LITMIR.BIZ

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know it’s not easy, believe me, I know better than most how hard it is to get past losing someone you love. But if there’s one thing I’ve finally learned, it’s how important it is for those of us left behind to continue living. To move forward with our lives.”

      Harper softened a bit—but only because Sadie had faced her own terrible loss. Her father died in a car accident when she was nine years old. She’d only recently been able to fully heal from it. “I am living my life.”

      She didn’t have a choice.

      “Yes, but are you happy?” Sadie asked gently.

      Happy? The question, the word alone, gave Harper pause enough to make her realize she didn’t want to answer it. Not if it meant facing the truth.

      “I’m not unhappy,” she hedged, sounding way too defensive and unsure for her own peace of mind. “I’m content enough.”

      Yes, that was it. She may not have chosen her current situation, but she’d adjusted to it quite nicely. And even though she may not be ecstatically, blissfully happy all the time, there were still periods of joy in her life—hearing her daughter’s laugh, teaching the kids in her class, being around her family. Moments she treasured all the more now that she had firsthand experience of how precious they truly were.

      Of how easily they could be taken away.

      “I’m sorry,” Sadie said. “Maybe I shouldn’t have said anything—”

      “Hey, at least you got something right today.”

      “And I hate that you’re mad at me—”

      “I’m not mad,” Harper said, praying that one little fib wouldn’t mess up all the excellent karma she’d worked so hard for all these years.

      Sadie clasped Harper’s hands. “You’ve been incredibly strong but I’m worried about you. I don’t want you to be alone.”

      Harper’s fingers twitched and she tugged free of Sadie’s grasp.

      And to think, she’d been so excited when Sadie had returned to town two months ago, thrilled when her cousin had moved in with James, settling down right here in Shady Grove after spending so many years flitting from place to place.

      Maybe Sadie would get bored soon and go on another of her “life adventures.”

      One could only dream.

      “I’m not ready to date again.” Harper held up her hand when Sadie opened her mouth. “I promise when I am, I’ll let you know. I’ll even give you dibs on being the first person to fix me up. Until that day comes, I’d prefer if you didn’t bring this up again.”

      She turned on her heel and walked out the door, stepping onto the small porch at the front of the house. Hugging her arms against the slight chill in the air, she sat on the top step and rested her head against the post.

      Her chest was tight. Her throat scratchy and sore. She sniffed. She was fine. She was 100 percent, absolutely fine.

      I don’t want you to be alone.

      As if that would ever happen. Between her daughter, her family and work, she rarely had a moment by herself. Even as a kid she’d always been surrounded by people—her parents, her friends, teachers and classmates. She didn’t know what it was like to be alone.

      But in the past year, she’d learned exactly what it was like to be lonely.

      * * *

      “HOW’S THAT HOMEWORK COMING?” Eddie asked Max, glancing at where his son sat hunched over his books at their kitchen table.

      Max—for some reason standing to walk around and around the table—shrugged, a gesture Eddie recognized as one of his own. His brothers were right. It was annoying as hell, especially when he needed to get an answer and none was forthcoming.

      Eddie popped a slice of carrot into his mouth then wiped his hands on the towel hanging from his belt. Checked the microwave clock. Almost eight. It would be another twenty minutes before they ate. And, if history proved correct, a good hour until Max was done with his math, reading and spelling.

      He’d picked up Max from practice only to be three blocks from home before realizing he had nothing to make for dinner. They’d turned around and hit the grocery store—an errand that should have taken only a few minutes but had somehow dragged into half an hour thanks to Max racing all over the store.

      Where the kid got his energy after skating around hell-bent for leather for two hours was beyond Eddie. That last time, when Max had taken off in the frozen food aisle, Eddie thought for sure he’d have to call the cops to hunt him down only to corral him—and the box of cupcakes in his hands—by the deli.

      Max had been working on his math since they’d walked in the door twenty-five minutes ago. Eddie would like to blame the long time frame on the amount of work needed to be done but Harper only gave the kids a few addition problems to solve, told them to copy their spelling words and read from their assigned books.

      He could blame her for other things, though. Such as him having to stand over his kid to make sure Max not only did his homework but also did it correctly. For Eddie worrying about what would happen if he let either of those things slip.

      “Here,” Max said, shoving his math paper at Eddie when he reached his side.

      Eddie picked it up, his chest tightening at the sight of the messy answers. “Double-check these,” he said, pointing to three problems that were incorrect. Three out of the five. Damn.

      Sitting on the edge of the chair, his tongue caught between his teeth, Max erased the number he’d written in for the first problem. Frowning, he mumbled to himself. “Twenty-three?” he asked, looking so hopeful Eddie wished he could manipulate the formula for math just to make his kid right.

      “Try again. What’s six plus six?”

      Max swung his foot, his heel hitting the chair leg. Thump. Thump. Thump.

      Should Eddie be worried it took Max so long to figure it out, that he didn’t know it automatically and had to count on his fingers?

      Another reason to damn Harper. For making him doubt everything his kid did.

      “Twelve.”

      “Right. So when you take the six of sixteen and add six, the answer is twenty...” When Max remained silent—other than all that thumping—Eddie held up all the fingers on his left hand, the pointer finger on his right. “Sixteen...seventeen,” he said, folding his pointer finger down. “Eighteen.” The thumb on his left hand. “Nineteen.” Left pointer finger.

      “Twenty.” Max folded Eddie’s middle finger down. “Twenty-one.” Ring finger, then pinky. “Twenty-two!”

      “Good job. Now rework the other ones.”

      While Max figured out the remaining problems, Eddie put their burgers on the grill, tossed frozen French fries into the oven and threw together a salad.

      “Done,” Max said, digging into his backpack.

      “This one is still wrong,” Eddie told him, tapping the incorrect answer.

      With a weary sigh—as if Eddie was the one making this process last so damn long—Max slumped into his seat clutching his handheld video game. “I don’t know it.”

      “You didn’t even look at which problem it is.”

      He scanned the paper then shrugged.

      “Nineteen plus eight is twenty-seven,” Eddie said, erasing the wrong answer. He held out the pencil but Max had his head bent over his game, his hair in his eyes.

      Eddie wrote in the correct sum, doing his best to imitate his son’s handwriting.

      And he could only imagine what kind of fresh hell he’d catch if Harper found out about it. Too bad. She didn’t get what it was like, being

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