Need You for Mine (Heroes of St. Helena)(58)

Unless, however, they’d invited the Masonic Lodge for a tasting. Then all bets were off.

His laugh, which lit up his entire face, said it was one and the same, which meant that it had been a more pie enthusiasts and less pinup dolls type experience.

“Why don’t you just tell the guys the truth?” she asked. “The rumors can’t be helping any with the promotion.” He shrugged and Harper had a niggling feeling, similar to the one she got right before Clovis dropped a bomb—like, she needed someone to post bail or hide a body. “There’s more to the story.”

“A whole lot more,” he admitted on a sigh. “The call turned out to be from Aunt Connie’s place, where I found Selma Roux sitting at the kitchen table disoriented. The curtains were charred and she had no idea how she’d gotten there, or why she was in nothing but flour and her bloomers, holding a burned blackberry pie and a fire extinguisher.”

“She snuck out of the assisted living facility to bake a pie?”

“No, this was right before she went in, and she didn’t know where the pie came from. My best guess is she made it at my aunt’s,” Adam said. “I guess she’d wandered off before, but she’d find herself in the garden or her front yard, never a few blocks over. In the middle of the night. She was a mess, broken up about the thought of leaving her house and all the memories. And when she learned that Connie had called the fire department she started crying.”

“Oh, poor Selma,” Harper said, remembering how difficult that transition had been for the older woman. She’d lost her husband a few years back, and with him, her memories. It was as if her pain and sadness disguised itself as forgetfulness, and the woman who used to remember every kid’s name and birthday in town could barely remember how to get home. “So you made up a story so that you wouldn’t have to call Adult Protective Services?”

Adam shrugged. “I made her a deal—if she let me drive her home and promised to contact the assisted living facility the next day, my aunt would invite a few neighbors over. Selma agreed and the ladies showed up with pajamas, liquor, and an outpouring of compassion. Ended up staging what turned out to be the monthly Pi Eta strip poker party. With everyone in their skivvies, Selma didn’t seem so out of place when the crew arrived.”

“And you became Five-Alarm Casanova.”

“The guys razzed me some, and I think it cost me my first shot at lieutenant, but it didn’t matter. Selma was able to say goodbye to her home on her own terms. Not the department’s.”

“Saying goodbye on your own terms is important,” Harper said quietly.

There were so many people she’d wanted to say goodbye to growing up, but never got the chance. It was as if as certain as the sun would rise, her world would change. Never once had her mother thought that maybe Harper didn’t want to leave, didn’t want to say goodbye. Wasn’t ready to move on to the next chapter.

“You only get one shot. If you mess it up, you have to live with it forever,” he said with so much intensity that Harper didn’t think he was talking about Selma anymore either. She wanted to know more, but he asked, “What is the second reason?”

“What?”

“You said first off, meaning there was another reason you think the man was better than the myth. What’s the second?”

“Are you fishing for compliments, Mr. July?”

“Just the truth, sunshine.”

Adam stepped forward and slipped his hands around her waist, linking them low on her back, and she had a hard time thinking. Because performing normal brain activity when this close to a meltdown was impossible. Almost as impossible as it would be to settle on just two reasons why she liked him.

Over the past week she’d compiled a complete and comprehensive list, which was why she’d almost declined when he’d asked her to stay for dinner. But the chance to spend time with him when his guard was down like it was now was too tempting to pass up. Now, here she was, adding him to her collection of people she cared for.

“You’re sweet.”

He laughed. “I said the truth, not fluff. If I wanted an ego stroke, I’d go back in the kitchen.”

“You. Are. Sweet. Adam Baudouin,” she said, putting a finger to his lips when he went to argue. “I mean it, the way you care for others and look out for them is amazing.”

“I get paid to care for people. It’s part of the job description.”

“Nope, it’s more than that. You care so much it scares you.”

“Sunshine, that I’m caring is the last thing most people would say about me.”

“I’m not most people, and too bad for them that they don’t take the time to see that about you,” she said, and meant it.

Sadly, Harper had been one of those people until recently. Now that she knew better, she couldn’t believe she’d ever let herself be fooled by the cape of swagger.

“People respect you because you take the time to see them so clearly for who they are,” Harper said. “Even more amazing, you call it out and recognize that.” He’d seen in her things that she hadn’t been brave enough to see in herself. “You find a way to celebrate traits most people overlook, just like you did today with Tommy. That’s a special talent.”

“It’s called making friends.”