The Summer's End

She stared into Taylor’s eyes. Her answer was welling up inside her. One that, until now, she’d been led to believe was trivial, unrealistic, and, worse, self-destructive. One she’d kept hidden.

“Yes.”

“Then write.”

Harper’s heart was in her throat. “I’ve been writing. All summer.”

“Exactly.” He half smiled. “I seem to recall you saying that your writing was better here than anywhere else.”

“True.” Tears threatened. “I feel safe here.”

His gaze rekindled. “I promise you, with me, you have nothing to fear. Not ever.”

She pulled back, tucking the sheet higher up over her breasts. “You’re asking me to put all my trust in you. To risk everything, my job, my inheritance, to stay here with you. Tell me, Taylor, why I should do that?”

Two deep furrows lined his brows as he looked steadily into her eyes. “Because I love you.”

She felt her breath leave her. He’d said the words. Spoke aloud the one reason that could keep her here.

He stared back at her, his eyes vulnerable, waiting.

“I love you, too.”

Taylor’s eyes filled with resolution. He reached up to gently wipe the tears from her face. “I know this is fast. Maybe crazy. We’ve only known each other a few weeks. But it feels like I’ve known you forever.” He looked at her fingers entwined with his and released a quick smile. “You were right. I confess. I knew the moment I first set eyes on you that you were the one for me. It just took my jaded heart a while to admit it.” He looked up at her. “I’m not as brave as you.”

His words washed over her like a summer storm, rinsing away her fears, her doubts. In that moment Harper realized that there was indeed such a thing as unconditional love. A love that knew no bounds and was never ending, because that was how she felt for Taylor.

“I don’t have a lot of money. I’m just starting a new job. I don’t even have a ring. All that will come later. We have time to work out the details. I just don’t want to lose you. It doesn’t matter to me if your mother cuts you off. All I want is you.”

Harper looked into his eyes and thought how no one had ever told her this before. Someone had always wanted something from her. Her wealth, her connections. This man wanted nothing except her.

He took her hand and she held her breath. “Harper Muir-James from New York, I offer you everything I have or will ever have. I offer you everything I am and will ever be. Will you marry me?”

They’d only known each other a little while. Already they were committing to marriage? It was crazy, illogical, irrational. Harper still had to get a job. She had nothing to fall back on if times got tough. And they would.

And yet . . . she couldn’t shake the certain knowledge that Taylor was the one for her. That what she felt for him was real.

Harper’s answer came not from her head, where she usually took time to carefully consider and research her thoughts and decisions. This time, her answer came straight from her heart.

“Yes, Taylor McClellan from McClellanville, I will marry you.”

The following morning Harper and Taylor said a drawn-out good-bye, foreheads pressed together as they soaked up the early-morning light, and she drove back to Sea Breeze feeling as if she were floating on a cloud of joy. She was a different person driving south on this long stretch of road than she had been driving north the day before. Crossing the Isle of Palms connector, she was soaring over the vast wetlands headed straight for the sea. At its peak she glimpsed the vast Atlantic Ocean, sparkling blue in the radiant sun, and to her right the wide swath of the magnificent Intracoastal Waterway. Harper laughed out loud for the joy of it and opened her window wide to let the last warm breezes of summer blow in. Fall was coming. Already the tips of the grasses were golden, hinting at the change of seasons.

Change. The word gave her pause.

What changes she’d experienced in the past summer season! She’d arrived here in late May when the grasses were greening, that lovely spring color waving in a soft breeze. In so many ways she’d been as naive and green as the grass itself, sprouting up unawares. Over the summer she’d grown like the sea grass, tougher, rounded. Now, with the approach of summer’s end and the beginning of fall, she felt ripe with love, ready to burst forth with color.

She passed the road where, if she turned and drove the three blocks toward the water, she’d arrive at what would soon be Dora’s new home. Harper chuckled. Now there was a story of change. Dora had found not only herself this summer, but a life and a love she deserved.

Harper’s gaze landed on her cell phone, maddeningly silent from its perch on her dashboard. She let out a little sigh despite all of the happy feelings roiling inside her. She had tried calling Georgiana several times first thing this morning, convinced that a mother’s excitement over her daughter’s engagement—even an impromptu one—would override their earlier clash. But her mother hadn’t picked up the calls. Harper had finally dashed off an e-mail with the news, but still her phone didn’t ring.

Harper wound her way off Middle Street to the road that led to Sea Breeze. She passed the tall hedge of green and entered the familiar circular drive. She felt as she often did when she faced the raised house with the gabled roof sitting in the shade of the giant oak: that Sea Breeze was waiting for her, arms open in welcome.

Her news was bursting at her lips. She hurried up the stairs and pushed open the front door. “Hello!” she shouted. She dropped her purse on the front-hall table. The painting of the Miss Jenny on the wall caught her eye and she smiled again. “Hello!” she called, entering the kitchen. “Where is everyone!”

Carson burst into the kitchen from the porch. She was wearing a skimpy bikini and her damp hair was slicked back in a loose braid. “You’re back!” She looked over her shoulder to be sure no one was behind her. Then she ran to Harper, eyes blazing, and engulfed her in a bear hug. “It was wonderful! I couldn’t put it down.”

Harper’s breath was taken away. “My book? Really?”

“Loved, loved, loved it. Especially the part—”

Dora came in behind Carson in a sleek, black one-piece suit. They looked as if they’d been in the pool. She looked at Harper with a mother’s stern gaze. “You didn’t come home last night.”