"He never had a shot, but if he was that fast removing his pants, can you imagine how quick the sex would have been?"
Both women had a good chuckle. It was much easier to laugh about it now. Back then, Dani had been appalled, not to mention she lost her date to the Senior Prom. What had seemed so important was now just a mildly amusing anecdote. Time had a way of lending perspective to most things. Her gaze wandered back to the H&W buildings and the man she knew was somewhere inside. But not everything. She doubted she would ever be able to think of Alex Fleming with an I don't give a shit attitude.
"He's going to live here at the compound."
There was no point in pretending she didn't know who Rose was talking about.
"I thought you were going to let him stay at your cottage."
"Jack made him the offer, but he prefers staying out here. He's a big guy and my place is built for a more average sized person," Rose smiled.
Dani had to agree. She knew how much Rose loved her house—it had been a dream come true when she'd bought and remodeled it to her own personal taste. Now that she was marrying a tall, muscular guy with a big dog and an even bigger family, her friend had happily left behind her dream home and moved in with her dream man. They were still debating whether to sell or rent.
Surprisingly, it was Rose who wanted to put the little house on the market. Dani had thought she would be more sentimental about her first real home. With Jack, she had everything she could ever hope for and didn't feel the need to hold onto anything from her past.
"It's a bit cold and sterile," Rose said. Seeing Dani's confused look, Rose clarified. "The housing at D&W."
"Maybe it reminds him of the Army. You know, row after row of cots, big open barracks."
"Alex was a captain," Rose reminded her. "I doubt he had been doing the bunking down with the troops thing for some time."
Captain. Dani had no idea. Maybe it was strange, but as often as she thought of Alex, it was never in the context of him being in the Army. She'd never seen him in uniform. He had never talked about what military life was like or how he lived. Two weeks, five years ago. Had she known him at all?
Angry, she gave herself a mental shake. She was not going to do that. She wasn't going to rewrite history, or let doubts creep in. She had gotten to know Alex. They had talked about everything that mattered. Likes, dislikes, politics, literature, food. It had been an intense crash course and nothing was off limits—except his job. So she hadn't known his rank, that didn't mean she hadn't known the man.
"I think he wants to be alone."
"Is that what he said?" Rose asked. "You talked for almost an hour last night, but you were pretty quiet on the drive home."
"It was awkward," she shrugged. "Then it wasn't."
"What does that mean, exactly?"
"I have no idea." Dani shook her head, as baffled as her friend. "It's all still there. The wild attraction, the easy conversation, the humor."
"We could hear you laughing."
"It took less than ten minutes, Rose. Instead of five years, it was like five minutes and we just picked up on the same wandering conversations we used to have. There never seemed to be a subject, not one that lasted long. We could start out talking about oranges and somehow end on how the drought was affecting farmers in the Sudan."
"Wow, you really talked about a drought in Africa."
"We talked about everything."
And nothing. Dani didn't know how else to explain. The subject they were discussing hadn't mattered, the fascination had been in finding out how similarly their brains worked. Throw out any topic, bounce it around for a while, and then move on to the next one. They would cull whatever knowledge they could, share what they had and in the end, be the better for it.
"I guess what it comes down to is this," Dani finally stated. "I see the man I fell in love with, but I also see how much he's changed. I don’t think Alex can see anything but the young woman I was."
"But he will with time, " Rose told her.
"He made it pretty clear that he doesn't want to get to know me. He wants to keep his memories, and not build any new ones, not with me."
"Wait." Rose rubbed her temples, trying to absorb Dani's words. After a minute, she just threw up her hands. "What?"
"So it doesn't make any sense to you either?" Dani sighed with relief. "I thought maybe it was me."
"No, it's him," Rose assured her. "Maybe he's not as bright as you thought he was."
That made Dani laugh. "No, he's bright, blindingly so."
"Then it's up to you to change his mind if that's what you want. You do still want him, don't you?"
Dani's first impulse was to yell yes at the top of her lungs. But the truth was, the man she wanted wasn't this Alex, she wanted five years ago Alex. After talking to him last night she thought she could come to want the man he was now, but only if he were willing to let her in. He had to give them both the chance to discover the inevitable differences that time brought to everyone.
"Can I do that? Change his mind, I mean."
"Jack changed mine," Rose reminded her. "And I was positive he couldn't."
"So I need to be stubborn, not take no for an answer?"
Rose smiled. It was true that Jack refused to give up on her—on them. But if it had just been that, Jack would still be beating his head against a wall and she would still be alone. You couldn't force someone to take a chance. It was too scary, and no matter how well you thought you knew the other person, ultimately you had to close your eyes and jump. Rose had done it for one reason and one reason only.
"You have to be the right person."
That stopped her. No, that terrified her. Dani had never thought of it that way. Yes, she wanted Alex. Now that she knew he was minutes away she ached for him. But what if she put herself out there, found out she still loved him—not as a girl, but a woman—and he told her she wasn't the right person. How devastating would it be to find the one, and not be their one?
"Maybe I should be talking to Jack."
"I'm sure he'd be happy to give you his vast insight," Rose teased. "And trust me, Jack would keep whatever you told him to himself. But he's still Alex's friend—and he's a man."
"Enough said." Dani held up her hands in surrender.
"Dani," Rose put an arm around her and squeezed. "I'm not the person to tell you what to do, and neither is Jack. You can only move forward if you're prepared for a fight. Something tells me Alex has some demons, and I can tell you from experience, those suckers don't go down easy."
"Why does it have to be so hard?"
"Love or life?"
"Both."
"Maybe this part is hard so that when we get it right, when it's really good, we appreciate it all the more."
If anyone would know, it would be Rose. She'd had it bad, really bad, and somehow found the strength to go on. Her reward was loving a man who was going to stand by her the rest of her life, a man who would be her rock; solid and dependable.
That's what Dani wanted. And Rose was right, she had to decide if she was willing to fight through all the crap to have it with Alex.
But right now, she had a job to do. Pictures for the Harper Falls centennial celebration weren't going to take themselves.
At least with a camera in her hand, Dani was on solid ground. The world could be falling to pieces around her, Dani would get the shot. She would spend the afternoon doing what she did best, and worry about her love life tomorrow. Maybe her parents should have named her Scarlet.
"Can I have Edgar?"
Rose looked back at the car. She knew the dog was in there, but as usual, he was napping in the back seat. Always eager for a ride, he conked out about five minutes in, only to wake just as they pulled into their driveway. His radar was firmly fixed on home.
"You and Tyler are getting way too attached." Not that Rose didn't understand. Edgar had melted her heart the second they'd met. How could she blame her friends for feeling the same?
"I've t
hought about getting a dog," Dani admitted. She grinned as the ever awkward Edgar tumbled out of Rose's car. He quickly recovered his dignity and bounced around, anticipation vibrating through his brown and white furred body.
"But what if I don't love the new dog as much as I love this guy?"
Dani bent to scratch behind his ear. No judgment, complete adoration. Maybe she should stop by the animal shelter. Puppy love was a lot easier than the human kind.
"Oh, no you don't." Rose knew exactly what Dani was thinking. "I'm all for you getting a pet, but don't think a four footed male will be a substitute for the two footed kind."
"Does she read your mind too?" she asked the dog.
Dani took the lead from Rose and attached it to Edgar's collar.
"He's fine to let off on his own, but wait until I'm out of sight. And be careful. Think how embarrassing it would be to trek all over the world and not get so much as a scratch, and then break your leg a mile from home."
Dani watched the car disappear around the corner, then turned to her happy companion, unclipping the nylon cord.
"Ready to start our adventure?"
Two thumps of his tail and a sloppy grin was all the answer she needed.
"Then after you, my friend."
CHAPTER EIGHT
MAD DOGS AND Englishmen go out in the midday sun.
The words ran through Alex's head to the rhythm of his pounding feet. Who wrote it, who wrote it? Noel Coward, Noel Coward. Again with the rhythm. It was an ingrained habit. It was easier to get through training when there was a meter, a method.
His old drill instructor liked Coward. Alex had never found out the reason for Sergeant Wallander's offbeat choice, but it had stuck with him long after boot camp.
As he ran up and down, around and through the various natural obstacles provided by Crossfire Hill, Alex found his brain clearing—of everything except Noel Coward.
He'd spent the morning at a desk—his shiny, new desk. Jack had given him the office just down the hall, right between his and Drew's. Nothing short of spectacular in every way, Alex had been amazed at the luxury and efficiency all rolled into one fabulous package, starting with the view. One whole wall was nothing but glass, a sparkling clear frame for miles of nature's eye candy.
Harper Falls was nestled between Crossfire Hill and the Columbia River. Jack had given him a brief history of the town and its founder, Russell Harper. It was all about the money. If you'd had it, you built your millionaire mansions and lived like royalty. If you had to work for a living, you'd worked for Harper and his cronies. It hadn't been a bad system, at first. Housing was built in the town, whole families moved there and were able to build a good life. It stayed that way until the nineteen-thirties.
The Depression hit Harper Falls hard. Mansions that had once been places to play and show off excess wealth were boarded up and abandoned. The town lost half of its population in less than a year, people needed jobs, and no one was hiring.
Russell Harper and his family had survived, in fact, they flourished. He knew how to manage a dollar better than anyone, and by the end of the decade, he had tripled his already impressive fortune. Then came WWII, and another money making opportunity. The Harpers kept their town afloat, buying land, judiciously providing loans, at high-interest rates, of course. When the nineteen-fifties rolled around and the rest of the country was enjoying a new found prosperity, Harper Falls was still standing tall in the Washington wilderness and gladly opened its arms to a new generation of residents. Fresh from World War II and ready to look ahead, not back, this was a new breed, different from the town's original residents. They weren't there to work for someone else, they wanted to start their own businesses, be their own bosses.
Sixty years later Harper Falls was once again a town to be envied, but not because an abundance of multi-millionaires littered the north end. It was the hard working everyday entrepreneurs, the ones who ran the grocery stores and bakeries and service stations. They were the heart of the town, the reason for low unemployment, clean streets, and young people who stuck around after high school or returned with college degrees.
That didn't mean the Harper family had lost their power and influence. Straight across the valley, practically eye level with H&W was Harper House, a beacon that was a daily reminder of the past and the present.
Times might change, but Regina Harper never did. Scion of a the founding family, she lived her life as though the last century had never happened, and she wielded enough money and power to get away with it.
According to Jack, Drew's mother ran the town with an ice-covered iron fist. She rarely descended from her perch, a mansion built to remind those below who was in charge. But she knew everything that happened, every move that was made. She couldn't control all the players as Russell Harper once had, but she did her unholy best to shift the tide whenever she could.
Having to look across at the modern masterpiece her son had helped develop had to chafe, to put it mildly. Every inch of H&W had been built with money earned the hard way, through her son's sweat and ingenuity. Regina Harper had no influence here. She would never deign to visit, but if she tried, she would be turned away before she got through the heavily secured entrance gates.
It was a well and truly screwed up situation, the estrangement of a mother and son went against everything Alex knew and believed. After getting the Reader's Digest version from Jack, he wasn't surprised that Drew's office faced away from Harper House. He might have picked the location of the H&W headquarters as big fat fuck you to his mother, but he'd made sure his own reminders of his childhood home were of the out of sight, out of mind variety.
Alex pulled up, his breathing pretty much normal, but the heat of the day and his labors had produced a nice sweat. The spring-fed pond in front of him would be the perfect place to cool off after his five mile run.
About the size of the average backyard swimming pool, it was an unexpected oasis amidst a sea of towering pines—it had been his destination all along. Jack had told him it was out here, pointing vaguely in this direction. It wasn't on any map, and very few people knew of its existence—they wanted to keep it that way.
Stripping off his t-shirt, Alex understood completely. There was an untouched beauty, the kind that people liked to be a part of, then too often destroyed. He toed off his shoes, already anticipating how the cold water would feel on his overheated skin.
DANI RAISED HER camera, catching an eagle in midflight and realized how much she had missed this. There was a lot to be said for the relaxed pace and calming atmosphere, taking a shot of something that had no intention of shooting back.
She and Edgar had been enjoying a leisurely pace, taking their time, exploring whatever caught their eyes. Glancing at her watch, Dani was surprised to find she'd been out here for almost three hours. She set her camera aside and knelt, opening her bag to find a bottle of water. She was about to call the dog over when a movement to her left and down the hill caught her eye.
Dani gasped. She had spent the afternoon photographing some of nature's most beautiful wonders. Suddenly, not ten yards away, was one the most wondrous sights anyone could ever be lucky enough to behold. Afraid she might miss a moment, she blindly felt around until she found her camera and raised it, focusing and zooming in. It might not be his natural habitat, but she had never seen anything as raw and primal as Alex Fleming—one piece of clothing away from naked.
She didn't even hesitate. If, technically, she was invading his privacy, then so be it. The whole point of her hike had been to see the natural beauty of Harper Falls. She dared anyone looking at all that tanned, muscular, flesh to tell her they would look away. She was going to sit right where she was, conveniently hidden from Alex's view, and enjoy the show.
Unfortunately, just as he was dropping his shorts, Edgar decided if she were going to take a break, he'd take one with her. Lowering the camera just long enough to give him a quick pat, she raised a finger to her lips.
"Shh."
&
nbsp; Now, Dani thought it was the universal sound for be quiet. Apparently in Edgar's world in meant, let out an enthusiastic yip, crash down the hill, and greet the naked man like a long lost friend. She wanted to groan but held it in. She doubted the sound would carry all the way to Alex, especially with Edgar's less than stealthy entrance, but she wasn't taking any chances. It would be just too embarrassing if he caught her peeping from the bushes.
"Well, hello." Alex bent until he was eye to eye with his visitor. "What are you doing out here all by yourself?"
The dog looked back up the hill, and Dani gave another silent curse. If she didn't know better, she would have thought Edgar was trying to rat her out.
"Let's see what we have here."
Alex checked Edgar's collar, reading the contact information.
"Just as I thought, you're Jack's Edgar."
Hearing his name sent the still growing puppy into a frenzy of wiggles. With one or two exceptions, he had never met a human he didn't like, and this one smelled good and tasted salty. He'd gotten in a quick swipe with his tongue the moment he had been close enough to reach. Then, just to make sure, he went in for another sample, bathing Alex's leg with saliva, careful to miss those dangly bits between the man's legs. Edgar didn't get what the big deal was, he licked himself there all the time. However, Jack made a big deal out of it, so he avoided the area like he'd been taught.
Alex laughed, moving the dog to the side and away from his exposed skin.
"I'll bet you're thirsty. Why don't you have a good long drink?" Straightening, he turned back towards the hill. "And why don't you stop hiding behind that pile of brush and come down here with me and Edgar?"
Dani knew he was talking to her—of course he was—but she still looked around, just in case. Unable to find someone else to blame, she hesitated. Alex couldn't possibly know it was her. The chances of him coming after her, barefoot and bare-assed, seemed negligible. She was just mentally plotting her path to freedom when he called out again.
If Tomorrow Never Comes (Harper Falls Book 2) Page 9