Chapter 46
H e arrived at the office early enough that no one else was there. His gaze immediately scanned to Harper’s desk. When had that happened? How was that the first place he looked every time he came up the stairs?
Shit. He was going to have to tell everyone that they were down an office manager. There would be questions which he wouldn’t answer. And more paperwork which he wouldn’t file. But this space was his again. It was what he wanted.
Wasn’t it?
Luke mashed the buttons on the coffeemaker until it started to brew. He took his first mug into his office and kicked the door shut behind him. He didn’t have time to deal with a view of an empty desk.
He was in the middle of listening to a voicemail for the third time, because he kept spacing out, when Frank burst in without knocking.
“Why the hell is your door closed?”
“Because I wanted it closed.”
Frank shrugged. “Okay. Next question. Why is your woman calling in sick to me?”
Luke stood up before he thought better of it. “Did she say where she is?”
Frank crossed his arms. “No. Don’t you know where she is?”
Luke ignored the question and sank back into his chair. “She said she was sick?” Well at least she was alive. Somewhere.
“Said she wasn’t coming in today because she wasn’t feeling well. Why are you hearing this for the first time? Why didn’t she just roll over and tell you herself?”
“Harper’s not going to be around anymore,” Luke said, briskly. “Let me make this call and then we’ll go out to the Adams site.” He turned back to the phone and started dialing, dismissing Frank and his dumbfounded expression.
Harper woke curled in a ball in a sunny bedroom. She was still dressed in last night’s clothes. There were no strong arms wrapped around her. No dogs at her feet.
She was alone.
She wrapped her fingers around the edge of the quilt and pulled it over her head. She wanted to block it all out. The sun. The hurt. The loneliness.
“What?” Luke didn’t mean to snap at Sophie, but he already knew why she was calling. It would figure that Sophie would be the first person Harper would go to.
“That’s a fine greeting for your favorite sister.”
He shifted the phone to his other ear. “Sorry. What do you need?”
“Just some reassurance. I was supposed to meet Harper for lunch, and she didn’t show. She’s not answering her cell. And I tried the office, and they said she didn’t come in today. I know I’m just being silly, but…” Sophie trailed off.
Luke remembered another time when Sophie had tried to reach someone and couldn’t find her. All their lives had changed that day. It wasn’t just his.
“I guess Harper didn’t tell you?”
“Tell me what? Did you send her to the spa for the day? Is she adopting another dog?”
“We broke up.”
He was ready to yank the phone away from his ear in the event of a deafening screech. But there was only silence.
“Soph? Are you there? ”
More silence. And then finally a whispered response.
“I… I don’t understand. You guys are so…”
“It just wasn’t working out. We wanted different things.” The words clogged his throat.
“You just… broke up? Where is she?”
“I don’t know. She left last night.”
“Is she okay? I mean… Jesus, Luke. I feel like I got sucker punched. I didn’t see this coming. I can’t imagine how she feels.”
“It’s Harper. Of course she’s okay. She’s been through worse than a breakup. She always lands on her feet.”
Sophie was quiet for a moment. “Luke, she loved you with everything she had. She waited six months for you. She’s not just going to land on her feet. And if you’re not going to try to find her, then I will.”
He wasn’t about to admit that he spent the forty-five minutes he had allotted for lunch driving around town looking for her car. He just wanted to know that she was safe. That’s all.
“I don’t think we have anything to worry about.”
“You’re worried. I can hear it in your tone.”
“I don’t have a tone.”
“What if something happened to her? We both know shit happens to good people. And we sure as hell know she’s a trouble magnet. What if she got kidnapped trying to check into a hotel?”
Luke would have laughed if he hadn’t already thought of that exact scenario. He’d called both motels in town that morning to see if Harper was registered.
“She called Frank this morning and told him she wouldn’t be in.”
“And that’s good enough for you? ‘She called Frank, so now I don’t have to worry.’” He could hear Sophie getting angry.
“No, it’s not good enough for me, Soph. She’s not answering her phone, she hasn’t been on Facebook, Aldo and Gloria haven’t seen her. I thought she would have gone to your house last night. Short of calling the cops, I don’t know what else to do.”
“Why did you do it?”
“How do you know it wasn’t Harper breaking things off with me?”
“Because Harper isn’t a chickenshit who runs when the going gets scary.”
“I’m not a chickenshit. It wasn’t working. She built this whole life around me without me having a say, and then everyone’s so fucking surprised when it turns out that wasn’t what I wanted.” He was yelling now but couldn’t seem to stop.
Unintimidated, Sophie yelled back. “Yeah, I can’t think of any man who would want a woman who thought he hung the stars in the goddamn sky. Who worked her ass off making his house a home, not to mention organizing his work life so he could concentrate on something other than chaos.”
Luke swore. “You don’t understand.”
“Oh, I do understand. I just keep waiting for you to wake up and understand. You just threw away something that most people only dream about having. I can’t even talk to you right now.”
He could picture his sister pacing in exasperation. “Are you going to look for her?”
“What do you care?”
“Just— If you find her, let me know that she’s safe.” Luke hung up the phone and tossed it on the passenger seat.
He stared at the front of his house. Harper’s planters from the summer had been stowed in the garage and replaced with ropes of heavy green garland. She had asked about Christmas lights. She had never had Christmas lights before.
He had been parked in the driveway for a full ten minutes before Soph called.
He couldn’t concentrate on work, so he came home.
But the thought of setting foot in the house and facing the stack of boxes, all the evidence of Harper in his life, boxed up and put away as if she had never been there was enough to keep him in the truck.
When would his life be his own again?
He’d go for a run, he decided. A long, cold run to clear his mind.
Harper stirred at the knock on her door.
When it opened, she pulled the covers down and directed a watery smile at the tray-bearing woman.
“I made you some tea and toast,” Joni said, putting the tray down on the nightstand.
“You don’t have to go to any trouble, Joni. I’m just so grateful that you let me stay here.”
She patted Harper’s hand. “It’s nice having someone else in the house.”
“Even if they don’t leave the bed?” Harper tried to laugh, but it came out as a hiccup.
Joni handed her the sturdy mug of tea.
Harper took a sip, and her eyes widened as the hot honeyed liquid slid down her raw throat.
“I hope you don’t mind that I put a little whiskey in it. It always made me feel better.”
Harper wrapped her hands around the mug and sighed. There would be no feeling better. There was only now and the ache. “This is a nice room,” she said softly. The walls were a dusky blue-green accented with ocean prints. A large window seat overlooked the backyard of the comfortable two-story.
“Thank you. It used to be Karen’s. She helped me repaint it when she moved out.”
“When she and… when she got married?” Luke’s name hurt too much to say.
Joni nodded. She sat down on the edge of the bed. “You’re a sweet girl, Harper. Everything is going to work out in the end.”
Harper bit her lip to fight back the impending flood of tears. She sniffled weakly instead and squeezed Joni’s hand.
Joni glanced around the room. “You’re not the only girl who’s cried over Luke Garrison in this room.” A ghost of a smile played at her lips.
“Karen cried over him? But they were so perfect for each other.”
“Honey, no one is perfect for anyone at eighteen.”
“Did they fight?”
“They broke up.” Joni nodded at Harper’s wide eyes. “Luke broke up with Karen a few weeks before graduation. He was joining the Guard, and he wanted Karen to go to college, but she wanted to get married. He thought she was throwing her future away and ended things.”
“How did they get back together?”
“Karen enrolled in school and went out on a date with Lincoln Reed. She and Luke were back together by the next afternoon.”
“Is that why he doesn’t like Linc?”
“Oh, there’s always been a rivalry there.”
Harper remembered Luke’s reaction to Linc hauling her out of the lake and what happened later that night. Would she ever feel like that again? Desired? Craved?
Now she only felt discarded.
“So your phone has been ‘blowing up,’ as you young people would say, out there since this morning.”
Harper’s eyes widened. “I’m sorry. I should have turned it off.”
“It’s no trouble. But there may be some people worried about you.”
Harper shook her head and cleared her throat. “I just can’t. Not yet.”
“Is there anyone you want me to contact? Just to tell them you’re all right?”
Harper started to shake her head. “I don’t know. I feel like everyone here belongs to him, and I don’t want to complicate that for him. I don’t want him to think that I’m trying to…”
“Turn everyone against him for being an idiot?” Joni supplied helpfully.
“Yeah, that. Pretty much exactly that.” Harper managed a shaky laugh. “I don’t want anyone to feel obligated to choose because this is his home, and I’m just… passing through.” She couldn’t stop the tears this time.
Joni took the tea from her and handed her a fresh box of tissues. “Don’t ever think of the relationships you’ve built here as just ‘passing through.’ Benevolence belongs to you just as much as anyone else, and we’re all lucky to have you here.”
“I just love him so much,” Harper sniffled.
“I know you do, sweetie.”
“And I’m so sorry for bringing all of this into your house. It can’t be easy on you dealing with me when it’s Karen who loved him first. And the only reason I’m here is because she isn’t.” She buried her face in her crumpled tissue.
Joni’s eyebrows shot up. “Harper Wilde. I’m surprised at you.
Don’t you see it? Karen brought you here for Luke.
You are exactly what he needs to get him to start living life again.
” She fingered the fine stitches on a bright blue quilt patch.
“If there’s anything that would infuriate my daughter, it would be watching the people she loved refusing to live and love again.
I was doing the same thing. Hiding behind blame and guilt just trying to hold on to what was.
And in doing so, I missed too many years of what is.
But that’s all changing now. I’m not going to hide anymore. And eventually, neither will Luke.”
Harper nodded, but she knew she would be long gone before then. She would be in another job in another town far away. She would have another casual circle of friends who never could quite fill the hole in her heart where family should be.
Maybe it was her destiny to always be a little bit lonely. To always be hungry for love.
“You’re exhausted, you poor thing. You just rest and sleep, and we’ll talk again in the morning.”
Harper nodded, her shoulders slumped.
“How about I let Gloria know you’re here? Then no one will worry, okay?”
She reached for the tea and cupped it in her cold hands. “Okay. Please tell her that I’ll talk to her later when I’m… ready.”
“You take all the time you need. You’re welcome here for as long as you want to stay.”
Harper’s eyes welled with tears. “Thank you, Joni,” she whispered.