one reaction I care about.
I watch as the emotions play across her stunning face. Confusion, shock, awe, glee and then, as I suspected, something else. Because I don’t think she wants to reopen The Roasted Chestnut. I think deep down, she was glad to be free of it.
Her father, though, he’ll be thrilled.
And I suppose I care about how he feels to some extent but he, he’s not the one I...love.
Eventually Harper looks up and those unbelievable green eyes find mine.
She beelines it to me and before I can say anything she throws her arms around me.
I hold her, greedy for as much as I can get in these last few minutes.
I inhale her sweet scent, resist the urge to run my hands along the curves I’ve got memorized.
“Thank you, thank you, thank you,” she murmurs into my shirt.
“Dad will be so happy.” She pulls away and asks, “So…are you staying?”
“Come, let’s go round front,” I say, knowing the whole deck is watching us while pretending not to.
She sniffs and nods and I link her small fingers in mine, cherishing the feel of them.
When we’re on Ben’s front porch with no one in sight, I turn to face her. My face must look as conflicted as I feel.
“Wait. Tell me you’re staying,” she says with a shaky voice, her sweet face dappled in moonlight, “Tell me that’s what this means. That you’re choosing us, this place, these people.” She whispers the last bit, “That you’re choosing me.”
I put her gorgeous face in my hands and tilt her chin up.
“Harper, Sweetheart, choose yourself,” I say, my voice shaking just as much as hers.
“I knew it. I knew it!” She tries to pull away but I don’t let her. “You’re chicken shit just like all of them. I told you. I told you!”
“I—”
“No,” she tugs back and I let her go. “I told you I couldn’t do this again. I told you I would get all dewy-eyed and hopeful and fall in love with you and you’d leave and I’d get hurt all over again!”
I want to grab at the ‘in love with me’ bit like Stuart with a chew toy, but I refrain. For her.
“Harper you tell me. Tell me you truly want to stay here,” I press. She growls and turns away from me to look out over the yard, but I go on. “Tell me you want to reopen the shop and live the rest of your life in Juniper Falls. Tell me.”
“I don’t have a choice,” she says with a crack in her voice that I feel in my chest.
“Says who?” I push her.
“Says me! Says my family, my friends, my father, I have people, Aiden. You don’t know what it’s like which is sad, I get it, and you should really try therapy. Like a lot of therapy, please. Do that. But you don’t just abandon your people because you want to. We don’t all get what we want.”
“I know,” I say, meaning it for maybe the first time. Looking at what I want fall through my fingers this very moment.
“So you’re going to leave,” she says.
“You should leave,” I say quickly, “Harper you’re a California girl stuck in a winter town in New Jersey!
You should go to Palm Springs. You should see The Beach Boys, the real ones, in Las Vegas.
Hell, you should see Dubai if you want. You’re young and healthy and you’re about to be free, finally.
You should go everywhere. Try everything. ”
With me.
It takes all my strength not to say it out loud.
I want her. I want to go with her. I want to take her with me.
But not because she feels indebted to me. Or entangled or coerced or any of that. Not because she wants to get out of this town or see the world, either.
She wouldn’t knowingly use me, I’m positive about that. But she might enjoy the idea of traveling the world a bit more than she enjoys my grumpy company. When she pauses long enough to figure it out.
I exhale the last few words, “You should go figure out what is you want, then try everything in your power to get it.”
It takes her a moment before she says softly, “What if what I want is you?”
My heart aches.
Every cell in my body tells me to be the old Aiden and scream It is! I am! I am what you want! But I don’t. Because I love her, apparently.
Bloody terrible feeling, honestly.
“Is it?” I turn on her, purposely aggressive. “Can you tell me that? Are you positive? You’re ready to leave your family and friends and go to London? Right now?”
“Does it have to be one or the other?” A tear breaks free, running down her cheek, and I curse myself.
“Shit,” I say. “It has to be what you actually want, sweet—”
“Don’t! Don’t Sweetheart me. Don’t claim you’re doing what’s best for me just to save yourself. Just go.”
“Harper, I…”
She stomps across the porch to the steps, “We both know you don’t need to be here to oversee construction. You want to go to London right now? Just go! GO!”
She screams the last word and stomps down the steps to turn back and add, “And you take Stuart with you or I’ll never forgive you.
Never! I can’t have him staring at me all day waiting…
waiting for his best friend to come back.
Not again,” she says, tears freely flowing down her face now.
I hate each one. “You take Stuart and you never come back here!”
“Harper,” I step toward her, eager to wipe her tears and hug her one last time, to tell her I’ll be waiting for her, as long as it takes. But she jumps off the last step and nearly runs to her car. To the Bronco. I watch in agony as the headlights turn on, pull away, then disappear altogether.
With an ache in my chest I fear will never go away, I turn to find Janie. I’ve a plan, after all, one that’s been in the works for weeks now. Time I put it in motion.