Better Together

by Jessie Gussman

  Harper lay on her shabby chic sofa. Her foot was propped on two pillows. Wyatt’s eyes caught hers and she scrunched up her nose. “I really don’t think all this is necessary.”

  Wyatt clenched the glass of water in his hand. It hurt to see her hurting. “Humor me. I feel bad that it was my idea, and you’re the one with a sprained ankle.”

  “Well, I’ve always wondered if the stories I’d been told as a child were true. Oh, that reminds me—” Harper dug in the front pocket of her jeans. She pulled out a musty little blue velvet pouch. Worn.

  Wyatt’s mouth fell open. “You got it? When did you get it?” He put a finger out and touched the faded fabric, then glanced into Harper’s face. She smiled like she’d just cracked the code to win the lottery.

  “While you were tripping on your alter-ego, the snake charmer, I continued to be focused on the task at hand…”

  “Was that before or after you dropped my phone?”

  “Minor detail.” Harper waved her hand, and Wyatt bit back a grin. It hadn’t seemed so minor at the time.

  He twisted the glass in his hand. “So, while I was holding the snakes at bay, you found your long-lost family heirloom?”

  Harper held the pouch by the strings. The smile faded from her face. “I don’t know if that’s what it is or not.”

  “So…are we going to look?” Wyatt set the ice water down and moved a stack of books so he could sit on her coffee table. For an organized person, Harper had books everywhere in her tiny efficiency apartment.

  “I don’t know if I want to know.” Harper met his eyes and he recognized the uncertainty there.

  “Why not?”

  “I’ve been hearing those stories all my life. How my great-great-great-grandmother left her ducal husband in England to run away with an Irish sharecropper.” Her fingers smoothed over the small pouch. “That’s my history. I don’t want it to change.”

  “But you want the truth. Plus, change doesn’t equal bad.”

  Harper shrugged and dropped her eyes. Wyatt’s heart dropped along with them. That was the second reason they could never be together. Not only did he not want to risk ruining their great friendship, but Harper was so grounded in her farm and family. She hated change. And for them to be together would rock her world in too many ways to list.

  She stared at the pouch. “To have my world shifting around me just makes me feel…insecure.”

  Wyatt tried to lighten both their moods. “Does that mean we never find out what’s in the pouch?”

  Her lips tilted up and she held up the pouch. “Do you want to do the honors?”

  “It’s your family. I’m the snake-charmer.”

  “You were amazing with that, by the way.” Harper looked up at him. His heart swelled at the sincere admiration in her gaze. If only he could turn that admiration into love.

  He smiled to conceal his thoughts. “Thanks.”

  Harper grinned back at him. Then she loosened the strings on the pouch. “Here goes.” She turned the pouch upside down. A thick gold band with a sparkling green emerald and intricate gold work dropped into her hand.

  Wyatt whistled. “I’m not an expert on jewelry, but that thing isn’t your run of the mill mall jewelry store ring. It looks heavy.”

  “It is.” Harper picked up the ring and twisted it in different directions. “There’s an inscription.” She turned the ring and squinted. “Sweet Haven of Rest.”

  “I wonder what that means.” He was curious, sure. But he was enjoying more the wonder on Harper’s face.

  “This is the ring! That’s what my grandmother always told me it said.” She turned glowing eyes on him. “My great-great-great-grandmother had that engraved after they got to America. I guess, even though she was married to a duke, her life wasn’t that great in England. She expected things to be much better here on the farm. And, of course, she couldn’t keep another man’s wedding ring, and no one would believe that the poor Irishman she’d run off with would have given her something so grand, so she had to get rid of it.” Harper shook her head. “Can you imagine what she left? Safety, security, her husband…”

  “All for love.” Wyatt wished the old woman was here today to give Harper a lesson on the power of love.

  Harper turned the ring over, looking at it from all sides. “I can’t imagine crossing an ocean and going to an unknown land would have been worth it. I think this ring is evidence she wasn’t sure either.”

  “I think the fact that the ring was still in the tunnel is evidence that it was.”

  “Why?”

  “If she wasn’t happy, wouldn’t she have gone back and gotten the ring?”

  “Maybe she forgot about it.”

  “That’s my point. Look at that thing. It’s not something that’s going to slip your mind. Especially if you’re unhappy and miserable.”

  Harper’s brows drew down. “Good point.”

  “Your grandmother chose love.” Wyatt nodded to the green fields outside the small living room window, indicating the farm that she and her Irishman worked together. “It was the right choice.”

  Harper snorted. “All except that small detail about her still being married to her husband in England.”

  “True. She never married your great-great-great-grandfather?”

  “Nope. That’s one good thing about moving across the ocean where no one knows you. They just pretended they’d always been married. No one ever questioned it.”

  “The tunnel was a good hiding spot.”

  “Yes.” She twisted on the pillow. “Thanks for suggesting we go look for it. It was definitely worth the twisted ankle.”

  “And the snakes.”

  “Uh…”

  “You wouldn’t have the ring.”

  “Okay. You’re right. And the snakes.”

  From the kitchen counter, Harper’s phone rang.

  Wyatt jumped up and brought it to her. “It’s your mom.”

  “That’s odd. She usually calls in the evening.” A pinch of worry caught in Harper’s chest as she swiped the screen. “Hello?”

  “Harper. Honey.”

  “Mom, what’s wrong?”

  “Sweetheart, I don’t want to worry you.” A statement like that always caused worry. Harper twisted the heavy gold band she still held, then she slid it on her finger. Heavy and cool, it somehow felt reassuring, too.

  “What is it?”

  “It’s Fink. He didn’t feel well yesterday. Then he collapsed last night. I’m calling from the hospital.”

  Harper sat up. She gripped the phone tighter. She hated travelling. She hated leaving home, but family was more important. “I’ll catch a plane and be right out. I’ll take care of the boys.”

  “No. Grandma and Grandpap have them. Everything’s fine right now with the boys.” Ellie paused. “Actually, a cousin I’d never met is staying with them, too. She’s helping with the boys.”

  Harper felt guilty for the relief that cascaded through her. She really didn’t want to fly to Arizona. She didn’t want to fly anywhere. “What about Fink? What about you?”

  Her mother sighed. “He’s stable. But they think it’s sepsis. They’ve started antibiotics, but they’re going to culture it because they think it might be resistant.”

  Harper gasped. “MRSA?”

  Her mother paused. “Possibly,” she whispered.

  “Mom, I can’t let you do this by yourself. I’ll catch a flight…”

  “No. That’s what I was calling for. I didn’t want to worry you. But, the last thing Fink said before he passed out was about getting the pumpkins planted. I assured him that you and Wyatt—did Wyatt get in?”

  “Yes. Last night.” She met Wyatt’s gaze, noted the furrow above his nose, and gave a little smile. He lifted his brows in question and she put a finger up.

  “Oh, good.” Ellie sighed with relief.

  “He’s planning on heading out early next week.”

  “Oh.” Her mom’s voice sounded weak, tired. “I don’t h
ave much time here. The doctor is supposed to come out and talk to me any minute. Do you think that you can find someone to help with the farm?” Voices in the background babbled incoherently, then her mom came back on. “I need to go. I’ll call you later. Just, if you can take care of the farm….”

  “We’ve got it, mom.”

  “Thanks, honey.”

  Harper slid her phone from her ear. She met Wyatt’s concerned look. “Fink’s in the hospital. Sepsis. Maybe MRSA. The boys are fine. I told her we’d find someone to take care of the farm.”

  “Is Fink…?”

  “She said he was stable. She seemed more upset that Fink was worried about getting the pumpkins planted than worried that he was going to…die.”

  “I see.” Wyatt stood. He shoved his hands in his front pockets and walked the short distance to the front door, staring out the window. “He could be in the hospital for weeks.”

  “And you’re leaving.”

  He glanced over his shoulder. “Don’t you have a research position that is starting?”

  “Yeah.” It was a full-time position, plus reading and paperwork in the evenings. She most certainly wouldn’t have time to have the farm ready for fall customers. Unless she gave the position up. But she couldn’t. Her tenure vote was at the end of the summer. If she backed out of the research position, no one would think she deserved tenure. It just wasn’t done.

  Harper sat up and swung her foot to the coffee table, although her head was now throbbing harder than her ankle.

  Sepsis. MRSA. That was serious stuff. Surely her mother was beside herself with worry. She wanted to rush out. But that’s not what her mother had asked her to do.

  “Mom wanted us to either take care of the farm, especially getting the pumpkins planted, or to see if we can get someone to help out, since we both have things we need to do.”

  Wyatt turned from the door and studied her for a moment, with as serious as an expression as he’d ever used. He rubbed a hand over his face. “As much as Fink and Ellie have done for me, I hate to let them down.”

  “Yeah.” Harper fingered the ring. This farm represented generations of her family. “I’m going to hobble up to the house. Mom has a list of emergency contacts and some other numbers in her desk. I can get started on trying to find someone.”

  Immediately, Wyatt was beside her, holding her hand. “We’ll get someone lined up to take over. Then I’ll get the pumpkins planted.”

  “And I’ll get a list made up of all the things that will need done in the next…month? Do you think it will be that long?” The weight of responsibility settled heavily on her shoulders. She couldn’t let her mom down. Wyatt squeezed her hand and she gave him a grateful look. He’d never let her down.

  “Hard to tell. I don’t think it would be out of line to make plans for that long. He’ll probably be weak when he gets home. And your mom has the three boys to look after.”

  “That’s true. I think Bill Sinclair down the road borrowed their skid loader last fall to clean out his barn after his broke. We’ll try him first.”

  Wyatt smacked a hand on his leg. “Yeah. Neighbors are always eager to help each other. We’ll have people beating the doors down to help.”

  Three hours later Wyatt pushed the red “off” button on the farm house phone. He placed both hands on the desk and flexed his shoulders.

  “No luck?” Harper asked from the desk chair, without much hope on her face.

  Wyatt straightened and ran a finger down over the curve of the roll top desk. “No. They have family coming in from Wilkes-Barre. They said they could come over and water our flowers. Feed the cat.”

  Harper rolled her eyes. “Funny how many of our neighbors don’t know we don’t have a cat.”

  “Everyone has a cat.”

  “We should get one. I’ve talked to about sixteen people who are willing to come feed one for us.”

  “And zero who are willing to trim Christmas trees or spray apples or set up sprinklers to water pumpkins for the next six weeks.” His eye caught on the corner of an old envelope sticking up along the edge of the lower part of the desk. Like it had fallen through the crack. He teased it up.

  Harper held up a little green book. “I’ve called every person on Mom’s Christmas card list who lives in the state.”

  “Plus that one who lives on the Maryland line.” He almost had the envelope free. It was off-white with a stamp design he recognized from his senior year of high school.

  Harper rolled her eyes. “Yeah. Two hours one way isn’t that far to drive for family.”

  “Can’t blame her for not wanting to make that drive. Not with her triplets being only four weeks old.”

  “Yeah. Remind me to tell mom she said thanks for the bottle warmers. I didn’t even know we had a relative with triplets.”

  Wyatt tapped the envelope against the desk and tried to imagine Harper with triplets. “Hope they don’t run in the family.”

  “What do you care?” Harper laughed at him.

  Wyatt put his hand to his ear, mimicking someone talking on the phone and spoke in sotto voice. “Wyatt, come rescue me from my kids. They take after my great-great-grandmother who fled England. These munchkins are fast.”

  “Very funny.” Harper fingered the book again. “What do you have there?”

  “It looked like it got caught between the cracks. The postmark on it is ten years old.”

  Harper tilted her head, reading the fuzzy print. “That’s from the Pennsylvania Department of Permits and Licensing. Surely if Mom or Fink needed it they would have noticed it missing by now.” Harper narrowed her eyes. “Should we check?”

  Wyatt shrugged. This could have been something they misplaced years ago. He opened it and scanned the letter inside.

  “What?” Harper asked, peering over the edge.

  “It looks like Fink applied for a permit to develop the mountain. This is the approval letter.” He held up the other paper, which was a bluish color with gold lettering. “This is the permit.”

  “That’s odd. I don’t remember hearing anything about that.”

  “Me either.” Wyatt stuffed everything back in the envelope.

  “That’s ten years old. Obviously, nothing ever came of it.”

  Wyatt placed the letter on the desk next to the side he’d pulled it from.

  Harper tapped the little green book on the desk. “You’re sure you called everyone in Pennsylvania?”

  Wyatt nodded. “All except that Avery Conrad. She’s the first name in the book, but I’ve never heard of her and she lives in Philly. That’s like five hours away.”

  Harper signed. “Too far.”

  He hated seeing her so dejected, and he couldn’t stand that she was worrying about the farm. “Well, one neighbor didn’t answer. I’ll try him again.”

  Harper’s phone rang and she grabbed it off the desk. “It’s my mom,” she said before she answered.

  Wyatt pulled his own phone back out and stepped away. By the time he finished talking with the neighbor, who couldn’t help because his mom had just been diagnosed with cancer and they were starting treatments in Pittsburgh, Harper was already off the phone with her mom and was digging through the desk.

  He walked over beside her. “Everything okay?”

  “Yeah. She wanted the insurance info. Apparently, they’ve switched insurers and she has the wrong card in her wallet. She’s too worked up to remember the name of the new insurance company.” Harper shuffled some papers around, then dug through a stack she pulled from the second drawer on the right. “It’s in a business sized envelope just like this…” Her voice trailed off as she read the bright pink sticky note attached to the envelope on top.

  “What?” Wyatt bent over and squinted at the familiar scrawl on the sticky note. Taxes have tripled. Will pay with money from selling pumpkins. The return address on the envelope was the County Assessment Office. His chest tightened.

  Harper tapped her finger on the note. “That explains why
Fink’s last words to Mom were about the pumpkins being planted.”

  “Yeah. It’s kind of important to pay taxes.” Wyatt put a hand on the desk and leaned on it. “I agree that this really isn’t any of our business, but…do you think there’s more like that?”

  “More tax bills?”

  “More bills that are depending on farm income to get paid.”

  “I know Mom was making as many decorations as she could. But I thought it was more that she was thrilled to finally have the boys in school and to have time. Maybe they need the money.”

  Wyatt tapped his finger on the desk. “Fink wouldn’t have been worried about it otherwise, but we need to find that insurance info.”

  Harper met his look with a frank one of her own. “Right. Sounds like either the farm needs to generate money, or we’ll lose it.” She touched the ring on her finger, then seemed to shake herself. “Oh, Mom said that Avery Conrad is a professor and a distant cousin of Fink’s. She might be willing to come out for the summer.”

  “Give me her number. I’ll give her a call.”

  “Sure.” Harper flipped through the green book, found the page and read the number off to Wyatt. He dialed. No point in waiting. They hadn’t accomplished a single thing all afternoon.

  A voice answered after the second ring. “Hello?”

  “Hello. This is Wyatt Fernandez. I’m Calvin Finkenbinder’s nephew.

  A small pause, during which Wyatt hooked a hand around the back of his neck. He’d feel like an idiot if this woman didn’t even know who Fink and Ellie were. She spoke. “Oh, you mean Fink, he’s like my third cousin or something? He married Ellie-something, right?”

  “Yes, that’s him. I’m sorry to cold call you like this, but he’s having a bit of a hard time, and I thought you might be able to help. Ellie said you’re a professor?”

  “Yes. At Penn U. I teach music theory.”

  Uh oh. Not looking good. At least she’d have the summer off.

  “I also play the tuba in the Philadelphia Orchestra. Maybe you’ve seen us play, but they’re off until fall. Are you calling about tuba lessons? Because I don’t give lessons in the summer. Students are too unpredictable. Going on vacation or swimming or they want to sleep in. Every day half the students cancel and how am I supposed to make any plans—”