Breaking Clear (Full Hearts Series Book 3) (2 page)

“We’d better enjoy this. As of Monday, we’re going to be at work nearly every day for the next three years,” he said, rubbing his hand over Boots’s large, flat forehead.

As Evan’s mind wandered back to his work, a mixture of pride and anxiety filled his belly. He knew what it was like to rise to the top and lose it all. But he would never fall like that again. The first time around, he had been young and reckless, spending money as quickly as it came in. And he had a wife with expensive tastes who liked to help rid him of his cash. This time would be different. Life had taught him to be smarter than that and to live modestly. If another recession hit, he would be ready. At thirty-eight, he was on his way again and this time nothing was going to stop him.

Manhattan, New York

Seven hours later, Harper stood in front of the door to her tiny apartment, digging around in her Balenciaga bag, frantically searching for her keys. She squirmed from side to side, wishing she had visited the ladies’ before leaving the club, where she had been celebrating her assistant, Jasmine’s, birthday. Four glasses of wine and a long cab ride were not a good combination.

“Should have gone at the club . . .” she sang urgently as her fingers finally grasped the keys.

Letting herself into the apartment, she locked the deadbolt, tossed her bag onto the counter, kicked off her heels and scurried to the bathroom, making a wide turn around one of the racks of clothes and accessories that lined the wall. The racks gave the room an unfinished look, but it was something she had learned to live with. Her need for an extensive wardrobe far outweighed her desire to live in a beautiful space. Besides, she was rarely home other than to sleep. Returning a few minutes later to the cramped space that doubled as kitchen and living room, Harper brushed her teeth with one hand while she searched her purse for her cellphone, hazily remembering there was something she had forgotten to do.

“Uh-oh,” she muttered when she realized that her brother Craig had called three more times.

She dialed her voice mail, putting her cell on speaker to listen to her messages.

“Harper, it’s Craig. Call me back as soon as you get this. It’s about Dad.”

She deleted the message and spit the toothpaste into the kitchen sink, her heart quickening in her chest as the next message began.

“Harper, where are you? Call me.” Click.

“Harper, it’s Craig. I wish you would call me back. I don’t want to leave this on your voice mail but this is the third time I’ve tried you. Dad’s been in an accident at work. I don’t know exactly what happened. He’s been rushed to the hospital. They don’t know if he’s going to make it . . .” Craig’s voice trailed off, followed by a long pause. “I’m waiting for a call to find out more. I’m off the coast of Texas right now and I can’t get home for at least a couple of days.”

Harper’s hands shook as she forced herself to listen to his next message. “I don’t know where the hell you are. He’s still in surgery. Can you please call me back as soon as you get this?”

Dialing her brother’s number, Harper slid to the floor, waiting to hear the worst.

“There you are. What the fuck, Harper?” Craig answered.

“I’m so sorry . . . Is he . . . ?”

“He made it out of surgery. He’s in intensive care.”

Harper took a gulp of air. “Oh God. What happened?”

“A part of the building they were working on collapsed. The guys on his crew said the beam that landed on his back weighs at least five hundred pounds. It took four of them to lift it off Dad.” Craig’s voice cracked. He cleared his throat before going on. “If he makes it, they think he’s going to be paralyzed.”

“Shit,” Harper whispered, tears streaming down her cheeks as she leaned her head on the cupboard door.

“How fast can you get home?” Craig asked.

Harper’s breath caught as she tried to stifle a sob. “I’ll start looking for a flight now. Maybe I can get on a red-eye or something.” Standing, Harper wiped her face as she hurried over to her laptop. “Does Wes know?”

“Not yet. I can’t reach him. I think they’re doing some night raids right now. I left a message with his staff sergeant.”

“Okay. Okay, Craig. I’ll get there as soon as I can. I promise.”

“Thanks, Harper.” Craig let out a long puff of air. “I just don’t want him to be alone, you know?”

“I won’t let that happen, Craig. I promise, I’ll get there.”

*     *     *

Twenty minutes later, Harper sat in the back of a cab watching the buildings whiz by, her knees shaking. Though she was freezing, she could feel hot tears streaming down her face. She needed to get to her dad. She needed to see him. She couldn’t let Roy be alone in the face of death or his now-uncertain future. He had been there for Harper her entire life. And for most of her life, he was the only one who had been there. Her mother had left them when Harper was fifteen years old. They had heard from her only a handful of times since then, each call reopening the wound she had inflicted.

When his wife left, she took Roy’s heart with her. He shut down for several months, barely speaking other than to give one-word answers. When he finally emerged from the darkness, a quieter, slower-to-smile man remained. He finished the job of raising his children, doing his level best to help all three of them as they suffered through their teenage years without a mother.

It had been especially hard on Harper, the only female in the house, without a mom to guide her. Roy, a tough-as-nails construction foreman, struggled to understand his youngest child, a creative and fiery girl who seemed to want to run free in a way that terrified him. Looking back, Harper could see how he had pushed through his own discomfort to help her when she was going through the inevitable high school drama, or to awkwardly answer questions she had about boys, his usual response being, “They’re all idiots; stay away from them.” He’d focused on ensuring that she would grow into a strong woman who could handle whatever life threw at her. And in this endeavour he had been a tremendous success, something Harper now wished she had told him. Why hadn’t she taken the time to thank him properly for everything he had done and given up for her? He hated overt displays of emotion, but surely she could have found a way to let him know what he meant to her.

The guilt she felt at not picking up Craig’s calls squeezed at her chest. Why hadn’t she answered the damn phone? She could be in Boulder by now, already at her dad’s side. Please let him live, she prayed silently. If she could just get there by the time he woke up, she would say everything she had neglected to tell him.

Boulder, Colorado

*     *     *

Harper sat listening to the incessant beeps of the machines hooked up to her father, her eyes refusing to stay open. Head bobbing down to her chin, she jerked herself awake for the hundredth time. She had flown through the night, with two stopovers between New York and Boulder. Checking her watch, she saw it was evening already. She’d been sitting by her dad’s bed for ten hours now but he hadn’t stirred since the surgery. Harper was starting to worry, having been told that he should be awake by now. Instead, he lay there, a halo brace attached to his head and shoulders. The only signs of life were in the low rise and fall of his chest and the bright green lines on the display that served to represent his vital signs. Getting to her feet, Harper stretched her back and walked over to the window to take in the last of the sunset over the mountains in the distance. Her silent prayers continued as darkness blanketed the world.
Let him live. Let him be okay
.

“Petra?” a voice croaked behind her.

Harper turned, relief hitting her first before the horror registered. Her dad was awake. And he’d just called her Petra. Pushing that aside, she rushed to him and grabbed his hand. She could feel his fingers faintly squeezing hers. Or had she just imagined it?

His eyes were full of emotion as he stared at her, seeing someone else. “Petra . . . You’re back. Missed you”—he pressed his fingers to her palm again, this time she was sure—“so much.”

“No, Dad. It’s me. Harper.” But he had already slid back into unconsciousness.

Her dad had spoken. And his fingers had moved. She
felt
them move. The fracture to the top of his spine must not have robbed him of the ability to use his upper body. And if they were really lucky, when he woke again, he would have feeling in his legs. Then everything would be alright.

Harper was suddenly fully awake. A jolt of adrenalin at hearing her dad’s voice and seeing his eyes open had given her renewed energy. She rubbed her hand over his gently. “I’m right here, Dad. I’m not going anywhere.”

She pushed the call button to summon a nurse before grabbing her phone and dialing Craig’s number. Swallowing the lump in her throat when she heard her brother’s voice, she gave him the news he’d been waiting for. “Craig, he woke up for a second and said a few words!”

“Seriously? So, that must be a good sign, right?”

“I’d say so. He squeezed my hand! It was almost nothing, but he did it twice!” Harper could hardly keep her voice steady.

“Yes! What a relief! What about his legs? Has he moved them yet?”

“Nothing yet,” Harper answered.

“Let’s hope for the best. I’ll get word to Wes.”

“Thanks, Craig. I’ll let you go.”

“Sure . . . And, Harper, thank you for getting there so fast. I’m glad you’re with him.”

“Me too. I feel like the lucky one to be able to be here.”

“Hey, what did he say?” Craig asked.

“Oh, that. It wasn’t really coherent. I think he must have been dreaming.”

When Harper got off the phone, she sat back down in the chair next to Roy’s bed. Tucking her knees into her chest, she hugged her arms around them and stared at her dad’s hand, a nagging feeling coming over her. She had lied to Craig. She had heard exactly what he’d said. But there was no point in bringing up Petra’s name with Craig. That would only leave him with the same pain she felt. Roy had mistaken her for their mother. A woman who was nothing but a painful memory. A woman who’d turned their lives into the most sordid of scandals, a topic for gossip in their not-so-small town. A woman Harper pretended she didn’t see when she looked in the mirror. Most days, a woman Harper could successfully forget had ever existed. But being mistaken for Petra by her father made that impossible right now. Did her dad really still miss her after more than twenty years? After what she’d put him through? He couldn’t. He must have been dreaming.

Manhattan, New York

The following Tuesday, Harper was back at work after spending three emotional days at her father’s bedside. Blaire sat propped on the edge of Harper’s desk, listening as Harper recounted her trip home.

“I promised I’d go back to take care of him when he gets out of the hospital.”

“Really?” Blaire’s eyes grew wide.

“It’s something I have to do. The man basically raised us on his own. He did everything he could to hold things together after my mom walked out. I can’t leave him on his own now, when he needs me most.”

“What about your brothers? Couldn’t one of them look after him?” Blaire asked.

Harper shook her head. “Wes won’t be home from his tour for another year, and Craig can’t exactly drill for oil from home, whereas I could probably do a lot of my work from there. Craig’s home a month then gone for a month, so I could alternate living there and here for a little while. It could work, couldn’t it?”

“Hmm. Well, maybe. You wouldn’t be able to oversee the photo shoots, but you could plan them and do edits from there. I can direct the shoots you can’t be here for, or the ones where we’re on location. It wouldn’t be ideal but I’m sure we could make it work.”

“Thanks, Blaire. I was hoping you’d say that.”

“It’s not me you have to worry about,” Blaire said as she sipped her coffee.

Wincing, Harper gave Blaire a tentative look. “I know. I also need your help to convince Hartless to let me go.”

“That might be a bit harder, but I’ll speak up for you. You are the best in the business, so that’s got to count for something.”

Harper’s assistant, Jasmine, knocked on the open door of the office. “Hartless wants to see you right away.”

“Super,” Harper groaned sarcastically as she stood, picking up her notebook. “Wish me luck.”

“Luck,” Blaire replied, plucking her coffee off the desk and walking out the door.

*     *     *

Cybill Hart, or Hartless, as the staff called her behind her back, had been the editor-in-chief of
Style
since the magazine’s inception. She had clawed her way to the top, not caring whose back she scarred, until she sat as one of the most powerful figures in the fashion industry.

Harper rapped on Cybill’s door as she entered, then adjusted the cuffs on her royal-blue silk shirt and smoothed her wide-leg grey trousers. She seated herself in the chair opposite Cybill’s desk without a word. Waiting for Cybill to acknowledge her presence, Harper sat wishing she had taken time for full makeup instead of a hurried dusting of bronzer and a single swipe of mascara as she dashed out the door. She knew the dark circles under her eyes would not go unnoticed by Cybill, who insisted that her staff look polished at all times.

“Ah, Harper. There you are. How was your vacation?” she asked distractedly as she looked over a set of layouts.

“I wasn’t on vacation. You’ll recall my email in which I explained that my father was in the hospital in critical condition?” Harper’s voice was dripping with a sweetness as fake as a box of Splenda.

“Right. Of course. How did that turn out?” Cybill asked impassively, without looking up.

“Fine, Cybill. He made it.”

“I’m sure that’s a relief for you. Now, what are you going to do to get caught up for those days you missed?”

“Work faster.”

“Well, if that’s possible, why don’t you do it all the time?” Her eyes flicked up to Harper before returning to the layouts in front of her.

“Everyone on the team has had four extra days to get ahead of me. Normally I have to wait for them.”

Cybill’s gaze finally settled on Harper. She stared her down for a moment before answering. “I see. So everyone else here is just too slow for the great Harper Young.”