LITMIR.BIZ

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was how she would have made a bad situation better for any soldier who’d ended up in her care.

      Similarly, in contrast to Mai’s serenity, Kylee was an extrovert, as bright as her red hair, perfect for keeping stressed-out brides and grooms from freaking out before the ceremony, while at the same time being empathetic enough to catch those special moments that showed, far better than any posed photos, expressions of love.

      Like the photos she’d taken for his and Zoe’s wedding, which included one of Zoe’s mother zipping up her wedding dress, another of his bride-to-be calling him one last time on her cell minutes before the ceremony to tell him how much she loved him. And one he hadn’t realized Kylee had caught, of him pinning the rose boutonniere on the lapel of his father’s seldom-worn, outdated suit. His father’s expression had revealed a warmth of emotion Seth couldn’t remember ever seeing before or since. Whenever he looked at that particular photo, Seth wondered if, just possibly, Ben Harper had been remembering his own wedding day to a woman as warm and open as he was distant.

      Zoe had always been the outgoing one of the two of them. Middle school was hard enough to figure out your way through, even when you’d known everyone in your class forever. Coming in as the new girl midyear couldn’t have been easy. But seemingly without any effort at all, she quickly began weaving herself into the fabric of the school, and by the time summer vacation rolled around, it was as if she’d been there all her life. All of his life.

      After steaming off over a century’s layers of wallpaper, Seth’s dad was now down to getting rid of the paint before repairing the walls with a mixture of lime putty, fine sand and goat hair. Watching him, thinking back to that photo, Seth wondered, for the very first time, if, as much as he’d loved Zoe, because he shared the same difficulty in articulating his feelings as his father, they might have ended up like his parents. At a point when their love might not have been strong enough to overcome years of what Zoe might someday come to view as indifference.

      Hell. And wasn’t that a fun thought? Not that he’d ever get a chance to know. Or to try to fix things if they had gone off course. Because Zoe was gone. And he was still here. With a job to get done. On budget and on schedule.

      Ben Harper might not be the easiest of men to live with, but no one could fault his attention to detail. The man was one of the last of a dying breed of craftsmen whose knowledge of building had been passed down through the generations. Although many of the kids Seth had grown up with couldn’t wait to get out of their small, isolated hometown, Seth’s roots had always been deeply set in the area’s glacial, loamy soil. And he especially appreciated being part of a continual line of Harper males who’d built Honeymoon Harbor.

      “’Bout time you showed up,” his father, thankfully unware of Seth’s earlier thoughts, muttered without turning around. “Late night?”

      “I stopped for fritters.” He didn’t bother to share that he’d spent most of the night locked in the frequent nightmare of the suicide bomb blowing Zoe’s hospital ward to smithereens.

      He put the box on top of a sheet of plywood being held up by two sawhorses and could tell that he’d diverted his old man’s interest in this morning’s delay when the steamer paused. Fritters were Ben Harper’s favorite. But apparently this morning they weren’t enough to stop him from his work. “Humph.” The steamer began moving again. “Didn’t realize Cops and Coffee had gone organic. Given that’s what you seem to be into these days.”

      “They haven’t.” Since he’d only begun to make inroads in the oversize travel mug of coffee, it took a moment for his dad’s meaning to click in. Obviously he was talking about the newest organic place in town. Busted.

      “Word gets around,” Seth said casually. Not that there was anything casual about your parents’ breakup. Whatever your age, he was discovering.

      “I was driving by and saw you going into Leaf after work.”

      “I remodeled the place. Makes sense I’d eat there from time to time. The mushroom meatloaf’s pretty good.” Yet for the life of him, he couldn’t figure out why so many things on the menu had appeared to be pretending to be meat. It wasn’t like you’d ever go into the pub and find Jarle’s beer-battered fried cod and chips pretending to be a salad.

      The older man grunted, then muttered something beneath his breath. “Like it makes sense for a son to turn traitor on his own flesh and blood?”

      “Okay. I had dinner with Mom. So what?”

      “You weren’t eating with just your mother. You going to tell me you didn’t know that she would be there with her new boyfriend? Wearing a dress she sure as hell never wore out to dinner with me?”

      Seth was about to point out that he couldn’t remember the last time his father had taken his mother out for so much as a burger at Dinah’s Diner when the comment hit home.

      “Nobody told you she was at Leaf.” Gossip might always be swirling in Honeymoon Harbor’s salty air, but he doubted anyone talking to his dad would bother to mention what his mom was wearing. “You saw her with Mannion.”

      “Like I said, I happened to be driving by.”

      “You said you saw me while driving by.” Seth jabbed a finger at him. “I was ten minutes late because I stopped by the pub first.” Unless his dad had been driving up and down the street, the odds of him seeing both his wife and son arrive was not only unlikely, it was flat-out impossible.

      Ben backed down the ladder, switched off the steamer and put it onto the plywood next to the blue box. “I’ll bet dollars to those doughnuts you brought with you that you stopped at the pub to have yourself a real dinner before eating the damn rabbit food they serve at Leaf.”

      Seth was going to neither confirm nor deny that guess. “I told you, the meatloaf was good. And the corn bread nearly as good as Mom makes. And trying to change the subject to a debate about vegetarian versus burgers isn’t going to work. You were stalking Mom.”

      “Not stalking.” His face settling into hard lines, his father reached into the box, took out a fritter and bit into it with enough force to send powdered sugar flying around like snow in a blizzard. “I was just watching out for her. She’s not used to being on her own.”

      Even as he was annoyed by the stalking aspect, Seth knew that his father wasn’t entirely lying. He’d always known Ben Harper loved his wife. In his way. Which, unfortunately, hadn’t ever been the least bit demonstrative. Which caused a twinge of pain as he remembered the way Zoe would touch his arm, smooth a hand over his hair, nuzzle his neck while they were sitting and watching TV on the secondhand couch she’d unearthed at Treasures antiques shop.

      “I suspect she’s felt as if she’s been on her own for a long time,” he said, feeling his way across what was turning out to be a conversational minefield. “Given that you’re not one for going out.”

      “A man puts in a hard day’s work, he doesn’t feel like getting all gussied up to stay out until all hours of the morning dancing,” his father said around a second mouthful of fritter.

      “Last I checked, movies only take a couple hours. And don’t require either dressing up or dancing.”

      “Cheaper to stay at home and watch a show on the TV.”

      “Maybe. But did you ever think that attitude is what’s got you living alone?”

      “Your mother will be back.”

      Seth knew he’d hit a sore spot when his father grabbed the steamer, went back up the ladder and switched it on.

      “It’s been three months,” he said to Ben’s back.

      “Took nearly that long to talk her into marrying me and staying here instead of going back east to that foo-foo art school.” He began methodically moving the steamer over the wall. “I can wait her out.”

      “I’m no expert on women, but I’m not sure that’s the best option.”

      The

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