Page 65 of Harper

How am I going to tell Joe about his daughter? How?

“Harper,” says McKenna, nudging me in the arm, “are you okay?”

I force a smile. “Sure. Fine.”

Across from us, Sawyer slams his phone on the table. We all watch as Sawyer chugs his beer, then refills it.

“Slow down, Sawyer,” says Tanner.

“Shut up, Tanner.”

McKenna looks at Sawyer, then me, then Hunter. She whispers something to Tanner about the energy at the table being all over the place.

“Stewarts!” she calls out. “What’s going on with you three?”

“Ivy can’t make it,” mutters Sawyer. “Second time she has canceled on me this week.”

“Ramona’s poisoning your well, Sawyer,” says Tanner.

“Well, thanks for that, Tanner.”

“It’s not his fault,” says Hunter. “Ramona’s crazy. If Ivy can’t see that…”

Sawyer’s hands fist on the table. “Then what?”

“I’m not fighting with you,” says Hunter dismissively, looking down at his phone. “You’re pissed off. You’re spoiling for a brawl.”

“The girl you like lives fifteen hundred miles away,” says Sawyer, still baiting Hunter. “I don’t know what you’ve got to be happy about.”

Recalling how fondly Sawyer was talking about Ivy on our five-day last week, I’m about to tell Hunter to shut up and back off when he takes it too far.

“Yours lives ten yards from here and won’t come down the street for a beer. Distance doesn’t mean shit. I’ve got plenty to be happy about.”

Sawyer chugs his second beer, then slams the pint glass on the table, stands up and stalks out of the saloon.

I look at Hunter, feeling irritated. He has a bad habit of taking things too far when he’d do better to let them lie. “You don’t have to be an asshole, Hunter.”

“I’m the asshole? He was coming for me.”

“Whatever,” I say, sitting back in my chair and raising my glass for a sip.

Tanner cocks his head to the side, looking at me thoughtfully. “Why are you in a bad mood? What’s going on…?”

I barely hear his question; his voice fades into the white noise of the bar as I look up to see Joe Raven standing in front of the Parsnip’s old saloon doors, his eyes locked on me. I take a gulp of my beer, watching as Joe smoothly weaves between tables and chairs to plop down in Sawyer’s empty seat. He stares at the beer in front of me for a long moment, his jaw tight. When he raises his eyes to mine, they’re dark and furious.

“No,” he bites out.

No…what? I can’t go to a bar now that I’m pregnant? Jesus! I don’t need this!

I narrow my eyes at him. “Don’t tell me what to do! I can—”

“Harper!” he says, his eyes sliding to the beer before they snap back to my face. “Stop!”

Oh my god. I get it.

He thinks I’m drinking a regular beer…which means he thinks I’d hurt our baby on purpose. Over this small betrayal, and fueled, no doubt, by my changing hormones, my eyes fill with embarrassing, unexpected tears.

“Shut up, Joe,” I mutter.

---