Chapter Twenty-Three
"I'll see you tomorrow then, bud," Blane said as he held the truck door open for him.
Emmett gave him a wry smile. "You mean you're not coming in with me?"
Blane smirked. "I've done what I can. Told you what I think. This next part —" He glanced over at Harper's truck and then up at the house. "You're the only one who can figure this out. Do you need a hand up the steps?"
"No, it's the same thing, isn't it? I need to do it for myself."
Blane nodded but he didn't get back into the truck; he stood and watched as Emmett made his way up the steps to the front door.
When he opened it, Emmett turned back, and something in his chest loosened a little at the sight of his oldest friend standing there smiling encouragingly. Then he went inside.
He closed the door behind him and leaned back against it for a moment before calling, "Hey, ladies, I'm home."
There was a beat of silence that filled him with a sense of foreboding before anyone answered.
"We're in the kitchen," Alana called.
A moment later, Tanya came hurrying out to greet him, wrapping her arm around his waist. "Uncle Blane didn't come with you?" she asked. "Do you need to lean on me?"
"I'm good, thanks, Button. I can do it."
When he reached the kitchen, he didn't immediately go to one of the chairs, instead forcing himself to keep his feet as he took in the sight of Harper at the stove and Alana sitting at the table, her eyes red and puffy. "What's going on?" he asked. "Is everything all right?"
When Harper turned, it looked as though she'd been crying, too. "What is it?" he asked. "What's wrong?"
Harper shook her head. "Nothing to worry about. We've been talking, that's all. I told the girls about me going back to the cottage."
His heart sank. He hadn't known what to expect when he got home, but he hadn't expected to see two pairs of red eyes. He looked down at Tanya. No, make that three.
"I don't want Harper to go," Tanya said in a small voice.
Harper smiled, but she couldn't pull off the bright, convincing kind of smile that used to be able to fool him not so long ago. "Dinner's ready. I should get going. It's easy enough to dish up from here."
Emmett opened his mouth, but all the words stuck in his throat.
Alana turned to him as if begging him to say something, but he didn't know what she wanted to hear from him. All he wanted to do was ask Harper to stay, but that was for himself. For Alana's sake, he knew it was probably better for Harper to go.
After a few beats of silence, Alana got to her feet.
"I'm not going to pretend that I need to do homework or that I want to take a shower.
I think it's time we all started to be honest with each other.
Come on, Tanya. Let's go upstairs and give Dad and Harper the chance to talk. I think they need to."
Tanya looked from him to Harper and back again. "Yeah, you guys should talk. You should figure it out. I think..."
Alana grabbed her sister's hand. "Come on, Button. They need to figure out for themselves what they think. We'll be upstairs."
Harper met his gaze and gave him a sad smile. "Perhaps your dad and I should go and sit outside so that you girls can eat. I don't want you banished to your rooms because of me."
"It's not because of you. Not in a bad way," said Alana, with a meaningful look at Emmett.
"But yeah, I'm hungry," said Tanya. "Will you be all right to sit outside, Dad? Do you want me to bring you the cushions?"
"Yeah, thanks." He gave her a one-armed hug before she scampered off to go and set the cushions out on the deck furniture.
While she was doing that, Alana came to him and leaned into his side. He didn't know what the three of them had talked about, but the last thing he wanted to do was hurt his eldest daughter. He curled his arm around her. "You okay, Sprout?"
"I am, and I will be, Dad. You need to think about yourself for once, not just about us."
He kissed the top of her head. "I can't not think about you. You're my girls."
She looked up into his eyes. "And you're our dad, and we can't not think about you, too. You count as well, you know."
With that, she followed Tanya outside, checked that the cushions were set up properly, and then came back in. He couldn't read the look she gave Harper as she said, "You're all set now. We'll stay in here."
Out on the deck, he lowered himself gratefully onto the sofa.
After the day he'd had, he might have been more comfortable on one of the chairs, but a small, worried voice in his head was telling him that this might be the last chance he got to sit out here with Harper.
And he was hoping that she might sit with him.
He glanced over his shoulder — even if the girls were right there inside the house.
Harper's hands fidgeted as she stood before him, looking uncomfortable. Then she let out a short laugh. "Oh, screw it. I don't know if I'm supposed to sit over there so that we can look each other in the eye. But I want to sit beside you, so I'm going to — if that's okay."
He felt some of the tension leave his shoulders as he smiled back. "I was hoping you'd want to. Because listen, Harper, no matter what kind of mess I've made of this, I need you to know that none of it has changed the way I feel about you."
Her gaze locked with his. "Thank you for saying that.
It makes it easier — easier for me to say the same thing.
" She glanced through the kitchen window, and he turned to check, too.
He hoped the girls wouldn't have their noses pressed up against the window, listening. But he couldn't blame them if they did.
"I'm not checking on them," said Harper. "I'm thinking about them. As you may have noticed from the atmosphere when you came in. We've been talking."
"And I hope you'll tell me how it went. But if you don't mind, this time, I want to talk first. I didn't, couldn't say everything I wanted to this morning." He held his hand up before she could protest. "I don't mean because of you. I mean, I couldn't make the words come out."
She raised her eyebrows. "I thought you said what you needed to."
He smiled through pursed lips. "I think, if you recall the conversation properly, I didn't say much of anything at all. You took yourself out of the equation. And I know you did it for me. On my behalf. To make life easier for me. To do the right thing, but... I didn't say what I needed to."
"Okay, then I'll zip it. What is it that you need to say, Emmett?"
He reached for her, and something settled inside him when she took his hand and gave it a squeeze.
"I've been trying to figure out the best way to say this.
There are so many things to say around it, but.
.." He chuckled when he saw her raised eyebrows.
"Okay, I know. I'm going to get to the point.
And the point is..." He looked deep into her eyes, knowing that the words might not change the situation but that he'd never get a chance to say them for the first time again. "The truth is that I love you, Harper."
She gripped his hand so tightly that he almost winced. For a few moments that was her only reaction. And then she slowly relaxed her grip before giving him another squeeze as she said, "Wow."
He let out a short laugh. "Wow. What does that mean? I can usually rely on you to tell me exactly what you're thinking. Wow's not helping me, Harper."
She chuckled. "Sorry. And for what it's worth, you can now claim to be one of very few people who's ever left me speechless."
"I'd like to be pleased about that. But I'd rather you tell me what it means."
"Sorry, yes." A big smile spread across her face. "It means... wow. It means I'm happy. It means—" She glanced through the kitchen window again. "It means… crap, it means I have to be honest with you, too."
His heart felt as though it stopped beating for a moment as he waited.
"I told the girls first. And maybe I shouldn't have done that, but I won't apologize for it because it was what the moment needed. What they needed was honesty, and I gave it to them."
"What did you tell them?" he asked cautiously.
"Oh, damn, I haven't even said it yet, have I? Okay, here goes."
He raised his eyebrows.
"Surely you know what's coming."
"I don't." Part of him wanted to, but he couldn't believe — he didn't trust that...
"I'm saying that I love you, too, Emmett. You're the most wonderful man I've ever known. I don't just love you; I respect and admire you." She chuckled. "But don't go getting big-headed. It doesn't mean that I think you're perfect or anything. No one is, you know."
He had to laugh. "I'm well aware that I'm far from perfect. But..." It was his turn to glance through the kitchen window. There was no sign of the girls in there. "You’ve made me so happy. But... the girls?"
She nodded slowly. "I had to tell them that I'm going back to the cottage.
It was only about the groceries at first, about why I wasn't bringing all of them inside.
But then it kind of went from there. And you know me; I won't hide things from them or lie to them.
And the questions came, of course. And then Tanya said that I mustn't love you.
" She bit down on her bottom lip. "This might be the harder thing to confess, Emmett, but I love the girls and I told them that. I hope you don't mind. But I do."
"Jesus, Harper, of course I don't mind. I love that you love them."
She smiled. "Do you think we're overusing the word a bit here?"
"Maybe, but I think we can be forgiven, don't you?"
"I do."
"I hate that I can't hold you in my arms right now.
" But he held his left arm out, and she leaned against him, resting her head against his shoulder for a moment before lifting it up again as she said, "I feel like we should get a beautiful sunset now and everything should fade away as we ride off into a happy new future together.
But this is real life and it doesn't work that way, does it? "