She whirled to look. When she spotted me standing within strangling distance, she frowned like I was Little Miss Grinch coming to ruin her holiday fun. With a huge sigh, she asked, "What?"
I gave her a look. There she was, standing in Cole's driveway, holding a half-empty roll of toilet paper, and she was askingmewhat?
I asked, "What are you doing here?"
With a little stagger, she lifted the roll higher in a mock toast. "Guess."
"Oh, my God. Are you drunk?"
"Eggnog," she said, as if this explained everything.
It didn't.I glanced around the yard. "And where's your friend?"
She froze. "What friend?"
"The guy in the coat."
She put on her innocent face. It was the same wide-eyed expression she'd used on our parents ten years ago when we'd thrown that misguided New Year's Eve party. With a little shrug, she said, "I don't see anyone."
I felt my eyes narrow.Ididn't see anyone either. Not now. But Ihadseen someone through my bedroom window. I was absolutely sure of it.
And then it hit me. "Was it Cole?"
She made a show of looking around. "Waswhatcoal?"
Great. Now she was playing dumb.She'd usedthattechnique on our parents, too. It hadn't worked onthem, and it wasn't working on me.
I replied, "Not awhat.Awho, as in'Whowas the guy you were talking to?'"
She blinked several times before mumbling, "What guy?"
As I stared at my sister, a multitude of conflicting thoughts galloped through my brain.She was being awfully secretive.Did that mean the guywasCole?
Had they been arguing?
Or even worse, had she been seeing him on the sly?If true, this would certainly explain why he'd disappeared so suddenly.
And now that I thought about it, Harper had been acting seriously strange lately, sneaking off at odd hours and returning in the middle of the night.
Just yesterday, I'd asked her about it. She'd explained everything away by claiming that she'd been conducting on-site research for her coffee business.
But what if she'd been doing something else?
What if she'd been sneaking around with Cole?
Desperately, I tried to think. Harper had no idea that I'd been seeing him, so anything was possible, right?
This idea took hold for barely an instant before I gave myself a mental slap upside the head.Harper and Cole? Together? Impossible.
I wouldn't put anything past Cole, but I knew my sister. She would never, ever take up with him – not after he'd caused me so much trouble.
Plus, there was the fact that she was making good on her longstanding threat to toilet-paper his house.Given her opinion of him, this was hardly a sign of affection.
In the end, I decided that the mystery guy had to be somebody else. Who, I had no idea. Regardless, I needed to get both of us out of here, pronto.
I snatched the toilet paper out of Harper's hand and gave her a stern look. "Time to go."
She whined, "But I'm not done."
