“Can I trust you?” she whispered, staring at those words. “Or will you let me down, too?”

She got another message from him right away, before she could text him back. It’s probably awkward for you to text me with Axel there. No need to respond. I just wanted to say…I’m thinking of you.

Axel’s gone, no worries, she wrote. What’d you do today?

Went on a short hike this morning. Had dinner at Maddox and Jada’s. Drove to LA to drop off my mom. Played chess with my landlord.

Did Carl join you?

Fortunately, he didn’t.

Who won?

He did.

Really?

Sort of.

So you let him?

It is Christmas, after all. But Uriah’s becoming more of a challenge. He’ll beat me legitimately soon.

He took such good care of those he loved—at least it seemed that way. So you had a good day?

A great one. The best Christmas I’ve ever had. You?

My Christmas was fine.

Something wrong?

She frowned. She didn’t want to drag him through everything she was going through. No.

When’s Axel going back to Europe?

Tomorrow.

Are you okay with that?

As she considered the freedom Axel’s leaving would give her to see Tobias, her anxiety began to ease. Yeah, I’m okay with it, she wrote. What are you doing tomorrow?

I was going to go on another hike in the morning. Would you like to go with me? The weather’s supposed to be good. And I have a trail in mind I think you’d enjoy.

I’d like that, she wrote. I’ll see if Karoline will mind if the girls hang out here with them until I get back.

28

The following morning, Axel was eager to get out of town. What had seemed like such a short trip now seemed far too long. Why he’d wasted so much time, effort and money coming to Silver Springs in the middle of his European tour, when it was ending in two weeks anyway, he had no idea. Learning that Harper was moving on had made him panic.

A lot of divorced people probably felt the same when their exes found someone else, he told himself. But if she was going to be a bitch after everything he’d tried to do for her—was going to turn away everything he’d offered, which was far more than most men could offer, including Tobias Richardson—she didn’t deserve him. As far as he was concerned, the breakup of their marriage was now on her. He wasn’t going to take responsibility for it, and he wasn’t going to feel bad about it. There were too many other women in the world for him to cry over someone he’d struggled to get along with for the past few years.