Harley Page 3

  “What are they keeping inside? Fort Knox?”

  “Maybe.” Daniel frowned. “I’m serious. These guys mean business.”

  “Good to know.” Harley nodded. “I’ll see what I come up with then.”

  At that, Harley slapped his buddy on the shoulder. “I’ll see you in a couple hours.” And he headed out.

  Jasmine Willoughby sat out on the deck, brushing the strands of hair off her face. It was a hot evening, and the iced lemonade wasn’t making a dent in her frustration or her sadness. Her son, Jimmy, had gone over to his friend’s house. She could hear them in the backyard on the trampoline. They were just two houses down and being as obnoxiously loud as eleven-year-old boys could be.

  Her mother was inside the house, weeping softly into her hanky, as she was wont to do daily. To know that the only way out of this life was her mother’s death was not something Jasmine wanted to contemplate, but, on back-to-back sad days, it was hard not to. Particularly right now as Jasmine wished she and Jimmy were a long way away from all this.

  She groaned, as she sat here, her eyes closed. She tried so hard to make her mother feel at home, but the situation was just getting out of control.

  Jasmine may have to look at putting her mom into a seniors’ home, and she knew her mother wouldn’t deal very well with that. If she slid into full-blown dementia, where she didn’t know anybody around her, then maybe that would be okay because her mom wouldn’t feel like she’d been abandoned. But she was lucid just enough times and just for long enough minutes that it wouldn’t work out. Her mother would feel completely lost.

  As it was, her mom remembered all the bad things and none of the good things. How did that happen? Why would she be stuck in a time loop where she only remembered the things that she was upset at her daughter about? And there been plenty of those. Jasmine had had a wild streak, and she’d run hard and fast in the wrong direction way back then, particularly after Harley left.

  She’d been heartbroken, devastated even, and had gone more than a little crazy for a while there. Finding out she was pregnant had calmed things down in her mind, but it just raised all kinds of hell with her parents. Particularly when she didn’t tell them until she was already well past her first trimester. She was close to twenty-three weeks when her mother made a comment about Jasmine getting fat, and she’d snapped back that she wasn’t fat, that she was pregnant. That had caused the storm of all storms. Not that she was particularly proud of her behavior at that moment, sharing the news, but her child didn’t have to pay the price.

  As it was, her father had died not long afterward, and her mother had needed Jasmine in a big way but was already showing signs. But, if not for that series of events, Jasmine didn’t quite know where she would have ended up. Because she knew her parents were ready to turn her out of the house and had had consistent arguments about it. Jasmine was sure that her mother was in favor of kicking her out.

  At the time it seemed more like her father didn’t want to toss her out but was more about looking for a husband for her. Something she just didn’t understand, but it came back down to her father’s belief that a female needed to have a man to look after them. But then this was all ground zero, and there was just no answer that would make it any better.

  As she sat here, a huge black truck drove down the street and slowed in front of her house. She frowned, as she looked at the driver. Something was just so familiar about him. She hopped to her feet, trying to get closer, but she didn’t recognize the truck.

  The driver turned the truck around, came back, parked on the opposite side of the road, and stared directly at her. She shook her head, not sure what she saw, but she walked over to the front steps, leaned against the pillar on the porch, and sipped her lemonade. When the man hopped out of the truck, slammed the door closed, and walked toward her with a rapid but slightly uneven stride, she still didn’t recognize him.

  When he approached the sidewalk, he looked up at her. “Hello, Jasmine.”

  She stopped and stared, and then her heart slammed against her chest. “What the hell are you doing here?”

  He gave a small half smile. “Well, it wasn’t for you apparently. I came back to do a job.”

  “I knew you would never come back, no matter what you tried to tell me back then.” Her back stiffened, as she leveled a glare at the only man she’d ever loved.

  “Maybe,” he said quietly. “But you also knew that, being only sixteen, there was no way I could stay with you until you were an adult.”

  “Yeah? And what happened when I hit that age?”

  “Doesn’t matter. You found somebody else, either before I left or soon afterward,” he noted in a hard voice. “As rumors say, you have a child.”

  “I do.” Her tone was defiant, having heard so much all her life about her single-motherhood status—and most of it unpleasant—she immediately glared at him. “And it’s none of your damn business.”

  He slowly nodded. “Well, that’s true because I know it’s not mine. Did you tell everybody it was though?”

  She shrugged. “I knew you weren’t coming back, so it didn’t matter what I said.”

  “I made a good scapegoat, right? Everybody was more than willing to believe that’s who I was.” He shook his head, as if disappointed in her.

  At that, she felt a twinge of remorse. “Honestly I wasn’t thinking very clearly at the time at all. I was only sixteen, as you remember, and about to have a baby.”

  “And that’s my fault? Because that’s not fair.”

  She hesitated and then slowly shook her head. “No, you’re right. It wasn’t your fault. I would have been happier if it had been your child.”

  “Wouldn’t have happened. I told you that I made a promise to your parents.”

  “Well, guess what? They didn’t believe me when I told them that the baby wasn’t yours.”

  “Did you tell them?”

  “I did, but my dad was already in a rampage, thinking it was yours, and I couldn’t dissuade him from that.”

  “Did you try?”

  He widened his stance, a little on the aggressive side for her liking. But she could kind of see his point. “I did. But he and I were already at loggerheads for him sending you away, and I wasn’t very happy when I found out I was pregnant anyway. And I didn’t tell them until you were long gone and until I was so many months down that pathway that they couldn’t force me to terminate the pregnancy.”

  “Did you ever tell him who the father was?”

  “No, my father died shortly after Jimmy was born.”

  “I’m sorry about that.” Harley frowned.

  “Dad was basically a good man, but he was hard.” She sighed, relaxing against the post. “But then you know that.”

  “And I tried hard to play by his rules.” He walked up the steps toward her.

  “You did, dammit.” She laughed. But she took a long sip of her lemonade. “You haven’t changed much.”

  “I’ve changed a lot.”

  “So I wonder, if now, present day, would you have left me behind?”

  “Because I made that promise? Yes. My word means everything.”

  “To even the woman you love?”

  “You were a child and underage, and I needed to get away.”

  She stared at him, her gaze thirstily on his face, as she studied the man she’d waited for, hoping against hope that he would someday return. “I didn’t sleep at night,” she said quietly, “hoping that I would hear you coming back.”

  “I went into the navy.” His tone was harsh. “Coming back would only be when I was on leave. And apparently you were already pregnant with another man’s child, when I was on my first leave.”

  “Did you come back here then?”

  “No. I didn’t get leave. I ended up doing extra work on base because we had a riot happening,” he admitted. “That seemed to set the pattern for the next few years. I got very little time off. I was supposed to, and I banked it, but every time I thought about
coming back here, I figured you’d moved on. And, of course, I was right.”

  She stared at him flatly. “When I realized that you had rejected me, I went out to a big party, got drunk, and I don’t remember what happened,” she explained. “I somehow got home. Woke up the next morning, and my clothes were a bloody mess, and my body was bruised. I felt fine but sore, and I found out I was pregnant a few months later.”

  He stopped and stared. “Seriously?”

  She nodded mutely. “And there was not one damn person I could tell who would listen. I don’t know who my son’s father is. But whoever it is, as far as I’m concerned, raped me that night.”

  “Were you drugged?”

  “I didn’t get tested,” she murmured. “I tried telling the sheriff. Nobody believed me. I hid in shame, until I couldn’t hide it from parents any longer.”

  He stopped, closed his eyes, and swore.

  She nodded. “I did plenty of that too. And then I figured that, even if you did come back, you’d take one look at me, and you’d run away.”

  “Not because of that. Daniel just told me that I had a child. It was a bit of a shock. Because, of course, I knew I didn’t have one.”

  She nodded slowly. “And I wouldn’t have passed it off as yours, except that nobody would believe me. Everybody insisted that you were the father, no matter what I said.”

  “Of course. I made a great scapegoat. Did you ever tell your parents what really happened?”

  “No,” she admitted slowly. “At the beginning, I was just too upset and confused. Figured that I deserved whatever had happened because I went to the party and because I was drinking. As you well know, I couldn’t handle alcohol very easily. Still can’t.”

  “No. You never did do very well with that, and you were so young that it made sense.”

  “Well, it doesn’t matter because I certainly drank as a way to try to forget that you had left me.” She shrugged. “I went wild once you were gone.”

  “To be expected. A little bit of rebellion never hurt anybody.”

  “Until she wakes up the next day, not remembering anything, with a massive headache, and finding out a few months later that she’s pregnant.” Her voice was harsh. “And you want to talk about feeling alone? Yeah, that was me then.”

  “And, of course, your parents would never have accepted my child either.”

  “But neither could they afford to send me away, which was their alternative answer for their shame.”

  “I’m sure they relied on the church to make their decisions. and I’m sorry for whatever happened to you.”

  She lifted her gaze above him and shrugged. “So am I in many ways, … but, once I realized I would be a mom, I still hoped for the longest time that you’d come back here, and then I gave up hope, and I started living again. But I didn’t get a chance to live much, what with my father’s sudden death. In that way, my mother became very dependent on me and very quickly ended up with Alzheimer’s, and I still don’t know if it was all related.”

  “If it’s possible, I’m sure it was. Your parents were very interdependent.”

  “That’s a good way to put it.” She laughed, then looked at him. “And why are you here now?”

  Chapter 2

  Maybe Jasmine shouldn’t have been so harsh in her original greeting, but it had been a shock. All she could think about were the nights that she’d laid here, hoping and hoping and hoping that Harley would actually return, and yet knowing in her heart of hearts that he had never planned to. That he just said that to keep her quiet and happy. She sighed. “Did you ever even think about coming back?”

  “All the time.” Steadily he looked at her, then smiled. “I really cared. You know that.”

  “And yet you didn’t come back, … so how much did you really care?”

  “I cared enough to leave you to make decisions on your own and to see what you really wanted for your life. Did you ever get flowers on your birthday those first three years after I left?”

  She frowned. “Flowers were delivered here. I remember being surprised. But it’s not like I knew they were mine, other than it was on my birthday.”

  “Well, that was me.”

  She stared at him, frowning. “Seriously?”

  “Yeah, for some reason, I thought you’d figure that out.”

  “How was I supposed to figure that out?” She shook her head. “Nobody could figure that out. No word from you in almost a year, and, all of a sudden, flowers arrive out of the blue. My name wasn’t on them.”

  “I didn’t want to make it too obvious, and I didn’t want, … in case you had found a partner or married or done something, … I didn’t want to cause trouble. But I figured when you saw that they were daffodils that you would know.”

  She stared at him and sagged against the steps. “Oh my God. I never made that association.”

  “That it was daffodils?” He looked at her in surprise.

  The corner of her lips kicked up. “That the daffodils were from you and were sent to me. I thought at the time it was a very strange choice for flowers because most people didn’t deliver daffodils. It was always roses or other types of floral bouquets.”

  “But at the time that we were together,” he explained cautiously, “daffodils were your favorite.”

  “That’s quite true.” She smiled. “They still are.”

  “And you didn’t once wonder?”

  She looked at him immediately and slowly shook her head.

  “Wow.” He shoved his hands in his pockets. “That’s something I didn’t expect.”

  “I guess we were both a little on the dense side back then.” She finally burst into a laugh. “I just can’t imagine. Here I’d be, sitting, staring at these flowers, and you’re probably waiting for somebody to contact you.”

  “Well, a card was there too. Did you get that?”

  She frowned and nodded. “Sure, nothing but a bunch of numbers, not my name.”

  “Yes. My phone number.”

  “I didn’t even dial it. It wasn’t written like a, … like a phone number.” She frowned. “I don’t even remember if I still have it. I’m pretty sure I don’t. I know my mother was pretty upset that I could be getting flowers.”

  “Why?” he asked in an odd tone.

  She smiled. “Because she was sure that they were hers and that they were from my father. Mind you, this was after his death. And was my first real indication that she was losing her memory. As I recall at the time, I didn’t have any reason to believe they were for me. I just told her that they were for her to make her happy.”

  “Wow.” He stared at her, shook his head. “That’s just bizarre.”

  “The whole thing’s bizarre,” she admitted. “Including the fact that you sent me daffodils and didn’t leave a note.”

  “I did leave a note. I left you my phone number.”

  “I’m not sure that came through. It wasn’t … It was missing a digit, I think. It wasn’t the ten digits. It was like nine, … nine digits. Not ten.”

  He frowned and then he started to laugh. “You know what? Something so simple, like that, would sink a ship because it’s just a stupid error.”

  “Well, you had to phone in the order, I presume?”

  “Yes, I phoned it in and asked to have it delivered on your birthday,” he murmured.

  “Well, they did get that right.” She smirked. “But not a whole lot else.”

  “Damn,” he muttered again. “Where’s your son now?”

  “Over at his friend’s.” She had answered absentmindedly. Now she studied him more intently. “And why are you in town? You never did answer me.”

  He motioned at the steps. “May I sit?”

  Immediately she backed up, so there was room for two. “Go ahead.”

  He sat down and explained about the War Dog.

  “So you got your dream to join the navy.”

  “I really did. And then I got badly injured in an accident, and I’m now no longer in
the navy.”

  She froze. “Oh, my God, are you hurt?”

  “Well, I’m not the same, not as whole as I was before, but I’m okay.”

  “But not capable of doing your job in the navy?” she asked curiously.

  “Not the kind of job I was doing, and I didn’t want the kind of job I was capable of doing at the time. So I discharged out.”

  “And now what?”

  “Well, I haven’t been out of rehab very long. I was helping this one group in New Mexico, and then this job came up to find the dog, for which I was more than happy to get out of town for a bit.”

  “Why?”

  “I just needed a break. Doing lots of thinking about my life and what I want to do with it and how different it is to be here compared to where I thought I’d be at this point.”

  “Did you ever get married, have kids?”

  “Nope, I didn’t.” He paused, then chuckled. “I understand Daniel has two boys and a third child on the way through.” A big grin filled his face.

  She laughed. “Yes, I see him every once in a while. I see his wife more often than not.”

  “I couldn’t believe it when he told me who he’d married.” Harley shook his head. “She was always the head of the class.”

  “She still is. He probably didn’t tell you that she is a doctor.” Harley stared at her in shock. “After medical school she came home, and that’s when the two of them got together.”

  “Wow. Well, good for both of them. And you?” he asked. “Did you ever get married, have any other children?”

  She looked at him in surprise. “Are you kidding? I’m the infamous one with a bad rep in town. I got a ton of invitations, but you can bet they weren’t the kind I wanted to accept. Never been to a party since.”

  “I’m sorry. That’s really shitty.”

  “Not only shitty but, after my father died and my mother became sick, it was, … then I became a single parent to two kids. It’s like your entire adult life is defined by all those events.” She sighed the sigh of a worn-out parent. “I couldn’t go out with friends. I didn’t have babysitters because somebody had to look after not only Mom but my son.” She shook her head. “This has been my life. Very quiet and boring.”