Chapter 11
Harper
I'm sitting in Nate's kitchen at ten PM, both of us pretending to eat takeout while my phone sits between us like a live grenade. The Washington Post called again an hour ago. This time with numbers that made my hands shake.
"They're offering double my current salary," I say, twirling lo mein I have no intention of eating. "Full benefits. Remote position indefinitely, but they'd cover relocation if I decide to move to DC later."
Nate's trying to look supportive, but I can see the muscle in his jaw ticking. "That's amazing."
"Is it?"
"It's your dream job, Harper. The Post. You've wanted this since college."
"Dreams change." The words surprise me as much as him. "Sometimes what you wanted at twenty-two isn't what you need at twenty-eight."
"Don't do that."
"Do what?"
"Sacrifice your career for me. For this." He gestures between us, and I notice his hand shakes slightly. "For whatever we're doing."
"Who says it's a sacrifice?"
"Harper." He sets down his chopsticks with deliberate care. "This is the Washington Post. They're offering you everything you've worked for."
"Everything I thought I wanted."
"Take the job."
The words hit like a slap. "You want me to leave?"
"It’s not leaving. Not right away anyway. I want you to be happy."
"That's not an answer."
He stands abruptly, pacing to the window. Outside, clouds are gathering—the storm they've been predicting all week. "What do you want me to say? That I'm selfish enough to ask you to stay? That I'd rather you give up your dreams than lose you again?"
"Yes!" I'm standing now too. "That's exactly what I want you to say! Fight for me, Nate. For once in your life, fight for us instead of making noble decisions about what's best for me."
"I did fight. I came back to this town for you. I orchestrated that whole documentary thing just to spend time with you."
"And now you're pushing me away again."
"I'm trying to do the right thing!"
"According to who?" I grab my phone, waving it at him. "They want an answer by Monday morning. And you're standing there telling me to take it. Just like six years ago when you decided what was best without asking what I wanted."
"This is different—"
"How? How is this different?"
Lightning flashes outside, illuminating his face. He looks destroyed, and something in my chest cracks.
"Because this time," he says quietly, "I'm asking you to choose yourself instead of choosing me."
"What if they're the same thing?" The question hangs between us as thunder rolls overhead. "What if choosing myself means choosing us?"
He stares at me, and I can see the war playing out behind his eyes—hope versus fear, want versus what he thinks is right.
"Harper—"
My phone buzzes. The Post, sending the official offer letter.
"I have until Monday morning," I say, gathering my things. The storm's getting closer, and I need to think. Away from him, away from those eyes that make me want to throw away every opportunity just to stay. "I need space."
"Harper, wait—"
But I'm already heading for the door, car keys in hand.
"You can't drive in this storm," he calls after me.
"Watch me."
The rain hits just as I reach my car, fat drops that turn into a downpour before I even get the door open. By the time I'm inside, I'm soaked, shaking—from cold or emotion, I can't tell.
I sit there in his driveway, rain pounding the roof, and realize the horrible truth: I think I already know what I'm going to choose.
I just need him to ask me to stay.
I'm driving too fast through the rain, tears mixing with the water on my windshield, when my phone rings through the car speakers. Maya's name flashes on the screen.
"Are you okay?" she asks without preamble. "Lucas says Nate's freaking out."
"I'm fine," I lie, taking a turn too sharp. "Just need to think."
"In this storm? Harper, pull over—"
Her words are cut off by lightning illuminating something in the road. A deer. I swerve hard, tires screaming against wet asphalt, and clip the edge of someone's mailbox before coming to a stop in the grass beside the road.
My hands are shaking. The engine's still running. Rain pounds the roof like it's trying to break through.
"Harper? HARPER!" Maya's voice fills the car.
"I'm okay. There was a deer. I need to go."
I hang up before she can respond and rest my forehead against the steering wheel. My phone immediately starts buzzing with texts.
A knock on my window makes me scream.
It's Mrs. Henderson holding an umbrella and looking concerned. Behind her, I can see her farmhouse lit up warm against the storm.
"Harper? Dear, are you alright?"
I roll down the window partially. "I'm fine. Just avoiding wildlife."
She looks at my face—probably red and splotchy from crying—then at my car sitting at an odd angle in her yard. "Come inside. I'll make tea."
"I should go—"
"Nonsense. You're shaking like a leaf and this storm's getting worse." She's already opening my door. "Come on."
Five minutes later, I'm sitting in Mrs. Henderson's kitchen, wrapped in a quilt that smells like cinnamon, while she putters around making tea. Princess, the dramatic Persian from this morning, eyes me with disdain from her perch.
"Man trouble?" Mrs. Henderson asks, setting a steaming mug in front of me.
"Job trouble. Man trouble. Life trouble." I take a sip, grateful for the warmth. "I don't know what to choose."
"Between?"
"The career I thought I wanted and the man I never stopped loving."
She sits across from me, weathered hands wrapped around her own mug. "I was offered a position at a fancy school in Boston once. Before I married Harold."
"What did you do?"
"Made a pro and con list. Very logical. Boston had everything—prestige, money, adventure." She smiles. "But when I imagined my life in five years, ten years, thirty years... Harold was in every vision. The job wasn't."
"Did you ever regret it?"
"Some days, sure. But regret's just a word for wondering about paths not taken. The question isn't whether you'll have regrets—you will either way. The question is which regret you can live with."
Thunder crashes overhead, and the lights flicker.
"That boy's been moping around town for months," she continues. "Seems to me you've both already chosen. You're just too scared to admit it."
My phone buzzes. Nate:
Maya said you crashed. Where are you? I'm coming to get you.
Me:
I'm at Mrs. Henderson's.
I text back, but she's already looking out the window.
"Too late. He's here."
Headlights cut through the rain. I watch Nate's truck pull up behind my angled car. He's out before it fully stops, not even grabbing a jacket, running through the downpour.
"I'll give you two some privacy," Mrs. Henderson says, disappearing with Princess.
Then Nate's bursting through the kitchen door, soaked and wild-eyed, rain dripping everywhere.
"Are you hurt?" His hands are already reaching for me, checking for injuries.
"I'm fine. It was just a mailbox."
"Another mailbox? What is it with you and destroying innocent postal infrastructure?" The joke falls flat because his hands are shaking as they cup my face. "Maya said you crashed—"
"Maya's dramatic."
"I thought... when she said crash, I thought..." He pulls me against him so hard I lose my breath, his wet clothes soaking through the quilt. "Don't ever scare me like that again."
"I'm okay," I whisper into his shoulder, feeling him tremble. "I'm okay, Nate."
He just holds me tighter, like he's trying to convince himself I'm real and whole and here.
"I can't lose you," he says against my hair. "Not to a storm, not to a deer, not to a mailbox. Not to anything."
The weight of what he's not saying—not to the Washington Post either—hangs between us. But right now, in Mrs. Henderson's kitchen while the storm rages, I realize something.
I have chosen. I know what I want.
I chose the moment I drove to his farm at 6 AM for that auction day. Maybe even before that—maybe I chose the moment he walked back into Willowbridge.
I just need to be brave enough to admit it. To him, and myself.
We thank Mrs. Henderson for her hospitality and make a dash for Nate's car.
"Pull over," I say when a particularly strong gust rocks the truck. "We should wait it out."
"We're almost to your place."
"Nate, I can't see five feet ahead and neither can you."
He pulls into an abandoned lot—the old drive-in theater that closed years ago. The screen's long gone, but the concession building provides some shelter from the worst of the wind.
We sit there, engine running for heat, watching the storm rage around us.
"Why did you really come back?" I ask suddenly. "Don't say for me. That's too simple."
He's quiet for a long moment. "Dad's farm. After he died, I couldn't sell it. Couldn't keep paying for it from California either. Had to make a choice."
"So you came back for property?"
"No." He turns to look at me. "I came back because I woke up one morning in my expensive California apartment, next to a woman who wasn't you, going to a job that didn't matter, and realized I was living someone else's life."
"Whose life?"
"The one I thought I was supposed to want. Success, money, prestige." Lightning illuminates his face. "But none of it meant anything because you weren't there to share it with."
"You could have called."
"And said what? 'Hi Harper. I know I destroyed us six years ago but I'm sad now'?"
"Yes! That would have been better than silence."
"Would it? Would you have answered?"
I think about all the times I saw California numbers and let them go to voicemail, just in case. "I don't know."
"I do. You wouldn't have. And I wouldn't have blamed you." He runs a hand through his wet hair. "So I came back. Bought Dad's practice from his partner. Started the sustainability program. And waited."
"For what?"
"For you to stop running when you saw me. Took five or six months, but here we are."
"Here we are," I echo. "In a truck. In a storm. With me having to decide about a job by Monday morning."
"You've already decided," he says quietly.
"Have I?"
"You drove to my house first. Not Maya's, not June's. Mine."