She grinned at him, and his heart picked up the pace. He was going to marry this woman and make a family with her here within the walls he’d built and she’d painted. But first, he was going to lick whipped cream off every inch of her body.

73

“Luke broke up with Harper, and no one knows where she is.”

Sophie’s announcement upon sweeping into Blooms had the effect of a record scratch to Gloria. All the glow of Thanksgiving and Aldo’s invitation to move in disappeared like a bubble popping.

“I’m going to have to call you back,” Della, her boss, said into the phone.

“What? What happened?” Gloria asked. “Things seemed strained yesterday but not this bad.”

“According to my chickenshit asshat of a brother, it wasn’t working out, and they wanted different things.”

“Oh my God. This is awful,” Gloria said. “And he doesn’t know where she is?”

“He basically kicked her out last night. On Thanksgiving! We need to find her. Once we do, I’m going to kill my brother and make Harper fall in love with James so I can keep her in the family.”

Gloria fished her phone out of her apron pocket. No messages from Harper.

“I’ll call Hannah. Maybe Harper went there,” she told Sophie.

“Good thinking. I’m going to do another loop around town. See if she ran out of gas in any parking lots.” It was how Harper came to Benevolence and how she’d happened to save Gloria’s life. Now it was Gloria’s turn to find her friend and help her.

“Della?” Gloria turned to her boss.

“You go on now. Go help your friend. I’ll close up tonight.”

“Thank you,” Gloria said, already dialing Hannah’s number.

Hannah hadn’t heard from Harper in a few days and was as shocked about the breakup as the rest of them. After making Hannah promise to call her if she heard anything, Gloria got in her car to do what Sophie was doing.

She fired off a quick text to Aldo and prayed that he’d at least heard from Harper in the last twenty-four hours.

When her phone rang, she answered it immediately. “Hello?”

“Gloria? Hi, it’s Joni. Harper gave me your number.”

“Harper?”

“I didn’t want you all to worry. She’s here at my house. She’s going to stay with me until… Well, until she figures out what she wants to do.”

Gloria closed her eyes, allowing the panic to seep from her body. “Is she okay?”

“Oh, honey. She’s hanging in there. She’s, well, devastated is a strong word. But she’d hung a lot of hopes and dreams on Luke.”

“She loves him,” Gloria said, half to herself.

“And I’ll be honest. I think he loves her, too.”

If they loved each other, how could it not be enough?