More of You

Chapter 14

Harper had come to the realization that there were many more questions to be answered. She had tossed and turned all night in an attempt to answer them. In the end, she realized that the answers she sought were only known by Luke.

She threw her satchel down on her desk and sunk into her chair. The question that was upper most in her mind was why Luke thought that she wasn't ready to know that he was in love with someone and had been for a very long time? Was it because he believed that she would tell everyone in the family about it? That was what she had thought last night, which was the reason why she had assured him that his secret was safe.

Rubbing her face with her hands, she took a deep breath, then focused her attention on work as she started to unpack and settle into her chair. She had been responding to her emails and checking on the status of shipments for an hour when Luke entered her office and sat a cup of hot chocolate on her desk before settling in the chair across from her.

His offering made her feel a little more centered as it was something that was familiar to her and let her know that he was not upset and didn't resent the information that she had pried out of him the evening before.

Keeping in mind that they were under surveillance she was careful not to ask him any of the questions she wanted to as they discussed the Pacer and Rivers jobs.

"Thanks for staying and helping me clean up last night," he said as he plopped his boots on her desk.

She looked pointedly at them and then him, but all she got in response was a dare as he sipped his coffee.

"You're welcome, sorry I left before we were finished. How long did it take you before you had the mess cleaned up?" She leaned back in her chair, giving up on the boots.

"Not too late, maybe about an hour. Did you get a chance to look at your schedule?" He pulled out his phone. "I thought we could compare them now and set some dates."

She nodded, leaning forward to open her calendar. "Since your father and mine said they would take over supervising on our current jobs, if I take that out of the equation, it looks like I'm wide open until the end of next month."

Luke nodded. "What's the end of next month?" he asked distractedly as he looked at his phone.

"The annual trade show in Dallas." She clicked on the week. "It will be five days including travel, but I was thinking of making it an entire week."

"That's about the time that Mark will be returning as well."

They were silent as they thought about what they would each need to do to make the trip work with their schedules.

"Your passport is up to date?" Luke asked.

"Mmm hmm," she agreed around a sip of chocolate.

"If you agree, I'll talk to Gran about leaving the week after next. I know it's short notice but that will give us two weeks to plan." He looked up from his phone and his green eyes met hers. He was only asking for her to agree about the dates for the trip, but she suddenly felt like he was asking for more than that. Time seemed to stop, and Harper realized that she had stopped breathing as something between them changed. If she had felt it physically it would have been equal to an earthquake.

Look away, she begged silently, but he wouldn't and she couldn't.

"Hey Luke, are we still on for Lunch?" Trudy asked, sticking her head in the office, thankfully breaking the moment.

As Luke looked away Harper sucked in a breath. She felt like she had just run a marathon.

"Of course, is it still your birthday?" he asked.