Several hours later, Harper and Ivy stood at the bottom of the interior staircase that led to her apartment, staring up at the dead bulbs in the light fixtures on the ceiling. Harper had considered climbing onto the hand railing to get to them, but there was a reason she’d never made it in gymnastics. Her balance wasn’t great. Her middle school coach had attributed it to her inability to concentrate. Harper attributed it to her love of eating her own baked goods. She was smarter about her choices these days, at least mostly, and she’d added yoga and walking to her daily routine.
Okay, not daily.
But she did her best, choosing not to put too much brain power behind how she looked, preferring to concentrate on how she felt. And she could honestly say, even with the wolf spiders, raccoons, and bears, oh my, she’d never felt more excited or happy.
“I could probably climb up there,” Ivy said.
“Yeah, it’s the ‘probably’ part that’s problematic. I just need to borrow a ladder.”
“Or tell Landlord Dude to fix this.”
Harper opened her mouth, but Ivy beat her to it. “Let me guess,” the teen said. “Strong, independent women don’t ask for help.”
“See? Learning already. I’ll be right back, I’m just going to borrow a ladder.” She grabbed her tin of cookies, her friendship bribe that she knew made her irresistible. She headed outside, surprised by the warmth of the day, a stark, shocking contrast to the night before. The Swiss Alps–style buildings were just as beautiful in the daylight as they’d been at night. The snow was completely gone, like it’d never even been there in the first place.
She headed next door to The Book Spot. When she opened the door, a chime to the tune of the Addams Family theme song went off, making her laugh. The charming, quaint store wasn’t any bigger than hers, and it was stuffed to the gills with books in the warmest, most welcoming way possible. There were little nooks and overstuffed chairs everywhere, and beautiful, thriving plants on top of shelves and hanging in corners.
Shay sat behind the counter on a laptop. There were two jars on the counter. One labeled “Swear Jar,” the other labeled “Telling People About Books When I Wasn’t Asked.” It was that jar that was filled nearly to the top with coins, making Harper smile.
“What?” Shay asked without looking up.
Harper was startled both by the annoyed tone and also the fact that without Velma’s red wig and makeup, Shay was dark-haired, dark-eyed, and stunning. “Are you always this friendly?”
“It’s called sarcasm. It’s how I hug. I save the cheery hellos for customers.”
“Maybe I’m a customer,” Harper said.
“Are you?”
“Okay, no.”
Shay sighed and pushed away her laptop. “Look, I was late to work and got chewed out by my abuela, twice. I can’t remember the password to get into the system, but I also can’t answer the secret questions correctly.”
“So, it’s like you don’t even know yourself?” Harper asked dryly.
Shay slid her an unamused look.
Harper smiled a hopefully irresistible smile and set the tin of cookies on the counter. “You could try setting an alarm so you’re not late.”
“I have an alarm set. It’s internally wired and called anxiety.”
“Well, everyone has that one,” Harper said, unimpressed. “So . . .”
“What?”
“I kinda need some help,” Harper admitted.
“No.”
“Shay Rylie Anna Ramirez, what kind of way is that to talk to someone?” This was asked by an older woman who was the spitting image of Shay, with the exception being that her hair was pure white and billowing wildly around her shoulders like the bulbous clouds in the day’s sky. She turned her sharp, dark eyes on Harper and said something in rapid Spanish to Shay.
Shay didn’t respond.
“I’m Rosa,” the older woman said to Harper. She jabbed a finger in Shay’s direction. “I’m this one’s abuela, though with her horrible manners, I don’t often admit it.”
Shay rolled her eyes.
“I saw that,” her abuela said without taking her eyes off Harper. “And you can call me Abuela. How can we help you?”
“My name’s Harper Shaw, and I’m leasing the building next door for my bakery.” She opened her tin. “I brought my homemade chocolate and mint chip cookies.” She waited until both women had taken one and bitten into it before saying, “I was wondering if you had a ladder I might borrow.”
Shay’s abuela said something in Spanish to Shay.
“What did she say?” Harper asked.
“She said if I’d ever apply myself, I still couldn’t make cookies this good.”
“You could,” Harper said. “I could show you how.”
Shay blinked, like she didn’t know how to take the random act of kindness.
“It’s really not that hard,” Harper said.
“I call it strategic incompetence.” Shay’s lips curved. “The art of avoiding certain tasks by pretending you don’t know how to do them.”
Harper laughed. “Something to remember.”
“Good luck baking this good here at altitude,” Abuela said. “As for a ladder, we just borrow the Campbells’ tools whenever we need something.” A cell phone rang from somewhere behind them. “I’m going to get that.” She grabbed two more cookies, one for each hand, then narrowed her eyes at Shay. “Behave.”
Shay finished her cookie and looked at Harper, eyes unreadable, silent until her abuela was out of hearing range. “When you go over there for a ladder, steer clear of Mace. He just got out of a longtime serious relationship, so he’s not interested.”
Harper knew that devastated, just-broken-up look. She’d worn that look. “Let me guess. You’re the serious relationship he just got out of, right?”
“Your second day here and already you’re the expert on all things Campbell?”
“Oh, trust me,” Harper said on a laugh. “I’m an expert on exactly nothing. Well, except cookies. I’m definitely an expert on those.” She pointed at Shay. “You almost just smiled, I can tell.”
This got her another eye roll.
“Okay, I’m going,” Harper said, putting the lid back on her tin and picking it up.
Shay sighed. “Bodie’s probably in the warehouse behind the bar, restoring his dad’s old boat. He’s a sucker for anything neglected or forgotten. If you look particularly helpless, he’ll come fix whatever it is that needs fixing.”
“Doesn’t that throw girl power back about fifty years?” Harper asked.
“Not if it gets you the tools you need.”
True enough. “I don’t do helpless.”
Shay shrugged. “Then I hope you know how to solve all your own problems.”
Shay’s abuela stuck her head out from the back. “So we’re not making any damn money today?” she yelled. “We’re just going to stand around and wring our damn hands? Is that it? Mi madre did not fight for damn women’s rights for you two to stand around and quack quack quack.”
“Abuela, you stand around plenty when you’re on the beach with your metal detector every morning for hours,” Shay yelled back.
“I’ll have you know I made ten bucks this morning!”
Well, that escalated quickly. Harper motioned toward the door. “Okay, so I’ll just—”
“Good!” Shay said to her abuela. “You can put the entire ten bucks in the swear jar!”
Abuela surprised Harper by cackling. “Ms. Smarty Pants with the razor tongue.”
“I’m told I get both from you,” Shay said.
Abuela cackled again.
Harper escaped outside. She didn’t have a sister. Or a grandma, for that matter. She did have a dad who didn’t take much notice of her and an ex who’d turned out to be not anything close to the man she’d thought he was. So while both Shay and her abuela were scary as hell, she wouldn’t mind sharing a relationship like they had with someone who loved and accepted her as she was.
Since that was a place she didn’t want to visit right now, she went to the bar first. No Campbells working, but she placed an order for two burgers, two orders of fries, and two lemonades to go. She said she’d be back in a few and made her way to the old-time metal warehouse. The windows and double doors were all open to the sunny day. Harper moved to the open doorway and found Bodie next to a huge wooden boat, a little sweaty, covered in sawdust, sanding away on the hull in a long-sleeved T-shirt, those faded, ripped jeans, and beat-up work boots.
Flicking off the power, he straightened, the sander in his hand at his side. His tousled brown hair looked to be past due for a trim, and he clearly hadn’t touched a razor in a few days. The rough-and-tumble look made her swallow hard. “I need, um . . .” She was trying to remember why she’d come while keeping her eyes on his, but holy cow. No, really, holy cow . . . “Hi.”
“Hi.” His eyes were warm. Curious. “What’s up? You want to go to the store today instead?”
“No.” She drew a deep breath. “I’m here because it’s the last place I was really happy,” she said, answering his question from earlier.
He raised a brow. “This warehouse?”
“Sunrise Cove.”
He smiled. He’d been just teasing her. “And are you feeling happy yet?”
She took in his sexiness and smiled back. “Getting there.” She stepped closer and met his gaze straight on. “And . . . ?” she asked pointedly.
It was his turn to take in a deep breath. “I was hurt on the job.”
“Bartending?”
“No.” His gaze tracked over her head, like he was trying to make a decision. “I was an ATF agent. A case went sideways. Long story.”
Being ATF was a sharp turn from being a bartender. “I like long stories,” she said.
Their gazes met and held, and she felt a zing go through her that felt alarmingly . . . real.
“Maybe another time,” he finally said.
“Okay.” But it took her mind a beat to get off the idea of him working a dangerous job such as being an ATF agent, to him getting hurt, to . . . what had she come here for again? “I was hoping to borrow a ladder. Oh, and a lightbulb.” Her feet took her even closer, to the frame of the boat. “It’s beautiful. Is this yours?”
He didn’t answer, so she looked at him again, which was a whole lot like looking into a solar eclipse for the fact that it left her speechless in the face of its beauty.
“It was my dad’s,” he finally said.
It was clear by his tone that his dad had passed, and she ached for him because she knew what losing a parent felt like. “I’m sorry.”
He shrugged that off. “Sometimes I find myself redoing something on the boat that doesn’t need to be redone, just so I won’t finish it. Because if I do, it means his last project is done and I’ll lose that connection to him.”
She held his gaze. “When I lost my mom, I got the pocket watch she always kept on her because it was her grandpa’s.” She pulled it out of her pocket and showed it to him. “Now I always carry it. It’s broken, always has been, but she never fixed it. She used to say if she fixed it then time would start again and she was afraid she’d forget him. Now it’s mine, still broken, and I can’t fix it for the same reason—because it would mean I might forget her.”
“Ah, Harper.”
And then it was her turn to nod, because she was almost undone by the understanding in his gaze.
“Who raised you after your mom passed?” he asked.
She managed a smile. “It’s a long story. Maybe another time.”
He smiled too. “For another time then.” He ran a hand over the wood hull. “My dad worked on this thing for years whenever he had spare time. But with four boys, spare time was a luxury he didn’t have very often.” He shook his head. “The real irony is that when he was alive, I never wanted to do this with him, and now all I want is a second chance to do just that.”
Harper’s tummy fluttered. She told herself it was indigestion from the breakfast burrito, but that was a lie. It was something much more dangerous, something she refused to acknowledge. “He was a good guy?”
“The best. We had it good. Certainly better than I thought while growing up, that’s for sure.” His smile was wry. “How about you? You close to your dad?”
“He’s remarried and has kids.”
“Aren’t you his kid too?” he asked.
“Yeah.” She turned from him, and under the guise of staring at the boat, she ran a finger along the hull. “But I think it’s more that I’m a painful reminder and possibly hard to look at, so . . .” She craned her neck to flash him one of her patented “I’m fine” smiles, but there was a genuine empathy in his expression, and she found she couldn’t speak.
“I’m sorry, Harper.”
She shrugged. “Water under the bridge. So . . . the ladder?”
“I’ll bring it over for you.”
“No, you’re busy. Just point me in the right direction, I’ve got this.”
His mouth—and that dimple—quirked. “You should get that printed on a T-shirt.”
She unzipped her sweatshirt and revealed her T-shirt, which read: chocolate is my love language. “I’ve already got all the shirts.”
He let out a soft laugh that, if it’d been any more potent, she’d have gotten pregnant from it. Which meant . . . ah hell . . . he really did spark joy. “Okey dokey, well . . . I’ve gotta go,” she said, and did an about-face and headed toward the door.
“The ladder—”
“Forget it. I’m good.” Forget the lightbulb too. She didn’t need light. “Don’t come over!” She shut the doors behind her and leaned against them for a moment, shaking her head at herself. Okey dokey? What, was she twelve? She wasn’t here to hop in the sack with the first good-looking guy she met. She had goals. Such as fulfilling her own dream instead of helping someone else fulfill theirs. To have her own bakery, to be her own boss, and most definitely not to fall in love.
Although apparently she wasn’t opposed to a little lust . . .
Stopping at the bar, she grabbed the food she’d ordered and headed back to her building, where she found Ivy teaching Ham how to shake. “Oh, he’s not good at tricks—”
Ivy gave him a hand signal, and Ham sat.
Ivy gave another hand signal, and Ham lay down. Sure, he hit the floor hard enough to shake the foundation and rattle the windows, but he lay there panting up at them happily.
Harper stared in shock. “Jeez, how long was I gone?”
Ivy gave another hand signal, and Ham rolled over.
Harper was beyond impressed. “Okay, who are you, and what have you done with my Hambone?”
Ham smiled proudly.
“He’s a good boy,” Ivy said.
Harper handed Ivy the bag of food and one of the lemonades.
Ivy looked down at it all. “You bought me food?”
“I bought us food.”
“You didn’t have to do that.”
“And neither did you this morning. Plus, you worked your butt off for me today. Not that this is in payment for that. I’m keeping track of your hours and will pay you for those too.” Harper smiled, but Ivy didn’t. She looked . . . worried. “Okay, what’s wrong?”
Ivy let out a deep breath. “Nothing,” she said softly. “Thank you.”
Harper was sure the girl had been about to say something else but had changed her mind. Not wanting to push and scare her off, she watched Ham lean up against Ivy, knocking her back a step. The teen laughed, steadied herself, and then encouraged Ham to lean on her some more.
“You’re good with him,” Harper said. “Do you have a dog?”
“No.”
“Any pets?”
“No.”
“Your parents not into animals?”
Ivy took a big bite of the burger and took her time chewing. “We moved a lot.”
“That’s hard,” Harper said quietly. “Are you an only child?”
“Sort of.” She slurped some lemonade and hunched into herself.
Harper took a few bites herself, wanting to tread carefully and not intrude too much, but also needing to know more, because she couldn’t just let Ivy hide out here if there were people who were worrying about her somewhere. And there had to be. Or so she hoped. “It really is okay if you don’t want to talk about yourself. Again, you can just tell me you don’t want to.”
Ivy looked up, doubt on her face. “And that’s it?”
“With me it is. But if we’re going to be roomies, I need to know that those who care about you aren’t worried about you. And for that reason alone, I need to know a little bit more about you. Is that okay?”
Ivy bit her lower lip.
“How about I start?” Harper said. “I grew up in San Diego. My mom passed away when I was twelve and I don’t have any siblings, so it’s just me and my dad. We’re not close.” An understatement, but it was getting easier to admit.
Ivy was concentrating on dipping her French fries in ketchup. “Why?”
Harper would’ve really liked to evade this question, but Ivy clearly needed more if she was going to open up, so she went with the truth. “He remarried and got a new family.”
Ivy looked up at this. Paused. Then finally said, “I don’t know my biological dad, but if you count all my mom’s marriages, I’ve got four stepsiblings. I don’t know any of them very well, except my stepsister Kylie.” She hesitated. “I was, um, staying with her before I came here because my mom’s on a cruise on her fourth honeymoon and can’t be reached.”
“Where was that?”
“Chicago.”
Harper tried to tamp down on her horror. Chicago was a long way from Tahoe. “Did Kylie come with you?”
“No. But she isn’t going to be worried about me because she thinks I’m staying with a friend. But . . .” She looked away. “I texted the other day. I haven’t heard anything. It’s because she thinks she knows where I am and that I’m fine.”
“Hold up. You came this far by yourself?”
Ivy shrugged, like it was no big deal.
Harper’s first instinct was to hug her, but that wouldn’t be appropriate or welcome. So instead, she’d do her best to protect her, because just thinking about all the things that could have happened to Ivy on that trip made her feel sick.
Ivy’s expression was challenging, like, Go ahead, ask me more.
So instead Harper said, “I was in Chicago once. With my ex, when he went on a job interview after college.”
“You were married?”
“No, longtime boyfriend and sort of fiancé.” Sort of, because Daniel had kept promising to ask her to marry him but never actually had. Mostly because his parents had found out and had convinced him that Harper was beneath him. “It took me way too long to figure out that he was a ratfink bastard—” She grimaced. “Er, jerk. After we broke up, I started making plans to come here to Tahoe.” Okay, so he’d kicked her to the curb like trash, and it’d taken her nearly a year to get her shit together and move, but that was too humiliating to admit. “Sugar Pine Bakery’s going to be my do-over.”
“My mom dates a lot of ratfink bastards too.” Looking sorry she’d said anything, Ivy shoved another bite into her mouth.
Leaving it alone for now, Harper finished her burger, then stood. The kitchen sink was dripping, just as Bodie had said it would. Dusting off her hands, she crawled under the sink to take a look. “Do we have a wrench in that toolbox?”
Ivy handed her a tool that was big and heavy.
Harper looked at it. “Wait, that’s a wrench?”
Ivy laughed, and it was a sweet sound. “Yes. There’s also a smaller one. Here . . .” She replaced it. “This will work better.” At Harper’s raised brow, the girl added, “My third stepdad was a plumber. He was pretty cool. He used to take me on jobs with him.”
“Are you still close with him?” Harper asked hopefully.
“Nah. When my mom’s done with a guy, that’s it. She doesn’t look back.”
Harper thought that sucked big-time. “So why Tahoe?”
Ivy dug around in the toolbox for a minute, and Harper held her breath.
“I decided it was time to finally meet my sperm donor,” Ivy finally said.
Harper was surprised, to say the least. “Do you know much about him?”
Ivy shook her head. “Nothing except he never contacts me and he’s never paid anything in child support either.”
Wow, what a bag of dicks. “I take it he lives near here?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, Ivy,” Harper breathed. “That’s . . .”
“Stupid? Childish? Crazy?” Ivy challenged.
Harper ignored the tension and defiance in the teen’s voice. “Brave,” she said. “Incredibly brave. Why now?”
“I guess I just want to see if I’m like him. Because maybe . . . he’ll want me more than my mom does.”
Harper’s heart squeezed for this girl she hardly knew but could identify with on a core level.
“I’ve never fit in,” Ivy said quietly. “Not ever. And I’ve always been a handful. A problem to be dealt with.”
Those weren’t Ivy’s own words. Nope, she’d heard them, probably flung at her, and an anger for Ivy’s mom burned deep inside Harper. “You’re not a problem.”
Ivy lifted a shoulder. “Maybe my dad’s as stubborn and as much trouble as I am.”
Harper gave up on figuring out what to do with the wrench and got up. “Listen to me. I’ve been around you for a day, and I think you’re pretty amazing.” She waited until Ivy met her gaze. “Just because you’ve never felt like you fit in doesn’t mean anything’s wrong with you. It means you haven’t found your place yet. Also, being a ‘handful’ really means you’re assertive and you know your mind. That’s what makes you such an incredible woman.”
Ivy shook her head, either not willing or unable to believe her. Which Harper got. Even though she’d done everything she could to please her dad, including getting a degree in international business instead of going to a baking arts institute like she wanted, he never smiled at her the same way he did when her mom had been alive. Not that she could blame him. He’d lost his soul mate. Harper smiled at Ivy, faking her own bravery because she knew one had to fake it to make it. “I hope you find what you’re looking for, Ivy. I hope we both do.”