SLOW PLAY (7-Stud Club #4) - Christie Ridgway Page 0,44

know I’ve been journaling for years.”

“Well.” Harper didn’t know where to put her hands and kept her gaze off her mother’s neat cursive. “I didn’t know you continued your writing after I left home.”

“It’s a habit since I was fourteen years old,” she said, shutting the book. “Perhaps one day I’ll start with the first and read what I was thinking and feeling during all the different stages of my life.”

“You never look back at what you wrote?”

“Nope. I just stack them in the back corner of my closet.”

Where Harper had found them when she was twenty-one years old on a mission to unearth her mother’s rain boots. With a rare afternoon alone, she’d cozied up in the closet and breached her mother’s privacy. At first it had seemed an amusing pastime, enjoying her mother’s chronicling of kitten litters and her dislike of algebra. But then Harper had skipped ahead to the summer that she’d been conceived.

Her mom had fallen in love, hard. Cheeks burning, Harper had skimmed the pages, and though embarrassed, she’d found herself hungry for any detail about her dad. It was the first time she’d realized how hungry.

“Come sit,” her mom said now, patting the bench.

Harper did, keeping a cautious eye on the latest journal. The physical details of her mom’s love affair with the man who called himself Joe Jones had been way less damaging to their daughter’s psyche than the despondent description of her mother’s heartache once he’d gone. Yet Harper had been unable to stop reading. And those words had changed her life. That very night she’d begun researching teaching abroad.

“Well,” Rebecca said, “good news. We found Grandpop’s truck.”

“That is good news. Was it just…misplaced?” If the missing vehicle wasn’t a sign of trouble, then she could beat a guilt-free retreat to the City of Sin as soon as possible.

“Mike found it in a ditch.”

“What?”

“Out near the avocado grove.”

“No one was hurt?”

“No, thank goodness,” Rebecca said. “Or at least no one was there when he found it.”

“Time to put this in the cops’ hands, Mom. You did call?”

Her mother grimaced. “Grandpop…”

“Okay, I’ll report it.”

Another grimace. “I don’t think he’d appreciate it.”

“Fine.” Frustrated, Harper threw up her hands. “But I tell you, I’m starting to regret this visit.”

“You didn’t want to come?” Rebecca’s expression turned sad. “I love having you here.”

Harper closed her eyes. She loved being here too. But being here—with the sea and the citrus—tricked her mind into thinking she was in love with Mad, which wasn’t something to be happy about.

When Joe left he walked over my heart.

I’ll wish he loved me like I love him for the rest of my life.

“I need to talk to Grandpop,” Harper said, rising from the bench. Getting out of town ASAP was a matter of living without pining for some man’s love from now until eternity. Mad’s love.

I know this isn’t going anywhere, okay?

“I saw him in the kitchen garden,” her mom said. “But after your talk, can we use your car to run some errands later?”

“What about the truck?”

“Did I mention the torsion bar got broken?”

Harper rolled her eyes. “Grandpop!” she yelled, heading around the side of the house. “We need to have a chat!”

Her grandfather had consented to using the old cane that Grandmom had found in the hall closet. Leaning on it, he bent down to inspect the lemon verbena.

She didn’t allow sympathy to soften her resolve. Stomping forward, she placed herself in front of him. “We have to do something about what’s going on here at the farm.”

“Such as?”

“I don’t know.” Lifting her arms, she appealed to the sky. “How about reporting missing vehicles? Encouraging your friends to call the authorities regarding the avocado thefts?”

“What good would that do? The truck showed up. Once the avocado thieves leave a grove, they’re gone.”

“I did a little research, though. Avocado theft is an actual, real crime, punishable by up to three years in prison and a $10,000 fine.” She held up a finger. “California penal code section 487(b).”

Grandpop didn’t look impressed. “Once the fruit has been removed from the property, how do you prove ownership?”

Harper opened her mouth. Closed it.

“But we are doing something,” Grandpop continued. “Mike is putting up motion sensor lights near our grove. Your mom ordered some warning signs about the penalties of agricultural crime.”

“I don’t remember there being such a thing as agricultural crime before I left,” Harper complained.

“You’ve been gone a long time, honey.” He adjusted the cane in his hand and moved slowly toward the basil