by Brenda Novak
Her phone vibrated in her pocket, but she didn’t bother to get it out. No doubt it was her sister. They’d had an argument before Harper stormed out of the house. Karoline had grown angry when Harper told her how little she was getting for child support. According to her sister, she was letting Axel off far too easy.
He was making a fortune, but Harper didn’t want to fight. She was still in love with him. As soon as he’d made it clear that he didn’t want to be married to her anymore, that he was no longer willing to try to work through their differences, she’d settled for the first figure his lawyer had thrown out. Otherwise, she was afraid the media would start to claim they were going through a “bitter” divorce. As she’d told Karoline, she’d make it on her own somehow, even though she hadn’t worked in an official capacity since the first three years of her marriage, when Axel was trying so hard to get a start in show business and he’d needed her to cover their basic living expenses.
Maybe she was a fool to be so accommodating. But she couldn’t imagine Axel would consider keeping the family together if she turned into a bitch. Besides, she didn’t even know who he was anymore, he’d changed so much. She couldn’t decide what she had a right to demand. Had she let Axel down? Or had he let her down? He’d always suffered from anxiety and depression. Maybe she hadn’t done enough to help him—
“Is everything okay?”
She forced herself to look up. The waitress working the counter had paused in front of her, obviously wondering if there was something wrong with the food.
“Fine,” Harper mumbled. She hadn’t really come to eat. She just needed some time alone, couldn’t face going back to her sister’s quite yet. As nice as it was of Karoline to provide a refuge during this difficult month, being with her only sibling wasn’t much easier than being alone, because now she had to constantly explain and justify her actions. And with her emotions zinging all over the place, she wasn’t being consistent, couldn’t be consistent. Most of the time, she wasn’t even making a whole lot of sense.
Elvis’s “Blue Christmas” came on the sound system as the waitress moved on to her other customers.
Harper took a sip of her coffee and braved a quick glance around. Although she liked this restaurant, she didn’t feel she belonged in Silver Springs. Why wasn’t she in Denver, where she and Axel had lived after their college days at Boise State?
Because as much as she and Axel had once believed that they’d be the exception to the rule, that nothing could come between them, they’d been wrong. Slowly but surely, Axel had lost all perspective and started caring more about his work than he did his family. Fame had destroyed their relationship like so many celebrities’ before them.
With a sigh, she took the bill the waitress had put near her plate and paid at the register. She owed her sister more respect than to make her worry. She had to go back and face Karoline whether she wanted to or not.
Harper hadn’t put on makeup for weeks, hadn’t done anything with her hair, either, other than to pile it in a messy bun on her head, so it didn’t bother her that it was raining. She was cold, though; couldn’t seem to get warm. Tightening her oversize coat—a castoff of Axel’s from the good old days when they were first married—she pushed out of the warm café into the bad weather.
Putting her head down, she stared at her feet, bracing against the gusts of wind that whipped at her hair and clothes while stepping over two or three puddles to reach the Range Rover Axel had let her keep when they split. If she got desperate, she supposed she could sell it. It had cost a pretty penny.
She was opening the driver’s door when she noticed a tall, lanky man with longish dark hair crossing the lot toward her.
“Don’t be frightened,” he said, lifting one hand in a gesture intended to show he wasn’t being aggressive. “I just... I saw you inside and...”
Prepared to rebuff him, she set her jaw. She was not in the mood to be hit on. But when she met his eyes, something about his expression told her that wasn’t what this was about. Taking a long-stemmed white rose from inside his coat, he stepped forward to give it to her.
“Hang in there. It’ll get easier,” he said. Then he walked off before she could even ask for his name.
2
“Thought I heard the garage door,” Karoline said, coming into the kitchen.
Harper glanced over her shoulder at her older sister, who was wearing jeans, sheepskin-lined slippers and a maroon V-neck sweater with pearl earrings. Karoline was always well put together. Her house was immaculate. Her kids were well behaved. And her husband was a podiatrist who was not only intelligent and well-spoken but kind. Karoline managed life better than anyone Harper had ever met, which was intimidating, especially now that her life was in shambles. “Sorry about what happened earlier,” she mumbled.
Her sister sat on a bar stool at the island. “It’s okay. I’m sorry, too. After you left, Terrance told me I should’ve let it go.”
“He overheard us?” Harper’s brother-in-law had been watching TV in the other room and hadn’t participated in the argument. He didn’t care for large displays of emotion, so she could see why he’d stay out of it.
“Yeah. He thinks I’m right. I know I’m right. But he also thinks you’re not ready to hear it.”
“Then he’s right, too.”
Karoline propped her chin up with one fist. “Look, I understand that you’re going through hell, and I don’t mean to make it worse. I just don’t want to see Axel get the best of you. He has you on the ropes right now and yet you’re still trying to play nice. Since I don’t love him the way you do, I have a different perspective, and I was trying to use that perspective to put you in a better position.”
“I know. You’ve done a lot for me, and I’m grateful.” She reached into the cupboard above her sister’s double ovens, retrieving a small vase.
“Where did you get that?” Karoline asked when Harper filled the vase with water and put the rose she’d been given inside it.
“Some man gave it to me.”
“Some man...”
“Yes.”
“What man?”
“I don’t know. He didn’t tell me his name.”
Karoline scowled, obviously suspicious. “Where did you meet him?”
“I didn’t meet him. Not really. He came up to me in the parking lot as I was leaving the Eatery and handed me this.”
“Was he selling them? Or looking for some type of donation?”
Harper balked at telling her sister what the stranger had said. She was embarrassed to admit she’d been so transparent, and she didn’t want to cheapen the gesture by having Karoline claim he must’ve had some ulterior motive, as she’d first assumed. “No.”
“Roses aren’t exactly in bloom this time of year. Where’d he get it?”
“You can buy a rose anytime.”
“So he bought it.”
“Yes. From the grocery store across the street.”
“How do you know?”
“I saw the price tag, okay? It was still wrapped around the stem.”
“He spent money to buy you a rose and he doesn’t even know you?”
“It was only seven dollars, Karol. Relax. He was just being nice.”
When her sister didn’t respond right away, Harper used the opportunity to change the subject. “What time will the girls be ready to come home?”
“Terrance left to pick them up right before you arrived.”
“Oh. I could’ve done it. You should’ve called me.”
“I tried.”
Harper winced at her tone. “I couldn’t really talk in the restaurant,” she said. She could’ve texted Karoline but, fortunately, her sister didn’t point that out.
“No worries.”
Harper set the rose in the middle of the granite-topped island. Her sister had done a lot of decorating, but n
one of it could top the natural beauty of that one perfect flower. It reminded her that she needed to return to the basics and keep life simple, which, for her, meant continuing to put one foot in front of the other no matter how painful the situation.
It’ll get easier...
“Why would you ever wear that?” Karoline asked, grimacing at Harper’s coat as Harper took it off.
“It’s warm.”
Her sister rolled her eyes. “I don’t care how warm it is. Get rid of it. Get rid of everything of his.”
“Don’t say that.”
“He’s not coming back, Harper. The divorce will be final this week. If he regrets what he did, he would’ve said so by now, would’ve tried to save his family.”
“He’s been pretty distracted.”
“Yeah—by sleeping with other women.”
Harper bristled. “We don’t know he’s been sleeping with other women.”
“He’s a thirty-two-year-old rock star who hasn’t had time for his wife in ages. I think it’s safe to assume.”
“If he has, it’s because so many women, beautiful women, throw themselves at him. How would you or I deal with the same kind of attention? The same kind of worship? It’s possible we wouldn’t do any better.”
Her sister shook her head. “You’re too understanding, Harper. One of a kind.”
“If that’s true, what happened to my marriage?”
“Axel happened. But he’s stupid to throw you away. He’s going to wind up with nothing in the end.”
“He won’t wind up with nothing. Even if his career suddenly tanks, he’ll have what he’s already achieved. Besides, he’s always been charismatic. He could easily find someone else even if he wasn’t famous.” That was one of her biggest issues with the divorce. These days, she felt so inherently replaceable, as if there was nothing special about her, nothing worth hanging on to—ironic, given that in the beginning he’d made her feel as though she was the only person who could ever fulfill him.
Be careful what you wish for. She remembered her mother telling her that while Harper was working so hard to help Axel make it in the music biz.
She should’ve listened. Her mother, a superior court judge in Idaho, where the family had been raised, was always right. Her father, who was in commercial real estate, agreed that it was never wise to disregard her advice.
“You mean we won’t have the pleasure of even that much revenge?” Karoline asked.
“Probably not,” Harper admitted.
“That sucks.”
The door opened and the girls spilled into the house, laughing and talking about the party and how the Santa who’d shown up was someone they’d recognized, under that red suit, as one of their teachers from school. As she’d been doing for almost eight months, Harper pretended to be interested in regular life and tried to contribute to the conversation, but she was infinitely relieved when the kids were in bed and she could once again lay down the burden of putting on a good show.
The night wasn’t over, though. Once Harper was finally alone, Karoline knocked and poked her head into the room. “You okay?”
Harper forced one more smile. “Yeah, of course.”
“About that man who gave you the rose...”
Piper and Everly hadn’t noticed the flower on the island. At least, they hadn’t mentioned it. Maybe they assumed Terrance had given it to Karoline. It wasn’t elaborate enough to have come from their father, who used to send her vast arrays of flowers to try to placate her whenever he broke another promise. “What about him?”
“How old was he?”
“Around my age.”
“What’d he look like?”
She rolled her eyes. “He was just some guy, Karoline.”
“You don’t know what he looked like?”
“Of course I do, but...” Reining in her irritation, she let her breath go. “Okay, he was maybe six foot three with dark hair and really unusual, light-colored eyes.”
“How light?”
“I don’t know!” She’d been pretty defensive at the time, hadn’t been evaluating his looks.
“Seriously?”
“It was tough to see in the parking lot! The lights there aren’t very bright, but his eyes seemed to be a...a pale green, I guess. With thick eyelashes,” she added.
“So he was handsome.”
She remembered his bold jaw and the dark stubble covering it, the high cheekbones, the shape of his mouth, which was quite sensual even from a strictly objective point of view. “Yeah. Why?”
“I’m wondering if I know him...”
“You’re making a big deal out of nothing. It was just a sweet gesture, one that cheered me up when I needed it. It’s not as though anything will ever come of it.”
“I wish something would come of it,” Karoline grumbled. “That’s exactly what you need—and what Axel deserves.”
“Being angry with Axel isn’t going to change anything.”
“It helps. Trust me. You should try it.”
The door closed and Harper slumped back on the bed. But after the house had gone quiet and she knew everyone was asleep, she couldn’t resist pulling out her laptop to watch the YouTube video of her soon-to-be ex-husband’s latest concert.
He looked amazing.
His performance was amazing.
He didn’t seem to be hurting at all.
* * *
When Tobias arrived at the sixteen-acre tangerine orchard where he lived, there was a strange car in the driveway. He tried to pull around it to his usual spot near the small house he was renting behind the 1920s farmhouse closer to the road. But the old beat-up Chevy Impala was parked such that there wasn’t enough room on either side.
With a sigh, he shoved his gearshift into Park. He’d have to go to the door and ask the driver to move it. He couldn’t leave his truck out on the road. Someone coming around the bend might not see it, especially in the rain. And it wouldn’t do any good to leave it where it was, tucked behind the Impala. The driver would just have to knock on his door and ask him to move it later.
On the other hand, it had been a big step for his landlord to start dating again. Uriah had been married for fifty years before he lost his wife, and the old guy still wasn’t comfortable with moving on. So Tobias didn’t want to interrupt if he could avoid it...
He checked his watch. Uriah’s lady friends typically didn’t come over, except to bring him a meal or a piece of pie or something. If one ever did, she didn’t stay long. Uriah was nothing if not old-fashioned. He picked up whomever he asked out, took her on an official date and then drove her home.
Besides, he’d been a farmer all his life. He was in bed by ten and up at the crack of dawn, and it was almost ten now.
If Tobias just waited for a few minutes, whoever it was would probably leave.
But then, she might not. And he was dying to get in the shower.
“Better get it over with,” he muttered and climbed out, ducking his head against the wind and the rain.
Before he even reached the stoop, he could hear voices coming from inside the house. Uriah was getting on in years and losing his hearing, so he spoke loudly. Tobias spent a lot of time with him eating dinner, playing chess, restoring an old Buick in the detached garage or helping out with chores around the property, so he was used to the volume of his voice. But it was surprising to him that both voices were male.
Apparently, whoever was driving the Impala wasn’t one of the women Uriah was dating.
Tobias turned to take a closer look at the car blocking his way. The license plate was so dirty and the weather so bad that he hadn’t noticed when he first drove up, but it had Maryland plates.
Who did Uriah know from Maryland?
And then it hit him. This wasn’t Carl, was it?
Tobias had never met Uriah’s on
ly child, but he’d heard enough about him to be leery. The two had been estranged for years. Uriah rarely mentioned him, but from what Tobias had heard from Aiyana Turner, who owned the school where Tobias worked and knew just about everyone in Silver Springs, Carl hadn’t even come to his mother’s funeral fifteen months ago.
What was he doing here now?
Tobias took the porch steps in one leap and banged on the door. He expected Uriah to answer. But the door opened almost immediately and the face looking out at him was much younger—around forty.
The resemblance between father and son was striking, eradicating any doubt Tobias had left as to the identity of Uriah’s guest. While Uriah was tall and thin and wore his salt-and-pepper hair in a military-style flattop, Carl wore his long, and it didn’t look as though he’d washed it recently. He didn’t resemble his father in stature or bearing, but the narrow bridge of his nose, the long shape of his face and the flat slash of a mouth were very similar to Uriah’s, although those features were somehow more attractive in the older man.
“Who are you?” Carl asked.
Before Tobias could answer, Uriah managed to get out of the recliner, which gave him a bit more trouble than usual since he was trying to do it in a hurry, and came to the door himself. “Carl! Is that any way to greet a person?”
“What?” Carl said, instantly defensive. “Did I say something wrong? Do I owe this guy something?”
Uriah scowled. “That’s enough.”
Tobias had met a lot of men in prison. Those who acted like Carl were seldom good news. They often tried to pick on everyone else, but Tobias wasn’t the type of person to let them get away with it. Carl was Uriah’s son, however, and Tobias respected his landlord—who had become his friend—so he maintained a pleasant expression. “Sorry to bother you,” he said. “I was just hoping you could move your car.”