Pretend You're Mine(90)

“You’re right. Being an adult sucks.”

“I’ll drink to that.” Harper raised her glass to Sophie.





CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE


She was just curious, Harper told herself. That’s why she was detouring to the cemetery instead of going straight home. Her talk with Sophie still hung heavy in her heart.

She glanced down at the tiny bouquet of wildflowers she had picked up at the farmer’s market. They were a summery impulse buy while she waited in line to pay for her strawberries. After all, you couldn’t go empty-handed to meet the woman who still had Luke’s heart.

The cemetery was a grassy stretch of park a few blocks back from the center of town. She thought back to all the times she and Luke must have driven past and wondered if she had missed him gazing out the window for his wife.

His wife. The mother of his child.

To be starting a new life, a family, only to have it all taken from you. Harper’s heart ached.

She put the car in park and climbed out. She knew the general direction of the grave thanks to a morbid but helpful website dedicated to mapping cemeteries. While summer had blanketed Benevolence in a dry heat, the grass here stayed vibrantly green.

Harper wandered down the skinny asphalt path that wound its way through the park. She hung a left at the winged angel statue and found a pocket of graves on a gentle slope.

The headstone caught her eye immediately. She recognized the carving before she saw the name. It was Luke’s tattoo. The phoenix he had over his heart.

She heard the far off sounds of a lawn mower and an airplane in flight, but all she saw was the phoenix.

Holding her breath, she approached the glossy black stone.

Karen Garrison

Loving wife and daughter.

There was no mention of the loving mother she would have been. In a tragic way, she had taken their secret to the grave.

Harper let her breath out and knelt down gingerly on the grass. She sat back on her heels. It was a beautiful spot. The tree line at her back cast its shade over the dozen graves decorating the copse.

There was already a pretty arrangement of colorful blooms that was starting to dry out tucked in the metal urn behind the stone.

It didn’t feel sad. It felt ... peaceful.

Harper toyed with the twine around the wildflowers and cleared her throat.

“I’m not really sure how to introduce myself, or if I even should,” she started. “I’m in love with your husband so I’m pretty sure that wouldn’t make us friends if you were still here. But maybe, given the circumstances, you’d be okay with it?

“I think you must have been a pretty amazing person. I think Luke is, too. You must have been so happy together.

“I don’t really know why I’m here. He shouldn’t be trying to keep you locked away. I can’t tell if he’s trying to protect everyone else or himself.

“I fell in love with a man who can’t be honest with me and I don’t know what this is going to mean for us when he comes home.”

Harper sat in silence for a few moments. She leaned forward and ran a finger across the phoenix. She missed him. Missed him with a hard edge that rubbed everything raw. She didn’t know what the future would hold, but right now she knew that she wanted him home.

***

The workweek was passing in a blur. Harper found if she kept herself busy, she didn’t have as much time to focus on the keen edge of need just below the surface. It was only at night that she couldn’t block out the ache. She found herself getting up earlier and earlier in the mornings to head out for a quiet run.

Like today.

It was still hours away from the full heat of a summer day when she laced up her shoes. Hours away from work, from words, from people. Now there was only time for thoughts and dreams.

She chose a different route today, one that wound through the still silent streets of town. Harper had finally found that space between the beats of her foot strike where peace reigned.

Aldo was impressed with her progress and she with his. The last round of modifications made to his prosthesis really seemed to help. His gait was smooth and he was steadily increasing the intensity of his physical therapy. She was surprised she hadn’t seen similar progress between him and Gloria.

“Not everyone is a love story waiting to happen,” Luke had teased her last night from seven thousand miles away.

He was smiling on the screen, and Harper knew it was a good sign. After Aldo, she had seen the gray, the shadows, and she knew that he was fighting battles not just on the ground. As strong as he was, he took sustenance from the good news at home. They discussed work in brief broad strokes, but Harper saw his expression come to life most when she talked about home. Aldo’s latest stunt at physical therapy or Josh’s new saying or what new tofu recipe Claire had tried on Charlie.