Montana Rescue (The Wildes of Birch Bay Book 2) (15 page)

As the mailbox numbers grew closer to hers, Nick decided it would be best to simply take the plunge. And he might as well start now. “You scared me out there today.” He recalled his fear as the car had left the track. “In fact, you terrified me
.
”

She shook her head. “It was
nothing
. I barely even crashed.”

“Harper.
Honey
.” At the endearment, she jerked her gaze his way, her brows pulled in tight. “You lost control at nearly two hundred miles per hour. You’re going to sit there and tell me that was nothing? That it didn’t scare you?”

“I don’t get scared.”

He bit his tongue at her words. He’d seen the terror on her face, but he didn’t point that out because she’d deny it. Instead, he shut his mouth and drove the remainder of the distance in silence. When he pulled into her driveway, he was floored at the sight of her home. But again, he kept his comments to himself.

“Thomas had it built,” Harper said, as if to explain the ostentatious size of the building sitting in front of them. “He didn’t want us to want for anything.”

“It’s nice,” Nick replied. And he’d say the man had accomplished what he set out to do.

Harper huffed out a breath and grumbled, “It’s too big.”

Well, there was that. He didn’t know why anyone would need such a large place to live. He pulled up beside the garage and stopped the truck, and she had her purse on her lap before he could shift into park.

“Thanks for the ride.” Her tone wasn’t polite, but as least she hadn’t jumped from the truck with it still moving. However, when she opened her door, Nick opened his, as well. She stopped and looked back at him. “What are you doing?”

“Coming in. We need to talk about what happened today.”

“No, we don’t.” She made another move to exit, and Nick once again followed suit. He slid his left foot to the ground, and Harper sighed and dropped back to her seat. “I’m trying not to be rude, Nick, but the fact is, I don’t want you to come in.”

“That’s fine. We can talk here.”

“We’re not going to talk anywhere, because there’s nothing to talk about.”

When her look turned even more belligerent, he merely shrugged. “We can either talk out here or I’m following you into the house.”

“Then I’ll call the cops.”

“Really?” His own anger rose to a new level. “You want to avoid your issues so much that you’d call the cops on me?”

“I’m not avoiding anything. I just don’t want unwelcome people in my home.”

“Well, at least you didn’t call me a random stranger again.”

She jutted out her chin, and he matched her look. So she turned away from him to glare out the windshield. The both of them were acting like children, pouting because they couldn’t have their way, but Nick was powerless to change things. He remained furious, she remained stubborn, and somehow, one of them was going to win this argument. But honestly, he wouldn’t bet on either one of them at that point.

Yet when she pushed her hair behind her ear, and he saw her fingers shaking, he couldn’t help the concern that washed over him. She’d scared herself today. Badly. She was crashing from the adrenaline rush now, and all of that fear was wrapped around a pain that he so clearly recognized. Her walls may have been thick, but that didn’t keep him from seeing straight through them to know that she was hurting. And that
that
was the basis for her recklessness.

He gentled his voice. “You’re too risky, Harper. And I’m certain it comes from the loss you experienced a year and a half ago.”

“You know nothing about my loss.”

“Then tell me about it.”

Her shoulders curled in on herself, but nothing else about her changed. Face remained forward. Silence stony.

“I’ve told you before that I have broad shoulders,” he reminded her. “Let me help. You’re lashing out. Daring something to happen to you because you’re hurting. Maybe because you lived and he didn’t.”

Her throat moved as she swallowed, and Nick wondered if he’d called it right. Was it survivor’s guilt?

“No, I’m not,” she whispered heatedly.

“And you’re stubborn as sin on top of it,” he muttered. But he shifted in his seat, bringing one leg up so he could face her, and hoping that if he opened up a little, then maybe she would, too. “I’ve had my share of heartaches, as well,” he told her. “Not like yours. Definitely. But bad enough that it permanently damaged me on the inside. I understand the need for anger. The desire to hurt in the present just so you don’t have to hurt from the past.”

A muscle jerked in her jaw.

“My mother hated me,” he said softly. “She died never once implying that I made her world brighter in any way. That she even so much as cared.”

Harper stared at him.

“I’m just saying that I recognize pain when I see it, and especially in you. And that I truly do want to help.”

“But I don’t need help.” Her voice shook.

“I know. You keep saying that. And I never thought I did, either. Until—”

She shook her head as if she didn’t want to hear any more, and Nick stopped talking, almost thankful for the interruption. He didn’t want to talk about his mother, anyway. Christ, what had he been thinking?

“I’m sorry I scared you today,” she said. “Truly, I am.” The words came out soft, and he watched as she seemed to try to force the tension in her shoulders to ease. She unclasped her fingers where they gripped her purse. “I didn’t mean to wreck. I wasn’t trying to hurt myself. I was just having fun. And really, everything did end up okay. I didn’t hurt me or anyone else.”

“But you didn’t have it under control.”

“Things happen sometimes, Nick. It was an accident.”

“You’re too risky.”

“No, I’m not. I’m just living my life. Experiencing things. It’s what Thomas and I did.” And again, the anger Nick had become so familiar with flashed through her eyes and stared back at him, and a light began to dawn inside Nick.

“You’re acting this way
because
of Thomas?” he said. “Because of something he did?”

“I’m acting no way.”

Was it not survivor’s guilt, but something her husband had done?

This time when she reached for the handle, Nick didn’t try to follow her. She opened her door and slid to the ground. “I’m fine,” she told him once more. “I’ve got everything under control. I always do.”

“But what if one day you don’t? People mess up. Accidents turn deadly.”

Her body jerked with his words, and he felt bad for bringing up her memories. She’d definitely been in an accident that had turned deadly.

But he didn’t feel bad enough to keep from finishing his point.

“What if you push too far?” he asked her. “Panic instead of maintain control? It could kill you.”

Pure anger filled her eyes now, and it was definitely directed at him. “I never panic.”

Then she slammed the door and walked away.

Harper stopped at the corner of her house and turned to watch Nick drive away. How dare he say that accidents could turn deadly. She, out of everyone, knew that. And he was a callous, spiteful person to say that to her just because he was mad.

His truck disappeared from sight, and she whirled around and stomped up the front steps. What did he know about accidents, anyway? Or heartache. His one big beef with the world was that his mother hadn’t liked him.

Well, boohoo.

A hint of guilt over her thoughts niggled at her as she shoved open the heavy wooden door and stared into the empty house. She had a few more battle scars than Nicholas Wilde did, so he could just deal. Dead husband. Dead baby. Destroyed life.

Dropping her purse, she slammed the door and stormed through the house, and suddenly, all the fire drained from her and she found herself sinking to the floor. She crawled on all fours to the corner and put her back against the wall. And for the first time since Thomas had left her, she wished she could cry. Maybe shedding a few tears would lessen the never-ending weight that sat in her chest. The weight had gotten really heavy lately. And she was so tired of carrying it.

But the tears didn’t come. They never did.

Dropping her head back, she stared up at the ceiling, her eyes roaming over the smooth white finishes. In a fit of frenzy, she’d had everything on the first floor redone in white. White walls, white fixtures, white cabinetry. She’d even replaced the countertops with white marble—as well as the floors. The entire place was now a mausoleum. And it was depressing as hell.

She hated it.

She hated everything.

Her gazed moved to the center of the ceiling and landed on the elaborate crystal chandelier that she’d paid way too much money for. The light hung directly under what she now considered Thomas’s room. The space that housed all of his stuff. She’d originally removed everything of his from the house, but her mom had gathered it from the pile in the backyard and brought it back in.

After her mom had not only lugged Thomas’s belongings back inside the house but had also packed them into totes, Harper hadn’t had the energy to fight her over it. So she’d eventually stored everything in the room above where she now sat. Then she’d shut the door, and she hadn’t stepped foot back in it since.

She closed her eyes and let herself picture Thomas as he’d been before that last day. Man, she’d loved him. And he’d loved her.

She thought about their wedding day, her white lace dress handed down from her grandmother, and him in his dress blues. There had been so many dreams between the two of them. And they’d been fulfilling them, too. They’d been helping people, loving each other. Honoring his brother.

They’d even been bringing a new life into the world—not that the pregnancy had been discovered until after Thomas had died.

Their lives together were all they’d ever wanted, and despite protests from his parents, they’d never veered from their paths. But now she sat in the corner of their sterile kitchen, all alone, with nothing but herself and her loneliness to keep her warm at night. And her fear. This was not the life she was supposed to have.

Nick’s words came back to her.
You’re lashing out. Daring something to happen to you because you’re hurting. Maybe because you lived and he didn’t.

No, she wasn’t. It was more complicated than that.

But he
had
been right about one thing. She’d been scared today. When the car had gone airborne, she’d honestly thought her time had come. That she was finally going to kill herself.

Because, yeah, maybe she did dare fate. She had ever since she’d crawled out of that really dark place she’d gone to those first few weeks. Yet she hadn’t realized any of that until today—when she’d thought that fate was about to put her six feet under.

She didn’t want to die.

She just wanted to quit being so angry.

Chapter Fourteen

O
hmygoodness. I wish she’d hurry up before I pee on myself!”

Harper peered up from her phone where she was scrolling through Facebook and eyed her sister, who was lying flat on the ultrasound table. They’d arrived at the obstetrician’s office more than an hour before and had been waiting in the patient room for a good twenty minutes. “Maybe you should just go,” she suggested. She nodded toward a closed door. “There’s a bathroom connected to this room.”

“I can’t just go.” Jewel groaned. She pulled her knees up on the table and cupped her hands over her lower belly. “They told me to drink water before I showed up, so they could see the baby better.”

“Well, maybe you drank too much. You could get rid of a little of it.”

Jewel shot her an irritated glare and added in an eye roll, as if asking what Harper could possibly know about it, and Harper silently agreed. She knew nothing.

She returned her attention to her phone and slunk down even farther in her corner chair. She
really
wished Bobby had been able to make it home for this appointment. He’d tried. Arrangements had been made to fly in late last night so he could be here, with the intent of leaving in the morning. He’d planned to help them load up for this weekend’s rodeo, then they’d drop him at the airport on their way out of town.

But at the last minute, dangerous thunderstorms had cancelled several flights out of Boston, and the earliest flight he could rebook would have been too late to make the ultrasound. So they’d gone to plan B. Harper would FaceTime him when the technician arrived.

The door opened, and a twentysomething woman in pink scrubs and a bouncy blonde ponytail walked in. And she was
also
pregnant. Noticeably so.

Harper squelched her irritation. The last thing she wanted to do was be around pregnant women, and now she was in a building full of them. They were everywhere. Not to mention, she was about to get a close-up look at one on a monitor. It was a crappy kind of day. The last
two
days had been.

“And how are you feeling today, Mrs. Brandon?”

Jewel’s eyes narrowed on the woman. “I feel like I need to pee. You kept me waiting too long.”

“My apologies,” the technician murmured. She shifted her gaze quickly from Jewel and reached out a hand to Harper. “Hi. I’m Claire.” At Harper’s less-than-enthusiastic reception, Claire timidly returned to Jewel. Jewel merely snarled at her, so Claire turned her attention to readying her machine.

Once the other woman had looked away from them, Jewel flapped her fingers toward Harper. “Hurry up,” she hissed. “Call him.”

Harper scowled and held the phone up for her sister to see. The call was already going through. And clearly, pregnancy hormones had turned her sister into the devil. Bobby didn’t answer, which helped nothing, and Harper swore under her breath as tears welled up and spilled over Jewel’s cheeks.

“Try him again,” she sobbed.

Claire peeked up from a folder of paperwork to eye both of them at the sound of Jewel’s wails, and Harper once again held up her phone. She pointed to the screen, where another call was going through. “I’m trying to get her husband on the line. His flight got cancelled and he couldn’t make it home for the appointment.”

“Awww,” Claire murmured. She immediately had complete sympathy for the nut-job pregnant lady about to pee all over her table. She patted Jewel’s hand. “Don’t worry, sweetie. We’ll get him on the phone. We can wait a couple of minutes to start if we need to.”

“What I
need
is to
pee
!” Jewel yelped.

Bobby answered as Jewel shouted, and with a relieved look, Claire once again turned away. Harper thrust her cell at Jewel, and instantly, her sister’s entire demeanor changed. She was once again the sweet woman Harper knew her to be.

Harper shook her head at the Jekyll-and-Hyde impersonation and returned to her seat. She felt uncomfortable enough being there. The last thing she wanted was to intrude on Jewel and Bobby’s moment. So she crossed her arms over her chest and sank down, making no attempt to hide the fact that her sister wasn’t the only one in a foul mood. She’d been like this since Nick had dropped her off at her house two days before.

She hadn’t bothered to pick up her car yet, nor had she reached out to tell him when she would. She’d just sulked.

And she remained angry over their argument. Granted, she could understand his worry over her safety. Those had been a few tense moments. And she even got his need to discuss the situation afterward. He seemed to be like that. In her face about everything he deemed an “issue.”

And in a better frame of mind she might even be inclined to appreciate that characteristic.

But right now she remained ticked.

Jewel’s light laughter permeated Harper’s fog of bad mood, and Harper found herself silently watching her sister and Bobby as they stared wide-eyed at the monitor together. Jewel’s belly was still flat, but that didn’t stop the technician from finding hidden tissue underneath. Harper couldn’t make out anything specific in the grainy black-and-white images, but she understood that it represented a life. She found herself suddenly thinking about Thomas again. She missed him. And if he couldn’t have been at her first ultrasound, then she would also have wanted to FaceTime him during it. They would have had this same first moment together in a similar low-lit room, each softly murmuring words of wonder to the other.

Harper smiled slightly as another tear rolled over her sister’s cheek. It was a single tear this time, and Harper understood that it was a happy one.

Then she thought about how she’d told Nick that she never panicked. That had been a lie. She had panicked. In the worst possible way.

She suddenly wanted to apologize to Nick for being so angry with him. He hadn’t done anything wrong. She’d been rude and tried to push him away when he’d just been attempting to help. Thomas would have been doing the same thing as Nick.

“And that right there,” Claire began, reaching over and turning up the volume on the machine, “is your baby’s heartbeat.”

Harper wanted to die. Right there in the middle of the office building as she listened to the steady whop-whop from the machine. She didn’t want to draw another breath.

Unable to be in the room any longer, she made an excuse and left. She didn’t stop moving until she got outside, and then she continued until she found herself standing in the middle of the parking lot. A car horn honked, trying to get around her, and she held up a hand in apology. She stumbled out of the way and ended up leaning against the trunk of another vehicle, dragging in gasps of air.

She didn’t know how long she stood there, bent over like that, but eventually a light hand touched her shoulder. She looked up.

“Are you okay?” Jewel asked.

Harper nodded. She pushed off the car and looked around as if uncertain where she was. She hadn’t even come to the right parking lot. “Sorry,” she mumbled. She took her phone when Jewel held it out to her, and ignored the pinched concern on her sister’s face. “You ready to go?”

Jewel cast a shrewd eye in Harper’s direction before leading the way to her car. She’d driven today, with the plan being to drop Harper at Nick’s after the appointment so she could get her jeep. They slid into the front seat of the car, but instead of starting the ignition, Jewel looked over at her. Worry lined her face. “I’m sorry I was such a bear in there.”

Harper laughed tiredly. “Honey, you’re pregnant. You’re allowed.”

“Then if you’re not upset about me . . . what’s going on with
you
?”

Harper shook her head. “Just a bad day.” She couldn’t bring herself to make direct eye contact. She reached over and took the key from her sister, sliding it into the ignition and starting the car. “Can we just go?”

“Sure.” Jewel backed out of the space and made it to the edge of the parking lot before she tried again. “Really, are you okay, Harp? Because you don’t look so good. What happened?”

“I’m fine. I promise.” In truth, she was about to fall completely apart.

“We could go to my house. I could make us some lunch?”

“I’m not hungry.”

“Then how about—”

“Jewel.” Harper heard the noticeable shake in her voice. “Please. Just take me to get my car. I have things to do this afternoon, and no time to . . .” She pressed her lips together and shook her head instead of finishing the sentence. She knew Jewel just wanted to help. Her whole family would be there in an instant if she’d only let them.

But she couldn’t. She was too ashamed.

“I’m not sure—”

“I’m just tired,” Harper interrupted again, this time forcing a smile. “Really. I’ll be fine.”

Nick wiped sweat from his brow before he attacked the next tree, once again cursing the bears that had a cherry fetish as he worked to minimize the damage. It looked as if more than one bear had managed to break through the fence barrier that had been erected several years ago—probably a mama and her cubs—and they’d literally shredded ten mature trees. The plumping green cherries were gone, branches hanging at odd angles. And Nick found himself wishing curses upon the animals, hoping the unripe fruit made them sick.

He also grudgingly thanked them for only taking out ten trees. It could have been worse.

He’d already fixed the fence, and was now on the last tree. Once he had it sheered down into manageable pieces, he’d drag the limbs to the pile where he’d stacked the others, then he’d come back with a trailer to pick them up. They’d hit the chipper before the afternoon was over.

Danged bears.

He grumbled under his breath as he finished up, and recognized that his bad mood wasn’t solely due to the wildlife. He hadn’t heard from Harper since he’d dropped her off at her house, and his patience was wearing thin. Her jeep still sat in the driveway, and though he’d considered having it delivered to her house just to get a rise out of her, he’d decided to wait her out instead. He’d pushed her pretty hard the other day. Now it was up to her. They were either through . . . or they were due for a serious conversation.

And the truth was, with any other woman he’d be done. But this time, his fingers were crossed for that conversation.

When he finished with the branches, he climbed on the four-wheeler and headed back along the path that took him nearest the lake. It passed the spot where he and Harper had walked the day she’d told him about her late husband. It was also where Nick had admitted to her that he wasn’t sure he’d be ready to leave when his dad returned.

He was even more conflicted on that topic today.

He brought the all-terrain vehicle to a stop at the edge of the ridge and spent a moment taking in the lake. It was a clear, warm day, and from this viewpoint, it seemed as if he could see all the way across the water. He couldn’t, of course. The distance was too far.

He thought about his years growing up here . . . about growing up with his mom.

His sister used to sneak out to the dock simply to get away from her, but Nick and his brothers had been able to escape with their dad on a more regular basis. If they weren’t helping him with something in the fields, then they were running errands in town or working on machinery in the barn.

It hadn’t been Nick’s favorite way to spend the time, but it had been a heck of a lot better than staying inside. The best thing to ever happen to him had been his mother dying.

And how completely sad was that?

If Harper hadn’t stopped his runaway mouth when she had the other day, he probably would have shared that bit of info with her, as well. Along with the fact that his mother had hated him. She hadn’t loved him because he hadn’t been enough. And he’d been about to share
all
his baggage with Harper.

That knowledge amazed him on a number of levels. He’d not only never talked about his mother with another woman, but the idea had never even crossed his mind to do so.

He climbed back on the ATV and headed to the barn. But before he could hook up the wagon to retrieve the limbs, the sound of an approaching vehicle stopped him in his tracks. He straightened and watched as a dark-blue sedan headed up the driveway. He didn’t recognize the car, but he had an inkling of who sat in the passenger seat.