It took Harmony two days to get over the stomach virus she caught from Cash and Callie. For those two days she gladly let Dylan feed her horse. She tried not to be upset when he stopped in to tell her he’d gotten a halter on the animal. Yes, it was all about being stubborn, but she’d wanted to be the one. Dylan doing it meant that he didn’t think she could.
With the virus behind her, on Saturday she headed to town and the Mad Cow. As she got closer to the Tanner place she hit her turn signal and pulled up the drive. Several shirts and a couple of pairs of bib overalls fluttered on a line that stretched across the yard, hung between two rusted poles. Bill Tanner was sitting on the edge of the porch, looking even thinner than the last time Harmony had seen him.
She stepped out of her car and Bill looked up, adjusting his ball cap and half smiling at her. “Hi, Bill.”
“Miss Cross.”
She made her way across the lawn, stepping carefully through overgrown grass. “You can call me Harmony.”
“I reckon.”
“How is Doris?” Harmony sat on the step just a few feet from the old farmer.
He let out a long sigh and shook his head. “I don’t guess she’s doing too good. It’s hard to see her like that.”
“I bet it is.”
“I went two days ago. I guess her sister is coming up from Dallas to have a look at her.”
Alone. Doris Tanner was alone. Harmony thought about the great circle of friends and family that had surrounded her after the accident. “Bill, let’s go have lunch at the Mad Cow and then we can go visit Doris.”
“You don’t need to do that.”
“But I want to.” Harmony stood and she held a hand out to Bill. “Dylan said you’re planning a trip to the beach. We need to get Doris better so she can have that trip.”
Bill took her hand and stood. “If I go to town with you, you’d better drive like you’ve got some sense.”
“Of course I will.”
A few minutes later they pulled through the one stop sign in the town of Dawson. The feed store had a display of fall items. Straw bales, corn stalks and mums of all colors. Harmony would have to make a trip back to town in the old pickup her dad left in the barn. If she was staying in town for a few weeks, fall decorations would be nice.
She pulled in to the gravel parking lot of the Mad Cow Café. It was a busy Saturday in Dawson. She parked next to a familiar truck.
“Looks like Dylan is here,” Bill offered as he got out. “Guess you two are pretty serious?”
Harmony opened her mouth and then closed it, because she didn’t want to look like a fish gasping for oxygen. “Well, no, we’re just friends.”
“Not the rumor I heard.” Bill closed the car door and was already heading across the parking lot when Harmony caught up with him.
“Well, you know how rumors are, Bill.”
“Yep. They usually have a smidge of truth to ’em.”
The smile took her by surprise. Bill’s and her own. He chuckled a little and opened the door of the diner for her. She never would have guessed this friendship, the one with Bill Tanner.
Just like she never would have expected how much she missed seeing Dylan and the kids. But she had missed them. So much that her heart did a little leap when she spotted them in the Mad Cow. Callie called out, jumping from her chair and hurrying toward Harmony, a big smile and arms ready for a hug. Harmony leaned to hug the child, holding her tight for a moment and then kissing the top of her head.
“You’re better?” Callie asked as her hand tugged on Harmony’s.
“I’m better. Thank you for the chicken soup.”
“Grammy made it.”
Grammy meaning Angie Cooper, a woman ready to love all the children placed in her life. “Well, it was very good.”
“We’re having chicken strips.” Callie led her to the table. “And Dylan cracked a rib because he can’t ride a horse.”
They always had chicken strips. But the cracked rib was news to her. She remembered that he’d gotten thrown when he went to help Jackson. She shot him a look and he reddened just a little.
“You cracked a rib?”
“Two, but I’m fine.”
Bill had already taken a seat at the table. He grinned up at her and winked. “Like I was saying.”
“Bill,” she warned in a quiet voice.
The older man laughed and reached for a menu. Harmony met Dylan’s easy smile. He winked and indicated she should take the seat next to his. She didn’t. Instead she pulled the chair out for Callie and took a seat next to Bill.
“Bill and I are going to see Doris,” Harmony told Dylan as she looked over the menu a waitress handed her. Harmony smiled up at the woman she hadn’t seen before. And then she turned to Dylan again. “Where’s Breezy?”
He shrugged. “She left. Something about finding more family. A brother, maybe her dad.”
“Wouldn’t it be Mia’s dad and brother, too?”
“No, they had different dads, she and Mia did.”
“When will she be back?”
He shook his head. “She probably won’t.”
Harmony hadn’t known Breezy Hernandez very well, but she’d liked the free-spirited sister of Mia Cooper McKennon. She smiled up at the new waitress, who had reappeared with ice water and hot tea. Harmony ordered and handed the menu back to the waitress.
And then there was nothing but time as they waited for their food. Time to look at Dylan. Or avoid looking at him. Time to think about his impulsive proposal days earlier.
“I’m planning a birthday party for Cash,” Dylan said.
“When?” She smiled at the little boy in his high chair, ketchup all over his mouth as he finished eating his French fries. Cash grinned back at her, a big smile that sparkled in his blue eyes.
“Two weeks. You’ll be here, won’t you?”
She nodded, because yes, she would stay. It wouldn’t be a birthday Cash remembered, but it was an important birthday. He was turning two. He had a new home, a new life. Even as little as he was, it mattered.
“Yes, I’ll be here.” She smiled up at the waitress who appeared with their food.
“What are you planning to do with that horse when you head on back to Nashville?” Bill asked as he poured ketchup over his fries.
“I’ll take him with me.”
Bill nodded at the answer and picked up the burger he’d also smothered with ketchup. Bill liked ketchup.
Suddenly the day seemed normal. Harmony finished her lunch and held on to that feeling. Normal. She was just another person having lunch at the Mad Cow. She laughed at Cash’s silliness as he bulldozed a chicken strip through ketchup, and she answered Bill Tanner’s questions about Beau and how the horse was getting along. She invited him to visit.
They finished eating and left. Callie held her hand and asked if she could ride with Harmony to the nursing home. Bill somehow ended up in the truck with Dylan. It all made sense. It all felt right.
Harmony started her car with Callie buckled in her booster seat in the back. She smiled at the little girl and then headed out, still thinking about being normal and having a life that included these people.
But it didn’t last. Instead grief sneaked up on her. By the time she reached the nursing home, it had her in its grips. It happened that way sometimes. She could be smiling and laughing, thinking maybe today would be the day when she would forget.
But she couldn’t forget. Not a best friend. Not a moment that changed everything for so many people.
She sat in her car for a long time after parking at the nursing home. Callie had unbuckled herself and crawled over the seat. Her little arms wrapped around Harmony’s neck, and she leaned in close, smelling like soap and chicken.
“Are you sad?” Callie asked, leaning close.
Harmony smiled up at the little girl and nodded, but she didn’t form the words.
Callie kissed her cheek. “Sometimes I get sad, too. I miss my mommy. Do you miss your mommy?”
Harmony sniffled and smiled, her hand going to Callie’s sweet face. “You are precious, Callie. And yes, sometimes I miss my mom, too. But she’s in Nashville.” And Harmony would see her again.
Harmony’s grief was for Amy.
“Can I see her in Nashville?” Callie whispered close to Harmony’s ear as the car door opened and Dylan stood in the opening, peering down, his eyes narrowed as he studied her face.
“Maybe someday she’ll come here and you can meet her,” Harmony offered the child.
“Okay.” Callie scrambled over her lap and out of the car. The little girl hurried to the sidewalk where Bill waited.
“What’s up?” Dylan held Cash’s hand and the little boy was tugging, trying to move away. Dylan held him tight.
“Nothing. I’m good.”
“What was it you said about needing to be honest?” Dylan gave Cash a warning look. “Buddy, stop pulling on my hand.”
Cash stopped. Harmony grabbed her purse and got out of the car, forcing Dylan to take a step back. She closed the door and locked it, then faced the man standing behind her, waiting for her answer.
“Everything seemed so normal back at the Mad Cow,” she explained. “Everything seemed right. And then I remembered that Amy is gone and I’m the reason why. How can I have normal moments, feel happy, have lunch with a friend and get hugged by a little girl like Callie, when...”
Dylan’s right arm pulled her close to his side and he leaned down, his lips brushing close to her ear. “Stop. Give yourself a chance to live, because you are alive.”
She nodded into his shoulder. “I’m not going to keep doing this, keep feeling sorry for myself.”
“No, you’re not. Instead you’re going to be the friend Amy expected you to be. You’re going to face life and you’re going to do it every single day, thinking that you have this chance, this moment, to be happy. Do it for her.”
And then he kissed her, just a brief brush of his lips against hers.
“Thank you.” She smiled as she said it. “I needed that.”
He picked Cash up, settling him on his left hip and then reached for her hand with his right one. Together they crossed to the sidewalk where Callie was telling Bill about her kitten.
Normal returned with a rush and it felt good. It felt good even ten minutes later as they sat in the activity room where Doris was picking out a hymn on the old piano. Her left hand didn’t quite keep up with the right but the melody carried down the hall, drawing a crowd.
Bill sang along, an old hymn about redemption. Dylan moved from Harmony’s side and returned a minute later with a guitar that he held out to her. She looked up, unsure.
He winked and placed the guitar in her hands.
“I’m not a Cross.”
“You are a Cross, and you have an audience of people who need this.”
She nodded and somehow managed to find the tune, strumming gently until she picked it up and found the rhythm of the hymn Doris played. Bill smiled at her from the bench next to his wife. Harmony sang along, joining him on the chorus. And then she heard Dylan next to her, his voice a perfect tenor.
When the song ended, the crowd that had gathered clapped. Someone called out a request. Doris flipped through the song book and found “In The Sweet By and By,” the requested song. As Harmony played, a few stray tears slipped down her cheeks. We shall meet on that beautiful shore. She thought of Amy there, and knew her friend wouldn’t want to come back to this life, the heartache, the pain.
But she wanted Amy back.
Grief choked her but she managed to smile at the concerned look Dylan gave her. She nodded, letting him know she was okay. She felt pieces of herself coming back together, even with the pain, even with the tears. And wasn’t that why she had come to Dawson in the first place, to find the person she used to be?
The one thing she hadn’t expected was this friendship with Dylan Cooper and how it made her feel stronger.
* * *
“Will you come back next week?” One of the older men asked Dylan as he put up the guitar and picked up the pieces of a puzzle Cash had been playing with.
“I think we might manage that.” Dylan took the hand that was offered, shaking it.
“That would be real good.” The gentleman moved his wheelchair closer. “And that’s a pretty little wife and some sweet kids you’ve got.”
Dylan choked a little. “She’s not my wife. Just a friend.”
“Well, if I was you, I wouldn’t let her get away.”
Dylan smiled because it seemed a lot easier than explaining. He turned and saw that Harmony had joined Cash and Callie at a table. They were stacking dominoes. She smiled up at him and then went back to playing with the kids. Bill had taken Doris back to her room.
As everyone left the room, Dylan sat in the empty seat next to Harmony. “They’d like for us to come back.”
She didn’t look up. “I know.”
“I’m game if you are,” he offered.
She laughed at something Cash did with the dominoes and then she looked up, her dark blue eyes smoky with emotion. “It’s heartbreaking, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, it is.”
He didn’t need for her to explain what she meant by that. Being here, seeing people who were lonely and alone, people forgetting who they used to be.
“I’d like to do this, Dylan. For as long as I’m here. These people need us.” She stacked another domino. “I might need them, too.”
His mind took an unexpected turn because lately, when she mentioned leaving, he realized he wasn’t looking forward to the day she packed up and went back to her life in Nashville. He didn’t want to think about her being gone.
To make it easier he tried to tell himself it was for the kids, for Cash and Callie. She’d become pretty important to them. But Dylan had never been one to lie, not even to himself. She was becoming pretty important to him.
They waited at the front of the nursing home for Bill. He eventually joined them, looking a little worse for wear, Dylan thought. It couldn’t be easy, leaving Doris here. It couldn’t be easy, going home to that empty farmhouse.
“Let me give you a lift home, Bill,” Dylan offered as he pushed the door open.
“That would be good of you, Dylan.” Bill gave Harmony a cautious look. “Will that be okay with you, Miss Cross?”
“Of course it is, Bill. And please call me Harmony.”
“I sure appreciate you stopping by today.” He patted her arm, an awkward gesture, Dylan thought. He walked behind the two of them. Cash and Callie were holding his hands, and Cash was doing his favorite number, leaning to one side and pretending to go limp.
“Stand up and walk, Cash,” Dylan warned with a smile. “Or I’ll just have to throw you over my shoulder like a bag of flour.”
“Flowder. Flowder.” Cash giggled and let his knees buckle. Dylan lifted the little boy and tossed him over his shoulder, holding him by the ankles. Cash continued to laugh and then Callie mimicked her brother, letting her legs buckle.
“Another sack of flour?” Dylan grabbed up the little girl and let her hang over his other shoulder. “I’m not sure what I’ll do with all this flour.”
Harmony was telling Bill goodbye, her eyes bright and all of the shadows gone. He let the kids slide to the ground.
“I’ll see you at church tomorrow?” Dylan asked as he opened the truck door. Cash clambered into his seat and Callie pulled the straps over his shoulder to buckle him in. As Dylan walked away he heard Cash telling his sister, “Me. Me.”
Because all of a sudden the little guy wanted to do it on his own. Dylan followed Harmony to her car, remembering that he’d promised his mom something.
“Will you eat lunch with us at the ranch tomorrow?”
She had already opened her car door and she turned toward him. He had noticed earlier that her dark blue sundress made her eyes look like an evening sky. He noticed that she hadn’t used her cane and that she now rested her left foot, putting most of her weight on her right leg.
He noticed a lot about Harmony Cross. He noticed that her lips parted, ever so slightly and a man could drown in the depths of those blue eyes. He also noticed that he’d been reduced to thinking poetic thoughts that would have his brothers giving him a hard time if they knew.
“I’m not sure.”
“Big plans?”
“No, it just...” She looked away. “It’s me. It just isn’t that easy.”
“I understand.”
She looked up at him. “Thank you.”
“You don’t have to thank me. But if you are at church, the invitation to lunch still stands. And give yourself a break, Harmony. You should see yourself through my eyes, or through Cash and Callie’s eyes. Even the eyes of the people in the nursing home. You’re judging yourself pretty harshly, but you’re not giving yourself much room for forgiveness.”
“Maybe I don’t deserve it.”
“Oh, come on. You’re punishing yourself for something you can’t undo.”
“But if I could...”
“You can’t. What you can do is see that maybe you can be the person you were always meant to be. And that person has a gift that she’s using to minister to people in this place. You’re more than the mistakes you’ve made.”
“That person is lucky to have you for a friend.” She laced her fingers through his. “I should go. But thank you.”
He should have walked away, but didn’t. Instead he moved to brush his lips against her cheek. Somehow his mouth captured hers in the sweetest kiss. Her hand was still in his and he pulled her close. He moved his other hand to her back and felt her shiver beneath his touch.
Her lips parted beneath his and he drew in a breath, needing air, needing her. Every other sweet moment they had shared paled in comparison to this. Because this was real, more real than anything he’d ever experienced with any other woman. He slid his hand up her back, settling it between her shoulders. Her hair curled over his skin.
They were in a parking lot in front of the nursing home in the afternoon. As he kissed her, wanting to hold her close for a long time, he remembered. They also had truckloads of reasons for not getting involved.
For a few minutes it didn’t matter. And for a few minutes he’d allowed himself to be a single man attracted to a beautiful woman. It had been a long time. Maybe that explained the need to hold her close, his lips now resting in her hair, close to her ear. He breathed in the soft scent of lavender.
Yes, that was it. He hadn’t dated in over a year. Hadn’t even thought about dating. Knowing that, he should be able to put things in perspective.
“Dylan.” Her voice was shaky. “I should go.”
He nodded, still holding her close. “Yes, you should.”
He let her go, releasing her hand from his. She stepped back, composed, her breathing steady. He wanted her to be as unsettled as he was. Maybe she was. Maybe the way she avoided his gaze was Harmony unsettled, undone. He watched as she fidgeted and he tried to come up with the right words to say goodbye, or that he was sorry.
“Harmony...”
“Don’t say something stupid.”
He laughed a little. “Well, I’m not sure if I can say something intelligent.”
“Then tell me you’ll see me tomorrow and I’ll get in my car and leave.”
“I’ll see you tomorrow.”
She nodded at that. And then she didn’t get in her car. She looked up at him, unsmiling. “And we won’t do that again.”
Dylan brushed a hand across his cheek and grinned. “I never make a promise I can’t keep.”
With that he walked away, chuckling a little because he heard her exasperated sigh as she got in her car. Good, he was getting under her skin. That seemed only fair, because she was definitely getting under his.
And one promise he knew he could keep was that he would kiss her again. Soon.