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.”
He moved then, three steps, close enough to touch, to hold. And it was the greatest moment of his life when she didn’t shrink from his touch, didn’t push his hands away as he gently cupped her shoulders.
But she didn’t let him interrupt. “You were the first person, the only person, to show me that I was holding him back. And when he started to fly free, I was so scared that he might not always need me. Because then what was I supposed to do with my own life?”
“Harper, I never meant to make you doubt yourself. You’ve only ever been good to him.”
She shook her head. “I have been good to him, but I’ve messed up, too. I know it’s not going to be easy to start letting him go, but he’s not a little boy anymore. And I want to show him that I trust him.” She inhaled a shaky breath as her eyes held his. “And I want to show you that I trust you, too. Because I do, Will. I swear I do. He’s blossomed in these last couple of months with you. Your love has made him stronger. So much stronger.”
He wanted so badly to take everything she was giving him, to believe that it was real. Just as much as he’d wanted to believe it when she’d whispered I love you to him in the dark. But he couldn’t deny the truth of who he was.
“I screwed up so badly. I should have known I would. I should never have gotten in your way, should never have forced myself into your life, and into Jeremy’s.”