Chapter 26
H arper shifted the tray to her left hand so she could plug in the order for table seven and close out table twelve.
It was a busy Friday night. The warm May weather made it too tempting to spend the night at home.
It seemed like a large portion of the town’s population had decided dinner and drinks were the way to kick off the weekend.
Harper didn’t mind. The busier the better.
If she kept moving, her mind stayed quiet.
But the ache in her chest? Well, that never left her for long.
Not with Luke Garrison seven thousand miles away and one month into his six-month deployment commanding his National Guard unit in Afghanistan.
“Bank’s looking good tonight, Harp.” Sophie winked from her position behind the taps. “What kind of treasure are we spending our hard-earned tips on?”
Harper tucked the back of her Remo’s polo back into her denim skirt before hoisting her tray. It was their favorite game to play at work. “Matching unicorn tattoos.”
“Love it!”
Her tray full of beer and her mind full of Luke, Harper spun back into the fray.
A month into it, and she was still getting used to being in a very real, very long-distance relationship. They had planned to go their separate ways, parting as friends. She had been trying to prepare herself to mourn their relationship while forging a new life alone.
But one word had changed everything.
Stay .
His text had arrived just as the full reality of saying goodbye had hit her, sitting in his truck sobbing at the thought of a life without Luke. Her hands shook so hard she could barely reply to the text.
Harper: What??
Luke: I want to come home to you. Stay.
It wasn’t an “I love you,” but it was enough. His text had found its way through her despair and given her hope. He was offering her a life and a future. With him.
They had talked that night before his flight. And a desperate hope had bloomed in her chest.
“I got on that bus and realized that if you weren’t there when I came home, I’d go back to the same existence. And I don’t want to just exist anymore. Baby, I know it’s a lot to ask. Six months is a long time to wait, but I want you there,” he told her.
Her eyes swam in tears as she nodded silently. “Luke, if there’s anyone worth waiting six months for, it’s you.”
“Back at you, baby.”
So she stayed. She canceled her interview in Fremont and unpacked her boxes and bags. And her first night alone in his house, she went stark raving mad.
Knowing that it would be six long months before she felt Luke’s hard body raging over her, or caught a quick glimpse of that dimple, fed her desperation to find a distraction.
But what?
Since moving to Benevolence her entire focus had been on Luke. Luke’s incredible body, Luke’s home, Luke’s work. Luke’s really incredible body.
That first night, she lay awake in the center of the bed wearing one of his t-shirts and stared at the ceiling until dawn. For the first time in her life, she had stability, a future. She just didn’t know what to do with it.
She did her best to stay busy.
Harper took up knitting. Until she pierced her knuckle with the knitting needle and bled all over the silky ivory yarn that wasn’t looking anything like the pattern anyway.
Scrapbooking was next. Until she realized she had nothing to scrapbook.
There were only so many silly stickers and borders you could stick to a page without any actual photos.
Finally, Sophie took pity on her and offered up a weekly shift at Remo’s to get Harper out of the house on Friday nights.
Sophie bartended while Harper called on her college experience and waited tables.
The tips were good, and it was the perfect way to get to know the residents of Benevolence.
Sooner or later, everyone showed up at Remo’s for dinner, for drinks, for conversation.
Of course, most of the customers knew her name before they even met her.
Small towns.
Luke was not thrilled when she told him in their first video chat.
“No, Harper. Absolutely not,” he said, his tone clipped.
“Are you using your Captain voice on me right now?” she asked him in disbelief.
The look he leveled at her through the computer had her grinning.
He took a deep breath and tried another tack.
“What I meant to say is I really don’t like the idea of you closing on a Friday night by yourself.
It’s too late, and what if there’s trouble?
Who’s going to help you?” She could see the frustration on his face.
“Luke, you don’t need to worry about this.”
“I hate not being around to protect you.”
“It’s not your job to protect me.”
“Yes. It is. And I take it very seriously. So if something happens to you, I’m going to be fucking pissed.”
“I love you. That’s the reason I’m doing this. I miss you so much it hurts to breathe. Sometimes I can’t fall asleep because all I can do is feel this hole in my heart. This shift will help me keep my mind off missing you.”
He sighed. “Baby, I miss you, too. Every time I wake up and you’re not in my arms, it’s like a knife in the gut. But I need you to be safe. Promise me, Harper, that you’ll take every precaution.”
She crossed her heart. “I promise. Ty got Sophie and I pepper spray, and we carpool to our shift. Besides, Luke, everyone knows who we belong to.”
Harper dropped off the beers and a diet soda and raced back to the server station to order for Reece and Dana at the pool table.
She made another lap before circling back to the bar and spotting a familiar face.
Gloria was perched on a barstool sipping a glass of wine.
“Hey, Gloria,” Harper waved to her friend. “It’s nice to see you out and about!”
A delicate blush tinged her cheeks. “I’m celebrating my first paycheck from Blooms.”
Free from the abuse of her ex-boyfriend Glenn Diller, Gloria landed a job at the local florist and was saving for her own apartment.
“Good for you! Claire says you’re doing a great job,” Harper told her, reloading her tray. Luke’s mom, a plant lover for life, worked at Blooms part-time and had been singing Gloria’s praises.
“Thanks. I really like it there.” Gloria’s blush deepened. “Um, have you heard from Luke?”
Harper couldn’t stop the smile that took over her face if she tried. Just the mention of his name gave her a little rush. A fast, electric tingle.
She nodded. “I had an email from him Wednesday, and I talked to him last week.”
Gloria turned her gaze to her glass as she twirled the stem between her fingers. “Did he say how Aldo’s doing?”
“Oooooooooh,” Sophie cooed behind the bar. “Someone has a crush!”
Gloria turned an even brighter shade of pink.
“Stop picking on her!” Harper rolled her eyes. “Don’t mind Sophie,” she told Gloria. “She thinks she’s Cupid. ”
“By the way, you’re welcome.” Sophie winked at Harper.
Harper definitely owed Soph a debt of gratitude for putting her in Luke’s bed that first night. Not that she intended to inflate Luke’s sister’s head any more than it already was.
“ Anyway .” Harper looked pointedly at Sophie. “Luke did mention that Aldo’s organizing some crazy boot camp workout competition with a bunch of the people from their unit. Tire flipping, rope climbing. He promised to email pictures.”
Gloria nodded but remained silent.
“I could give you his email address, you know.”
That had Gloria lifting her gaze. “Don’t you think it would be… weird?”
Harper shook her head and hefted her tray. “I think you guys waited long enough. Don’t you?” She started for the crowd and called over her shoulder. “I’ll send you his email address.”
That night, Harper collapsed into bed exhausted and alone. On Fridays, James, Luke’s younger brother, took Lola and Max overnight so she didn’t have to worry about them being alone all day and into the night.
She smiled, imagining the dogs cramming themselves between him and whatever attractive, single girl he had talked into his bed. Just like his brother, he wasn’t into commitment. However, in James’s case, the girls didn’t have to be nearly as persuasive as Harper had been.
Was this Luke settling down? Asking her to stay seemed like a big step. But there were so many things unsaid between the two of them. What was he keeping from her? There were walls between them and not just the ones he had built in the basement.
Harper couldn’t help but wonder how things would be when he came home.
Would it be the same old cycle of getting too close only to be pushed away?
She rolled over and hugged a pillow. Doubts and concerns found their way into her mind in the quiet hours of the night, especially when she hadn’t heard from him.
They managed a phone call or a video chat almost every week, and in those precious minutes, everything was better. Just hearing his voice from half a world away made her body come alive.
Hanging up was hell.
Harper instituted a rule for herself. She wasn’t allowed to cry on the phone. She wanted to leave him with a warm feeling in his chest that would lift him up, not a sinking guilt or loneliness that would plague him.
After every call, she allowed herself five minutes to cry those unshed tears and embrace the hollow of her heart. And then she carried on.
She curled around his pillow. Tonight, she was wearing a Garrison Construction t-shirt that she found in his office. Wrapped in his familiar scent, she fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.