Chapter 27 Harper
HARPER
Knox Blackwood was reorganizing the exam room’s supply cabinets. Again.
Shocking. Truly.
The man had reorganized it three times this week. At this point, the bandages were alphabetized by brand and the gauze was sorted by thread count. If such a thing even existed.
“Are you okay?” His husky voice had an edge of worry.
I bit the inside of my cheek to keep my emotions in check. “I’m fine.”
The lie tasted stale.
Knox cocked his head to the side, those silver eyes scanning my face like he was reading a language only he understood.
“Is it your ex?” I didn’t miss the edge to his tone.
“No.”
“Is an inmate giving you a hard time?”
“No.”
“Then what is it?”
These days, it was something I never talked about with anyone.
I suppose the reasons for that were several.
First, it was the most painful part of my past, capable of reaching into my psyche and cracking my self-worth in half.
Second, as terrible as it made me to admit this, it was embarrassing, having two parents who were such a hot mess.
And beneath all of that, I felt like a bad person for hating them for it.
So, I avoided the topic. At all costs. I tried to rationalize away my pain. Like I was internally doing right now.
That phone call with my mom had actually been a good one, all things considered. Plenty of our conversations were absolute disasters, complete with crying and yelling and accusations that left me shaking for hours. It just depended on how drunk she was.
Today had been manageable. So, why was I still hurting so bad?
Which brought me to the final reason I no longer talked about this with anyone. It was embarrassing to admit that my heart would still, unfathomably, get its hopes up that things would change.
What kind of pathetic person clings to such a far-fetched fantasy?
The kind who still checks her phone, hoping for a just thinking about you text from her mother. The kind who cries in her car after every visit.
The kind who, apparently, couldn’t stop hoping even when hope was the thing that kept cutting her.
“If another inmate—”
“It’s not an inmate!” My voice echoed off the walls. I winced. “Sorry. Just … family dynamics can be complicated.”
He didn’t seem angry at my outburst. Instead, his gaze traveled over me slowly. Head to toe, cataloging. Looking for injuries, I realized. Trying to decide if he believed that family dysfunction was the source of my bad mood rather than, say, another inmate getting handsy.
Because something told me if it had been an inmate, Knox wouldn’t take it lying down.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
I laughed. The sound was hollow. “No.”
But strangely and instantly, I realized that wasn’t true.
I did want to talk about it today. More specifically, with Knox.
Maybe the reason I felt so comfortable with him was because of the two of us, he’d already humbled the hell out of himself.
He’d confided that he felt like a bad dad.
I couldn’t imagine a much more vulnerable thing to admit to someone.
He’d cracked himself open first. And maybe that made it feel safer for me to do the same.
When I didn’t answer right away, he continued, “If I’m worried something’s wrong, I might accidentally reorganize this closet every hour just to check on you.”
I shot him a look. “That’s not funny.”
“Who’s joking?”
Those piercing eyes held mine, completely serious. And damn it, I believed him.
I returned my attention to my clipboard, pretending to check off inventory items. The silence between us felt different than usual. Less like a wall and more like a bridge.
And then curiosity got the better of me.
If what Faith had told me was true, Knox Blackwood was Dakota Blackwood’s brother. I’d met Dakota. She wasn’t in prison. She hadn’t murdered anyone. She ran a social media empire and was madly in love with Axel.
How did two siblings wind up so differently?
“What about your family?” I wondered aloud. “What are they like?”
I got the impression he normally wouldn’t talk about this with anyone either. Maybe he was answering because he wanted me to open up. Or maybe this strange intimacy we’d stumbled into made the words easier to find.
Whatever the reason, he cleared his throat.
“I come from a good family.” His voice was low, rough at the edges. “Churchgoing. Taught us right from wrong. No stealing. No cheating.”
“And definitely no murdering?” I arched an eyebrow.
Thankfully, Knox smirked. “That one was more of an implied rule.”
“Your mom must’ve been thrilled when you broke it.”
I meant it to be lighthearted. A pressure valve. But the words landed somewhere deep in his chest. I could see it in the way he went completely still.
“You have no idea.”
Something in his tone made me pause.
“Does she know why you did it?”
When Knox’s eyes met mine, I could see him weighing something. Calculating how much to share.
“My conviction destroyed her.” No trace of humor now. Just raw, unvarnished truth. “It destroyed my whole family. My sister was so upset that she ran out of the courtroom, crying hysterically. My mom chased after her, but she wasn’t paying attention to where she was running.”
He paused. Swallowed.
“My mom got hit by a car. She’s been paralyzed ever since.”
The air left my lungs. “Holy shit.”
“Yeah.” His jaw tightened. “Holy shit.”
I could see how much this weighed on him. It was like a physical force pressing against his body, tensing the tendons in his neck, turning his broad shoulders into a fortress of guilt.
“I’ll never forgive myself for that,” he said quietly.
“I’m sure your mom doesn’t blame you for her accident.”
“Even worse, she blames herself.” He scrubbed a hand over his stubbled jaw.
“Just like she blames herself for what I did. She thinks she failed somewhere as a mother. No matter how many times I tell her otherwise, she keeps looking back at what she did or didn’t do.
” His voice cracked, just barely. “My mom took us to church every Sunday. She showed up to every parent-teacher conference, every Little League game. Both of my parents did. They were loving and supportive and taught us right from wrong. My actions in no way reflected what they taught me.”
It felt like, today, Knox and I had unexpectedly taken a swim in the deep end of honesty. We’d started in the shallows, testing the temperature. And somehow, without meaning to, we’d drifted past the point where our feet could touch the bottom.
“Why did you do what you did?”
Protecting his daughter—that was what he’d implied. But that didn’t really explain it. Protect her from what exactly? Had a man been trying to hurt her, and Knox stepped in, but made one wrong move, and the guy was dead by his own gun?
He swallowed. “Does it matter?”
“To me it does.”
“Why?”
I set down the clipboard. Met his gaze directly.
“Because I can’t figure you out. By all accounts, you seem like a normal, protective, kindhearted guy. And by your own admission, you came from a really good family who taught you right from wrong.” I shook my head slowly. “So, how does someone like that commit homicide?”
His eyes dropped to the floor. His jaw worked like he was chewing on words he couldn’t swallow. The openness from a moment ago started closing, a door swinging shut inch by inch, and I could feel him retreating somewhere I couldn’t follow.
“It was to protect someone,” I said softly. “You’ve told me that much.”
“Can we drop this?” His tone was sharp and distant.
And just like that, the warmth between us flickered. I hadn’t realized how much I’d been leaning into it until he started pulling away.
My heart pounded against my ribs. I wanted to pull Knox back to me. So, I pulled him back the only way I knew how.
I shared something about my life. Something I’d rarely shared with anyone, and Knox was the first person I didn’t fear would judge me for this.
“My parents are addicts.”
His gaze locked on to mine. Every ounce of his attention focused on me like a spotlight.
“Addiction is a disease.” I picked up a roll of gauze, turning it over in my hands just to have something to do. “I’m a nurse. I know that. But sometimes I still get so mad at them. I want them to try, you know? Fucking TRY to get better. Because they’re the only family I have.”
The words started spilling faster now, a dam finally breaking.
“Some days, I consider cutting them out of my life because it’s just so toxic.
So hurtful. So painful to be chronically rejected and mistreated by the two people who are supposed to love you unconditionally.
” I blinked hard. “But then other days, I feel like the world’s worst human being for even considering that.
Because they really did the best they could.
I had a roof over my head. Food to eat. Clothes to wear.
I was enrolled in school. They never physically abused me. ”
My voice wobbled. I hated that it wobbled.
“So, the days I feel angry, I very quickly feel like a terrible person for not appreciating them enough. They’re alive. Do you know how many people lose their parents and would give anything for the chance I have?”
My throat tightened. My vision blurred.
I didn’t realize tears had started sliding down my cheeks until Knox moved.
He closed the distance between us slowly. Giving me time to back away if I wanted to.
I didn’t.
He raised his hand, and I saw the hesitation. His fingers hovered an inch from my skin, like he was asking permission without words. Like he knew what it meant for a woman like me to be touched by a man like him.
And then, so gently that it made my chest ache, he brushed the tear from my cheek with the pad of his thumb.
His touch sent a jolt of heat through my system. It felt like my entire body was a battery, drained by life. By my parents. By Silas. By years of trying so hard just to stay afloat.
And his one touch jolted a charge through me.
His hand stilled against my face. His breath caught. He felt it too. I could see it in the way his pupils dilated, the way his chest stopped moving.
“Something tells me you rarely cry,” he murmured.
The air left my lungs in a slow, unsteady pull. Because he was right. He was so impossibly right, and he barely knew me. Yet, somehow, in some ways, it felt like in this moment, he knew me better than anyone.
“I don’t,” I whispered. “Because I’m afraid if I let myself cry, I won’t stop.”
His thumb traced the edge of my cheekbone. Gentle. So impossibly gentle for hands that had done the things his had done.
“Maybe,” he said quietly, “you just haven’t had anyone worth crying in front of.”
The words hit me somewhere deep. Somewhere I’d boarded up a long time ago.
Because he was right. I’d spent my whole life being strong for people who didn’t notice. Being brave for people who didn’t care. And here was this man, a convicted murderer, a man I should be terrified of, looking at me like my tears were something sacred.
Like I was something sacred.
His gaze dropped to my lips.
I could feel the shift in energy between us, electric and dangerous. I could hear the quickening of his breath. The air turned thick, charged, like the moment before lightning strikes.
He leaned closer, his sapphire eyes searching mine, flicking between my gaze and my mouth.
Asking.
I didn’t move. I didn’t pull away.
Instead, my lips parted, and as he slowly—agonizingly slowly—drew his mouth closer to mine, inch by glorious inch, my heart slammed against my ribs.
And then Knox Blackwood pressed his lips to mine.
His mouth found mine, soft at first. Tentative. Like he was giving me one last chance to push him away.
I didn’t.
Instead, I rose up on my tiptoes and kissed him back.
Something broke open between us. The kiss deepened, turned hungry. His hand slid from my cheek to the back of my neck, fingers threading into my hair. My hands found his chest, and, God, he was solid. All hard muscle and heat beneath the thin fabric of his prison shirt.
He made a sound low in his throat. Something between a groan and a prayer.
My fingers curled into the cotton of his shirt, pulling him closer. He responded by wrapping his other arm around my waist, lifting me just slightly, and I gasped against his mouth.
He was so big. So impossibly big. He had to bend down while I stretched up, and even then, it wasn’t enough. I wanted to climb him. I wanted to disappear into him. I wanted things I had no business wanting from a man in orange.
Anyone could walk in.
I’d lose my job.
He’d get thrown in solitary.
I didn’t care.
For the first time in years, I felt something other than afraid. I felt alive. I felt chosen. I felt like someone finally saw the broken parts of me and decided they were worth holding anyway.
His hand slid down my spine, and I arched into him. The kiss turned desperate, both of us taking and giving in equal measure. He tasted like bad coffee and something darker, something that made my head spin.
When we finally broke apart, we were both breathing hard.
Knox pressed his forehead to mine, his chest heaving. His hand was still tangled in my hair, like he couldn’t quite bring himself to let go.
“Harper.” My name on his lips sounded like a confession.
I stared up at him. At this man who was clearly dangerous …
not just because my head was telling me that he was a convicted murderer, but because my heart (and body) no longer cared that he was.
At this man who reorganized supplies just to make sure I was okay.
At this man who had just kissed me like I was the only thing in the world worth kissing.
He pulled back just enough to look at me. Those eyes were molten now, dark with something I couldn’t name.
Everything changed, I realized. Again.
No. Not again. This was different. This was worse. This was better. This was the kind of change that couldn’t be undone.
I had just kissed an inmate.
And the terrifying part wasn’t that it had happened.
The terrifying part was that I wanted to do it again.