“For how long?”
Chance got a twisted, guilty look on his face. “Kodie and I have to leave tonight. We don’t have a choice.”
“There’s always a choice.” Her anger at his leaving couldn’t be contained. He had to know that his decisions affected not only him, but Starling — and her.
“No. In this case I have to go to the games. I made a promise I have to keep.”
“Lots of promises, aren’t there?” She stood up and wiped off her knees a little too hard.
“Stumbelina,” Kodie said in a light-hearted tone, “why don’t you come with us?”
“Kodie, no … ” Chance started. He caught her eyes and stopped.
“I can’t.” She couldn’t tear her gaze away from Chance’s confused face.
“Why can’t you?” Kodie shrugged. “Ain’t no reason for you to be sticking around here. From the state of this bathroom you ain’t much of a plumber.”
“I have to get the house on the market and get back to Seattle. My job is waiting.”
“How much time do you have off? Our little trip to Vegas will only take a couple of days. In and out. Real quick.”
Chance gripped the doorframe as if he was about to rip it from the wall. Something about his anxiety made Harper consider Kodie’s offer. She and Chance couldn’t have a relationship, but maybe they could at least build a friendship. Starling would need her.
There would be little chance of her convincing Chance to settle down for Starling, but maybe she could make him see how important it was that Starling lead a normal life during her last year of high school.
And more than anything … if she went with them, there wouldn’t be another goodbye. At least not for a few days. She could go on pretending she wasn’t alone in the world.
“I don’t think it’s a good idea, Harper. I mean, I want you there and everything — ”
“Great,” she said, cutting Chance off. “Then it’s settled, I’ll be going to Vegas with you. You all need someone to take care of Starling for a few days while you’re playing in your tournament. She can’t be running around Vegas on her own.”
“This isn’t a great idea, Harper. I don’t want you to get hurt.”
She was already hurt. All she could do now was learn to deal with the pain.
Harper leaned back against the wall, letting it support her. Behind her something fell into the tub with a loud thump. She turned. Sitting next to her discarded screwdriver was a package. Brown tape circled a familiar plastic square, just like before — this time the only thing missing was the shrimp box.
Harper picked up the package of drugs. On its surface was a logo with the letters “S” and “P.” She’d seen the logo before — on the pen in the table drawer by the front door. The logo belonged to Shaw Pharmaceuticals.
“What in the hell is that?” Kodie asked.
“It’s more evidence that I need to get out of here and get to Las Vegas.”
Chapter Fifteen
The white powder was much the same as the package they had pulled out of the freezer — with one exception. There was a small stamp on the bag that read “S P.” Chance turned the bag of drugs over in his hands. “Are you sure that this isn’t heroin?”
Harper shrugged. “Without a chemical analysis it is hard to say, but assuming this packet actually came from Shaw Pharmaceuticals, it’s hard to imagine that it’s heroin — or any other illicit drug.”
Something about this struck him as odd. “What do you know about Shaw Pharmaceuticals?”
Harper’s face scrunched the way it always did when she was thinking. “It’s just a normal pharmaceutical company. Right now they’re working on a synthetic form of a drug used in the treatment of breast cancer.”
“Is there some reason your sister would be in possession of a large amount of one of their drugs? Was she sick? Nymphs can’t get breast cancer, can they?”
“A nymph? What are you talking about, Chance?” Harper jerked and looked over at Kodie, as if reminding him to stay silent about her secret.
“I’m sorry … ” Chance stammered. He hadn’t meant to out her. Never. He hadn’t been thinking. “I didn’t mean … ”
Kodie gave Harper his most heartwarming smile. “Don’t worry about it, Stumbelina — your secret’s safe with me.”
Harper glared at Chance. “You had no right to tell anyone my secret. I thought I could trust you, but once again, I was wrong.” She turned around and walked out of the room, leaving him with the guilt that always seemed to swallow him in her wake.
He handed Kodie the parcel of drugs and chased after her. He’d made a mistake, yes. But Kodie was the person he’d trusted more than any other for the last decade — he’d never had to keep anything, aside from his cards, a secret from him. She had to be made to understand she could trust the man with the same confidence.
“Harper, stop,” Chance called out after her as he moved down the hallway toward the stairs.
She spun around, her hair flipping around her like the blades of a fan. “How dare you … ” she seethed.
“I’m sorry. It’s not like he wouldn’t have found out anyway, now you’re going to go to Vegas with us. He knows about Carey and nymphs — he would have figured it out as soon as the men started to flock.”
“That’s not the point, and you know it.” She drew her arms in tight over her chest. Even though she was angry he couldn’t help but notice the way her breasts pressed hard against the purple fabric of her shirt, almost as if they were as angry with him as she was.
“Why do you always have to find some reason to push me away? To be angry with me? In case you haven’t noticed, it’s not as if I want to be on the move with a teenage girl.”
“If you don’t want to go, then why are you running off like there’s fire under your feet? You just can’t seem to get away from me fast enough, can you?”
“This has nothing to do with you, Harper.”
“That’s a lie and you know it.” Harper glared at him. “The truth is that you can’t stand getting close to another person. The only person you think you can trust is him … ” She gestured at Kodie in the bathroom. “If you didn’t run all the time, you’d figure out there are more people in this world you can trust … if you just let yourself be open.”
“I was open with you, Harper. I told you who and what I really am — how is that not enough for you?” His sudden anger seemed to catch her off-guard as if she had assumed he wouldn’t fight back, that he was just another person she could control.
“You told me the truth about how you came to be, but don’t think your confession told me anything. Yes, your father was a god, but that doesn’t tell me who you are.”
“What is it you want to know?”
Harper dropped her arms. “I want to really know you. Not this bullshit version of yourself you fed me the other night. You can’t stand there and pretend you’re perfect — that you’re not hiding something.”
“What makes you think I’m hiding something?” Chance jerked before he could stop himself.
“You can’t tell me you don’t feel something for me.”
She was right. He did feel something for her. He did want more, but he couldn’t give her what she needed. And because he cared for her, he couldn’t keep her hoping that they could become something more. “I do have feelings for you, Harper. But I have lied.”
Harper leaned back against the wall as she seemed to collect herself. “If you even want to be my friend, you’re going to need to tell me the truth.”
“Fine.” Chance stuffed his hand in his back pocket. “You want to know the truth about me and what a terrible man I have been?”
Harper nodded.
“I knew about the curse of the nymphs. I knew about what and who Carey was and I left her because I was scare
d. I was scared about getting involved with someone who wouldn’t want to love me back. Hell, I was scared about falling in love with someone who would love me back. Plain and simple, I wasn’t ready for anything real.”
“Are you ready now?”
“If you want the honest truth … I don’t really know. But I do know there are some things which have to be handled before I can think about taking that step with anyone … no matter how badly I want to.”
A smile flickered on Harper’s lips, but was replaced with a look of concern. “And those things are?”
“As you know, Kodie there,” Chance said, jabbing his thumb in the direction of the bathroom, “decided it was a good idea to take a loan from a loan shark.”
“I still can’t believe it, what kind of a moron — ”
“Hey, you two … don’t forget I can hear you,” Kodie called from the bathroom.
Chance snorted. “It’s funny how well you can hear when you’re supposed to be minding your own business.”
“Hey now,” Kodie answered, a playful edge to his voice. “You know there isn’t anything better than two lovers squabbling.”
Chance stepped next to Harper and slid his arms around her shoulders. “Let’s go downstairs where we can finish talking in private.” He looked back over his shoulder at the bathroom door. “And Kodie, while you are in there, why don’t you make yourself useful and put the faucet back together?”
“Got it, boss.”
“I know I’m being a pain in the ass,” Harper said, “but you’re not getting out of this that easily. I know there’s more you’re hiding.”
“You are right in one thing … you are a pain in the ass.”
She pulled out of his arms and sauntered down the steps. “I’m not the bigger pain between the two of us — not by a long shot.”
“Hey, it’s not like you have been the picture of honesty either.” He followed her down the steps, out the back door and onto the small wooden deck. The rickety deck overlooked a hillside where one winter-chilled tree stood naked, exposed and vulnerable to the harsh slaps of the icy air.
“I don’t know what the hell you are talking about. I’ve never told anyone else about what I am, but I told you, didn’t I? And you let my secret slip. Why would I trust you again?”
“I’m sorry. I should have never let it slip. But that doesn’t change that you’re hiding things from me as well.”
“Like what?” she scoffed, making him wonder if he had gotten her all wrong. For a second, he considered shutting his mouth and stopping right there. Yet there was no point in him giving her everything he had if she wasn’t going to give back in return. He needed to know she was a bet he could take, or if he should walk away.
“What happened between you and your sister? You seem to have loved her so much, I can’t figure it out — why all of a sudden you’d pack up your things and start a new life. You don’t seem like the type to run.”
“I … you’re right … ” Harper tried to find her words. “I’m not the type to run. But I’m also not the type to sit around and watch someone take my life and ruin their own.”
“What are you talking about?”
“My sister and I used to love to shift into swans and make our own little bevy. We’d take to the sky almost every day. It was fabulous. We would use our shift to get over whatever was bothering us, but one day she didn’t want to go and then the next and the next.”
Harper stepped to the edge of the deck and leaned over the railing, dangerously close to falling over the weak boards that supported her. Instinctively, Chance stepped toward her, ready to catch her if she fell. “Why?”
“At the time I was married. He seemed like a great man. Smart, motivated, and, as it turned out, terribly narcissistic. He wasn’t happy with me — I was the one who always stayed close to the ground, the one who never took a chance and only took pleasure from things that were static … What can I say, other than I just wasn’t enough for him.”
“But your sister was?”
“They didn’t get together right away. Jenna tried to stop from having feelings, but he needed to possess her. What man doesn’t have some fantasy about sisters?” She hid her face, but Chance could tell she was crying from the soft trembling of her shoulders. “It wasn’t long after he fell in love with Jenna before he was taken by the curse, making it more than clear that he’d never loved me. I lost everything. My husband. My sister. My life. I never want to be in that place … that personal hell brought on by love … ever again.”
He stepped behind her and pushed her hair away from her neck, exposing the little black tattoo at its base. He moved closer, basking in the floral scent of her shampoo which almost overpowered her subtle scents of fresh air mixed with a hint of down. “Any man who wouldn’t be happy with a wonderful woman like you would be a fool. You’re so amazing. You’re smart, and ambitious — you can’t stop loving because of your past. You told me I need to be open … but maybe the one who really needs to be open is you. You need to be open to love. You need to live.”
“Chance, I can’t fall in love. I can’t love a man knowing that he could die if I let my emotions go unchecked. And you know it. You always have.”
She was right, he was afraid of loving — and of dying for love.
She moved to turn, but he dropped his hands to her hips and stopped her. His lips grazed the naked flesh at the base of her neck. She gasped as he touched her warm flesh.
“I know how much you like to be in control, but not this time.” His voice took on the edge of command, rough and tender at the same time. She seemed to melt under his hands as he pushed his body against hers, letting her feel exactly what she did to him. If she ever doubted how badly he wanted her, she no longer could.
He trailed his kisses up the back of her neck and her body shuddered under his hands. He wished she had been wearing a skirt, something he could easily flip up so he could make love to her here and now, but she was sentenced to the confines of her perfect fitting jeans. Her downy soft hairs brushed against his face, further charging his need to possess her body. How could she do this to him every time they were close? Was it her nymph charms or was it something more? Was it possible that what he was feeling was more than lust? More than the primal need to feel her beneath him?
His fingers twisted underneath her shirt and he found her soft, warm skin. Harper pushed against him and rubbed her body up and down his length, making him moan into the curls of her hair. She sucked in a breath as she rubbed again, faster, hungrier. He reached his fingers higher, pushing them under the wire bottom of her bra. He found her hard beneath his touch. The cloth of her bra and shirt forced his fingers down, but he tried to be gentle as he ran her nipple between his fingers.
“Do you want me to go to Vegas with you?” Harper asked breathlessly.
“Mm hmm.” He couldn’t concentrate; her words seemed to be swimming through a cloud of swirling lust.
There was a knock on the glass sliding door behind them and Harper slipped from Chance’s arms. The door slid open. “Sorry, you two, but there’s a phone call,” Kodie interrupted. “The man says he’s the principal of Starling’s school. Apparently Starling is behind some kind of incident. You may want to take this.”
Chapter Sixteen
She’d never been a parent, but Harper knew that whenever a principal called to report an “incident” there would be no good news to follow. There would be no awards to pick up, no sweet smiles, or slaps on the back. For the first time since they’d found out about Chance having a daughter, she wasn’t envious. She shuddered to imagine sitting in the office, staring at the principal’s austere white walls, filled with the nervous energy of someone who waited to be judged.
Chance turned the truck down the road that led to the high school. A tight scowl was planted on his face.
“I’m gla
d Kodie wanted to stay behind. I didn’t need him cracking Little Miss Trips-A-Lot jokes,” Harper said, trying to lighten the mood, or at the very least make the look of anger disappear from Chance’s beautiful steely eyes.
Chance grumbled an unintelligible response, but the look on his face didn’t flicker.
The knot in her stomach clenched tighter as she thought of how Starling had to be handling the pressure. Starling had already been through so much, it seemed unfair there were more battles to be fought. Yet in life, it always seemed when the disastrous ball of fate started rolling downhill, it only stopped once it had slammed into everything and everyone in its path.
If Starling was a normal girl, instead of a nymph, Harper knew the young woman would have been a mess as she waited for them in the principal’s office. However, having watched how she handled the loss of her mother and her former life, Harper couldn’t help but feel that Chance was probably taking the incident harder than his daughter. Starling had a way of being dismissive of the emotional turmoil surrounding her, but not Chance.
Harper passed a glance over at him, but nothing had changed — his eyes still carried the angry edge of a parent getting ready for a fight that centered on their child. It was hard to imagine him looking fiercer.
Chance pulled the truck to a stop as he parked in front of the beige high school building. The students’ parking lot, which had been unoccupied when Harper had dropped Starling off, was overflowing with empty cars. The main entrance was emblazoned with a bald eagle, but there was nothing to signal there was life behind the predator-covered doors. The emptiness did nothing to comfort her nerves.
“Do you want me to go in with you?” Harper offered, trying to break the tense silence that filled every inch of their space.
Chance squeezed the steering wheel and then glanced, sideways, at her. “Why did you take her to school again?”
Not another fight.
“She wanted to say goodbye to her friends before you took her to God-knows-where.” She stopped. She hadn’t meant to escalate the situation. No. “I mean, I couldn’t say no. She really seemed like she wanted to go to school.”
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