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“What?” I asked pretending to be shocked by her statement. “I want to spend every minute I can with my baby. Is that okay with you, Nosey Parker?” Layla giggled, and I smoothed down her hair as we took our seats at the table.
True to her word, Layla smothered her pancakes until they were swimming in syrup and had four strips of bacon. I didn’t stop her indulgence, figuring everyone should live a little sometimes. Even children.
Strange thing was, I didn’t find Layla’s conversations trivial. I wanted to know as much as I could of her thoughts, encourage her opinions, and figure out what made her tick; but the one thing I noticed above all else was how like her mom she was.
There were these little facial expressions and mannerisms, which had nothing to do with me, but were undeniable traits of Grace, and instead of being hurt when I saw them I felt comforted.
I was thinking about this when Stuart turned up just after 8:00 a.m. and his appearance was timely as Layla was asking about Harper. Needing her to be distracted, I asked Stuart to take Layla for a morning ride, and as he told me he was going into town afterward with Peter and Diane, Layla kind of invited herself to go with them.
This couldn’t have worked out better for me, because with everyone safely off the premises I was free to have the potentially explosive conversation with Harper I knew had been long overdue.
When I opened my bedroom door, I noticed the bedding was neatly in place and Harper had vacated my room. Closing it again, I made my way down to her room and knocked on her bedroom door.
Getting no reply, I opened it slowly and stepped inside and heard water running in the bathroom. I was about to call her when she shuffled through the door. She was startled to see me, and her legs buckled in fright.
“Jesus Christ!” she exclaimed, clearly shocked. “What are you doing skulking about in my room?” Her face flushed immediately, and I knew she was embarrassed about her behavior.
“I’m skulking? I knocked, you were the one who didn’t answer. How’s your head, by the way?”
Instantly, her shoulders sagged, and her blush crept all the way up her neck, before her questioning eyes narrowed in defiance.
“You’ve never seen a drunk woman before?” she asked with a raised brow.
“Oh, yeah, I’ve met plenty of those, but I think when you told me the guy who’s fucking you was a replacement for me, I felt disappointed because I expected more from you.”
Insulted by my comment, Harper flew at me in a rage and I caught her raised hand.
“Never had you down as the violent type, Sweetheart. First you want me, then you don’t, and then you turn up at my door, rat-assed drunk. Are you unstable?”
“If ever there was a man who brought out the worst in me, it’s you,” she admitted.
“Seriously? Why, because I couldn’t be what you wanted me to be when you accosted me in the dark? You think I rejected you because you weren’t good enough? I was a mess, Harper. Parts of me still are, and I felt you deserved better than a man who’s struggling with the collateral damage of cancer.”
“Isn’t that for me to decide? Don’t I get the right to choose?”
“Yeah, of course you do, but I’m so fucking scared of hurting you… of being hurt like that again. Every word you said last night was the truth. None of this has been fair to you. You were dumped in the middle of a clusterfuck with a man so entirely broken it’s taken years of mental reasoning for me to function properly again. You’re young and beautiful and what happened in my life shouldn’t be allowed to taint yours.”
Harper’s eyes softened. “No, it doesn’t, nor was what happened my problem, but I’ve been here since it happened. I’ve seen how your wife’s death almost destroyed you, and if I may speak frankly, there were times when you were a fucked-up, stubborn pain in the ass.”
“Tell me about it, Baby,” I agreed and ran my hand through my hair.
“Sometimes you wallowed in self-pity so often I wanted to scream when I saw what you were doing to yourself. But I’ve been happy to support you and your daughter through all of that because I could never imagine the pain of losing someone like either of you had.”
My eyes softened. “Sweetheart, at first I saw you as a temptation; like you were somehow sent to test my commitment to Grace, even though she was gone. Then I wondered if you were a distraction, and at other times I considered whether this thing between us was because of what you meant to Layla. At those times I wasn’t ready to face the future with her alone.”
“Stop. Please just stop. I don’t want to do this.” Stepping to the side, Harper tried to get out of my way, but I blocked her.
“No, I want you to hear me out. At that time, I wasn’t in control of my own world, so I knew I couldn’t help Layla to manage hers. If I could take back everything that’s happened between us and start again I would, but we both know that isn’t possible.”
Harper fell quiet and I could see her thinking. Her eyes searched the room without focus on any one thing in particular; then she glanced up at me, blushing again. “What did I say?”
“Wow, you really were drunk. You don’t remember?”
“Bits and pieces… mostly pieces,” she replied sheepishly. She winced and shrugged at the same time before she lowered her eyes like she was ashamed.
Taking her hand, I led her over to her bed and I sat us both down.
“Well, I know that you’ve slept with this guy,” I disclosed, my jaw tightening immediately as the words left my mouth. Her guilty eyes darted to mine; yet she had no reason to feel that way. We weren’t together.
