Chapter 56
Another beautiful evening, but Mitch was focused on telling Harper about his work for the day. “Then Charlie meets up with the councilman, who tells her she needs to watch her back, and that sets up the suspicion that Bekard might be playing her. You know, on behalf of his father the mayor.” Mitch paused there to let Harper respond.
She nodded. “Mm-hmm. Interesting.”
He narrowed his eyes. She definitely wasn’t herself tonight. “You’ve said that about the last three plot points I’ve given you.”
She seemed to shake herself, then blinked and gave him a quick smile. “I’m really sorry. I am not giving you my full attention and I apologize. Nothing to do with the book, I promise. Totally my fault. Letting my day get the best of me.”
“Did something else happen concerning the media attacking you? Would you like to talk about it?”
She laughed. “That’s not how this works.”
“I realize I’m paying you to be here, but doesn’t that also mean that this time can work however I want it to work?”
She was still smiling. That felt like an improvement over her mood when she’d arrived. A storm cloud had hung over her. He’d wondered if that’s how he appeared to most people. Hopefully, the cloud above him had begun to dissipate.
The good news was he rarely interacted with anyone other than Joyce. And now Harper. But both of them understood.
She splayed her hands out, then brought them back to her lap. “It can work however you want it to, but I’d also like you to get the input you’re paying for. I love the idea of casting the mayor’s son as a questionable character. It’s perfect. Will he really turn out to be a bad guy?”
Mitch shook his head. “I don’t think so. But it’ll be interesting to play with that idea for a while. Make the reader wonder. And it’ll allow me to set up the real bad guy in a way that I don’t think they’ll see coming.”
“That sounds great.” Her smile widened. “Very classic Mitchell Ripley.”
He frowned. “You mean it sounds…expected?”
“Yes, but in an unexpected way.”
He snorted. “Great. I don’t want to get into a rut.”
“You aren’t. Charlie’s never had a love interest before, so that’s new. It also makes sense in her world that it could be with someone who’s more than they seem. So readers might expect him to be the bad guy, like genuinely expect it, but if he’s not, that will surprise them.”
Mitch nodded. “I need to be careful how I write him. I need to make him seem worse than he is. Really let them believe Charlie’s about to be double-crossed.”
“Yes,” Harper said. “I love that.”
He made a few notes before looking up again. “What had you in such a bad mood earlier?”
Her mouth came open but there was no immediate response. She sighed and glanced down at her hands folded in her lap.
“Sorry,” he said. “You clearly don’t want to talk about it. Forget about it.”
“It’s not that. It’s just…I don’t know how to talk about it.”
“You? You’re a great communicator.”
She flicked her gaze at him briefly. “Says the man who wrote my public statement for me.”
He laughed lightly. “True, but you were in crisis. It’s hard to string words together when you feel like your life is coming to an end.” Difficult memories erased his smile. “Trust me. I know.”
“I know you do.” She inhaled and her eyes went oddly bright. “I, um, met my birth mother today.”
“Oh.” Not even remotely what he’d been expecting her to say. He hadn’t known she was adopted, but then, why would he? “That is big. How did it go?”
“Not great. Really not great.” She swallowed as she turned her head toward the water. “She has other children, but they know nothing about me and Frankie. She also has a less than squeaky clean past and our biological father is dead.”
He could see her pain in the stiffness of her body and the tenseness of her muscles. The set of her jaw. “Quite a load of information for a first meeting.”
She nodded and sniffed. Then muttered a squeaky, “Sorry.”
She was trying not to cry. He got up, retrieved a box of tissues, and brought them back to her, setting them within arm’s reach. “It’s okay to cry. I’m the last person who would judge you for that.”
She did some more nodding and sniffing, grabbed a tissue and pressed it to her eyes, then blew her nose. “This isn’t very professional of me. Won’t happen again.”
“I don’t care if it happens again. I also don’t care if it’s professional or not. You’re hurting. I get that. Different reason than my hurt, but pain is pain and that’s something I understand. Don’t apologize for being human.”
“Thanks.”
“I know this is a business relationship, but we’re friends, too, aren’t we?”
She finally looked at him. “I’d like to think so. Joyce and I are definitely friends.”
He laughed. “Joyce is friends with everyone.”
“You aren’t, though, are you?”
He shook his head without shame. “Nope. I don’t like people.”
A reluctant smile bent her mouth. “That’s not true.”
“No, it’s not. But what is true is that people can be exhausting. At least for me. And when Jeanie died, everyone wanted to fix me. There was no fixing me. I didn’t want to be fixed. I wanted to be miserable. I mean, I didn’t want to be but…”
“You needed to feel the things you were feeling. Being sad and grieving was your way of paying tribute to her. To the life you shared.”
“Yes.” The way she understood that floored him.
“And now, being happy again feels like being disloyal.”
He nodded. That was it. That was utterly and completely it. “I have a son who doesn’t speak to me because he blames me for his mother’s death.”
Harper’s brow wrinkled. “I thought she died of cancer.”
“She did. But I wasn’t around as much as I should have been, not until the end, when I snapped out of thinking I could make everything right by pretending nothing was wrong.”
“That never works.”
“No, it doesn’t.” He sighed. “As you know, I kept writing and focusing on the books because I didn’t know what else to do. I finally faced reality and the last two months were very different. I was with her night and day. I never left her side. But Kyle still blames me. Too little, too late.”
“I assume you’ve reached out to him? Tried to apologize, all of that?”
“I have. Texts, calls, letters, emails. No response.”
“That’s so hard. It’s nearly impossible to reach someone who doesn’t want to be reached. I wish I had an answer, but the best thing I can tell you is time might change things. I really don’t know what else you could do that you haven’t done already.”
“That makes two of us.” He shrugged. “I’ve kind of resigned myself to it. No other options.”
“Would you like to talk about the book some more?”
“I think that’s enough for today. Thanks for sharing with me. I’m sorry things didn’t go differently for you.”
“I’m okay with it. I realized today that I had a great life, probably better than I would have had if she’d kept custody of us. So, in a way, I have her to thank for that.”
“That’s a pretty generous way to look at it. Pretty, uh, what’s the word, self-actualized?”
She laughed loudly. “Sure, let’s go with that.”
He leaned forward suddenly. “Hey, would you and your sister and Willa like to go out on the boat this weekend? I haven’t taken it out in a long time. Since Jeanie. I don’t think I could do it by myself, but with the three of you along…”
Harper nodded. “Sounds fun. I’ll ask. I’m sure Willa would love it. I’m sure we all would.”
“We could invite Lucas. If you think Frankie would want that. He’s a nice guy.”
“Oh, she’d want that, I’m sure. I’ll talk to her and let you know.”
“Okay, good. The dogs are welcome, too.”
“Thanks. Definitely sounds like a fun time.” She stood. “I should get out of your hair, then.”
He got up and walked with her to the door. “Have a good night.”
“You, too. Talk to you tomorrow.”
“Yep.” He closed the door after her, then hesitated before going back upstairs as a thought occurred to him. Had he just asked her on a date? He hadn’t, had he? Did she think that? He’d only thought that going out on the boat would be fun and she and her sister could use some cheering up.
It would be a test for him, too. Being on the boat had been his and Jeanie’s thing. She’d wanted the boat, after all. Could he handle the memories that were waiting for him? Maybe making new ones was the way to go.
He sighed. Harper couldn’t think it was a date. He’d invited all of them. That was an outing. Not a date. Wasn’t it?
Should he say something? He didn’t want her getting the wrong idea. Not that Harper wasn’t attractive. She was. Very much so. But he wasn’t interested in dating. Not yet. Not for a long time.
He groaned and went back upstairs. Why was life so complicated? Although, he supposed that with everything going on in Harper’s life at the moment, dating was probably the last thing she was thinking about.
There was no way she thought he was asking her out. He laughed. Once again, he was letting his head get the better of him. He jogged up the steps.
He and Harper were friends. And business associates. Nothing more.