Chapter Nine
Harlow
She flicked on the lights in the warehouse, whistling a tune as she headed over to the workbench they’d set up for the tools and spare parts. Using her cell phone light, she found the plug and bright lights flared to life nearby.
The overhead ones would take almost ten minutes before they were fully bright, and she didn’t feel like waiting around for them in the dark. Hands on her hips, she surveyed the wreck of the lead float. It didn’t look as bad as it did, but they still had a lot of work to do. Vanek was an excellent help, but too often they got distracted with talking to each other, and they’d accomplished far less than she’d hoped by this point.
Frustrated at the mess that still sat half on the float, she grabbed a pair of wire cutters and started attacking the wire-frame structure. She separated it from the float strand by strand, careful to stay clear of any that were under high tension, coming back after she’d released some of it from elsewhere. Slowly but surely the entire thing sagged to the floor, and eventually she was able to tug it somewhat clear of the float.
Huffing and puffing she took a break, glancing at her phone.
“That’s odd.” More time had passed than it had felt, and it was far later than Vanek normally showed up.
She started to think about texting him, wondering if he was okay, or if he wasn’t coming in today. They’d not actually discussed it at dinner the night before, but he’d been there every day before without telling her, and she’d just sort of assumed that would continue. Had she been wrong?
Maybe things were worse between them than she’d thought. Had his lack of further attempts at intimacy with her the night before translate into him not coming to help anymore either? She sure hoped not. His help had been invaluable, and was the only thing that was likely to see her bring her company back up to its full complement of six floats.
That, and she wanted to kiss him some more. After going home she’d spent the night alone, tossing and turning on her bed with thoughts of him in her mind until she’d finally had enough. Giving in to the desires of her body, she’d slipped a hand under the waistband of her pajamas, images of Vanek shirtless as he sweat and worked on the float with her running through her head.
Even now she felt her throat constrict at the intensity of her memory of the results of all that.
“Sorry I’m late.”
She jumped as his voice sounded from her elbow.
“What the hell have I said about sneaking up on me?!”
He winced. “Sorry. At least I didn’t do it in the dark?”
“You better have something really special planned for afterward if you do that,” she said. “I didn’t think you were coming today.”
Vanek eyed her progress, and then went over and hauled the mass of wires fully clear of the float without a word. She followed him over, trying to figure out what was going on between them.
“I didn’t mean to be late. Sometimes life has other plans though, you know?” he said, his voice strained, though she was sure he intended for it to come off lighthearted.
Harlow glanced at the ruined float slowly coming back to life. “As a matter of fact, I happen to know exactly what you mean by that. What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
It was a lie. The first one she’d ever heard him tell her. That you picked up on at least.
She put the wire cutters down and crossed her arms. “I had fun last night,” she said, hoping that might broach the topic of why he was acting so strange around her.
“You did?” Vanek perked up slightly at that, his face relaxing as he faced her.
Harlow watched his features, the soft tanned lines in his forehead diminishing as he looked at her. His thick brows were still knotted together somewhat, concern and what looked like frustration evident in them. Trying to look into his eyes to understand was a failed experiment. She’d done that right away but the normally reddish-orange-tinged chestnut irises were cloudy and unreadable.
She noticed that he’d pulled his hair back today, tying it off so that it stayed mostly clear of his shoulders and side of his face. It was a new look, but she liked it. The black mane was thick and exotic to her, but she couldn’t understand how it hanging down didn’t drive him crazy. It was why she kept hers so short; it was easy to keep out of the way with a single bobby pin. Two if it was being unruly.
“I did.”
“Me too,” he said, cracking the first smile she’d seen from him today.
That was it. He wasn’t smiling. Before Vanek had been all smiles, laughter and jokes. Full of life and a vitality that had been sucked from her at some point without her noticing. It was what she liked most about him. He was just so exuberant and happy to be alive. Not today, though. Today he was somber and almost depressed.
Harlow wanted to find out who was responsible for this and have a word with them. How dare they treat him so poorly he was unhappy and morose! Vanek was too good of a person to suffer that sort of mistreatment, and she immediately hated whoever it was that had put him in a funk.
“I’m glad to hear that,” she said meekly. “I…wasn’t sure.”
Vanek looked away. The lighting was dimmer on this side of the float, away from her workbench, but Harlow was almost positive she could see his skin flush a slightly darker shade, starting in his neck and reaching up to his face.
“I promised you good food and laughter,” he said with a stubbornness that caught her off guard. “That was my word to you. I broke that word, and I’m sorry for crossing that line with you.” He spoke to her, though his mouth was aimed away.
“What? Vanek, what the hell are you talking about?” she asked, stepping around until they were facing each other once more. “Do you think I’m mad?”
“It would be your right. I shouldn’t have done what I did.”
Harlow tried not to laugh in his face. She tried very, very hard. It was impossible though, and she couldn’t quite hold it in. “Oh Vanek. You are like a man stuck out of time. Too noble and honest for us.”
She reached up and grabbed his strong chin, the stubble prickling her hands as she forced him to meet her eyes.
“You aren't mad?”
“No. Vanek, I’m my own woman. If I didn’t want that to happen, it wouldn’t have happened.” She looked skyward. “For heaven’s sake, have you seen yourself in a mirror? You’re gorgeous. Who wouldn’t want to be kissed by you?”
“I don’t know, but if they aren’t you, I don’t care,” he rumbled.
“Well, I’m one of them. Not just because of that of course. You’re kind, charming, smart. Let’s just say that there are plenty of reasons I’d be okay with kissing you. Or being kissed by you.”
The big man seemed to straighten, as if she’d lifted an enormous load from his shoulders.
“You’re sure you were okay with it?”
“Positive!” she said. “I was more surprised that you didn’t do it again. I was thinking that I’d done something wrong, or that maybe you had decided you didn’t like kissing me.” She clamped her mouth shut just before she started babbling, biting her lip so as not to say more.
“Oh.” He looked away for a moment, then looked back at her, some of the fog but not all disappearing from his eyes. “I screwed that one up, didn’t I?”
She giggled and touched his arm. “Maybe, but you can still fix it. Starting by telling me what’s going on.”
The big man sighed heavily. He looked around the warehouse, gathering his thoughts. “It’s this thing at work. A big deadline that I have, and it’s getting really close. And I am not having any luck with the project.”
“You have a job?”
In hindsight it wasn’t the smartest question. It just sort of slipped out. Of course he had a job. How else did he afford everything? The admission of it just caught her by surprise, since not once since they’d met had he ever discussed work, or his job, or anything like that. She’d just sort of assumed…hell, she hadn’t. Harlow had been so grateful for help with her own work that she’d never questioned his.
“Yes, I have a job,” he replied, sticking his tongue out playfully.
“It’s just…you’re never busy during the days. What do you do?”
“I am sometimes,” he admitted. “It’s more of a freelance thing. It’s tough to explain.”
Harlow wasn’t having any of it. “Why are you dancing around the question? Do you do something illegal? Are you a mob boss? That would totally fit. I could see that now. Don Vanek,” she said with her best accent. “The shipment is late. What? Yeah, I had Vinny ‘dealt with.’ We won’t be making that mistake again.”
By the time she was done Vanek was holding his sides with laughter at her impression.
“No, I’m not part of organized crime,” he said with a wave of his hand. “Almost the opposite, actually.”
Harlow’s stomach tightened at that admission.
“You work with the police?” That wouldn’t be so bad. She could work with that. Probably.
“The military, actually. We’re trying to locate something, but I’m not having a lot of luck.” He shrugged. “It’s all kind of top secret. You know what that’s like, right?”
But Harlow barely heard him. “Yeah,” she said dryly. “Yeah I know what it’s like.”
“Shall we get to work?”
“Okay.” She turned away from him, trying to keep her face from showing her reaction. The taste of ash and bile rose in her mouth and Harlow was forced to swallow the scream of frustration. Why did he have to be in the military?
An envelope yellowed with age appeared in her mind, and she squished her eyes closed, desperately trying to get rid of it.
You’re dead. Why do you still have so much sway over me?
In her mind the envelope rotated, turned over and over in her hands. One side blank, the other with her full name scrawled across it in a man’s handwriting. Her father’s.
Harlow Quinn Ryder.
No. She wasn’t going down that road. Not in her mind, and not with Vanek. She couldn’t. It hurt too much to even think of. Old wounds were ripped open already, and if she kept him around they would just fester and grow within her. Harlow couldn’t deal with that pain. Not again. She was still broken from the first time.
Her decision was made for her. She would finish out the day with Vanek, and then let him know that things weren’t working out. That they had to go their separate ways. It was going to hurt, but the pain now would be an order of magnitude less than the devastation she would feel when life repeated itself.