Chapter 7

Chapter Seven

H arper

Ten years later

“Harper!” a voice calls out and I swing my gaze along the row of people and spot my mom, balancing up on her toes and waving at me frantically.

I smile at her and wave back, then push my trolley piled high with suitcases in her direction.

She trots along the barrier with excitement and as soon as she can get to me, she flings her arms around my neck and squeezes me so hard I can hardly breathe.

“Harper! It’s so good to have you home.”

I wrap my arms around her and squeeze her back. “It’s good to be home, Mom,” I say, although who knows if that will prove to be true. Moving back to Rockview was a split decision I made after breaking up with Laurent. I’ve spent the whole flight from France worrying that maybe I acted too rashly.

My mom gives me another squeeze, rocking our bodies from side to side in the way she always used to do when I was a kid, then finally releases me, giving me the obligatory motherly once over.

“You look very glamorous, very chic.”

“Do I?” I say. I just got off a twelve-hour flight. My blouse is wrinkled, and my mascara smudged.

“Yes, I like the new do.” She pats the bottom of my hair where it skims my jaw line. “Very sophisticated.” Her eyes flick over my face. “Although … have you lost weight? You look skinny.”

“I’m the same weight I’ve always been.”

“I know those Parisian women live on a diet of coffee and cigarettes. But that isn’t healthy.”

“You know I don’t smoke, Mom. And they also eat croissants, a lot of cream and pomme frites. I’ve been eating plenty.”

Concern flickers across her features. “Then is it the break up? Are you very heart broken, Snuffles?”

I snort. “No,” I say flatly. “Not at all. Good riddance to bad rubbish.” Very big, very smelly, very dirty rubbish. It turned out Laurent was sleeping with half the neighborhood. Probably most of the next one too.

My mom nods. “What an asshole!”

“Mom!” I laugh. I think the only time I’ve ever heard my mom use anything remotely resembling a curse word was the time she slammed her car into a lamppost.

“Well he is. And a number of other things too.” She nods in the direction of the parking lot. “Now come on. Let’s get you home.”

“Can we grab a coffee first?” I say yawning. “I’m struggling to stay awake.”

She eyes me. “How much coffee are you drinking these days?”

I roll my eyes and steer my trolly to the nearest coffee bar. Once I have a cup filled with enough caffeine to wake the living dead, I let her lead me to the car and together we manage to stack all the suitcases in the trunk and the back seats, one balancing on my lap.

“I don’t remember you taking so much stuff with you,” she says.

“I have been there seven years, Mom,” I point out. “And it’s hard to resist the shops in Paris.”

“Well, let’s just hope old Judy has enough power to shift all this back to the house.”

Judy is the car. Mom has had her forever. My step-dad constantly offers to buy her a new one, offers to buy her several cars (the dude is loaded), but she’s loyal to Judy and refuses to send her to the rust heap even if the car is falling apart. In fact, my mom mutters a little prayer under her breath before turning the key in the ignition.

As we pull out of the parking lot, we’re assaulted by the dazzling Rockview sunshine and I snap down the sun shade and root around in my bag for my shades.

“God, I forgot how bright the sun is here,” I moan.

“It’s good for you. I bet you haven’t been getting enough vitamin D in Paris.” She peers at my pale skin. She’s probably right. Paris may be sophisticated. It’s also wet most of the time.

I yawn, closing my eyes and leaning my head back against the headrest.

“Is your old mom that dull you’re already falling asleep?” my mom teases, darting out into the Rockview traffic.

“I’m sorry, Mom. I didn’t get much sleep on the flight. I think I might need to head straight to bed when we get home.”

“Oh no!” my mom says. “You can’t!”

I open my eyes and turn my head, eyeing her with suspicion through my shades. “Why not?” She pretends to examine the sat nav map. “Mom?” She shuffles on her seat. “Mom, what have you done?”

“I’m sorry, Snuffles,” she gushes. “But you’ve been away for seven whole years.”

“You didn’t,” I say.

“Erm …”

“I said not to.”

“You always say that and then–”

I groan. “Not a party?”

“Just a little one. To welcome you home. More a gathering than anything else.”

“How many people are coming to this gathering?” I ask flatly.

“Not many. Not many at all. Your Aunty Mary and Uncle Tim, your cousins Clare, Mark and Guy. Oh and their partners. Plus Molly and her new baby. He’s so cute.”

“That’s all?” I say, thinking I can just about handle that.

“Yes, that’s all.” She flips on the indicator and I take another sip of my coffee. “Plus the neighbors, Pam and Doug, your old school friends Sissy, Kim and Jade with their families, obviously. Oh, and Daxton. Daxton and his pack.”

I choke on my coffee, spitting it all over the dashboard in front of me, the suitcase on my lap and down the front of my blouse.

“Shit,” I mutter as my mom scrabbles for a packet of tissues, passing them to me. “Daxton has a pack?” I ask, as I dab the front of my now-stained blouse.

“Daxton?” Mom says, glancing at me, “for about half a year now. I’m sure I told you that.”

“You didn’t,” I say, my heart suddenly thumping in my chest. Daxton. A pack. “Who? I mean, how?”

“Owen and Wyatt, of course.” My mom laughs. “Who else?”

“Oh,” I say, feeling my heart settle. “They’re just friends, Mom. They’re not a pack.”

“They are now. Pack Stanton. They made it official back at Christmas time – which you’d know if you’d actually come home for Christmas.”

“Made it official? How does a pack make it official?”

“Oh, I don’t know, Harper. You know I’m no expert when it comes to alphas and omegas.” She waves her left hand around. “They told their parents. Changed their surnames. Something like that.”

I crunch up the tissue in my hand and settle back in my seat.

Daxton, Owen and Wyatt.

A pack.

If I said I hadn’t thought about them in the last ten years, I would be telling one massive, fat-assed fib. I’ve thought about them plenty. Especially every time Laurent failed to make me come in bed, or said he was too tired to go down on me, or moaned about having to help me through another heat. I’ve thought about them plenty. And with very heated cheeks.

What we did together ten years ago was extremely, incredibly, off-the-scales hot. It was also stupid and probably illegal in some countries. Sleeping with your step-brother? Sleeping with your step-brother and his two best friends? Yeah, I often wonder how I could have been so stupid.

I blame it on the hormones. And my immaturity.

I’m older now. Possibly wiser – although my disastrous relationship with Laurent would suggest otherwise. Definitely less hormonal. Definitely less horny.

I haven’t seen the three of them together since that fateful summer. But that’s fine. A lot of time has passed. A hell of a lot of water under the bridge. I bet I’ll hardly recognize them. A bunch of dudes in their early thirties with a lot more stomach and a lot less hair.

“How long have I got until this party starts?” I ask. I need to shower and now I know who will be there, style my hair, do my make-up and find just the right outfit. Something which shows just how hot I am without making it obvious that I want certain guests to notice how hot I am.

“Well,” my mom says, swallowing. “It was meant to be a surprise party so …”

“Oh God,” I gasp, glancing down at the coffee stain on my blouse and wondering just how bad the panda eyes now are. “They’re not …”

My mom grimaces and nods.

“Oh no,” I say, “then can we at least dive into a service station or something? Somewhere I can change my shirt.”

“Don’t be silly, Harper. You look gorgeous.”

“I have coffee down my top.”

“You can say hi to everyone and then sneak off to change. That flight delay means they’ve already been waiting forty-five minutes for you to arrive. We can’t keep them waiting any longer. You know how your Uncle Tim gets.”

I examine my blouse. Maybe there’s something I can do with it. I reach into my bag, fish out a bottle of water and tip some of the liquid into a clean tissue. Then I dab at the cotton.

“That’ll only make it worse,” my mom says, as the stain grows three times as big, and, to top it off, my shirt is now see-through. I could wear a sweater. Or maybe a coat. But it’s 90 degrees in Rockview today and I’m no longer accustomed to this type of heat. I don’t fancy passing out in front of all our guests.

I’m going to have to live with it, I decide, as my mom pulls into our drive. And maybe she’ll be wrong. Maybe Daxton and his pack won’t be there after all. I’ve hardly heard from him these last few years. The odd Christmas card, an occasional text message. Unlike everyone else in the world, he’s not on any social media and neither are Owen and Wyatt, so I haven’t even been able to cyber-stalk them from afar.

“I’m sorry, Harper,” my mom says, staring at my disaster of a blouse.

“I did tell you, no party,” I remind her.

She looks suitably contrite. “I was just so excited about you coming home. I’d already sent out the invitations before you told me no party. Canceling it seemed wrong.”

I nod. “It’s okay, Mom. It’ll be good to see everyone.”

“And you do look gorgeous, Snuffles. Even with the …” She waves a finger in the direction of my top. “Everyone is so excited about seeing you. Daxton is especially keen to catch up.”

“Really?” I say swallowing. Is that because …?

“Oh yes, he’s always asking me what you’re up to.”

I exhale. Probably just making conversation, being polite. Although it’s kind of nice he’s actually talking to my mom now. For the first three years of her marriage, he barely said a word to her. In fact, that one vacation he came to stay was the only time I remember him visiting. He certainly stayed away after our little fling.

My mom squeezes my hand and then hurries round to open the car door for me and help to lift the suitcase off my lap so I can squeeze out of the car.

As we walk up the garden path, she reminds me, “Remember to act surprised.”

I groan. “You know I can’t act. They’ll know I’m faking it.”

“Just try.”

My mom unlocks the door and motions at me to follow her down the hallway.

“Ethan, we’re home.”

There’s no response but as we enter the kitchen diner, I’m blasted by a wall of noise and doused with confetti.

“Surprise!” thirty-odd people yell in my face and, despite knowing it was coming, I leap several feet into the air.

“Oh my goodness,” I gush, hand on my racing heart. “Hello everyone.”

Then I’m swamped in a series of kisses and hugs, everyone telling me how much they’ve missed me, how glad they are I’m back and how good I look. I try to concentrate on the people in front of me and do not scan the room for my elusive step-brother and his pack of alphas. I can’t smell them. They might not be here after all.

My shoulders relax and I kiss the head of my friend’s baby, squeeze the cheeks of my cousin’s toddler and make them promise to catch me up on all the gossip. My friend Molly has just opened her mouth to explain how she’s ended up with a pack on her own, when a hand, a large warm hand, lands on my shoulder and my senses are swamped with the scent of pine.

Daxton.