by Nicole Baart
She had thought, for just a moment, that maybe she could do something. Fight back. But she had no option.
“You have options,” Jenna was saying. She sat up pin straight in her chair and grabbed a folder off a nearby table. “One of our case managers can help assess the situation and decide on the most prudent course of action to keep you safe. If you have a paper trail, we can file for a restraining order against your abuser. Is anything documented?”
Harper shook her head.
“That’s okay. I’ll start a file now, and we can begin collecting the evidence that we’ll need.”
Evidence. Harper didn’t want to share any evidence with anyone. And how could Sawyer be held responsible for something that she willingly and repeatedly allowed to happen? Okay, not willingly. Never willingly. But she had also never fought him. And he had never hit her, never held a gun to her head. Sure, he was manipulative and controlling and mean; sure, he had chased her through the parking lot of La Belle Vie, but did any of that make him an abuser?
“Do you have a place to stay?” Jenna continued.
Harper’s thoughts were spinning out of control. “Yes,” she stammered. “I do. I’m fine, actually. I’ll be just fine. I need to go.” She all but jumped out of her seat and turned toward the door, then felt a compulsion to say thank you or something and quickly spun back around to offer Jenna her hand.
The administrator of the Safe House stood, too, and took Harper’s hand in both of her own. Held it tight. “I can’t make you stay,” she said, “but I wish that you would. I believe you, and I’d like to help you if you let me.”
“Thank you,” Harper said. “That’s very kind. But I’m . . . overreacting. It’s nothing.”
“Please, come back anytime. Day or night. Someone is always here. We won’t turn you away.”
But the house was small and Harper had seen several women making lunch in the kitchen when she came in. “Looks like you’ve got your hands full,” she said, pulling out of Jenna’s grip.
“We always do.” Jenna’s eyes crinkled at the corners, a sad starburst of tiny wrinkles. “But we’ll make room. We can always make more room.”
Harper didn’t want anyone to make room for her. She hurried out as quickly as she dared, carefully avoiding even the briefest glance into the kitchen at the women who were chatting away as they assembled sandwiches.
She didn’t want to look at them. To see their faces and in them, see herself.
The kitchen of Maple Acres was full of people when Harper finally returned. After leaving the Safe House, she had idled around Blackhawk for hours, stopping at every lookout and half-forgotten haunt, puttering through campus as she tried to gather the courage to drive away. She knew that Sam wouldn’t chase her. He wouldn’t call the cops or report his car stolen or do anything at all. She believed he would let her go. Still, she found that she couldn’t bring herself to hit the open road. Not like this. Not quite yet.
But when she stepped into the kitchen amid the hustle and bustle of laughter and conversation, music and food, she felt like an outsider. Will and Jackson were shoulder to shoulder at the counter, their backs turned to Harper as they worked on something she couldn’t quite see. Nora—it had to be her—was leaning against the buffet with one hand, absently stroking her enormous belly as she supervised the boys’ handiwork. Adri and Caleb were across the table from each other, peeling and slicing green apples for a piecrust that had been draped over the edges of a deep-dish plate. The unbaked crust hadn’t been trimmed or crimped, and Harper felt a sudden longing to take a pinch of it in her mouth. It looked so soft and sweet, so homey, dusted with pale flour and pleated in thick ridges.
She didn’t reach out. The old Harper, the girl she had been, would have seized a fistful of the raw crust, stuffed it with fresh slices of the cinnamon-sprinkled apples, and dipped her mini pie into the open canister of sugar on the table. She would have grinned at the way Adri wrinkled her nose at Caleb, innocent and coy at once, her signature flirty move. And there was no doubt that she would have rubbed Nora’s ripe belly, then squeezed between the men at the counter, one arm around them both. Maybe even dropped a kiss on each of their cheeks just so she could inhale all the warm, exotic layers of Will, so different and yet so familiar.
Harper didn’t do any of those things. Instead, she battled the urge to flee. It was obvious that she didn’t belong here.
Before she could slip out of the kitchen and into the orange dusk, the door opened behind her. Harper didn’t even have a chance to turn around. She was less than a step away from the screen, and when Sam slipped through, the first thing he did was tuck an arm around her shoulder. Give her a quick hug.
“I’m glad you’re here,” he said, only for her ears. And then, louder, “You’re destroying my kitchen!”
“We’re doing no such thing,” Will laughed, glancing over his shoulder. He caught sight of Harper and his face brightened. Or did she just imagine it? “Harper! I didn’t even hear you come in.”
“I’m sneaky that way,” she said, mustering a faint smile.
“I’ll say. How long have you been standing there?”
Every eye in the kitchen was on her, but she wasn’t surprised that her quiet entrance had gone unnoticed. The music was loud. Everyone was consumed with the task at hand. Except for Adri and Caleb, who were obviously consumed with each other. Though Adri was trying to pretend not to be.
Harper felt sorrow swell inside her, regret at the realization that this would never be hers—could never be hers. But she forced herself to stand a little straighter. To smile, even if it was lopsided. “I’ve been here long enough to realize that you all need some help,” she said.
Adri caught her eye and something passed between them. An understanding. A moment of almost girlish ebullience.
“Caleb is worthless at this,” Adri said. “I wouldn’t say we need help, but he certainly does.”
Although it made her ache to do so, Harper joined in, and together they made free-form individual pizzas and apple pie. At one point, Nora gave her a mildly awkward one-armed hug and whispered what sounded like a heartfelt “Welcome home,” and Harper nearly burst into tears. Who was this woman to welcome her? If Harper remembered correctly, and she was sure that she did, she had barely given Nora the time of day in college. She certainly didn’t deserve her kindness now.
Instead of succumbing to her emotions, Harper gulped them down and teased everyone about the odd choice in dinner fare. Jackson informed her it was “anything goes” night. Caleb had confessed to a longing for pie, and Adri remembered the nights at ATU when Jackson hauled out his grandmother’s recipe for homemade bread dough and made thick, bubbling pizzas for The Five.
“Anything for our guests,” Will told her with a wink. “Is there something you’d like to add to the menu?”
Of course not. Though Harper had made fun of the hodgepodge meal, it sounded like pure perfection. They layered thin slices of tomato, peppers, and red onions from Sam’s garden on the pizza, and finished it with crisp bacon and crumbled Italian sausage. Then, after they’d eaten every last bite and proclaimed themselves too full for another, Sam served the apple pie hot from the oven with vanilla ice cream and a drizzle of caramel sauce. They all somehow found room for more.
The table was a train wreck of plates stacked high and glasses half full of water and warm beer. Someone had tipped over the plastic container of shredded Parmesan cheese, and there was a little white hill of the dry, pungent slivers. Harper’s heart caught at the comfort contained in the benign chaos, the way that each licked-clean fork told a story of plenty. Of laughter around the table. She cleared her throat and rose to clear it all away.
“Hey—” Will caught her wrist and ringed it lightly with his fingers. “You don’t have to do that.”
“I absolutely do,” she managed, flashing him a crooked smile. “You cooked.”
<
br /> “You helped,” Jackson reminded her.
“That’s being generous. You all stay put, I’ve got this.”
And because she sounded convincing, or because they were all full and sleepy and didn’t feel like arguing, they let her. Jackson regaled Caleb with stories of Will’s mishaps on the job (he rolled an excavator his very first week—butterflies filled Harper’s chest at the thought). Caleb offered snippets of his experiences with Adri in Africa (she stepped on a sea urchin rescuing a nonswimmer from the riptide and Caleb had to painstakingly remove each spine with a tweezer). And Nora smiled faintly, glowing with life as if everything that had come before was irrelevant. Sam presided over it all with a look of pure euphoria on his face. It was lovely. It made Harper want to lay her cheek against the top of his head.
They chatted as she loaded the dishwasher and rinsed a cloth to wipe the table. As she leaned past them to mop up the crumbs, Jackson turned to Caleb and asked the obvious question that no one had thought to mention: “Where are you going to stay tonight, Caleb? I mean, I assume you are staying?”
“For sure,” Caleb said, glancing at the clock on the wall. It was nearly ten o’clock. They had sat for hours. Nora was yawning against the back of her delicate hand. “Is there a hotel nearby? Something swanky?” He elbowed Adri with a grin.
“Blackhawk is all kinds of swanky,” Will cut in. “But you’re welcome to stay at my place. You can have my bed. I’ll take the couch.”
Nora nodded. “We have a couch, too.”
“You’re welcome to stay here,” Sam said. “The girls are in the spare rooms, but I’m always up early and I happen to love my couch.”
“So many couches! But I don’t want to be a bother.” Caleb said.
Harper put her hand on his shoulder. She had frozen at Jackson’s question, and a plan was beginning to take shape in misty corners of her mind. “Let’s stay at the mansion,” she said quietly.
The laughter and conversation cooled and dimmed. Harper could feel every eye on her.
“For old times’ sake.” She knew it would take a lot to sell her idea, and she tried to muster the appropriate charm. Straightening up, she put her hands on her hips, damp washcloth and all. “Come on,” she said, catching Will’s eye. If she could get through to him, the rest would follow. “It’ll be fun. We’ll sit in the hot tub and play drinking games.”
“Drinking games?” Will laughed. “We have to work tomorrow, Harper. We’re grown-ups now, remember?”
“And I’m pregnant,” Nora reminded them, though no one could forget.
“We’ll be responsible,” Harper assured everyone, but the twinkle in her eye said that they would be no such thing. She knew she could promise the world with a tweak of her perfect lips, and as she held Will’s gaze, she made all sorts of vows she knew she could never keep. Not that she didn’t necessarily want to.
“No,” Adri said, but from her tone Harper could tell that she didn’t quite mean it. Not fully. There might be ghosts in Piperhall, but they were their ghosts. Whether or not any of them would admit it, something felt distinctly right about going back. About spending a night in the place that marked the advent of their nightmares. Harper knew it the second the thought entered her head.
“Please.” Harper sought out Adri, but she was looking resolutely out the window, searching the dark night beyond the glass. “Just once,” she cajoled, though Adri seemed to be ignoring her. “One night. I don’t know why, but I feel like we should. If you’re going to sell it or give it away or board it up . . .”
“Go ahead,” Nora said, nudging Jackson and surprising them all. “One last hurrah. Besides, that means I’ll get the bed to myself.” She heaved herself to her feet and gave Jackson a kiss on the cheek, then held out her hand for the cloth that Harper had forgotten about. Harper handed it to Nora, and the visibly exhausted woman finished wiping the table.
“It might be good for us to spend one last night,” Jackson said, watching his wife. It was obvious that he adored her. And that she deserved his devotion. Harper felt her chest tighten a little, watching them. But then Jackson tore his gaze away from Nora and shrugged. “We can say goodbye.” He didn’t say it, but they all heard it: And move on.
Harper loved him for it. And Nora, too. But not for the reasons that the others might have expected. She didn’t want to stroll down memory lane or put anything at all to rest. She just wanted to get away from Maple Acres and the only known address that Sawyer had for her.
“I’m in, too.” Will stood up and draped an arm around Harper’s shoulders. “I think it’s a great idea. And the house is just sitting there, Adri. One last time. Come on.”
“Come on,” Caleb echoed, leaning his forearms on the table and trying to catch Adri’s eye. “It’ll be fun.” He looked around the table and mimed a shrug as if to say, Am I doing it right? Is this okay?
Adri put her face in her hands, but Harper could see her friend was fighting a smile beneath her twined fingers. “Fine,” she said. “Whatever. You all win.”
“We’ll spend the night at Piperhall?” Harper shaded a bit of girlish delight into her voice and was rewarded when Will grabbed her hand and squeezed it. She squeezed back, aching.
“Sure.”
“You won’t regret it. We won’t regret it,” Harper said. But she didn’t believe that for a second. When they woke in the morning and Caleb’s car was gone—or Jackson’s or Will’s or Adri’s, it didn’t matter whose—they’d know that they had been tricked and they would have all sorts of regrets. But Harper couldn’t worry about any of that. All she cared about was keeping Sawyer far away from the only family she had ever known.
Far away from the opportunity to make good on the threat that he held over her head like a guillotine. It wasn’t just about the pictures, and it never had been. Shame she could deal with—Harper had endured more than her fair share of it. But there was no statute of limitations on murder. And if Sawyer couldn’t have her, she knew that he would do nothing less than destroy her.
Harper heard Caleb say it as she mounted the steps to pack her Goodwill clothes into a grocery bag: “She’s very convincing, you know.”
Harper could just imagine how Adri would roll her eyes. “I know. She could talk a fish into buying a piece of the ocean.”
And it was true. All those years ago, after she discovered that David didn’t love her and never had, after she understood that the moment of her college graduation would mark the beginning of the end of what was her pathetic, lonely life, she had done a lot of convincing.
“A trip,” she said, making it sound like the most appealing, magical thing in all the world. “Just the five of us. Right after graduation. A grand finale, a climax, the zenith of our years together.”
“You’re laying it on a bit thick, don’t you think?” David asked. His words were a little slurry, but his eyes were trained on her. Adri was curled in his lap, looking as small and pretty as a doll. They seemed to be doing better since the night at Piperhall when Victoria had discovered Harper in David’s arms. He was more attentive, more present. He kissed her slowly, even when other people were in the room. Sometimes, it seemed like he did it particularly when other people were in the room. Especially Harper.
But, in spite of David’s attention, every once in a while, Adri wasn’t quite herself. A trio of small bruises on her upper arm, a swollen lip that she tried to cover with pink lip gloss. Harper wondered, but she didn’t dare ask. Adri seemed happy, and Harper wanted to believe that if Adri had told her the truth once, she would again. Besides, David was a passionate man. A hard kiss, a consuming embrace. It wasn’t out of the realm of possibility. And Harper wanted to believe.
It wasn’t quite enough. Harper longed for the chance to be alone. Ask questions. Learn the truth. She was downright obsessed with knowing. “If you’re not convinced, I’m not laying it on thick enough,” Harper said. “Wha
t do I have to do to persuade you? A PowerPoint presentation? A speech? ’Cause I could deliver a three-point sermon if that’s what you’re waiting for.”
“Where would we go?” Will asked.
“I don’t know.” Harper threw up her hands as if it didn’t matter. And in a way, it didn’t. She was after one thing: time together. Enough time to figure it all out. To convince herself, and David, to tell Adri the truth before they ruined themselves. “The Maldives.”
“I doubt you even know where that is.” David brushed his lips against the fine line of Adri’s jaw, but his eyes were trained on Harper.
She tried not to glare at him. Not to infuse her look with all the hatred that she felt in that moment. You’re a pig, she wanted to say. A lying, conniving pig. But it hurt to even think those things, because as much as she wanted to hate him, she couldn’t help but love him, too. He was still David. Broken, beautiful David. “The Canary Islands, Indonesia, Chicago? Does it matter?”
“British Columbia,” Jackson offered as if coming out of a trance. Jackson was always quiet and unassuming and temperate, and it surprised Harper that he was speaking up at all. But, of course, he was offering the perfect solution. “My dad took me bush camping all the time when I was a kid. We’ll fly into Vancouver, borrow my grandma’s car, and I’ll take you all to my favorite spot in the interior. You don’t mind logging roads, do you?”
They didn’t even know what logging roads were, but the promise of isolation, of a place where they could be utterly and completely alone in the world was too good to pass up.
