Page 80 of Seeing Harper

“If you had, you’d most likely still be unconscious in the pool.”

“Either way, I’m not willing to give up yet. It might take a while longer than I’d hoped, or than you’d hoped, but I’m still going to try to win her attention. And I just wanted to let you know that things were not good and I obviously offended her somehow, and I wanted you to hear it from me.”

“Appreciate that. I knew you weren’t very on board when I first brought up the idea of introducing you to my daughter, and that I’d appreciate you taking her under your wing for the trade show.”

“It wasn’t that I didn’t want her here, it’s just that I wasn’t looking for anybody. She’s thrown me for a loop, though, to say the least. She’s like nothing I’ve ever met before.”

Travis laughed. “You have no idea how true that is, Joel. Take care of her, get her home, and we’ll take it from there. We’ll spend next week going through our processes and see where it leads.”

“Thank you. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

~~~

Harper got out of the shower, wrapped a towel around her head to help dry her hair, and went out to the living room to relax and call her father. First, though, she searched the Internet for a nearby pizza delivery and found one just half a mile away. She placed her order for a large, extra sauce, topped with pepperoni and black olives, then settled in to call her dad. She dialed the number and waited.

“Hey, baby. How’s your trip?” Travis answered.

“Hey, Dad. It was alright until about thirty minutes ago.”

“What happened?”

“Joel happened. He’s unbelievable.”

“He’s pretty impressed by you, too.”

“No! I’m not impressed. How dare he spend the entire trip coming on to me? I just ignored it and tried to stay away from him every time he tried to put his arm around me when introducing me to people, but then tonight after I clearly told him I needed some down time away from everybody, he came back and jumped in the pool I was swimming in. I refused him when he came onto me and he threatened to not do business with you because I didn’t give in to his advances.”

“He said that?!”

“Yes! Not verbatim, but in so many words, yes, I took it that way and I’m pretty sure that’s the only way anyone would have interpreted it. And then he upgraded my room to a suite!”

“Wait, that’s a good thing isn’t it?”

“No! He said he upgraded me so I’d have plenty of room to spread out and relax and invite someone up to spend some time with me if I wanted to! I told him he was not spending the night with me if that was what he thought. Can you believe the nerve of him? All he did was talk about how he wanted to get to know me better, and how it would make his night better if he could spend some time with me, and he just couldn’t not see me tonight, and all about what he wanted.”

“Honey, listen. I gotta tell you that I talked to him already.”

“Of course, you did.”

“He’s worried that he upset you. He wanted to let me know that it was all his fault, he thought you were feeling the attraction, too, and pushed a little too hard.”

“Pushed a little too hard? He tried to force me — wet and wearing a bikini — against his body with a towel he’d wrapped around me, while he was tightening his fists on the towel to keep me trapped so I couldn’t get away while he tried to kiss me!”

“Trapped?” he asked.

“Yes! He put the towel around me when I got out, then used it to pull me closer, then tried to kiss me!”

“But you stopped him because you weren’t ready,” Travis said.

“It wasn’t not being ready! I don’t want to be near him. You weren’t there! You didn’t see what he did. He was trying to force me and then when that didn’t work, he was coercing me through threats to your farm! It was a demanding, controlling move, it wasn’t just a gentle effort to try to kiss me. It was, you’re going to do this and I don’t care if you like it or not because it’s what I want.”

“Harper, baby, I’m sure it wasn’t what you wanted, but couldn’t it just be that he liked you and made a move and you’re reading more into it?”

“No! I was wearing a swimsuit, and wet. I was not exactly clothed.”

“Yeah, I can see why that would be uncomfortable.”

“Uncomfortable?! You’d have shot anyone else.”