by Lacey Black
I better wear my nut cup for this conversation.
Just as I start to make my way back to Harper, Jensen stops me. He’s visiting with Marissa and Rhenn. “Latham, did I hear Douglas Hardware is trying to stock a few new lines, including outdoor yard tools?”
My throat tightens as I think about the new lines we’ll be able to carry now that we have more space. “Well, we’re always on the lookout for ways to better serve our customers,” I reply, politically.
Jensen laughed. “You sound like your dad,” he replies with a smile. “I hope you guys can get it done. I have a few new pieces of equipment in my budget for next spring. I’d rather buy them local, if I can.”
“We’ll see what we can do for you,” I comment to Harper’s younger brother.
“Good deal.”
“How’s work going?” Rhenn asks Jensen.
“Busier than shit,” Jensen comments with the shake of his head. “I was considering adding another employee for summer help, but after the call I had Friday, I’m thinking I might need some permanent help quickly.”
“What does that mean?”
“Someone bought the Elliott house,” he says, his posture suddenly ramrod straight, his body radiating tension. If memory serves me correctly, I think I know why.
“They did?” Marissa asks, watching her brother’s reaction closely.
Jensen shrugs. “It’s a job.”
“Do you know who?”
He shakes his head.
“It’s sat empty for several years. I don’t think they kept up with the landscaping, right? That’s going to be a big job,” Marissa says, not telling her brother what he doesn’t already know.
“It is, but I’m ready. If I get it, I’ll have to take on another employee. I’ve been doing too much lately because I haven’t wanted to take someone on this late in the season. I might have to now,” he says. “I meet with the lawyer of the new owner next month. If I get the job, I’ll start right away. It’s going to take a lot of work to get it ready for whoever bought a million dollar home.”
Rhenn whistles. “That’s a pretty big chunk of change. Are you talking about that big house across town by the waterfall?”
“Yeah,” Marissa says, keeping one eye on her brother.
If memory serves me correctly, Jensen dated the Elliotts’ only daughter, Kathryn. She came from money – a lot of it – and he, well, didn’t. When I left for the military, they were dating and planning a future, even though they were both in high school. I remember hearing the Elliotts left town, but I don’t recall the circumstances. Considering Jensen married someone else from school and had a son, I’d say the forever Jensen and Kathryn had planned didn’t work out so well.
“Well, I’m updating some electrical wiring and installing all new kitchen lighting first of August. I’m happy to not have to drive too far for a bit,” Rhenn says, pulling Marissa into his arms.
“Aren’t you coming from Harriston?” Jensen asks.
Rhenn and Marissa share a look. “Actually, Rhenn is moving in with me.”
Jensen watches his baby sister for a few long, tense seconds before pulling her into a hug. “I’m happy for you two.” Jensen kisses his sister’s forehead and reaches for Rhenn’s hand.
“What am I missing?” Harper asks her siblings, clearly noticing the exchange from across the yard. She slides in beside me, standing nice and close. I can smell her sexy perfume and a hint of jasmine from her shampoo.
“I’m shacking up with your sister,” Rhenn says, throwing his arm over Marissa’s shoulder. They both wear matching smiles.
Harper rolls her eyes. “Duh, Cowboy. You’ve been shacking up unofficially for weeks. ‘Bout time you made it official,” she says, giving a pointed look to her sister’s boyfriend.
“Yeah, yeah,” he teases, goodheartedly, throwing her a smile.
“Hey, guys!” Freedom says as she comes around the corner, carrying a bundle of balloons and a wrapped package.
“Hey!” everyone replies as Harper’s best friend comes over to our group.
“What’s that?” Harper asks, trying hard not to smile.
“Something special for the birthday boy!” Free hollers, loud enough to draw attention from most of the party.
“Oh, he’s going to kill you,” Jensen says with a chuckle.
“He loves me,” Free says with an evil grin and a wink.
“Who’s birthday?” Aunt Emma shouts from across the yard.
“Sammy’s!” Free yells, making a beeline toward the oldest Grayson. Samuel, of course, turns and tries to bolt for the kitchen.
“No way, Samuel,” Orval says, grabbing him by the arm with strength that completely catches everyone off guard – especially Samuel. Orval then proceeds to pull Samuel to the middle of the yard, where his embarrassment can probably be seen from space.
“Open it!” Emma claps as Free hands Samuel the balloons and gift.
He glares at Harper’s spitfire friend, but she seems to pay no attention to his irritation. Instead she takes the balloons from him and sets them on the nearest table. Then, she returns to watch Samuel open his gift in front of the entire family.
“He’s about to freak out,” Harper whispers.
“Yeah?”
“He hates anything that draws attention to him, and Free knows it. She loves to push his buttons, including calling him Sammy as much as possible. But that gift? He’s going to have a coronary right there in the middle of the family barbeque.”
My hand wraps around her hip as we watch her brother open his gift. The entire yard is quiet – even Sawyer and Max have stopped playing catch to watch. Samuel slowly pulls the paper off the small box, which looks like a tie box. He pulls open the lid, gazes down at the contents, and slams the lid back on the top.
“Samuel!” Mary Ann chastises her oldest. “Don’t be rude.”
“Oh, stop being a sissy,” Free says, grabbing the box from his hands and peeling it open. “Look!” she bellows, holding up a pair of men’s trouser socks.
“She got him socks?” I whisper, not really understanding why he’d hate a pair of trouser socks. I mean, the guy wears suits all day, every day – probably even to bed or the pool.
“Not just any socks,” Harper giggles, but doesn’t have to continue because Free takes care of the question on everyone’s mind.
“They’re alien sex socks!” Free announces.
“They have aliens and twenty different sex positions on them.” Harper finally loses her composure and bursts into laughter. I’ll admit it’s quite comical. Especially when you glance at the look of mortification on the eldest Grayson sibling’s face.
“Let me see those,” Emma says, grabbing the socks and proceeding to describe the positions to Free and Samuel.
“So, I was thinking, after the party, we can head back to your place,” I tell her, keeping my eyes on the people milling around the cookout.
“Alien sex does it for ya, huh?”
“Totally,” I reply with a smile. My eyes lock on hers, and my heart hammers in my chest. “I have something I want to discuss with you,” I tell her, not wanting to give too much away.
Her eyebrows arch. “Everything okay?”
“Yeah,” I reply automatically, that single word thickening in my throat and making it hard to breathe.
“Okay,” she says with a slight grin, reaching down and taking my hand in hers. She opens her mouth to say something, but the ringing of her cell phone halts whatever words she was about to say. She glances down at the name on the screen. “It’s Mandy,” she adds absently, and brings her phone to her head.
My entire body runs cold.
Mandy is her realtor. What are the chances she’s calling her to tell her the same thing Pete just informed me?
Yeah, pretty fucking good.
I watch her face as she takes the call. Within seconds, her smile is wiped away, replaced with shock, and yes, a few tears. “O
h, yeah. And that’s it?” Pause. “Okay, thanks,” she says quietly, dropping her head. “Wait! Do you know who won the bid?” she asks, turning and glancing my way. She listens, but doesn’t take her eyes off mine. “Thanks for everything, Mandy. Bye.”
Her blue eyes hold my gaze as she slides her phone back into her pocket. I open my mouth, but nothing comes out. The hurt I just saw in her beautiful eyes is quickly swept aside and replaced with an edge, a hardness.
She knows.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Harper
“Were you going to tell me?” I ask without moving a step toward him.
“Can we talk about this in private?” he asks quietly, his chocolate brown eyes pleading with me to go somewhere to discuss this.
“In private? Why? You don’t want everyone to know what you’ve done, Satan?” I spit out as if the words have a vile taste.
“What I’ve done? I haven’t done anything but win a bid on the building I was trying to purchase,” he tells me calmly, even though I can tell he’s anything but.
“Really? You stole it from me!”
He takes a step closer to me, but I immediately take a step back and out of his reach. “I didn’t steal it, Sweetheart.”
“How long have you known that I was the other bidder?” I ask, crossing my arms over my chest.
He swallows hard, his Adam’s apple bobbles beneath his few-day-old stubble. I can tell right away I’m not going to like what’s about to come out of his mouth. “Since I installed your new laptop and heard you and Free talking about it.” The admission is painful to hear.
“And you didn’t think to say something to me?” Before he can open his mouth, I continue. “You knew I was the other bidder, but you never said anything. You used me.”
He stares at me, his face hardening and his jaw ticking. “Harper –”
And then I feel my face pale as realization sets in. “Oh my God, is that why you slept with me?” I take another step back, not wanting to get too close.
He takes two steps forward until he’s standing directly in front of me. My eyes burn with threatening tears, but I will them away. No way am I going to let him see my cry. He stands there and watches me. Latham looks like he’s about to say something, but I stop him. “No. Do not speak to me!”
The ugly truth finally sets in.
He’s worse than Joey, worse than the jerk in high school who only wanted to sleep with me at prom. I told him about Keith. I shared my horrid past that I spent years trying to forget. I shared because I trusted him.
Because I was falling in love with him.
My heart beats wildly in my chest as I look at the man I thought I knew, but didn’t know at all. I had suspected he was the one bidding against me, but didn’t know for certain. But now? How will I ever trust him again? The entire timeline isn’t in his favor. It’s damaging, in fact. He shows up, wines and dines me, and then sleeps with me? I guess you really do keep your friends close and your enemies closer.
He watches me, his eyes like steel and his body tense. And my body? It cries for his. I yearn for him to tell me it’s not true, that it wasn’t all a lie.
“Harper, please –” And my heart breaks wide open.
I glance to my right and realize the entire party is standing there, watching. I hold up my hand to stop him. “Well, congratulations. You don’t have to pretend to like me, sleep with me anymore, just to get a leg up on the deal.” I swallow hard, sucking down all of the painful emotions that have bolted to the surface. “You win.” The words are barely audible as I take a step away and turn.
Before I make it more than two steps, I glance over my shoulder. “Goodbye, Latham.”
* * *
“…and I really think you should just come back to my place tonight,” my best friend drones on and on from the driver’s seat. I’m ignoring her, of course, but not because I don’t care about what she’s saying. I’m ignoring her because my drunk mind can’t seem to stop spinning enough to wrap around her words.
“I just wanna go home,” I tell her quietly, my hot cheek pressed firmly against the cool glass of the passenger door.
I have no idea what happened with Latham after I went inside the bed and breakfast. Part of me really hopes all of the men in my family took turns using his kidneys as a punching bag – especially Rhenn. He’s a black belt in ass-kicking, and I really hope he got in a few good shots, defending my honor. But the other part of me hopes no one kidney punched him because I’d never wish any amount of pain on him.
Stupid heart.
Why must it care about the Devil?
Free keeps talking the entire ride back to my place, and I continue to ignore her. The shots of tequila have done a number on my head, but it has failed to do the one thing I set out to achieve: numbing my heart. It still beats wildly in my chest, crying out in both love and pain. And that’s exactly what love is. Pain.
We pull into my driveway, her car fitting easily without mine taking up space. I almost fall out of the door when I open it, but fortunately, the still-fastened seat belt keeps me from eating gravel. It suddenly releases, and I sway forward, the ground getting closer and closer. My best friend grabs my arm, saving me from a gravel makeover, and eventually comes over and helps me out of the car.
She takes my keys and opens the door, Snuggles happily greeting me the moment I enter. Just the sight of her has me on the verge of tears. “I’ll take her out back,” Free says, leading my puppy toward the backyard.
The walls move as I stand still, praying for the darkness to swallow me whole. No, drinking definitely wasn’t my brightest idea, but it was there and I was looking for anything to quickly numb the pain. I’m not worried about Snuggles. I know Free will take care of her before she goes. All I want is to lie in bed and let the drunkenness finish me off.
As soon as I step into my bedroom, I smell him. His cologne, his aftershave, his soap. Whatever it is, it’s everywhere. The sight of my bed sends the tears I’ve been fighting tumbling down, and they don’t stop. They consume me, just like the pain.
Knowing I can’t sleep in my bed, I reach for the pillow and head to the spare room across the hall. The sheets are clean and won’t remind me of the man who shared my bed the night before. I don’t undress, I can’t. I have no strength or will to even remove my shoes. Instead, I crawl on top of the bedspread, curl my body around my pillow, and close my eyes.
He’s here.
I feel him.
I smell him.
When I open my heavy eyelids and glance around the room, I find it as empty as my heart. He’s not here. But his scent is. In my haste to get out of my bedroom, I grabbed the pillow Latham always used. The material is wet as I place my head back down and hold it tightly against me. It’s not him, but for a moment – a beautiful second in time – it makes me feel like he’s here with me.
As I fall into the darkness, I pray for the pain in my chest to subside just a little. I pray for my heart to forget all about one Latham Douglas. And most of all, I pray he’s missing me as much as I’m missing him.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Latham
“You’re in a fine mood again. You’ve been acting like a bear with a thorn in his paw all week. What gives?” Dad asks as he sits down in the empty chair across from the desk. The desk that used to belong to him.
“Nothing,” I grumble.
I’ve been a bear, I know. I’ve been in the worst mood since everything with Harper came crashing down around me last Sunday afternoon. It about killed me to leave her there, to walk away without actually defending myself, but I tried. She wouldn’t hear me out, not when her mind was already made up about me sleeping with her just to get the building. It wasn’t true, but she wouldn’t let me get a word in edgewise, and I didn’t try hard enough.
Biggest mistake of my life.
The only reason I slept with her was because I was in love with her, not because of the building. I need to
tell her that, but it hasn’t exactly worked out the way I had planned. I had hoped we’d be able to discuss this after cooler heads prevailed, but she won’t answer her phone or her door, even though I’m pretty sure she was home at the time. I’ve gone to the gym, but she’s not attending her stupid 90’s spin classes either. The only place I haven’t gone is next door – to her shop. The last thing I want to do is disrupt her there in the middle of a workday.
Apparently we haven’t gotten to the cooler heads part yet.
“Could have fooled me, Lath. So what gives?”
I rest my tired head in my hands and close my eyes. I haven’t slept for shit in the last few days, mostly because every time I try, I see her face. I see her tears. And it hurts too fucking much. “I fucked up, Dad.”
“With the building? We sign the papers in an hour.”
“No, not with the building. I mean, yes, with the building.” I let out a long, frustrated growl. “I don’t know.”
“Start at the beginning.”
So I do. I tell him about overhearing Harper and Free discussing their plans for the space, and how I didn’t tell her I was the other bidder. I end the tale with our explosive exchange (okay, she was the one exploding) on Sunday and how I tried to rebuff her claim on exactly why I was sleeping with her, but she wouldn’t hear it. Dad doesn’t say a word, not even after I finish spilling my guts.
“What should I do?” I ask him, kicking back and putting my feet on top of the desk.
“Do you love her?” he asks, not even commenting about my dirty boots in the middle of the desk calendar.
“Yes.” No question.
“Then you work it out,” he says, shrugging his shoulders.
“But how? She won’t speak to me.”
“Do you blame her?” he asks, the corner of his mouth tipping upward.
“No,” I state, running my hands over my several-day-old stubble. I haven’t shaved in more than a week, and I’m definitely beginning to look like the wooly mammoth.
“Do you think it’s a coincidence that she knew about that building being available and no one else did?”