Pretend You're Mine: A Small Town Love Story

by Score, Lucy

  ***

  It was hours before everyone left. But not before every plate, dish, and bowl were spotless and put back in their rightful places. Lola and Max took care of any floor cleanup and helped themselves to the secret plate of turkey that Charlie put under the dining room table for them.

  Night had fallen, and Harper sat down with a cup of coffee in the kitchen to fight the exhaustion of an early rising and a full day of chaos. She was physically and mentally exhausted.

  Luke had stopped drinking after their encounter upstairs. He had withdrawn to the living room where he remained, still watching TV.

  How long could he live like this before he broke down and talked to her about what was going on in his head?

  A stack of mail shoved against the backsplash caught her eye. Judging from the height of the pile, it was several days’ worth of mail. Luke’s disinterest in opening mail was one thing that hadn’t changed during his deployment or since his return.

  She flipped through the stack, sorting as she went.

  Harper’s fingers paused on the envelope with handwriting as familiar as her own. She held the letter gingerly between her fingers. Was it her imagination or could she actually feel the hate through the paper?

  She had read each and every one of the letters in the past few years. Sometimes she boosted her bravery with a large glass of wine. Sometimes she waited until she was good and mad about something else before opening one. Sometimes, if things were good, she put it away for a few weeks before opening.

  Anything to help build a wall between her and the violence simmering within the ink. However, the luxury of waiting days or weeks to read had passed. Now there was an urgency as time ticked down. Someday, she promised herself, she would feel nothing but pity when she opened these letters. And someday they would stop.

  Taking a deep breath, she tore open the envelope. It was the usual single piece of lined notebook paper. The handwriting was a scrawling script that slanted and slashed across the page.

  My dear Harper,

  It’s been too many years since our time together. Why haven’t you come to see me? Are you afraid? I think of you often. There is never a shortage of time here to think and to plan. I have so many plans for you and me. How will I ever choose where to begin? How will I impress upon you the price for these last twelve years? Because there will be a price to pay for taking so much of a man’s life. What have you done with these years? Whatever it is, it won’t be enough to cover the cost of what you took from me. I suppose we will both find out soon enough. Until December.

  Daddy

  December. The years had finally ticked down to a handful of weeks and days. She went upstairs and pulled the box out of the back of the closet. She kicked the lid off and tucked the letter into the folder with the rest.

  She would copy it and send it on its way tomorrow. Melissa would add it to her own file, but there was nothing either of them could do now. No more stays. Not this time.

  She needed to tell Luke. It wasn’t just her anymore. Her past would now affect others. There was no way to keep this from him without putting him in danger. She wanted him to know. It was time to stop running, hiding.

  Harper put the lid on the box and slid it back into its spot on the closet floor. She went downstairs and hovered just inside the living room door.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  Luke pretended not to see her standing in the doorway and stared blankly at the screen. He just wanted this day to be over.

  “Luke, can I talk to you about something? It’s kind of important.”

  He glanced in her direction and she took it as an okay.

  “Something happened and I’m a little worried —”

  He flicked a button on the remote, muting the TV. “I need to talk to you about something, too.”

  “Okay. You go first.” She waited where she was.

  “This isn’t working,” he said, his tone short.

  “What isn’t?”

  “You being here. Us.”

  She stayed silent, eyes wide.

  He stood up, pressed on.

  “‘It’s just a night. It’s just a month. We’re just fostering.’ You came here and just took over. You keep thinking if you tell me everything is just temporary that I’ll let it slide. And maybe you were right. But it’s not going to work anymore.”

  Harper flinched. “Luke, I’m so sorry. I never intended —”

  “You built an entire life around a relationship that doesn’t exist.”

  He saw the shock, the hurt.

  “You know it exists. This isn’t something I made up in my head. I love you.”

  “I don’t love you.”

  She took a step back as if the words physically hurt her.

  “We’re done here,” he turned to stalk out of the room, but Harper grabbed his arm.

  “Is this because of Karen? I know you blame yourself. But it’s not your fault.”

  “We’re not discussing this. You don’t know.” He tried to shrug her off.

  “Luke, I know about the baby.”

  He froze under her grip before he rounded on her.

  “I let you into my home, into my life, and this is how you repay me? Invading my privacy?” It was boiling over. There was no keeping the lid on it now.

  “I’m so sorry, Luke. I’m so sorry that you lost your family. I’m sorry that you feel responsible.” Her gray eyes welled with tears and he hated himself for it.

  “I don’t feel responsible. I am responsible.”

  “You can’t live the rest of your life blaming yourself for an accident that had nothing to do with you.”

  “She was coming to bring me home.” He turned and paced. “We were going to tell everyone about the baby. Do you know how that feels? To anticipate the happiest moment of your life, to live for it for weeks, only to have it destroyed in front of you. I got off that bus and she was dying in mangled metal. Our baby died while I walked across that asphalt to where my family should have been. They died because I wasn’t there. They died because I came back.”

  The tears were coursing down her cheeks now. He looked at her, with her sunny golden hair, her angel face.

  She wasn’t for him. No one was. He had had his chance and blew it.

  “You’re only here because she’s gone.” He whispered the words, which somehow made them sharper. “And you can’t take her place. Not with Joni and not with me.”

  She nodded slowly. “I know that. I’m not trying to do that.”

  “You shouldn’t be here. I don’t want to do this anymore. I can’t do this, Harper. I need you to go.”

  She stood there, watching him. Hope and hurt in her eyes. “I can’t look at you without wishing she was here.”

  The hope died.

  She dropped her gaze to her feet. “I’ll pack a bag and come back for the rest of my things later.”

  He didn’t say a word as she left the living room, just held on to the doorframe for dear life.

  “I’m the one who shouldn’t be here,” he whispered to the dark.

  ***

  Upstairs Harper did what she had done dozens of times before. She packed a bag.

  Numbness had swallowed her and she was grateful. She knew when the pain broke through it would be too much to bear. Keep moving. Don’t think. Just get it done. Get somewhere safe and then … and then.

  She tucked some toiletries and makeup into a small zippered bag and hastily packed a few outfits and her running shoes. She grabbed her phone charger from the nightstand.

  Lola and Max followed her every move. Lola watched with those soulful sad eyes while Max scampered and whimpered. They knew something was wrong.

  She knelt down to bury her face in Lola’s short fur. “I love you guys so much. Thank you for being my family. I have to go, but I need you to take care of Daddy. He needs you right now. So take care of him the way you took care of me when he wasn’t around. Okay? I promise I’ll figure something out. I’ll come back and see you.”r />
  Lola sighed and Max put his front paws on her leg and yipped.

  Harper did her best to swallow the lump in her throat.

  He watched her with the dogs from the doorway and his stomach twisted. He was throwing her out, ending things. While he was taking back his life, she was still worried about taking care of him.

  He wasn’t good for her and she had to learn that.

  Harper Wilde had to learn to take care of herself. He swiped a hand over his face. God, who was going to be there to keep her safe, to remind her to charge her phone or get gas or lock the doors at night?

  She was a smart, sweet, beautiful girl. She wouldn’t be alone for long.

  For just a second, he let himself think about her with another man. His hands fisted at his sides. She would be loved. She would be taken care of. It was what she deserved.

  Harper glanced up from her packing, and noticing him in the doorway, she swiped away the tears. She didn’t make eye contact, just zipped her bag closed and slung it over her shoulder.

  She gave the dogs a last scratch. He saw the tremble in her jaw and watched with admiration as she pulled it back in, tamped it down. His free-spirited girl had a spine of steel.

  “Here,” he said, holding out her phone. “I didn’t want you to forget it.”

  Wordlessly, she took it and slid it in her back pocket. She still hadn’t raised her gaze to meet his. He was almost grateful. Looking into those storm cloud gray eyes might undo him.

  “I want you to take this, too.” He held out a roll of cash.

  She ignored him and pushed past him into the hallway. He followed her down the stairs. “Harper, take the money. I don’t want to worry about you sleeping in your car or —”

  She rounded on him at the foot of the stairs. Their eyes met, and in that second, he realized for the first time that he had no idea what was going on in her head. She had shut it down, cut him off.

  It cut him to the quick.

  But this was the right thing to do. He chanted it in his head. Just get through it. Like ripping off a bandage. A little pain now instead of the years of suffering he would cause her by not being the man she deserved.

  “Please. Take it.” He tried to tuck it into her hand, but she let the bills fall to the floor.

  “I’m no longer your concern,” she said flatly. She looked him in the eye, into his very heart, and turned and walked out the front door, closing it softly behind her.

  Luke watched her toss her bag in her backseat and climb behind the wheel. She never looked back at the house. Just backed out and drove away.

  He walked into the living room and sat down on the couch, expecting to feel relief. But there was only a gnawing emptiness.

  Where was she going to go?

  Why hadn’t he waited until morning? He could have helped her find a place, taken her somewhere. Now, thanks to him she was roaming around at night.

  He stood up and started pacing.

  Everything that his gaze rested on was connected to her. The furniture. The glossy magazines and paperbacks under the coffee table. The raspberry pink fleece hanging next to the front door. Had she even taken a coat with her?

  He pulled the fleece off the hook and brought it to his face. It smelled like her. Sunshine and lemons.

  He didn’t feel relief. He felt sick.

  Maybe he should pack her things for her. So every damn thing in his house didn’t remind him of her.

  ***

  Luke woke up on the couch to the early gray dawn. Both dogs were snuggled against him. He was still clutching Harper’s fleece to his chest.

  He had finally dozed off barely two hours earlier after carefully packing her things into the boxes neatly stacked in the dining room. Each one labeled “Harper” and a description of the contents in permanent marker.

  After months here, she still hadn’t managed to accumulate more than a dozen boxes of things. He would give her the furniture when she settled wherever she was going, and most of the kitchen stuff that had appeared in drawers and cabinets while she was here.

  He glanced down at the coffee table and saw the picture. Harper and her parents. She had left it behind, tucked in a box in the closet. He’d keep it safe for her until she was somewhere she could call home.

  Luke rubbed a hand across his chest. The hollow was still there. His life was once again his own. He was free to focus on his plan. His goal. Didn’t have to worry about anyone else.

  So why did he feel like he was suffocating?

  He went into the kitchen to grab some coffee, but the pot was empty.

  The quiet was too much. He whistled for the dogs and let them out the back door.

  The ache would go away, he told himself as he watched Max chase Lola around the garden that hadn’t been there when he left.

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  He arrived at the office early enough that no one else was there. His gaze immediately scanned to Harper’s desk. When had that happened? How was that the first place he looked every time he came up the stairs?

  Shit. He was going to have to tell everyone that they were down an office manager. There would be questions, which he wouldn’t answer. And more paperwork, which he wouldn’t file. But this space was his again. It was what he wanted.

  Wasn’t it?

  Luke mashed the buttons on the coffeemaker until it started to brew. He took his first mug into his office and kicked the door shut behind him. He didn’t have time to deal with a view of an empty desk.

  He was in the middle of listening to a voicemail for the third time, because he kept spacing out, when Frank burst in without knocking.

  “Why the hell is your door closed?”

  “Because I wanted it closed.”

  Frank shrugged. “Okay. Next question. Why is your woman calling in sick to me?”

  Luke stood up before he thought better of it. “Did she say where she is?”

  Frank crossed his arms. “No. Don’t you know where she is?”

  Luke ignored the question and sank back into his chair. “She said she was sick?” Well at least she was alive. Somewhere.

  “Said she wasn’t coming in today because she wasn’t feeling well. Why are you hearing this for the first time? Why didn’t she just roll over and tell you herself?”

  “Harper’s not going to be around anymore,” Luke said, briskly. “Let me make this call and then we’ll go out to the Adams site.” He turned back to the phone and started dialing, dismissing Frank and his dumbfounded expression.

  ***

  Harper woke curled in a ball in a sunny bedroom. She was still dressed in last night’s clothes. There were no strong arms wrapped around her. No dogs at her feet.

  She was alone.

  She wrapped her fingers around the edge of the quilt and pulled it over her head. She wanted to block it all out. The sun. The hurt. The loneliness.

  ***

  “What?” Luke didn’t mean to snap at Sophie, but he already knew why she was calling. It would figure that Sophie would be the first person Harper would go to.

  “That’s a fine greeting for your favorite sister.”

  He shifted the phone to his other ear. “Sorry. What do you need?”

  “Just some reassurance. I was supposed to meet Harper for lunch and she didn’t show. She’s not answering her cell. And I tried the office and they said she didn’t come in today. I know I’m just being silly, but …” Sophie trailed off.

  Luke remembered another time when Sophie had tried to reach someone and couldn’t find her. All their lives had changed that day. It wasn’t just his.

  “I guess Harper didn’t tell you?”

  “Tell me what? Did you send her to the spa for the day? Is she adopting another dog?”

  “We broke up.”

  He was ready to yank the phone away from his ear in the event of a deafening screech. But there was only silence.

  “Soph? Are you there?”

  More silence. And then finally a whispered response.
r />   “I … I don’t understand. You guys are so …”

  “It just wasn’t working out. We wanted different things.” The words clogged his throat.

  “You just … broke up? Where is she?”

  “I don’t know. She left last night.”

  “Is she okay? I mean … Jesus, Luke. I feel like I got sucker punched. I didn’t see this coming. I can’t imagine how she feels.”

  “It’s Harper. Of course she’s okay. She’s been through worse than a breakup. She always lands on her feet.”

  Sophie was quiet for a moment. “Luke, she loved you with everything she had. She waited six months for you. She’s not just going to land on her feet. And if you’re not going to try to find her then I will.”

  He wasn’t about to admit that he spent the forty-five minutes he had allotted for lunch driving around town looking for her car. He just wanted to know that she was safe. That’s all.

  “I don’t think we have anything to worry about.”

  “You’re worried. I can hear it in your tone.”

  “I don’t have a tone.”

  “What if something happened to her? We both know shit happens to good people. And we sure as hell know she’s a trouble magnet. What if she got kidnapped trying to check into a hotel?”

  Luke would have laughed if he hadn’t already thought of that exact scenario. He’d called both motels in town that morning to see if Harper was registered.

  “She called Frank this morning and told him she wouldn’t be in.”

  “And that’s good enough for you? ‘She called Frank so now I don’t have to worry.’” He could hear Sophie getting angry.

  “No, it’s not good enough for me, Soph. She’s not answering her phone, she hasn’t been on Facebook, Aldo and Gloria haven’t seen her. I thought she would have gone to your house last night. Short of calling the cops, I don’t know what else to do.”

  “Why did you do it?”

  “How do you know it wasn’t Harper breaking things off with me?”

  “Because Harper isn’t a chickenshit who runs when the going gets scary.”

  “I’m not a chickenshit. It wasn’t working. She built this whole life around me without me having a say and then everyone’s so fucking surprised when it turns out that wasn’t what I wanted.” He was yelling now, but couldn’t seem to stop.