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HARPER
*
LILI NUDGED ME AWAKE. I'd been lousy company. The last thing I remembered was applying some of Lili's cosmetics to make myself more presentable, which meant we'd barely gotten onto the freeway before I'd fallen asleep.
We were parked outside the house. The porch lights weren't on, but lights were blazing in the front rooms. I climbed out of the car and smoothed my hair as I headed toward the front door.
I felt like I'd been away forever. Everything had a weird unfamiliar feel to it. My heart pounding, I tried the front doorknob. To my shock, it turned. I jolted seeing a man jump up from the couch. It took me a second to recognize my brother. His strawberry blond hair had been shaved and he was sporting a long, unruly beard. I couldn't believe he'd taken a plane from halfway across the world.
"Jesus, where have you been? Do you have any idea what you put him through? He's been making himself crazy looking for you. And here you waltz in looking like a million bucks."
That's what being well rested does for you, I thought sarcastically
"Nice to see you too, Matt. Is he here?"
"Hell no, he's out looking for you."
I walked to the bedroom and slid open the door on my side of the closet. I grabbed up my pink boots. I waited for the wave of dizziness to pass before heading back to the front room.
I stopped in front of Matt and stuck my hand out. "I need to borrow some money."
He frowned at me, but pulled his wallet out of his back pocket. "I have a hundred and twenty."
"I'll take it all." I waited impatiently for him to empty his wallet. As soon as he did, I plucked the cash from his hand and walked out to the curb where Lili's car was still idling.
When I returned to the house, I noticed for the first time the state of the living room. Fast food wrappers and beer bottles, mostly beer bottles seemed to clutter every surface. The dining table looked to be the central station for tracking my whereabouts. There were two laptops and the small desktop printer and maps with red ink.
I picked up a photocopy of a map of Los Angeles.
Matt had moved to stand behind me.
"The tour guide said you'd decided to go home early. Then a P.I. confirmed you'd bought a bus ticket. Rowley and the investigator have been scouring L.A. looking for a blonde. Couldn't you at least have put him out of his misery and let him know you were safe?"
He pulled his phone out of his pocket and I was expecting him to call Rowley, instead he started typing.
"I just ordered you an Uber," he said, when he finished typing. He aimed his phone at me. "Let me take a shot of you here at the house, for proof that you're okay. I'll tell him you've hooked up with someone else and you'd stopped by to say goodbye."
“Don’t you dare." My hand flew up to hide my face. “You take the Uber. I’m not going anywhere.” My voice was shaking with fury.
"Listen, Harp. We're not made for normal relationships. We're too messed up."
"He's my husband."
He pulled a keychain out of his pocket and worked a key free from it. "Here, take it. Stay at my place until you figure something else out."
I pushed his hand away.
"This is the first time I've felt like I have a true home. Something solid and real. Rowley is home to me."
"Seriously, he’s home to you? You disappeared for a fucking week.”
“He’s risking his career,” he continued. “He's risking his sanity. When he’d called to tell me he wanted to marry you, I warned him he'd be making a huge mistake. And now you've gone and proven it."
"Wow, thanks for having my back." I certainly wasn’t going to waste my breath telling him what had happened to me.
He had his phone in his hand again.
"Now what? Are you going to have me forcibly removed?"
"Just letting him know to come home; that there's news. I won't tell him you're here. I'm hoping you'll change your mind and do the right thing."
His phone rang immediately after the text, clearly Rowley looking for more information, but Matt didn't answer it. It rang again and he pressed something on the screen and the ringing stopped.
After putting on fresh clothes, I transferred the unused ticket with the destination and date stamped on it, to the pocket of my jeans. The hospital wristband that I still wore would help back me up.
Would there ever come a time when my word would be enough? Impulsive, flighty, and incautious did not inspire confidence in people.
Matt, who was still taking up space on the couch, watched me with a disapproving expression as I walked past him and into the laundry room.
I opened the cupboard above the washer and took down the box of garbage bags.
I started in the kitchen, tossing the wrappers and soda cups. I ignored his glowering attitude as I moved into the living room. The room was spinning, but I was determined.
Once I'd filled the bag, I took it outside and dropped it into a trash can. I found the plastic crate we used for recyclables and brought it into the house. I'd hoped that doing these ordinary chores would help me feel like I was back on familiar ground, but everything still felt out of whack.
I cleared the rooms of beer bottles and carried the crate toward the back door. I was doing too much, too fast. I tried to catch my breath.
"Here, let me do that," Matt said. The bottles rattled as I fought his gesture. I finally released the crate to him. "You're certainly domestic all of a sudden."
"Shut up," I said.
"I love you, Harp, but you and I know this will never work. You change husbands faster than you change hair color." He pushed out the screen door.
"How do you know about Finn?" I called after him.
He turned around and spoke to me through the screen door. "All the shit comes out when someone disappears like that. Your ex's house was the first place Rowley tried. He's had the investigator keeping tabs on him, in case you showed up there."
I started at the sound of an engine. I thought for the briefest moment that Matt hadn’t canceled the Uber, but I recognized that engine sound.
I glanced out the kitchen window and my heart lurched at the sight of Rowley’s big black truck. Matt said something to him as he climbed out.
I heard Rowley cursing as he came up the porch steps.
The screen door flew open and he stood there looking at me, his chest heaving. There were dark shadows under his eyes, and his skin was pale under the tan. But it was the pain I glimpsed in his hazel eyes that made my chest constrict.
"You don't look well," I said.
He rubbed what was already the start of a beard. "Chasing down a runaway wife will do that."
I'd done this to him. Matt was right.
"So are you going to explain where the fuck you were?"
I gave him a sheepish shrug. If I told him the truth I knew he would take me back. But wasn't self-sacrifice one of the tenets of love? His future would be so much smoother if I were out of his life.
"You don't have any excuse for yourself?"
"We McCrays never do," I said flippantly and pulled two trash bags from the box I'd left on the counter. "I'll just grab my stuff."
I could feel the heat of his anger as he followed me. Concentrate, keep your gait steady, I told myself.
"Babygirl, don’t make the mistake of confusing me with your ex. You cannot come and go as you please with me. That’s not how this marriage works. It’s not an open fucking door."
“I’m not planning on coming back.” My throat was tightening up. This was too much of a sacrifice.
“Do not say shit like that to me. You are my wife.”
He was making me so nervous that I yanked too hard on the narrow top drawer of the dresser, pulling it off the tracks. His hand shot out, catching the back end before it crashed to the floor.
I released the handle and he fitted the drawer back on its tracks then slammed it shut. “There’s no damn way I’m letting you pack that lingerie. Or anything else.”
I leaned over to pull out the bottom drawer and he shifted so that his body blocked me from opening it more than a couple of inches. “I guess I won’t be taking my clothes.”
“You’re not going anywhere.”
Dizziness overwhelmed me and I braced my hand on his jean-clad leg to stop from falling face first. He was as solid as a rock, moving him out of the way would be impossible.
"Are you drunk?" he asked.
I pushed off his leg and straightened up.
"What's going on here?" His hand brushed aside my hair and my whole body was set on fire. "Shit, are you shaving the sides of your head? Going punk again?"
"Yup." I tried to bat his hand away.
He persisted, his hand continuing to explore. "What's this?"
I winced as his fingers grazed the still tender spot where my head had met the curb. "Nothing."
"Let me see it."
"It's really nothing."
He stepped forward, scooped me around the waist to hold me fast, then flipped my hair to the other side exposing the shaved spot. "You’ve had stitches for Christ's sake."
Standing this close to him made me falter. I didn't want to give him up. I wanted to be the loyal, steadfast person I knew I could be. Didn't I deserve a chance to prove it?
"Goddammit, tell me what happened."
I struggled out of his hold. "I will. Just give me some room to breathe."
He released me and I took a few backward steps. I thought once out of his arms I might decide to resume being a martyr. But, no. I was just desperate to be back in his arms again.
"I decided to leave the tour a day early. I wanted to be home with you. I wanted to surprise you." I dug the ticket out of my pocket and handed it to him. "I bought the ticket and then I had some time to kill. I know you prefer me as a redhead so I went to a salon. And then I was running late and there was a traffic jam and I tried to make it there on foot. I was being impulsive, as usual. The last thing I remembered was a motorcycle pursuing me.
"Apparently, the woman riding on the back yanked my purse from me and I fell and hit the curb. I was unconscious for awhile." I tugged down the sleeve of my cardigan to show him the hospital wristband. "See Unknown Female."
There was a hitch in his breathing. "Unconscious as in a coma?"
"Yes."
"For how long?"
He was EMT certified. He probably knew plenty about brain injuries. "Almost two days," I answered after some hesitation.
I didn't think he could get any paler but he did. "Jesus." His Adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed hard. "But you're okay now?"
"I'm fine."
"I want to talk to your doctors."
"I really am fine."
He dragged his hand down his face. I could see that it was trembling. "Let me get this straight. You weren't leaving me...you were actually coming home to me, but now you’re packing. What the fuck?"
“I haven’t packed a thing yet because of you.”
He yanked the trash bag from my hand. “Harper, enough of this. Talk to me.”
I stared into his pained hazel eyes. "I don't think I'm good for you."
"Matt got to you. Fuck him. There are only two people in this marriage."
"He's right. I bring chaos to your life. Your work is suffering. You're suffering. You're frustrated and angry. You were never like this before."
"I never had anything to lose like this before." There were tears in his eyes. I had never seen tears in his eyes before. "Harper, baby, I refuse to live without you. I'm in love with you."
I pulled in a stunned breath.
"No, let me rephrase that. I'm fucking out of my mind in love with you."
I stepped into his arms and wept against his chest. I could feel his body shaking.
So he was allowed to say those words, but I wasn't, I thought with some resentment, yet I found myself nestling closer against the heat of him.
He lifted me into his arms and carried me to the living room and set me down carefully on the couch. Matt was still there, hanging back, observing the whole thing.
Rowley propped some pillows behind my head, and then crouched beside me and slipped off my shoes.
"What's going on?" Matt asked.
"Your sister was in the hospital with a head injury," Rowley answered without looking at Matt. "That's why she didn't come home."
"God, really?"
After tucking a cotton throw around my legs, Rowley straightened up and turned to my brother. "Listen, Matt, you're a great fucking friend, but come between Harper and me again and I won't hesitate to knock you out."
"Maybe it wasn't my place to say anything, but I didn't want to see either of you hurt."
Rowley heaved a sigh. "Matt go home. Right now I need to talk to her doctor."
Matt gave a curt nod, dug his keys out of his pocket, and left the house.
"Where can I find the discharge papers?" Rowley asked me. "I want to see what they advise for aftercare."
"I kind of left the hospital before being discharged. I'm pretty sure my last MRI was fine."
He raised his eyebrows. "You’re pretty sure? Jesus, Harper."
He walked off. When he returned to the couch he had his phone, some writing material, and a pair of scissors.
"I need the band for your admission info."
I stuck my arm out so he could cut it off my wrist.
Before anyone would tell him anything there was red tape to cut through. He had to supply health insurance information for one thing, since I hadn’t been able to recall any of that. And then there was the matter of my giving permission so that the doctor could discuss the case with him.
Rowley paced some, and lost his cool a couple of times, but once he finally had the doctor on the phone he grilled him until he'd gotten all the answers he was seeking. Though he'd been making notes on the pad of paper, he insisted on being emailed aftercare instructions.
He ended the call. "They were satisfied with the MRI results, but they think you should be monitored for a few days."
"That's your job," I said.
"Damn right it is," he said, taking a seat on the couch beside me.
"What's the detective's name?" In typical Rowley Ford fashion, he was going to tie up all the loose ends.
"I know you, Rowley, you want to see them in jail."
"I want a helluva lot worse for them. But jail for starters, yeah."
"It's not going to happen. Neither I nor the witness got the license plate number."
I crawled into his lap.
"There's one thing I don't get," he said as he stroked my back. "Why didn't you call me once you woke up?" I could tell how careful he was being. Any other day and he would have peppered that question with a few choice curse words.
"I had a bit of a problem with my memory. There were a few gaps."
"And I was one of the gaps? You forgot me?" He sounded hurt.
I snuggled against him. "Oh, I remembered you. I dreamt about you—as I always do. I just didn't remember that I was married to you. It hit me this afternoon when I was inside the MRI machine. I was panicking and I wanted you so badly it hurt." I brushed my fingers along the thick stubble on his jaw. "I know it wasn't rational, but at the time it seemed very important to fulfill my promise to you and walk though that door on my own two feet."