Page 43 of Wilde Secrets

“Any luck?” He nodded toward the guitar. Logan took another swig of beer, mostly because he didn’t want to do something so stupid as reach out to touch her.

She shook her head mournfully. “It’s useless. I can’t do this on my own. I need Isla.”

“Did you try her again?”

“Yeah, a few times. I left a voicemail.” She sounded so sad, her voice small as she mumbled into the palm of her hand.

“Want a beer?”

She lifted her head. “You know, I think I do.”

Logan swallowed the remainder of his and went back into the house to grab them both a bottle of IPA from Wilde Brews & Blues, a craft brewery and blues bar on the waterfront at the edge of town. He’d helped them outfit the bar when they opened a few years ago and discovered their beer was the best he’d ever tasted.

He hooked a pair of bottles in his fingers, hesitated before snagging two cookies in his other hand and headed back to Harper.

She’d moved to prop herself against the railing, one leg cocked up and the other straightened out along the stair. Harper looked up with a smile as Logan approached and handed her one of the bottles and a cookie.

“That’s just what I need,” she said, her voice husky in a way that hit Logan in the pit of his stomach.

Helping her—providing her with what she needed—sent a warm glow through him. He didn’t want to examine that too closely.

Logan settled himself on the other side of the wide stairs, mirroring Harper’s posture. “Would it help to talk about it?”

Harper shot him a glare and pursed her lips, looking away. She absently fiddled with a lock of hair. “I don’t know.”

“It wouldn’t hurt to try.”

He never wanted to understand people. He found they were always too disappointing. But he felt he could spend the rest of his life getting to know Harper and still want to know more.

It was a pity she was leaving.

Harper nodded to herself as if answering an internal debate.

“Alright. But I’ll do one better; I’ll sing.”

ChapterSixteen

Harper

What on earth had possessed her to say she would sing? Harper’s stomach threatened to rebel. She never sang her own songs to anyone other than Isla, and never once they’d been recorded.

She used to love singing when her mother was alive. The three of them—Isla, Harper and their mom—would sing along to the radio in the kitchen, dancing around with wooden spoons as pretend microphones while their mom baked or cooked dinner. Harper tried not to think about her mom. When she died, Harper had stopped singing. The kitchen that had once been filled with music had turned silent.

And then two years later—when Harper thought she couldn’t bear living in that house a moment longer—Isla won a reality television singing competition that skyrocketed her career.

Their dad sold the house that had become a shrine to their mother, and Harper hadn’t been sorry. She’d wanted to forget and move on with her life.

She sighed, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear.

The late afternoon sun was dipping low in the sky, a slight breeze tickling the leaves in the trees into a slight rustle. It was so quiet here. The gentle hum of insects competed with birdsong. Harper forced her shoulders to relax from where they had lifted, rolling her head to ease the ache in her neck.

“You don’t have to sing,” Logan said.

He had been quietly watching her from the other side of the stairs, rolling his beer bottle between his hands. He was a welcome distraction from whatever it was that had blocked her all damned day.

He’d pulled on a clean tee shirt since he’d come home, covering up that glorious expanse of muscular chest, solid shoulders and bulging biceps. A sad state of affairs. If she couldn’t touch, then at least she could look. And look she did.

Her eyes narrowed as she read the script on his shirt before bursting into laughter. “Ask me how to get Wilde outdoors?”

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