Page 95 of A Home for Harmony

“I know,” she said, grinning. “I’m glad people aren’t digging into me, but I understand if I caused too many waves they could or would. That’s why I balance what I do and take breaks when I feel the need to.”

“The price of being popular,” Lizzie said. “Some people can’t handle it well, but you always have. I think it’s because you don’t have a mean bone in your body.”

She snorted. “I’ve got a mean bone in my body, but it’s reserved for only a few.”

“I don’t believe it,” Lizzie said. “But I’m glad you’ve got a boyfriend. I know you won’t post it anywhere either and I won’t ask too many questions right now. Good for you too.”

“I don’t want the online world to touch what I’ve got with Micah. I know I can trust you.”

“You can,” Lizzie said, “because I’ve had one too many relationships ruined that way. Maybe that is part of why I took another position. I don’t mind being online, but I’m very careful of how much of my personal life I put out there now. You don’t realize what can bite you in the ass.”

She laughed. “Nope. And I like being able to sit down comfortably.”

Lizzie burst out laughing. “You’re a good egg, Harmony. Some people are jealous of that, but you’ve never let it get to you.”

“It’s on them to feel that way, not me,” she said. “And you’ve got a meeting so I’ll catch up with you another time.”

She hung up and went back to work.

At the end of the day, she wanted to reach out to Micah but told herself not to.

He said he’d be working late and she didn’t want to bug him. He didn’t bother her during the day when she was working.

But since she was thinking of him and he’d said he liked peanut butter cookies with Hershey kisses in them, and she had a bag in the house, she was going to surprise him. It’d give her some content to post since she hadn’t done much since a few things on Valentine’s Day.

What she missed most was the connection. The simple exchange that happened when she put something joyful into the world and someone else felt it too. It wasn’t about approval; it was about that quiet, beautiful moment of shared emotion.

Warm cookies on a chilly day would hit the spot, so she grabbed her phone and went downstairs to get started. That would be her theme too.

Twenty minutes after she’d posted a quick video of the ingredients on the counter, she got a text from Scarlet asking if they’d get some too.

She did a little shoulder shimmy and replied they were for her father. What this also told her was that Scarlet was following her a lot closer than she thought to have noticed that post so quickly.

She’d have to be evenmorecareful knowing her boyfriend’s daughter had eyes on her too.

29

DIG INTO HIS PAST

“I’m sorry if this is a lot for you,” Harmony said three weeks later.

“It’s fine,” he said. “Why would you say that?”

“Because I just met your daughter and you’ve met all of my family but my mother, which will be in an hour. You could drive slower and it’s less time we’ve got to spend there.”

Micah turned his head to see her smirking at him. “You haven’t gone into a lot of detail about your mom. Should you fill me in now?”

“She puts the blades in a helicopter mom,” she said, laughing. “With Theo, who was in college at sixteen by the way, she was manic. I think the fact that she could brag about him made it easier, but if she could have, she would have driven him there daily and sat in class with him. My father said no way on the commute. Since he was close by it made it easier for Theo to live on campus but go to my father’s when he wanted.”

“Shit,” he said. “I had no idea Theo was in college that young.”

“As I said, a whiz kid. She coddled and put a lot of pressure on him. He had it hard being so young and being judged, butyou’d never know now. Thankfully Theo is pretty laid back, but he ignored my mother and then put his foot down after medical school.”

“Good for him,” he said.

“I should warn you, my mother liked Daisy when she met her but not as a partner for Theo.”

“Meaning what?” he asked, lifting his eyebrow.