“All right. You said that people treat you differently when they find out you have a lot of money.”
“Yes. I’ve had people I’ve known all my life suddenly treat me like some sort of celebrity. When I first won the money, people I hadn’t seen since grade school suddenly showed up asking for money. Others figured I was putting on airs, thought I was too good to hang out with them anymore. I didn’t change, but the way people treated me certainly did.”
“So when we met, you assumed I’d be the same, that I’d be blinded by the money.”
He answered cautiously, feeling like he’d entered a minefield. “I didn’t know what to expect when I met you.”
“Did you pretend to be Mr. Hainstock’s representative with anyone else?”
“Well, no, but—”
“So you made up Ethan James just for me?” She gave a bitter sounding laugh. “Maybe I should feel honored that I got my own custom lie.”
“It was a way to protect myself, that’s all.”
“In case I wanted more money? Or in case I came on to you? Oh wait, I did that. And you were only the guy who worked for the millionaire. Imagine what I would have done if I’d known you had money.”
“I should have told you, I know. But the longer I hesitated, the harder it was to tell the truth. I never had a conscious plan to deceive you.”
“I can understand that you’ve had bad experiences in the past, and I can even understand why you made up your Ethan James persona when you first came here. But to carry the lie so far, to the point where we slept together and you still didn’t tell me, I can’t forgive that. If you’d confided in me, I would have kept your secret. I wouldn’t have told anyone about the money, not even my sisters. But you didn’t trust me.”
She brushed past him and climbed the stairs. Ethan followed her. “Harper, wait. Let’s talk some more.”
“There’s nothing to talk about. I needed honesty from you, but you couldn’t give that to me.” She fumbled with her keys before finding the right one and inserting it in the lock. “If you were dishonest in our personal relationship, how can I trust you in our business relationship? When the renovations are finished, I’m going to recommend to my sisters that we sell. You can buy it, or someone else can. I don’t care.”
He grasped her shoulders and turned her to face him. “You don’t mean that! I know what this place means to you. Your great-grandfather built it. Your family has lived here for three generations. You can’t walk away.”
“I finally realized this place is simply a pile of logs, nothing more.”
Shocked by her words, he let her go and staggered back a step. “You would sell this place just so you don’t have to see me or deal with me anymore?”
He saw uncertainty flicker in her eyes, but she didn’t waver. “Yes. I have to.”
She opened the door of the cottage and stepped inside, closing it firmly behind her. For a few minutes, Ethan stood immobile, too shocked to move. She really hated him that much.
No amount of explanation was ever going to make Harper feel the way she once did. It was over.
CHAPTER TWENTY
When Abby opened her front door, Harper was momentarily taken aback by the grayness of her complexion. It had been over three months since her surgery. She should be back to good health by now. Maybe her surgery had been a bigger deal than she’d let on.
“Harper, come in! It’s good to see you.”
She stepped over the threshold. “Thanks. How have you been feeling?”
Abby waved her hand in dismissal. “Oh, I’m fine.”
“You look tired.” Harper didn’t want to dwell on a subject Abby wanted to avoid, but she was concerned.
“I have trouble sleeping,” Abby admitted. “My doctor is giving me something for it. That should help.”
“That’s good. I hope you get a good night’s sleep soon.”
“Me, too. But enough about me. How are you? Reese tells me the reno is going well. You must be excited.”
The sob escaped without warning. She covered her mouth with her hand, trying to get herself under control. Embarrassment and despair swirled in her head.
“I’m sorry,” she managed.
Abby put her arm around her shoulders. “Honey, what’s wrong?”
“Everything’s so messed up.”
“Come with me to the kitchen. We’ll have a cup of tea.”
She led Harper to the kitchen table and pulled out a chair for her before setting a box of tissues in front of her. “Don’t try to be brave for my sake. Maybe a good cry will make you feel better.”
Harper blew her nose and wiped her eyes. “I’ve done plenty of crying the last couple of weeks. It hasn’t helped any.”
“I’ve been told I’m a very good listener. Would it help to talk?”
“I don’t know.”
“You haven’t spoken to your sisters about whatever’s bothering you?”
“No, but they already know part of the problem.” She couldn’t bring herself to tell them how stupid she’d been, how naïve. Fresh humiliation swamped her.
Abby filled the kettle with water and set it on the stove to boil. When she took a seat at the table, she reached for Harper’s hand and waited.
“Everything’s a mess.”
“Why do you think that?” Abby asked kindly.
“I fell in love with Ethan, and he’s not who I thought he was at all.”
Everything started pouring out of her, from her first meeting with Ethan and the time they’d spent together, to finding out he’d lied to her. She still couldn’t get her mind around the fact that he hadn’t even told her his real name. Abby listened patiently, only letting go of her hand when the kettle whistled.
“Have you confronted him?”
“Yes.”
“What did he say?”
“That he was sorry he lied to me, but he’d found that people did strange things when they discovered he had a lot of money. I think that’s what hurts the most, that he didn’t trust me.”
“It hurts when someone we love lies to us.”
“Yes.” More than she’d ever thought possible.
“Does he love you, too?” Abby set two teacups on the table and sat down.
Harper hesitated. “He said he does.”
“But you don’t believe him.”
“How can I believe him after the lies he’s told me? How can I believe anything he said, that anything we shared, meant as much to him as it did to me?”
“Were you intimate with him?”
Harper closed her eyes in agony, tears threatening to fall again. She was so tired of crying. “Yes.” She wrapped her hands around her warm teacup. “It was my first time. I gave my virginity to Ethan.”
“Oh!” Abby sounded surprised.
“I know. Ridiculous to be a virgin at my age, isn’t it? I didn’t mean to wait so long.”
“I’m hardly in any position to judge. My first sexual encounter was at twenty-seven, and Luke was the result.”
“Oh!”
Abby lifted her shoulder in a shrug. “Yeah, I was surprised, too. Jerry Fields was someone I’d gone to high school with, but we’d never been particularly close. When he came home on leave from the army, something clicked between us, and one thing led to another…”
Her smile held an edge of sadness. “I think we needed each other. His mother had just died and I, well, I guess I was tired of waiting. When I found out I was pregnant, Jerry offered to marry me, but I knew he was going through the motions, trying to do the right thing. He didn’t have any deep feelings for me, and I didn’t love him either. So I told him no.”
“Did you ever regret not marrying him?”
She shook her head. “No, I don’t regret anything. There were some tough times, but I had Luke. And eventually Reese and I found each other. I’m very lucky to have those two men in my life.”
“I’m happy for you, Abby. Reese is a good man.” Harper’s thoughts returned to her own problems.
“Is it stupid for me to still love Ethan after what he’s done?”
“Of course it’s not stupid. We can’t turn off our feelings as easily as we turn off a faucet. Has he tried to contact you, to explain his actions?”
“Yes, numerous times. He says he’s sorry for hurting me, and he’s asked me to come back to the project.”
“Come back to the project? What do you mean?”
She carefully sipped her hot tea. “The lodge renovation doesn’t mean anything to me anymore. Everything I thought was important to me, simply doesn’t matter.” Harper took a deep breath. “When I found out Ethan wasn’t who I thought he was, I felt cheated, angry, abandoned, all those feelings I had as a child when my parents died. I know it sounds crazy, but I felt the same way I did when I lost them.”
“It’s not crazy at all. It sounds like he’s very important to you.”
She swallowed, then nodded. “Yes.”
“Perhaps you need to talk to him.”
“I can’t do that, at least not yet.” She was afraid if she saw him again, touched him, she’d end up in bed with him. But nothing would have changed. She still wouldn’t be able to trust him and without trust, there could be no relationship.
“He must have had a very good reason for creating a secret identity for himself.”
“He says it was because people treated him differently when they found out about the money. But once he got to know me, why couldn’t he have told me the truth? If he couldn’t trust me then, how am I supposed to trust him now?”
Once trust was lost, could it ever be restored?
Ethan jabbed his shovel into the ground as far as he could and heaved out another load of dirt, not an easy task when the trench he was in was eight feet deep. He pushed himself to finish digging the short trench between the old lodge and the new wing of rooms. The trench would connect the plumbing between the two buildings, but because the space was tight up against the lodge, the excavator hadn’t been able to get close enough. The trench had to be below the frost line so it wouldn’t freeze in the winter. Reese had told him he could get someone else to dig the trench, but Ethan volunteered. The same way he’d volunteered for every other dirty, physically demanding job he could find the last two weeks.
Better to be working than to be sitting around thinking about what a mess he’d made of his life, and Harper’s. Not that he’d actually stopped thinking about it.
He’d only seen her from a distance since the night he met her on her front porch. Every day she drove by the worksite on her way to one of her jobs. She stopped occasionally to talk to Reese if he flagged her down but according to him, she didn’t ask about progress on the lodge. It was as if she’d given up.
That was the worst. His deception had taken away all her enthusiasm for the project, all her joy and hope for the future. He’d never forgive himself for that.
“Ethan, where are you?”
He recognized his brother’s voice. “Down here, in the trench.”
Cameron peered over the edge of the trench and chuckled. “I thought you hired people to do your dirty work for you.”
Ethan hefted another shovelful of dirt and mud over the top of the trench. He wasn’t in the mood to be the butt of his brother’s jokes. “What do you want, Cam?”
“I came to talk to Reese. I’ll be starting on the new cottages as soon as my crew and I finish another project. I wanted to coordinate with him so we don’t get in each other’s way.”
“Did you work things out with him?”
“Yeah.”
He hoped Harper would like Cam’s work. If she was still there when the cottages were finished. He worried that his lies had not only pushed her away from him but pushed her to the point of leaving her home. Had her disinterest in the lodge extended that far?
What the hell have I done?
He stabbed viciously at the hard earth with his shovel. “Good. Then you can be on your way.”
“What the hell is wrong with you?” Cameron demanded. “Reese says when you’re not sniping at him and everyone else, you’re killing yourself with work.”
“I’m fine.” He didn’t bother to look at Cam, but he heard his scoff.
“He says Harper hasn’t been on the work site for at least a couple of weeks. He was surprised since the lodge is her baby. What’s going on with her?”
“She’s busy.” He didn’t want to talk to his brother about this.
“Did you have some sort of falling out with her? Don’t tell me you still haven’t told her who you really are?”
He flinched at Cameron’s words. “It’s none of your business.”
“It is if this project is in some kind of trouble and I’m not going to be working here his summer.”
“The project’s not in trouble.”
“Then what the hell’s going on?”
Ethan shoved his shovel into the ground and glared up at his brother. “Dammit, Cam, I don’t want to talk about it, okay? Leave me the hell alone!”
Cameron folded his arms across his chest and stood on the edge of the trench with an ‘I’m not going anywhere’ expression on his face. “I remember having a conversation very similar to this one three years ago, except I was the one in the trench. Or more accurately, the gutter.”
Ethan turned away and resumed his work. “It’s not the same thing.”
“Close enough. You wouldn’t give up on me then, and I’m not giving up on you now.”
“That was different. You were killing yourself with your drinking. I had to step in.”
“You know I’m grateful. Which is why I’m not going to leave here until you tell me what’s going on.”
Ethan groaned, stuck his shovel in the dirt again and leaned on it. Knowing Cameron’s legendary stubbornness, he had no doubt he meant what he said. Might as well save them both a lot of time and aggravation. “Turns out you were right. Harper found out about the lottery win. She was angry I didn’t tell her myself, that I lied to her about who I really was.” He shook his head, remembering. “Actually, that’s putting it mildly. She’s beyond angry.”
“What do you mean?”
“She’s given up on this place, even though she was the one who fought so hard to save it. Says she’s going to sell it.” He turned away. “I hurt her that much.”
“Have you talked to her, told her why you did what you did?”
“I tried. She didn’t want to hear it.”
“Did you tell her about Bree?”
“No.” He should have realized that Harper was nothing like Bree. He should have trusted her with the truth from the beginning.
“Maybe if you told her, she’d understand.”
“She isn’t taking my calls, and she sure as hell doesn’t want to talk to me face to face.” He kicked a clump of dirt with his boot. “I really blew it.”
“If she can’t be bothered to listen to your side of the story, she isn’t worth the aggravation.”
A red haze of anger clouded Ethan’s vision. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. Harper is the kindest woman I’ve ever met. I’m the one who lied. She was nothing but honest with me, so shut the hell up!”
Cameron took a step back, hands up in surrender. “I stand corrected. Sorry.”
Ethan turned away, his hands fisted at his sides and his chest heaving. Cam was his best friend in the world. He didn’t want to fight with him.
He couldn’t afford to lose anyone else he loved. He took a deep breath to ease his anger. “I’m sorry, too.”
“This woman means a lot to you, doesn’t she?”
“Yes.” She meant more than he could possibly make Cam understand.
“Come on. Let’s get out of here and have some lunch. I brought enough sandwiches for both of us.”
Ethan stared up at his brother. “What kind of sandwiches?”
“Ham and cheese for me, roast beef for you.”
Cam would never say it, but Ethan knew he was worried about him. When the chips were down, his
brother would be there for him. Just as he’d been there for Cam. Too bad there was nothing Cam could do.
He climbed up the ladder leaning against the side of the trench. When he reached the top, he grasped his brother’s outstretched hand and let him pull him over the top. He brushed the dirt from his clothes. “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome. Hungry?”
“Yeah.”
Harper didn’t want him in her life. Somehow, he had to find a way to live with that.
Ethan worked until long after the rest of the crew had gone home for the day, only quitting when it got too dark to work safely. The muscles of his back and arms and shoulders groaned in relief when he put down his tools and walked the quarter mile back to his cottage.
Once there, he pulled a beer from the fridge and sat at the island to drink it. He thought about food but aside from the beer, he didn’t have anything in the fridge. It didn’t matter. He didn’t have much of an appetite anyway. Maybe he’d soak in the hot tub before trying to sleep.
His phone rang. Ethan groaned when he saw Lydia’s number. He loved his sister but wasn’t in the mood for a heart to heart. Or a tongue lashing. Reluctantly, he hit the talk button. “Hi.”
“Hi, yourself. Cam tells me you and Harper Lindquist had a falling out.”
Typical Lydia. Straight to the point. It was a character trait both his siblings shared. “Cam should have kept his mouth shut.”
“He was worried about you. So am I.”
“I’m fine.”
Lydia snorted. “Right. I can hear how fine you are. What’s going on, really? Cam said something about Harper finding out about your secret identity and flipping out over it. He said you gave her a false name. Is that true?”
“Yeah. Stupid, huh?”
“You were trying to protect yourself.”
His sister knew him well. His voice cracked. “Yeah.”
“Honey, why don’t you come to Minneapolis this weekend and stay with us? Cam is bringing Tessa for a visit. It’ll be nice to have the whole family together. Besides, it’ll give me a chance to cook all my baby brother’s favorite meals. You know how I like to spoil my family.”
Lies and Solace Page 23