Pretend You're Mine: A Small Town Love Story (18 page)

“Claire! Hi! Come on in.” Harper stepped back and waved Luke’s mom in.

Claire held up a plastic container of mini cheesecakes. “I was just in the neighborhood with baked goods and thought I’d stop in.”

“Oh my God. For those, you can move in,” Harper laughed. “Come on back. Can I get you something to drink? Water? Iced tea?”

“Iced tea would be great, thanks.” Claire started down the hall behind Harper and made it as far as the dining room.

“Oh, he finally got furniture!”

Harper joined her in the doorway. “Just this week. I accidentally invited some friends over for dinner without knowing that Luke was terribly sensitive about not having places for people to sit.”

“I’ve been waiting for that boy to turn this house into a home for so long,” Claire turned to Harper. “You, my dear, deserve more than half a dozen cheesecakes.”

After a quick tour of the rest of the new furniture, they took their iced tea on the back porch to enjoy the spring day. 

Claire pushed off the porch boards and set the swing into an easy motion. “I have a confession to make. I wasn’t just in the neighborhood with baked goods.”

“You don’t say,” Harper said over the rim of her glass.

“Luke calls it meddling. I call it mothering,” she sighed, running a hand through her short dark hair threaded with silver. It was a standard Luke move that made Harper smile. “He thinks because he’s a grown man that his business is his business. But he doesn’t understand what it’s like to raise someone into an adult. You don’t just stop ...”

“Caring?”

Claire nodded. “Exactly. He’s thirty years old and I still feel the need to make sure he’s okay. I bet your parents are the same way.”

Harper cocked her head. “I imagine they would be. They passed away when I was very young, but I like to think that they would have a vested interest in my life if they were still here.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry to hear that, Harper. I didn’t know! Please excuse me for opening my gigantic mouth.”

Harper laughed. “That’s all right. It was a long time ago.”

“Time doesn’t always heal all wounds,” Claire said a little sadly. “Some never recover from loss.”

“I guess some of us just don’t recognize how valuable our time is here. How we shouldn’t spend our time mourning our loss, but thanking our lucky stars we had someone wonderful in our lives for no matter how long.”

“Then Luke’s told you —”

Claire was cut off by the screen door swinging open.

Harper felt her pulse flutter at the sight of Luke. His worn jeans were covered in dirt, and the t-shirt molded to his chest had a good deal of sweat mixed in with the dirt. Even his baseball hat had sweat stains. He looked like he had sauntered straight off the pages of a sexy construction worker calendar. The scratch and sniff kind.

“Ladies.” Luke dropped a kiss on Harper’s forehead and crossed to the porch railing where he leaned.

“I was just in the neighborhood and thought I’d stop in,” Claire said innocently.

“Sure you were, Ma. You’re not interrogating poor Harper are you?”

“No, but I was shoving my big, fat foot in my mouth since you neglected to tell me her parents passed away. These things wouldn’t happen if you’d com-mu-ni-cate.” The silvery charms dangling from her ears jingled with each syllable.

“Yes, Ma.” Luke rolled his eyes. “So you weren’t grilling Harper?”

“I hadn’t gotten around to it, yet. I’m a polite interrogator. I was easing Harper into it,” Claire winked.

“How’s work going?” Luke asked. “We got a call today from Della. Says they want to do that addition.”

Claire nodded. “The flower business is booming. I’m only supposed to be there two days a week, but I’ve been called in just about every Friday and a couple of Saturdays to help with wedding orders. Della and Fred are looking to hire someone full-time to eventually take over as manager.”

“Do they have any candidates?” Harper asked.

“You’re not looking to quit already, are you?” Luke teased.

Harper laughed. “No, but Gloria is looking for something.”

“Gloria Parker? Good for her!” Claire nodded briskly. “It’s about time she gets a chance to spread her wings. Have her call the store and I’ll hook her up with Della for an interview.”

“That would be great! Thank you so much.”

“Hey, I owe the girl who inspired my son to get a girlfriend, hire an office manager, and buy furniture more than a few mini cheesecakes.”

“Cheesecakes?” Luke perked up.

***

L
uke walked his mother to her car, mostly to make sure she didn’t corner Harper and try to wrangle any more information out of her.

“I like the new furniture,” she told him, digging her keys out of her purse. “It’s starting to look like a home.”

“Ma.” Luke didn’t try to keep the exasperation out of his voice.

“Don’t you ‘Ma’ me. I’m allowed to check up on my children. Forty-seven hours of labor gives a mother certain privileges.”

“For the love of —”

“I really like her, Luke. You’re smiling again.” She brought a hand to his face. “It’s been a long time.”

He grumbled, but took his mom’s hand and kissed her palm. “She’s a good girl, Ma. I like her, too. Now can we stop talking about my love life?”

She gave him a peck on the cheek. “Fine. Now go take your girl out to dinner. She deserves it.”

Luke waited until his mother had pulled out of the driveway before whipping out his cellphone. His parents liked his girlfriend and that was a problem.

“I need sneaky, underhanded advice so I’m coming to you.” Luke paced the driveway.

“Is it weird that I’m flattered?” Sophie asked.

“What do I tell Mom and Dad about Harper leaving?”

Josh screamed in the background.

“Is everything okay over there?” Luke asked.

“What? Oh, yeah. That’s his happy scream. Hang on, let me lock him in the basement.”

“Sophie!”

“I’m just kidding. I walked into the pantry. I need silence so I can focus on the lies you’ll be telling our parents.”

“Need I remind you that this whole thing is your idea?”

“Need
I
remind
you
that you’re enjoying this whole thing that is my idea?”

“Touché. Now tell me what to do.”

“Well, when is she leaving? Before or after you leave?”

“I don’t know. After?”

“Do you have a timeline?”

“We haven’t really talked about it.”

“It would probably make more sense to have her hang around for a little after you leave, plus then you wouldn’t need James looking in on the house right away. I’m assuming you don’t want either one of you to look like an asshole, right?”

“You assume correctly.”

“Well then it has to be a good news thing that’s so good it makes the sad news of her leaving less sad.”

“You’re losing me.”

“You’re such a man. Something wonderful happens to Harper and she has to leave town. Like she gets a part in a movie or she meets the man of her dreams.”

“I’m supposed to be the man of her dreams.”

“I’m just spit-balling here,” Sophie said with a sigh. “But, since you said it, why not ask her to stay?”

“That’s not the plan, Soph. And it’s not fair to ask Harper to put her life on hold for six months to see if this might turn into a relationship.”

“Okay, okay. Just throwing out options.”

T
he next day, Luke and Aldo were needed on base for the standard pre-deployment medical exam and some briefings. Before he left, Luke kissed Harper good-bye and got carried away. By the time he pulled up in front of Aldo’s house, he was running twenty minutes late and his friend was waiting on the front porch.

When Aldo chose the tidy craftsman cottage over one of the new townhouses on the edge of town, Luke hadn’t batted an eye. A family home over a bachelor-friendly condo? It wasn’t what he expected from his play-the-field buddy, but there was a lot of things they never discussed. They didn’t have to.

“About time.” Aldo climbed into the passenger seat and belted in.

“I’m not that late.”

“No explanations needed. I can see from the stupid look on your face why you’re late.”

“You’re full of shit.” He wasn’t. Luke knew he was walking around with a stupid look on his face these days. He’d just been hoping that no one else noticed it.

“I’ve known you since I saved your ass from that beat-down in first grade. I know your stupid looks.”

“I still maintain that I could have taken those guys on my own.” Luke pulled away from the curb.

“There were three of them and they were in the fourth grade.”

“Well if you did
assist
me in that situation, I saved your ass from drowning in the lake when we were twelve.”

“I thought the ice would hold,” Aldo shrugged with a white-toothed grin.

“We were grounded for all of January for that one.”

“Our moms were so pissed. So what does Claire think of Harper?”

Luke bit back a sigh. He knew his friend wouldn’t wait long to pry. Sometimes he had to remind himself not to shut everyone out. “She loves her. Thinks she’s just what I need.”

“Is she?”

“What I need is peace and quiet. Harper is anything but that.”

Aldo laughed. “So why is she here?”

Luke shrugged as he took the on ramp for the highway. “It started as a favor. The girl had no place to go and no way to get there.”

“And then?”

Luke cleared his throat. “Well, you’ve met her.”

“I have. Think she’ll stay?”

Luke shook his head. “Nah. She’s got things to do, places to go. Six months is a long time to ask someone you just met to wait.”

“It’s a long time to ask anyone to wait. She would, you know.”

“I don’t know if I’d want her to.”

“Bullshit.”

“Kiss your mother with that mouth?”

“Where do you think I learned it?”

It was the truth. Despite the fact that Mrs. Moretta went to church every other Sunday, she had the mouth of a sailor who retired and started a new career trucking. She had never shied away from a healthy four-letter word when the situation called for it.

“Speaking of women, Harper seems to think you have a thing for Gloria.”

“She’s not wrong.”

“You’ve had a thing for anything with a nice pair of legs and big brown eyes.”

“Where do you think I got my type?”

“So if you’ve been carrying this torch since high school, how is Glenn still alive?”

“I ask myself that every day. The deployments made it easier to think about something else. Gave me something to focus on.”

Luke knew exactly what Aldo meant.

His friend shifted in his seat. “I gotta say. I’m thinking about retiring. This is number four and I want to make it my last.”

“Really?”

“We’ve been doing this since high school. That’s twelve years of packing up and moving out and hoping we get to come back after the job’s done. I’m ready to stay put. I want to put more time into some engineering projects. And then I want to make a nice girl the next Mrs. Moretta.”

“Jesus, Aldo.” Just the thought of it made Luke start to sweat. “When the hell did you decide all this?

“About ten seconds after I found out Gloria moved out. Don’t tell me you’re not ready to hang it up.”

“It’s all I’ve got. The Guard and my business.”

Aldo snorted. “You’ve got your family and you could have Harper, too, if you wanted. Come home to that sweet face every day and find out what trouble she got herself into? There’s something to look forward to.”

“She is trouble. I’m concerned about releasing her into the wild.”

“She needs you.”

“She needs her fucking parents, but they’re dead. She’s got no family, just scars from all those years in foster care.”

Aldo swore quietly. “And you’d do anything to make it better, but you just don’t know how to help.”

“Exactly.” Luke sighed. Of course Aldo got it. “Fact is, I just don’t have room in my life for her.”

“You’ve got the room, you’re just too chickenshit to make it.”

Luke bristled. While Aldo, his family, and everyone else were more than happy to shove their noses into his business, none of them knew what it was like to have everything and then lose it all. He knew. And had barely survived. There were no second chances.

***

T
he physicals were fine, the briefings tedious. But they made it home in decent time with a clearer picture of what they’d be doing in Afghanistan. Usually, Luke felt the buzz, a hum of excitement about the next mission, a new project. But this time he just felt
off
.

He had things to do — around the house, at the office. But he was tired. He was used to running on little sleep and too much caffeine or pure adrenaline. But the late nights with Harper under him, over him, wrapped around him, had taken a toll.

Luke wasn’t the napping type. Maybe he just needed to relax with the TV for an hour, and then he could get back to his paperwork and packing.

He woke up an hour later with something warm and heavy in his lap.

A large, gray dog rested its head and a beefy paw on Luke’s leg.

“Harper!”

She appeared in the doorway in seconds, which meant she had been hovering nearby.

“Before you get mad —”

“Harper, why is there a fucking dog in my lap?”

“We don’t have to keep her. She just needs a nice place to stay.”

“Harper, why is there a fucking dog in my lap?”

The dog grumbled in its sleep and stretched.

“What the hell kind of dog is this?”

“She’s some kind of pit-bull-lab-something. She was a neglect case and just because she has this skin condition and needs heart meds, the shelter was going to put her down.”

“That still doesn’t answer why there’s a dog. In my lap.” His voice was loud enough to wake the beast this time. A bloodshot eye opened lazily and stared at him.

“I stopped at the grocery store and this woman was walking out of the pet store with her. Her name’s Lola, by the way.”

“The woman?”

“No! The dog.”

Hearing her name, the dog turned her massive head towards Harper. Her tail thumped twice.