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But his support wasn’t real. It was temporary. A momentary solution that would disappear.
It was selfish to ask him to sit around in a hospital all day just so she didn’t feel so alone. Her family was there for her. Plenty of shoulders to lean on.
It wasn’t wise to depend on him that way. She knew better. “Go home, Harrison. I appreciate you coming, but my family’s here now. I’ll be okay.”
He hesitated, glancing at his sister who held Giovanni’s hand as they spoke quietly to a nurse.
His brow pinched and his lips firmed. Glancing at her and then the doors, he finally nodded. Of course he didn’t argue that he should stay. “Call me if you need anything. I don’t mind running back.”
“Thanks. I will.” She wouldn’t, but she was too tired to explain the complicated truth.
Yesterday had been a nightmare of uncertainty. She’d thought to call him a hundred times but always changed her mind, knowing she and Harrison did not share that sort of relationship.
Seeing him walk through that door yesterday…
For a split second, she lived the future she’d fantasized about as a girl, the one where he loved her more than anything else in this world and would always come running whenever she needed a hero or someone to hold her hand. But that wasn’t reality.
Now that things were more stable with her dad, she could breathe a little easier. Erin was still in a conversation with Giovanni and the nurse, so Harrison didn’t bother saying goodbye to them.
When the doors swished shut behind him, and she was by herself once more, the sense of loneliness hit harder than usual. Used to handling things alone, she didn’t need a shoulder to lean on or someone to bring her sodas and aspirin. She could do those things for herself.
But it was nice pretending she didn’t have to for a few hours.
Shortly after the day shift nurses arrived, the doctor returned to check on her father. Aunt Rosemarie and Uncle Liam visited and urged Mariella’s mother to go home and get some rest, but her mother refused to leave her father’s side.
Mariella napped on and off between visitors, but never slept for more than twenty minutes at a time.
“Hey.” Her brother nudged her shoulder. “You want a coffee?”
Mariella sat up and checked the time, her body jittery and her nerves frayed. “No, I’ve already had too much. Where’s Erin?”
“Bathroom. You need sleep.”
She took in the dark circles under his eyes and the lines of worry bracketing his concerned stare. “So do you.”
“I napped on the plane.”
“Liar.”
They stared down the hall, where twin glass doors blocked another hallway that T-boned into a different area of the hospital. A tall vending machine faced the doors and Erin appeared, searching the options for food.
“She’s different with you,” Mariella commented.
Giovanni’s eyes never left his wife when she came within view. “She’s always been who she is. People just never had the guts to get close to her.”
“Well, that worked out for you.”
He chuckled. “Yeah, it did.” He sat back and sighed. “What was Harrison doing here?”
“He’s handling stuff with the hardware store.”
Her brother shot her a skeptical glance. “And that led him to the hospital, how?”
She shouldn’t feel guilty or responsible for Harrison’s actions in any way, but she understood what her brother was getting at. Looking up at him, she shrugged. “We’ve been hanging out.”
“Seriously, Mar? Harrison? Why would you put yourself through that again?”
She bristled at his disapproving tone. “I’m not putting myself through anything. We’re friends.”
“Just be careful.”
Her father had given her the same warning. “Do you have a problem with him?”
They all knew each other, but Giovanni never expressed any dislike for Harrison before. And now, being that they were brothers-in-law, he had more reason to like him. But that didn’t seem the case.
“He’s always making the women in my life cry.”
There had been a few unfortunate incidences in the past when Giovanni had tried to cheer her up. The worst was just after Harrison had left Jasper Falls the first time. But that was ten years ago. They were kids, and it had been her first broken heart.
Everything had been hard to comprehend back then. The fact that Harrison had left everything in his locker and not even warned his team that he wasn’t coming back, felt surreal at the time, utterly unfathomable that anyone could so completely ghost an entire town and never return to explain why.
Her brother had been around for that aftermath. Harrison’s disappearance destroyed her, and there was nothing her friends or family could do to cheer her up during that time.
But her brother’s dislike no longer stemmed for Harrison’s treatment of Mariella alone. He said Harrison made the women in his life cry—plural.
She looked at Erin. It was difficult to imagine someone so tough crying, but she supposed anything was possible. “He doesn’t mean to hurt anyone.”
