by Leanne Davis
I sigh and squeeze my eyes shut. “Here, as in right here. At this table. This is where she sat.”
“Yes.”
“Oh fuck,” I mutter. I blush when I remember who I’m with. “I’m sorry. Sorry. That was inappropriate.”
She pats my hand. She glances around and lowers her voice to a whisper, “It was an ‘oh fuck.’”
Betty swearing shocks me and makes me almost smile. But no. I can’t. I just can’t. “So they met here… and then…”
“Then they met here every Valentine’s Day and relived their initial meeting. I’d switched their names on purpose so they’d get to talking and sharing this table…”
“Oh, duh. Oh, God. His drinks. The ones he gets...”
“Same ones they met with, the drink he prefers says Harper on it, and vice versa. I make it every morning.”
“Valentine’s Day…”
“He forgot. Last year. He forgot it was Valentine’s Day. She waited and stomped out of here alone and on the phone with him… and…”
I shake my head, tears streaming. “And she was hit sometime between seven forty and seven fifty. He… should have been inside Lover’s Landing, here at this table, with her, having these drinks, to commemorate their meeting on Valentine’s Day. Instead she waited, but he forgot so she took her coffee to go, probably stomped out of here mad, hashing it out with him and then… He thinks he killed her.”
“You are as sharp as they say.”
Wiping at my eyes I shake my head. “They being townspeople who don’t like my role in the waterpark?”
“That would be they.”
“And you?”
“Don’t care. If you pull Holden out of his grief and guilt and bring him some peace… then I don’t care. I’ve watched you with him. You’re caring and kind, easy to talk to. But mostly you make him smile. That’s almost worth that monstrosity.”
I cringe at her insult. She gives me a little smile. “Sorry, I don’t love the water park, but I like you. Anyway, what made you approach Holden? I know you watched him for a few weeks. What did you think his routine was about?”
I shake my head, horrified at my simplistic answer. “I believed he suffered a bad case of obsessive-compulsive disorder, and this was his version of the way they get stuck on a routine.”
“And there you watched from the next table…”
“Never having any idea of the misery that man was in.”
“Interacting with you was the first I saw him pulled out of it. It’s why I didn’t say anything to you. The authentic way you interacted and pushed him to respond to you, well it was working in ways no one else could get him to interact. Many of us have tried, but nothing would engage him. Harper’s parents, who were so close to Holden they all but adopted him as their surrogate son, haven’t seen him in months. They tried. Still try. They lost Harper and him. They stare out at the empty house—”
“What house?”
“Harper’s parents gave them a section of land off their homestead. Holden and Harper built a small first home there. He has to be paying the mortgage on it…”
“But doesn’t live there.”
“Yes. He never went back. His mom grabbed some stuff, but he never went back to it.”
“And then… he sat here reliving where he believes he should have been that morning and thinking if he’d been here it would have saved Harper’s life. He blames himself and also grieves her.”
“Yes.”
I tap my hand to the table. Crap. Now that the cork is off the bottle of Holden’s past with Harper, and this rush of unquenchable thirst to know… everything… fills me. I’m going to pry from Betty and see how much she’ll tell me. I hate that I’m going to, but I don’t know how to stop. “How long was their relationship?”
“Five years. They met here, dated for two, and were married for three. She told me he never felt good enough for her. He was always trying to be. He’s a hard worker, but not well-off, and the job he has means he probably would never be. She didn’t mind, but he stressed over it.”
It spins my head. Every word she’s saying. Holden and Harper. This damn routine of his. Reliving a mistake he believes killed his wife. Whom it sounds like he loved and adored and believed made him a better man. Though, as I’ve experienced him, I don’t think he needs to be better. I like him just being him. I like him even without knowing all the sad. All the hurt. All the guilt. I like him without even needing an explanation for the damn routine. I’d come to accept it. Realizing he’s not crazy but totally cognizant of what he’s doing, and I’ve come to trust he has a reason for what he does and he doesn’t have to tell me it.
Except now Betty has. Perhaps I didn’t want to know Holden’s reasons, because then it would be clear to me how little chance I have with Holden… beyond the moments we promised each other.
I didn’t expect the reason behind the routine to be this shocking and upsetting.
“Thank you, Betty, for telling me. And waiting to tell me. I think if I’d really known how tragic all this was, I’d have stayed at my own table.”
“I hadn’t considered that.” She starts to rise, giving my hand a squeeze. “Just remember he chose to keep sitting with you.”
I give her a weary smile, not totally sure what to do with this information. But maybe that’s been the appeal for Holden—I don’t talk about Harper. I didn’t know any of it: the story, his part in it, his reaction, his reasons for coming to Lover’s Landing. I simply never knew.
So we didn’t talk about it.
He didn’t really choose to sit with me. I forced him to sit with me if he wanted to keep on reliving his death tribute to his dead wife. And on the anniversary of it, of all days. I cringe thinking of some of the things I’d said to him. Ugh. If only I could rewrite time… I’d take back some of my dippy, chatty, and way-too-casual of conversations. Most of which I said to simply draw him out of himself and speak to me.
I kind of want to bash my head against the table now. I slump in my chair and stare out the window toward the intersection. The one he has kept his back to. How painful. To walk past the place where she was killed. Daily. I’d want out of this small town if it were me. At least in Seattle there would be five different routes I could take to get wherever I wanted to be. I’d never have to see the dreaded intersection again. Not like Holden has had to.
I’m late. I have to get work, so I rise to my feet and head toward the office space rented for the negotiations and start-up of the park. Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, there are many snafus that keep me bogged down in details and help to keep my mind off of Holden and Harper and how I could never fit into their love story.
Even Lover’s Landing is their story.
Oh, shit. It hits me as I’m working through the legalities of a contract written to hire a new project manager for the soon-to-be Love location of River Runs Wild. Holden and I met in Lover’s Landing just as Holden met Harper. At the same exact table. In the same chair. Even the cups they used, with their names on them, are involved. Crap, I’m the déjà vu of his first love, wife, and his five years of everything. There is no way we can ever be anything.
I’d inserted myself into their story. A stand in. It probably felt familiar to him, so why not sleep with me? And I’d so willingly agreed. I did it before he articulated anything to me. He thought I was easy, and being from the city somehow enhanced that idea in his head. Great. Wonderful. Fantastic.
I go to my room at the bed and breakfast. I can’t face him tonight. I can’t think about how he met Harper and then how exactly he met me. I can’t face his devotion to a dead woman, and my interference in that. I can’t face his quiet need for comfort, when I’m not really the one he wants it from. He wants it from Harper. I shouldn’t be angry. Or mad. Or jealous. Especially of a dead woman. But hell, yes I am. I’m so jealous.
I finally bite the green-eyed jealousy monster and type her name into my laptop and wait for the search results. I should have before now, but for some reason I just di
dn’t want a face, a history, a profile to attach to the name. It meant little to me, even if I knew it meant so much to Holden.
I sigh when an engagement announcement comes up in the search results. I click on the link and their picture explodes over my computer screen. Holden… smiling, carefree, easy. All cleaned up, totally clean shaven, and wearing a button down shirt even. She’s… tiny. Harper Thatcher was small in stature, and width. She had brown, shoulder-length hair and brown eyes. She was wholesome and sweet and she could front a calendar for your local hometown beauties. If someone wanted the antithesis of me… I believe that would be Harper Thatcher. I think I discovered why I’m the one Holden found the will to be able to sleep with. I’m everything that isn’t Harper… and not in a good way. A way he can tolerate me.
I get up from the table I sit at and flop down on the bed, staring at my bare feet. I can’t face any more about Harper. I get it. The picture is clear now, and I think I have enough of it. I don’t feel like eating. I have work to finish, but my heart is too heavy to care. Tears slide free of my eyes. From being tired. From being wrong. From wanting things I’ve never wanted before.
I lay there for a long time. My room grows shadowy and then finally dark. I don’t bother to get up to turn on anything, either. A knock sounds on my door. I roll my eyes and almost yell, ‘go away.’ I groan, wishing for the anonymity I’m allowed in Seattle. No one would wonder what I was doing. Not if I didn’t want them to know. I don’t want to be noticed now. Not anymore. Imagine what the town’s people are really saying! Me as Harper’s replacement. Ha. Surely they realize what I should have… I’m the rebound. I’m sex. And I totally asked for it and caused it myself.
He didn’t lead me on. He didn’t do anything wrong.
I did.
But the knock comes again. I slide upright, shuffle to the door, and fling it open, ready to tell whichever local is disrupting me—with a polite, but annoyed smile—I’m sick and would like peace and quiet to rest.
My mouth is stuck open when I stare in surprise. It’s not just any local. It’s Holden. He’s never come here looking for me. I always go to him.
He looks so endearingly himself that I stare longer than I should before I remember to shut my mouth. I push my disheveled hair back and wish I hadn’t answered. “What are you doing here? Actually, how did you know I’m staying here?”
“I’ve always known. Well… as soon as I knew who you worked for. Aren’t you all staying here?”
“Right.” I keep the door firmly in my grasp, still only peeking out. I raise my eyebrows in an effort to convey the only question on my mind—what are you doing here?
“You didn’t come.” He finally says without preamble. He stares at me, unsmiling. I think he’s unsure why he’s there.
“I didn’t want to tonight. I’m very tired. I don’t want to be… anything for you.”
“Something wrong with the park?”
“Well, if that was what’s wrong with me, it would make you happy. So yeah, that won’t help me.”
“Is it?”
“No. As far as I know we are going to get approval. All you townspeople can fully and openly hate me soon.”
There’s a ghost of a smile touching his lips. “I’ve never seen you grumpy.”
“You haven’t seen me a lot of things, just attentive, caring, there for you. I just can’t right now, so you might as well leave. This,” I swipe a hand down my front, “isn’t what you want to deal with. Believe me.”
He doesn’t answer at first. He glances to his left and then someone passes. Holden waves and answers the man’s general inquiry of his well-being. I roll my eyes. Everywhere we go, people know each other. All the people. All the time. I don’t know my own neighbors back home, let alone every person I pass.
“Can I step inside so the entire town isn’t listening to us?”
I sigh. Just what I don’t want. I glare but finally step back from the door and turn away. He pushes at it and enters, shutting it with a gentle click. “So you think I don’t want to deal with you.”
I don’t bother to face him. I sit on my bed, shoulders slumped, head bowed, totally dejected. “You don’t, Holden. You really don’t. I’m not in a good place tonight. So let me be there. I don’t want to leave this room. I want to pout and be grumpy and eat the stash of brownies I have over there and curl up in my pajamas and just… be that.”
He doesn’t answer forever. I don’t hurry to look up to figure out what he’s doing. I don’t care. I just… I’m so tired and so sure I’ve made a huge, emotional mistake, and it’s bigger than I first thought.
“I like brownies.”
I lift my face upward. He gives me a little grin. “What? I do. Can I have some and sit here and be grumpy with you? I’m good at that. You can attest to that, huh?”
I glare at him. “That’s sweet. But that’s not what we do.”
“What do we do?”
Agitated, I get up. I pace. “We… take care of you. We pretend I have no problems. You have them all. We have sex. And we go to your place and we aren’t really a ‘we’ because I’m not Harper.” I add air quotations around the we for an even snottier, crappier effect. He stiffens at her name. Holy shit. I went too far. Of course, I went too far. He came by here, which is huge. He came seeking me out for the very first time. He might have even missed me, and I respond to that by bitching him out and wanting to label something that he doesn’t, and then bring up his dead wife.
I shake my head and flop down leaning back completely so I’m flat on the bed staring up at the white ceiling. “This is why I want you to leave. I’m upset and don’t have a filter and it will end badly.”
“I thought there was no we, so how could it end?”
“I don’t know.” I turn my head so he can’t see my face.
“I know you have problems,” he finally says.
I shrug. “Duh. Everyone does.” Just not as bad as his.
He sits next to me, making my supine body bob up and down gently at his weight dropping on the mattress. He bumps my shoulder with his hand. “You can be grumpy and tired and upset around me.”
“I can’t.”
“You are already. I’m still here.”
I peek at him. “You just want sex.”
“I don’t. I wanted to see you.”
“You just lied to me.”
He ducks his head and lets out a little laugh. “Maybe. But now that I know something is wrong, I just want to be right here. Not having sex.”
I give him a searching glance. “For real?”
“For real. But you did say something about brownies…”
It’s hard not to smile. I get up and bring out the brownies. “Are these from the bakery?”
“Yes. Why waste calories from anywhere else?”
“Exactly.” He beams as he takes one. I grab one, too, and he taps mine with his in a mock toast and takes a huge bite. “Oh, oh that’s heaven.”
I’m so annoyed because he’s making me smile. Not that he’s that funny or original, just that witnessing Holden being lighthearted, kidding, and trying to make me smile, is totally original. It’s unexpected. I can’t believe he’s sitting there pretending he wants to deal with me when I’m like this.
He nods at me, still chewing, and says, “Try it. It’s almost better than sex.” His eyebrows wag.
I almost gape at him, surprised he can be flirty and sexy and charming and make my damn heart twist with his adorableness when I’m also pissed off at him. Even though that isn’t his fault. I bite down, and despite my mood, I close my eyes in bliss and make the same ridiculous sounds as he does.
“See, almost fixes it all.”
“It doesn’t,” I say when I finally swallow.
“Probably not.” He stuffs the other half of the brownie into his mouth and is done before I finish one-fourth. I keep munching until he grabs some napkins and wipes his fingers, then leans over and touches it to my mouth. I roll my eyes and finally take his
napkin and rub my fingertips free of the sticky, gooey chocolate. As I’m looking downward, his lips touch mine. I jerk back in surprise when his tongue follows the outlines of my lips and dips into my mouth. And despite it all, I respond. Until he stops and smiles, his forehead resting on mine, eyes open and focused on me. “It tastes better off of you.”
“I told you, you wanted sex.”
He kisses me again and then pushes me back and I sigh, knowing I’ll willingly have sex with him. I’m already stirred up. That quickly and easily because it’s Holden, and he causes this in me for whatever reason.
But then he curls up behind me, both of us on our sides, spooning me. He wraps an arm around me to rest lightly on my waist and his breath is warm to my ear when he says, “Sorry, darlin’, I’m just too damn tired for it. I’m not a stud service.”
I kick my leg back… but damn if I’m not smiling at his annoying joke. He grabs my hands and holds them, lacing his fingers through mine. “Okay, Seattle, talk. Tell me what happened. If I can’t follow it, I’ll let you know.”
“Can’t follow it?”
“Lawyer talk. All that fancy UW law talk. I doubt I’ll understand it, but I’m going to try.”
“You’d listen to me talk shop?”
“You listen to me talk cow.” ‘Cow’ being a reference to the more elaborate ranching work that he does. I usually kick him, gently, under the table when he puts it like that during our coffee moments, but still a kick because he knows it annoys me when he makes it seem like he doesn’t do anything of importance. He condescends his work, not me.
“Well, yes… but…”
“It’s not interesting to you, and still you talk cow. I can talk lawyer. So try me.”
“It’s not that. I don’t want to talk about it. At all.”
“Okay, then we won’t talk cow or lawyer. We’ll just lay here quietly. Okay?”
I nod. It is definitely okay by me. Tears leak from the corners of my eyes. He holds me tighter and lets silence fall. I finally relax and snuggle back into him. He’s so big and warm and safe. And there. He’s right there and I didn’t expect him to come find me, and stay. And though by most standards these are crumbs, tidbits of what a man should do for a woman, I know because of Harper, his history, and his sadness, this is pretty huge. So I let him be there with me. Quiet and offering me comfort, when he doesn’t have to. When I honestly didn’t think he would. It’s the first time in a long time I feel relaxed and cared for, and it allows me to even fall asleep. Most nights I’m alone. I leave Holden and come home alone. I live and work and function, primarily alone. So him being here tonight is very nice. Very welcome.