Page 31 of Fearless
I tighten my hold and ask, “Angel, you sacrificed so much to get where you are at. I know you changed the trajectory of your life for reasons that didn’t work out the way you wanted them to. Do you have any regrets? Do you miss dancing?”
Harper doesn’t answer right away, and a tear leaks from the corner of her eye. She wipes it away and steels herself. “Regrets? No. Life’s too short for those. Dwelling on shoulda, coulda, wouldas doesn’t do me or anyone else any good. If I’m meant to dance professionally, God will work it out in His time. I’m fortunate to have a private studio in my basement, so I still dance in my spare time—what little there is of it. My passion for ballet hasn’t dwindled, but I don’t have to perform on a stage to enjoy it. I’m content with that.”
She’s telling the truth, but not all of it. I stroke her arm gently, almost absent-mindedly. “If presented with two choices—continuing to work for the FBI or dancing—which would you choose?”
Harper rests her head on my shoulder and sighs. “I don’t know. I love the way my life turned out. I love my job, but having my own studio where I can teach kids to dance is my dream. If there were a way to do both, then I’d be a very happy camper.”
When she mentions teaching, her eyes light up, and the emptiness is momentarily gone. I have my answer, even if she’s unable to admit it. No matter what happens between us moving forward, I vow to at least make one of her dreams come true.
“Where do we go from here?” Harper asks hesitantly. “We’re married, so do we…um…you know?”
“Consummate?” I ask playfully. Her discomfort is absolutely adorable and showcases the innocent side of her.
She glances away, and her cheeks flush a gorgeous shade of pink. She nods, unable to look at me.
“Harper, look at me.” She does, albeit very slowly. “Intimacy is meant to be shared between a man and woman in a loving relationship that is bound by marriage in front of God. Our vows were between two friends with an agenda, not rooted in romantic love. I am deeply attracted to you, but we haven’t developed that kind of relationship yet.”
“But I…” she starts to say when I interrupt.
“You have painted a picture in your head of an ideal man.” I don’t want her to say that she loves me when I can’t say it back. At least not yet. It’s why I need to give her the hard and fast truth. “I’m glad it’s my face you see in that picture,but Harper, we’ve spent more time together in the last three days than we have in the last three years. We need time to get to know one another.”
I half expect her to be upset, which is why I’m surprised that she appears relieved. Her eyes close when she whispers, “I’ve never been with a man in that way, Roger.” My heart beats triple time at her admission and bursts with joy that she has saved herself for marriage, but then she adds, “I would feel inadequate compared to your experience.”
Well, that turned south quickly, and I feel like I got doused with a bucket of cold water. I need to set her straight on a few things. “Harper, I wasn’t always a Christian. I grew up in an atheist household and didn’t believe that any god existed, let alone the Almighty. It wasn’t until I was 20 that I got to know Jesus.”
She grins. “My dad said you started questioning His existence and had all but given up on getting an answer. Then you ended up covered in a landslide and almost died.”
“That’s true. I prayed to God for deliverance, yelled at Him, and even bargained with Him while covered under dirt and debris. Then help arrived, and the first thing I did was fall to my knees to thank Him for saving me. There’s more to the story, but Jesus rescued me that day, and I’ve lived a life for Him ever since. But here’s the thing, Angel, I wasn’t living a life for God before that. I’m not inexperienced, as you have pointed out, but I also haven’t laid with a woman in 26 years. When I dedicated my life and was born again, my whole life changed. I vowed I would wait until marriage from that point on. Waiting is not an issue for me, and I prefer it that way.”
Harper hugs me and kisses my cheek. “Is it wrong that I find you even more attractive now than I did before?”
“Maybe a little,” I tease. “So, how about it, Angel? Wanna date me?”
She puts a finger to her lips and tilts her head slightly. “Hmmm.Let me think about it. Would I want to date the one man I’ve dreamt about for more than ten years?” She sticks out her arms in front of me. “Twist my arm,” she jokes.
“I’ll take that as a ‘Yes.’”
Her soft lips meet mine, far too brief for my liking, when she says in a sultry voice, “That’s an absolute ‘Yes’ from me.”
My hand wraps around the back of her neck to hold her in place while my mouth finds hers. We stay like that for nearly ten minutes, enjoying the moment of reprieve from the chaos of the world around us.
It doesn’t last long. There’s an abrupt knock on the door, and I’m forced to pull away from Harper’s soft and supple lips. Harper sighs and stands up, readjusting the wayward mass of hair she has on top of her head. “Duty calls.”
Annoyed by the intrusion, I mutter, “Doesn’t it always?”
Chapter seventeen
Harper
Roger opens his laptop and inputs his PIN. Within seconds, we can see who is standing on the front porch. “It’s Agent Simms and Agent Monroe.”
“Why are they back so soon?” I ask, moving to open the door.
“They’ve been assigned by Whitman to help with the case and our points of contact. I’ve never worked with them before, but their reputation precedes them. From what I’ve heard about them, they’re good agents even if their bedside manner needs some work. Go ahead and let them in.”
I hesitate. “I’m not sure how I feel about working with two agents who have it in for my father.”
There’s another knock at the door; this one even more impatient and abrupt than before. “We’ll discuss this later, but the longer you stand there, the more it will appear as if we’re hiding something. Please open the door, Angel.”
