“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.
***
The 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.”