Page 3 of A Home for Harmony

“Did they say how long they’d be?” he asked.

She shook her head. Her eyes were glossy, her knee was shaking. “No. I’m trying to call, but I think they are a little busy right now.”

All he saw looking at her light brown hair in a messy ponytail and the bulky sweatshirt she wore was his daughter, Scarlet, who would have left the house not prepared to be stuck on the side of the road in the winter.

“I can wait with you if you want,” he said. “In my car where the heat works.” She seemed to hesitate as if she didn’t trust him.He didn’t have a problem with that. “If you want, look me up online. You’ll find me with the Connecticut State Police. Captain Micah Barnes.”

She was white knuckle gripping her phone. When she lifted it from her lap and the screen came on, he saw that the number pad was up and she had 9-1 punched in already.

Jesus, now he felt like shit.

She typed his name in while he took a step back to not crowd her. He was looking over her shoulder and saw his name and picture pop up, then her shoulders visibly relax, the door open more.

“Thank you for that,” she said. “It’s drilled into women’s heads to be cautious. But everyone thinks I’m helpless and maybe this made me nervous.”

He nodded his head. “Why don’t you come sit in my car with me with the heat on,” he said. “There is no reason to freeze here. Or can I bring you somewhere? Is there someone else you can call?”

“My sister isn’t answering my text,” she said. “I know she’s in an early meeting this morning and she isn’t one to stop and check her phone.”

“Not even if the phone is going off a lot?” he asked.

The young woman stood up and grabbed a big floral purse from the passenger side, flung it over her shoulder and followed him to his SUV.

Micah noticed the black leggings under her oversized sweatshirt and the tan slipper shoes—exactly like the ones he’d shelled out nearly two hundred bucks for as Scarlet’s Christmas gift. She’d better love them when she opened the box in a few weeks. The hoops he’d jumped through to track them down were borderline insane.

“I work from home,” she said. “She wouldn’t think it was that important.”

They got to his SUV and he started it again, then cranked up the heat. She had to be freezing.

It was on the tip of his tongue to start with a lecture on winter preparation when leaving the house, but he decided he’d be wasting his breath.

This woman was old enough to make her own decisions in life. At least she was cautious enough around him so far, so she couldn’t be that naive.

“Can I get your name?” he asked. “Or would you prefer I don’t know?”

She laughed softly, practically melting into the heated seat as warm air poured from the vents. “Harmony James,” she said, putting her hand out. “I’m super sorry about being rude back there. That isn’t like me. I should have never left the house this early, but I ran out of creamer for my coffee and it was going to be a long day. An even longer one now.”

“It happens,” he said. “Can I ask what went wrong with your car?”

If she said she ran out of gas he was going to have a hard time not rolling his eyes and giving that lecture he’d just told himself he wouldn’t do.

“I don’t know,” she said. “The car is only two years old, but suddenly the dashboard just lit up and the car slowed down and it shut off. It was hard to turn the steering wheel to get it to the side and it rolled there and stopped. I didn’t even have to hit the brakes. Which scared me because I don’t think they were working.”

“Sounds like it’s an electrical issue,” he said.

She shrugged. “Probably,” she said. “I don’t want to leave it there because I can’t even lock the doors.”

“Guess it’s a good thing you weren’t locked in it instead of it not locking.”

Her jaw dropped, her light blue eyes went wide. “Oh my God. I didn’t think of that. That is one positive on the day. Two that you came when you did so I didn’t freeze my butt off. I’m such an idiot to run out like I had.”

He closed one eye at her. “You said it.”

“And you’re trying really hard not to light into me on what an idiot I am leaving the house in poor weather conditions dressed the way I am,” she said. “If my sister did come and get me, she would start in right away on both things. She’s the responsible one of us. Her and my brother who is a surgeon. I’m the one everyone worries about, though I say they don’t need to. Today I proved that wrong, huh?”

Which went to show that she didn’t want anyone to know what happened so she’d sooner sit there freezing her ass off, scared out of her mind than risk getting a lecture.

That was some serious stubbornness there.