“You coming in?”
She shook her head. “I need to get home. It’ll be hours before she delivers, and I’ve got some stuff I need to get done.”
He glanced back at the hospital. “I’ll give you a ride.”
“No need. I already let Sadie know what’s going on. She should be here in a few minutes.”
“You sure?”
She forced a small smile. She had so much she wanted to say to him, but not yet. Not when his best friends needed him. “I’m sure.”
Cowboy’s eyes slid down to the space between their feet, his hand grasping the back of his neck. “Listen, about everything I told you earlier—”
“Not now, Cowboy. Go be with Logan and Cole. We’ll talk about all this later, I promise.”
He nodded. “You know I’m going to hold you to that.”
Now, more than twenty-four hours later, she still hadn’t gotten up the nerve to go see him. Instead, she’d spent virtually every second since keeping busy with work and plans. She’d barely slept through the night, and after waking around five in the morning to Cowboy’s text, she’d gotten dressed and come straight to the B&B. She’d spent the day watching from the sidelines as Keith Tucker’s crew was hard at work installing quartz countertops throughout the kitchen and bathrooms.
Harper put her phone away and stared at the room that was slowly coming together around her. Between Keith’s amazing use of space and Sadie’s flawless eye for colors, she felt like she was standing in a completely different kitchen than the one in which her mother had hosted daily breakfasts for their guests. Where the walls had once been covered in a blue floral wallpaper, they now surrounded Harper with a pale gray with white trim that brightened the room and would stand out beautifully against the dark oak floorboards once they were stained.
Harper marveled at the white custom cabinets she’d second-guessed only days ago, as well as the newly installed black quartz countertops. She couldn’t wait to see how the white brick backsplash would tie it all together. She’d given Sadie complete say over the kitchen, from paint to the exact appliance models she wanted, and Harper was so glad she had. She could already see their guests sipping coffee at the wide island bar or spread out around a massive kitchen table, giving praise for whatever amazing breakfast Sadie made for them that morning.
At least, Harper hoped it would be Sadie’s breakfast. She hadn’t mentioned it to her sister yet, but seeing just how at home Sadie had become creating delicious meals in their kitchen the last several weeks, Harper couldn’t imagine finding anyone else more suited. After all, this house belonged to both of them, and she wanted nothing more than to keep it that way.
Harper walked around the large island to examine the empty glass-front cabinet doors just barely at eye level. She and Sadie would need to plan a day to go looking at dinnerware soon. Not to mention cookware, utensils, and the giant kitchen table she was getting specially made. Then there was seating and towels and a hundred other little things they’d need to make the space both functional and cozy. Harper’s to-do list kept growing with each new item they needed to complete before they opened in two months.
Two months. She could hardly believe that was all the time that stood between her and her childhood dream becoming a reality. She’d had no idea that coming back to Willow Creek would mean refurbishing her parents’ old bed and breakfast, but now that it was happening she couldn’t imagine doing anything else. Harper was already so proud of how far this crazy plan of hers had come. She just hoped her parents would have felt the same way.
The front door creaked, pulling Harper from her musings. She hustled out into the hallway—who would be stopping by this late in the afternoon? Sunlight flooded the hallway as Sadie and Byrdie spilled through the doorway, the latter holding a plate of something in her hands.
“Hey, sugar,” Byrdie called out. “I was trying out a new cookie recipe and wanted to bring you and Sadie some to taste. When she said you were here, we decided to take a drive and bring them to you.” She handed the plate off to Harper and took a look around the entryway. She let out a low whistle. “Place looks good.”
“All thanks to Sadie,” Harper said, pointing at her sister. “I couldn’t have done any of this without her.”
Sadie shrugged, her blond, messy bun bouncing on the top of her head. “Yeah, you’re probably right.”
“And she thinks I’m the modest one.” Harper turned on her heels, carrying the plate into the kitchen.
“Well, your parents would be proud…of both of you,” Byrdie told them as she and Sadie followed Harper into the kitchen. Harper set the cookies on her beautiful new counters, grabbed one off the top, and took a bite.
“These are amazing.”
Sadie grinned. “I know, right? They’ll be the perfect snack for our movie night tonight.”
“What movie are you girls watching?” Byrdie asked.
“Not sure yet,” Sadie mused. “Something with the King probably. Or maybe we’ll go for a good tearjerker. Harper’s been in the right mood for one of those lately.”
Byrdie leaned back against the island counter. “Sadie tells me Logan had her baby early this morning.”
“Yep,” Harper mumbled through a mouthful of cookie.
“Why aren’t you there with them? Don’t you want to see her?”
“I will. I just want to give them some space first. They’ve probably got a whole bunch of family and close friends there already. They don’t want me getting in the way.”
“I’m sure that’s not true,” Byrdie scolded.
Sadie popped up beside Harper, snatched her own cookie from the pile, and waved it in front of her face. “I can think of at least one person there who’s dying to see you.”
“Sadie, don’t,” she warned.
Byrdie’s eyes narrowed. “Am I missing something? I thought we were mad at Cowboy again.”
“We were,” Sadie chirped. “Until we found out he never actually cheated.”
“You’re kidding! What about that girl Harper saw?”
Sadie leaned in. “His sister.”
“He doesn’t have a sister.”
“Or does he?” She wiggled her eyebrows. “Apparently, it’s this whole thing with a secret baby-daddy and this whole other family. Their relationship is totally like a Days of Our Lives episode. So much drama.”
“Could you please not talk about it like I’m not here?” Harper reprimanded.
“Well, maybe if you had any sense right now, we’d let you be part of the conversation.” Sadie turned a serious eye on her sister. “Cowboy didn’t cheat on you. And he loves you. What more do you need?”
“Nothing. I know he didn’t do anything. I know that everything’s different now, and he deserves another chance because he did nothing wrong.”
“So what’s the problem?” Sadie cried.
“The problem is me. It’s what I did.” She hoped maybe that answer alone would satisfy, but she looked up to find Sadie and Byrdie still watching her, waiting. “I ran away without even giving him a chance. I thought he broke my heart, but I ended up being the one to hurt him. For years he thought love meant getting hurt, and I proved him right.” Her voice cracked. “How can I ever forgive myself for that? For what I did to him?”
Sadie’s frown was full of the pity Harper had hated since she was a little girl, and her blue eyes glistened. “Harper…”
She shook her head, her breath hitching. “He thought he wasn’t good enough for me, but I’m the one who doesn’t deserve him.”
“Oh, sugar.” Byrdie came around the kitchen island and threw her arms around Harper. “I’m going to tell you something your momma once told me.” She pulled back, keeping her hands on Harper’s shoulders and looking her straight in the eyes. “My husband and I had just split after six years of marriage. I was crushed and broken. I didn’t think I could ever put myself out there like that again, knowing I could get hurt. And she said, ‘Byrdie, relationships are like starting a business
.’”
Sadie snorted. “How romantic.”
“Hush, you,” Byrdie said over her shoulder. “You had your turn to talk. This is mine. Now, Harper, as a sensible businesswoman, did you decide to reopen the B&B thinking everything was going to be perfect? That you’d never have to work hard because everything would just fall in your lap?”
Harper sighed. “No.”
“Hell no. You knew it would be hard. That there’d be stress headaches and sleepless nights and so much trial and error you’ll start to question everything you thought you knew. But you did it anyway, put yourself all in because you knew that, despite the bad times and the inevitable mistakes, you would work your ass off and make this place a success, even if it killed you. Once you took that first step, you knew you’d get through the rest of it because you had no other choice.”
Byrdie’s hands moved from Harper’s shoulders down to her hands, and she grasped them in her own. Her lips turned up in a smile. “If you really love Cowboy, if you’re both willing to put in the work, there’s nothing you two can’t get through. And both of you will be so much happier for it. And you deserve to be happy, sugar. After all these years focusing on keeping things together, you deserve to let yourself have this one thing.”
Harper wiped at the tears sliding down her cheeks. “What if I screw up? What if I hurt him again? I don’t think I could live with myself.”
“I know you’re scared. But the best things in life come from facing that fear, from taking that leap and daring to fall.”
Those words were like a switch flipping in her mind. Sitting in a bar across from a man she couldn’t figure out as she downed three scorching shots. Breaking into an empty house and shedding her layers of control as she sobbed in his arms.
Dancing with a stranger in a crowded club.
Swimming naked in the lake on a moonlit night.
Jumping off a bridge into murky water.
Saying I love you to the only man she’d ever cared about and offering herself to him in the most intimate and vulnerable way possible.
Moments that had once felt like insurmountable obstacles had become memories of thrill and pride for Harper. And it was all because of Cowboy. With him, she’d not only faced her fears, but she’d come out stronger and happier in the end. She’d found a courage and excitement for life she hadn’t known since her parents’ deaths.
“You still think you don’t deserve him?” Byrdie asked.
Harper looked up to meet her eyes. “A little.”
She nodded. “You going to let that keep stopping you?”
Harper took a deep breath, then shook her head.
“Then what are you still doing here?”
Chapter Thirty-One
Half an hour later, Harper was navigating her way through Fairview Park Hospital. After saying her goodbyes to Byrdie and Sadie, she’d raced down the highway toward the far side of Dublin. She’d spent the car ride practicing what exactly she was going to say to Cowboy when she saw him, her apology for hurting him, and her promise to never do it again, and her stomach bubbled with nervous energy as she followed the signs to the birthing center.
Once she was sure she’d reached the right place, Harper stopped at the nurses’ station and asked for the room number for Logan Tucker. The heavyset nurse answered her with a cheerful smile that somehow did nothing to ease the tension in Harper’s stomach.
Harper found the door sitting wide open. She stopped just outside, careful not to make a sound as she looked in. It was practically empty, much to her surprise, and her eyes caught instantly on Cowboy. He was pacing the room slowly, taking small, bouncing steps as he gazed down at a bundle of blankets he held in his hands, and Harper felt like the wind had been knocked out of her at the sight of him handling the sweet little newborn so carefully.
The baby made a noise—some sort of cross between a coo and a grunt—and Cowboy’s face lit up with a luminous smile. He dipped his head low, murmuring something back that Harper couldn’t hear.
Only a few feet away, Logan and Cole were sitting side by side, filling up the wide hospital bed. They leaned back against the elevated mattress, Lo watching Cowboy and her baby with the content smile of a woman who’d just found her purpose in life. Cole held Logan close with his arm around her waist, and he stared down at his wife with so much love and respect it made Harper’s chest ache.
She looked back at Cowboy, who grinned down at some microscopic movement the baby had made, and prayed she wasn’t too late for her own happiness.
“Knock, knock,” Harper muttered, lightly tapping her knuckle on the door. All eyes darted to where she stood. Cowboy froze mid-bounce, his blue eyes turning a shade brighter as they took her in. Her cheeks heated. She’d been working for hours and probably looked like a complete mess. Why hadn’t she thought to stop by the house to change first? Or at the very least run a brush through her hair?
“Harper, you finally made it!” Lo’s smile stretched across her thin face. She waved her in.
“Sorry. I would have come earlier, but I’ve been at the B&B all day. Plus, I figured you’d have enough visitors crowding around you as it was.”
Lo giggled. “You have no idea. Between my parents and Cole’s entire family, we haven’t gone five minutes without someone fussing over us or the baby. It’s only quiet now because we convinced Carly and Darren to take them all out to dinner for an hour or two, just to give us a break. You really couldn’t have come at a better time.”
Harper glanced at Cowboy, who’d clearly been exempt from the category of fussing family members. Then she took in his clothes—the same jeans and T-shirt he’d been wearing at the antique market yesterday. He’d yet to leave Cole and Logan’s sides since they all arrived at the hospital.
Her eyes jumped to Logan. “How are you doing?”
“We’re doing great thanks to you. I’m not sure I would have gotten through this without you.”
“I really didn’t do anything.”
“Are you kidding? You took control of the whole situation. You helped keep me calm when I didn’t think I could handle it. I can never thank you enough for that,” she said with all seriousness.
Cole’s arm wrapped even tighter around his wife. “We can never thank you enough. I’m pretty sure Cowboy would have pissed himself if you hadn’t talked them both through it. It was a good thing you were there.”
“I’m just glad those three years at med school weren’t a complete waste,” Harper murmured. She looked over at Cowboy and found him staring at her.
His eyes fell to the baby in his arms and then rose back up to her. “Do you want to hold her?”
She looked to Logan for approval before nodding her reply. She took several steps forward, shaking only slightly as Cowboy maneuvered the baby into her waiting arms. She cradled the warm bundle close to her chest and gazed down at a pudgy pink face topped with thick, dark brown hair. Blue eyes looked back at her, as if scrutinizing her, deciding if she measured up.
Cowboy stood in front of them, his eyes traveling from Harper to the baby and back again. Harper tried not to think about how close he was. “She’s beautiful,” she told Logan. “Did you finally settle on a name? Or should I just call her Baby for the first couple years?”
Lo’s eyes narrowed in a playful scowl. “Not funny.”
“Harper,” Cole said, “we’d like you to meet Caroline Maddox Tucker.”
Harper froze. “Maddox?”
Lo nodded. “We said we wanted something original. And even though we swore not to name her after family, we decided to make an exception. We want Maddox to grow up knowing she’s named after the woman who helped bring her into the world.” She tilted her head an inch. “After her aunt Harper.”
Aunt Harper.
She knew it probably wasn’t a big deal to them. This baby doubtless had a dozen “aunts” and “uncles” who weren’t really related, like Carly and Cowboy, for instance. But still, after years of watching it getting smaller and smaller
, it felt nice be able to add a name to her family for once.
“Do you like it?”
Harper looked down at baby Maddox again, her smile growing as her heart stretched, making a new space for this innocent little girl she barely even knew. “I love it.”
*
The next hour was filled with laughter as the four of them shared their own perspectives on the birth of little Maddox. Harper glanced at the clock for what felt like the thousandth time since she’d settled into the chair by Logan’s bed. She really was happy to see Logan and Cole and the baby doing so well. But, even as Cole described the moment he first looked into his little girl’s eyes, she was anxiously counting down the seconds until she could get Cowboy alone to tell him everything she’d been practicing in the car on the way over.
Logan’s phone chirped in her hand. “Carly says they’re on their way back.”
“That’s my cue to get going,” Harper said, rising from her seat.
“No, stick around,” Logan pleaded.
“I wish I could, but Sadie and I have plans for a movie night tonight. I just wanted to check in on you two, and to see that sweet girl, of course,” she only half lied, pointing at the precious child sleeping in Cole’s arms. She squeezed Lo’s arm. “Take care and rest up.”
“I will. And as soon as I’m back in action, you and me are going out for a girls’ night.”
“You’ve got it.” She leaned forward and gave Lo a hug. She turned to Cowboy, her request to talk poised on the tip of her tongue.
“I should get going, too,” he said before she could even get the first words out. He looked at Harper. “Any chance I can get a ride back to town with you?”
Harper nodded, and Lo sighed. “I’d try to guilt you into staying, but seeing as you haven’t left once in the last thirty-six hours, I figure you might have earned a break.”
“That your nice way of saying you’re getting sick of me?”
Cole chuckled. “More like her nice way of saying you smell like shit and need a shower.”
Cowboy patted Cole’s shoulder, then ran a knuckle over the sleeping baby’s cheek. “You keep these two out of trouble while I’m gone, you hear? They’re your responsibility now.” Cole flipped Cowboy off with his free hand.
Daring to Fall Page 24
