Page 85 of One Wrong Move

“I think it’ll catch up with him eventually,” I say and hit the gas. “But not today.”

Harper lowers her window, and air comes rushing inside the car. It plays with her curls, tossing them around her face. I lean my head against the headrest and smile at the speed, the sun, and the sound of Harper’s laugh.

All of this will catch up with me eventually, too. Bills always come due. When she leaves; when Dean finds out about our friendship; when her traineeship ends.

But not today.

I pull into the gravel parking lot a few minutes later. The house is large and imposing, rising at the end of a long walkway. Georgian architecture, with pillars lining the front of the estate. The surrounding grounds are pristine and manicured, complete with a pond glittering in the distance.

We walk up the front gate, and Harper chuckles. I look down at her. “What is it?”

She shakes her head with a smile. “Did you notice how everyone looked at your car?”

I glance back. “No. They did?”

“Yes, of course they did. God, I don’t know if you’re obnoxious or charming, being so oblivious sometimes.”

“Charming,” I say firmly. “The answer is always charming.”

She laughs again.

We make our way into the estate, where we're handed a brochure and sent on our way. Harper’s fascination is evident. I follow beside her, listening to her excited chatter about the people who must have lived here, about the things she’s learned from her reading, and from the old BBC adaptations she clearly loves. She takes pictures of everything, in every room.

“For my mom,” she tells me. “I promised to document as much as I could.”

She stops at several works of art that I would have overlooked. When I ask her about them, she shines up in a giant smile and tells me stories behind each.

How one composition is typical for the seventeenth-century artists, but not for those from the eighteenth whose pieces we saw in the other rooms. What areas of the paintings were likely to have been completed by an apprentice and not the master.

She speaks passionately. About it all, and I love watching her as she does. The smiles, the flush, the excitement in her eyes.

It’s far more engrossing than the little text printed on the placards.

We finish the tour in the vast garden outside the house. The sun is warm, and somewhere in the distance, birds sing.

I hold out my hand. “Give me your phone, and stand… here.” When she glances at me quizzically, I add, “For your mom.”

She smiles wide as I take her picture, and, for a split second, I wonder if I can send it to myself. A keepsake of this day and her happiness.

But then she takes the phone back and our fingers brush against each other’s, and the moment is gone.

“They filmed one of the adaptations of Pride and Prejudice here,” she says dreamily. “Look over there, outside that entrance… I can almost see the scene taking place.”

“You’ll have to show me that movie sometime.”

“Really?” Her eyes light up. “Okay. Yeah, I would love that. We could do a marathon.”

I wonder if Dean ever did this sort of thing with her. If they went on little day trips, if they laughed together, if they bonded over her interests. My stomach turns as jealousy squeezes my insides, quickly followed by the guilt, and, finally by a dark sort of satisfaction. Because even if they had… she’s here now.

Doing it with me and not with him.

We walk around the gardens with the sun shining down on us from a mostly cloudless sky. Her hand brushes against mine, just once, and it makes my fingers tighten into a fist. Electric current dances along my arm. Since that night, since we kissed, being around her has become an excruciating torment.

The idea of us had always been my foolish hope. A dream. But now I know what she tastes like, what she feels like in my arms.

If my need for her was strong before…

We reach the pond. It’s larger than it looked from the parking lot. A few swans glide around near the center and tall reeds grow along the edges. The water is dark and ripples softly from the movement of several rowboats tied up at the small dock, and the lone boat bobbing gently offshore as a gangly teenage boy navigates it amid the lilypads.

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