Harper Haley thought she had prepared herself for the moment she’d see Blue again, but judging from the way the air seemed to escape her lungs and her whole body tensed the moment she saw the lean, corded muscles of his shirtless back as they drove up, she knew no amount of psyching herself up could have done her any justice.  He was even more beautiful than she remembered, and she’d done a lot of remembering over the years.  Only now, he had the bulk of a man – a strong, hardworking, solid man.

She looked over to Jory, who looked like he waited to see if she still needed his help, now that it seemed Blue had taken care of her car issue.

“Thanks, Jory.  I owe you one,” she said, inching over as her hand went to the door handle to let herself out.

She stood next to the truck in the open door and dug in her purse, pulling out a twenty-dollar bill.  She reached over to hand the bill to Jory.

“For your trouble,” she clarified when he gave her a questioning look.

Jory shook his head and held his open palm up to her.  “Keep it.  I reckon you’ll have an opportunity to pay it forward sometime or another.”

She shrugged and tucked the twenty back into her purse.  “Suit yourself.”  She waved and shut the truck door, watching him tip his head and raise his hand up to gesture his goodbye.

The spikes of her heels dug into the soft ground as she made her way to the rental car.  It really had been a long time since she’d been back here, hadn’t it?  Once she got the keys in the ignition and the engine running, Jory finally drove off. She’d almost forgotten how polite country boys were, living in the city for so long.

She could smell the faint, lingering scent of a subtle cologne or maybe an aftershave that sent the prickle of awareness through her senses.  That smell was only too familiar, even after all these years, and she took a small comfort in the notion that at least some things never changed. 

Certainly, the cold glare Blue had shot her way when he saw her was new, or at least something that had never been aimed at her before.  The way she’d left things all those years ago, though, she was sure earned her the object of his ire, and while there was nothing she could do about that now, she also knew it was the way it had to be.  Even if things had gone the way they had since then.

She sucked in a strengthening breath and put the car into gear to head up the road to her intended destination.  She knew she’d better come to terms with the idea of seeing Blue again.  She was back in town to see her best friend, Blake, Blue’s sister, and from the looks of the address she’d given, Blake was living there at the Brigham Farm.

The farm itself hadn’t changed much by the looks of things when Harper pulled up to the farmhouse, though there were a few noticeable updates to the house itself – at least looking at the front porch that spanned the whole front of the home. The trees surrounding the place were bigger than she remembered, and it looked like someone had applied a fresh coat of paint to the siding of the house in the recent months.  It was a little brighter than she remembered.

She steadied herself as she walked across the pebbles that littered the path of hardened, packed dirt leading up to the paved walkway.  It was dusty, but at least her heels didn’t plunge through the ground.  She’d definitely have to retire these shoes for a while, she thought, trying to tiptoe her way in the smoothest spots she could find so she didn’t fall on her face already, having barely gotten here. 

Her eyes scanned the fields beyond the yard, acutely aware that she was looking for him, but she only saw cows grazing in the fields, crows gliding and swooping into the nearby trees, and the stray, lonely, cumulous cloud that hovered lazily in the midday sky.

Before she got to the bottom step at the edge of the porch, she watched as the screen door screeched open and Blake Brigham-Crosby emerged in her wildly-red-headed glory, with outstretched arms and a relieved smile. She rushed across the porch, down the steps, and wrapped her arms around her life-long friend as Harper pulled her in tight to reciprocate.

“You made it!” Blake said next to Harper’s ear as they hugged, then took Harper by the shoulders to hold her at arm’s length to get a good look at her.  “You look great.  Looks like the city’s done you some good.”

Harper held in a scoff and waved a hand up and down toward Blake.  “Me?  Look at you!  You haven’t aged a day since I saw you last.  What has it been, a couple years now since you came out to visit?”

Blake grimaced as if she felt guilty for letting so much time go by since they’d actually seen each other, despite their weekly or more phone calls and routine texts between them.

“Well, come in.  This is actually Blue’s place now, but he’s letting me stay here since …” Blake’s speech cut off, unable to finish her sentence.  “Well, anyway, he’s letting me stay here ‘til I get back on my feet.  You remember my little brother, Blue, right?  Though, I guess he’s not so little anymore.”  She chuckled.

Don’t I know it, Harper thought.

They stopped inside a completely remodeled and modern-looking entryway where Blake motioned for Harper to take off her shoes.  Harper was in awe taking it all in.  Clearly, someone had put a lot of time and care into doing this place its justice from the old, dated farmhouse it had been when their parents still lived here.

“Sure, I remember him,” Harper answered, trying to keep her eyes on the eclectic mix of modern and country décor as she slipped one stiletto heel off and then the other, using her toes to push the pair against the wall and out of the way.

She couldn’t help but notice how the sleek heels, even with the caked-on dirt clods from the day’s earlier trek across the rugged terrain, looked sorely out of place among the worn boots and sneakers that neatly lined the space beneath a handmade, wooden bench.  The shoes and décor, at least, were a much safer topic than the one she desperately tried to pretend was nonexistent, which was that Blake still didn’t have the slightest inkling of the torrid past Harper shared with her friend’s younger brother.

Blake carried on as she led the way into the kitchen in the heart of the home.  It had also been fully remodeled with modern appliances and a large island with speckled, granite counter tops.  This was probably the most updated area of the house, at least on the ground floor, from what she could see.  It looked as though they’d taken a wall out somewhere and expanded the space into twice what it used to be, or more.

There was hardly any sign at all of the old home that Harper remembered spending so much time in as a kid growing up, but deep in the bones of the place, it was all still there – the memories of simpler times when they each had a lot less baggage they carried around with them.

“You don’t mind, do you?”

Blake’s voice broke through Harper’s reverie, and she turned to see her friend rummaging around in the stainless-steel refrigerator, the two side-by-side doors both opened wide.

“I’m sorry, I must have gotten caught up in how different this place looks from what I remember.  What was that, again?”  Harper pulled up a stool at the island and continued to watch as Blake pulled out lunch meat, cheese, and fresh lettuce and tomatoes to make sandwiches.

When Blake emerged, letting the refrigerator doors close behind her, she repeated her earlier statement.  “I was just saying that Blue set me up in the only downstairs bedroom, so you can take one of the spare rooms upstairs if that’s okay.”

Harper felt a flutter of nerves wash over her at the thought.  “Oh, I should probably just go check into a hotel.  I don’t want to be a bother.”

Blake plopped a large, wooden cutting board down onto the counter with exaggerated irritancy.  “Harper Haley, you’ll do nothing of the sort.  There’s plenty of room here.  There’s no sense in you spending ungodly amounts of money on some sterile, uppity sort of place like a hotel.  Besides,” her voice softened as she pointed the cutting knife she now held in Harper’s direction for emphasis, “if you did that, I might think you weren’t planning on staying long, and I really hoped we would have more time to catch up.”

It brought a smile and nod out of Harper. 

Blake got quiet for a moment as she sliced the tomatoes for the sandwiches.  When she looked up, Harper could see tears welling up in Blake’s reddened eyes.  Blake brushed her sleeve over her cheek to catch a stray tear that had escaped. 

“I’m sorry.  I told myself I wasn’t going to do this.  I just really appreciate you coming and being here for me right now.”

Harper could tell by the way Blake carried on making the sandwiches, dabbing the Miracle Whip onto slices of bread, that she didn’t want to talk about those issues just yet, so Harper let it go. 

“It’s okay.  I just …” Harper hesitated.  “Are you sure your brother doesn’t mind me being here?”

Blake waved the hand that still now held the butter knife she’d used to spread the sandwich spread in a dismissive gesture.  “Why would he mind?  He’ll be okay.” 

Blake then changed the subject, going into the usual spiel about the various gossip about town with people they’d gone to school with so many years ago.  Gossip in a small town … some things really never changed.  Harper tried to go along, injecting a gasp here and a scoff there, but the uneasy feeling in her gut would not let her forget the question that continued to linger beneath the surface.

Just what would Blue say when he came home that night to find her, of all people, here in his home?  Blake never knew about the secret affair she and Blue had all those years ago, and she wasn’t about to tell her about it now, but the way Harper had left things between her and Blue back then had cut deep, for both of them.

She liked to think that maybe it could all just be water under the bridge and that he’d forgotten those old feelings in the growing and living he’d have done since then.  The icy look in those jade-green eyes of his back on the road, though, told her otherwise.