A clattering sound intruded on her consciousness next and she pulled her attention away from the beautiful items to glance toward the noise. A little red wagon rattled by, dragged by a teenager and her companion, both girls wearing cropped jeans and delicate white blouses. Those indie tomato marketers she’d run into before, Harper thought, then turned back to the beautiful throws, wondering if she could get away with leaving Mad a goodbye gift. Too I’m hung up on you and please don’t ever forget me?
But the seafoam throw was just that tempting.
As she fingered it again, a cool breeze tickled her cheek and she glanced over her shoulder once more, a disquiet suddenly intruding on her happy day. Those pretty white blouses the girls wore were quite special and while fetching with the denim, they didn’t look modern at all. And not just in their design.
They were definitely vintage, she decided.
Antique.
Remembering the garments that had been stolen from a clothesline in the area of Sunnybird Farm, Harper strode out of the booth and, putting her hand at her brows to shade her eyes, looked in the direction she’d last seen the girls. They were turning down another aisle, that little red wagon lumbering behind them, greenery filling its bed.
Greenery that looked to be tied with yellow ribbon, just like they used at Sunnybird Farm.
Just like those herb bundles that had gone missing the day before.
“You’re not forgetting anything, Mom,” she murmured, then started after them.
She scurried around the corner they’d taken and ducked into the closest booth. The pair stood in the one alongside it, and through the canvas divider, she could hear them asking a foursome if they were interested in buying some fresh herbs straight off a nearby farm.
“And tied with such pretty ribbons too,” one of the shoppers said. “How much are you charging?”
The amount they named sounded way too much for stolen merchandise, Harper thought, grinding her molars. These little thieves were not going to get away with it. Hauling in a deep breath, she took a moment to steady herself and then marched out to confront them.
But they were already moving down the aisle on their quick-moving teenage legs and in their—probably— purloined blouses.
“Hey!” she yelled, her sandals clacking against the blacktop as she tried to match their pace. “Hey!”
The girls’ shiny hair swung out in identical arcs as they turned their heads.
“Stop! You have my herbs!”
Eyes widening, they faced forward again and started to run.
They wore white sneakers, not clunky-heeled sandals that slapped the soles of her feet as she tried to keep up with them. It wasn’t difficult for the girls to take an impressive lead, but Harper didn’t let it flatten her determination. She continued onward, fueled by anger and the certainty that a couple of kids were not going to get the better of her.
Or get anything from her family’s farm.
The pair made it past the market’s northern barricade, the girls ducking beneath the sawhorses-and-caution-tape barrier.
“Stop!” The repeated command didn’t cause them to pause. The teens kept going, skidding into a large dirt overflow parking area. Following, Harper skidded too, grit finding its way between her soles and sandals. She grimaced as little pebbles poked into her skin, but she continued moving.
Until those evil children shoved the wagon in her direction. Trying to avoid it, she slid on her heels, but the red metal devil caught her in the shins anyway, and with the speed, the slippery surface, and her imbalance in the cute sandals, she went over the metal thing, then down.
Pain bloomed on knee, elbow, face.
Chapter Thirteen
“Why are you here?” Mad asked Raf, glancing around. “Are you escorting some woman?”
“That would be you, Mad. You’ve got the lady of your dreams on one arm and heartache on the other.”
He ignored the statement. “Seriously. What brings you to a farmers market twenty miles from home? You can get this stuff at the one in Sawyer Beach on Sunday or just hit Duffy’s which always does it—”
“Green and local,” Raf finished for him. He glanced to the side, then back at Mad. “I’m looking for this particular vanilla-almond oil, special stuff, that a, uh, friend of mine really likes and hasn’t been able to find in Sawyer Beach. She said a woman up the coast makes it and sells it at some local venues. This seemed like a possibility.”
Mad crossed his arms over his chest. “What friend?”
Raf’s gaze ran away again.
“Not your brother’s friend, please assure me. You’re not pursuing Shane’s girl, are you?”
“I’m pursuing vanilla-almond oil.”
“Raf—”
“Don’t you have your own problems?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Mad groused, even as he looked around. “Did you see where Harper took off to?”
“That’s what she’s going to do, isn’t it?” Raf asked. “Take off, I mean. Leaving you with that empty place beside you.”
Mad spun around, barely registering his friend’s pointed words. “Seriously. Did you see where she went?”
“Seriously, Mad. She’s going to leave you again. You get that, right?”
What he got right now was that he couldn’t see her, and for some reason, his gut wasn’t liking the idea at all. He shoved a hand through his hair and took two steps forward, peering around the edge of a booth. Then he reared back, startled by the sight of large gourds carved into life-sized human heads—Clooney, Prince Harry, a clown.
“Christ,” he muttered.
“I’m going to have nightmares,” Raf said at his side, sounding awed. “Do you think people buy those? Do you think people can make a living carving those? If so, why have I spent the best years of my life dangerous feet off the ground nailing shingles? I might have fallen and died in the pursuit of a dollar when I could have been in my backyard recreating the Three Stooges or Richard Nixon or maybe one of those Scream masks.”
Ignoring him, Mad began striding amongst the booths, looking for a green-eyed brunette who’d captured his heart. He stopped at the thought, his abrupt cessation of movement causing Raf to slam into his back. They both stumbled forward.
He turned on his friend, his temper ragged. “Watch where the hell you’re going.”
“That’s what I’m trying to tell you, Mad,” Raf said, straightening his shirt. “Watch where you’re going with this…thing with Harper.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” he muttered.
“Look at how you’re acting, Mad. Nuts, just because the girl gave you the slip. Don’t you see—”
“It’s too late,” he shouted at Raf. He shoved both hands through his hair now, frustrated that she remained out of sight and pole-axed by the truth. Talk about a nightmare. He lowered his voice five notches. “I’ve gone ahead and done it, damn you. I’m in love with her.”
“Shit.” His friend fell back a step. Then his gaze shifted over Mad’s shoulder. “Shit.”
“What?” Mad spun and took in the figure limping in their direction. He squinted. Then sprinted. “Harp!”
She waved off his concern even before he made it to her side. “I’m fine,” she said. “Took a little tumble.”
“And then got run over by a truck?” Dirt clung to her hair and clothes and there was blood oozing from a scrape on her forehead. Raw skin made a shiny wet trail from one nostril up toward the bridge of her nose. A painful looking patch of road rash bloomed on her jaw.
“It was a Radio Flyer wagon.” She gestured again. “And I tripped over it.”
He grabbed her wrist and turned her arm to see another angry scrape on her elbow. There was more road rash on one knee. He could feel her trembling.
Raf showed up with a bottle of water and he unscrewed the top. “Here,” he said, holding it toward Harper. “Drink some of this.”
Instead, she pushed it back toward him. “Would you pour tha
t over the wounds on my face? I want to get the dirt out ASAP.”
“I can do it,” Mad said, mildly annoyed. Raf was a roofer, for God’s sake. Mad had first aid courses under his belt.
“I’ll need you to hold me up,” she announced, then promptly sagged against him.
“Christ.” He caught her in his arms, her head lolling on his shoulder, then carried her to a nearby bench. Adrenaline surged in his system, making him feel hyperaware and overprotective. As he sat down, his gaze searched the surrounding shoppers, looking for an unspecified threat. What the hell had happened?
Raf came close and he fought a growl rising up his throat. The man came with that bottle of water. He shifted Harper in his arms, her head on his lap, her legs stretched out. “Can you find something to get her feet higher than her heart?”
Raf yanked off his hoodie and made a ball of it that he shoved beneath her sandals.
Harper’s eyelashes didn’t flutter. “Baby,” he said, stroking her uninjured cheek, his pulse shooting around like a pinball. “Wake up.”
“I’ll try to clean her up a little.” Raf dribbled the water onto her forehead, her nose, and then her jaw.
Harper pulled in a sharp breath. Her eyes half-opened. “Mad?”
“Right here, baby,” he said. “Don’t move. Just relax.”
Harp, being Harp, immediately struggled to sit. “What—oh.”
“You fainted. A little physical trauma combined with getting up too fast after falling, I’m guessing.” He tucked her close to him.
She leaned into his side.
“Water,” he said, holding his hand out to Raf.
The other man passed the bottle and he pressed it to Harper’s lips. She drank a little, then took the water from him and drank more greedily.
“Better?” he asked, when she dropped the empty plastic to her lap.
“Better.”
Raf hovered, looking almost as concerned as Mad felt. “I can go to the drugstore and get something for her. Hydrogen peroxide?”
“No,” they said together.
Mad looked to his friend. “Once I told her that stuff wouldn’t hurt and she let me douse a cut on her hand. When the sting kicked in, she kicked me.”
Raf snickered. “You guys got this covered then?” He squatted to look Harper in the eye. “You need anything else?”
She smiled, and its sweetness juxtaposed with her now-battered face broke Mad’s heart. “You’re a good man, Raf. I’m fine now. Mad will take excellent care of me.”
Raf met his gaze. “I’m sure of that. But make it mutual, okay?”
Her smile died. “What?”
“Raf’s gotta go,” Mad said, his tone firm. “And we do too, if you’re up to leaving this bench, Harp. I want to get you home.”
“We need to do that.” Harper dropped her head to his shoulder. “Thanks.”
She dozed on the way back to Sawyer Beach and he was glad for that. It gave him quiet time to get his pulse under control and his brain to settle. Because realizing he’d fallen in love with her had knocked him on his ass, and then she’d been knocked on her ass. There’d been no time to figure out what the hell he should do now.
So…what the hell should he do now?
No answer presented itself by the time he pulled into the gravel drive at her family’s house. She roused as he braked, but he jogged around the front of the car so he could open the passenger door and help her out. He was prepared to carry her inside, but she slid to her feet and walked on her own, though she didn’t object or pull away when he put an arm around her waist.
In the family room, she settled on the cushions of the soft-looking couch and he breathed easy for the first time in over an hour. With his shoulder against a wall, he watched over her as her mother arrived, expressing concern and sympathy. When Rebecca brought her daughter a cup of hot tea and opened a first aid kit, he was gratified the older woman asked the question plaguing him.
“Honey, what happened?”
Then Harper came out with the story. She’d seen two teenagers and a red wagon filled with herb bundles that had gone missing from the Sunnybird Farm booth the day before. Suspecting them to be the thieves, she’d gone after them, intending a confrontation.
The girls had shoved their wagon at Harper as she ran at them, causing her to take a header onto the dirt parking lot.
Rebecca grimaced.
Mad bellowed, his voice pressing against the walls of the room. “Someone was intentionally trying to hurt you?” He’d been upset when he’d encountered her on the beach, trapped with those two lame-ass hoodlums. Now he thought the top of his head would blow off. “Why didn’t you say so immediately?”
“Busy fainting.”
The answer didn’t cool him. “And why did you go off on your own like that anyway?”
“I told you I was going to explore.”
“But—”
“You didn’t ask me to stay.”
“That’s…that’s not a good answer.”
She looked at him like his head had blown off. “Mad, I can take care of myself.”
This had to be what a heart attack felt like, he decided, and gestured at her bruises and scrapes. “Obviously.”
“Mad—”
“Why didn’t you tell me your mom had herbs stolen yesterday? Why didn’t you get me when you saw those girls at the farmers market and let me handle it?”
“I didn’t tell you about the missing herbs because…because I don’t know, we were having a nice day and it didn’t occur to me.” Her brows drew together. “Then it all happened so quickly. You were talking to Raf, I saw the herbs, I went after the girls.”
The look on her face made it clear she thought him unreasonable.
Was he being unreasonable? This whole damn thing felt unreasonable! How could he have fallen in love, how could she have gotten so bruised and banged up on his watch, how could she not understand it was important that he be the person she came to when trouble happened?
Because you’ve never told her how you feel, dumbshit, a voice said in his head. Not before. Not since she arrived back in Sawyer Beach. And not when you realized you were in love with her again, which was not an entirely new revelation to you today. You should have told her while you were changing her stupid tire. Because deep down you knew then, too.
“After her unsatisfying explanation I left the house,” he told Shane, as they sat in the other man’s van, parked at the beach. “Because I thought strangling her in front of her mother was in bad taste.”
“And it would have put your mother, the mayor, in a difficult position too.”
“Right.”
They stared out at the ocean. His buddy had called, saying he was taking a rare morning off, and invited Mad along to determine if the waves made it worth getting wet.
Their boards were stowed in the back, but the surf was flat. “We should have saved time and paid attention to the local report,” Mad said.
“I never trust the local report,” Shane said. “And I had a feeling about coming here today.”
“You going back to work now?”
Shane shook his head. “My crew can do without me for a couple of hours.”
“You likely have someone you want to spend time with more than me if we’re not able to surf.”
His friend stretched, then settled back in his seat. There was no man more laidback. “Like I said, I have a feeling this is where I’m supposed to be.” Then he smirked. “I don’t need to be looking at you to know you’re rolling your eyes.”
Shaking his head, Mad chuckled. “I still don’t understand why, if you’re clairvoyant, you don’t win the lottery every week.”
“Cooper’s our lucky man. I definitely do get feelings on occasion, though. About a situation or a person.”
“What about the new woman you’re seeing?” Mad tried to forget Raf and his search for the perfect vanilla-almond oil. “She’s special?”
Shane pushed his hair out of his eyes and looked
over. “That girl is going to bring profound changes to my life.”
“Dude.”
“What?”
“I don’t believe such a grand statement coming from you unless you end it with ‘dude.’ That girl is going to bring profound changes to my life, dude.”
“You think you’re so funny.” Shane frowned. “But I’m serious. I can’t shake the notion that—”
“She’s going to shake up your world. Women have a way of doing that.”
“Dude,” Shane added with a smile, then paused. “So what are you going to do about your own personal shake-up?”
“I don’t have to do anything. She’ll do it for me.” Come, go, break his heart. “I’m just letting things ride.”
“You’re slow-playing it then,” Shane said.
“What? I recognize the poker term, of course, but…”
“You’re playing it cool. Allowing her to think she has control of the table—in this case your relationship. She goes along believing she has the better hand and then wham, you’ll throw down your full house. And win the big pot.”
Mad stared at his friend, but that didn’t cause the metaphor to make any better sense to him. “Whatever,” he finally said.
“The response of wise men everywhere.”
“Hey…” Mad’s voice trailed off as he saw two young men, carrying surfboards under their arms, stroll from the sand to a junk heap of a car parked a few rows behind Shane’s van. From the sideview mirror, he watched them strap the boards on the roof rack, then peel off their wetsuits. “That’s those two little shitheads.”
Shane glanced around then adjusted his rearview mirror and looked there. “Oh, yeah.” Then he rubbed the back of his neck. “What’s their story?”
“Nineteen, no jobs, no nothing good going for them.”
Shane grunted.
“Where do they get the scratch to fill the tank of their crap ride—guzzler for sure,” Mad mused aloud, “or those custom wetsuits or those shiny new boards that cost at least a G each?”
SLOW PLAY (7-Stud Club Book 4) Page 17
