Page 86 of Seeing Harper

“There’s mine,” Joel said, stepping forward and moving politely through the crowd standing along the conveyor’s edges to reach for his bag.

“You want a towel so you can lasso your bag and make sure it can’t get away from you?” Harper called out.

Joel turned with a smile on his face at the sound of her voice, but that smile quickly faded as she finished her sentence.

“Harper…” Travis said warningly.

“Oh, yes, of course. Let’s not make the man who dared to try to force your daughter into an intimate position the littlest bit uncomfortable.” She stalked forward, but at the last moment took a left to follow the route the conveyor took and waited for her bags a couple of feet before all bags on the flight went through the flaps at the end of the conveyor’s route to make the trip back behind the wall to only show up again to make another round of the room. She spied her bags coming toward her and easily picked up one, then the other two off the conveyor and set them beside her. She extended the handles and stacked them for ease of rolling them out of the room and toward her father’s truck wherever that might be parked.

As she approached her father, Joel stepped in front of her. “Please let me help you, Harper.”

“I have it,” she said.

“But I’d like to help you,” he insisted.

“Again, all about what you’d like. I’d like you to realize that I don’t care what you’d like,” she said, her voice a little sharper.

“Harper, can I get one of those for you?” Travis asked.

Harper smiled at her father. Despite the fact that she was upset with him, he was her father and she always did as much as she could by herself so that he wouldn’t have to exert himself on unfamiliar ground and chance taking a fall — and he never knew, as far as she was aware, that she ever worried about him. “No, thank you, Daddy. I have it.”

“If you’re sure,” Travis said. “I parked out here in the loading and unloading area, so it’s only a quick walk to the truck.”

Harper nodded, walking along slightly ahead of them as she listened to her father asking Joel questions about the show and trying to make him feel welcome.

When they got out to the truck, Harper hoisted her own luggage, each hand holding one suitcase stack as she lifted them over the side of the truck and gently set them down onto the bed. She made sure that Joel could see how easily she had done it. Then she left him standing there with his eyes wide at her display of strength, and got into the passenger side of the truck. She sat there waiting while Joel put his things in the bed, apologizing to her father as though she couldn’t clearly hear them.

“I’m sorry, Travis. I did make a pass at her. I had no idea she’d get so angry.”

“Normally she might have been irritated, but not like this. You sure it was just a pass?” Travis asked.

“Definitely. I even thought it would be considered romantic.”

“Why’d she shout about trapping your bags with a towel so they wouldn’t get away?” he asked, remembering her mentioning the towel on the phone, too.

“I wrapped her towel around her shoulders when she got out of the pool, and held it in place when I let her know I was interested in more than friends, I pulled her closer with it and I tried to kiss her.”

“Closer isn’t trapped.”

“She thinks it was. It obviously upset her and she sees it differently than I did. But I’d have never forced her.”

“Let’s make sure that you don’t make that mistake again.”

“Of course,” Joel said, following Travis to the driver’s side of the truck and getting in the back seat, then buckling himself in as Travis got in the driver’s seat and started the truck.

“Mom’s making her famous smothered steak and onions, Harper. Y’all hungry?” Travis asked.

“No, thank you,” Harper said.

“Sounds delicious,” Joel said.

“You’ll be in for a treat! Won’t he, Harper?” Travis asked.

She glared at her father instead of giving him an answer.

Travis shot her a look to mind her manners, but she shot him one right back, and put her ear buds back in.

A little more than an hour later, Travis slowed as he approached their home. He put on his blinker as he looked questioningly at Summer’s BMW parked along the edge of their front lawn with the engine running, its tires just barely off the highway, and its front end pointing away from their house with Summer sitting in the driver’s seat, and from the looks of it, having herself a karaoke sing-a-long with the radio.