by Brenda Novak
“You’re going to owe me some hot chocolate after this,” she said, blowing rings into the air while he guided her carefully across the ice.
He gave her a challenging look. “I thought you didn’t want to go out in public with me.”
“I don’t. But hot chocolate isn’t hard to make. Can’t we do it at your place?”
Surprised that she planned to go back to his house, he shrugged. “Sure. Why not? We’ll have to stop by the store first, though. I don’t keep hot chocolate on hand.”
“You’ve probably never had anyone else ask for it.”
“Can’t say I have. But now that I know you like it, I’ll have some in the cupboard while you’re in town.”
She wobbled and nearly fell, but he lifted her back on her skates before she could hit the ice.
“Why are you being so nice to me?” she asked, suddenly much more intense as she looked up at him.
“I know what it feels like to need a friend.”
She fell silent, but she didn’t look away.
“What?” he asked.
“What if...”
“Go on...”
“What if I don’t go back to my sister’s this week?”
“Don’t tell me you’re considering tracking Axel down, wherever he’s at!”
“No, I’m thinking that maybe, if you don’t mind, I’ll just stay with you.”
When he coughed in surprise, they both nearly fell. That was the last thing he’d expected her to say. She’d been so careful to make sure he understood she wasn’t open to a relationship. “Why would you do that?” he asked once he’d caught his balance and steadied her, too.
“Because I want to live a little. I married young and became a mother only a year later. I’ve carried the bulk of the responsibility for my children and everything else that wasn’t strictly music related ever since. And you make me feel good. I like being around you. Do I have to have a reason beyond that?”
He brought them to a stop and gripped her shoulders instead of her hands. “Harper, you have to be careful.”
“Of what?”
“It would be easy to think...” He scrambled for the right words. “To think you feel more for me than you do, I guess. That’s why rebound relationships are so common after a big breakup. But what you’re feeling isn’t real—it’s just some psychological construct that kicks in when you suddenly find yourself at loose ends after being in a close relationship. It’s natural to try to avoid feeling the loss.”
“It might not be real, but it’s a relief. So am I a bad person for wanting to roll with it? I’m tired of feeling awful!”
“I understand that, but we can’t hang out if it’s going to get confusing for you.”
“I’m not going to get confused.”
“But I’m trying to help you, not make matters worse. Getting involved with me would be... Would be totally reckless.”
“So? Why can’t I be reckless for a change? Have a fling with a sexy stranger while my kids are gone? I’m sure Axel isn’t denying himself for my sake.”
Tobias had been in prison throughout most of his sexual prime. A very raw and powerful lust welled up at the possibility of sleeping with Harper for an entire week. He’d been attracted to her from the very beginning, and that attraction was only growing stronger the more time they spent together. But they couldn’t cross the boundaries they’d already established. She didn’t really know who he was—or what he’d done. And when their affair ended, he didn’t want her to walk away and leave him as devastated as she’d been when she arrived in Silver Springs. He was trying hard to protect himself from anything that could throw him off course, and he had a feeling Harper could do significant damage. “We shouldn’t,” he insisted.
She lowered her voice. “You’re saying you don’t want me to stay...”
“No, that’s not what I’m saying.”
“Then you have a girlfriend or...or a wife you haven’t told me about.”
“No, there’s no one else.”
“Then what do we have to lose?”
He could lose everything—what small amount of control he’d gained over his life in the past five months. But he didn’t have the heart to say no. He could see why she might want to change things. From what he’d learned about her so far, she’d always been the “good girl.” He couldn’t blame her for being tired of it. “You can stay for a few days, if you want,” he relented. “But I’ll sleep on the couch.”
“It’s not fair to put you out of your own bed,” she protested. “I’ll sleep on the couch. I just need a change of pace, to not feel bound by rules. Following them hasn’t gotten me anywhere, anyway.”
When he’d given her that rose and then his number, he’d never dreamed it would result in having a roommate, even for a few days. He told himself she’d come to her senses eventually. But they skated for another hour, then stopped at a grocery store for cocoa mix and went home. After they’d had hot chocolate, she still didn’t change her mind. She had him follow her to her sister’s house so she could get her toothbrush and a few other things. And to avoid the camera, so her sister wouldn’t know she wasn’t going to be home, she climbed out a back window and ran down the street a few blocks to where she’d asked him to wait in his truck.
“I can’t believe I’m doing this,” she said, breathless, as she climbed in.
He’d been thinking about trying, once again, to talk her out of it, but she seemed so relieved and happy he decided he could figure out a way to keep them both out of trouble.
All he had to do was make sure things didn’t go too far.
* * *
Harper had never done anything this out of character. Once she’d convinced Tobias to keep his own room and he’d gone to bed, she lay awake, staring at the ceiling in his small living room and thinking about how impetuous she’d been to even suggest she spend the week with a man she barely knew.
But, strangely enough, she felt safe around Tobias, comfortable. He seemed to understand grief and how hard it was to recover from the blow she’d sustained. And when she imagined what it would be like in her sister’s big house at this moment—with everyone gone and the rest of the night yawning before her—she was glad for the change of scenery and situation.
She certainly wasn’t tempted to call Axel while she was here, so there was that, too.
Burrowing deeper into the comforter Tobias had taken off his bed, she breathed in the scent of his cologne and decided that, crazy as it seemed, she’d made the right decision. She felt better than she had in ages. But he was right. It would be a mistake to sleep together. She had too much responsibility to be that impulsive.
Kicking off the covers, she got up to dig her phone out of her purse and turn it to Vibrate. She didn’t want the ring to wake him if her sister or her girls called early in the morning.
She was just putting her cell on the coffee table when she noticed the wallpaper on her phone and pulled it back to take a closer look. Behind the apps was a photo of her and Axel from their college days, when they were still dating. Because it had been so rainy and muddy that night, he was carrying her on his back and both of them were wet and laughing. The friend who’d snapped it had just sent it to her a few months ago, and since it represented the foundation on which she’d built her life—what she’d been trying so hard to save—she’d set it as her background picture, as if her stubborn denial could change reality.
Navigating to her photo albums, she scrolled through the photos she had saved until she came up with one of her and the girls alone—which wasn’t hard to find because Axel had been gone so much the past few years—and set that as her background instead.
She couldn’t help feeling a tremendous sense of loss as Axel’s smiling face disappeared from her screen. He was also disappearing from her life, and he was taking a very important part of her with him.
<
br /> But she had no choice—she had to let him go.
“You okay out there?” Tobias called.
He’d obviously heard her moving around.
Swallowing the lump in her throat, she locked her phone and curled back into the bedding he’d provided. “Better than I’d be anywhere else. Thank you.”
* * *
Some kind of outburst yanked Tobias from a deep sleep. When he first opened his eyes, he blinked at the darkness, trying to make sense of what he’d heard. He thought it was just another nightmare. Although he’d never mentioned it to anyone, not even Maddox, occasionally he dreamed that he was back in prison and was once again forced to fight for his life. There’d been one inmate in particular who’d given him trouble for the first three years. It was that guy—Rocco Stefani—who’d come after Tobias with a shiv. By some miracle, Tobias had managed to wrench it away and turn it on him, and he’d done enough damage that they’d carried Rocco off to the infirmary for two weeks.
Rocco was no threat to him after that, but they were both given another three years for the incident.
“Tobias?”
The uncertainty in the female voice calling out to him suddenly reminded him of where he was. Not in Soledad. Prison was behind him now. He was renting a small house in an orchard outside Silver Springs—and he had rock star Axel Devlin’s soon-to-be ex-wife sleeping on his couch.
He heard the sound that had awakened him again—loud screaming and cursing. It was Uriah and Carl.
“Son of a bitch!” he yelled and jumped out of bed.
“What is it?” Harper asked, her voice filled with fear. “What’s going on?”
“Stay here and lock the door after I leave. Sounds like my landlord’s having a fight with his prick of a son.” He shoved his legs into the jeans he’d taken off only a few hours ago but didn’t bother to fasten them before he ran, barefoot, to the front house.
The light was on, but he couldn’t hear any more screaming. It was a miracle he’d heard it the first time. It wasn’t as if this was summer. Since the weather had turned cold, he’d been forced to sleep with his windows closed. Uriah and Carl must’ve been screaming outside at some point.
“Uriah?” he called, flinging open the back door and hurrying into the kitchen without even knocking.
There was no answer. He heard a door slam, so he started toward the living room, but Uriah suddenly blocked his path, hands lifted as though he wanted Tobias to remain calm. “It’s okay, Tobias. Everything’s okay.”
Tobias tried to look around the old man to find Carl. “What’s happening? What’s going on?”
“Nothing that... Nothing I can’t handle,” he said, but his face was white as a sheet, and Tobias could see blood trickling down from the corner of his mouth.
“Did he hit you?” he asked, immediately enraged.
“No, I tripped and fell into the doorframe.”
“But it was because of him, right?”
Uriah’s gnarled hand was shaking as he wiped the blood from his mouth. “He has...emotional issues. He’s not normal.”
“That’s what I’m worried about.” Tobias tried to get through to the living room, but Uriah caught him by the arm.
“Please, let’s not make it worse.”
“Make what worse?”
Outside, Tobias heard an engine rumble to life. He slipped away from Uriah so he could get to the front door, but by the time he reached the porch, Carl was backing down the driveway like a maniac. He nearly got into an accident with another vehicle as he pulled onto the highway.
“Where’s he going?” Tobias asked.
Carl’s tires squealed and then his headlights swung into the road.
With a sigh, Uriah sank into his recliner and shook his head. “I don’t know. I’m just glad he’s gone.”
“Do you want me to go after him? Bring his ass back here to take responsibility for whatever he’s done?”
Uriah covered his eyes with one hand and didn’t answer.
“Uriah?”
“No. It won’t do any good. Nothing ever changes. He’s been like this since he was a boy.”
Tobias had so much adrenaline pouring through him he wanted to chase Carl down. “What set him off?”
“He’s got an old friend who lives in town. Derrick Jessup. Derrick was a terrible influence. He was trouble then, and he’s trouble now. Still lives at home. Rarely has a job. Anyway, before we went to bed, Derrick called and wanted Carl to meet him at a bar. Carl asked for money, and I wouldn’t give it to him.”
“And then...”
“And then I caught him going through my wallet while I was sleeping and tried to stop him.” His bushy eyebrows drew together in a show of his typical stubbornness. “I won’t allow him to steal from me.”
“So he hit you?”
“No. He started yelling and screaming and throwing things. I was trying to get him to stop when I tripped.”
“Did he at least help you up?”
“When he saw the blood, he just took off.”
Tobias walked out onto the porch, listening to find out if Carl had doubled back. When all remained quiet, he came back in, closed the door and locked it. “Did he take his stuff? Is he gone for good?”
“His stuff is still here.”
“Which means he’s probably coming back. Can I gather it up and leave it on the porch for him?”
“He doesn’t have anywhere else to go, Tobias. He’s lost another job, been evicted from his apartment.”
“But it isn’t safe to have him here. He isn’t stable. Who knows what he might do.”
“He’s my son,” Uriah said simply.
Tobias wanted to argue that it didn’t matter. Carl shouldn’t be allowed back in the house.
But this wasn’t his house, and it wasn’t his call.
Biting his tongue so he wouldn’t say too much and make this night even more difficult for his landlord, he stalked into the kitchen and got a bag of ice, which he wrapped in a towel and brought to Uriah. “Here, put this on your face.”
Uriah didn’t respond.
Tobias squatted across from him. “Uriah...”
His eyes finally met Tobias’s. “I’m getting too old for this.”
Tobias wanted to agree, but he knew how torn Uriah had to be. He and Maddox felt the same about their mother. They should’ve cut her out of their lives long ago. But family was family, so they kept trying to get her to change and improve.
He gripped Uriah’s forearm by way of encouragement. “You going to be okay?”
“I think so.”
“Will you call me when he comes back?”
He finally accepted the ice pack. “What for?”
“I’d like to have a talk with him, get a few things straight.”
A bit of Uriah’s sense of humor resurfaced as he managed a wry smile. “You mean you’d like to threaten him.”
Tobias grinned as he stood. “Damn right. He needs to know there’ll be hell to pay if he ever causes you to get hurt again.”
Uriah sobered. “What makes some people do what they do?”
Tobias shook his head. “I wish I could tell you.”
“Tobias?” a female voice called.
Harper. He’d left the kitchen door standing open when he’d run inside, and she’d come through it.
“In here!”
She appeared in the doorway to the living room, wearing the sweats she’d put on to sleep. “Is everything okay?” she asked, her forehead creased in concern.
He rested his hands on his hips as he looked between her and his landlord. “For now,” he said.
7
Although they’d returned to the house, and Tobias had gone back into his bedroom, Harper had been sleeping in fits and starts. Almost every time she closed her eyes, she’d hear
Tobias tossing and turning or getting up to go to the bathroom and would wake up, too. Those were such small noises—noises that normally wouldn’t bother her—but she was too aware of him to drift off for any length of time. And now, although he’d moved quietly, she could sense that he was in the same room she was.
“What time is it?” she asked, covering a yawn.
Tobias turned from where he’d been standing at the kitchen window, keeping watch on the drive. “Nearly four.”
Two hours since the fight between Carl and Uriah. Somehow it seemed longer. “Is something wrong?”
“No.”
“Then why can’t you sleep?”
Instead of an explanation, she received an apology. “Sorry if I’m keeping you up. You should go into my bedroom and close the door. If I get tired again, I’ll take the couch.”
“I’m fine here.” Pushing up onto one elbow, she rested her head on her palm. “Are you okay?”
He turned back to the window. “Yeah. I’m just...restless.”
“You’re worried about Uriah.”
“I’m pissed off,” he stated more forcefully.
She studied what she could see of him via the moonlight streaming in through the window—the mussed hair, the faded jeans, the bare back. “At his son?”
“Yes. That dude is such a douchebag. There’s no telling what he might do.”
As she’d guessed, Tobias was worried. But that wasn’t how he interpreted what he was feeling, and the fact that he could get it wrong made her smile. Maybe he was mad, but it was primarily because he was worried. “Has Carl come back?”
“I can’t see that far down the drive. But I haven’t spotted any headlights. Or heard an engine. So probably not yet.” He pinched his own shoulder as if he was trying to relieve some tension. “He will, though.”
That was why he couldn’t sleep. He was waiting for Carl to return. “How do you know? Because he left his stuff?”