Page 53 of A Home for Harmony

“No,” she said. “I’m sorry. Back to that. I was at Blossoms taking care of some work and Ivy Scarsdale came rushing in not knowing I was there. She wanted to see Brooks after what happened.”

He nodded his head. “That was hours ago,” he said.

“I know,” she said, sighing. “I stopped and got lunch and went home to eat with Erica and thought I was calm. I was searching online for anything I could. Ivy said Brooks’s captain talked the guy out. I knew it was you.”

“Did you tell them that?” he asked.

“No. I’m surprised they didn’t notice how pale I became, but then I remembered she said it was over and they arrested the guy.”

The minute the gunman was outside and cuffed, Micah went back to his car, texted his daughter he was fine and would be back in his office soon. It hadn’t occurred to him to do the same with Harmony.

He never did with Trinda. She didn’t want to know. She’d told him more than once it was too stressful for her to know what was going on while he was working, so he kept it to himself daily.

“Okay,” he said. He was still trying to figure out the reason for her visit.

“You know Erica knows about us, but I haven’t said it to anyone else and won’t until you say we can. I mean,” she said, waving her hand. “Again, I’m getting off track. I was nervous that you were there. Scared too. I didn’t think much of these things before. We talked about it. It was one of those ‘you won’t know until you do’ things. I guess I know.”

And she came to his job to break up with him in person? What the fuck kind of joke was that?

“What is it you know?” he asked. He wasn’t letting on to anything he might be feeling. Not that he did often anyway.

She was almost wringing her hands. “Can I have a hug?”

She looked unsure of herself and a little lost.

Vulnerable.

That was probably why he said, “Sure.”

She hesitated. “If you don’t want it, fine,” she said. “I was just scared for you. And I wanted to see if you were okay with my own eyes. I texted you, but I guess you’re busy.”

“Shit,” he said. “You did?”

He moved over and picked up his phone. It was on silent so he could get his report done and deal with things when he got back and not worry about distractions.

There was her text saying she heard, and though she knew he was fine, she just would like to hear it from him.

“I don’t expect you to reply to me immediately. Never that. But...I’m being an idiot. This is new for me and I’m probably scaring you and acting like a complete child over it, but I won’t know how to move on for the next time if I don’t take some stepsnow and feel it out. That’s how I’ll learn to react and what to expect.”

“Next time,” he said. “So you’re not breaking up with me over this?”

“What?” she asked. Her face was comically perplexed. Her upper lip scrunched, her eyebrows together, her nose twitching like there was some foul odor in the room. “No. Why would you think that?”

He let out a sigh, moved toward her, and pulled her into his arms. “Come here.” He held her until her body relaxed. Her hands weren’t digging into his back as much either and were almost patting him now like a child.

“I wouldn’t break up with you over that. I don’t even know what we have other than we are exclusive.”

Guess he made a misstep there, assuming it was a breakup. People her age didn’t really have relationship commitments this early on.

“I don’t know what terms people use now,” he said. “I just figured that it was too much for you and you were going to say that it wouldn’t work out.”

And he was prepared to say fine. It’s not like it hadn’t happened to him before.

But he wondered how fine he’d actually be knowing that he didn’t have her voice to look forward to.

“No,” she said. “This is horrible. I said I’m not clingy and yet here I am, gripping you like a life preserver in the ocean.”

She let out a half laugh and stepped back. He closed one eye at her. “That is what you did the other night. This isn’t anything like that.”