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“Course, Harper,” he smiled down at me. “Why do I get the sense you’re saying goodbye?”
I glanced across the open space to where Cam stood at the bar, smiling as he spoke to some of the guests who had come up from out of town, and felt my heart squeeze painfully. “Because I am,” I told him. “I’ve got the car ready to go, and there’s no point in staying. You and Cam can handle the editing, and Mike already knows I’m leaving.”
“Tonight though?” Tuck asked, frowning.
I nodded. I couldn’t stay any longer. It was too hard. There was too much I wanted here that I couldn’t have. “Right now,” I confirmed.
Tuck pulled me into a hug tight enough to force tears from my eyes—or maybe they would have come anyway. “Gonna miss you, roomie,” he whispered. “So will Cam.”
“Take care of him, okay?” I managed, though my voice cracked.
“He’s a fool,” Tuck told me, letting me go.
“Or maybe I am,” I said. “Bye Tuck.”
I slipped away then, back to the house to change. The sun was just beginning to slip through the tops of the tall trees, and with every minute I got closer to leaving, the more resolute I felt that it was what I needed to do. I just needed to go get the dog I’d chosen—I’d decided to call her Sequoia—and then I’d be on my way.
I crossed the space between the houses, trying not to look at the fire pit or allow myself any nostalgia about the times I’d sat there with Cam, oblivious to the way things would turn out between us. Just as I pushed open the door to his house, the terrifying yowl of the mountain lion came screeching through the trees, chilling my blood and sending the hair on my neck standing on end. I’d just pushed the door open, and the eerie scream had distracted me long enough to let the dogs out without meaning to.
“Oh crap!” I came back to my senses, but it was too late. Though I pulled the door quickly shut again, three puppies and Matilda had all squirmed out and were now running in opposite directions, away from me. Matilda was following one pup out to the driveway, and one remained on the deck. I scooped him up and deposited him into the closed pen where he whined his disapproval at me and jumped up against the fence. The third pup was tearing across the lot behind the big house, heading for the ravine that separated the village from the wild hillside that climbed into the forest behind us. The hillside where the big cat seemed to have taken up residence despite months of efforts to trap it.
The rangers believed the mountain lion must have been trapped before, and was too smart to fall for the same trick twice, a thought that was not a consolation as I ran after the puppy that I was ninety-nine percent sure was my Sequoia, based on the little black butt and brown markings on her backside as she tore away from me.
I’d changed out of my wedding clothes, but I was dressed to drive to Austin, not for a hike. My sandals slowed me as I picked my way through the bushes along the ravine and down the pine needle covered slope littered with branches and pine cones. The dog was already crossing the little creek at the bottom, and I heard a loud wet “plonk” as she slipped in and out of the water, scrambling up the other side.
“Sequoia,” I called, my voice filled with a panic that was rising as she began to climb up the hill on the other side. “Come back, girl. Please!” I found a rock to step on and crossed the little creek, looking up as I began to climb the slope. Sequoia had managed to get far enough ahead of me that I couldn’t see her now, she must’ve wandered behind bushes or rocks up the hillside. Fear bubbled in my chest as I went after her, the eerie scream we’d just heard still ringing through my head.
This wasn’t safe. I knew it, but I couldn’t let the puppy just wander away.
Ten minutes of slipping and scrabbling through the dirt and littered branches later, I found her. She stood frozen near a small rock formation, staring upwards with wide eyes at a huge mountain lion crouched on top of a rock, poised to spring.
I sucked in a sharp breath, fear hammering in my blood. As my feet slid on the needle covered ground, I sent a pine cone flying down the slope with a crash, and the huge cat snapped it’s head around to train the big yellow predatory eyes on me.
What had I been taught about mountain lions? What had Cam told me? My mind was frozen with terror, but I forced myself to think. Big. I was supposed to be big. And noisy. That part was easy.
I opened my mouth and let out a scream that was a sound like nothing I’d ever made before. It might have been mixed with several curse words, but if the key was to be loud, I’d nailed it. And in my terror, I didn’t stop with one little yell, I kept up a steady stream of vocalized fright at the top of my lungs and raised my arms up over my head. I could be loud, but big was a lot harder for me to manage.
The cat crouched lower, considering me, the yellow eyes steady on me as it undoubtedly considered how best to attack.
My screams of fear turned to sounds of horror, though, when another animal came tearing up the hill to my left, circling behind the lion and barking like her life depended on it—or maybe the life of one of her pups.
Matilda, snarling and fierce, stopped just feet from the mountain lion, pulling it’s attention from me and the puppy.
The big cat snarled and sprang.
Chapter 19
CAMERON
Iwatched my sister get married and felt like I was standing outside myself, like a spectator instead of a participant. From my mental distance, I could see more clearly, could consider more objectively. My sister was beautiful, and so happy as I delivered her to Connor at the end of the aisle. I had an overwhelming sense of rightness as I clapped him on the back and smiled at him. This was meant to be. I was certain of it.
And I was stunned, not for the first time, when I caught sight of Harper. She wore a simple pink sheath dress, high-heeled sandals, and her hair pulled up off her neck in a simple twist on the back of her head. She was gorgeous, and as she stood at the back of the grove with her clipboard, quietly orchestrating every last detail of the event, it occurred to me how talented she was. She’d created all of this from nothing more than a thought, an idea. She’d made it real and built the perfect place for my sister’s wedding by simply wiling it all into happening.
I knew she was brilliant, and obviously she was good at her job, but I thought there was more to it.
I watched her throughout the ceremony—I couldn’t have helped it if I’d wanted to. She shone like honesty and truth as she stood at the back of the crowd, and I wished I could be as authentic and true as she was every minute of her life. There was nothing hidden about Harper—she’d never hidden her feelings from me, and all she’d asked of me was to do the same, to be honest. With her, with myself.
But I couldn’t. Being honest would mean letting go of the guilt and regret I’d gathered and held close all these years. It would mean pushing those things away and stepping forward into Harper’s light, stripping myself of whatever armor I’d managed to cobble together and being vulnerable to a world that I felt had already hurt me so many times. How could a person do that? How could someone willingly stand emotionally naked, knowing they might end up hurt more deeply than ever before?
