by Liv Morris
“What are you thinking?” I warn while squinting my eyes.
“There’s so much I haven’t told you since … well, since January, really. My father sold his company, so he’s pretty much retired, and my parents are leaving this weekend for a two-month vacation. By themselves.” She rolls her eyes and I laugh. It looks as if she wanted to join them, and I can’t blame her. “You can live in their house while they’re gone. They love you, and definitely trust you more than me.” She gives me a little wink and I nod my head.
“True,” I tease back.
“Plus, you can water their plants. I was assigned to do that and I’ll probably forget. You’ll have a place and they’ll have living plants when they get back. Win. Win.” All I can do is shake my head and laugh. Being resourceful has always been her specialty.
“It would solve a few problems, mostly the cash flow. But your parents aren’t close to bus routes.” I knit my brow while imagining walking miles to the closest bus stop. Her neighborhood is nice and safe, but I’ll be beat after standing all day at the restaurant.
“What happened to your old car?” Oh, shit. How can I answer that when I’m not even sure myself?
“James felt it was unsafe for me. I think he disposed of it.” I shrug, trying to blow it off. No need to cry over it now. I should’ve asked him about my car months ago.
“Fucker.” Emma takes my hands in hers and looks me straight in the eye, determination written all over her face. It’s this fierce side of her I wish I had more of right now in my own life. “Well, my folks have two cars that will be gathering dust while they’re away. You can drive one of them.”
“What? You’re kidding me?” I’ve had enough of driving other people’s luxury vehicles.
“Nope. Please say yes? Or I’ll get my mother on the phone and she will make you. You know how she can be.” Yes, I do. Her apple, Emma, didn’t fall far from the tree.
“All right. But only if you let me pay them a little something. I need to feel like I’m doing this on my own.” It’s way past time I stood on my own two feet, no matter how wobbly they are at this moment.
“We’ll talk about the details later. Are you staying here with Sin for a while?” She wiggles her brow, implying things between Sin and myself—things I can’t believe I want, even with all the shit I’ve been through with James. He is everything I want in a man: kind, gentle, caring, with strength in mind and body. But the timing for us stinks. I have to be thankful he’s in my life, even if it is for a brief, beautiful moment.
“We are staying the night. After that, I don’t have a clue. We are literally taking this one minute at a time. We left James’ penthouse with that box,” I say, glancing over to the desk, “and then checked in here. My head is still spinning from this day.”
“I want to know what’s in that box.” Emma walks over to the desk and stands next to it, running her hands over the top.
“Me, too,” I agree. “Bring it over here. I’m ready.”
Emma carries the box over to the bed and sets it in front of me. She jumps on the bed and lands next to me. We sit cross-legged in front of the box with my name staring at us. A few seconds of silence pass by.
“Here goes,” I say.
My stomach flip-flops as I lift the top off and drop it on the floor. The detective logo catches my eye at first glance.
I still can’t process how someone followed me for months. I never went anywhere besides the grocery store, post office, or dry cleaners. All my clothes were bought online via a Nordstrom personal shopper and sent via James’ approval. James was always with me at the country club, too. The poor detective had one boring as hell job after January. I don’t even want to think about him following me around before then. My brain feels like it will explode if I try.
“Here are the P.I.’s records.” I hand the stack of papers to Emma. She flips through the pages as I wait. She stops when she gets to the ones from December of last year. Our eyes meet and I nod my head.
“How long has he planned all of this with you?” she asks while going to the end of the paper pile. “This is ridiculous, and probably illegal. Stalking is a crime in Minnesota. At least, it should be.”
“It’s over between us. At this point, I need to try to move on,” I say, hoping my words convince her and whoever is looking down on us from above. I need divine help to keep James out of my life. Forever.
Emma goes back to looking over the records while muttering under her breath. I brace myself and peek back into the box. I spot a few photos of me and pull them out. Each one has me in different poses and places. A sick feeling flashes over me, but I fight to press on. My hands touch something cool and roundish. I freeze when I realize what it is. My mother’s pearls.
I close my eyes and run my fingers over each pearl, pulling the strand out of the box. Tears fall down my cheeks as I open them. Touching something tangible that my mother loved is almost too much for me to bear.
I let out a quiet sniffle and Emma turns toward me. “Harlow, what is it?” she asks, worry lining her face.
“These.” I hold up the pearls, but can only see a few white dots through all my tears. “These were my mother’s. Why would he keep them from me?”
“He’s a monster,” Emma hisses as she takes me in her arms for a tight hug.
“I had wanted to wear them at my wedding. James said he found them but never gave them to me. Why?” I ask in a blubbering mess of sniffles.
Emma breaks away from me and retrieves the tissue box from the night table. She turns to walk back to the bed, her own eyes watering. God, I love her.
“I thought the whole box would be best.” She pulls out a few tissues, hands them to me, then takes a couple for herself.
“I remember these pearls.” She gently runs her fingertips over them. “Putting on my if-I-were-a-crazy-person hat, my guess is James didn’t want you having this old connection to your mother.”
The pearls come into better view as my vision clears. I nod, the lump in my throat keeping me from talking. I swallow hard, but it doesn’t help. Opening the clasp, I thread the necklace around my neck, hooking it back together. The pearls fall against my skin, giving me a part of her to hold with me forever.
I run my fingers over the strand and close my eyes. My mother’s smiling face appears in my mind while she wears them. She only took them out of her treasured jewelry box on special occasions. She also had an old-fashioned cameo pin that used to belong to someone in her family. I wonder if James threw it beneath the pictures and papers strewn in the bottom of the box like a piece of junk.
I open my eyes, determined to persevere until I see the bottom. A few more papers remain on top of what looks like an envelope. My heart is heavy when I don’t find any other pieces of jewelry.
A receipt with my mother’s name on it catches my eye. It lists paid classes at a local nursing school connected with The Clinic. I pick it up to look closer at the writing and see James’ signature on the charge line. My heart stops. He paid for her classes. I look at the date and my blood grows cold. The day before my birthday. The day Tony killed my mother. A memory comes to my mind and I hear a voice I’ve blocked for months. Words I will never forget, no matter how many years go by.
“Marie, who paid for your classes and these books? Was it one of those bluebloods at the country club?”
James was the blueblood. Was he with her before me? Did he push Tony to pull out the gun and kill her?
I want to ask James, to his face, to see the flinch in his eyes when he knows I found out he knew her before me. But to do that would mean seeing him again—something I will never purposefully do in this lifetime. I may never know the truth this side of heaven. His scheming had no end until today.
I drop the receipt into the box and fall back on the bed in complete exhaustion. “I’ve had enough,” I say through my tears.
“What is it now?” Emma asks.
“Look inside the box. At the receipt.”
I lie flat and
stare at the ceiling while Emma shuffles through the papers and gasps.
“He bought her classes?”
“Yes,” I say in the weakest voice. All my strength has vanished. I’m fighting the urge to sleep, to escape everything—to fade off into sweet darkness and wake up to find everything has been a bad dream.
“Wait. There’s a letter at the bottom.” It takes all the effort I can summon to peek through one eye. Emma pulls a white envelope from the box and holds it up. “It has your name on it and looks like a woman’s handwriting.”
A letter to me? I raise up on my elbows and look at the envelope. My breath hitches and my heart begins to race. My name is written in my mother’s handwriting.
A surge of adrenaline rushes through my veins as I pop up next to Emma. She offers me the envelope and I take it from her hand. I turn it over and see it was once sealed, but the flap is now torn and jagged. Someone opened it and I don’t even have to guess the culprit. He has stolen everything from me, why not this letter?
With a shaky hand and a big you-can-do-this hug from Emma, I hold my breath and open the envelope. I pull out the papers and try to press out the stubborn creases.
I flip to the last page and glance down at the bottom before I begin. It says, With all my love, Mom.
I swallow fear, worry, and a hopeful excitement. I’m a crazy mix of wild emotions, but nothing is going to stop me from reading the words written in black ink.
My dearest Harlow,
If you are reading this letter, I am no longer with you on this earth. The very thought makes my heart break into a million tiny pieces. I love you more than life itself and nothing will ever change that.
I’m sorry to have left you unexpectedly. Don’t forget you’re a strong, smart, and beautiful young woman. You will find your place in this world without me, because a light like yours shines for all to see. I’ve been watching it grow brighter and brighter with each passing year. You are everything I hoped and dreamed you would be.
I am looking down at you from heaven as you read this letter. I promise you, it’s true, and our connection will never be far. Remember that in times of trouble. No matter what happens in this world, you are loved, and deserve to be loved.
All your life, I’ve hidden a truth from you. I must beg your forgiveness for keeping it a secret, but I had no choice; it was taken away from me before you were born. I was a young woman about your age and in love with a man. A part of my heart will always belong to him, but he deceived me. I found out he was married the same day I told him about you. Yes, he was your father. This man I loved. You have his beautiful blue eyes and quiet strength—the two things that drew me to him.
He couldn’t let me have you, because his entire world would collapse around him. Or that was his excuse. He was a prestigious lawyer with a wife and two children I had no idea existed. I swear. I volunteered at the women’s crisis shelter and met him one day while he was there with a client. One thing led to another and we started a passionate affair. I didn’t know it was an affair at the time, though.
He was always gentle with me, until I told him about you. Then he changed into a beast and wanted me to get rid of you. He threatened to do horrible things to my family if I didn’t cooperate. Life ending things, so I couldn’t take the chance.
He paid me for my silence, and to silence your life. But I just couldn’t do it. Something told me you needed to be born. So I fled to a place after hearing someone say Rochester is a town where a person could hide out and never be found.
It meant leaving my family behind and starting over with you—a decision I don’t regret to this day. The last time I saw him, I swore he would never see or hear from me again. It would be like I disappeared off the face of the earth.
I lived up to my promises as far as he is concerned. For your own safety, I had to. But now you need to know who your other family is. I don’t want you on your own.
I grew up in Park Ridge, Illinois. It’s a quiet place with quiet streets. I have no idea what my mother, Margaret McMasters (I dropped the Mc from my last name and no one ever questioned it) will say about me leaving her all those years ago. Please tell her I’m sorry and explain to her what happened. I pray she forgives me.
No matter what she thinks of me, she will open her heart and arms to you. In so many ways, you are like my mother. She always had a book open, too. My father passed away when I was in high school. He was a good man. I have a sister named Sara. We fought horribly. Just ask our mother. I hope you find them in good health.
Here’s the address I have for them.
I stop reading, because I can’t see through my damn tears. The papers drop from my hands and I collapse into someone’s arms. They are big and strong, and holding me so very tightly. I smell leather and wood as I press against a firm, solid chest.
Sin’s here for me, and I didn’t even hear him come into the room. I nuzzle in closer to him and he pulls me tighter.
A waterfall flows down my cheeks as I tilt my head to look up at him.
“I have a family, Sin,” I whisper through a big lump in my throat. He smiles back at me through his own tears.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Sin
Staying up until three in the morning last night has finally caught up with Harlow. I’m hanging in there, but she’s leaning against my shoulder, fast asleep, as we fly from Rochester to Chicago. We are still holding hands like we were during takeoff. I am becoming addicted to the feel of her soft, small hands in mine. I try to recall a time when I just sat and held a woman’s hand in complete satisfaction, wanting nothing more. Nothing comes to my mind. Harlow is a first.
I am surprised she is sleeping, since this is her first plane ride. She was a bundle of nerves asking me question after question, and dutifully reading over the safety card tucked in the seat pocket. Maybe it was the hum of the engines that helped her drift off.
I shake my head and grin as I think about her wide blue eyes when the wheels left the runway. She would have jumped out of the cabin if the door had been open. I’ll have to wake her up soon, since the flight is only an hour and twenty minutes tops, but she needs her rest to face God only knows what once we land.
Who really knows how her grandmother will react. It’s been years since she’s heard from her daughter and she might even believe she is dead.
Harlow decided the first contact she makes with her grandmother should be face-to-face. She feels a phone call, out of the blue, might be considered a prank and could do more damage than good. But having her own flesh and blood standing before her, with photos in hand of Harlow’s mother, should wipe any doubt out of her grandmother’s mind.
Me? I’m torn, but will follow her lead and support her plan. I am proud that she’s making her own decisions and taking a big first step in a new course for her life. I would bet money she never returns to Rochester.
After she read the letter from her mother yesterday and her tears subsided, she was literally bouncing off the walls. It was a new, almost comical, side of her. It was like she drank a couple pots of coffee loaded with sugar, and it was a damn beautiful thing to watch. I smile at the thought of how she was talking fast and pacing the room. I sat back in a chair and watched while she morphed into a woman full of hope and excitement.
She buzzed around the room muttering to herself, mostly about her clothes. She didn’t want to meet her grandmother, and possibly other family members, for the first time in her old “duds,” so we walked across the street to a cluster of shops, ate a quick dinner, and found a clothing store.
She picked out a few things. My favorite was the light blue dress that matched her eyes and ended above her knees. She is wearing it now. I suggested some new jeans and she tried on a pair that did dangerous things to her curves. She asked me how they looked on her and I only nodded with a smile. I was afraid to say anything out loud, but I did let out a quiet wolf whistle as she sashayed back into the fitting room.
Harlow walked up to the counter with an
armful of clothes, but refused to let me buy one damn thing. Not even the pair of dangly earrings I loved. I understand the need to feel independent after leaving such a controlling man, but hell, what’s wrong with me buying her one simple thing?
Nothing.
So I threw some cash on the counter and grabbed the earrings while Harlow turned away. The clerk knew what I was up to since she overheard the conversation between us. I overpaid for the earrings by a few dollars and mouthed for the clerk to keep the change.
I plan on giving them to her tonight. Maybe I’ll place them down on her pillow to find later.
Last night, we slept in the same big, king-sized bed. We laid down facing one another with our head on our pillows. She talked about flying to Chicago and meeting her family until she fell asleep mid-sentence. I don’t remember her mentioning James once after I gave her the rundown of meeting him.
I watched her take slow, even breaths while her long, black lashes lightly fluttered. Fortunately, she was tucked under the covers, but I still fought the desire to pull her into my arms and spoon the night away.
Yes, I wanted to spoon with Harlow last night. Who the hell am I? I shake my head and grin. For the first time in my life, I want a woman for who she is, not what she can give me. It’s a novel concept, and feels right with her.
“Better wake up the sleeping beauty,” the flight attendant says while passing by. I nod and bring Harlow’s hand to my lips. After a few kisses across her knuckles, she begins to stir.
“Hey, babe. We’re getting ready to land.” I brush a strand of fallen hair away from her face. I love touching the soft golden silk and fight the urge to run my hands through it freely like I did at the lake.
“We’re landing already?” Harlow gazes up at me, blinking her hazy eyes. “How long was I sleeping?”
“About thirty minutes. A nice cat nap.” She stretches and arches her back beside me. I try not to stare at her chest, but hell, I’m a man, and she has a lovely set. I shake my head, trying to think about the Yankee’s loss last night. We need to up our pitching staff.
