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The girl who’d stepped out of her car yesterday hadn’t looked like a mountain girl at all, but I guessed when you’d left Kings Grove at seven, it didn’t leave that particular stain on you quite as deeply. Some of the folks up here couldn’t rub the mountains off with steel wool if they wanted to. It was something about the fine dust that crept into every wrinkle of skin, the clear air that made the eyes shine just a little more brightly than was normal. No, she looked city to me—all messy bun and purposely casual clothes that were undoubtedly expensive. She’d looked me right in the eye at first, and then it had felt like she’d purposely avoided looking at me again. Strange. Stranger still that I found myself wishing she would see me.
She wasn’t a tall woman—kind of a little thing, actually. Not thin and petite like Jess had been, but curvy and compact, and...something else, something I couldn’t put my finger on. That was the mystery. That was what had her on my mind first thing in the morning after two years of thinking of almost nothing but my dead wife. Part of me resented the sudden mental shift, and a part of me that was hard to acknowledge, because it felt like a traitor to my aching soul, was so relieved at the change that it almost hurt.
I shook my head to clear it, and went back inside. All I really needed to know about Harper Lyles was that her money was good and that she didn’t throw wild parties and trash the house.
Just as I reached the sink, ready to dump the rest of the coffee and admit I’d be better off going to the diner yet again, a light rap came at my front door.
With the French press still in hand, I walked over and pulled it open.
And there she stood. Messy bun back in place, tendrils of long light hair escaping down her neck and around her face, dressed in flannel pajama pants with martini glasses on them and a T-shirt that was tight enough to give me a pretty good view of her top-level assets. Which were...nice.
“There’s no coffee up there,” she said, her voice halfway between a moan and a whine. Her face was a comical misery, her round cheeks rosy and her mouth pushed into a soft pout below those gleaming dark eyes.
“Ah,” I wasn’t sure what I was meant to say.
Her eyes fell to the French press still in my hand. “Please?” she said, her voice high and reedy. “I promise I’ll go to the store today and you’ll never hear from me again. But I cannot function without...ohhh, is that espresso?” Her eyelids had slid halfway shut, and it was clear the right answer to the espresso question was yes.
“Yeah, uh...come on in.” I pulled the door open all the way and watched as Harper walked into my house and settled herself in a chair at the kitchen table, just past the living room.
She dropped her head onto her arms on the tabletop, exposing the back of her long white neck, and a muffled, “Thank you,” came out from beneath all the hair.
I poured another mug of sludge and set it on the table. “Milk or sugar or anything?”
She made a noise that sounded negative, so I stepped back, unable to contain my fascination. It wouldn’t have seemed like much to most people, but having an attractive woman wander into my house in pajamas demanding coffee first thing in the morning was a seismic shift from my usual routine.
Harper lifted her head and eyed the cup, her expression turning from misery to pleasure as she dipped her nose toward the rim. “Ohh, this is amazing.” She lifted the cup and I watched her sip, hating myself for my own intrigue, but unable to look away or resume the nonchalant attitude I’d been using for just about everything in life for years now.
For five solid minutes, neither of us said anything. Harper drank and moaned over the coffee, and I stood nearby like a statue, confused and enthralled, and generally moronic.
“How’d you do it?” she asked finally, setting the cup down. She had transformed before my eyes. Her face was clearer, her spine was straighter, and her voice was steady. I’d never met anyone who needed coffee like other people need oxygen.
“Do...what?”
“The coffee. I saw the French press, but this was super dark and rich and...did you use an espresso roast?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know. I didn’t pay attention.”
She stood and went to the counter next to the sink where the coffee bag still sat. She picked it up and eyed it, then opened it and stuck her nose inside, inhaling. “Oh yeah, this is good. Can you buy this in town? At the grocery?”
“Yeah.” Where else?
“Huh.” She shrugged and put the coffee bag back down on the counter and turned to face me. “Well, thanks, Cameron. You’ve saved my life.” She lifted a small hand and punched me lightly in the shoulder as she passed, heading for the door again.
“Sure,” I said, unable to access the bulk of my vocabulary.
She lifted a hand in a wave of goodbye and then let herself out the door, making her way barefooted through the soft brown dirt between my house and hers.
* * *
When Harper had left,I shoved my wallet into my pocket and headed out to the diner for coffee I could actually drink before I went to work.
“Hey.” My sister greeted me as I stepped into the diner, and Adele gave me a smile from her eternal post at the podium by the door.
“Cameron,” she said. Adele had been sweet to me since Jess had died. It made Maddie suspicious—Adele was never nice to her.
“You okay?” Maddie asked, walking me to my usual booth. “You look...you look different.” Her eyebrows and nose wrinkled as she watched me sit, like scrunching her face would help her figure me out.
“Fine. Just worried about being late for work. Spent a little more time at home than I’d meant to.”
