Chapter 14 #3
Naturally, her father noticed her first, his nose slightly lifted into the air in an attempt to catch her scent, had his head snapping toward the escalator more quickly than she’d anticipated.
He smiled and stepped away from Joel to greet her as she reached floor level.
Travis stepped back and gave her time to step clear of the escalator, then pulled her into his arms. “Welcome home, baby. How was your trip?”
“Exhausting,” she answered.
“Those shows are non-stop. I hope you picked up some good information for us, though,” Travis said.
“I did. Lots of brochures, some ideas of my own of which route is the best possibility for us, but of course, it will all be your decision.”
“Appreciate you going for me.”
Harper nodded, as she took a step past him to move closer to the conveyor to look for her bags.
“Joel beat you here after the plane landed. We were wondering where you got to. He said you got off first,” Travis said.
Harper turned her gaze on her father. The one that clearly said, ‘Seriously? You know why I got off first, and yet here you stand with him’, but to her credit, she didn’t voice it. Instead, she stared directly at her father when she answered. “I had to pee.”
“Oh! Okay,” Travis said, chuckling. “A little TMI, but okay.”
Travis watched his daughter, obviously still peeved; and Joel, who seemed hesitant to confront her and wondered if he had misread the information he’d received from both of them regarding the encounter that set this whole situation off.
“There’s mine,” Joel said, stepping forward and moving politely through the crowd standing along the conveyor’s edges to reach for his bag.
“You want a towel so you can lasso your bag and make sure it can’t get away from you?” Harper called out.
Joel turned with a smile on his face at the sound of her voice, but that smile quickly faded as she finished her sentence.
“Harper…” Travis said warningly.
“Oh, yes, of course. Let’s not make the man who dared to try to force your daughter into an intimate position the littlest bit uncomfortable.
” She stalked forward, but at the last moment took a left to follow the route the conveyor took and waited for her bags a couple of feet before all bags on the flight went through the flaps at the end of the conveyor’s route to make the trip back behind the wall to only show up again to make another round of the room.
She spied her bags coming toward her and easily picked up one, then the other two off the conveyor and set them beside her.
She extended the handles and stacked them for ease of rolling them out of the room and toward her father’s truck wherever that might be parked.
As she approached her father, Joel stepped in front of her. “Please let me help you, Harper.”
“I have it,” she said.
“But I’d like to help you,” he insisted.
“Again, all about what you’d like. I’d like you to realize that I don’t care what you’d like,” she said, her voice a little sharper.
“Harper, can I get one of those for you?” Travis asked.
Harper smiled at her father. Despite the fact that she was upset with him, he was her father and she always did as much as she could by herself so that he wouldn’t have to exert himself on unfamiliar ground and chance taking a fall — and he never knew, as far as she was aware, that she ever worried about him. “No, thank you, Daddy. I have it.”
“If you’re sure,” Travis said. “I parked out here in the loading and unloading area, so it’s only a quick walk to the truck.”
Harper nodded, walking along slightly ahead of them as she listened to her father asking Joel questions about the show and trying to make him feel welcome.
When they got out to the truck, Harper hoisted her own luggage, each hand holding one suitcase stack as she lifted them over the side of the truck and gently set them down onto the bed.
She made sure that Joel could see how easily she had done it.
Then she left him standing there with his eyes wide at her display of strength, and got into the passenger side of the truck.
She sat there waiting while Joel put his things in the bed, apologizing to her father as though she couldn’t clearly hear them.
“I’m sorry, Travis. I did make a pass at her. I had no idea she’d get so angry.”
“Normally she might have been irritated, but not like this. You sure it was just a pass?” Travis asked.
“Definitely. I even thought it would be considered romantic.”
“Why’d she shout about trapping your bags with a towel so they wouldn’t get away?” he asked, remembering her mentioning the towel on the phone, too.
“I wrapped her towel around her shoulders when she got out of the pool, and held it in place when I let her know I was interested in more than friends, I pulled her closer with it and I tried to kiss her.”
“Closer isn’t trapped.”
“She thinks it was. It obviously upset her and she sees it differently than I did. But I’d have never forced her.”
“Let’s make sure that you don’t make that mistake again.”
“Of course,” Joel said, following Travis to the driver’s side of the truck and getting in the back seat, then buckling himself in as Travis got in the driver’s seat and started the truck.
“Mom’s making her famous smothered steak and onions, Harper. Y’all hungry?” Travis asked.
“No, thank you,” Harper said.
“Sounds delicious,” Joel said.
“You’ll be in for a treat! Won’t he, Harper?” Travis asked.
She glared at her father instead of giving him an answer.
Travis shot her a look to mind her manners, but she shot him one right back, and put her ear buds back in.
A little more than an hour later, Travis slowed as he approached their home.
He put on his blinker as he looked questioningly at Summer’s BMW parked along the edge of their front lawn with the engine running, its tires just barely off the highway, and its front end pointing away from their house with Summer sitting in the driver’s seat, and from the looks of it, having herself a karaoke sing-a-long with the radio.
“Well, would you look at that? Summer somehow knows you’re already home,” Travis said.
“Apparently,” Harper said as her dad pulled into the driveway and brought the truck to a stop.
“Is Summer a good friend?” Joel asked, doing his best to establish some kind of truce between them.
“Yes. Best friend, and she doesn’t like being held in place or coerced by men who think they have certain rights over females either,” Harper snapped just as she looped her purse and her carry on bag over her shoulder, opened the door and slid out of the truck.
She quickly grabbed her other bags out of the bed of the truck and sprinted across the yard toward Summer’s waiting car.
Summer pressed the button in her glove box to open the trunk and it sprung open.
Harper tossed her bags in, slammed the trunk closed, then hurried around to the passenger side of the car.
“Harper Elise!” Travis shouted.
“I’m staying with Summer until he’s gone.”
“You need to be here while we decide on what’s best for the farm and its agricultural direction in the future!” Travis demanded.
“Oh, I know. I will keep my word. I’ll be here bright and early in the morning,” she said as she opened the passenger side door and tossed her purse and carry-on bag in Summer’s general direction.
She looked up at her father over the roof of Summer’s car again.
“And don’t allow him to even peek into my room or I’m moving in with Summer permanently.
” Harper got in the passenger side of Summer’s BMW and the car inched forward, before accelerating and pulling out onto the highway.
Travis stood his ground for a few moments before he turned and looked at Joel.
“Boy, I think maybe you should go over exactly what happened one more time. And make sure you leave nothing out since I’m real good at detecting lies.
If you have disrespected my daughter, you might not have as nice a stay as we’d hoped for. ”