Chapter 21
Harper
The card blurred in front of me, Grandma’s neat handwriting swimming across the faded old index card.
I’d been staring at all the cards for over half an hour, trying to decide what dish I wanted to tackle first. Which ones I might want to make my own, and those that needed to be preserved because they were already perfect.
I’d made a few little piles, but nothing stuck. I’d shuffled and reshuffled most of the cards more times than I could count. I couldn’t focus on anything. My thoughts wouldn’t settle.
I’d gone over and over things with Grayson the morning after Christmas, and I still couldn’t make sense of any of it. Yes, I understood what he thought he knew. After he left, I saw the text from Captain Howard.
Good news. The charter is starting early. Anchors up on New Year’s Eve. Having you aboard would make this season complete. Let me know if you change your mind.
It didn’t take much to figure out that Grayson had seen part of the text and had assumed the worst.
What I couldn’t figure out was why he wouldn’t have talked to me about it. Why had he been so cold and distant toward me, and why, after everything, would he assume that I could just leave without looking back?
With a frustrated sigh, I set the box aside and rubbed my temples.
In the days since Christmas, Trickle Creek had experienced a cold snap, and there hadn’t been much in the way of foot traffic in the plaza or shoppers milling about. Everyone was hunkered down at home or in their rental accommodations with cups of hot chocolate and roaring fires to keep them warm.
Which was why a flash of movement outside the frosted window caught my attention.
Grayson.
He was bundled up in a parka with a knit toque, his broad shoulders bent beneath the weight of a stack of folding chairs, his breath visible in the icy air. I watched while he dropped the chairs near the gazebo and the half-assembled stage that was being built for the New Year’s celebration.
He turned to pick up another load, his jaw tight, the scowl noticeable even from a distance. I didn’t miss the way he avoided looking at the restaurant.
Enough was enough.
I shoved back from the table, grabbed my coat off the rack by the door, and stepped out into the cold. “Grayson!”
He froze for half a second, then kept moving. He’d been avoiding me for days. Leaving my texts unread, my calls unanswered. I’d had more than enough.
My breath puffed out sharply in front of me as I marched across the icy plaza. “Don’t you dare ignore me, Grayson Lyons.” I planted myself in his path, giving him no option but to stop or bump into me.
“What do you want, Harper?”
His expression was unreadable, guarded in a way that sent a chill through me, in a way that not even the subzero temperatures outside could.
“I’m busy.”
“That’s bullshit and you know it.” I swallowed hard, trying to steady my voice. “You’ve been avoiding me. Pretending nothing’s wrong. You owe me more than that.”
His laugh was short and sharp, nothing like the warm sound I loved. “I don’t owe you anything.”
The words cut deep. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“You know what it means.”
“No.” I wrapped my coat tighter around me and crossed my arms. “I don’t.”
“You already know I saw the message,” he said. “The captain. Anchors up, Harper.” He held up his hands in a mockery of air quotes and sneered. “Congratulations. You got everything you always wanted.”
I didn’t know this version of Grayson. This cold, closed-off version. And I didn’t like it.
“You didn’t even let me—”
“Explain?” He cut me off with a sharp shake of his head. “Don’t bother. You’ve always wanted more than this. I can’t believe I thought that this time I might actually be enough for you. But you know what? I’m done standing here like a fool waiting for you to figure it out, Harper. I’m done.”
His words hit me like a slap, stealing my breath and my words.
“Leave.” He waved a gloved hand, dismissing me when I didn’t speak. “You always do.”
The plaza spun around me. “You’re such an ass,” I said finally.
“Whatever.” His voice was flat. Final. “Like I said, I’m done.”
I stared at him. The man I’d loved my entire life.
Even when I tried not to, there was always only Grayson.
Looking at him, I saw the same walls he’d put up all those years ago, felt the same ache.
History was repeating itself in the cruelest way.
Only worse, because I’d let myself believe that this time it might be different.
My throat burned. “If you’re so sure that I was just going to leave like that, then you don’t know me as well as you think you do. ”
“I guess not.”
“Screw you, Grayson.”
My hand trembled as I yanked the ring from my finger. Again. With tears stinging my eyes and freezing on my cheeks, I hurled it at his chest. Again.
“Keep it this time.”
Grayson didn’t even move his hands to try to catch it. I watched as it bounced off his chest and hit the snow at his feet.
I looked up at his cold stare one last time. My chin trembled, but I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of seeing me cry.
I spun on my heel and, boots crunching hard in the snow, stormed back across the plaza to the warmth of the restaurant.
I didn’t turn around. What was the point?
Grayson
The wind cut through my coat as I hauled another board toward the half-built stage.
My fingers were stiff inside my gloves and my breath came in harsh puffs of icy air, but it didn’t matter.
I welcomed the sting of the cold, the distraction of the repetitive work, anything to drown out Harper’s voice in my head and the look in her eyes when she threw the ring back at me.
I squeezed my eyes shut for a moment before shaking it off again. It wasn’t worth it. The heartache, the drama…I couldn’t do it again. Not when she was so clearly not in it with me. And she wasn’t. Not if she could leave so easily, without so much as a word to me about it.
No.
Not again. Harper wasn’t my future. She never was, and it was long past time I realized that and moved the fuck on.
“Hey.”
I jerked my head up to see Quinn standing over me, bundled in a purple coat with a matching purple knitted toque with a sparkly pom-pom that was nearly as big as her head attached to the top.
“Hey, kiddo. What are you doing out here? It’s freezing.”
She shrugged. “I saw you and…well…here.” She thrust out a mittened hand. “I think this belongs to you.”
The ring.
The sight of it hit me square in the chest.
After Harper had thrown it, I’d let it bounce into the snow, unwilling to go in search of it a second time. I may be a slow learner, but I did learn. Eventually.
“That’s not mine.” I turned away from my niece and picked up the hammer again.
“Yes, it is,” she said with the confidence only a thirteen-year-old could have. “Or it’s Harper’s, but either way—”
“Quinn,” I snapped. “Not now. I’m busy.”
She didn’t move. “You don’t have to bite my head off, Uncle Gray. I was just trying to help. I thought you might want it before some kid finds it and thinks they struck gold.” She thrust her hand in front of my face.
“Quinn,” I growled, and swatted her hand away. “Drop it, okay?”
The moment the words came out of my mouth, I regretted them. I rocked back on my heels and looked at my niece.
Her eyes were narrowed into slits, her lips pressed tight. “You don’t have to be such a jerk, Uncle Gray. I was just trying to help. Because I saw you and Harper, and it looked important.” She set the ring on a folding chair with exaggerated care. “Next time I’ll let the random kids fight over it.”
Before I could apologize, she spun around and took off, running toward the brewery.
“Quinn,” I called after her, but it was too late. “Fuck.”
I shook my head and made a note to take my niece a hot chocolate with extra marshmallows from the Bean Bag when I was finished. She was right; I didn’t have to be such a jerk. Not to her.
I clapped my hands together in an effort to bring back some feeling and continued with my work.
The only way the stage was going to be ready for the plaza New Year’s celebration was if I did it.
Just like everything else around town that fell on my shoulders.
It didn’t seem to matter whether I wanted to do it or not; somehow, I was always volunteered for whatever task Tilley could think up.
I didn’t usually mind, and it was true that I needed the distraction from the fact that my life had just totally blown up; still, it pissed me off, just like everything else had since I’d walked out of Harper’s apartment on Boxing Day.
I swung the hammer, harder than necessary, and missed the nail I’d been aiming for, cursing as I lined it up again.
“Is that making you feel better?” Ethan’s voice came from behind me. “Or was it being an asshole to my daughter that helped?”
Fuck.
I lowered the hammer and turned around to see my brother, arms crossed over his chest, glaring at me. Before I could speak, he continued.
“Whatever the hell is going on with you, Quinn didn’t deserve that. You don’t get to take your shit out on my kid just because you can’t seem to figure your life out.”
Heat rushed up my neck—part shame, part anger. Before I could get a word out, Reid appeared next to Ethan.
“Why don’t you let me take this one?” He clapped our brother on the shoulder. “I’ve got this.” My twin turned back to me, his expression like steel.
Ethan muttered something under his breath and stalked away, leaving me with Reid.
I shook my head and moved to turn back to my work. “Look, I know Quinn didn’t deserve that. I was an asshole, and I’m going to make it up to her. I just—”
“What the hell is going on?” Reid interrupted me. “You’re not usually such a dick. That’s my job. And Quinn said she saw you and Harper fighting. Something about a ring.”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
Reid shook his head with a humorless laugh. “I knew it.”
“Here it comes,” I said flatly.
“You’re damn right, here it comes,” Reid shot back. “You knew this was going to happen the second you let her back into your life. The second you agreed to pretend to be something with her, that you never quit being in your mind.”
His words hit way too close to home.
“I’m not doing this with you right now, Reid.”
“The fuck you aren’t.” He grabbed my shoulder, spinning me around as I tried to turn away. “Let me guess, you forgot the whole thing was only for show and now she’s going back—”
“Yes!” I yelled. “Happy now? I let myself fall in love with her again…or maybe I never quit…” I shook my head for a moment before looking at my brother again. “And yes, she’s leaving again. She took a job and sets sail on New Year’s Eve. Fool me twice and all that shit.”
I dropped the hammer on the half-built stage and blew out a breath, out of steam after my outburst.
“And you’re just going to let her go?” Reid said simply. “Without a fight? Just like last time, huh? How’d that work out for you?”
Frustration and rage bubbled up inside me. They weren’t feelings I was used to, especially aimed at my twin brother, but I’d had just about enough of the interrogation. Nothing was going to change this. Not this time.
“It’s not the same thing, Reid.”
“You’re right.” He nodded smugly. “You’re not kids anymore. Now you have something to offer her. A life. Stability. A future.”
“Wrong,” I snapped, the words burning out of me before I could stop them.
“I don’t have a damn thing to offer her.
Ollie’s selling the store to a fucking franchise.
It’s gone. Every single thing I worked for, everything I planned, everything I thought I could have—it’s over.
So yeah, I don’t have a single fucking thing to offer her. Why shouldn’t she leave?”
The silence that followed my outburst filled the cold air around us. Reid stared at me, his mouth pressed into a line as he assessed me.
“You’re an idiot,” he said finally.
“You’re right,” I agreed. “I was an idiot to believe that this town, that I…could ever be enough for her.”
“No,” Reid said pointedly. “You’re an idiot because it’s not about any of that. None of that stuff matters.”
I moved to speak, but he stopped me. “You love her,” Reid continued. “And she loves you. That’s all that matters. And you’re still going to throw it away because you’re too damn stubborn to believe that’s enough. That you’re enough?”
“Get out of my face,” I growled.
He held my gaze for a long moment, then shook his head. “Fine. But you know as well as I do that if you let yourself make the same mistake twice, you’ll regret it for the rest of your life.” He turned and walked off, leaving me alone with my thoughts.
As soon as he was out of sight, all the fight drained out of me. I sank down on the edge of the stage, my breath fogging the air. My eyes landed on the ring, still sitting on the chair where Quinn had left it.
For a long moment, I stared at it. My gut twisted with guilt and regret as I contemplated what to do with it. I should leave it for someone else to find. Or throw it as far as I could to get it out of my sight.
Ultimately, I pulled my glove off, reached out, and closed my fingers around the cold metal.
Harper was gone. The store was gone.
Some things weren’t meant to last.
It was time I accepted that.