Chapter 8: The Ones Who Came to Watch

Harper's POV

My hand stopped at the rim of the jar, and it took a real effort of will not to bring it down and smash it against the counter in front of the two of them.

Blair let out a soft sigh at his side — the kind of sigh I had heard since I was a girl, drilled into her by years in the church choir, a sigh engineered to carry pity and superiority in the same breath.

"Harper, sweetheart, are you all right? We heard about the shop and we came by to check on you." Her eyes slid from the cash box to the wall and back again. "Oh, honey, the writing on that wall... how many coats do you think it will take to cover that up?"

I didn't say anything.

"I told you a long time ago," Liam said, sliding one hand into his trouser pocket, his tone as loose as if we were discussing the weather, "this place is a hobby, not a career. You don't even have a retirement account, and now you don't even have a door." He glanced at the empty frame. "What exactly do you think you're doing this for?"

"Liam, don't." Blair gave him a small push — the kind of push that is really flirtation. "Harper's always been capable. It's just that carrying all of it alone is genuinely hard. Look at you — you don't have a single person who can help."

Clay came forward to meet them, and I saw Liam's expression change, the way a man's face changes when he spots a rival.

"And who is this?" Liam's eyes went over Clay, assessing him. "Where did you pick up your hired help?"

I set the coffee-bean jar back down on the counter. Glass met wood with a clean, bright click.

"Thank you both for coming by," I said, "We're not serving today. The door is behind you."

Liam didn't move. He was watching me, and I knew that look — he had been waiting all morning for me to cry, to throw something, to say "you're right," so he could go home afterward and tell everyone that Harper really did fall apart without him.

I was not going to give him that. Then I heard footsteps beside me and turned my head.

Clay leaned the broom against the wall, came to the counter, took his place at my side, and then looked at Liam.

"You just called her a wreck," he said, his voice level. "But the man who betrays the person who loved him is the bigger wreck, isn't he. Bringing your mistress to her door to be insulted — I genuinely cannot follow the logic of it."

"You—" Liam's voice tightened. "Do you know who you're speaking to?"

"No," Clay said. "You didn't introduce yourself."

I heard Josie laugh softly from over by the display shelves.

Liam's mouth opened and then closed. He looked Clay over again, head to foot, and for the first time there was uncertainty in the appraisal.

"This is how Harper always is," his voice a notch lower and harder than before. "She carries everything herself, and when she can't carry it anymore she grabs whoever happens to be standing nearby. You are nothing but a tool she will use up and throw away."

"Better than being a man with no use left in him at all."

Liam's face went a shade greener, and something in my chest loosened that I could not have named.

"Liam." Josie came over from the display shelves, wiping her hands on a rag as she walked. "You're the Southeast regional development project manager at Vance, aren't you?"

Liam's expression shifted slightly.

"Then you must know," Josie went on, "that your project was announced as indefinitely postponed this morning. Which is the reason Harper's café gets to keep its doors at all." She draped the rag over her shoulder. "So would that be your incompetence?"

Blair tugged at Liam's sleeve. Neither of them looked good.

Liam glanced at me. I said nothing; I only looked back at him. That quiet seemed to bother him more than any retort could have — he knew, himself, that he had gotten nothing today.

"Hmph. We're leaving," Liam said, low.

Blair opened her mouth for one more attempt; he pulled her toward the door. Her heel caught on the threshold, she put a hand on the frame, and she did not look back. The bell rang behind them, then the engine, then quiet.

I counted to three before I let the breath out slowly. It came from somewhere deep and carried the weight of the whole morning with it — the vandalism, the police, the landlord, and now them. My shoulders finally came down.

Josie swept the last of the glass into the trash and clapped the dust off her hands.

"Well," she said. "That suit he's wearing today is at least two grades cheaper than the last one."

I couldn't laugh. I only shook my head. Clay had carried the spare chair out from the back and sat down by the counter, examining the pried-open cash box, running his fingers once along the gouges, saying nothing.

"Harper." Josie lowered her voice. "Did you see the way Liam looked at Clay just now? He stared at him longer than he stared at you." She tipped her chin toward Clay. "I think that man put a scare into him."

My heart skipped half a beat. "But I've already broken up with him."

"That doesn't keep a man from measuring himself against other men." Her voice was nothing but disagreement. Then she paused. "But that isn't what I wanted to say."

"Then what?"

"What I am saying," she said, taking the rag off her shoulder and looking at me squarely, "is that you could just marry him."

I thought I had heard her wrong.

"Your mother has been after you about it, hasn't she?" Josie said. "Your loan is still short, and how long have you had your eye on that town program for married small-business owners? "

Her voice never rose, but every sentence landed firmer than the one before. "And think it through — Liam came here today to watch you fall apart. If he comes back and finds out you're married, that the man who shut him down with two sentences is your husband, how much face does he have left to stand in your doorway and put on a show? "

I opened my mouth and had nothing to put in it.

"And Dolores," she went on. "How many cards has she handed you every time you go home? Give her an answer and she runs out of reasons to put more in your hand. See whether she's satisfied today."

"Josie, he doesn't remember anything. That isn't fair to him."

"I know that," she said. "I'm only saying there's sense in it. I'm not telling you to nod yes now. I'm telling you to stop pretending you haven't thought about it."

I looked at Clay, Josie's words going around in my head until it was all finished.

By the time we were done, the light had gone slanted. Josie left first; at the door she looked back at Clay and said, low, "think it through," and then she was gone, her heels quicker on the pavement than when she had arrived.

When we got back to the bungalow, Dolores's car was in the drive, and the smell of pumpkin-spice candles came out through the screen door ahead of the woman herself.

I stood at the foot of the steps and took a breath.

"Does your mother always come by?" Clay said, level as reporting the weather.

"She always has."

Dolores had already heard us; she pushed the screen door open and stood on the porch. When she saw me, worry crossed her eyes first, and then something else covered it over — that expression I have known since childhood, the one that means she is about to get down to business.

"I heard about this morning at the shop." She came down the steps. "Are you all right?"

"I'm fine."

"What did the police say?"

"It's under investigation."

Her eyes rested on Clay for a second, then came back to my face. She took my hand and lowered her voice. "Harper, listen to your mother. The whole town is talking today — saying you crossed the wrong person and got yourself some revenge for it, saying a woman running a shop on her own is too headstrong—"

She stopped, swallowed the rest of it, and changed her approach. "I don't care what any of them say. I only know it's too much for you to carry alone. You need someone to help you, someone who can genuinely help, someone with standing in this town."

"Mom—"

"Let me finish." She dug a business card out of her pocket, its corners already curled soft from being clutched, as though it had been in there a long while.

"Wesley Grant. The younger Grant boy — you know the family, three dealerships in the county. He's a planning consultant down at town hall, he's a decent man, divorced once, no children."

She pressed the card into my hand. "I've already arranged it. Three o'clock the day after tomorrow, at the French place by the river. All you have to do is show up and meet him."