It Was Always You (Harpers Ridge Book 1)

by Ann Carver

  Hearing a vehicle pull in the driveway, she knew it was Joe. Who else would know she was there. She shook her hair one more time to make sure all the grass was out then went to Joey’s truck.

  “Hey,” she said with an easy smile. “Good timing, I just finished locking everything up. She looked at him in his jeans and t-shirt topped with a ball cap. She smiled knowing some things hadn’t changed. She’d seen his gorgeous locks earlier, but he always loved the comfort of a ball cap.

  Joe smiled at her and backed out of the driveway. The ride to the Dancing Pony was quiet. She fished out her lip gloss and applied a thin layer. She didn’t consider herself a tomboy, but she wasn’t a princess girly, girl either. She was all woman without the fluff.

  When they pulled up to the Dancing Pony, she giggled at the bright neon sign of a pony…dancing. She couldn’t tell if the pony was doing the “YMCA”, “Macarena” or “Gangnam Style” dance. Either way, it was hilarious!

  “This is it,” Joe said gazing into her eyes. “You ready?”

  “Yup,” she said excitedly and exited the truck waiting for him to come around. “Cute pony, huh?”

  He looked up at the sign. “Uh, yeah,” he muttered and pulled the door open for her to enter.

  Being a weekday, the place wasn’t too busy. They sat at a small table away from the bar. There was a jukebox playing music, a small group playing pool, and a few scattered people at tables and the bar. The décor was all horse themed. Everything from race horses to funny, cartoon horses.

  She’d figured it would be a country-bumpkin bar that blared country music, way to loud, but she was surprised when the music was the current top hits. Still not quite her favorite music, but it was more doable than country music.

  “Whatchya want to drink, sweetheart,” someone said behind her. She saw Joey smile at the someone. A genuine smile. The one she hadn’t seen yet until now and it was toward another woman. Harper slowly turned to see who caught his smile.

  “You!” the woman said shocked and full of surprise. “What the hell are you doing here?”

  Harper raised a brow. “Having a drink. I’d ask you the same, but I can obviously see you’re waitressing. Don’t you wish you’d been so obvious?” she spat back.

  The woman was Cindy Bowman. She was the head cheerleader who entered every beauty pageant from here to Washington DC. Her blond hair still hung long and beautifully curled. Fake curled, unlike Harpers soft, natural curls. They hated each other and with good reason.

  “Well, it’s obvious you haven’t changed,” Cindy retorted quickly. “You’re still a bitch.”

  Harper smiled. That was a compliment. “And, you’re still ugly. At least I can change bitchiness, you can’t change ugly.” She smiled mischievously. She was always good at comebacks.

  Cindy glared at her. “I can change ugly,” she snipped at her. “Plastic surgery does wonders,” she said grabbing a hold of her breasts and jiggling them.

  Apparently, Cindy had gotten better with comebacks, too. This made Harper smile. It became a challenge. “Why didn’t you start with your face?” Harper asked, pointing at Cindy’s face. “Oh, that’s right. Men always look at boobs first, but what happens when they look up to your face?” Harper raised her brows and eyes wide and made a hideous look of surprise when she looked at her face. “Yikes!” she exclaimed in horror.

  Cindy’s eyes narrowed at Harper. “And what about you? Guys never made it past your vagina.”

  Harper shrugged her shoulder. “Why would I want them to stick it in my ear? Where’s the pleasure in that?”

  Cindy gasped as Joe cleared his throat. “Ladies,” he said loudly, getting their attention. “If this is going to continue, I’m going to leave.”

  Harper turned and looked at him in surprise. He used to love how she could outwit someone with comebacks.

  “No, Joe, I’m sorry you had to witness that,” Cindy said apologetically. “I won’t say anymore. She’s not worth it. Hasn’t been worth it since she slept with Garrett.”

  So much for not saying anymore. She wasn’t lying. Harper had slept with Garrett. Apparently, the beauty queen wouldn’t give it up because she thought sex would mess up her beautiful complexion. Garrett approached Harper and they showed each other a good time for a night… or two or four.

  When Harper turned fifteen, she’d felt empty and more alone than she’d ever had. Puberty hit and the hormones kicked into over-drive. She thought the only way to make her not feel empty was to fill her life with the company of boys. She enjoyed it, but it never made her feel whole or not alone, but it filled the void and fit her wild lifestyle.

  “Cindy,” Joe growled and firmly looked at her.

  “Fine, what can I get you guys to drink?” she asked pathetically sweet and fake.

  “We’ll have a couple of Bud Lights,” he said looking at Harper if that was okay.

  She nodded at him. She wanted to say something about Garrett, but she didn’t want to make Joe be a referee again. When had he become such a party pooper?

  “Sure, sweetheart,” she said in a sickening sweet voice, obviously for Joe.

  After Harper watched her walk away, she turned toward Joe. “So, have you two had a thing or what?”

  With a tight jaw, Joe replied, “I’m not discussing my love life with you.”

  “You just did…sweetheart,” she said mocking Cindy and her sickening sweet voice.

  Joe sat up and rested his elbows on the table. “You don’t get to do that, Harper. You don’t get to come back after seven years and pretend you know me.”

  Most things didn’t shock Harper, but the sight of Joey, practically spitting fire at her, got her attention. She was teasing him as she’d done a million times. What the hell crawled up his ass and died?

  “What the hell is wrong with you?” she spat back at him. “We were best friends when we were younger. We teased each other way more than this, but for some reason you’re wearing your grandmother’s underwear. What’d they do? Shrink your balls?”

  Joey opened his mouth to say something but then closed it. Harper was about to say something else, but Cindy placed two beers in front of them and asked him if there was anything else. He shook his head and she left.

  Joey stood and put some money on the table. “There’s enough to cover the beer and a cab home. Good-bye, Harper.”

  He didn’t move right away and Harper was not about to let him walk out on her. She picked up her beer, held it up in a toast position and said, “What-the-fuck-ever,” she said with a shrug of her shoulder and a guzzle of beer. She turned on her heels and walked to the pool table where four guys were playing a game.

  She didn’t look back either. She was so damned stubborn that she forced herself not to look for a half an hour. It was one of the hardest things she’d done in her life. She just didn’t understand how he’d changed so much. The Joey she remembered made her laugh for hours and hours. This Joey was depressing at every turn.

  It didn’t matter, she told herself. She struck up a conversation with the guys and even danced with them. The drinks kept coming and she drank out the thoughts of the new Joey…Joe…whatever!

  Joe couldn’t believe he’d walked out on Harper. He’d never done anything like that in his life, let alone to Harper…his childhood best friend. He knew the problem. She hadn’t changed, but he had.

  Sitting in his truck with his knuckles turning white from the tight grip on the steering wheel, he cursed himself. It wasn’t the fact that he’d heard rumors that she’d slept with his brothers. It was more than that, but he wasn’t willing to let himself think about those things right now.

  No, right now all he could think about was Harper. Okay, maybe not Harper so much as the guys that were hanging all over her, buying her drinks and dancing with her. He knew they just wanted to get in her pants. He also knew Harper and knew she’d let them. He was so pissing mad that she hadn’t figured out she was worth more than sleeping around. She had purpose and it wasn’t to sho
w men a good time.

  After an hour of grinding his teeth profusely, Joe had had enough. When two of the four guys practically carried Harper out of the bar, he got out of his truck and ran up to them. “Harper, honey,” he said as the two men stopped abruptly and looked at each other and then him. “The kids are wondering where you are.”

  Yeah, he was going to lie. One guy held his hands out and said, “Woah, I didn’t know she was married.”

  The other guy wasn’t buying it so much. “She’s not wearing a ring, dude.

  Shit! Neither was here. He didn’t look at either of them. Instead, he took Harpers hands in his. “Harper, honey, tell them who I am,” he said sweetly.

  Harpers head bopped around a couple of times and then she finally raised her head to him. Her eyes were bloodshot and her shirt was stained with beer. When her eyes connected with his, she smiled. “Joey,” she slurred and fell into his arms.

  “It’s okay, honey,” he said patting her hair. “Let’s go home.” Joe was fully prepared to take on both guys. Even though there were two of them, he stood at least four inches above them and had a good forty pounds on the squirts. But, he had to make sure Harper was safe first and then he’d pummel them to the ground for trying to take advantage of a drunk woman.

  Luckily for them, he thought, they let him walk away with Harper without as much as a word. He put her in his truck and drove to the local diner, but they didn’t go in. Joe knew she wasn’t in the condition to go home, but he wanted to get her some food and coffee.

  After returning to the truck with food and coffee, he drove Harper to the block house. She had fallen asleep. Passed out was more like it, so he had to fish in her pockets for the key to the house.

  He carried her up the stairs to the front door. He couldn’t believe she was staying at the house in the condition it was in. The door didn’t open as easily as he’d wished, considering he was carrying Harper’s dead weight.

  When his foot came down on something and crunched, he almost dropped her as he tripped. The house was completely dark. He sighed heavily and took Harper back to the truck. With a flashlight in hand, so he could see the light switches to find out what the hell he stepped on, he made his way back inside the house.

  Joe groaned when the light shined on a dead raccoon. The groan was louder when he flashed around the house. There was nothing in the house. No chairs, sofas, tables, lamps…nothing. He walked up the creaky stairs to find more nothing.

  “How the hell is she going to stay here?” he said out loud to himself. Then he sighed, went downstairs, locked the house, and went back to his truck.

  Gently pushing Harper’s shoulder, he whispered, “Harper, do you have a hotel room?”

  She stirred only enough to reposition herself. He tried again. “Harper, do you have a hotel room?”

  “No hotel, babe, just wanna go home,” she mumbled.

  Great. She thought she was still with the pool guys. Joe reached over and pulled the seatbelt around her. He buckled her in and briefly let his fingers linger over her cheek and push the matted hair off her face.

  There was no way he could leave her alone in a house with no furniture and a dead raccoon. No, he had no choice but to take her to his place.

  Once Joe got Harper back to his place, he cursed himself for living in an upstairs apartment. Then, when he was hauling her up the stairs he could only imagine what it looked like if someone saw him carrying a body into his apartment.

  Inside his small apartment, he took Harper right to his bed, pulled back the covers and gently laid her in the bed. He thought about taking her clothes off and putting one of his shirts on her, but it sounded like a whole lot of trouble he wasn’t willing to get into. Instead, he pulled the covers over her and left the room.

  Chapter Three

  Harper woke up with one hell of a hang-over. She shielded her eyes from the sunlight and swallowed a few times to relieve her dry throat. Turning away from the sun she noticed she was not in Kansas anymore. Holy Toto, she thought to herself as the panic set in. She wasn’t in the block house and she vaguely remembered hanging out with some pool junkies. She had to be in one of their houses.

  In her teens, Harper turned to sex for attention. At least, her adaptation of love. She continued her wild ways right up until a year ago. She didn’t have a world changing event. Nobody had died at the time. She simply realized that it wasn’t fun anymore. Sex was okay, but everything, as a whole, was boring. She hadn’t even had a drink of alcohol in the last year, but when she saw Joey, she’d wanted to reconnect and remembered all the times they drank as teens. So, she asked him out for a drink.

  When her eyes focused out of the sunlight, she saw a man walk by, pulling off his shirt. She hadn’t remembered the pool junkies being so hunky. They were scrawny looking. She closed her eyes trying to remember what the hell happened last night.

  A sickening feeling swelled low in her stomach. She felt the acid rising and she knew she wasn’t going to be able to stop it. Throwing the blankets off, she jumped out of the bed and ran into the hall. She thanked her lucky stars that the bathroom was right across the hall. Luckily, she made it to the toilet and threw up the liquid mess she’d consumed last night.

  In the midst of her expelling more liquor, she felt someone pull her hair back and rub her shoulders. If only there was guy that caring, she thought to herself thinking she was imagining things.

  “Are you done now?” A heavy but gentle voice said.

  Wiping the back of her hand across her mouth, she turned to look at the mystery man. Joey. She stared at him in disbelief and just blinked.

  Joey stood, grabbed a towel then held it out to her. “Did a little too much partying, huh?” he asked with almost no emotion.

  “Joey?” she muttered out.

  She saw the hurt in his eyes, but his demeanor didn’t change. “Not who you were expecting.”

  It wasn’t a question. “No - ” she said but Joey cut her off.

  “Sorry to disappoint you,” he said before he turned on his heels and left the bathroom.

  Harper was going to say that no, she wasn’t expecting to see him, but she was thankful it was. But he didn’t let her finish. She cleaned her face as she stared at herself in the mirror. Her light make-up had come off, presumably from the pillow she’d slept on. She wasn’t even concerned if she’d slept with Joey because she was fully clothes. Besides, he wouldn’t do that.

  Leaving the bathroom, she found him in his bedroom, stripped down to his boxers. His back was toward her when he stretched his hands straight in the air and then did a side stretch leaning in each direction. His broad shoulders harbored thick, sinewy muscles. His back narrowed only slightly with the same luscious muscles. He’d really grown up, she thought.

  “Joey - ” she started.

  “It’s Joe,” he snapped, interrupting her again.

  She rolled her eyes even though he couldn’t see her. “Fine. Joe, I want to thank you for…uh, making sure I was safe last night.” He’d always had her back when they were teens and it appeared he still did.

  He turned toward her and with no expression, said, “Always.”

  Harper closed the gap and wrapped her arms around him for a hug. She knew he didn’t know how much she needed that saving grace last night. She hadn’t want to sleep with anyone, but after not drinking for a year, she was wasted after four beers…maybe even three.

  Relief filled her when he put his arms around her and hugged her back. She closed her eyes and remembered when he’d always had her back. The first time she’d really liked a boy and he just used her for sex, Joey was there to hug her and threaten to beat the boy’s ass. He held her hand at family planning when she was sixteen getting birth control. He was the only guy in the whole building. She could only imagine how intimidated or humiliated he must have felt. He waited with her patiently as she waited for the stick to not turn blue when she had a scare her senior year of high school. He really did have her back. Always.

&
nbsp; Joe broke the hug, side stepped her and climb into his bed. She watched him fluff his pillow and pull the covers, lazily, over his body. It was an awkward moment. He didn’t tell her to leave, but it was obvious he wasn’t going to entertain her. Why was he going back to sleep in the morning?

  “There’s coffee on the table with donuts,” he mumbled with closed eyes. “You still like powdered, right?”

  “Um, yeah,” she said. She stared at Joe, who had his eyes closed. “Okay...I’ll just go…” she stumbled for the right words, “eat, then.” She turned and left the bedroom wondering what the hell was going on.

  When she got to the kitchen table, there wasn’t only coffee and powdered donuts, there was a bottle of aspirin. He knew her well. She devoured three of the four donuts as well as the coffee, but she was still thirsty. She helped herself to the milk that was in his fridge and a piece of gum from the counter since she hadn’t brushed her teeth.

  She wore herself out, simply eating. Ridiculous, she thought to herself, but she knew the hang-over was taking its toll on her. Realizing her truck was at the block house posed a problem. Joey’s apartment was in town which meant the block house was over five miles away. Too far to walk…in her condition. She was stuck. At least until Joey woke up.

  Joe opened one eye as Harper left the bedroom to eat the donuts he’d picked up that morning for her. He’d figured nothing else seemed to have changed about her, so she probably still liked powdered donuts.

  When she was out of sight, he closed his eye and relaxed his exhausted body. He knew he should have taken her back to her house, but he could barely keep his eyes open. It had been a rough night and he felt like he wanted to sleep for a week straight.

  And, he would have too if Harper hadn’t woken him five minutes after he fell asleep. Sure, she’d tried to make it seem like an accident, but he knew better. She’d cleared her throat and yawned ridiculously loud until he couldn’t take it anymore and popped open an eye at her. “Yes?”