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I’d done my best to explain the situation to him: that we were going to raise Harper together, but we weren’t going to get married. He was having none of it. Even though I was thirty years old at the time, he made it clear I didn’t have a choice in the matter, and I had no doubt that he would have taken the term shotgun wedding literally to make it happen.
Taylor had been the one to convince Grandad that we would be better off as friends. I still wasn’t sure what she’d said to him because he was not a man whose mind was easily changed. He was old-school. His beliefs were black-and-white. There was no gray area in Otto Kingston’s world. But one lunch with Taylor, and he’d come home and given his blessing to raise Harper unconventionally.
“And how are you?” she asked pointedly.
“Fine.”
“Just fine, huh? I heard you were quite the knight in shining armor yesterday.”
“How in the hell did you hear that?” Tay was thousands of miles away in an undisclosed location.
“Kenna texted me.”
Right.
Taylor’s cousin Kenna Hale was a part-time bartender at The Tipsy Cow, which meant she was on the front line of all incoming gossip. She had stepped up big time to help me with Harper since Grandad’s stroke. I wasn’t sure what I would have done without her over the past few months.
“She said the whole town is talking about you riding in on your white horse and rescuing your d-i-d.”
“D-i-d?”
“Damsel in distress.”
“I didn’t rescue her. There was a problem with her card, and I covered it. That’s all.” People in this town made something out of nothing. It was another reason I didn’t casually date. “She’s not a damsel in distress. She’s Remi’s little sister.”
Which was exactly why I needed to stay away from her, and people needed to stop making this more than it was. I wondered if I should call to let him know that I’d seen her. I didn’t want him to get the wrong idea about things. Actually, I didn’t want him to get the right idea either.
The gates at the school opened, and Harper’s round, freckled face lit up when she saw my truck.
“Harp’s coming,” I told Tay, grateful that I could end this conversation.
“Hi, Daddy!” Harp beamed as she climbed into the back of the truck and got into her booster seat.
“Hey, Peanut!” Tay’s voice came through the speakers.
“Mommy!” Harp exclaimed as she buckled herself in.
On the drive to Sunset Acres, Harper filled her mom in on everything that happened in school that day and what she’d learned.
“And I’m gonna go to a sleepover on Friday at Holly’s house!” Harper enthused as we pulled into the parking lot of the senior home and rehab.
Harper regularly spent the night at her friend Lilah’s house, but this was the first time she was going to an organized sleepover party.
“Wow, have fun! I gotta go, but I will call you tonight,” Tay promised. “I love you and I miss you and I miss you and I love you!”
“I love you and I miss you, and I miss you and I love you,” Harp parroted back to her.
The call disconnected, and when I looked in the rearview mirror, I saw Harper looking down at her hands in her lap, and her bottom lip was quivering. “What’s wrong?”
Her little shoulders lifted in a shrug. “I just miss mommy.”
“I know, Peanut, and she misses you, too,” I assured her.
Her eyes lifted. “Do you miss your mom?”
“Sometimes.” The truth was, I rarely even thought about my mom. But when I was Harper’s age, I used to lay in bed and cry. I missed her so much. “You ready to go in and see Grandad?”
Harper nodded. We got out of the truck, and Harper reached up to hold my hand. It was little moments like these that I cherished the most. I knew that they wouldn’t last forever.
