Will had always believed that Jeremy could do more than anyone expected. He’d never seen Jeremy as handicapped. Until that moment in his London flat, Will had never used the word disabled. And she’d seen then how it hurt him to say it.
Whereas she’d constantly set limitations, never let Jeremy expand, never made him test his capabilities. She’d confined her brother. And she hadn’t trusted him to learn from both his mistakes and his triumphs. She’d been afraid that Jeremy wouldn’t need her one day. So she’d forced him to need her.
It was Will’s faith in Jeremy’s abilities that had made him stronger.
And Will’s love.
Will had showered her with that love, too. Every time she’d doubted his promises, he’d made them anyway. He kept on believing in her. He’d bared his soul to her, revealed all his dark secrets, trusted her to keep them and accept him. And when she’d shut him down from the moment Benny called to say Jeremy was missing, he’d still taken care of her. Taken care of it all.
Everything was suddenly so clear. Clearer than it had ever been before.
She’d been wrong, and she needed to make some changes.
Starting now.
She put her hand over Jeremy’s. “Here’s what we’re going to do. First, we’re going out to breakfast. Waffles—what do you think?”
“Yay, waffles.” Jeremy punched the air. “Can I have whipped cream and stuff?”
“All the stuff you want.” She smiled at him, feeling her heart fill. “And after that, I have an errand to run. It might take a few hours. Can you stay home and hold down the fort?”
His eyes went wide with wonder, a look he’d probably displayed with every new and exciting exhibit he found in the Exploratorium. “All by myself?”
“All by yourself.”
She had to start trusting Jeremy.
She had to stop being afraid.
And she had to tell Will everything that was in her heart.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Completely hollowed out inside, Will stared at the frame in his barn. After nearly three thousand rivets, it was starting to resemble a car rather than a birdcage. Over the past weeks, they’d worked on Saturdays and saved Sundays for fun.
And his nights had been entirely Harper’s.
But he didn’t have the heart to finish the car without them. Not when it had lost its meaning.
Not when everything had lost its meaning.
Everywhere he looked, in everything he touched, he saw Harper and Jeremy. He couldn’t be here without wanting Harper. Without loving both of them.“Mrs. Taylor said you were working up here.”
Jesus...even Harper’s voice seemed trapped in the barn, sweet, seductive, taunting him. He dropped his head into his hands.
“Will.”
Wait.
Wait.
That voice—the beautifully husky voice he knew would always haunt his dreams, especially the way she’d said I love you to him just one perfect time—wasn’t in his head. Was it?
He lowered his hands and turned, half afraid he’d gone round the bend.
But she was there—thank God—backlit by sunlight. The sun shone through the fine fabric of her dress. He recognized it as the outfit she’d worn the first night he’d seduced her. Or she’d seduced him. He wasn’t sure of anything anymore.
Only that he’d never stop loving her.
His heart was an unsteady thump in his chest. “How’s Jeremy?”
“He’s fine.”
“You took him to school?”
She shook her head, moving closer, narrowing the distance between them so that he could clearly see her beautiful face, her blue eyes, her red lips.
“He’s at home.” There was a softness to her tone, laced with meaning.
“By himself?” She must be a figment of his imagination. He couldn’t imagine Harper daring to leave her brother home alone after what had happened.
She shocked him again by nodding. “All by himself.”
Her lips turned up a little bit at the corners as she said it, but it wasn’t a full smile. So he didn’t dare hope, didn’t dare reach out for her.
But another step brought her closer still, until she had to tilt up her face to look into his eyes. “I have a story to tell you, one I’ve told you parts of. But I need to tell you everything this time.”
The need to touch her was an ache inside him, but he’d never forget the way she’d recoiled from his touch on the plane. He tried to ease the desperate ache by digging his fingers into his palms. “Okay.”
“I was seventeen when Jeremy was hit by the car. I was old enough to understand exactly who hit him, old enough to understand about the bills and why my parents accepted the money. I was also old enough to understand that I needed to help take care of my brother. And when my parents died when I was twenty-two, I wasn’t just helping anymore. I was in charge.”
His gut roiled for that seventeen-year-old girl who’d had to grow up the instant some joy-riding punk lost control of his car, and then for the twenty-two-year-old who’d been all alone, with no one to help.
“I watched out for him. I made sure no one hurt him. I told myself that if I didn’t let anyone get too close, they couldn’t hurt him. But the truth is that my brother is happy and loving and resilient.” Emotion brimmed in her eyes. “The real reason I didn’t want to let anyone close was to make sure no one got close enough to hurt me.”