Page 66 of A Home for Harmony

Her brother gave her sister a hug and shook Tucker’s hand.

“What’s in the box?” Erica asked her. Harmony was carrying the cake that she’d picked up on the way.

“Cake,” Daisy said, flipping the lid for Erica to see it.

“Happy Anniversary and Congratulations,” Erica said, reading it. Tucker remembered the exact date that Erica had passed out in front of him. Harmony found the whole thing sweet that he was celebrating this way. “I can’t believe you remembered it,” Erica said to Tucker.

“It’s a day I’ll never forget,” Tucker said. “And now we’ll remember the date for a better reason.”

Her sister gave her fiancé a kiss. Her real fiancé and not just a fake one that they were playing previously.

“I’m ecstatic for you,” Harmony said, rushing her sister for a hug. “And let me see that ring.” She pulled her sister’s hand closer to stare at the square-cut diamond that looked very similar to the fake one Erica had before. Only this one had erica flowers all entwined in the band.

“Isn’t it stunning?” Erica asked, then went to hug Daisy.

“It is,” she said. Not feeling any jealousy that everyone was finding love, because maybe she was too.

21

SOUNDS REASONABLE

“You’re the best, Dad.”

Micah barely got in the door on Monday after work before Scarlet was rushing him for a hug.

He’d never turn her away and returned it one armed.

“Why am I the best?” he asked. “What do you want?”

“Nothing,” Scarlet said, holding her arm up in the air and dancing around the kitchen.

She had the headband in her hand.

“I see you found it,” he said. “What were you doing in my room?”

He’d left it on his dresser when he got home on Saturday. He’d set it there when he returned and didn’t bother to move it, as he wanted to surprise his daughter with it tomorrow when she came over.

Yet she was here today and cooking dinner.

Not that he was complaining.

“I didn’t have my charger for my phone,” Scarlet said. “I went in there to use yours.”

“Did you return it?” He always charged his phone at night when he went to bed. He lost track of the number of times it wasn’t there because his daughter had stolen it.

She had a horrible habit of letting her phone battery get down to almost nothing before she charged it rather than having a routine of doing it nightly.

“I’ll put it back,” Scarlet said. “I promise. Thank you, thank you, thank you. I mean it. It’s the exact one too. I didn’t expect you to get it for me.”

He snorted. “You brought it up enough.”

“I know,” Scarlet said. “But I do that all the time and you don’t always buy me things.”

He sighed.

He didn’t exactly want to tell his daughter that he’d had no plans to buy it right away. It was more that he was going to make a note of it for the next time she had something come up, like a birthday or holiday, that he’d get it.

He also couldn’t very well tell her he didn’t buy it but it was given to him.