Rescuing Harlow by Aubree Valentine

Chapter 11

Zane walked into the cabin after his shift to find Harlow propped up on the couch with her laptop in her lap and some folders and paperwork spread across the coffee table.

At least today she wasn’t still curled up in bed.

The last few days had been quiet and sad around here if Zane was being honest. Harlow hadn’t really said much of anything to him, or anyone, since her mother told her that Finn Keller wasn’t her real father. Not that he expected anything different. It was a lot to process, even for him, so he could only imagine being in Harlow’s shoes.

“Hey,” he said as kissed her forehead on his way to change out of his uniform.

“Hi.”

“Have you eaten dinner? I can order something for both of us,” he offered.

“Oh!” She set the laptop on the coffee table and spun around on the couch, so she was facing him. “I already ordered pizza and breadsticks. It should be here soon.”

“Sounds good. Thank you.”

“I talked to my mom today.”

“Oh?”

And she didn’t call Zane at work to talk about it so it must have gone okay.

“She agreed to meet me at the house and give me all the documents for the trust, the house, all of it. My parents have always been meticulous so it’s all in order and pretty straightforward.”

“That’s good, I think,” he said as he pulled on a pair of shorts.

“She gave me the login information for the property management company they’ve been using for the house that is supposedly mine. They keep great records, photos and everything. It’s a cute little place closer to Alamo Heights, not exactly just outside of Weintraube,” she laughed.

“Alamo Heights. That’s a pretty nice place.”

“It is. It’s kinda weird to look at this house that I lived the first year of my life in. I was so little; I don’t remember any of it. Ya know?”

“Yeah.” For a guy who was born and raised in the same house that his parents still live in today, he could only imagine what it was like seeing a place so foreign that was supposed to be hers.

“Do you want to see it? I can log back in and show you?”

This was the most Harlow said to him in days, and he’d do anything to keep her talking to him. Even if it meant looking through pictures of a house that neither of them knew anything about until a few days ago.

“Yeah. Sure.” He sat down next to her on the couch, and she grabbed the laptop.

A few clicks and she had an entire album featuring a renovated Craftsman style home loading on the screen. The four-bedroom house was a little bigger and valued at more than what he was looking to spend on their first home together, but it was the type of home you could easily imagine raising a family in.

“Isn’t it adorable? I can just picture our baby running around in that yard one day. Maybe with a little brother or sister, or two.”

“Hey,” shoulder bumped her, “slow down there a little bit. Let’s bring this little one into the world first.” He was teasing of course, but the thought of more kids did make him nervous. He didn’t even know that they could handle one, not that they really had a choice.

“I’m just saying. You never know, Zane, you may decide you want a whole football team one day.”

“Christ,” he hissed. Two, maybe three. But a whole football team? Fuck no. “You haven’t really said much else about anything the last few days. What do you really think of all of this?”

“I have no idea what to think. My whole life, I thought the vineyard was my future. Scarlett and I always thought there were two tiny parcels of land for each of us on the property to one day build our own houses on. We had all these grand plans about running the place together.”

Zane had no idea. Well, he knew that Harlow always dreamed of running the vineyard, but building a house on the land, that was news to him. And not his idea of settling down either. Living that close to Finn Keller could only be a nightmare.

“In a few weeks’ time, every damn thing I thought I knew, has changed. I mean, my mom said I’ve got an Aunt and Uncle, cousins and a set of grandparents on Landry’s side too. I’ve never even met them. And how do I know they want to meet me?”

“I’ll be honest, I’m not really sure what to say back to that,” Zane ran a hand over his face.

“Not sure there is much to say. All this information makes so much more sense though. Dad’s always been...more critical of me. So many times, I felt like he’s kept me at arm's length. This would absolutely explain why. And ever since Scarlett found out about the baby? She’s been weird too. I think it’s all related and I think my sister knows a lot more than my mom claims she does.”

“Have you tried to talk to your dad, or your sister?”

“No. I’m still pretty upset with Dad for what he said. To be honest, I probably wouldn’t have spoken to my mother today if not for the fact that I really wanted to get to the bottom of all of this. Curiosity was really starting to get to me. I guess I’m going to have to talk to them both eventually. I have to go back to work sometime.”

“I don’t blame you for avoiding them.” He really didn’t, but he hoped that sometime in the near future, they would all come around and settle their issues. How they could do that was a totally different issue.

“There’s so much running through my head. You know how my mom said the tenants were due to move out in a few months? That timing isn’t coincidental either. On my twenty-second birthday, the keys were to be handed over to me and the trust was to be distributed.”

“So, they wouldn’t have been able to keep it a secret for much longer,” Zane noted.

“Right. I do think she had my best interest at heart by telling me about the house when you mentioned us looking for places. I mean, I’m not even sure that I’d want to move in there. Is that crazy? I guess, I almost looked forward to looking for a place with you. A place that was ours. That makes me sound ungrateful, doesn’t it?”

Zane thought about it for a second. “I don’t think you’re ungrateful. At the end of the day, it’s a lot to think about.”

“Would you want to live there? Honestly.”

A knock on the door saved him from having to answer right away.

“Shoot, the pizza. I almost forgot,” Harlow jumped up.

“I’ll get it.” Zane grabbed cash from the spare money jar he kept on the counter, opened the door and paid for their pizza before bringing it inside. “Smells amazing,” he said as he sat the pizza on the counter.

“Are you going to answer me?”

With his back turned to her, Zane winced and tried to choose his next words carefully. “It’s a nice place. Bigger than what I had in mind, but still pretty humble.”

When he turned back around with paper plates in his hand, Harlow was watching him carefully.

“Like you said - it’s a lot to think about. I was looking forward to looking at places with you too, picking something out that we both liked. Ya know? At the same time, this place fell into your lap and maybe it would be foolish for you to walk away from it.”

“Oh,” she laughed. “Make no mistake, I am not walking away from this place.”

Zane tensed.

“Not like that anyway. I could always sell it and put that toward a house we both like.”

“If you're asking me what to do, I think it’s best if you think about it a bit before deciding anything. All of this is completely new. Give yourself time to really make sense of it all. And probably talk to a financial planner and a lawyer. That’s the best advice I can give you.”

“You know, you really are smart,” she wrapped her arms around his waist and hugged him tight. “I owe you a thank you for putting up with all this chaos from the last few days too.”

“You don’t owe me a thing, Pretty Girl,” he hugged her back and kissed the top of her head.