Any attempt at autonomy, even typical teenage experimenting with clothing and makeup, was strongly opposed. Harper wondered if her mother had any idea how crazy Harper could have gone at the boarding schools. Or what a good girl she’d been all those years when her friends were sneaking out at night, trying drugs, sex, and booze. Then Harper snorted a very unladylike laugh. Georgiana was too self-absorbed to have even noticed, let alone cared.
Harper wiped her eyes, feeling the spark of anger. She was twenty-eight now. Why did she still allow that woman to hurt her?
Harper rose and walked to the small wood desk. She had discovered the only way to release her pent-up hurt and emotions was to write. She sat and flipped open her laptop, placed her fingers on the keys, and started tapping furiously. She felt the tension ease the moment the words began to flow. Even the effort of writing a book, something her father had done, would be an affront to her mother. She hated anything in Harper that hinted at her DNA connection to Parker Muir.
Harper lost herself in the world of her characters. In Harper’s book, she’d created an alter-ego character. Hadley was an empowered woman, intelligent, and not easily swayed. One who didn’t let anyone demean her or stand in her way of achieving her dreams.
When Harper was a young girl, she often wrote stories where she embodied a heroine who faced obstacles similar to the adventures of her favorite storybook characters. She journeyed through a wonderland like clever Alice, traveled through time and space like Meg Murry. As she grew older, Harper sat in coffee shops, in airports, train stations, places where people clustered, and eavesdropped on conversations. She enjoyed finishing their conversations or story lines in her writing, adding flourishes to the tales with an improvisational twist. Most of all, Harper had discovered that her journaling provided her with an outlet for her pent-up frustrations and hurt.
Harper sat at her desk and rewrote the recent telephone exchange, firing off the words to her mother that she wished she had said. The character Hadley was fiery tongued.
“Every word out of your mouth is a put-down!” Hadley shouted. “This is the end of your lifelong campaign of control over me.” “You violate my boundaries, undermine, demean, and criticize me.” “You are a destructive narcissist!”
Harper didn’t realize that she was smiling as she wrote. When she finished, an hour had passed. She leaned back in her chair and let her hands rest on the keys, feeling the cathartic relief she always did after writing.
As she closed her laptop, her smile wavered and she wondered if she’d ever find the courage to confront her mother in the real world, not just in her stories.
Blake didn’t smile when Carson reentered the kitchen. “New friend?”
“Yes,” she replied in a deliberately breezy manner, ignoring his probing stare. “Grab your drink and let’s go outside. It’s hot, but not too bad in the shade. This room is a disaster, thanks to Hurricane Harper.” She took a sweep of the room and shook her head, muttering, “I don’t know what that crazy girl was thinking.”
She led him to the shaded portion of the porch where the offshore breezes stirred the humid air. Carson loved hot weather—couldn’t abide the cold. She was like any other fish that absorbed the sun and tolerated the heat. One of the things she liked about Blake was that he was equally at home outdoors. They both preferred to sit in fresh air than in air-conditioning. Carson pulled out one of the large wicker chairs, then slunk gracefully into it, tucking one leg beneath her.
Blake set his glass beside hers but hesitated before sitting. He stood before her, concern on his face. “How are you feeling?” he asked cautiously.
Carson tapped her fingers along the chair, knowing full well that he was fishing for whether she’d had the abortion. She knew he had the right to ask, and at some point she planned to tell him her decision. But she’d only just made it.
She looked directly into his eyes. “Queasy.” She slipped on her sunglasses.
Blake went still, appearing momentarily blindsided. “As in sick?”
“That’s usually what queasy means. Nauseous. Also known as morning sickness.”
“You mean . . . you’re still pregnant?”
“Seems so.”
She saw hope spring into his eyes, and a quick smile of relief flashed across his face as he digested this information.
Carson removed her sunglasses to meet his gaze. “I’ve decided to have the baby.”
Blake’s emotions shot from zero to sixty. He dropped his computer bag and stepped forward, arms out to hold her. “Carson, I—”
Carson shrank back and put up her hand to ward him off. “Stop!” When he dropped his hands, she said, flustered, “I don’t want to get into this with you right now. Okay?” As he stepped back again, she took a moment to calm her nerves. Glancing up, she saw confusion on his face, and gripping as tightly to her independence as to the chair arm, she pushed on, “I didn’t do it for you. Or for us.”
Blake’s smile slipped but the relief still shone in his eyes. “Okay.” He nodded in affirmation. “Got it. But I can still care, right? I can’t not care.”
Carson’s shoulders lowered, grateful for his understanding and not pushing her into a commitment. She nodded, allowing a half smile to escape. She felt a bit sheepish for being so churlish. “Of course you can.” She looked into his eyes, so dark and appealing. Suddenly she smiled. She had not offered him a smile before, but she smiled now, and in that instant the old affection bloomed. “I don’t mean to be a bitch about this, but I get nervous when you come on strong. I’m just getting used to the idea myself. I need time, okay?”
“Okay.”
Her smile grew wry. “And I don’t want you begging me to marry you.”
When she’d first told Blake about the tiny life growing inside her, he’d tried to push her into moving in together and marriage. Carson had promptly fled, completely overwhelmed and unable to stomach the idea of all that commitment. They’d broken up then and there.
Blake crossed his arms across his chest, eyeing her narrowly. “Who said I wanted to marry you?”
Carson looked askance and smirked.
He dropped his arms. “Okay, I want you back.” Blake shrugged insolently. “I love you. So sue me.”
She laughed, accepting his humor, and his determination, with equanimity. “I love you, too. You know that. But that doesn’t mean I want to get married, at least not right now. Let’s start with being friends again, and see where things go from there.”