Page 25

Eve

Feels Like Flying

Pulling off the highway, we coasted along the dirt road that led to Diablo Canyon, on the outskirts of Haven’s Bluff. It was a short drive from the Boot + Saddle, but we still hadn’t spoken much.

I’d cranked up the music and rolled down the windows, trying to wrench my harried, lust-filled thoughts back into some semblance of order.

That order was: Monty’s still missing. Jensen’s nearby and possibly found something. You need to stay focused and find these fucking diamonds and stop, for the love of god, thinking about Harper every three seconds .

I felt her peeking over at me. I sent her a quick glance and was immediately stunned by her pretty smile aimed at me like a bow and arrow.

“It’s so beautiful here,” she said.

My heart skipped a beat. “You’re so beautiful here.”

Her smile widened, cheeks rosy. She peered back out the window, still grinning, the wind tugging at her hair.

I’d lost the battle not to think about her… again .

We were coming up on the canyon walls. They soared into the sky, grandiose and awe-inspiring, and Harper tipped her head back to take it all in.

The cliffs were almost too tall to fully perceive, dramatic and powerful.

I often wondered what Priscilla and Adeline had thought when they’d first seen them from the train station.

If they’d seen them. If they’d ever even made it out here.

Please tell me they made it out here .

“If you want to hang out the window while I drive, you totally should,” I said. “Promise I won’t tell on you for not wearing your seat belt.”

She bit the tip of her thumb. “I always wanted to do that.”

“Go on, cowgirl,” I said with a grin. “No one’s around. Break some more rules.”

I turned the music up just a bit louder.

Watched Harper in my periphery as she unbuckled her seat belt and tentatively pulled herself up, until she was leaning halfway out the window, her hair like dark flames flickering around her.

She flung an arm out wide as we drove toward the canyon.

Let out a whoop that echoed off the walls, something sharp and ravenous at the edges of the sound.

I knew what this was now, knew exactly the kind of intensity that was Harper’s spirit. Had been inexplicably drawn to it from the beginning, though it was still a mystery to me then. But I’d just been on the receiving end of it in a dark hallway at Boot + Saddle.

I could just devour you .

It was her hunger.

For life, for pleasure, for joy. Whatever she’d been keeping locked up was trying to claw its way free.

And that kind of hunger always fueled my own, turning me greedy, needy, desperate.

It was a craving that couldn’t be placated.

Every last ounce of my willpower was being used not to stop the car and drag her into my lap.

Kissing Harper Hendrix had been pure devastation.

I wasn’t a stranger to hot makeouts in public places. Wasn’t a stranger to hot make-outs period. This had been more. This had been an endless loop of need and desire, just the feel of Harper’s soft skin, her teasing mouth, every gasp and moan.

The reminder that she was leaving in five days hovered over my head. It was usually a relief, knowing I wouldn’t see the other person again. Knowing it was way less likely for feelings to get involved, for things to get uncomfortably messy.

Now I felt itchy and restless and didn’t know what the hell to do about it.

I pulled to a stop near the front of the trailhead. Harper was still hanging out the window, letting her hair dangle in the breeze. She tilted her head and caught my eye, laughing a little self-consciously.

“How did it feel?” I asked, draping my arm against the steering wheel.

She wrinkled her nose. “Like flying. Is that silly to say?”

“On the rare occasion that my parents allowed me to come visit Monty out here when I was young, she let me do that exact thing on back roads like this. Very safely, though I thought it was super edgy and dangerous at the time.”

I traced my lower lip with my thumb. “That day in the hospital, when she asked me to move out here, that’s one of the things she’d said to me.” I grinned fully at the memory, even as it made my heart hurt. “I promise it’ll feel like flying.”

Harper pulled herself back inside, flushed and bright-eyed. “Did it?”

“Yep,” I said. “Still does.”

Her cell phone rang, shattering the moment. She dug through her bag and pulled out her phone. Chewed nervously on her bottom lip for a second, then shut it off.

“Was it your editor?” I asked.

Harper began pulling her hair back into a bun. We were both sweaty and dust-streaked, but Harper still managed to look professional even with wrinkled clothing.

“Greg? No, though I do need to call him soon and tell him about the article’s angle changing,” she said. “It was my dad. But I sent him to voicemail.”

I hadn’t gotten used to the idea that Harper’s dad was the most recognizable name in the news industry, trusted and well-liked by the public.

From what she’d told me so far, Bruce Sullivan was kind of a dick.

“Is everything okay?” I asked, noting her tight shoulders, the lines around her mouth.

“Probably.” She mustered up a smile that seemed more tired than anything else. “These days he only calls when he wants to brag about something. He had a new book come out last week. I’m sure it’s hit the New York Times .”

I shifted in my seat. “Is he ever interested in what you and your sister are doing?”

“God no.” She laughed bitterly. “He wants to know what we’re doing so he can be critical, but not out of true curiosity. He reads all of my articles and only ever sends me notes for improvement.”

At the shocked look on my face, she shrugged. “Passive-aggressive edits are his love language.”

“So, like, your dad is definitely a dick.”

Harper laughed, sounding surprised. “My friends always wondered why I wouldn’t let him get me the best reporting jobs around after I graduated.

But they never fully understood. I changed my last name for a reason, and that reason is that I don’t want to be associated with him professionally.

I barely want to be associated with him personally . ”

“Because he was always off being a fake hero?” I asked. At her quizzical look, I said, “It’s how you described him the other day.”

She blew out a breath. “It’s…accurate. It was always easier for him to jump on a plane and head to the most dangerous conflict zone rather than interact with his grieving daughters.”

“So who took care of you?”

“No one. Well…technically I did, though I’m not sure I was very good at it.” Her smile was sheepish, a little sad. “Though Daphne always said the sandwiches I made her for school lunch were the talk of the cafeteria. All the other kids were jealous.”

I could see it clearly in my mind’s eye—teenage Harper trying her best to keep it together for her little sister. Moving alone through a house overflowing with grief.

“But it’s so infuriating, the way it still hurts,” she continued.

“Do you ever…get stuck in a loop of hoping your parents will change? Maybe it’s because I lost my mom, but some days it doesn’t matter how badly my dad behaves.

I keep thinking it’ll be different with him one day. That he’ll be different.”

I thought about how desperately she wanted this story, the promotion she’d been promised for finding Monty. “Like if you do all the right things, in the exact right order, they’ll finally love you the way you need to be loved?”

Harper’s eyes were shining. “Yes.” She swallowed. “It’s stupid, right?”

“Not stupid,” I said firmly. “It’s totally normal and totally human. I left my parents on purpose , and I still hope for that exact thing.”

She reached forward and touched my hand. Gave my fingers a squeeze. “I guess I’m glad to know I’m not the only one.”

I squeezed back. “Right there with you.”

The sun broke free of a remaining storm cloud, sending a cone of light through the windshield. We both winced, but it startled me back into action. I cocked my head toward the trail as I opened the car door.

“Let’s grab gear and get out there. It’s a bit of a climb, and I don’t wanna be out there when it gets dark.”

Moving toward the back, I grabbed my pack, compass, and two metal detectors. I unfolded the map and double checked the coordinates of the location Monty felt hadn’t been searched enough.

“Any sign of Jensen?” Harper asked. “It looks like we’re the only ones out here.”

I squinted through the canyon walls, where I knew the Rio Grande flowed just a few miles away. “Not yet, but this isn’t the only entrance. If this is where they were headed, they could already be out there. Unless they’re currently digging up diamonds somewhere else.”

Harper reached forward for one of the metal detectors, hoisting it over her shoulder with a cocky smile. “I’d like to see them try.”

My eyes lingered as they traveled up her body. “Treasure hunting looks good on you, Hendrix.”

“I learned from the best,” she said, giving me her own saucy wink.

I chuckled, scooping up my pack and slamming the trunk shut before I did something really stupid. Like abandon this lifelong dream of mine in favor of fucking Harper on the hood of my car.

She’s leaving, she’s leaving, she’s leaving , I reminded myself. Not because New York was some impossible journey from here.

But because I’d learned it got easier when I anticipated it. And I was always the one being left behind. First my family. And now Monty, who’d promised to never treat me the way my parents had.

So why the hell would some smart and ambitious reporter give up her hard-earned life for someone like me ?