by Jennie Marts
The last thing Harper wanted to do was traumatize Floyd more by having him see her taken away in handcuffs. Again.
“Fine, I’ll go.” She leaned down and stroked her son’s head. “Floyd, honey, it’s okay. I need to go with this nice policeman, but I will be back.”
“When?”
“I don’t know, but soon.” She didn’t know how long they could hold her, and she didn’t want to make another promise she couldn’t keep. “It won’t be like last time.”
“No, Mom, please. Don’t go.” Floyd clung to her waist, breaking another piece off her already shattered heart.
“I have to go, honey. I’m sorry.” Harper choked out the words, emotion burning her throat.
Floyd pulled back, his face changing from hurt to anger. “Fine. Go then,” he yelled, his voice reminding her of the angry tantrums he’d thrown after his father had died. “I don’t want you here anyway.” He turned and flung himself into Judith’s waiting arms.
“Come on, Floyd. It will be all right,” Judith said, lifting her nose in a smug manner as she aimed a glare at Harper. “Grandma’s here.”
Harper couldn’t bear another second. “Get me out of here,” she instructed the cop, who led her through the front door to his patrol car. They’d almost made it to the vehicle when they were stopped by a familiar voice.
“Wait, Mike. Can I have a minute?”
Harper dropped her chin to her chest, unable to face Logan too.
“Sure,” the officer said. He’d just opened the back door. “You’re not gonna run off, are you?” he asked her.
She shook her head. “Where am I gonna go? I just left my whole world in that ice arena.”
He dropped her arm and stepped back a few feet so she could talk to Logan. Except that she didn’t want to talk to him. She didn’t even want to see him. She couldn’t take the look of disappointment and torment on his face.
“What the hell is going on, Harper?” he asked, his tone low, his expression a cross between anger, shock, and dismay. “You have a son?”
“I wanted to tell you. But I couldn’t.”
“Why couldn’t you tell me about Floyd? He’s a great kid.” He scrubbed his hand across his jaw. “I can’t believe you’re the one who left him.”
He used her son’s name like he knew him. “How do you know Floyd?”
“He’s on my hockey team. I’ve been his coach for months. I’ve talked to the kid. And to his grandmother. I know how heartbroken he’s been over his mother abandoning him. Do you have any idea what you’ve put this kid through?”
She jerked her head back. “How dare you say that to me? You don’t know me.”
“You know, you’re right. I don’t.” Logan let out a heavy sigh as if the act of breathing itself was a burden. “I thought I did. But I can’t make sense of how the woman I thought I knew could abandon her child.”
“I meant you don’t know the whole situation. And I didn’t abandon my child.” Although she had, but not willingly. “I was arrested.”
He shook his head. “You still left. You don’t know what that does to a kid.” He slammed his fist against his chest as his voice and his anger rose. “I know what that’s like. I know how it feels to have your mom walk out on you. To not matter enough to have her stay and fight for you.”
“Screw you, Logan. Whatever you think you know, whatever Judith told you, isn’t even close to the truth. That woman skews everything to suit her needs.”
“Maybe I don’t know the truth,” he spat back, “but that’s only because you never told me. And now you made me look like an idiot in front of half the town.”
“Oh, poor you. I just left my son bawling in there and have to go back to the one place I swore I would never return to.”
“I can’t believe you were in prison.”
“It wasn’t prison. It was county lockup, and I was only there a few months. It was for embezzlement charges. It’s not like I murdered anyone. And I’ve been trying to make it better, trying to get my son back. That’s why I told you I needed this job. And why I was so grateful for the place to live.”
He narrowed his eyes and blew out another breath. “Geezus. You’re an ex-con, and you’ve practically been living in my house.” His voice lowered as he shook his head in disbelief. “In my bed.”
His words stung as if he’d slapped her across the face. He was acting and saying everything exactly as she’d feared he would when he found out. “Not anymore. I’ll find someplace else to stay.”
She had nowhere else to stay, not even a car to sleep in. It was probably for the best she was going to jail tonight. A holding cell would at least have a bed. And she wasn’t sure she even deserved that. She’d tried so hard to make everything right, to deserve to have Floyd back with her, but she’d screwed everything up, again. And now she’d hurt the two people she cared most about in the world.
She let out a trembling breath. “I’m sorry.”
“That’s not good enough.”
She knew that. She knew it wasn’t good enough for Logan, and it wasn’t good enough for Floyd. He’d said her apology wasn’t good enough—but all she’d heard was that she wasn’t good enough.
“I know,” she whispered, then turned away and sank into the back seat of the patrol car. She slammed the door shut and buried her head against her knees.
My son deserves better than me. And so do you.
Chapter 24
The next morning, Logan shoved a piece of toast in his mouth. He’d had a restless night, tossing and turning because he couldn’t get thoughts of Harper out of his mind. One minute, he was ready to forgive her and talking himself into getting out of bed and heading down to the police station to get her, and the next, he was mad as sin and didn’t care if he ever saw her again.
In the light of day, after a rough night’s sleep, he was no closer to knowing what to do. His heart and head were locked in a vicious battle, and his stomach was now jumping in the fray because it was sorely missing Harper’s home-cooked breakfast.
But he couldn’t forgive her and take her back just because she made a good breakfast. She’d deceived him. And worse than that, she’d turned out to be just the kind of woman he swore he’d never get taken in by again. His biggest fear was being left by a woman who claimed she loved him, and now he’d fallen for one who’d abandoned her child. How could he count on her staying with him if she didn’t even stay for her own son?
Logan swore as the trio of kittens tumbled across his feet, another reminder of kids who’d been deserted by their mother. It wasn’t the kittens’ fault though. And now he felt like a shit for swearing at the baby cats. He poured some food into a saucer and set it on the floor.
He needed to get outside, do something constructive with his hands, anything to get his mind off Harper. But the clock was ticking, and he knew he had a decision to make.
He’d known Mike a long time. The cop had called him an hour ago to tell him Judith had called in a favor with Judge Harding to try to get temporary custody of Floyd. Only in a small town could one woman get a judge to call a special hearing on the morning of Christmas Eve. Either there was more to the story of why Harper was in jail—hell, he didn’t know any of the story—or if Harper were to be believed, Judith had embellished the story enough to get them in front of the judge.
Whatever the case might be, the hearing was set to convene that morning at nine, and Logan couldn’t decide if he should go.
Should he try to help her out? Should he go and speak up for her?
But what the hell would he say? Did he even know Harper? He felt like he did. But how could he feel as if he knew her so well and not know one of the most important things in her life—that she was a mom?
The questions swirled through his mind as he walked outside. He’d been heading for the barn, but he found himself outside the bunkhouse door
. The door was unlocked, so he let himself in and wandered around the small living space.
Grief squeezed his chest as he saw all the little touches of Harper around the rooms. She’d filled a mason jar with sprigs of evergreen and tied a red bow around the outside to create a centerpiece for the scarred wooden coffee table. An old picture of a mountain landscape had hung on the wall in the hallway, and she’d covered it in holiday wrapping paper so it looked like a present hanging on the wall.
Her bed in her room was neatly made, and her few shirts were folded in a tidy pile on the dresser. How could a woman who had so little have changed so much in his life? The scent of her hung in the room, and he had to get out of there. Backing out, he pulled the door shut behind him as if he could close off the memories of her as well.
The door to the second bedroom stood ajar, and he swallowed at the sudden burn of emotion that formed there as he stepped into the room. When had she done all this? he wondered as he gazed at the space-themed bedspread and the solar system mobile hanging from the ceiling. She’d hung a poster of a moon above the bed, and as he read the words printed on it, he knew what he had to do.
Regardless of what had transpired between them, Harper loved her kid—loved him to the moon and back, if the poster could be trusted. She’d done all of this, taken this crappy space that had previously been lived in by a drunken slob and turned it into a home. She had been trying. No wonder she’d been so excited to get an early paycheck. She must have used the money to decorate this room for Floyd.
And the kid would love it. He thought about Floyd’s goofy smile and what a great kid he was to be around. That didn’t happen by accident. That happened by being raised by a good and loving parent.
Logan checked his watch. He had time. But he needed to go now. He needed to at least show up. Even if he didn’t say anything, maybe it would be enough that he was there.
His hurtful words from the night before replayed in his head. He’d told her that her apology wasn’t enough, but he could see on her face that she thought he’d meant she wasn’t enough.
And he knew that feeling. Had lived that scar of not feeling like he was enough—heck, he was still living it. He’d been feeling that emotion the last several days as he struggled with calling his dad to let him know he’d made an error that would cost the ranch dearly.
Maybe it was the fact he was distracted by thoughts of the mistake and rushing to get to the courthouse that he wasn’t paying as much attention as he should, that he didn’t notice Harper’s door—the door he’d just closed—was now open until he walked into the living room.
He realized the shift in the air, smelled the faint scent of stale beer, and heard the soft footfalls behind him a second too late.
He turned just as the cast-iron skillet cold-cocked him in the side of the head.
He recognized the vindictive voice of his former ranch hand saying “Merry Christmas, asshole” as he sank to the floor and everything went black.
* * *
Harper smoothed her hair as she prepared to walk into the courtroom. Memories of her last court appearance played through her head. She’d had a court-appointed attorney who had skimmed over the notes of the case at the last minute and advised her to take the plea. It had all been over in less than ten minutes.
Was that what today would be like? Would she walk into this courtroom and walk out ten minutes later with nothing? At least she wouldn’t be going back to jail. The cop, Mike Russo, had come in to talk to her the night before, and after hearing the whole story, he’d said he couldn’t do much about Judith’s claims, but he wouldn’t be pursuing the assault charges against him he’d threatened. He’d even offered to help her find a bondsman to bail her out, but by that time it was after ten, and she had nowhere to go and no car to get her there if she did.
How pathetic her life had become that spending the night in jail—in a place she swore she’d never go back to—seemed preferable to being set free. Because for her, “free” was just another prison cell. She had no vehicle, no home, and thanks to her shopping spree to furnish Floyd’s room, barely enough money to pay for a meal.
She probably could have called Bryn to come pick her up, but she didn’t want to bother the woman who had already done so much for her. And she hated to think of herself as another one of the strays that the waitress took pity on.
Taking a deep breath, Harper steeled herself to enter the courtroom, knowing her side would be empty while Judith’s side would be teeming with lifelong friends willing to go to bat for her sterling character. How could she compete against that? She’d just broken the heart of the only real friend she had in this town and chased him away.
She pushed through the door and spied four rows of people lined up behind her son’s grandma. Judith was decked out in a black designer suit and sensible heels, and the same string of creamy pearls lay around her neck. With her perfectly coiffed and dyed dark hair, she looked like the impeccable image of a grandmother, which only made Harper more conscious of the day-old eye makeup smudging her face and the wrinkled jeans and shirt she’d slept in the night before.
She clutched her jacket and the scarf in her hands, the red color laughable now, since any inkling of that feeling of things going her way had vanished like a thief in the night. The only thing the scarf had done was provide a makeshift pillow for her head the night before.
As expected, her side of the courtroom was bare, and she fought to swallow the lump in her throat as she took a seat at the defendant’s table. Had she really thought Logan would show up?
Of course he’s not here, her conscience whispered. Why would he be? You pushed him away. You lied to him. Why would he come to your rescue?
Forget that. She didn’t need him, or anyone, to come to her rescue. She might be in distress, but she wasn’t a poor damsel, and she could dang sure rescue herself.
But what if she wasn’t enough by herself? Logan’s words came back to her from the night before, but she pushed them away. She had to be enough. For Floyd.
The bailiff announced the judge, and they went through the motions of standing and sitting as the Honorable Judge Arthur Harding settled himself on the bench and tapped his gavel.
The judge had a full head of silver hair but was probably still in his seventies. His eyes were sharp as he studied Harper. “Ms. Evans, I presume.”
She nodded.
“I have to say I’m not too happy to be called in on Christmas Eve, but Mrs. Benning has assured me this is a matter of the utmost urgency, and I hate to see someone sitting in jail for Christmas.”
He didn’t seem like he’d hate it. His demeanor suggested a bit of a Grinchy tone, but Harper still hoped he was fair, if a little on the grouchy side. She already knew he must have some kind of relationship with Judith. She’d said her husband played golf with the judge, so Harper wasn’t holding out much hope he’d take her side against his golfing buddy’s widow.
She wondered how much Judith had told him and how much he’d gotten from her file as he reminded her she’d just been released from jail for the embezzlement charges. As if she needed reminding.
“I don’t appreciate you coming to his town and causing trouble. From what I understand, you are gainfully employed, but only in a temporary position, and your living arrangements are tenuous at best. Now, as this boy’s mother, you do have rights, but it seems to me that Mrs. Benning has been doing a pretty good job with the boy, and he’s settled and doing well in school. Even playing sports. Do you think it’s right to take him away from all that? Do you think what you have to offer the boy is better than what Mrs. Benning has done?”
“Yes, I do. I’m his mother, and despite the events of the last few months, I’m a good mom. Yes, I made a mistake, and I know what I did was wrong. I was trying to save our house, and I trusted the wrong person. In my file you’ll see my testimony that once I realized what was happening, I was
going to go to the company and offer to make amends. I was just too late in my efforts, but I’ve paid for my mistakes.”
She told the judge her side of what had happened with the embezzlement charges and shared a little of the screwed-up relationship with her own mother. “I know I messed up, but I don’t ever want to be like my mom, and I’ll never take a chance of losing my son again. He means everything to me. I’m not a bad person, Judge. I just did a bad thing.
“And I’ve changed. I know I spent last night sitting in a jail cell, again, the place I said I would never return to, but both times I’ve been to jail have been because I was trying to do what was right for my son. I know that Judith, Mrs. Benning, has been doing an amazing job taking care of Floyd, and I can’t thank her enough. I appreciate everything she’s done. We may not always get along, but I know she has to be a good person to have raised a man like Michael, Floyd’s dad. And Michael was a great father. He loved our son, and we had a good life planned together, but then he was killed in an accident. Floyd is a great kid, but he’s been through enough. He’s already lost one parent. I don’t want him to lose another.”
She glanced over at Judith and was surprised to see her wiping the corner of her eye with a tissue. Had the kind words about her son gotten to her, or was this just part of the show for the judge?
“I hear what you’re saying, Ms. Evans, but I’d like to hear it from someone else.” The judge scanned the empty side of the courtroom. “Do you not have even one person, one friend or even an acquaintance, who can stand up for you?”
Harper hung her head. “No, sir. I don’t. But I’ve only been in town a week or so. I haven’t had a lot of time to make friends.” She had though. She’d made one friend, a good one, but she’d wrecked that friendship and anything more it might have become when she’d hidden her past, and her son, from him.
She turned as the doors of the courtroom burst open, and Bryn and Zane rushed down the aisle.
“Wait, we’re here, Arthur,” Bryn said, sliding into the bench behind Harper. “I mean, Judge Harding. We’re here as character witnesses for Harper.”