Pretend You're Mine: A Small Town Love Story (39 page)

She tucked some toiletries and makeup into a small zippered bag and hastily packed a few outfits and her running shoes. She grabbed her phone charger from the nightstand.

Lola and Max followed her every move. Lola watched with those soulful sad eyes while Max scampered and whimpered. They knew something was wrong.

She knelt down to bury her face in Lola’s short fur. “I love you guys so much. Thank you for being my family. I have to go, but I need you to take care of Daddy. He needs you right now. So take care of him the way you took care of me when he wasn’t around. Okay? I promise I’ll figure something out. I’ll come back and see you.”

Lola sighed and Max put his front paws on her leg and yipped.

Harper did her best to swallow the lump in her throat.

He watched her with the dogs from the doorway and his stomach twisted. He was throwing her out, ending things. While he was taking back his life, she was still worried about taking care of him.

He wasn’t good for her and she had to learn that.

Harper Wilde had to learn to take care of herself. He swiped a hand over his face. God, who was going to be there to keep her safe, to remind her to charge her phone or get gas or lock the doors at night?

She was a smart, sweet, beautiful girl. She wouldn’t be alone for long.

For just a second, he let himself think about her with another man. His hands fisted at his sides. She would be loved. She would be taken care of. It was what she deserved.

Harper glanced up from her packing, and noticing him in the doorway, she swiped away the tears. She didn’t make eye contact, just zipped her bag closed and slung it over her shoulder.

She gave the dogs a last scratch. He saw the tremble in her jaw and watched with admiration as she pulled it back in, tamped it down. His free-spirited girl had a spine of steel.

“Here,” he said, holding out her phone. “I didn’t want you to forget it.”

Wordlessly, she took it and slid it in her back pocket. She still hadn’t raised her gaze to meet his. He was almost grateful. Looking into those storm cloud gray eyes might undo him.

“I want you to take this, too.” He held out a roll of cash.

She ignored him and pushed past him into the hallway. He followed her down the stairs. “Harper, take the money. I don’t want to worry about you sleeping in your car or —”

She rounded on him at the foot of the stairs. Their eyes met, and in that second, he realized for the first time that he had no idea what was going on in her head. She had shut it down, cut him off.

It cut him to the quick.

But this was the right thing to do. He chanted it in his head. Just get through it. Like ripping off a bandage. A little pain now instead of the years of suffering he would cause her by not being the man she deserved.

“Please. Take it.” He tried to tuck it into her hand, but she let the bills fall to the floor.

“I’m no longer your concern,” she said flatly. She looked him in the eye, into his very heart, and turned and walked out the front door, closing it softly behind her.

Luke watched her toss her bag in her backseat and climb behind the wheel. She never looked back at the house. Just backed out and drove away.

He walked into the living room and sat down on the couch, expecting to feel relief. But there was only a gnawing emptiness.

Where was she going to go?

Why hadn’t he waited until morning? He could have helped her find a place, taken her somewhere. Now, thanks to him she was roaming around at night.

He stood up and started pacing.

Everything that his gaze rested on was connected to her. The furniture. The glossy magazines and paperbacks under the coffee table. The raspberry pink fleece hanging next to the front door. Had she even taken a coat with her?

He pulled the fleece off the hook and brought it to his face. It smelled like her. Sunshine and lemons.

He didn’t feel relief. He felt sick.

Maybe he should pack her things for her. So every damn thing in his house didn’t remind him of her.

***

L
uke woke up on the couch to the early gray dawn. Both dogs were snuggled against him. He was still clutching Harper’s fleece to his chest.

He had finally dozed off barely two hours earlier after carefully packing her things into the boxes neatly stacked in the dining room. Each one labeled “Harper” and a description of the contents in permanent marker.

After months here, she still hadn’t managed to accumulate more than a dozen boxes of things. He would give her the furniture when she settled wherever she was going, and most of the kitchen stuff that had appeared in drawers and cabinets while she was here.

He glanced down at the coffee table and saw the picture. Harper and her parents. She had left it behind, tucked in a box in the closet. He’d keep it safe for her until she was somewhere she could call home.

Luke rubbed a hand across his chest. The hollow was still there. His life was once again his own. He was free to focus on his plan. His goal. Didn’t have to worry about anyone else.

So why did he feel like he was suffocating?

He went into the kitchen to grab some coffee, but the pot was empty.

The quiet was too much. He whistled for the dogs and let them out the back door.

The ache would go away, he told himself as he watched Max chase Lola around the garden that hadn’t been there when he left.

H
e arrived at the office early enough that no one else was there. His gaze immediately scanned to Harper’s desk. When had that happened? How was that the first place he looked every time he came up the stairs?

Shit. He was going to have to tell everyone that they were down an office manager. There would be questions, which he wouldn’t answer. And more paperwork, which he wouldn’t file. But this space was his again. It was what he wanted.

Wasn’t it?

Luke mashed the buttons on the coffeemaker until it started to brew. He took his first mug into his office and kicked the door shut behind him. He didn’t have time to deal with a view of an empty desk.

He was in the middle of listening to a voicemail for the third time, because he kept spacing out, when Frank burst in without knocking.

“Why the hell is your door closed?”

“Because I wanted it closed.”

Frank shrugged. “Okay. Next question. Why is your woman calling in sick to me?”

Luke stood up before he thought better of it. “Did she say where she is?”

Frank crossed his arms. “No. Don’t you know where she is?”

Luke ignored the question and sank back into his chair. “She said she was sick?” Well at least she was alive. Somewhere.

“Said she wasn’t coming in today because she wasn’t feeling well. Why are you hearing this for the first time? Why didn’t she just roll over and tell you herself?”

“Harper’s not going to be around anymore,” Luke said, briskly. “Let me make this call and then we’ll go out to the Adams site.” He turned back to the phone and started dialing, dismissing Frank and his dumbfounded expression.

***

H
arper woke curled in a ball in a sunny bedroom. She was still dressed in last night’s clothes. There were no strong arms wrapped around her. No dogs at her feet.

She was alone.

She wrapped her fingers around the edge of the quilt and pulled it over her head. She wanted to block it all out. The sun. The hurt. The loneliness.

***

“W
hat?” Luke didn’t mean to snap at Sophie, but he already knew why she was calling. It would figure that Sophie would be the first person Harper would go to.

“That’s a fine greeting for your favorite sister.”

He shifted the phone to his other ear. “Sorry. What do you need?”

“Just some reassurance. I was supposed to meet Harper for lunch and she didn’t show. She’s not answering her cell. And I tried the office and they said she didn’t come in today. I know I’m just being silly, but ...” Sophie trailed off.

Luke remembered another time when Sophie had tried to reach someone and couldn’t find her. All their lives had changed that day. It wasn’t just his.

“I guess Harper didn’t tell you?”

“Tell me what? Did you send her to the spa for the day? Is she adopting another dog?”

“We broke up.”

He was ready to yank the phone away from his ear in the event of a deafening screech. But there was only silence.

“Soph? Are you there?”

More silence. And then finally a whispered response.

“I ... I don’t understand. You guys are so ...”

“It just wasn’t working out. We wanted different things.” The words clogged his throat.

“You just ... broke up? Where is she?”

“I don’t know. She left last night.”

“Is she okay? I mean ... Jesus, Luke. I feel like I got sucker punched. I didn’t see this coming. I can’t imagine how she feels.”

“It’s Harper. Of course she’s okay. She’s been through worse than a breakup. She always lands on her feet.”

Sophie was quiet for a moment. “Luke, she loved you with everything she had. She waited six months for you. She’s not just going to land on her feet. And if you’re not going to try to find her then I will.”

He wasn’t about to admit that he spent the forty-five minutes he had allotted for lunch driving around town looking for her car. He just wanted to know that she was safe. That’s all.

“I don’t think we have anything to worry about.”

“You’re worried. I can hear it in your tone.”

“I don’t have a tone.”

“What if something happened to her? We both know shit happens to good people. And we sure as hell know she’s a trouble magnet. What if she got kidnapped trying to check into a hotel?”

Luke would have laughed if he hadn’t already thought of that exact scenario. He’d called both motels in town that morning to see if Harper was registered.

“She called Frank this morning and told him she wouldn’t be in.”

“And that’s good enough for you? ‘She called Frank so now I don’t have to worry.’” He could hear Sophie getting angry.

“No, it’s not good enough for me, Soph. She’s not answering her phone, she hasn’t been on Facebook, Aldo and Gloria haven’t seen her. I thought she would have gone to your house last night. Short of calling the cops, I don’t know what else to do.”

“Why did you do it?”

“How do you know it wasn’t Harper breaking things off with me?”

“Because Harper isn’t a chickenshit who runs when the going gets scary.”

“I’m not a chickenshit. It wasn’t working. She built this whole life around me without me having a say and then everyone’s so fucking surprised when it turns out that wasn’t what I wanted.” He was yelling now, but couldn’t seem to stop.

Unintimidated, Sophie yelled back. “Yeah, I can’t think of any man who would want a woman who thought he hung the stars in the goddamn sky. Who worked her ass off making his house a home, not to mention organizing his work life so he could concentrate on something other than chaos.”

Luke swore. “You don’t understand.”

“Oh, I do understand. I just keep waiting for
you
to wake up and understand. You just threw away something that most people only dream about having. I can’t even talk to you right now.”

He could picture his sister pacing in exasperation. “Are you going to look for her?”

“What do you care?”

“Just — If you find her, let me know that she’s safe.” Luke hung up the phone and tossed it on the passenger seat.

He stared at the front of his house. Harper’s planters from the summer had been stowed in the garage and replaced with ropes of heavy green garland. She had asked about Christmas lights. She had never had Christmas lights before.

He had been parked in the driveway for a full ten minutes before Soph had called. He couldn’t concentrate on work so he came home. But the thought of setting foot in the house and facing the stack of boxes, all the evidence of Harper in his life boxed up and put away as if she had never been there, was enough to keep him in the truck.

When would his life be his own again?

He’d go for a run, he decided. A long, cold run to clear his mind.

***

H
arper stirred at the knock on her door.

When it opened, she pulled the covers down and directed a watery smile at the tray-bearing woman.

“I made you some tea and toast,” Joni said, putting the tray down on the nightstand.

“You don’t have to go to any trouble, Joni. I’m just so grateful that you let me stay here.”

She patted Harper’s hand. “It’s nice having someone else in the house.”

“Even if they don’t leave the bed?” Harper tried to laugh, but it came out as a hiccup.

Joni handed her the sturdy mug of tea.

Harper took a sip and her eyes widened as the hot honeyed liquid slid down her raw throat.

“I hope you don’t mind that I put a little whiskey in it. It always made me feel better.”

Harper wrapped her hands around the mug and sighed. There would be no feeling better. There was only now and the ache. “This is a nice room,” she said softly. The walls were a dusky blue-green accented with ocean prints. A large window seat overlooked the backyard of the comfortable two-story.

“Thank you. It used to be Karen’s. She helped me repaint it when she moved out.”

“When she and ... when she got married?” Luke’s name hurt too much to say.

Joni nodded. She sat down on the edge of the bed. “You’re a sweet girl, Harper. Everything is going to work out in the end.”

Harper bit her lip to fight back the impending flood of tears. She sniffled weakly instead and squeezed Joni’s hand.

Joni glanced around the room. “You’re not the only girl who’s cried over Luke Garrison in this room.” A ghost of a smile played at her lips.

“Karen cried over him? But they were so perfect for each other.”

“Honey, no one is perfect for anyone at eighteen.”

“Did they fight?”

“They broke up.” Joni nodded at Harper’s wide eyes. “Luke broke up with Karen a few weeks before graduation. He was joining the Guard and he wanted Karen to go to college, but she wanted to get married. He thought she was throwing her future away and ended things.”