Page 109 of Redeeming Harmony

“I’m good,” he said. “I don’t need a lot of sleep. So, now that you’ve heard about how annoying my younger brother was growing up, are you happy you’re an only child?”

“Honestly, I desperately wanted a sibling, but I knew from a pretty young age that it wouldn’t happen.”

“Why’s that?” Nathan leaned against the headboard, taking the glass from her and swallowing more water.

“I’m pretty sure my mom didn’t even want one kid, let alone two.”

“Will you tell me about your mom?”

Regret washed over her for even bringing her up. Sharing about her mother meant sharing all the ways Harper had failed her, and even now, it was still depressing as hell.

Nathan took her hand. “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to, Harper.”

A part of her didn’t want to tell him, didn’t want him to see her in a negative light, but he hadn’t hesitated to answer her questions and share his life with her. She wanted to give him the same.

She picked at the edge of the sheet. “My mom died six years ago. Cervical cancer. It was especially difficult because she’d refused to go to her yearly pap exam for years. If she had, it would have been caught in time to save her. But by the time she went to the doctor, the cancer had spread to her liver and other organs.”

“I’m sorry. That must have been hard for you and your dad.”

“It was,” she said. “I had a… difficult relationship with my mom, and we weren’t close, but it was terrible to see her suffering. Even after all she’d put me through, I didn’t want that for her.”

She paused. Shit, she sounded like the spoiled brat Nathan had once accused her of being. Clearing her throat, she said, “I loved my mom, but we weren’t, I mean, she didn’t…”

Nathan took her hand and squeezed it gently. “Just because I have a good relationship with my parents doesn’t mean I think everyone does. I won’t judge you for what you say about your mom, Harper.”

“You say that now,” she said with a nervous laugh that died out before it really got started.

He sat silently with her, not pushing, not demanding, and she searched for how to say it in a way that didn’t make her sound one hundred percent like a bitch, before deciding just to say it.

“My mom loved me, but she didn’t like me very much. She didn’t like a lot of people. She wasn’t affectionate and loving like Addie and Kira’s moms. She had a short temper, she was selfish, and she could be very dramatic and emotional, especially when she wanted something. She was also demanding and critical of both my dad and me. It was hard to be around her. I spent years trying to win her over, trying to show her I was good enough, and it never worked.”

Nathan put his arm around her, and she leaned against his solid warmth, staring at her hands in her lap. “She was especially disappointed by my choice to be an artist. She thought it was a silly dream and unrealistic and that…”

“That what?” he asked.

“That I wasn’t good enough to make a living from it. To be fair, she had a point. I failed in New York.”

He kissed the top of her head. “You didn’t fail.”

“I did,” she said. “But at least she wasn’t here to rub my nose in the failure.”

She paused, “Shit. That makes me sound like a monster. I loved my mom, Nathan. I swear I did. I didn’t want her to die. I really didn’t.”

“I know,” he said soothingly. “I didn’t think that, honey. I promise.”

She told herself that Nathan wouldn’t judge her. “I loved her, but there was a bit of relief when she was gone. Relief that I no longer had to bend over backwards and turn myself inside out to win her approval. Because as much as I tell myself her opinion didn’t matter, it did. A lot. I wanted her to be proud of me.”

She sighed and scrubbed her palms against her eyes. “My dad always tried to make up for my mom, and he did a good job. I know how lucky I am to have such a supporting and loving dad. When I became a teenager, things got worse between my mom and me, not that surprising, I guess, and my dad shouldered a lot of it. He had a way of distracting my mom, a way of turning her anger against me toward him. If it hadn’t been for him…”

“Your dad is a good man,” Nathan said.

“He is the most amazing man, and I will never adequately be able to tell him how much he means to me. It’s why I freaked out so much about you buying the clinic. Being a vet has always been incredibly important to him, and I know when things were difficult with him and Mom, the clinic was his refuge of sorts. The idea that he no longer had that terrified me.”

“I’m sorry.” He kissed her head again. “I should have been more sensitive to your feelings on it.”

“No,” she said, looking up at him. “No, that isn’t what I meant. It’s not up to you to decipher my feelings on it or even care what they are. You buying the clinic had nothing to do with me, and I’m sorry again for butting my nose into it. I hate that I caused you stress and aggravation.”

He leaned down and pressed a kiss against her mouth. “How about we do a firm forgive and forget thing about the clinic.”

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