by Sable Hunter
He’d looked for her. He’d tried to get in touch with her.
Both her grandmother and her parents had let her know. Even Noah said he’d contacted Tebow Ranch. But Harper had stayed hidden, off the radar. She was an island, she touched no one and no one touched her.
As the sea roared below her, the unceasing wind blowing in her hair, the seagulls crying their mournful call—Harper began to cry. If she could just go back, try again, not ask him to do those things, not tell him…
Her heart whispered his name. Revel. Revel Lee. Burying her head in the bend of her arm, she hid, letting her thoughts sweep her to another time, another place.
“Harper, what are you doing out here in this cold, baby?”
For a moment, Harper thought she was mad. A big, mountain of a man leaned down and wrapped his arms around her, carrying her into the warmth. “Let’s get you wrapped up. Do you know how long I’ve been searching for you?”
Harper shivered so hard, her teeth were chattering. He was real! The melancholy had been so deep, she’d thought he was a dream. Running her hands down his arms, Harper marveled that he was here, he was flesh and blood. “Revel?” she whispered, her voice weak with tears. Staring into his beloved face, she asked in disbelief, “What are you doing here?”
“Why do you think I’ve come?” His smile was tender. “I’m here to take you home.”
Oh, what a temptation. She’d ached to take him up on his offer. Harper wanted to go with him more than she wanted to see tomorrow. But she couldn’t. You can’t go home again, that’s what the songs all say. And they were right. There was no place for here there.
He’d come to her, he’d begged, he’d pleaded. And she had to hurt him again to make him go.
“I’m sorry, Revel. I can’t go back. My life there is over.” Her heart was breaking. This was harder than anything she’d ever had to do. He hadn’t asked just once, he’d come again and again, begging. But she had to protect him. “Please, no. Don’t keep asking me.”
When she’d tried to shut him out, he’d pushed in, desperate. “I won’t hurt you, Harper,” he’d assured her when she backed away from him. “I’d never hurt you.”
Instead, she chose to hurt him, to deliberately twist his words. “And therein lies the problem. You know what I need. And you can’t give it to me.”
She’d watched his face as he struggled with her words. “Harper, I let you down, but I can be what you need. I know about McCoy and I know about that maniac, Ajax. Let me make it up to you.”
Harper wanted to cry, instead she laughed. She couldn’t afford to give him reason to hope. “You turned me away, Revel.”
Revel grabbed for her and she backed away. “I did not turn you away. I told you I was surprised, that’s all. If you had given me a chance, given me time, I would have learned.”
“This isn’t something you can force yourself to do, Revel.”
“Give me a chance, Harper,” he pleaded with her. “I don’t want to be alone, I don’t want you to be alone. I love you, I’ve loved you from the first moment I saw your face.”
Beautiful words. Words she’d give the sun, the moon and the stars to hear and believe. Revel meant them, but he only had part of the story. “You think you do.”
He pulled her close, crashing their lips together, not giving Harper another second to say anything else. For a few precious moments, they kissed. With his mouth, with his body, with his heart—he offered her everything he had…his life, his soul.
And as much as Harper wanted to accept what he offered, she couldn’t. It wouldn’t be right. “No.” She pushed at his chest. “I can’t do it.”
Revel bowed his head, defeated. “Why?”
Because I love you, is what she wanted to say. “It’s wrong. We’ll only end up hurting one another. You’d regret it. I can’t change.”
“Fuck!” With one powerful blow, he hit the wall above her head, splintering the wood. Harper jumped. “Don’t you understand?” Revel bellowed in his pain. “I don’t want you to change.” His face contorted with pain. “I will change. I will be what you want. I’ll be what you need.”
“No.” She looked into his beloved face. “I can’t ask that. You must go.”
“Ask anything of me, but that. I’ll give you all I am, all I have. Please don’t send me away.”
Agony like she’d never felt before ripped through her. This wasn’t the sensual pain that helped her survive, this was excruciating, soul-ripping. This wasn’t pain one survived—not more than once. And so she lied. “I don’t want you, Revel. You do nothing for me. I need a man. A real man. A man who can give me what I need and you’ll never be that man.”
“I see.” Revel felt her words slice through his heart like the sharp edge of a sword. With a sinking heart, he walked away. Giving her the only gift he could.
To be parted from him.
* * *
After he’d gone, Harper walked out the door of the beach house and kept walking. Forever she would see his face, forever she would feel his pain—the pain she’d inflicted.
Harper lost the will to live. She left her friend’s house. She left her job and went on the streets, living in her car, doing odd jobs for money to buy food. If her family could see her now, they’d be so ashamed.
Weeks passed. Months passed. One day while doing her laundry in a public washateria, she looked up at the television screen and saw Revel’s face. Raising her hand to her throat, she jumped up to get closer to the screen in order to hear the announcer’s voice. The news report stated that Aron McCoy, which would be Noah’s brother, had been rescued by some of his friends and family from the stronghold of a Mexican drug cartel. The only person injured was Revel. Her Revel. “Oh, no, no,” Harper chanted, praying. She leaned in, praying he was all right until the newscaster added that he was recovering in an Austin hospital.
Harper wasted no time. She got on the road, unsure of why she was going or what she’d do when she got there—but knowing she had no choice. Her heart wouldn’t allow her to stay away. Using the last of her money to buy gas, she made her way to the state capital, and drove straight to the hospital. Upon arrival, she asked for his room, went to the right floor and cautiously lingered near until she could see if he was alone or had visitors.
He wasn’t alone, of course he wasn’t alone. Revel had friends. Patrick and a beautiful brunette woman were there. Several other men were in and out of his room, men she didn’t recognize. Finally, a doctor came and she drew close enough to hear them talk.
Revel had been shot in the thigh, but he would recover.
For hours, she huddled in an adjacent waiting room, avoiding Patrick. He was the only one who might recognize her. When it became late, and everyone left for the evening, she ventured into the very edge of his room. If he’d been awake, she would have made do with a glimpse, but he was asleep and so she indulged. Stepping up quietly, Harper had gazed into his perfect face.
Gently. Carefully. She placed her hand on his cheek. “Please be okay. I love you so much.”
Tenderly. Reverently. She leaned over and layered her mouth to his, giving him a very soft kiss. “I wish I could stay. You are always on my mind.”
When she said those words, he stirred, his eyes beginning to open. Harper turned and fled, hoping he would think she was only a dream.
As she ran down the hall, she heard him. “Harper! Harper!” he called. With a sob, she escaped into the staircase and leaned against the wall and cried.
CHAPTER FOUR
Present day…
Revel Lee Jones stood on the edge of Wildwood’s wide verandah, staring out into the gathering gloom. A humid Louisiana breeze filtered through the Spanish moss hanging thickly from the old oak that hugged the bank of the Teche.
Ga-rump! Gar-rump!
The distant call of a bull alligator broke the silence followed closely by the flapping of wings as a crane lifted off from its nest in the swamp. The bayou was full of life, teeming with creatures both b
ig and small. Out on the water, a mist rose and Revel narrowed his eyes, trying to determine if it was fog, foxfire or a restless spirit yearning for what it had lost.
Revel knew the feeling. He was so lonesome he could cry.
Months had come and gone since he’d seen Harper. He’d begged her to come with him, to let him take care of her, but Harper had refused. Walking away from her had been the hardest thing he’d ever done.
The easiest had been loving her.
Taking one last look out into the darkness, he turned, the muscles in his leg twinging from taking a bullet in his leg during the skirmish they’d fought rescuing Aron McCoy from the female drug lord. While recovering in a haze of pain meds, he’d thought Harper came to him. He’d heard her voice, felt the gentle touch of her fingers, and smelled her sweet clean scent.
But it had only been a dream, it had to have been. If he found out she had been that near to him and he’d failed to hold on to her, it would kill him dead.
He’d been dreaming a lot lately, some good—mostly bad. Tonight, he needed to rest so hopefully he could keep the nightmares at bay. If he wasn’t wrestling the demons Harper left behind, he was refighting battles in the hot desert sands of Afghanistan. And then there was the crying…
Revel refused to be spooked in his own home. He wouldn’t say he didn’t believe in ghosts, his friend Savannah had changed his mind on that score. But he wasn’t about to let a spectral memory from long ago color how he felt about a house he’d poured all of his strength, not to mention his money, into restoring to its former glory.
He did it for Harper—like he did everything else.
Making his way inside, Revel locked the screen first, then secured the other locks on the double doors. It wasn’t that he was afraid, there was just no use inviting trouble. Some people took an open door as an invitation to come inside and make themselves at home. He’d never caught anyone in the house, nor pinpointed anything that had been stolen, but several times he’d swear that items would be moved around or disturbed.
Flipping off the light in the front foyer, he glanced around, admiring his own handiwork. Through sheer determination, he’d taken a wrecked nineteenth-century cottage and lovingly restored it. The task hadn’t been an easy one. Beaten and broken, it had withstood two hurricanes. The roof even had to be replaced. But everyone who saw it agreed that it had a great floor plan. Big rooms, a center dog-trot hallway, tall ceilings and multiple porches. Of course, the layout of Wildwood wasn’t why he’d wanted the place. He’d bought it from the estate when the family couldn’t settle their differences. Clotille had wanted Harper to have it, but Eugenia had sued and since Harper was nowhere to be found, it had ended up in probate court. His more than generous offer had been accepted. Now, all the old home needed was a big dose of TLC and for its rightful owner to come and reclaim it—and reclaim him. The monthly payments he made were just an expression of love.
Even before meeting Clotille or Harper, Revel had always been fascinated by the old Creole homes, all unique and dripping with a sense of history and place. Even when he’d been living with his daddy in the free worker’s shack, the grand old homes had called to him. Wildwood, which was built in the 1840s, sat between a sugarcane field and the Bayou Teche. A modest sized home by plantation standards, it had a peaked tin roof to quickly funnel rain and a forty-two foot wide gallery porch that faced the impressive live-oaks flanking the long dirt drive. Built for the Louisiana climate and occasional flooding, the cottage was raised about ten feet off the ground. Of course, Revel had found a good use for the lower storage area, revitalizing it into a special playroom for himself and Harper—if she ever came home.
Every room in Wildwood opened to the outside, useful for keeping a good breeze flowing in the stifling Southern heat. All the walls and floorboards were made of local cypress, known for its capability to withstand the deplorable humidity and the incessant summer downpours that seemed to rise from nowhere. This labor of love hadn’t been completed overnight, it had been a year of sanding, nailing, and painting. They’d dismantled the entire porch at one point, taping a playing card on each beam to keep the pieces in order. Revel had almost rebuilt this entire cottage alongside his friend T-Rex. In fact, there would be no renovation without T-Rex.
Revel was lucky in his choice of friends. Besides T-Rex, he had Patrick and Savannah, Beau and Harley, and Dandi and Lucas—all of them had proved to be shelters during the storms he’d gone through. He had other friends in Texas—the McCoys, the Equalizers, and Bowie Travis, but he didn’t see them as often. The fact that he’d become close to Noah McCoy was a miracle, but miracles do happen. And he was holding out for another one.
Harley LeBlanc had called earlier to say she and Beau would be dropping in to see him early the next morning. He was always glad to see his friends. He had no idea what they were up to, something exciting, they always were. Harley was psychic, he knew that. A former IED expert and bomb tech, she’d used her special gift to stay alive and save thousands. Oh well, he’d know soon enough. Making his way through the front room, Revel headed toward the stairs. The light from the moon shining through the window on the landing gave life to the shadows below. One day there would be happiness in this house, he held on to that belief. Somehow, someway, he would find a way to bring Harper home, even if he had to turn over heaven and earth to find her.
Setting the cane he no longer needed in the umbrella stand in the hall, he opened the door to the room he’d lovingly designed as their master sanctuary. He’d been using the cane as a doorstop when he’d painted the pantry which led down into the old root cellar. It had caved in long ago, but that was a project for another day. Letting out a harsh breath, he began to strip, throwing his clothes over the end of the bed. As far as his redecorating was concerned, this bed was his greatest find, a cherry hand-tooled Creole king with brass feet from the 1830s. It was said there were only fifty of them in the world, and one day he’d make love to Harper in this one.
Taking off his briefs, he walked to the widow naked, pulled back the sheer curtain and looked out over the grounds. He had plans to restore the old sugar boiler’s bunkhouse into a guest suite for their friends to come for big shrimp boils and celebrations. At the far edge of the front lawn, stood the garconniere, a traditional Creole outbuilding usually designated as an early form of a man-cave for the eldest son of the family. When people passed by, the garconniere was what caught their eye. Eight-side with a cupola roof, the odd shaped building was two story, painted white with green shutters. He had plans for that, too. A playhouse for his and Harper’s children someday, he hoped. In fact, he had so many hopes and dreams it was hard for his heart to hold them all.
With a sigh, he closed the curtain carefully so as not to dislodge the small array of items sitting on the windowsill. In true Louisiana tradition, Clotille had arranged thirteen items at every window and at every door. They supposedly kept the rougaroux away. A fanciful idea, the old legend recounted that the Cajun French version of a werewolf, a loup garou, couldn’t count past twelve, so if you put thirteen objects at the entrance to your home, the apparently OCD creature would count and recount until the dawn’s early light drove him back into the swamp. So, at every window sat chess pieces or shells or small figurines. He’d seen Harper touch them and examine them that summer they were together and even though they got in his way, he didn’t have the heart to move them. With a sigh, he turned to the bed. Enough dreaming of moonlight and magnolias—it was time to rest. Tomorrow was another day. And who knows, maybe it would be the day when he received good news.
Downstairs, the big clock ticked. Creaks and groans from the timbers settling and the tin roof expanding sounded throughout the dark house. Unbeknownst to the man who slept upstairs, shimmers of energy flitted about, voices murmured in corners while whispers of yesterday echoed in the empty rooms.
No, that wasn’t exactly true. Wildwood was far from empty.
Upstairs, Revel moved restlessly beneath the covers.
He could see Harper standing on the edge of the swamp. The bank was slippery and the dark waters at her feet were bottomless. Ominous. One false step and she’d fall in, sink and be pulled down, sucked into a quagmire of quicksand. He yelled, extending his hand. He had to reach her. “Harper, please! Step back, look at me. I’ll keep you safe!”
Moaning, Revel tossed and turned. Sweat beaded on his body. An aching hurt seemed powerful enough to wrench his heart from his chest. “Harper!”
With a start, he sat up in bed, looking frantically around. “C’est mon cauchemar.” This is my nightmare. Dempsey Jones used to blame a restless, sleepless night on the curse of cauchemars—witches. Old Cajun men like his father believed the cauchemars turned men into horses and rode them through the river bottoms. Once they woke in the morning, the individual would say they were hag-ridden. Revel knew his nightmare wasn’t brought on by a witch but by heartsickness.
Rising, he showered, dressed and prepared to face the day. During the night, as most nights, he worried and wondered about Harper. Over and over again, he replayed the last conversation they’d had when she dropped the bomb that she didn’t want him, he wasn’t man enough for her. The words had wounded him. Looking back on what they’d shared—how could she say that? What had another man been able to give her that made his love so worthless? Something wasn’t right—every instinct Revel had told him the woman he loved was in trouble. She needed him. Sometimes he wanted to tear his heart out, he felt like he was running out of time. The trouble was—he didn’t know which way to run to find her.
Checking the clock, he went outside, bounded off the porch and walked down to the water’s edge to check his trot lines. He kept a few off the dock attached to cypress tree stumps baited with crappie, and some strung on empty milk jugs to keep them afloat. Today, he hoped for enough catfish to take to Patrick and Savannah’s for their fish-fry and some to send home in a cooler with Beau and Harley. Whistling, he squatted at the end of the wooden dock and began to pull in the lines. The sun was just beginning to peek over the tops of the trees and the occasional splash as a frog jumped off a log or a gator slithered off the bank met his ears.