Total pages in book: 53
Estimated words: 50043 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 250(@200wpm)___ 200(@250wpm)___ 167(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 50043 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 250(@200wpm)___ 200(@250wpm)___ 167(@300wpm)
“What’s going on?” she asked the woman next to her who she knew vaguely from running into around town.
“Someone pulled a gun inside Murphy’s. They hurt a few people.”
“Oh, no! Do you know who?”
“No. But if it hadn’t been for that silver fox bartender, he would have hurt more people. Rio saved the day from what I hear.”
“Rio? Is he okay?” Harper gasped.
“That’s Mr. Hotness. Look!” The woman pointed as they rolled a distinctive man out on a gurney and the crowd erupted into applause.
Harper waved frantically at him, calling his name, but Rio didn’t see her. He was obviously headed to the hospital. Today was Amber’s first day in the ER. There was no way she hadn’t heard that he was coming in.
Shouldering her way back out of the crowd, Harper said a quick prayer that Rio was okay as she hurried back to her car. Once in the car, she dug her phone from her bag and dialed Amber. It went directly to voicemail, so she knew her friend’s cell was off. Harper left a message asking Amber to let her know if she and Rio were okay.
Her next call went to her Daddy. He’d want to know what was going on. It rang over and over before disconnecting. Frowning at the phone, she tried again. This time, it connected on the fourth ring.
“Harper, huh? That sounds like a desperate groupie name. Colt is busy—and naked. Stop calling.” With a drunk-sounding giggle, the young woman disconnected the phone.
Horrified, Harper tried to figure out what had just happened. Who had that been? She hadn’t called the wrong number. That woman had mentioned Colt. She’d obviously reached his phone.
Dropping the phone to the seat as her mind whirled a million miles, she grabbed blindly for Wombles and pulled him to her chest. “What is going on? She sounded like she was in her twenties. And she was drunk!”
An image formed in her mind of a flashy twenty-something. She was everything Harper was not—willowy, athletic, and gorgeous. “She probably can sing in front of a crowd without wanting to throw up.”
Tears filled her eyes, clouding her vision, but not obscuring the picture in her mind of Colt wrapped in someone else’s arms. A honk nearby brought her head up, and she looked through the windshield to see the ambulances had all left the area. A few scattered police cars blocked the parking lot, but it appeared the emergency had resolved.
“Let’s get home, Wombles.”
Taking a circuitous route home avoided the traffic that had built up. When she pulled into the parking lot, Harper dropped her forehead against the steering wheel. It took a minute to gather the strength to drag herself into the apartment.
Inside, everywhere she looked she saw Colt: lounging on her sofa in a pair of ragged gym shorts, joking in the kitchen as he made their lunches for the next day, leaning against the bedroom door with that unmistakable hunger igniting his deep brown eyes. She walked in and dropped her keys and phone on the table before sitting in her grandma’s rocking chair. Harper didn’t remember him ever settling there.
“Oh, Wombles. What am I going to do?”
Minutes passed as she rocked, trying to reassure herself that everything was okay. She must have misunderstood. Could she have misunderstood?
Her phone buzzed, and she jumped up to run over to the device. A text message stood out on the screen: Sorry, Harper. I’m booked this evening with a meet and greet. I’ll have to talk to you tomorrow. Forgive me?
“A meet and greet? Is that what they’re calling sex now, Wombles?” Harper spat out, feeling the hurt flash into anger. Picking up the device, she turned it off and plugged it in. No one really needed to get in touch with her. How sad is that? No one would worry that she was okay. Being alone had never felt so lonely.
By habit, she walked to the refrigerator and looked for something to eat for dinner. At the sight of food, her stomach flip-flopped. Harper stepped back and closed the door with a decisive snap. For once in her life, she didn’t have any desire to eat.
Carrying Wombles into the bedroom, she sat him on the bed as she stripped off her clothes, finding sticky handprints and a Cheerio stuck to the back of one leg of her jeans. Dropping the latter in the trash with a sigh, Harper questioned the life purpose she’d always known she was supposed to do. After stepping into the warm spray of the shower, she dunked her head under the water and tried to quiet her thoughts.
Without opening her eyes, she searched blindly for the bottle of body wash. Harper poured some into her hand and slathered it quickly over her skin. Bursting into tears, she inhaled the spicy soap Colt had purchased to keep from smelling like the roses she preferred. Unable to resist, she spread it over her face to savor the scent.