“You just stopping in to say hello, or did you need anything?” Paul asked Harper.

“Needed to drop some stuff off for Mom and see if you guys wouldn’t mind watching Luna this weekend,” she said as she gently scratched her nails down the puppy’s back. For the first time he slowly lifted his head from where it was buried in Tripp’s elbow.

“Where are you going?”

“Jacksonville. There’s an extra ticket for the Stampede party,” she answered, barely paying attention to anything besides the dog’s face. He looked like a little teddy bear and he closed his eyes in pleasure when she started scratching under his chin.

It took her a second to realize that all three men had stopped talking. She looked up to find three sets of eyes looking at her in shock.

“What?” she asked, not stopping the attention she was giving to the puppy.

“You’re going to a party with the most recent Stanley Cup winners?” Finn’s voice didn’t spare an ounce of envy. “Do you even watch hockey?”

“Sometimes.” She shrugged. Meaning when it was on one of the TVs at the Sleepy Sheep she’d occasionally look up at it and see a game. The only sport she really followed was baseball, and that was because Grace was a hard-core Boston Red Sox fan and her friend’s fandom had carried over.

“Sometimes?” Tripp asked aghast. “I think we’re friends with the wrong people,” he said to Finn. “We need to get in with Dale and Hamilton.”

“You think we can bribe them with a dog?” Finn eyed the girl puppy in his arms that reached up and pawed at his face. He scratched her under the chin and she leaned into his chest, nuzzling his neck.

“I don’t know. I think we’re going to have to think bigger. You got any horses you’re willing to trade?” Tripp asked.

Not only was Finn a vet, but he worked out at his aunt and uncle’s farm helping with the horses they trained and boarded.

“Not at the moment.” Finn shook his head. “But I’ll get back to you.”

“I want to hear more about this trip of yours,” Paul said, focusing on Harper. “And your mother and I watching Luna shouldn’t be a problem. But you should double check with your mom anyway.”

“I’ll go do that now and let you guys get them checked out.” She gave the puppy in Tripp’s arms one last good scratch before she kissed her father on the cheek, said good-bye to everyone, and headed outside.

She grabbed the box of lemon oils and lavender lotions from the back of her Cruiser before making her way to the house. When she walked inside, she was enveloped in the seventy-two-degree blast of air that was the standard in the Laurence household.

“Mom,” she called out as the door closed behind her.

“In the kitchen,” Delilah answered.

Darby, her parents’ border collie/mutt mix, came sprinting into the hallway barking excitedly.

“Shhh, nothing to get worked up over,” Harper told the dog. “It’s just me.”

The familiar scent of the Angelo family’s homemade marinara sauce, or gravy as her mother called it, filled Harper’s nose as she made her way to the kitchen. Her mother’s side of the family was Italian, and a good amount of extended family still lived in Italy. Her mother and aunt had been born and raised in the States, and certain traditions had carried over. Like cooking…and Catholic guilt.

“I brought the stuff for the baskets,” Harper said when she walked into the room to find her mother at the stove, spooning the gravy into rows of mason jars. No doubt these were going to be added to the baskets as well.

“Oh good.” Her mother turned around, eyebrows raised and mouth pursed as she did the Delilah-once-over. “You look exhausted.”

Code for you look like crap.

Well, wasn’t that a lovely greeting?

“It’s just been a long couple of days.” Harper put the box on the counter before she knelt down and petted Darby. The dog started sniffing her hand like she was attempting to inhale it. No doubt trying to figure out what other dog—besides Luna—Harper had come in contact with.

“Hmmm. I’m beginning to think it’s been a long couple of months with you.”

Truer words couldn’t have been spoken. “It has been. Which is why I was actually planning on going out of town this weekend with Mel and Bennett and the boys. Would you mind watching Luna for me?”

“Didn’t you just go out of town a couple of weeks ago? You know constantly running from your problems isn’t going to make them go away.”

Well, Harper was wrong. Those were truer words.

“Mom, can you watch her for me or not?”

“You know I have no problems watching Luna. She’s probably the only grandchild I’m going to get anyway.”

Well, two out of three accurate observations wasn’t too bad for Delilah. Her mother sure was in for a surprise.

Chapter Seven You’re Gone and I Can’t Move On

The sun was sitting low in the sky, a smear of bright yellow surrounded by a pinkish orange. The orange turned to a magenta, then transitioned into a purple and finally ended in a deep blue. There was an area where the purple met the blue that was the exact same shade of violet as Harper’s eyes.

Damn. Liam was so beyond screwed.

It had been almost six weeks since she’d walked out—since he’d woken up without her—and he still couldn’t stop thinking about her.

It was ridiculous.

There was no way for him to find her, either; she hadn’t given him anything in the way of that information.

Nothing personal.

Well, he’d thought that rule had been bullshit from the very start. Everything about the time they’d spent together had been personal, both in and out of bed. Every word spoken. Every time she’d laughed in his ear. Every single touch. Every single everything.

Yet, she’d left anyway.

She’d just used him to forget. Used being the key word. And part of him felt like the biggest hypocrite in the world for being so pissed about it, because he’d done it before. He’d spent the night with someone with no intention of it being anything more than sex. But that hadn’t been the case with Harper, and that’s why this whole situation just didn’t feel right.

Why he didn’t feel right.

He’d said it before, she’d been more than a one-night stand, or as it turned out a two-night stand. Because there’d definitely been more between them than the sex. He knew it. Knew it beyond a shadow of a doubt. But there was absolutely nothing he could do about it now.

She was gone.

Maybe if he told himself that enough he’d start to believe it. Start to move on. Because he wasn’t any closer to moving on now than he was six weeks ago.

And there’d been plenty of opportunity. There was always plenty of opportunity. But he wasn’t interested in any of the women he’d been around. Wasn’t interested in going to bed with someone else to fill the void.

It wouldn’t be fair to the other person…because all he’d be thinking about was Harper. And in the end, he’d just make the void bigger. He couldn’t pretend. Couldn’t act like that weekend was just a passing thing. Couldn’t act like Harper was just another girl.

Because she wasn’t.

Which was probably why Liam was more than a little upset with his manager’s newest PR plan. Liam was pretty sure his frustration was permeating through his pores at this point. Gary Kirkland was a man all about opportunity, and obnoxiously persistent when he needed to be. He firmly believed that a “relationship”—real or not—with a very popular starlet was the best thing for Liam’s career at the moment.

Kiera “Kiki” Jean Carlow was one of the lead actresses on Mason-Dixon. The show was about two families from small towns on opposite sides of the line, one in West Virginia and the other in Pennsylvania. It had a Romeo/Juliet thing going on with a feud dating as far back as the Civil War.

Kiki played the villain, the girl trying to steal the hero away from the heroine, and everyone loved to hate her.