Chapter Fifteen

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

H ARPER CURSED WHEN her wheelchair bobbled over an uneven paver on the trail. Clearly, that needed some work, and if she didn't want to rattle her teeth, she should probably walk here next time.

Or just stay in her room.

But that hadn't felt like an option this morning. She hadn't thought she would get cabin fever after less than twenty-four hours, but she'd gotten that sick feeling of everything closing in, smothering her. Not enough to block out the memories, though.

Why the hell couldn't she have gotten amnesia? A fresh mental start. But no, she'd gotten broken bones, a fractured skull and a torn-up larynx. Which, of course, she had no one to blame for but herself.

There was a deep shame in that. So deep.

She cursed another rough spot on the trail but kept moving away from the house, away from the buzz of the workers. Heck, even away from the amazing smell of the cinnamon rolls that Maybell had made for breakfast. She wanted to find a place where there were no scents, no sounds, no people. Maybe then, she could clear her mind and decide what to do.

About everything.

God, her life and her body were a mess, and there was no longer a career road map for her to follow. No goals. No ambition. Just the sickening horror over what she had done. Or had tried to do. Sometimes she regretted it. Other times she thought that regret was going to crush her until she was nothing.

Harper spotted the horses in the pasture ahead, and since the trail led to it and a cluster of thick oaks, she aimed for that. After more bobbling, she finally reached it.

And cursed again when she spotted Alden.

He was on a bench nestled under those trees, and he was chowing down on a cinnamon roll. Harper immediately frowned. He instantly smiled, and it caused the grafted skin on his face to shift and stretch at odd angles. It sort of looked as if he was wearing a thin mask that had been molded to his face. Not unpleasant or scary, just different.

"I think those two horses over there are either planning an escape or else they're gossiping about the stallion in the corral." He tipped his head first to a pair of roan mares and then to an Appaloosa stallion in an enclosure just off the barn. "You think mares do that, gossip about hot guys?"

She felt her frown deepen. "I wouldn't know," she typed out so the computer could relay it. And she started maneuvering the wheelchair so she could get the heck out of there—fast.

"Join me, Harper," Alden invited. He offered her the last bit of the roll.

Harper shook her head and continued to head off. The path was wide, but obviously not wide enough for her poor wheelchair skills, because she couldn't quite get the angles right. Probably because she was trying to hurry, and her hands were even more unsteady than usual.

"Want some help?" Alden asked.

"No," she was quick to type out. She hated help, and once again, she wished for the amnesia so she wouldn't have known that about herself.

She wouldn't have known a lot of things.

Since her fingers were starting to cramp on her right hand, Harper had no choice but to just stop as she could no longer manipulate the controls. However, her left hand seemed to delight in reminding her that it was functioning more than well enough to carry on a typed conversation. If that was what she wanted to do. She didn't. She didn't want company, small talk or Alden.

"Remember that time when I peed on you?" he asked. "Total accident, I swear. I was about four, which would have made you about ten, and you just happened to be walking past the open door of the bathroom. I turned and hosed you. A good stream reach for a little kid."

"I remember," she typed, and the flat computer voice matched her own tone. Harper figured her expression did, too. "You can't cure me with what you think are amusing blasts from the past."

Alden shrugged. " Cure is a word with a lot of expectations. Way too lofty a goal, if you ask me. I like cope . Grapple is a good one, too. Maybe dillydally works for some days. Or lollygag ?"

Harper kept her flat look in place. "I don't want a counselor," she typed.

"Good," Alden was quick to say. "Because I'm clearly lollygagging today. Soaking it all in. Just chilling. I figure I'll do that for at least another week or so before I start up any PT or attempted head-shrinking."

She didn't want to smile, but it took a little effort to stop herself.

He smiled and looked at her. "So why did you come here? Not to the pasture, I mean, but to Port in a Storm?"

"I ask myself that same question at least every hour," Harper typed, but this time she didn't care for the computer flatness. It wasn't a snarky comeback.

It was genuine.

"Well, maybe the answer will come to you," Alden concluded. "So what's your status?" He glanced at the wheelchair. "Do you need that thing, or can you walk?"

She debated answering. Actually, she was debating a lot of things, including why she didn't just leave. But she stayed put and answered, "No. But I can't walk and talk at the same time." She motioned toward the voice tablet and then his cane. "If I'm using one of those, I can't type."

He nodded and examined both the wheelchair and the tablet. "Can you speak, too, without the computer?"

She opened her mouth and let the sound come. Nowhere near in the realm of speech or even a single word. It was basically air rasping out when she attempted to tell him no . She was pretty sure she could do better. A whole lot better.

But Harper didn't want better.

Alden grinned. "Well, I like that gravelly tone. And coupled with your expression, you got your point across."

Harper didn't grin; she scowled. "What was your call sign? Sunbeam ? Smiley ? Overly Enthusiastic about Squat ?"

That didn't put him off. The grin continued. "KACEOTO," he said.

Rather than type anything, she raised an eyebrow.

" Keep a Close Eye on That One ," Alden provided. "I don't think it was a compliment."

She laughed before she could stop herself. She instantly regretted it. Best not to break down any barriers between her and everyone else. But the laughter didn't last, anyway, because she heard someone call out.

"Harper, there the hell you are." It was her father, and she glanced over her shoulder to see him storming toward her. Then again, storming was his default when it came to most things.

"Dad," she typed in.

"Dad," Paul said, his tone mocking. "You shouldn't be using that damn thing. You should be trying to talk on your own. You're not gonna get better if you don't push through the pain."

That had become practically a motto for him. Push through the pain. Push, push, push. Even now, with her a total physical and emotional wreck, her father thought she could come back from this. Harper wasn't sure if he was being way overly optimistic or delusional.

Alden got to his feet. Not easily, and to accomplish it, he had to put a whole lot of weight on his cane. "Harper and I were doing speech therapy," Alden said, his tone as light as the breeze. "We're in the raspy-breathing stage and making progress."

Clearly, her dad didn't know how to react to that. Not at first, anyway. His expression went from a bunched-up forehead to a glare in a handful of seconds.

"I didn't hear my daughter trying to get out one sound other than with that dang computer." He stared down at her. "Let's take a walk and do some talking. Of course, that's a figure of speech since I'll be the one walking, and you'll poke along in that blasted wheelchair that we both know you don't need. If you're not up to that, then how about you just listen once Alden heads back to wherever he needs to be right now?"

"Well, actually, with raspy breathing checked off the list," Alden countered, "Harper and I were about to head to the barn to test out some of the exercise equipment."

He was giving her an out. Letting her know that she didn't have to go through this visit with her dad. But this visit was what she deserved. A penance of sorts. And that's why despite the cramp in her hand, she got the wheelchair turned around so she could go with her father. So he could lead her wherever the hell he wanted to go and say whatever the hell he wanted to say.

Yeah, full-blown amnesia would have been a nice bonus.

C AL STOOD AT the kitchen window at Saddlebrook and drank his third cup of coffee of the morning while he had a fierce debate with himself. And while he kept glancing down at his phone, willing it to ring. Something he'd been doing for a good chunk of the past twenty-four hours.

Seconds after he'd listened to Rowan's voicemail, he'd tried to phone him back. There'd been no answer.

So Cal had left a message about how sorry he was that he'd missed his call. He'd added some stuff that he wished he'd rehearsed because it had probably come out as ramblings. But the gist was he was glad Rowan had contacted him and he hoped they got a chance to talk soon. Hopefully, it hadn't come out as too overly enthusiastic. Cal didn't want anything he said to have put Rowan off.

"Watched pots don't boil, and watched phones don't ring," his grandmother muttered while she cooked breakfast. A chore she didn't have to do since Cal, his dad and brothers could make something for themselves. Still, she'd insisted on doing it while Maybell was pulling kitchen duty at Port in a Storm.

"Hard not to watch the phone," he replied.

She made a sound of agreement and assembled some plates and cutlery as sort of a buffet around the stove where she'd cooked sausage, scrambled eggs and some crispy skillet potatoes, and she assembled a plate of toast. Since his dad was eating healthier these days because of his heart, the sausage was turkey, the toast whole wheat, and there was a plate of cut-up fruit.

"The boy will call when he can, I'm sure," Effie said. "He's probably just as curious about us as we are about him."

Maybe, but he was betting his grandmother's feelings weren't as laid-back as she was making them out to be. After all, Rowan was her grandson, and she had to want to meet him.

Cal had had no choice but to tell Effie, Audrey and the rest of his family about the call, but it would have been easier on them if they hadn't known. Now they were all on pins and needles waiting and hoping that Rowan would call back.

Since he wasn't especially hungry, Cal set his coffee aside and put a sausage link in a folded piece of toast. He ate his makeshift sandwich while he continued to stare out the window. And glance at his phone. It was possible that Rowan had had a very narrow time frame in which he could make a call, and that such a window might not come up again for days. Or longer. After all, it'd been months since Rowan's initial contact with Blue, and it might take that long for him to get back to Cal.

But Rowan would get back to him.

Cal had to believe that, and he was certain his dad was hanging on to that hope as well.

"You're going over to Charlotte's again today, right?" Effie asked, dishing herself up a plate and taking it to the table.

On the surface, it seemed like an innocent question, but he figured that along with thinking about Rowan, Effie was doing plenty of thinking about Cal's situation. Specifically, his situation with Charlotte.

Whatever that was.

The fierce attraction was definitely drawing them closer and fanning flames that neither of them seemed to be trying to put out. Or at least Charlotte hadn't tried to do that before she'd heard about Audrey's job offer. Now Charlotte might attempt to put some distance between them. Not only to give him time and space to consider the job but also as a way of guarding her heart.

Cal hoped she did plenty of guarding.

He didn't want her hurt, especially since he had no idea what his future plans were. Twenty-four hours ago, he would have said with one hundred percent certainty that he was getting out of the military. Now he wasn't so sure. Audrey had managed to offer up the only thing that could have tempted him to stay in uniform. But being tempted wasn't an acceptance.

Audrey hadn't given him a deadline for the offer, but Cal knew it couldn't be unlimited time. His leave was running out fast, only eight days left, and he'd have to let her know before that. So a little over a week to make one of the biggest decisions of his life, all the while his feelings for Charlotte grew stronger and stronger...and while he waited for his half brother to call.

Cal definitely felt the pressure.

The pressure went up some when his dad came into the kitchen. He wasn't alone—Egan and Blue were right behind him—and all three immediately pinned their attention on Cal.

"Nothing yet from Rowan," Cal said, knowing it was going to put some serious disappointment in his father's eyes.

It did.

Hell. Cal didn't want to go overboard with this, but part of him wished he could tap into Audrey's connections or the info in the background report his father had had run on Rowan. Certainly, either the connections or the report would help him locate Rowan so he'd have another way to contact him other than just waiting for his call. But that would be overkill. This wasn't an emergency. No life-and-death situation. It was just an eager, impatient family wanting to hear from someone who might not be nearly as eager for the communication.

Of course Cal had played the voicemail for everyone here in the kitchen, and Marin and Alana had heard it as well. Not that there'd been much to hear.

This is Rowan Cullen. Guess I'll try to catch you later .

Rowan's tone had sounded neutral. But Cal figured Rowan had been feeling plenty when he'd left that message. Hard not to feel when the call was basically connecting him to a family he didn't know.

Cal had replayed the recording many, many times, and like everyone else, he had latched on to that one troubling word, guess . Without it, a follow-up call was more or less a promise. But the guess meant that Rowan might decide that that voicemail was it, that there'd be no more contact. No way was Cal going to say that aloud, however.

"I'll be at Charlotte's most of the day," Cal said, "but if Rowan calls, I'll let all of you know right away."

Unlike Cal, Egan and Blue were clearly hungry since they both were piling their plates with the breakfast. His dad settled for a half cup of coffee.

"And you'll let us know about the job offer," his dad said.

Of course Cal had told them all about that as well, and as expected, he'd gotten a mixed bag of reactions. Egan had been pleased that Cal had something that might lure him into not throwing away the stellar career Egan thought he had.

His dad was in the same camp as Egan. More or less, anyway. Cal liked to think that his dad was getting so used to him being around that he wouldn't see it as Cal throwing something away but rather moving on to something new.

Blue had been neutral, maybe because he hadn't had much of a choice about having to give up his own military career. A knee injury had seen to that.

Effie and Maybell had fallen into the "do what's best for you" camp. Of course they had. They'd always given Cal blanket approval for whatever he'd done. Well, mostly. There were a couple of incidents as a kid when he'd earned their ire. But on this, they had left the decision-making ball firmly in Cal's court.

Cal assured them all that he would indeed fill them in on the job. Whenever that would be, he just didn't know.

Pushing that aside for now, he drove to Charlotte's and immediately saw the number of workers' trucks had thinned some. Progress. And despite the pushing aside he'd just done, he wondered how close the reno was to being finished. Would it happen before his last eight days of leave were up?

He inhaled, did more tamping down of feelings and parked. Cal had just stepped from his truck when he saw Mandy coming down the steps. She was carrying something that nearly had Cal taking a step back. He rattled off the f-word before he could stop himself.

Crap. It was one of those creepy dolls. This one had black tufts of hair spiking out of its head in what could have been mock fright or a tribute to the Statue of Liberty. There were also teeth. Big, gummy ones that were positioned in a smile. Perhaps a tribute to the Cheshire cat.

Or a cannibal.

The thick glasses perched on the nose magnified the blank doll eyes to the size of silver dollars. Overall, definitely not the image of a child's plaything.

"I found this under a creaky floorboard in one of the second-floor bedrooms," Mandy announced. "I'm not sure if Becker's cousin was a closet psychopath or a creative genius."

"I'm leaning toward psychopath," Cal muttered.

"Same, but Izzie is leaning toward the creative genius."

"Izzie?" he said, confused.

Mandy nodded. "I took a picture of the first one. After I quit shrieking, that is, and I texted it to some people who ended up texting it to Izzie. She wants any and all dolls for a future local folk-art display at town hall or the library. She thinks it'll go viral and give the town lots of publicity."

It probably would, which meant Izzie would no doubt end up being interviewed by various press, which in turn would be publicity for her. Maybe that meant she had moved on from her breakup with Taggert and was focusing on her usual target.

"FYI, Paul came to see Harper this morning," Mandy said, glancing over her shoulder at the house.

Cal's gaze immediately followed hers, and he expected to see Paul there. "Is he still here? And did he cause any trouble?"

"Not still here. Trouble, yes. He'd managed to talk Harper into doing a workout in the gym, and he was badgering her to get out of her chair and onto the treadmill. Apparently, he thinks if Harper works hard enough, she can get back in the Air Force. She can't, can she?"

Cal had to give that some thought. It was possible Harper could recover enough from her injuries. Possible but not likely. And if she did, she almost certainly wouldn't be returning to the cockpit. She wouldn't just be able to step back into the old life she'd had, but then, he hadn't seen any signs that she wanted to do that.

He settled for a shrug in response. "What happened? Did someone stop Paul from pushing her?"

"Charlotte," she said on a sigh. "Alden, too. They kept it all civil by saying it was time for Harper's therapy session. Harper didn't admit she doesn't have any therapy sessions because she's refusing them, and Paul eventually left."

Good. But Cal knew that wasn't the end of it. Paul would keep coming back, keep pushing, and that meant he should have a talk with the man. That definitely wouldn't be any fun, but maybe he could make Paul understand that Harper needed some time and space to try to heal and work out what to do with her life.

"Where's Harper and Charlotte now?" he asked.

"In their rooms. Charlotte's doing paperwork and trying to pretend she's not upset that you might be leaving... Are you leaving?" Mandy tacked on.

Cal dragged in a long breath and admitted the truth. "I have no idea."

Mandy matched his inhalation with one of her own. "Well then, best to let Charlotte know."

She patted his arm and headed toward her car. But then turned back. "Oh, we also got a new visitor about a half hour ago. Resident," she qualified when he must have looked confused. "Jodi Seaver. Former Marine. And another is coming next week. Clearly, word is getting out about us."

"Clearly," he agreed. But then, he hadn't thought it wouldn't. There were plenty of veterans out there who could use a place like this.

He watched as Mandy practically chucked the doll into the trunk of her car, and then he went inside to find Charlotte. Because Mandy was right: it was best to let Charlotte know there was a slim chance he might accept the job. Slim was still just that, but it was a big change from yesterday when there'd been zero possibility.

He passed a few workers on the trek up the flights of stairs, and he paused on the second floor when he saw the dark-haired woman standing at the window at the end of the hall. She glanced at him long enough for him to realize he didn't know her, but this was almost certainly Jodi Seaver. When she turned back to the window without uttering a word, he figured she wasn't in the mood for introductions.

He reached the attic level and found Charlotte's door open. She did indeed appear to be working on her laptop. Not at the desk in the corner but while seated in a chair that she'd moved next to the window. At the sound of his footsteps, she looked at him and smiled. It didn't look the least bit tentative or wary to suggest that she'd been worrying about the job question.

"I wasn't sure you'd come today," she said, getting to her feet and setting her laptop aside. "I'm glad you did."

So was he. He was especially glad when Charlotte went to him and kissed him. There was nothing tentative about it, either. It was a Charlotte kiss. One that packed plenty of heat and pleasure. One that drained so much of the tension he'd been carrying for the past twenty-four hours.

She was smiling when she eased back from the kiss, and her eyes met his. Studying him.

"You can ask me about the job and Rowan," he offered.

"Do you want me to ask you about them?" she countered.

He sighed. "No, but I owe you an answer, at least about the job."

Charlotte made a sound that was a mix of a tut-tut and a huff, and she closed the door. "Cal, you don't owe me anything. Well, except maybe a fun time in bed since we've been skirting around that for a couple of weeks now." She pulled something from her pocket.

A condom.

"What's your stance on morning sex?" Charlotte asked. "Yea or nay? Because my vote is for yea."