by Kim Law
“Fine,” she ground out. “Take me home. I’ll pick up my car later—and don’t you dare be all manly and have it taken care of for me.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it.”
He returned to his side of the truck and she turned her head to look out the window. But she did give him directions, heading him toward the west side of the lake. He’d wondered where she lived, but given that nothing personal seemed to cross her lips when she was around him, he hadn’t yet broached the subject. Clearly she didn’t want him at her house, so he’d steered clear.
But he had gotten one personal thing out of her the night before. And he hadn’t even had to try. Thomas had been the only other man she’d been with.
That had surprised him—not only that she’d had only one other lover but that she’d then allowed him to be her second—but what had shocked him even more was her sharing that information with him. Other than the day she’d shown up at the house to make arrangements to take him back to get his truck, she’d never once spoken her husband’s name. Yet last night it had slipped out naturally.
Of course, she’d then climbed from his bed and left his house.
He fought the urge to roll his eyes. The woman was a master at emotional distance. Had she never heard of cuddling after screwing someone’s brains out?
And when had he turned into such a pansy-ass that he wanted to cuddle?
He followed her directions as they sped down the highway, as both of them continued to fume in silence. In between the anger, he worked through scenarios for starting the conversation when they got to her house. He didn’t want to come across as attacking her. That would be a bad move. Or looking out for her. He definitely had more sense than that by this point. But he also refused let her walk away without discussing her recklessness.
As the mailbox numbers grew closer to hers, Nick decided it would be best to simply take the plunge. And he might as well start now. “You scared me out there today.” He recalled his fear as the car had left the track. “In fact, you terrified me.”
She shook her head. “It was nothing. I barely even crashed.”
“Harper. Honey.” At the endearment, she jerked her gaze his way, her brows pulled in tight. “You lost control at nearly two hundred miles per hour. You’re going to sit there and tell me that was nothing? That it didn’t scare you?”
“I don’t get scared.”
He bit his tongue at her words. He’d seen the terror on her face, but he didn’t point that out because she’d deny it. Instead, he shut his mouth and drove the remainder of the distance in silence. When he pulled into her driveway, he was floored at the sight of her home. But again, he kept his comments to himself.
“Thomas had it built,” Harper said, as if to explain the ostentatious size of the building sitting in front of them. “He didn’t want us to want for anything.”
“It’s nice,” Nick replied. And he’d say the man had accomplished what he set out to do.
Harper huffed out a breath and grumbled, “It’s too big.”
Well, there was that. He didn’t know why anyone would need such a large place to live. He pulled up beside the garage and stopped the truck, and she had her purse on her lap before he could shift into park.
“Thanks for the ride.” Her tone wasn’t polite, but as least she hadn’t jumped from the truck with it still moving. However, when she opened her door, Nick opened his, as well. She stopped and looked back at him. “What are you doing?”
“Coming in. We need to talk about what happened today.”
“No, we don’t.” She made another move to exit, and Nick once again followed suit. He slid his left foot to the ground, and Harper sighed and dropped back to her seat. “I’m trying not to be rude, Nick, but the fact is, I don’t want you to come in.”
“That’s fine. We can talk here.”
“We’re not going to talk anywhere, because there’s nothing to talk about.”
When her look turned even more belligerent, he merely shrugged. “We can either talk out here or I’m following you into the house.”
“Then I’ll call the cops.”
“Really?” His own anger rose to a new level. “You want to avoid your issues so much that you’d call the cops on me?”
“I’m not avoiding anything. I just don’t want unwelcome people in my home.”
“Well, at least you didn’t call me a random stranger again.”
She jutted out her chin, and he matched her look. So she turned away from him to glare out the windshield. The both of them were acting like children, pouting because they couldn’t have their way, but Nick was powerless to change things. He remained furious, she remained stubborn, and somehow, one of them was going to win this argument. But honestly, he wouldn’t bet on either one of them at that point.
Yet when she pushed her hair behind her ear, and he saw her fingers shaking, he couldn’t help the concern that washed over him. She’d scared herself today. Badly. She was crashing from the adrenaline rush now, and all of that fear was wrapped around a pain that he so clearly recognized. Her walls may have been thick, but that didn’t keep him from seeing straight through them to know that she was hurting. And that that was the basis for her recklessness.
He gentled his voice. “You’re too risky, Harper. And I’m certain it comes from the loss you experienced a year and a half ago.”
“You know nothing about my loss.”
“Then tell me about it.”
Her shoulders curled in on herself, but nothing else about her changed. Face remained forward. Silence stony.
“I’ve told you before that I have broad shoulders,” he reminded her. “Let me help. You’re lashing out. Daring something to happen to you because you’re hurting. Maybe because you lived and he didn’t.”
Her throat moved as she swallowed, and Nick wondered if he’d called it right. Was it survivor’s guilt?
“No, I’m not,” she whispered heatedly.
“And you’re stubborn as sin on top of it,” he muttered. But he shifted in his seat, bringing one leg up so he could face her, and hoping that if he opened up a little, then maybe she would, too. “I’ve had my share of heartaches, as well,” he told her. “Not like yours. Definitely. But bad enough that it permanently damaged me on the inside. I understand the need for anger. The desire to hurt in the present just so you don’t have to hurt from the past.”
A muscle jerked in her jaw.
“My mother hated me,” he said softly. “She died never once implying that I made her world brighter in any way. That she even so much as cared.”
Harper stared at him.
“I’m just saying that I recognize pain when I see it, and especially in you. And that I truly do want to help.”
“But I don’t need help.” Her voice shook.
“I know. You keep saying that. And I never thought I did, either. Until—”
She shook her head as if she didn’t want to hear any more, and Nick stopped talking, almost thankful for the interruption. He didn’t want to talk about his mother, anyway. Christ, what had he been thinking?
“I’m sorry I scared you today,” she said. “Truly, I am.” The words came out soft, and he watched as she seemed to try to force the tension in her shoulders to ease. She unclasped her fingers where they gripped her purse. “I didn’t mean to wreck. I wasn’t trying to hurt myself. I was just having fun. And really, everything did end up okay. I didn’t hurt me or anyone else.”
“But you didn’t have it under control.”
“Things happen sometimes, Nick. It was an accident.”
“You’re too risky.”
“No, I’m not. I’m just living my life. Experiencing things. It’s what Thomas and I did.” And again, the anger Nick had become so familiar with flashed through her eyes and stared back at him, and a light began to dawn inside Nick.
“You’re acting this way because of Thomas?” he said. “Because of something he did?”
“I’m acting no way.”
Was it not survivor’s guilt, but something her husband had done?
This time when she reached for the handle, Nick didn’t try to follow her. She opened her door and slid to the ground. “I’m fine,” she told him once more. “I’ve got everything under control. I always do.”
“But what if one day you don’t? People mess up. Accidents turn deadly.”
Her body jerked with his words, and he felt bad for bringing up her memories. She’d definitely been in an accident that had turned deadly.
But he didn’t feel bad enough to keep from finishing his point.
“What if you push too far?” he asked her. “Panic instead of maintain control? It could kill you.”
Pure anger filled her eyes now, and it was definitely directed at him. “I never panic.”
Then she slammed the door and walked away.
Harper stopped at the corner of her house and turned to watch Nick drive away. How dare he say that accidents could turn deadly. She, out of everyone, knew that. And he was a callous, spiteful person to say that to her just because he was mad.
His truck disappeared from sight, and she whirled around and stomped up the front steps. What did he know about accidents, anyway? Or heartache. His one big beef with the world was that his mother hadn’t liked him.
Well, boohoo.
A hint of guilt over her thoughts niggled at her as she shoved open the heavy wooden door and stared into the empty house. She had a few more battle scars than Nicholas Wilde did, so he could just deal. Dead husband. Dead baby. Destroyed life.
Dropping her purse, she slammed the door and stormed through the house, and suddenly, all the fire drained from her and she found herself sinking to the floor. She crawled on all fours to the corner and put her back against the wall. And for the first time since Thomas had left her, she wished she could cry. Maybe shedding a few tears would lessen the never-ending weight that sat in her chest. The weight had gotten really heavy lately. And she was so tired of carrying it.
But the tears didn’t come. They never did.
Dropping her head back, she stared up at the ceiling, her eyes roaming over the smooth white finishes. In a fit of frenzy, she’d had everything on the first floor redone in white. White walls, white fixtures, white cabinetry. She’d even replaced the countertops with white marble—as well as the floors. The entire place was now a mausoleum. And it was depressing as hell.
She hated it.
She hated everything.
Her gazed moved to the center of the ceiling and landed on the elaborate crystal chandelier that she’d paid way too much money for. The light hung directly under what she now considered Thomas’s room. The space that housed all of his stuff. She’d originally removed everything of his from the house, but her mom had gathered it from the pile in the backyard and brought it back in.
After her mom had not only lugged Thomas’s belongings back inside the house but had also packed them into totes, Harper hadn’t had the energy to fight her over it. So she’d eventually stored everything in the room above where she now sat. Then she’d shut the door, and she hadn’t stepped foot back in it since.
She closed her eyes and let herself picture Thomas as he’d been before that last day. Man, she’d loved him. And he’d loved her.
She thought about their wedding day, her white lace dress handed down from her grandmother, and him in his dress blues. There had been so many dreams between the two of them. And they’d been fulfilling them, too. They’d been helping people, loving each other. Honoring his brother.
They’d even been bringing a new life into the world—not that the pregnancy had been discovered until after Thomas had died.
Their lives together were all they’d ever wanted, and despite protests from his parents, they’d never veered from their paths. But now she sat in the corner of their sterile kitchen, all alone, with nothing but herself and her loneliness to keep her warm at night. And her fear. This was not the life she was supposed to have.
Nick’s words came back to her. You’re lashing out. Daring something to happen to you because you’re hurting. Maybe because you lived and he didn’t.
No, she wasn’t. It was more complicated than that.
But he had been right about one thing. She’d been scared today. When the car had gone airborne, she’d honestly thought her time had come. That she was finally going to kill herself.
Because, yeah, maybe she did dare fate. She had ever since she’d crawled out of that really dark place she’d gone to those first few weeks. Yet she hadn’t realized any of that until today—when she’d thought that fate was about to put her six feet under.
She didn’t want to die.
She just wanted to quit being so angry.
Chapter Fourteen
Ohmygoodness. I wish she’d hurry up before I pee on myself!”
Harper peered up from her phone where she was scrolling through Facebook and eyed her sister, who was lying flat on the ultrasound table. They’d arrived at the obstetrician’s office more than an hour before and had been waiting in the patient room for a good twenty minutes. “Maybe you should just go,” she suggested. She nodded toward a closed door. “There’s a bathroom connected to this room.”
“I can’t just go.” Jewel groaned. She pulled her knees up on the table and cupped her hands over her lower belly. “They told me to drink water before I showed up, so they could see the baby better.”
“Well, maybe you drank too much. You could get rid of a little of it.”
Jewel shot her an irritated glare and added in an eye roll, as if asking what Harper could possibly know about it, and Harper silently agreed. She knew nothing.
She returned her attention to her phone and slunk down even farther in her corner chair. She really wished Bobby had been able to make it home for this appointment. He’d tried. Arrangements had been made to fly in late last night so he could be here, with the intent of leaving in the morning. He’d planned to help them load up for this weekend’s rodeo, then they’d drop him at the airport on their way out of town.
But at the last minute, dangerous thunderstorms had cancelled several flights out of Boston, and the earliest flight he could rebook would have been too late to make the ultrasound. So they’d gone to plan B. Harper would FaceTime him when the technician arrived.
The door opened, and a twentysomething woman in pink scrubs and a bouncy blonde ponytail walked in. And she was also pregnant. Noticeably so.
Harper squelched her irritation. The last thing she wanted to do was be around pregnant women, and now she was in a building full of them. They were everywhere. Not to mention, she was about to get a close-up look at one on a monitor. It was a crappy kind of day. The last two days had been.
“And how are you feeling today, Mrs. Brandon?”
Jewel’s eyes narrowed on the woman. “I feel like I need to pee. You kept me waiting too long.”
“My apologies,” the technician murmured. She shifted her gaze quickly from Jewel and reached out a hand to Harper. “Hi. I’m Claire.” At Harper’s less-than-enthusiastic reception, Claire timidly returned to Jewel. Jewel merely snarled at her, so Claire turned her attention to readying her machine.
Once the other woman had looked away from them, Jewel flapped her fingers toward Harper. “Hurry up,” she hissed. “Call him.”
Harper scowled and held the phone up for her sister to see. The call was already going through. And clearly, pregnancy hormones had turned her sister into the devil. Bobby didn’t answer, which helped nothing, and Harper swore under her breath as tears welled up and spilled over Jewel’s cheeks.
“Try him again,” she sobbed.
Claire peeked up from a folder of paperwork to eye both of them at the sound of Jewel’s wails, and Harper once again held up her phone. She pointed to the screen, where another call was going through. “I’m trying to get her husband on the line. His flight got cancelled and he couldn’t make it home for the appointment.”
“Awww,�
�� Claire murmured. She immediately had complete sympathy for the nut-job pregnant lady about to pee all over her table. She patted Jewel’s hand. “Don’t worry, sweetie. We’ll get him on the phone. We can wait a couple of minutes to start if we need to.”
“What I need is to pee!” Jewel yelped.
Bobby answered as Jewel shouted, and with a relieved look, Claire once again turned away. Harper thrust her cell at Jewel, and instantly, her sister’s entire demeanor changed. She was once again the sweet woman Harper knew her to be.
Harper shook her head at the Jekyll-and-Hyde impersonation and returned to her seat. She felt uncomfortable enough being there. The last thing she wanted was to intrude on Jewel and Bobby’s moment. So she crossed her arms over her chest and sank down, making no attempt to hide the fact that her sister wasn’t the only one in a foul mood. She’d been like this since Nick had dropped her off at her house two days before.
She hadn’t bothered to pick up her car yet, nor had she reached out to tell him when she would. She’d just sulked.
And she remained angry over their argument. Granted, she could understand his worry over her safety. Those had been a few tense moments. And she even got his need to discuss the situation afterward. He seemed to be like that. In her face about everything he deemed an “issue.”
And in a better frame of mind she might even be inclined to appreciate that characteristic.
But right now she remained ticked.
Jewel’s light laughter permeated Harper’s fog of bad mood, and Harper found herself silently watching her sister and Bobby as they stared wide-eyed at the monitor together. Jewel’s belly was still flat, but that didn’t stop the technician from finding hidden tissue underneath. Harper couldn’t make out anything specific in the grainy black-and-white images, but she understood that it represented a life. She found herself suddenly thinking about Thomas again. She missed him. And if he couldn’t have been at her first ultrasound, then she would also have wanted to FaceTime him during it. They would have had this same first moment together in a similar low-lit room, each softly murmuring words of wonder to the other.