tried imagining it. “I’d have to teach her how to use mascara before attempting dating. She has long lashes, but they’re very blonde at the tips.”
“Then you’re on board with it? You’ll hand her the Maybelline before you’re off abroad again?”
Which part of that to tackle first? Harper took a fortifying swallow of mojito.
“I need to prepare you—it only seems right,” she said next. “I don’t think Mom will agree to dating.”
“Really? Why not? I will personally vouch for this man.”
“My mom lost her heart to my dad—well, the man who is my biological other half is a better way to describe him. We’ve never actually been introduced.”
Empathy radiated off Gwen and she put her hand over Harper’s. “I didn’t realize you don’t have a relationship with your dad.”
“Like I said, never met him. Not sure we have the right name for him and we suppose he knows nothing about me. But all the same, my mom has never gotten over him.”
Gwen frowned. “Surely—”
“I read her diaries,” Harper confessed. Her eyes flew wide. “I can’t believe I said that.” Maybe it was the fourth mojito.
“Your secret is my secret,” Mad’s mom assured her. “But are you certain you didn’t read something into her writing that wasn’t there? Or maybe you were too young to understand…”
“I was twenty-one. It was just before…well, a little while before I made my plans to leave Sawyer Beach. And I promise you, her feelings, his loss…well, my mom has never recovered. She hoped to be as passionately loved in return and that didn’t happen.”
Gwen squeezed her hand. “You know what? I’m even more determined now. Get the Maybelline. I can’t let a fellow female go on living like that.”
“I don’t know,” Harper said, doubts flooding in. “Don’t you think she’s…well…safer without doing that to herself?”
“Without doing what?”
“Putting her heart on the line again.”
“Oh.” Letting go of Harper’s hand, Gwen released a breath. “Well.”
Harper shrugged, loathe to disappoint the older woman. “But if you want, I can go ahead and get the mascara and tuck it into her bathroom drawer before I leave. Just in case.”
“Just in case.” Gwen nodded, her gaze in the distance. Then it sharpened on Harper again. “So you’re definitely leaving soon?”
“Back to Las Vegas. I relocated there after living in Portugal for a time.”
“Portugal.” She clasped her hands together. “It sounds so romantic.”
“Not so much when you get pneumonia.”
“That’s right. I heard you were sick.” She leaned close and lowered her voice. “And maybe a little homesick as well?”
“I knew I wouldn’t recover fully until I lived close enough to receive emergency rations of my grandmother’s special vegetable soup.” Truth is power, that voice inside her said again. “So yes, I can admit—especially to our esteemed mayor—that I missed Sawyer Beach. Dreadfully at times.”
“I’m sure you don’t regret those wonderful years of travel.”
“No, of course not.”
“What was best about them?”
“Learning I could rely on myself. Really feeling comfortable with independence.” She took another swallow of her potent drink and it loosened her tongue. “Before I left, I felt dangerously close to becoming too much like my mom.”
“Grower of herbs, reader of cookbooks, and connoisseur of evenings spent alone?”
“Something like that,” Harper admitted. She’d mostly been afraid of loving someone who wouldn’t love her back. Of pining over a certain man and living with a broken heart.
“Though it seems to me you know how to use mascara just fine,” Gwen said now, smiling.
Harper smiled back. “I bought it in Paris. It’s the best kind.”
Gwen’s eyes widened. “Do tell.”
“It’s—”
The appearance of a male arm and the clack of a wide latté cup hitting the table interrupted.
She looked up. Mad stood above her, his brows drawn together, his mouth turned down in a frown. “What’s wrong?” she said.
“While waiting for the coffee, I took a call and found out some news about those two jerks we took in from the beach Friday night. The ones who broke into Geoff’s car?”
“Oh?”
“They found some stuff in their vehicles that points to other recent crimes around town.”
“You solved the catalytic converters caper?” Gwen asked.
Mad gave his mom a look. “Treat this seriously, Mayor Kelly.”
“I’m sorry.” She cast down her eyes. “I just had to say that.”
A second look smoldered his mother’s way. “As I mentioned, they were in possession of stolen goods. But they’ve made bail now.”
“Still,” Harper ventured. “That’s good, right, that they’ve been identified?”
“Yeah,” he muttered. “It’s goddamned terrific.” Then without another word, he stalked off.
“I wonder what’s gotten into him?” Gwen said, frowning after