Page 6 of To Bring You Back
She made a face, then blew out a long breath. “Remember when you let me stay at your place?”
“Yeah,” he said flatly. “I remember last week.” He’d been in Wisconsin, and she’d had a fight with her live-in boyfriend, actor Colton Fremont. Gannon had given her access to his apartment to prevent her from wandering LA, drunk and upset. “And?”
“You were so worried what I’d do while I was drunk, you never thought to worry about me tripping down your stairs the next morning.”
“You fell?”
“Little-known fact: I’m more stable drunk than sober.”
Harper was many things, but she was never stable. Gannon kept taking her calls, trying to show her a better way.
“Did you get checked out? If I can still see the bruises a week later, that was a nasty fall.”
“This is nothing. You should’ve seen me after the skateboarding incident of ’98.”
Funny. He would’ve expected her to rush to the ER and flaunt the bruises for some sympathy from the press. She must’ve been embarrassed. “What about you and Colton?”
Her lids shaded her eyes, a frown playing at her lips in the perfect picture of sadness. “He’s in Ontario with Leigh Wiles.” She spoke as if Colton were vacationing with another woman, but Leigh and Colton were costars, in Ontario to film some dramedy.
“I take it you two didn’t make up before he left.”
“We did. But you do know how I met him.”
On set. Colton and Harper had starred in a film together last summer. “That should reassure you. You were with Eric then, and you didn’t cheat.”
She sighed and focused her too-blue eyes on the screen again. He couldn’t tell if she was looking at him or the inset of her own image. “But now Colton and I are together because we met then. What if he breaks up with me for her?”
“Have a little faith.”
She moved close to the camera, and her perfect features covered his screen. “You know I only believe what I experience for myself.”
Even that was iffy. She’d experienced plenty of problems because of her way of life, but still, she mostly disregarded Gannon’s advice and his insistence that she needed Jesus.
“Anyway, I’m bored.” On screen, the neckline of Harper’s shirt shifted, exposing a bra strap. “I should come visit.”
And play her games in person? No, thanks. She didn’t need to show extra skin for him—or anyone else—to think her beautiful, but he’d seen how fast things went south when he disobeyed God in his relationships.
Never again.
“If you’re going to get on a plane, use it to visit Colton.”
“We could have a good time, you and I.”
Exactly the kind of good time Tim wanted him to have. When would these two understand he wanted to honor God—and that was the only way to happiness? But they hadn’t lived his life. They didn’t know how wrong things could go when a human chose his own path.
He could explain that the only woman he could think about was Harper’s opposite, a woman with long mahogany hair, cinnamon eyes, and a proven desire to repel rather than attract his attention. But Harper wouldn’t let competition go unchallenged, so he kept his mouth shut. “I’m trying to work here. Call Colton.”
Adeline’s one-and-three-quarter-storyfarmhouse stood a block off Main Street, tucked in among Victorians with pristine paint and gardens flowing with petunias. A misfit, her house featured chipping light blue paint and a weathered, sloping front porch. She’d planted a few tulips and daffodils, but now in July, her yard had reverted to a plain square of thin grass.
She parked in the gravel drive and gripped Bruce’s nylon leash. “Home sweet home.”
The dog thumped his tail twice and hopped out after her. She retrieved the dog food the shelter had provided, and Bruce followed her across the grass and up the creaking stairs, sniffing the whole way.
On the porch, she turned toward the view. Because of the slope of the land, she could see over the single-story pottery studio across the street to the lake four blocks away. This portion of Superior usually took on the sky’s blue or gray instead of the emeralds and teals that glistened along some of the beaches. Today, a mostly sunny sky resulted in glittering, medium blue. No matter the color, the water exuded an unparalleled calm. If she couldn’t count on anything else, at least Superior would always be there.
Bruce finished investigating the porch and looked to her for direction. Such an angel. She opened the screen door and led him through the living room and into the kitchen, which hadn’t seen many updates in the last thirty or forty years. Still, the space was comfortable. Hers. Home.
Her roommate sat at the table with a cup of coffee and her laptop. Though Adeline had never been to California to see if the stereotype held true, she’d always thought Tegan looked like a surfer girl—blonde, athletic, and tanner than anyone else in Lakeshore.
