Gloria handed over a box of tissues and said nothing.

“I told him about foster care and…and the abuse,” Harper said. “I trusted him with my ugliness.”

Wordlessly, Gloria squeezed her friend’s wrist. My ugliness. That’s exactly what it felt like to have those dark shadows inside her. Something terrible and ugly that needed to stay hidden so it wouldn’t taint anyone else.

“What did he say to that?” Gloria asked. What would a man say to the woman he cared for when she talked of a pain he could never take away?

“Not much,” Harper choked out a laugh. “Getting more than three words out of him at a time is physically exhausting. But he didn’t make me feel ugly or damaged. Why didn’t he trust me, Gloria?” Her eyes beseeched Gloria for a reason that wouldn’t hurt, wouldn’t bruise her heart even more than it already was.

The kettle whistled from the kitchen.

“I’ll be back,” Gloria said, patting Harper’s hand. “Hang in there a minute.”

She used the tea preparation to settle and collect her thoughts.

When she returned with a pretty tray of steaming tea and tiny cookies, Harper was blowing her nose and adding to the stack of tissues piled in front of her.

“Does this mean he doesn’t love me?” Harper asked.

Gloria set the tray down on the ottoman. “No,” she said definitively.

“He’s never said it,” Harper pointed out. “I assumed—hoped—he had a hard time saying it. But maybe it’s because he doesn’t feel that way about me?”

Gloria had never seen a man more in love with a woman than Luke Garrison. Whether he had the balls to admit it to himself or to Harper was another story.

“He cares. He asked you to stay.”

“Maybe he just needed a housesitter?” Harper sniffled.

That’s all Gloria had turned out to be for Aldo, hadn’t she? Shut up, Gloria told herself. This wasn’t her pity party. She had important friend duties to attend to, and she wasn’t going to mess this up.

“He cares for you, Harper. You know it. Don’t let this doubt take that away from you. Believe in your gut.”

“Then why would he keep this from me?”

Gloria shook her head. “The workings of the male mind are a mystery to me. If I had to guess, maybe he didn’t want to hurt you or hurt himself by telling it. I’ve never heard him mention her name since. Maybe he can’t? Was it hard for you to tell him about your…story?”

Harper blinked and thought. “Yeah. I guess so. I don’t like talking about it. I don’t want anyone to feel sorry for me or think that I’m some kind of victim.”

“I get that,” Gloria told her.