Where was she going to go?
Why hadn’t he waited until morning? He could have helped her find a place, taken her somewhere. Now, thanks to him she was roaming around at night.
He stood up and started pacing.
Everything that his gaze rested on was connected to her. The furniture. The glossy magazines and paperbacks under the coffee table. The raspberry pink fleece hanging next to the front door. Had she even taken a coat with her?
He pulled the fleece off the hook and brought it to his face. It smelled like her. Sunshine and lemons.
He didn’t feel relief. He felt sick.
Maybe he should pack her things for her. So every damn thing in his house didn’t remind him of her.
***
Luke woke up on the couch to the early gray dawn. Both dogs were snuggled against him. He was still clutching Harper’s fleece to his chest.
He had finally dozed off barely two hours earlier after carefully packing her things into the boxes neatly stacked in the dining room. Each one labeled “Harper” and a description of the contents in permanent marker.
After months here, she still hadn’t managed to accumulate more than a dozen boxes of things. He would give her the furniture when she settled wherever she was going, and most of the kitchen stuff that had appeared in drawers and cabinets while she was here.
He glanced down at the coffee table and saw the picture. Harper and her parents. She had left it behind, tucked in a box in the closet. He’d keep it safe for her until she was somewhere she could call home.
Luke rubbed a hand across his chest. The hollow was still there. His life was once again his own. He was free to focus on his plan. His goal. Didn’t have to worry about anyone else.
So why did he feel like he was suffocating?
He went into the kitchen to grab some coffee, but the pot was empty.
The quiet was too much. He whistled for the dogs and let them out the back door.
The ache would go away, he told himself as he watched Max chase Lola around the garden that hadn’t been there when he left.
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
He arrived at the office early enough that no one else was there. His gaze immediately scanned to Harper’s desk. When had that happened? How was that the first place he looked every time he came up the stairs?
Shit. He was going to have to tell everyone that they were down an office manager. There would be questions, which he wouldn’t answer. And more paperwork, which he wouldn’t file. But this space was his again. It was what he wanted.
Wasn’t it?
Luke mashed the buttons on the coffeemaker until it started to brew. He took his first mug into his office and kicked the door shut behind him. He didn’t have time to deal with a view of an empty desk.
He was in the middle of listening to a voicemail for the third time, because he kept spacing out, when Frank burst in without knocking.
“Why the hell is your door closed?”
“Because I wanted it closed.”
Frank shrugged. “Okay. Next question. Why is your woman calling in sick to me?”
Luke stood up before he thought better of it. “Did she say where she is?”
Frank crossed his arms. “No. Don’t you know where she is?”
Luke ignored the question and sank back into his chair. “She said she was sick?” Well at least she was alive. Somewhere.
“Said she wasn’t coming in today because she wasn’t feeling well. Why are you hearing this for the first time? Why didn’t she just roll over and tell you herself?”
