Stupid Boy

“She knows you love her,” Harper said, and laid her head against my chest. “She knows it.”

We were both silent for a few moments, but then she looked at me. “Do you think I’ll ever be normal, Kane? Or do you think the nightmares will always be here?”

“We’ll learn to be normal together,” I offered.

She didn’t say anything else but her small arms tightened around me, and she sighed against my skin. An exhale of relief, maybe? Only time would tell. I knew it’d be a long road ahead. For us both. But mostly for her.

Harper drifted off to sleep again, and when she woke, she woke crying. Terrified. Screaming about being locked in an asylum. I smoothed her hair, held her, and when she was finished, her sobs still bubbling up and catching her breath, she told me the next thing that blew me away.

“I found Corinne Belle dead in her bed yesterday.”

I looked at her. I didn’t know what to say, so I held her hand.

Harper gave an acerbic laugh. “Even in death, she had to have one final jab at me.”

“What was that?” I asked.

Harper’s seagreen eyes searched mine. “She took Christmas away from me a long time ago, Kane. Yesterday?” she folded her hands in her lap. “She made sure of it.”

A thought came to mind.

“No she didn’t,” I said gently. When Harper’s brows bunched in question, I gave her a soft smile. “We’re taking it back. Today.”

She cocked her head. “What?”

I stood, extended my hand. “Come with me.”

With a hesitant smile, she grasped my hand and I pulled, her feather-light body easily rising. That was something else I’d have to work on.

Somehow, Corinne Belle had forced Harper into believing she was so worthless, that she needed to treat herself sparingly—including her intake with food. Just the thought of that old bat infuriated me. I was glad she was dead. And I’m glad Harper found her. It’d provide closure one day. And I aimed to help her get it.

At the door, I grabbed Harper’s black wool coat, helped her into it, found the ax she’d dropped on the floor and grabbed that, too, and outside, the cold December air bit at my face. The new leather jacket Brax had given me for Christmas kept it from sinking into my skin. I pulled Harper to my side and strode toward the woodpile. I glanced around.

“What are you looking for?” she asked.

I kissed her temple. “You’ll see.”

I saw them then—and headed straight for the wood line. It was a decent walk, with the early morning day after Christmas cold wind biting at us both. She snuggled against me, and I knew I loved her. Loved feeling her body next to mine. The smell of her hair. The softness of her skin. And the look of adoration in those seagreen eyes. We were alike, she and I. We shared demons. We shared fears.

We’d share the healing, too.

At the wood line, we stepped in, and although mostly pines, we found some that looked like a Christmas tree. Small, it looked more like a Charlie Brown tree. It didn’t matter.

It’d be our first. The first of many.

“Stand back, woman,” I teased, and set Harper back. I eyed the tree and whacked it with the ax until it cracked. I pushed it over, and looked at her.

“You’re crazy,” she said sweetly.

“You like crazy,” I corrected.

“I do if it’s you,” she warned.

I grabbed the tree by the stump and we dragged it back to Belle House.

With no tree stand, no lights, I propped the tree, now leaking sap, against the stone wall near the hearth. It wasn’t big—maybe four feet tall.

Next year, we’d do Christmas right.

This year? It was more of making a point. Of letting go of the past.

Of kicking the past’s ass.

Grabbing her narrow shoulders, I urged Harper to sit by the tree. “Be still. Keep your eyes closed,” I warned. “Don’t open them until I say to.”

She closed those beautiful eyes. “Okay, okay.”

I ran out to my truck, opened the door, and grabbed the box Olivia had helped me wrap. I took two leaps and was back up onto the porch and I flew inside. I dropped down beside Harper, and all at once I couldn’t take my eyes off her.

“Can I look now?” she asked.

I continued to stare, marveling at every single feature. “Not yet.”

A soft grin claimed her lips, and then I did, brushing my mouth over hers. She exhaled, and I swallowed it.

Then I put the box in her lap.

“Open your eyes,” I said.

And she did.

She looked at it. Fingered the big red bow. She did that for several moments—so long, I almost ripped the bow off for her. Then she lifted her face, and my heart seized in my chest. Those wide eyes were wet with tears.

“It’s so beautiful,” she said, and her voice cracked.

I reminded myself to breathe. “Open it, silly.”

I knew then that, despite the word carved in my back by a radical drunk of a father who never, ever deserved children, I was far, far from stupid. Nope. Not a stupid boy at all.

I watched Harper then, slowly tug the bow loose, ease open the taped ends of the box. I saw her hands shaking, and for a moment it saddened me to think she’d been given so much in life, yet so very little. The simple things that would’ve made her happy. Like a red bow on a box.

So little as to not have experienced a personal gift from a loved one.

That was about to change, starting now.