Chapter 17
HARPER
I'd been staring at the front door of the boutique for over an hour after I got here this morning, like it might suddenly develop teeth and swallow me whole.
The morning sun streamed through the glass, casting long rectangles of light across the hardwood floors.
Dust motes drifted lazily through the beams, dancing and swirling with each small movement I made.
The familiar smell of lavender sachets and vanilla candles should have been comforting, the scent of years of work, dreams and stubborn determination.
Instead, it felt like a cage. A beautiful, carefully curated cage that I was about to hand over to monsters.
Connor hadn't wanted me to open today. Even though it was Monday.
Even though staying closed meant losing whatever meager sales I might make, which at this point was like refusing crumbs when you were starving.
We'd argued for twenty minutes this morning over breakfast, his voice tight with barely controlled frustration while I matched him with my own brand of stubborn defiance.
“Please, Harper. Stay home or let me come with you. These people burned down your apartment. Who knows what they'll do next?”
But I'd insisted. I reminded him that I had a business to run, bills to pay, and that I couldn't just hide forever like some damsel in a tower waiting to be rescued. I’d pointed out that showing fear would only make things worse and give them more power over me than they already had.
He'd only agreed when Jim volunteered to babysit me.
The word “babysit” had come from Jim himself, said with a wry smile and a shrug that suggested he knew exactly how ridiculous this situation was but was too polite to say it.
He'd been sitting in his beat-up Ford truck outside my boutique for the past four hours, parked in clear view of the front window, arms crossed over his barrel chest, his weathered face scanning Main Street with the kind of vigilance that came from years of ranch work and dealing with predators.
Connor had absolutely refused to let me be here alone after what I'd told him Saturday night. After I'd finally broken down and admitted everything about Silas's visit, the threats, the three-day deadline that ended today and was currently hanging over my head like a guillotine waiting to drop.
Today. The word sat in my stomach like a stone, heavy and inescapable and growing heavier with every passing hour.
Connor was adamant that I tell them no. He'd told me repeatedly Saturday night while holding me as I cried, Sunday morning over coffee when he'd found me awake at 4 in the morning staring at nothing, and again this morning when I'd gotten dressed for work with hands that shook so badly, I could barely button my jeans.
“Tell them no. We'll figure this out together. Harper, you don't have to sacrifice everything you've built for these bastards.”
As I sat here behind my counter, waiting and watching the door like it might explode inward at any moment, all I wanted was to make this deal, sign whatever papers they wanted, walk away from the boutique that was failing anyway, and go home to Connor.
To keep him safe. To make sure his ranch, his home, his livelihood, everything he'd built didn't burn because of my debt and my stubbornness and my apparently genetic inability to make good life choices.
I finally looked down at my phone lying face-up on the glass counter. The screen was open to Connor's text conversation that had been painfully one-sided all morning, like shouting into a void and hearing only echoes of my own voice.
Made it to the boutique. Everything's okay.
Connor
Good. Stay alert. Call me if anything seems off. Anything at all.
I will. Promise.
Read. No reply.
I'd texted him again around ten when Sarah had stopped by with a book she thought I'd like, some romance novel about second chances that felt painfully on the nose given my current situation. I told him the morning was quiet, that there'd been no sign of anyone suspicious, that I was fine.
Read again. No reply again.
At noon when Jim had brought me lunch from the diner I'd managed three bites before my stomach rebelled like I'd tried to feed it rocks. I texted Connor that I was eating, that I was fine, that he didn't need to worry.
Read. Still nothing.
At this point, I didn't even know why he bothered to read the messages if he didn't plan to reply. Maybe it was his way of punishing me. Maybe he was just too angry to form words. Or maybe he was done with me entirely, and this was his polite way of ghosting someone he lived with.
I knew he was mad at me. Could feel his anger radiating through the silence between us like heat from a fire.
He wanted to fight about the card he'd found, about the decision I'd been prepared to make without talking to him, about the twenty-four hours I'd spent carrying this weight alone instead of letting him help like a normal person in a functional relationship.
But more than anger, I could sense his hurt. His frustration that I didn't trust him enough to share this burden, that I'd tried to handle it myself when he'd made it abundantly clear that my problems were his problems now.
That's how this works, he'd said. But apparently, I still didn't understand what “this” was or how it was supposed to work.
Especially after yesterday. Sunday had been a day that should have been peaceful and restful, the kind of lazy day couples spent together doing nothing important. Instead, it had been a masterclass in how to destroy a relationship through strategic avoidance.
Connor had been up before dawn. I'd woken to the smell of coffee and the sound of the front door closing, and found a note on the kitchen counter in his messy handwriting: Barn work. Text me when you're up.
I'd texted him at seven. He'd responded with a thumbs-up emoji and nothing else, which was somehow worse than no response at all.
I'd made breakfast for both of us. Some scrambled eggs and bacon, toast with the strawberry jam Anna had brought over. Set the table, poured coffee, waited like some 1950s housewife expecting her husband home from work.
He didn't come in.
By nine, the eggs were cold and congealed on the plates, the bacon had gone from crispy to rubbery, and I'd wrapped everything in foil with more violence than necessary and shoved it in the fridge.
Lunch had been the same song, different verse. I'd made sandwiches, chips, cut up an apple with military precision. Texted him that food was ready.
Read. No response. No Connor.
Dinner, I'd actually cooked. Spent two hours making his favorite meatloaf, mashing potatoes by hand with a fork because the mixer was broken and steaming green beans.
The table was set with care with a candle like this was some kind of romantic date instead of a desperate attempt to bridge the chasm that had opened between us.
I'd waited until seven-thirty before eating alone at his kitchen table, the candle burning down to a stub, the food going cold while I pushed it around my plate and tried not to cry into the mashed potatoes.
Connor had finally come in around eight-thirty, smelling like horses and hay and the cold night air.
He grabbed a plate from the fridge, microwaved it without a word, and ate standing at the counter while I pretended to read the same page I'd been staring at for forty-five minutes in the living room.
We'd gone to bed in silence. Me in the guest room because I couldn't bring myself to climb into his bed when the tension between us was this thick, this suffocating. Him in his own room, the door closing with a soft click that felt louder than a slam.
The morning crawled by with painful slowness, each minute stretching like taffy. No Silas. No Armand. No Morgan with her cold smile and veiled threats.
Just the normal ebb and flow of a Monday in April. Tourists browsing and not buying, their hands touching everything while their wallets stayed firmly closed. Locals stopping in to say hello, to check on me, to offer support in that small-town way that was both touching and suffocating.
The afternoon dragged on with the same painful slowness. Three o'clock became four. Four became four-thirty. Still no sign of Silas or Armand. No threatening texts or ominous phone calls or mysterious black SUVs pulling up outside to deliver ultimatums.
Just…nothing. Silence. Waiting. The kind of silence that was somehow louder than threats. The not-knowing was almost worse than the confrontation would have been.
By five o'clock, I'd made exactly two sales all day.
A scarf for Mrs. Patterson, who'd come in specifically to support me and had probably bought it out of pity and a pair of earrings for a tourist who'd wandered in looking for something “authentically Western” and seemed disappointed when my boutique was filled with contemporary fashion instead of cowboy boots and fringe.
Two hundred and sixty-three dollars. Barely enough to cover utilities.
I let out a breath I didn't realize I'd been holding when the clock finally hit five, and I could flip the sign to closed. My hands shook as I gathered my purse, laptop, and the book Sarah brought that I would probably never read and turned the lock.
Jim was waiting by the door when I stepped outside, his truck idling at the curb, exhaust puffing white in the cooling evening air.
“All good?” he asked as I locked up, his weathered face concerned.
“All good.” Another lie to add to my growing collection. Nothing was good. Everything was falling apart like a house built on sand, and the tide was coming in. “Thank you for staying, Jim. I know this isn't how you wanted to spend your Monday.”
“Happy to help.” He opened the passenger door for me with the same old-fashioned courtesy Connor had. Ranch men and their manners. “Boss cares about you. We all do and want to make sure you're safe.”