Chapter 5
Chapter Five
HARPER
The dark circles under my eyes now matched the bags that would probably forever remain.
I hadn’t slept well since the plane crash, and honestly, I wasn’t sure if I was ever going to.
It ached just to think about, however, I was getting decently good at learning how to function while on little to no sleep.
Having practiced when I was younger and living with my grandparents had been a saving grace I’d rather not think about.
Everything I’d gone through over the past weeks, however, was worth it.
I was finding my place in town, my role in a way that had nothing to do with my life before.
And the best part was reconnecting with the women in this town who I’d left behind when I’d been torn from Cage Lake’s grasp.
While I was alone, I wasn’t truly alone.
And in the darkest of days I needed to remember that.
Ivy and Scarlett were on their way over, and we were going to have a girls’ afternoon, which wasn’t exactly like a girls’ night of lore, but as each of us had full-time jobs that tended to create chaos it made sense that we had to schedule out our get-togethers with a multicolored calendar.
One that got a lot of use considering Scarlett worked more hours than I thought was physically possible.
Though I was no slouch considering I owned the business, my friend took dedication to a whole new level.
Ivy sometimes pretended that she had a decent work-life balance, but all three of us were terrible at it.
Ivy traveled often, even though she was a Cage Lake resident like the rest of us, so her sleep schedule was probably just as bad as mine.
However, my lack of sleep last night had nothing to do with the usual. No, it had everything to do with him.
How he had held me. How I was Wellesley again. Wells.
It had almost felt as if we were back to what we had been. Only I knew that wasn’t the case. There was no way we could have been when it felt as if that hug had been a dream.
Because he had walked away after that moment, that sense of a new reality shattering in a blink.
He’d grunted something about needing to be somewhere for the house and then scurried away.
If he was anyone else, I would’ve thought it had been because he couldn’t stand me.
But perhaps, I was closer to the truth of that than I cared to admit.
With a sigh, I finished putting my hair up into a ponytail that would fit at the back of my hat and went to find where the love of my life had scurried off to.
Lucky stood in front of the door, doing his big stretch, and I snorted. “The girls are almost here and then we will go on our you-know-what.”
He gave me a look with those expressive golden retriever eyebrows that told me he knew exactly what I was talking about, and I should probably give up the whole not speaking out loud thing when it came to the W-A-L-K word.
But seriously, my dog was a menace, and I loved him more with each passing day. He would never run away from me as if I were the problem.
I tried not to think about what would happen though, when time moved far too quickly.
I set Lucky up in his harness, pushing my doom and gloom thoughts out of my mind. They weren’t going to help anyone.
As soon as I opened the door, my two best friends glared up at me from the bottom of my staircase.
“Since when are you the late one?” Scarlett asked, a smile playing on her face.
Ivy threw her head back and laughed. “She’s right about that. I’m the one who forgets what time it is unless I look at the sun while on a hike.”
“It’s because you always go off to places that don’t have enough service, and you refuse to wear a regular watch because of that one time that you shattered it and somehow cut yourself.
” I jogged down the stairs, Lucky at my side, and rolled my eyes as both women pretty much gave up all sense of sensibility and treated Lucky like the king he was.
“Are you ready for your day?” Scarlett asked, and for some reason I knew she wasn’t talking to me.
“Who’s the best boy ever? The one man who won’t ruin the day?” Ivy asked.
I met Scarlett’s gaze again. “First, you guys are early, I’m not running late. Meaning I have a feeling you told Ivy a different time?”
“No, she told me the correct time. I’m not that late. I’m not rude,” Ivy said primly, her eyes dancing.
I winced. “That is very true. I’m sorry.”
Ivy waved it off before looking over at Scarlett once again. “And not all men are jerks. Remember, we actually like Ronan.”
“Your boyfriend does seem like one of the good ones. I’m sorry,” Ivy said, though the darkness in her gaze took more than a couple of blinks to finally go away.
“Plus, you have pretty much the last decent guy in Cage Lake,” Ivy added.
“That is true. Considering I had yet another fight with you know who.”
My lips twitched as we began our walk, the three of us letting Lucky decide where he wanted to go at first. “What did he do this time? I thought Isabella was the Cage in charge of the resort now.”
Scarlett was the manager of the Cage Lake Resort.
Yes, the Cages owned it, but Scarlett was the one who made sure it did exactly what it needed to.
She excelled at her job, and that was why the Cages trusted her to handle it without their constant oversight.
I also knew they had no idea how many hours she worked because Scarlett hid it.
If they knew about it, the Cages would put a stop to it.
The fact that she could hide it from Hudson, Flynn, and Isabella meant she was damn good at it.
I just hoped she realized she could lean on them at some point.
“Isabella is amazing, but she also has a full-time job doing other things. So we’re easing her in to doing the oversight of the resort.”
“I totally agree on Isabella. Who, by the way, should be here any minute. But what did Hudson do you that angered or annoyed you?” I asked, imagining Dorian’s grumpy, growly, and sometimes mean if you didn’t look closely enough at his intentions brother.
“Well, he wasn’t too much of an asshole. But it was a look. You know that look.” Scarlett scowled, and her pace sped up.
I glanced over at Ivy who was holding back a laugh.
It wasn’t that Hudson was generally mean—it was that I wasn’t sure he liked people. Which made the fact that he was still the Cage in charge of going to a resort that had countless strangers as part of the clientele funny to me.
He hadn’t always been in Cage Lake. Just like the rest of them he had spent his childhood down in Denver. But their summers had always been part of our small town. Considering the family owned the damn thing, it made sense to me.
That was how my brother and Dorian had become friends after all. Because he didn’t need to live in the same town to be a best friend. We just had to make it work.
“I’ll continue my story if you tell me why you’re frowning,” Scarlett said softly.
I blinked and shook my head. “It’s nothing. I was just thinking about how Hudson didn’t used to live here, and then it reminded me that the Cages didn’t always use to live here at all, but two of them are here. Well, three.”
I was rambling now and had to hold back my wince. Because my crush on Dorian that had started as a little girl’s crush but had nothing to do with real feelings and had morphed into something more, as I had become an adult, was something both of my best friends knew.
“Okay, we can come back to that in a second,” Scarlett drawled.
“As for Hudson, he stomps into the back offices as if he owns the place.” She held up my hand.
“I’m well aware the family owns the place, but that flannel wearing, growly asshat doesn’t actually have his name on the deed. ” She winced. “His last name. Still.”
“I’m pretty sure all of their last names and first names are on those deeds,” Ivy sing-songed. “Especially since with the famous will, the other Cages were added. Why are you being so growly about that?” Ivy asked.
“You’ve all confused me, but it’s just that he acts like he doesn’t want to be there and then is there all the time.”
“It’s his job.” Ivy added.
“Is it? Is it his job to follow me around and make sure that I know what I’m doing? I’m the manager. I know more about that business and how everything works than any other person in that building.”
“That’s true. Is he questioning you? Thinking that you can’t do the job?” I asked, angry on her behalf. Hudson did have an attitude problem, but I always thought it was for a reason. Not that I knew that reason. The Cages all had their own secrets.
“I don’t know.” She threw her hands up in the air. “It’s not like he tells me what those grunts mean. He just shows up, asks to see what he always does. The stupid paperwork that he can send over to the others. And then he stares.”
I met Ivy’s gaze again, intrigued.
Scarlett raised her chin. “No. Don’t give each other that look. It’s not like that kind of staring. I know when a man is hitting on me. Or wants me. That’s not it. I promise you. It’s more that I confuse him.”
“Probably because you don’t swoon at the sight of a Cage,” Ivy said, wiggling her eyebrows.
“That is true. There’s only one of us that swoons at the sight of a Cage.”
At her smirk, I scowled. “Hey. Don’t bring me into this.”
Ivy burst out laughing as we took a turn to go down Main Street. We were heading to the local restaurant, where we could eat outside, and Lucky would be welcome.
“You’re the one who got all defensive. I didn’t even say your name.”
“What else did Hudson do?” I asked, not doing a great job at changing the subject.