Chapter Twelve
HARPER WOULD NORMALLY have gone to her mother for fashion advice and a jewelry loan, but as they weren’t speaking, that wasn’t possible. She was on her own as she got ready for her “date” for drinks with Blake.
This would be the third time they had gotten together, and while she would love to believe the evenings were a high spot in his month, she had her doubts. She was his lowly virtual assistant while he was a world-traveling private jet salesman who looked like Daniel Craig and had a smile that could serve as an alternative form of energy.
She studied herself in the mirror. She’d chosen a simple black faux wrap dress with three-quarter sleeves, although the word chosen was a little strong. It wasn’t as if she had fifteen dresses and, hey, this one spoke to her. She had two and Blake had seen the other one last time.
She’d debated wearing her new diamond earrings, but they seemed a little fancy, so she’d put on simple gold hoops and her new peach Schlumberger bangle. The bangle from Great-Aunt Cheryl reminded her to be brave. Or so she hoped.
She slipped on her kitten heel pumps that she’d gotten on sale about three years ago and walked to the kitchen. Becca was curled up on the family room sofa, flanked by Thor and Jazz, and reading her car’s owner’s manual. Her daughter had taken Lucas’s instructions to heart, Harper thought, both pleased and annoyed. On the bright side, at least someone could get through to Becca. On the annoying side, it wasn’t her.
Becca looked up and smiled. “You look nice.”
“Thank you. It’s my quarterly drink with Blake. I shouldn’t be late, but I won’t be back by dinnertime. I’ve left food in the refrigerator, along with instructions.”
Becca put down the manual. “Grandma won’t be over?”
“No.” She hesitated. “It’s complicated.”
Her daughter studied her for a second before saying, “Okay. Stacey texted about me coming over there for dinner, so I might do that instead. I’ll text you.”
Harper wanted to complain that Becca should have at least pretended to ask, only she would then be totally in the wrong. First, it wasn’t as if she was going to be home herself. Second, going to Stacey’s was perfectly allowed. Her sister lived only a handful of blocks away. Becca had been going over there by herself since Stacey had bought the house. Third, if Ashton was the real reason her daughter wanted to hang out with her aunt, who was Harper to stand in the way of her becoming friends with her new cousin?
“Thanks, Becca. Have fun whatever you decide.”
“I will. You, too, Mom.”
Harper drove to Olives—a martini bar-slash-restaurant. It wasn’t the sort of place she went very often, or ever. She’d married relatively young and had never been the bar type before that. Still, she did her best to fake confidence as she walked in and looked around.
The space was open and upscale with only a handful of olive-based pictures on the wall. The customers were a comfortable blend of local business types and tourists. Harper saw an empty table and headed for it, only to be stopped when Blake walked over and smiled at her.
The man was good-looking, she thought, as she smiled back. Polished, tan, with blond hair and blue eyes. She would guess his suit had a designer label, his tie was silk and that his shoes had cost as much as her annual food budget. He was the kind of man she could imagine surprising his significant other with tickets to New York for a long weekend, where they would eat at places she read about in People magazine and stay at a fancy hotel by the park.
“Harper, so nice to see you.” He lightly held her upper arm as he leaned close and kissed her on the cheek. “You look lovely. How is everything?”
“Good. How was your flight?”
“Uneventful, which is how I like them.”
As he spoke, he steered her toward a small table by the window. A server appeared, as if he’d been waiting for them.
“Welcome to Olives. What looks good?”
Blake ordered twelve-year-old Scotch while she got a very boring glass of red wine. She wanted to be wild and order some exotic martini, but that was a lot of alcohol and she still had to drive home. Plus, it wasn’t as if she had much in the way of tolerance when it came to liquor. She almost never drank. Honestly, her life was boring even to her.
“How’s work?” she asked when their server left.
“Busy. The King of El Bahar just ordered a new plane. That’s going to be fun.”
“Lots of gold leaf and pictures of himself?” she asked.
“Actually he’s really down-to-earth and his wife has excellent taste.” He winked. “The fun part for me is the unlimited budget. As a guy who works on commission, I appreciate that. Speaking of appreciation, the gift basket you put together for my mom’s birthday was inspired. She loved everything. Thank you for that.”
“It’s why I’m here. To take care of the details.”
Their drinks arrived and they touched glasses. He asked about work and life in Mischief Bay. They were twenty minutes in when she realized they had nothing in common. Absolutely nada.
Was it her? Should she get out more or watch more news shows on television? Should she be reading celebrity gossip magazines so she could talk about the Kardashians?
Blake being Blake, and the consummate salesman, picked up the slack conversationwise and kept her entertained with stories about things that had gone wrong with deliveries and the strange things the rich and famous wanted in their private jets. Fifty minutes after she’d sat down, he flagged the waiter and asked for their check.
“It’s always good to see you,” he said as he signed the credit card receipt. “Thank you, Harper. I hope we can do this again, soon.”
“Sure,” she murmured when what she was really thinking was why? They had no chemistry and she had to admit that for some reason she couldn’t explain, her fantasies about Blake had all fizzled. Yes, he was handsome and had a killer smile, but she wasn’t disappointed to be leaving and going home. Which meant she officially had no one to daydream about for the three minutes it took her to almost dry her hair every morning, and how sad was that.
Maybe a movie star, she thought as she drove home. If he was a movie star, she wouldn’t care that he was married or secretly or not so secretly a jerk. She’d always liked Matt Damon, who was involved in that water charity and seemed to really love his wife and kids. Or she could go totally age inappropriate and use her blow-dryer time to lust after Liam Hemsworth, although she was about as far from sexually liberated and totally self-possessed Miley Cyrus as it was possible to get, so maybe not. The last thing she needed was a fantasy guy who judged her.
She was still working on the nonproblem when she pulled into her driveway, only to have a familiar Mercedes convertible park at her curb.
Lucas got out and walked toward her. “How was the date?”
She wrinkled her nose. “Not a date. Just a polite glass of wine with a client.”
“But you were with the James Bond–like Blake. I thought simply being in his presence was the stuff of dreams.”
“I never said any of that to you,” she began, then groaned. “Stop talking to my daughter when you give her driving lessons.”
“She’s sixteen, Harper. Not talking isn’t an option. I do my best to control the topics, otherwise we end up places I don’t want to go.” He shuddered. “Yes, chunky heels could make a comeback but do we have to talk about it?”
She laughed. “That sounds like my girl.” She glanced at her watch. “You just getting off work?”
“Yeah. We had some excitement at a bank today that took a little longer. I’ll pick up Thor and get out of your way.”
“Do you want to stay for dinner?”
“Sure you don’t need the alone time to relive Blake’s charming conversation?”
She put her hands on her hips. “Hey, do I mock you about your girlfriends?”
“Most of the time.”
“Oh, right. I forgot. Okay, then I take it back. And no, I don’t need any alone time. It turns out Blake and I don’t have much in the way of chemistry. I need a new fantasy boyfriend.”
“They’re making lifelike sex robots these days.”
“Don’t make me regret asking you to dinner.”
He winked.
They went inside. Harper excused herself to go change. She returned to the kitchen in jeans and a T-shirt. Her feet were bare and she’d left on the bangle because it made her happy. Lucas sat at the kitchen table, petting his dog. Jazz lay in her bed.
Harper opened the refrigerator. “All right, let’s check out the leftovers.”
“Or we could order pizza.”
She turned and stared at him. “Oh. My. God. Seriously? Order in food? Do you know what would happen?”
Lucas raised his eyebrows. “The heavens would open and rain toads?”
“Maybe.” Still, the thought was tempting. “Becca would be really mad. I never let her order pizza. I make it myself, of course, but she says that’s not the same.”
“It’s not and she doesn’t have to know. The Slice Is Right delivers. I’ll take home the leftovers, including the box. It can be our guilty secret.”
She was incredibly tempted. Guilty secrets had been noticeably absent in her life lately and it wasn’t as if she was doing anything really bad. Most people would consider delivered pizza an ordinary occurrence. Plus, Bunny was out with friends, so she wouldn’t be around to judge.
He pulled out his phone. “I’ll let you pick the kind of pizza as long as you don’t get one that’s gluten-free, or vegetarian.”
“I wouldn’t do that.”
He looked at her.
She sighed. “All right. I might try to go healthy in an effort to alleviate my guilt, but I won’t.”
They agreed on barbecue chicken with extra cheese. Lucas placed the order using an app while she set the table. She looked through her pitiful collection of wine before choosing a bottle.
“I’m going to stop bringing flowers and start bringing you liquor,” he muttered as he opened the drawer containing the corkscrew.
“You don’t have to bring me anything.”
“I do if you feed me.”
“You already got me a guy who will scoop dog poop. That’s about the best gift there is.”
“You’re welcome.”
He’d taken off his blazer and gun holster. She would guess he’d already put his weapon in the safe, as he did whenever he came directly from work. He’d rolled up his shirtsleeves to his elbows.
He was good-looking in a different way than Blake. He had more edges and less polish, but there was a solidness about him that always made her feel as if he could handle whatever happened. She supposed that came from a career in law enforcement. He’d had to learn how to deal with a crisis. He was a detective now, but he must have started as a rookie and worked his way up.
She fed the dogs, then joined Lucas in the family room while they waited for the pizza to arrive.
“How old were you when you joined the LAPD?” she asked, settling on the sectional. Lucas sat in the recliner.
“I was a kid, still in my twenties. I got my AA in criminal justice from Mischief Bay Community College. When I graduated, I applied and was accepted.”
“Did you always want to be a police officer?”
He looked at her. “Asking about my past?”
“I guess I am. You know way too much about me and I know almost nothing about you.” She raised a shoulder. “Excluding your despicable taste in young women.”
“Despicable seems harsh.”
“I suppose, although it’s wildly accurate.”
One corner of his mouth turned up. “Point taken. All right, I didn’t always want to be a cop. That happened over time.” He paused, as if trying to figure out what he wanted to say. “My father’s family had money. Not a huge fortune, but enough that if he was careful, he would never have to work for a living. My dad took advantage of that. He bought a modest house here in Mischief Bay and lived a pretty good life, hanging out with his friends, surfing, going from girlfriend to girlfriend. One day one of those girlfriends showed up with a ten-year-old kid. She said she was done with him and took off. That kid was me.”
Harper honestly didn’t know what to say. Lucas had been abandoned by his mother? Left? It was one thing to give a baby up for adoption—a lot of times that was to give the child a better future, and it wasn’t as if the baby would remember. But a ten-year-old?
“You must have been devastated,” she whispered. “Oh, Lucas.”
He held up a hand. “Water under the bridge. Yeah, I wasn’t happy, but it wasn’t as if she qualified for mother of the year. I barely noticed she was gone.”
A total lie, she thought. It didn’t matter how bad his mother had been—she’d been his mother. The one person he’d believed loved him and cared about him. Her walking away would have changed everything.
“My dad surprised the hell out of me,” Lucas continued. “He took one look at me, said I looked just like his father and that was that. I was in.”
“How was it, living with him?”
“Decent, I guess. He didn’t see any reason to change his lifestyle. There were plenty of parties and women around. My dad didn’t believe in discipline or making me go to school or anything like that. By the time I was twelve, I was starting to get into trouble. By thirteen, I’d been arrested.”
Harper felt her eyes widen. “You have a record?”
“Calm down. I was arrested. There’s a difference.”
“My daughter is being taught to drive by a criminal.”
He chuckled. “Way to find that silver lining. Do you want to hear this or not?”
“I definitely want to hear about how you turned your life around after years in the pokey.”
“Crazy lady.”
The doorbell rang. Both dogs ran to the front of the house and took their positions. Harper assumed they were prepared to take down anyone who threatened the pack, but they would wait for a command, or possibly a scream.
Lucas collected the pizza while she carried their drinks to the kitchen table. She set out plates, then waited while he opened the box.
The delicious smell assaulted her, leaving her mouth watering and her stomach growling. Guilt threatened, but she pushed it away. Lucas would take home the evidence of her decadent dinner. No one was ever going to know.
She slid a slice onto her plate. “Keep talking. You were in jail and...”
“I was arrested,” he corrected. “One of the cops brought me into an interrogation room. I kind of recognized him, but I wasn’t sure. It turns out he lived down the street from my dad and knew exactly who I was. He gave me a pretty serious talk about where I was heading and told me I either did what he said or I served hard time.” He grinned. “Andy scared the crap out of me, so I showed up at his house when he said to.”
“What did he make you do?”
“Mow his lawn and weed the garden. That turned into hanging out with him and his family. The kids were one and three, so way younger than me, but they were so great. Within a few months, I’d pretty much moved in with Andy and his family. My old man didn’t notice, or if he did, it didn’t matter to him.”
Harper wasn’t sure what to make of that information. She’d long suspected Lucas had an interesting past, but nothing like this. She picked up her wine.
“Andy taught me how to be a man. He showed me what it meant to work hard and be honorable. By the time I was seventeen, I was an honor student at the high school, was on the baseball team and had a part-time job so I could pay for a car. All I wanted after graduation was to join the LAPD. Andy made me promise to get my AA first. I was involved in a couple of police charities and avoiding my old man as much as I could. Then one day, Andy didn’t come home. He had a heart attack at his desk and died seconds later.”
Harper set down her pizza slice as the little she’d eaten turned to rock in her stomach. “He died?”
Lucas nodded. “We were all in shock. Andy’s wife wanted to move back to San Francisco to be with her family and I packed up my stuff to go live with my old man. I had no idea if he’d take me in or not and I was scared of both outcomes. What if I forgot everything Andy had taught me? What if I didn’t turn out the way he’d expected? I didn’t want to disappoint him, but I was afraid.”
Harper desperately wanted to run around the table and hug him, which was weird. She told herself it was just a mom thing, but even so, why would she be hugging Lucas?
“What happened?” she asked instead.
“One of the guys from the station showed up and told me I was going to live with him until I graduated from high school.” He looked away and cleared his throat. “I wasn’t a relative or anything, still, the guys took care of me. While I was in high school and through community college, there was always a place for me. When I graduated with my AA, I applied to the police academy.”
His smile returned. “I had so many letters of recommendation, they had no choice but to take me.”
She felt her eyes tear up and had to blink several times. “That’s the nicest story you’ve ever told me.”
“Every word of it is true.”
“What happened with your dad?”
“Not much. We stayed in touch. I saw him maybe twice a year. When he died, he left me the family money. There was still a good chunk of it left.”
She thought about the expensive car sitting in front of her house. “That’s how you afford the things you do. I’d wondered.”
“I live on my salary, but use the other money for the odd toy.”
Which spoke highly of him, she thought. He could have been like his father, not working at all. Instead he chose to put his life on the line every single day. She sipped more wine. She was feeling relaxed and comfortable.
“Do you ever get scared? You know, at work?”
“Sometimes. I have a good partner.”
“Who let you get shot!”
“Not his fault.”
She didn’t know the exact details of Lucas’s injury the previous year, but she knew he’d been in the hospital, and then had spent over a month recovering.
“That didn’t make you want to retire?” she asked.
“No way. Being a detective is cool.” He winked. “The ladies love danger.”
“Oh dear God. Seriously? You risk your life to get laid?”
His raised his eyebrows.
She glanced at her wineglass and saw it was empty. Perhaps the second glass of the evening had gone to her head.
“I’m sure you could find someone to date you even if you weren’t Mr. Danger Pants.”
“Mr. Danger Pants? I chase down bad guys so you can safely walk the city streets and you call me Mr. Danger Pants?”
She reached for the bottle of wine and poured herself another glass. She might regret it in the morning, but right now more wine seemed like an excellent idea.
“Technically I live in Mischief Bay and we have our own police department, so while I appreciate your effort, it’s not on my behalf.” She took a sip. “Do you think your mom leaving is the reason you like younger women?”
He stared at her. “We’re not having that conversation.”
She waved away his words. “I mean it. I’m really curious. Is it a commitment thing? Oh, did your dad date younger women?”
His expression turned wary. “Maybe.”
“Huh. So you learned that from him and having your mom do what she did—by the way, that was a total jerk move. What a bitch. I hate her.”
“Good to know.”
“Anyway, maybe you’re afraid of commitment or you’re afraid of being left.” She paused to reflect. “Or maybe you’re just afraid of saggy boobs. It’s hard to know.”
Lucas’s mouth twitched. “You are so going to regret this in the morning.”
“Maybe. Still, it’s been fun.” She frowned. “I think this is the first time it’s only been you and me at dinner. I’m having a good time.” She held up her hand. “Please take that in the spirit it’s meant.”
“You’re not coming on to me?” he asked, sounding amused.
“Oh, please. I’m going to be forty-two. That’s probably a hundred and twenty-seven in Lucas girlfriend years.”
He laughed and pushed the pizza box toward her. “Eat up before Becca gets home and you’re exposed as the hypocrite you’ve become.”
“It’s not my fault,” she said cheerfully, taking another slice. “I’m going to be totally immature and put the blame squarely on my mother.”
“That’s my girl.”