Chapter 2 - Harper
The beep of my phone finally showed that my mom had hung up.
Groaning, I collapsed back onto the bed, spreading my arms across the sheets. I closed my eyes.
“Breathe,” I whispered, feeling the breeze from the ocean as I listened to the gulls in the distance and the gentle shore washing up. “You’re not where your mother is.”
No, I was in Azure Cove, my home for the past four years. And my parents were far away. Very far away, in a sleepy, old town called Haystock in Ohio. While they couldn’t encroach on my space, they could call me. I only picked up out of guilt, not wanting to endure the barrage of messages that would jam up my phone if I didn’t answer my mom’s calls.
Come home ? my mom had softly tried to coax me. Come back to Haystock. I miss you, your father misses you. Diego misses you…
“Ugh,” I muttered. Goddamn Diego. The smarmy wannabe politician back home who had made my mom go starry-eyed, wanting him as her son-in-law. I had despised him. So what, we’d dated in high school briefly, and he’d been my prom date? That was seven years ago.
At the very least, I miss my grandbabies. How could you take them away from me?
It was always that with my mom. How could you, how could you, how could you?
I sighed, scrubbing my face with my hands. I had uprooted my life to Azure Cove simply because I could and I goddamn wanted to.
I was brought back to the present by the sound of babbling from the room next door. Smiling, I stood up, leaving my own bedroom, to find my triplets sitting in front of a pink, blocky TV screen. It was one of the old-school style ones, with massive buttons, perfect for me to control for my babies. On it, colorful animated fish darted across the screen, and my triplets were entranced.
“I like that fish!” Hallie, one of my babies, exclaimed, clapping her small palms together. I smiled endearingly. An older woman sat in an old rocking chair, her face soft as she watched the babies.
“Greta,” I said quietly. The woman looked up. I beckoned her from the room. Her silver hair was pulled back into a low ponytail with strands of it flying free. Back when I moved to Azure Cove, she gave me this cottage for a week. A week turned into a month, and before I knew it, I had begun to give her monthly rent to live there. She lived across the island but still owned the cottage. But mostly, she was my friend, the first friendly face I had met upon coming to the island all those years ago.
“Harper,” she said softly, cupping my cheek maternally. “When did you last take a break, hm? Your parents, they take a toll on you.”
I shrugged. “They want me home, I keep fighting that.”
“One day, they will see you’re an adult with babies of your own,” she told me. “They will accept it.”
“Yes, but until then, I get ten calls a week,” I tutted. I groaned, running my fingers through my hair. “I’m okay. I’ll catch up with Adalyn soon, and we’ll go out. I’ll get that break.”
Greta smiled. “Why not take it tonight? I know Adalyn isn’t doing anything this evening, and neither of you has work tomorrow. You both deserve a girls’ night, hm? I’ll watch your babies.”
Back when I’d been twenty-one, scared, new to the island, and alone, Greta had introduced me to her granddaughter of the same age. Adalyn and I had become fast friends and remained that way ever since. We were practically inseparable. She was more of an aunt to my babies than my sister was back in Haystock.
“When did you last meet a boy?” Greta asked.
“Oh, Greta,” I laughed. “Don’t… Don’t go there.”
“I know, I know,” Greta sighed. “You’re still licking the wounds left by that man, but…”
“How do you know about that?”
“I love my granddaughter, but she can’t hold her own tongue.”
I couldn’t help but laugh. Adalyn really was news of the island.
“These last four years, you have put all your energy into those babies of yours,” Greta told me. “You’ve run from your family, home, and the man who broke your heart. You deserve some you time, don’t you think?”
I shifted. “I don’t know. I—You know me, Greta, I don’t like leaving my babies.” I smiled softly at the backs of their heads as they continued to watch the fish on TV.
“They’ll be in safe hands, as you know.” Greta shooed me away. “Now get dressed, text that granddaughter of mine, and go and enjoy yourself. You deserve it.”
I nodded. In the doorway, I paused, looking at my triplets. The man who had broken my heart back in Haystock had been a beautiful stranger who had shown up in town one day and ensnared me. Months later, he had left without a word in the middle of the night. All I had left of him were the triplets and his shirt I’d fallen asleep in the night he left.
I had loved him and he’d walked away.
From me, from the children he didn’t even know he had.
And he never would.
I had made that vow to myself the day I left Ohio with a one-way plane ticket to Azure Cove. He gave up me and any future he could have had with his children. The triplets were mine .
But Hallie turned to me, her face bright with a smile, and I saw the brown eyes, so vivid and beautiful, that she had inherited from her father.
A wolf’s eyes are strong , he had told me during the first week of our relationship. They say a man will always know his kin by their eyes.
And now it was his eyes that stared back at me, reflecting in my four-year-old. “Mommy!” Hallie called, pushing herself up. She wobbled before deciding she wanted to sit down again. She pointed at the TV. “Fishie!”
I laughed. “Yes, fishie. Do you know what color the fishie is?”
“Red!” she said, clapping.
“Close, honey,” I told her, smiling. “That’s blue.”
“Blue fishie,” her sister next to her mimicked. “ Blooooo .”
I couldn’t help but admire my babies for a minute. Their red hair all came from me—as their biological father’s was dark brown, almost black—and although every morning I brushed out their hair and made them look neat, ponytails were slipping, braids were coming free, and Joseph, my handsome boy, had ruffled his own hair so much that it looked like a bird’s nest. Hallie and Marie had started to pull on one another’s hair, trying to steal each other’s ribbons.
“See? I can’t go out,” I told Greta. “I need to tidy their hair up.”
“A trivial matter,” she assured me. “Messy hair tells a story of a good time, no?”
I thought about that for a moment—a flash went through my mind. Riding on the back of a motorbike, a deep, masculine laugh, a biker jacket, and words uttered. ‘Don’t you want to tie your hair back, amorcita?’ The wind tossing my hair, arriving at a cliff where I thought I should have tied my hair back. He always told me it looked like a cascade of flames.
I shook the memory off. It had been a stupid summer fling. That was all. Just one damn shifter male and his pride—and his disappearing act that left a bigger hole in me than I wanted to admit.
“I will fix the children’s hair before bedtime,” Greta promised.
Finally, I conceded. It was only because when I gave attention to that hole in my heart that the triplets’ father had left, it ached. And when it ached, I needed to be on the move. If I sat and thought about it—about the beautiful children he had left behind and the life we could have had together—too hard, then I’d crumble. So, instead, I kissed my triplets on their foreheads, ventured back into my own room, and addressed my wardrobe.
I text Adalyn with one hand. Up for a night out? Your Gramma is saying I need/deserve it.
She answered back within minutes: Babe, I am SO there! I’ll be over in 15.
There was a deep maroon dress that fell to my mid-thigh with a plunging back. Maybe it was too dressy for Azure Cove, but I hadn’t worn it since I clubbed during college, hitting Columbus’s nightlife when I could get away with it. Haystock had been about half an hour outside of Columbus, Ohio, so we had never been short of a party to attend. The sleeves were capped, and the neckline was round, framing the freckles that summers in Azure Cove had brought to my skin.
I got a jacket. The end-of-May weather on the island was warm enough, preparing tourists and locals for a hot summer. Finding my black heels, I slipped them on, brushed my hair out, and assessed my face. I wanted to meet a random guy. Now that I knew Greta would look after the triplets, I wanted to really let loose.
I need to prove that my life is more than the baby daddy who left me with my beautiful children , I thought. I need to prove that my life is more than him . And although I’d hooked up once or twice since arriving on the island, nothing had ever stuck, and I was careful about who my children met.
Soon, a knock on the door had Hallie screeching with excitement.
“Every time,” I laughed when I opened the cottage door to Adalyn, who was decked out in a mesh-paneled black mini dress. “She knows it’s you.”
“I think she knows that her mom doesn’t know anyone else.”
“Ouch,” I teased.
Adalyn tossed her black hair over her shoulder, peering at me from behind black rounded glasses. She wore rings on almost every finger and silver bracelets on both wrists. Her lips were painted blood-red, and I envied the ease with which she carried herself. I wasn’t lacking confidence by any means, but Adalyn hadn’t gone through a pregnancy with triplets. I had worked hard to get my body back to a strong and healthy shape, but Adalyn carried her confidence and grace with ease.
I had fought for mine to return. Gripped it with both hands. Now, I was back to a good place with my image, and I wanted to show that off.
“You look gorgeous ,” Adalyn said, kissing my cheeks as she strolled into the house. “Gramma, hello!”
“Adalyn, darling, you look beautiful. Now, you make sure our Harper here gets a good night out.”
“Oh, I will .” Adalyn’s red-painted smile held wicked promises. I let her sling an arm around my shoulders. “Let’s get you back out there, Harp. I’m thinking maybe first we’ll grab a bit to eat at Hesketh’s fish bar, then head on over to the Singing Boot. What do you think?”
“You hate Hesketh’s,” I pointed. Our shoes, clacking down the graveled pathway leading from my cottage to the wooden bridge that led us out of the cluster of light forestry, were the only sounds around.
“The fish tastes weird sometimes, but the counter guy is cute. I want to give him my number.”
I grinned, linking my arm through hers. Wherever the night took us, I was just glad it was with Adalyn, my best friend of four years, who had seen me through my worst days and helped me find my best days.
We made our way into Azure Cove’s nightlife. My hopes were high, and my defenses were lowered a little. Tonight, I would live a little—I would put the past behind me and prove I was worth more than one summer fling from years ago.