“If you want to tell me.” Tori kept too much from me, but Harper would never do that. It’s not in her nature. “Do you mind if I bring up something from last night?”
“Oh no. What else did I do?” She covers her face with both hands.
I laugh, trying to keep the conversation light. “No. It’s something from the game. You asked if anyone had ever been in love.”
“Oh.” Her hands drop. “Did I?”
“Um hm…” I wait a beat and wait to see if she remembers.
“I’m really fuzzy about that part of the night. I think I do remember it.”
“You didn’t drink which means ‘no’. So. I don’t know if that was the drunk part of your brain not keeping up with the game or the honest part of your brain knowing the right answer.”
“This is embarrassing. I got married when I was eighteen. I ran off with Wesley without my parents’ blessing. Didn’t tell my friends. Just left because I thought I knew him.”
I stroke her arm. “I doubt you’re the first or last teenager to do that.”
“I should’ve known better. I was raised better. And I was grown.”
“How’d you meet him?”
“I worked at a grocery store the summer after I graduated. Wesley came in one night and he was in line behind this lady and her two kids. She looked dirt poor and the kids were crying. She’s trying to pay and she’s short of the amount. Wesley reaches over and plunks a one hundred dollar bill on the counter and says for her to buy her groceries and keep the change.”
I nod. “That was a nice thing to do.”
Her mouth tightens and she smoothes the comforter over her legs. “He was. He was a nice guy. I remember thinking, ‘Wow. He’s one of the good ones.’”
All my muscles tense. I stare hard at the wall and take a deep breath. Do I really want to go here? Hear the dead man immortalized?
Something wet drops onto my arm. “Babe. Hey. Oh, please don’t cry.”
“I’m not,” she lies.
I turn her toward me and wipe underneath her eyes with my thumbs. “You’re a terrible liar.”
“I’m a good liar. Just have a little something in my eye.” Her laugh is husky.
Then her resolve crumbles and fat tears stream down her cheeks. “He was nice when I met him. He was all the things a guy is supposed to be.”
“People look for what they want to see. It’s the way we’re made. Always searching for that ideal.”
“There was a baby. I was pregnant. That’s why I ran off with him. I couldn’t face my daddy. I miscarried a week after I married Wesley.”
“Shh…” I say, rocking her against my chest. I search for the right words to make her understand that it’s all right, but there are none.
“We moved out to Tacoma. The house was a rental in the middle of nowhere, and I didn’t have a car. He left for weeks at a time to work. He’d return and bring flowers and nice words. I was so confused. I didn’t know if I loved him or hated him. I really didn’t feel anything for a while. I’ve never told anyone that.” Her words are muffled against my chest.
She’s given me the gift of her trust with something she’s carried around all alone. I’ve had the luxury of Josie when times were rough. As much as she can be a pain in the ass, she’s my rock. Never judgmental. Always a phone call away. Hell, I even have friends who silently carry my secrets from the past.
Harper’s had no one and that knowledge of her isolation twists inside me like a furious cyclone. Her husband is dead and that should be enough to quiet my anger. I need him out of our bed.
“He wasn’t who I thought he was,” she says. Harper’s mouth turns up at the corners in a derisive smile. “I was so blind.”
“Shh…” I don’t want to talk about him in the place where I make love to her. It needs to wait until another time because this bed is a place for her to feel cherished, not relive bad memories. I turn her face toward me. I kiss the end of her nose and her curves melt into me. Our naked bodies are flush to each other and my desire for her stirs, despite the fact that I need to console and comfort.
I kiss her tenderly. My tongue strokes hers, saying she’s beautiful, desirable, mine.
She fits against me, her soft places molding to my hard.
“Do you have anywhere you need to be?” she asks.
I grin and push my erection against her. “Is that an invitation? I know one specific place.” I suck her bottom lip into my mouth and gently grab it between my teeth.
When I release her mouth, she sighs. “It’s scary how good this feels.”
“Yeah. I know.” She’s right. I should be scared. I should be terrified. I’d told myself that I wouldn’t jump into another relationship so soon after Tori.
But when feelings this intense slap you in the face, you don’t ignore them.
12
Nosy Harper
Harper
From: angelgirl@me.com
To: isabellawarren@iconic.net
Dear Isabella,
I start a new job this week. Thanks for offering money, but I’m really OK. I’m glad that Wesley/Warren’s money will take care of you and Charley.
Your friend,
Harper
Leo stands in my doorway with a smile so bright it could light a small city. “I brought you breakfast. First day on a new job and I can’t have you leaving hungry.”
“How did you have time?” I step aside so he can enter. He smells like soap and happiness.
“I’m resourceful.” He places the tray of food on the bar. “I ran downstairs. I’m a hunter/gatherer like that.”
“I left your bed an hour ago. That line had to be out the door at this time of the morning.” I glance at the clock. Eight a.m. is rush hour for the guys in the bakery.
“A friend of mine was in line. I begged to cut in.”
If a guy like Leo asks you to dance naked in the streets with him, you consider it. I’m convinced he could charm the last stitch of clothing off a homeless woman. She’d probably pay him for the honor.
I didn’t mind being naked with him—especially last night in his apartment.
I am afraid of the charm and I don’t trust my judgment. Wesley had that same way about him in the beginning. The too-easy ability he possessed to make me feel special.
That charm fell away like a tree shedding its leaves in the fall, until one day, I knew he was different. By that point, it was the full-fledged winter of our relationship.
Wesley never allowed me to work. He made sure I couldn’t. The house in Tacoma was too far on the outskirts. I didn’t own a car.
I was stuck.
Leo’s charm is different. It’s the charm of his honesty. It’s the intensity that glows from his eyes when he listens to you speak. It’s the way he encourages me to do what’s right for me.
Deep down in that back-of-the-closet spot of my soul, I know that Wesley and Leo are as different as Satan and Gabriel.
I’m more scared after the weekend with Leo than I’ve ever been in my life. He’s a glittering thing in a world full of rubble. That silver tinsel that attracts a bird foraging for nest materials. He could make a home beautiful.
And this is what I did with Wesley. Saw the possibilities of us before we’d had a chance to really know each other. My stomach clenches.
Leo happily offers me the bagel and I take a bite. “Umm…”
He wipes a corner of my mouth with one finger and sticks it into his own. “Don’t make all those sexy sounds. You won’t get to work on time.”
“I’m a little excited,” I say.
“I keep telling you not to say such things to me, you wicked girl.” He winks and takes another bite of the bagel and then offers it to me. Although there are more pastries on the tray, I love sharing with him.