And that was it.
No matter how delicately she’d probed, his life before coming to Paradise had remained in the sealed vault that was Jacob Stone.
It was equal parts mysterious and scary – and the scary was edging out the mysterious the longer she knew him. This was mostly due to the fact that she could feel herself falling for a man she knew next to nothing about.
Although, she shouldn’t judge him too harshly, she supposed. She might have shared small things with him, but it wasn’t like she’d opened up her emotional closet and shown him the skeletons rattling around in there.
Pulled from her thoughts by a sound knock on her closed bedroom door, Harmony quickly pulled her blanket in front of her. Faith moved to open the door and grinned as her Aunt Orla appeared on the other side.
“Well, now! What are you still doin’ sittin’ around in your skivvies when you’ve got a gentleman caller comin’ to pay his respects?” her elderly aunt huffed and puffed as she tottered into the room, her wrinkled face creased with a smile toward Harmony. “Why ain’t y’all got Barbie all gussied up for her Ken yet?” she asked impatiently, dropping her heavy black pocketbook beside Harmony’s hip on the bed.
“We can’t come to an agreement about what she should wear,” Faith reported over her shoulder as she tugged another dress, heather grey this time, from the depths of her closet. Holding it up for Aunt Orla to see, she asked, “What do you think, Auntie?”
“I think she’ll look dull as dishwater in that rag,” Aunt Orla replied, shaking her white head. Making a shooing motion with her hand, she hurried to take Faith’s place in the closet. “Let me see what I can find.”
Exchanging an alarmed look with Patience, Harmony swallowed. Still spry at 71, her aunt could still do many things, but coordinating an outfit wasn’t among them. Eyeing the old woman’s orange skirt and purple shirt only reinforced what she already knew. If she wasn’t careful, she was gonna walk out of this room dressed like a clown on crack. She’d have to… she wouldn’t hurt her oldest living relative’s feelings for anything in the world.
Holding her breath, she waited as her aunt turned with a dress in her hand.
“What about this one?” Orla asked, holding up the hanger to a sapphire blue wraparound dress in one hand.
“Oh, I forgot I had that,” Harmony murmured, reaching out to touch the silky material of the dress she’d purchased on clearance last fall. At the time, she’d worried over spending the money on something she really didn’t need, but suddenly she thought she’d made her smartest purchase ever. Paired with her cream colored cardigan, it’d work perfectly.
“How’d I miss that one?” Faith asked herself, blinking as she stared at the dress. “It’s gorgeous, Harm!”
“Now, that’s one hot little number,” Patience approved, nodding her head. “You’ll have Jake pantin’ all over you in that one. And I think I saw a matching clutch in your bureau,” she said, turning to pull open one of Harmony’s drawers.
“You did. I bought it at the same time as the dress. It was on clearance, too,” Harmony returned, watching as Patience pulled the little purse from the dresser.
Shaking the dress at her, Aunt Orla tapped her foot against the aging beige carpet of Harmony’s bedroom. “Well, shake your tail feathers and get it on. He’ll be here soon. Faith, you do her hair. Pull it up in one of those French twerks you always do.”
“Twist, Auntie. It’s a French twist,” Faith replied patiently, already moving to grab the hairbrush from Harmony’s vanity.
Rising to stand by the side of the bed, Harmony took the new dress Aunt Orla held toward her. Quickly pulling it on and cinching the gold clasp at her waist, she turned to look in the cheval mirror in the corner of the room. Smoothing her hands over her hips, she twisted to see her ass in the mirror. “Uhmmm… I’m not sure about this. Don’t you guys think it’s a little tight?” she asked as she tried to tug up the deep vee of the plunging bodice.
“Stop that, Harmony Pearl!” Aunt Orla ordered, slapping at Harmony’s nervous fingers. “Your girls are still flying high and proud and your bottom looks firm as a Georgia peach! That dress says ‘I’m limber, not loose!’”
Harmony closed her eyes as her sisters laughed behind her. “Thank you, Auntie,” she mumbled, sitting when she felt Faith pulling her toward the vanity. Sinking down on the upholstered bench seat, she tried not to moan when her younger sister began running the brush through her chin-length blonde hair. Opening her eyes, she caught Patience stuffing the small purse with something. “What in the world are you shoving in there?” she asked as she tried to look over her shoulder only to have Faith forcefully turn her head back toward the mirror.