Chapter 2 #2
“I don't know. Just…off.” Felix shrugged, but his eyes were concerned. “She was coming out of her boutique, and when I waved, she barely seemed to see me. Like she had a lot on her mind. I tried to talk to her, but she said she was fine and basically brushed me off.”
Unease curled in my gut, cold and sharp. Harper was always warm, always smiled, always had time for a conversation even when she was busy. She'd tease Felix about his motorcycle or ask about the ranch or make some joke that would have them both laughing within minutes.
If Felix had noticed her acting different enough to mention it, something had to be wrong.
“Did you ask what was wrong?”
“Tried to. She shut me down pretty fast. Said she was just busy with inventory or something.” Felix's brow furrowed. “But Connor, she looked…I don't know. Worried? Scared, maybe? It didn't sit right.”
My chest tightened. The brush felt heavy in my hand again, useless. “She wouldn't want to hear from me.”
“You don't know that.”
“I walked out on dinner rather than sit next to her, Felix.” The words came out sharper than intended, edged with frustration at myself, at the situation, at everything. “I think that message was pretty clear.”
“Then un-send it.” Felix straightened, his tone shifting to something more serious. “Call her. Text her. Show up at her shop. Whatever. Just stop hiding out here feeling sorry for yourself.”
I opened my mouth to argue, but Felix wasn't done.
“Because here's the thing, man. You've been half in love with that woman for years. Maybe it's time to admit it and do something about it.”
The words hit me like a physical blow. My breath caught, and it took everything in me not to audibly choke. The barn suddenly felt too warm despite the February cold seeping through the walls.
Half in love.
Was that what this was? This constant ache in my chest every time I thought about her?
This awareness of where she was, what she was doing, whether she was okay that had become as natural as breathing?
This feeling like something vital was missing when she wasn't around, like the world was slightly off-kilter?
This hollowness that had settled in my chest when our friendship started falling apart, when the easy conversations and comfortable silences got replaced with awkward distance and things unsaid?
My phone buzzed in my back pocket, jarring me out of my spiraling thoughts. I pulled it out with hands that weren't quite steady and found Anna's name on the screen.
Anna
Harper's coming to dinner this week. Wednesday. You should come. Please?
My thumb hovered over the keyboard. Every instinct I had screamed to make an excuse, to avoid it, to protect myself from another evening of torturous proximity to someone I couldn't have.
But Felix's words echoed in my head.
Half in love.
The truth settled in my chest like a stone, heavy and undeniable.
What time?
The response came almost immediately.
Anna
6:30. Thank you!!! I promise it won't be weird.
It would absolutely be weird. Everything with Harper had been weird ever since that fight at my house when she'd finally said what she really thought about Morgan. That Morgan was using me, that I deserved better, that I was wasting my time on someone who didn't care.
I'd defended Morgan and told Harper she was being unfair, that she didn't understand our relationship, that maybe she was just jealous.
God, I'd been such an idiot.
Harper had left that night with tears in her eyes that I pretended not to see, and things had never been the same. The visits stopped. The calls became rare. The easy friendship we'd built crumbled because I'd been too blind to see what was right in front of me.
That Harper had been trying to protect me. That she'd cared enough to risk our friendship by telling me the truth.
That maybe she'd been saying all of it because watching me with Morgan had been killing her.
I pocketed my phone and went back to grooming Cinnamon, but my hands moved on autopilot now. My mind was already racing ahead to Wednesday. To seeing Harper again. To figuring out what the hell I was going to say to her.
To maybe, finally, being brave enough to tell her the truth.
“You texted her?” Felix's voice cut through my thoughts.
“Anna. Dinner Wednesday.”
“And Harper will be there?”
“Apparently.”
Felix grinned. I could hear it in his voice even without looking at him. “Good. Don't chicken out this time.”
“I'm not going to—” I stopped, because we both knew I might. “I'll be there.”
“And you'll actually stay? Talk to her? Act like a human being instead of a wounded animal?”
“I hate you.”
“No you don't.” Felix clapped me on the shoulder as he passed, heading for the barn door. “You hate yourself. But maybe Wednesday you can start fixing that.”
He paused at the door, silhouetted against the gray morning light. “And Connor? Whatever you're feeling? It's been obvious for years. So when you finally pull your head out of your ass and tell her, she's not going to be surprised. She's been waiting.”
He left before I could respond, the barn door sliding shut with a hollow scrape of wood on metal. A moment later, I heard his motorcycle engine roar to life outside, then fade as he drove down the long gravel drive toward the cabins.
I stood in Cinnamon's stall, brush in hand, and tried to breathe through the anxiety already building in my chest.
She's been waiting. Had she? All those times she'd tried to talk to me about Morgan, all those moments when her smile didn't quite reach her eyes, all those Saturday dinners at my ranch that became less frequent until they stopped altogether. Had she been waiting for me to wake up?
My phone buzzed again with another text from Anna.
Anna
She's been having a hard time. I don't know the details, but she needs her friends right now. So please actually BE her friend on Wednesday. Don't run away again.
My chest tightened, the anxiety morphing into something sharper. More immediate.
Hard time? What did that mean?
Is she okay?
Three dots appeared at the bottom of the screen. Disappeared. Appeared again. My heart rate picked up watching them, waiting.
Anna
I don't know. She won't talk about it. But something's wrong. I can tell.
The unease from earlier intensified, spreading through my chest like ice water. Harper not talking about things was unusual. She was always open, always honest, sometimes brutally so.
If she was keeping something from Anna, her best friend…
I'll be there. And I'll stay.
Anna
Good. She needs you.
I stared at those words for a long moment, the phone screen bright in the dim barn.
She needs you.
When was the last time someone had needed me? Really needed me, not just as a boss or a friend-of-a-friend or someone convenient to call when they needed ranch advice?
Morgan certainly hadn't needed me. She'd made that clear with every canceled plan, every “I'm busy” text, every time she'd prioritized literally anything else over our relationship.
My parents were gone. Mom to cancer five years ago, Dad to a heart attack two years after that. My sister Tessa lived in Seattle and called once a month if I was lucky, usually when she needed money or advice she'd ignore anyway.
The ranch hands were friends, but also employees. There was a line there.
Jaxon and Anna had each other. Felix had his own life, his own pursuits.
But Harper…
Harper used to need me. Used to call when her car broke down, or when she needed help moving furniture at the boutique, or when she was stressed about inventory and needed someone to vent to. Used to show up at the ranch claiming she needed a break from town but really just wanting company.
My company.
We'd sit on my porch for hours, talking about everything and nothing. She'd tease me about my terrible taste in music, and I'd defended my country playlist more times than I could count. I'd give her shit about her tendency to rescue every stray animal that crossed her path.
We'd watch the sunset paint the mountains in shades of orange and pink and purple, and it had felt easy. Natural.
Perfect.
Then I'd started dating Morgan, and slowly, everything changed.
The calls became less frequent. The visits stopped unless it was a group thing.
Harper pulled back, and I'd told myself it was because she disapproved of Morgan, or because she was busy with the boutique, or any number of other reasons that weren't the truth.
The truth I'd been too stupid to see. That seeing me with Morgan had hurt her. Just like watching her pull back had been killing me, even when I didn't understand why.
I finished with Cinnamon mechanically, my hands moving through the familiar motions while my mind raced. I moved through the barn, checking the other horses and throwing more hay into stalls before I made sure their water was full.
Physical work that usually cleared my head but today just gave me more time to think. To remember.
To finally admit what I'd been denying for far too long.
I'd been falling for Harper Walsh for years. Maybe since the first time I met her, when I'd walked into her boutique on a whim looking for a birthday gift for Tessa and she'd laughed at something I'd said, and the sound had made everything else fade away. That was six years ago.
Six years of friendship that had slowly, inevitably become something more. Something I'd been too scared or too stupid or too involved with the wrong woman to acknowledge.
But Morgan was gone now. And Felix was right. I was free to do something about it. The question was: did I have the courage?
By the time Denny and Jim showed up arguing about something while Mark just shook his head at them, I'd made a decision.
Wednesday, I wasn't running. I was showing up, and I was staying, and I was going to figure out what was wrong.
Because if Harper was struggling with something, if she needed help, then I was going to be there for her.
Even if she didn't want me to be. Even if it killed me to be close to her while knowing I couldn't have her. Because that's what you did for people you—
My thoughts stuttered to a halt. The coffee mug I'd been holding, forgotten until now, nearly slipped from my grip.
People you what? Love. The word echoed through my mind, undeniable and terrifying.
I was in love with Harper Walsh.
Not falling. Not halfway. Not “sort of” or “maybe” or any of the other ways I'd been lying to myself for years. Completely, irrevocably, absolutely in love with her.
I had been, maybe, since that first conversation when I heard her laugh for the first time.
I'd just been too stupid and too much of a coward to acknowledge it.
But standing in my barn, dust motes dancing in the strengthening sunlight, the smell of hay, horses, and leather all around me, I couldn't lie to myself anymore.
Felix was right, everyone had probably seen it. Jaxon and Anna, the ranch hands, probably half the town. Everyone except me and Harper, both of us too scared to admit what was right in front of us.
I was in love with Harper Walsh.
And I had five days to figure out if I was brave enough to do something about it or if I was going to lose her before I ever really had her.