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“Sure I can, son.” Neal seemed relaxed, his hands clasped, as if he were savoring this little power play. “How long do you think you’d last in the real world, with a two-bit job and a pile of bills? Claire Holland has expensive tastes, just as you do. She wouldn’t be happy ‘living on love’ or whatever the hell you want to call it. Neither would you.”
“Kendall’s here!” Paige, Harley’s dip of a sister, didn’t bother knocking, just threw open the door and swung into the room.
Heart sinking, he glanced out the front window of the den and spied Kendall’s little red Triumph skid to a stop near the garage. She alighted, a frail-looking girl with pale skin, paler hair, and wide blue eyes that had the habit of accusing him of betrayal, deceit, and all manner of sin.
Harley’s day went from bad to worse.
“I hope you can explain this better to her than you did to me,” Neal said, straightening as Harley walked through double doors to the foyer and the front door that Paige was flinging open.
“I thought you were in Portland,” Paige said, beaming at the older, prettier girl. Paige adored Kendall the way that she’d revered the girls who had made the cheerleading squad or who were elected homecoming princess or queen of the prom or some other juvenile fluff—the same way she’d paid homage to her stupid Barbie dolls when she’d been a few years younger with an overblown, exaggerated, and downright obsessive passion.
Kendall had the decency to blush a little. “I, um, came to see Harley.” She glanced at him with sorrowful eyes that made him cringe inside.
“Oh.” Paige’s face fell, and the smile that was wired with braces disappeared.
“But I’ll stop by and see you before I go.” Kendall added a smile to her promise, and Harley braced himself.
“Kendall!” Neal boomed with a grin any Cheshire cat would envy. “How are you and your folks?”
“Fine.”
“Your old man’s golf game?”
“As bad as ever if you believe him.”
“That sandbagger? No way.” With a hearty chuckle, Neal gave her a fatherly clap on the shoulder, ignored his own daughter, and glared at Harley without saying a word. The message was clear: This, son, is the woman for you.
Harley knew differently. While his father returned to the den, and Paige reluctantly made herself scarce, Harley and Kendall walked through the house. “I don’t know what you’re doing here,” he said, as he opened the heavy sliding door. He held the door open for Kendall, then followed her onto a wraparound cedar deck that was poised high above a canyon. Far below the Chinook River sliced through the ravine on its furious path to the sea. The uppermost branches of fir trees offered shade from the summer sun, and the sound of the swift current muffled their voices.
Taking in a deep breath, Kendall said simply, “I love you.”
“We’ve been over this.”
“I want to marry you.” Kendall seemed haunted, her white skin even more translucent.
“You don’t.”
“For God’s sake, Harley, you know I do.” She stepped closer to him so that the fragrance of her perfume competed with the dank scent of the encroaching forest. “We made love. Right here on this deck. In your car. In your bed. I was a virgin, and you . . . you told me you loved me then . . .”
His jaw clenched and his fingers curled over the rail as the first tears rained from her eyes.
“What if . . . what if I got pregnant?” she said, and Harley’s heart stopped for a second before beginning to beat again. Pregnant? Kendall? The world pitched beneath his feet. There was no way she was knocked up. They’d been careful. He’d been careful.
“You’re not pregnant.”
“No.” She shook her head, sunlight playing on her pale blond crown. “I wish I was.”
“So I’d marry you.”
“Yes! I’d make you happy, Harley,” she vowed, stepping forward, taking one of his hands in both of hers. She started to raise it to her lips, and he drew away, didn’t want to see her grovel, felt enough like a heel as it was.
“It’s over, Kendall. I don’t know what I have to do or say to convince you.”
“You still love me.”
“No.”
She flinched as if she’d been hit with a spiked two-by-four. Tears fell in earnest, and she sniffed back a sob. Harley had never been heartless. Stupid, yes. Naive on more than one occasion, but heartless? Never. And he couldn’t stand to see her cry.
