Pretend You're Mine: A Small Town Love Story

by Score, Lucy

  Harper snuck into the tiny bathroom with chalkboard walls to slick on lip gloss and take her hair down from its messy knot. She fashioned it into a braid that hung over one shoulder.

  On her way back to the store, she thought about just getting in her car and driving away. She’d make an excuse to Joni about the groceries and lay down in the fetal position for like ten hours.

  But she was too proud. Don’t let him see you break, she reminded herself.

  Harper found them arguing about how to bag her groceries at the self-scan checkout. She cringed when she saw Luke hand Linc a box of tampons.

  She should have just gone for the fetal position.

  ***

  Luke spotted her first in the midst of his argument with Linc on how to bag chicken breasts.

  “Hey, sunshine. We got you reusable bags,” Linc announced, grinning at Harper. Luke wanted to punch him again. He settled for elbowing him in the gut instead and then shoved his hands on his pockets. It was the only way he could be sure he wouldn’t reach out and grab her … or break Linc’s nose.

  Looking at her was still a punch in the gut. Those damn eyes — stormy now — were shadowed with dark circles. The light was missing from them. She was thinner, too, noticeable even with her wearing a fleece. He could see the hollows in her cheeks.

  Tired. Empty. And all he wanted to do was fill her. But he had made his choice. His bed was empty, his house quiet. And that was the way it needed to be.

  When he opened that cooler door to escape Georgia Rae’s small talk … just seeing Harper in Reed’s arms, smiling up at him … His gut still churned.

  The reaction, that blind, burning fury, took him by surprise. He lost control as quickly as if a leash had snapped inside. Luke didn’t like that that was coiled within him, ready to strike.

  And strike he had. Not just with his fists. He had cut Harper to the quick with his accusation. He saw the sting of his words register on her face just before Linc came at him. He was nothing without his control. But she had taken him past his limits before.

  It wasn’t her fault. The blame fell on his shoulders.

  He owed her an apology. Ty one, too. And while he was at it, he could throw one in for Linc, but probably not. Even if the man did have a point. He let Harper go. What did he expect?

  Didn’t she deserve to be happy, to be loved, to have someone remind her to wear a damn coat when it snowed?

  “Where’s your coat?” He regretted the harshness in his tone, but not being able to control himself was par for the course with Harper.

  She shrugged. “Your house.”

  Along with everything else she owned. Waiting.

  “I’ll drop it off. I can bring the rest of your stuff.”

  Harper was already shaking her head. “Joni doesn’t need —”

  The song “Bad Boys” shrilled from her phone. Luke saw the flash of pure panic and watched as her fingers fumbled on the screen in her haste to answer.

  “Hi. Hey,” she said, spinning away, clutching her phone to her ear.

  “No, I didn’t get it. I moved.” Her eyes darted to Luke and away again. She lowered her voice. “I know. I’m sorry. It was kind of sudden.”

  She listened in silence for a moment and he swore every ounce of color drained from her face.

  “He’s getting out? When?” She sank down on a narrow bench next to the window.

  She bit her lip and looked his way again, her gaze darting away when she saw him watching. Linc shoved a bag of lettuce at him. “Keep up, bro.”

  “Give me a minute … and don’t call me bro.”

  “Fine. Keep up, dick.”

  Luke stepped closer to Harper, but couldn’t catch much. She was arguing quietly now. “You don’t need to come here to play bodyguard — I can protect myself …”

  After another minute of whispering, she hung up and without a word hurried out of the store.

  “Where’s she going?” Linc demanded, coming up next to Luke. “She forgot her stuff.”

  ***

  Of course she wasn’t answering his texts. Frustrated, Luke tossed his cellphone on the passenger seat. His debt to Val’s Groceries paid, he volunteered to haul Harper’s groceries with him so he could personally deliver them.

  He’d swing by the house first to get her damn coat.

  He couldn’t get her reaction to the mystery phone call out of his head. Harper wasn’t one to be afraid of anything. Luke worried what would have caused a reaction like that.

  Leaving the groceries in his truck, he went inside and dug through the boxes until he found a belted black wool coat. He held it to his face and breathed in her scent.

  Feeling pathetic, he folded the coat and put it on the dining room table. He would pack a few sweaters for her, too, so she didn’t freeze her ass off. She should have some kind of ski jacket, too, he thought. Maryland winters weren’t exactly balmy. Maybe he could find a decent one at the outlet —

  Christ, what had this woman done to him? They weren’t even together anymore and here he was planning a fucking shopping trip. He was losing his damn mind. Any progress he’d made toward shutting thoughts of her out was lost after today. One look at her and he was back to the beginning.

  He threw two sweaters on top of the coat on the table. Enough was enough. After he found out what was going on with her, he’d take her stuff to the office to store until she left.

  He remembered the growing stack of mail that he’d ignored in the kitchen all week. He’d check it for anything for her and then head over to Joni’s. One last time to see her, make sure she was okay, and then leave her alone forever.

  Luke flipped through the pile, tossing junk mail in the recycling can as he went. There were two envelopes addressed to Harper.

  A red stamp on the first caught his eye. Victim Services. He felt his heart start to pound. The second envelope was hand addressed to Harper and had a small ink stamp in the corner.

  Mailed from a state correctional institution.

  There was something familiar about that second envelope, something that he couldn’t quite pull to the surface. There was no name in the return address. Luke pulled out his phone and looked up the address online. Sussex Correctional Institution.

  He dialed Harper. When her voicemail answered he swore and hung up.

  Drumming his fingers on the counter, he weighed his options. There was no way she was going to tell him what was going on. But if she was in danger, he needed to know.

  “Fuck it.” Luke shredded the envelope and yanked out the piece of notebook paper inside. A cold fury washed over him and made his hands shake. There was no name. Just “Daddy.”

  He slammed the letter onto the counter and started to pace. This couldn’t be the first letter. There must be others …

  Her boxes. Back in the dining room, Luke tore the lid off of the innocuous “Paperwork” box. In the very front was a folder labeled SCI Letters. Dozens of letters opened, filed chronologically starting when Harper was 18. Luke resisted the urge to heave the entire box through the window.

  That fucker. Every letter was signed “Daddy.” He had caught up with her every move since she had aged out of the foster system. Blaming her for his sentence. It had to be the cigarette burns. This man had physically hurt Harper until he was caught and then spent years trying to torture her psychologically.

  There were five other letters in the box sent to his address. Three while he was deployed. But the other most recent one was just days before Thanksgiving. She had never said a word.

  Except … she had tried.

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

  He had been sitting on the couch, pissed off at himself, pretending it was her, and had shrugged at her. Just shrugged because he was angry and scared.

  She had faltered, but tried to press on. “Something happened and I’m a little worried —”

  He had cut her off and cold-bloodedly proceeded to cut her out of his life. In the exact
moment when she was reaching out to him for help, he pushed her away.

  She had trusted him and he had betrayed that trust on so many levels. And now she was alone.

  He swiped a hand over face and cursed himself. What had he done?

  He needed a name and thought of the Victim Services letter. Well, he had already opened one of her letters. Why stop now?

  It was a form letter stating that as a victim of Clive Perry, Harper was entitled to be aware that he was due to be released from prison on December 18 after having served his full prison sentence.

  Luke pulled his phone out of his pocket and dialed.

  “Hey, we have a situation.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY

  “You know when I saw it was you I was expecting you were calling to apologize,” Ty drawled, kicking back in his desk chair. “Then when you said you had a situation, I thought you were calling to tell me that you were driving around with Linc’s body in the back of your truck.”

  Luke shifted in Ty’s visitors’ chair. The station smelled like stale coffee and old books. “I do owe you an apology and I haven’t killed anyone. Yet.” He dropped Harper’s folder on Ty’s desk. “Harper’s in trouble.”

  “What kind of trouble?”

  Luke filled him in on the details he knew. Ty gave a low whistle when he’d finished. “Sounds like our girl’s in a bad spot.”

  “How can we keep this asshole from getting out?”

  “I’m gonna look into it. But Luke, in the eyes of the law, this Perry guy has served his time.” He skimmed the letter on top of the file. “How about you give me some time to run Harper and this guy through the system? I want to read these letters, too. Why don’t you go get us a couple of coffees and meet me back here in half an hour?”

  “Just so you know, this guy never gets near her. No matter what.”

  “I understand what you’re saying and we’ll cross that bridge when we have to. Now go get some coffee. Two sugars in mine.”

  Luke got coffee and, because it was almost time for dinner, a pizza. The late afternoon sun glinted off of the small mounds of snow on Main Street. You couldn’t get more quintessential than Main Street in Benevolence at Christmas. Sunday, the caroling would start in the park near the Christmas tree and wind its way through the neighborhoods before ending at the fire station for hot chocolate and a toy and clothing drive. Balancing the cup carrier on top of the pizza box, Luke nodded a greeting to his high school math teacher and his wife on their way to the second-run theater. He waved hello to Sheila from Remo’s when she whistled at him from across the street.

  No one was a stranger here, no matter how often he wished he could be. Walking down the idyllic street under the snowflake lights and garland strung over anything that would hold still gave residents the feeling that nothing bad could ever happen here.

  But bad things did happen, even in Benevolence. Luke just hoped he could prevent this one.

  When he pushed back into the station, he was greeted with a blast of warm air and silence. Alma, the sheriff’s wife and station office manager, had headed home for the day so Luke let himself in and walked back to Ty’s office.

  Ty was just hanging up the phone when Luke walked in.

  “Pizza, coffee, and I got to punch you in the face? This must be my lucky day.”

  Luke dumped the pie on the desk and rubbed his jaw. “Yeah, about that.”

  “What about that?”

  Luke plucked his coffee from the carrier and sank into the chair. “I guess I owe you an apology for acting like an asshole.”

  “Apology accepted.”

  “Well that was easy.”

  “We all do stupid things for the women we love.” Ty didn’t give him a chance to argue, he just plowed right on with his drawl. “And speaking of the woman you love, I got some information and I don’t think you’re going to like it.”

  “What is it?”

  “I found the case file on this Clive Perry. It was pretty bad. James had a houseful of kids who were all beaten, malnourished, and suffering from neglect. Harper lived with him for about eight weeks. According to the report, one night he came home drunk and started wailing on one of the younger ones, and Harper got the others out of the house to a neighbor’s and went back for the little one.”

  Luke braced his hands against his knees.

  “Anyway, there was a confrontation, and she put herself between him and kid and held steady until the neighbor’s husband busted in with a shotgun and got Perry cornered in the kitchen. Police showed up and Harper was pretty beat up. Broken arm, cuts and bruises. Took her to the hospital and found she had broken ribs from an earlier beating. She told them everything. Got him put away for twelve years.”

  “She was just a kid.” Luke stood up to pace Ty’s miniscule office.

  “I put in a call to the investigating officer. He’s retired now, but I got him at home. He gave me the name of a rookie cop who was on the scene. Seems she bonded with Harper and the two of them have testified at every one of his parole hearings.”

  “Did you talk to her yet? Does she know Harper’s a target?”

  “I have not. I was about to when you showed up with Dawson’s.” He eyed up the pizza box.

  “Call first, eat later.”

  “On it,” Ty nodded, picking up his desk phone. “While I’m dialing, here’s a little something to brighten your day.” He slid a printout across the desk.

  Luke picked it up. It was a news story, from a year and a half ago, about a building fire in the city. The lead picture was Harper, covered in ash and soot, half carrying an elderly woman in her nightgown out of the flames.

  Luke pinched the bridge of his nose as a stroke threatened behind his eyes. “Christ. She just told me she was home when the fire started. She didn’t say anything about dragging people out of the building.”

  “Two people and one cat,” Ty said, covering the receiver.

  Luke skimmed the story while Ty talked his way through a police station switchboard.

  His brave, wild girl. Ready for any challenge. He wondered how she felt about Perry. Was she scared? She was probably planning something stupid like meeting him face to face.

  Like hell she would. He’d make sure that she never had to face that monster again.

  “Detective Rameson? This is Deputy Adler out of Benevolence —”

  “No, she’s just fine, but she is the reason I’m calling. I’m here with a … colleague,” he darted a look at Luke. “Do you mind if I put you on speaker phone? Great.” He stabbed a button on the phone and hung up the receiver.

  “You there, detective?”

  “I’m here,” her voice was clipped with a touch of Jersey. “What’s happening down in Benevolence?”

  “Clive Perry. What kind of a threat is he going to be to Harper?”

  Luke heard her sigh. “Thank freakin’ God she finally decided to tell someone. I’ve been on her for a year. ‘Yagotta have a plan,’ I keep telling her.”

  Luke snorted. Harper with a plan.

  “I can tell by that response that you know her pretty well then. You’re not the asshole who dumped her, are you? God, she’s got shitty taste in men.”

  Ty cleared his throat. “I’m not, but my colleague is. He’s not so much an asshole as a dumbass.”

  “You ask me, pretty often they’re one and the same,” Rameson said.

  “Look, we just need to know if this Perry guy is going to come after her when he gets out,” Luke cut in.

  “You read the letters?” she asked.

  “I read them all. Ty here read enough to call you.”

  “Here’s the deal. This Perry moron writes to her every couple of months since she hits eighteen. Everywhere she goes, he finds her and the letters start again. Always the same shit ‘You owe me, you’ll pay, blah blah blah.’ Good thing is, the letters didn’t play well for him in his parole hearings. Bad thing is, he never directly threatens her. No one’s gonna take him as a serious threat unless he gets more
specific, know what I mean?”

  “What’s your take on him?” Ty asked.

  “I don’t know too much. I’ve kept tabs on him and the locals keep me up to date occasionally. Professional courtesy. Guy’s in his sixties and not the strapping, healthy, TV-commercial sixties. More like the ‘my liver’s failing and I smoke two packs a day’ sixties. But there’s something dark about this guy. My gut tells me he’s trouble, only I don’t got the proof. I need something on him that’ll get the key thrown away. I’m concerned we won’t have that something until he’s out and pulls some shit on Harper.”

  “That’s not an option,” Luke growled.

  “In this case, I agree with the dumbass. But I got nothing on the creep right now.”

  Something shimmered at the edge of Luke’s consciousness and slowly started to take shape. “He’s in Sussex, right?” Luke asked.

  “Yeah, been there his whole sentence.”

  “Ty, where was Glenn serving time?”

  “Son of a bitch.” Ty’s fingers flew over his keyboard. “Overcrowding in county and a repeat offender? Yeah.”

  “You got something?”

  “A few months back, a local guy awaiting trial in Sussex — assault and battery, domestic — gets out on bail and shows up at Harper’s house with a very large sharp knife and tries to tear the place apart. Harper and the girls took him down. We thought he was there for the girlfriend and the rest of them were just collateral.”

  “God damn that girl. She never mentioned a B and E. You thinking he knew Perry?”

  “I’m thinking we should have a talk with Glenn.”

  “Mind if I tag along?” Rameson asked.

  “Counting on it, detective,”

  ***

  Harper pulled the car over next to the curb and dropped her head against her seat. She closed her eyes and willed her heart rate to slow. The phone call from Melissa had rattled her when she was already feeling vulnerable.

  When they met, Melissa was a rookie beat cop and Harper was a scared twelve-year-old. Academy-fresh Officer Rameson, with her immaculate uniform and scary perfect bun, had sealed their friendship with a hot chocolate and her straight out of Jersey accent.