by BETH KERY
Harper shook her head against his chest and squeezed him tighter. “That’s what Emmitt would have done to me, if you hadn’t saved me. How horrible for Regina,” she said shakily. She sent up a silent prayer for the other woman. Regina’s life could so easily have been hers, if it weren’t for the man she held in her arms.
“It was at a big party at Jefferies’s lake house that it happened, wasn’t it?” she asked against his chest. “You called 9-1-1 and an ambulance came for Regina?”
He moved back slightly. She looked up to see him peering at her face.
“How did you know that?”
She sniffed. “I’ve told you I had a reporter, Burt, who was angling for a story on you in addition to Ruth. He has a friend who is a detective at the Charleston PD who looked up any incidents associated with Jefferies or his property during the time period before you showed up at MIT with a different name—”
“Before I bought and sold the Markham stock,” Jacob interrupted grimly.
She nodded. “Anyway, his friend sent him an incident report regarding the 9-1-1 call regarding a Gina Morrow. It was called in by a Jacob Sinclair.”
“And you realized that Gina Morrow was Regina and that Jacob Sinclair was me. Is that when you started to suspect I was Jake Tharp, as well?”
She tried to read his expression, and couldn’t. Was he mad at her for her revelation that a reporter under her watch had been investigating a past he guarded so closely?
“I actually didn’t start to suspect that in any solid sense until I realized the police report was from Charleston, West Virginia. Before that, it was just the occasional sense of déjà vu, intense dreams . . . unbelievable suspicions.” She swallowed thickly. “You told me you were from South Carolina. You kept West Virginia secret from me, because you were covering any associations between you and Jake Tharp.”
His brow quirked. “And you’re still mad at me for that, aren’t you?”
She opened her mouth to deny it, but found she couldn’t.
“I’ll never agree to you making that little boy disappear, Jacob,” she said softly. “I’ve fallen in love with you. But I’ve always loved Jake Tharp. I’ll always be loyal to that brave, incredible kid.”
He just stared down at her, his eyes alight with emotion.
“You believe you love me?” he asked her thickly.
“I don’t believe it. I do.”
“Despite what everyone says about me?”
“Yes. And even if some of the lies hold a grain of truth.”
“Is that reporter at the Gazette going to continue to dig for a story?”
“No. Sangar has quashed it. He’s forbidden both Burt and Ruth to pursue a story. It so happens that he agreed with me. There’s nothing solid to print. You’ve buried your secrets well, Jacob. I know your soul,” she whispered. “I understand you, I think. Finally. And your secrets are safe with me.”
He flinched slightly at that. “Are you sure? I’m no saint. What if I told you that a lot of the rumors are true about how I made my first fortune?” he asked bitterly. “I am guilty of colluding for gain when I was eighteen years old. I’d have done almost anything to make myself powerful.”
“It’s not too surprising, giving how helpless Emmitt and even Jefferies must have made you feel. You blackmailed Jefferies, didn’t you? You threatened to expose his violent, illegal sex practices and love of young prostitutes to the press, his wife, or both. He offered you inside information on that breakthrough diabetes drug, and you took the information in exchange for your silence. You did it in one desperate last-ditch effort to climb above all the chaos, evil, dysfunction, and helplessness that you couldn’t seem to escape, even when you’d thought you had by gaining Jefferies’s patronage and friendship. And you succeeded because of your own brilliance and savvy. Afterward, you did everything in your power to wipe the taint of your one sin clean. You washed your hands of Jefferies. Then you sought out Regina Morrow—and any other victims of greed and sadism that you could reach—and you tried to save as many of them as you could.”
She noticed his incredulous glance at the evenness and calmness of her tone.
“Did you really think I’d be shocked, Jake?” she asked, shaking her head. She reached up and touched his face, tracing the miracle in every chiseled line. He reached up and covered her hand with his. Her breath hitched. “I told you I know you, in and out. I’m starting to get just why it was so important to you to rise above your past. Like I said before, I don’t think you have anything to worry about. Unless you or Clint Jefferies comes forward and confesses about why he gave you insider information, I don’t see how a case could ever be reopened by the SEC. And I’m starting to really get just how hard you’ve worked to make up for the way you rose to power. All the charities, and the job fairs . . . the way you helped women like Elizabeth and Ellie and Regina. Especially Regina. I get it now. I realize how guilty you felt as a boy, for not being able to save her from Emmitt, like you saved me.”
His expression turned stony at that, but his eyes shone with emotion. She touched his jaw and then his brow, pouring so much love in every caress. He was so big, and so strong, and so powerful . . . and he didn’t fully get that.
Still.
“Do you remember what I told you about Mrs. Roundabout?” she whispered.
He didn’t reply. She saw his throat convulse, and thought maybe he couldn’t.
“I told you that you had nothing to do with her death or the cruelty she knew while she was alive. Emmitt was solely responsible for that. Did you believe me when I said that, when we were kids?”
“Yes,” he said, his stare on her unflinching.
She stepped closer and encircled his waist with her arms. “This is the same. Emmitt and Jefferies, and so many like them, were responsible for the tragedy of Regina’s life. You did what you could to help her. I know she must have had some happy moments, amidst all her suffering. You were the one to help her have those. You took her away from a life of degradation. Those were huge things. But there was nothing else you could do,” she whispered, looking up at him, entreating him to understand. “You were brave and kind and so generous. But Regina was hurt too badly, Jake.”
She felt the slight give in his solid body. She hugged him tighter to her, absorbing the grief he felt not only for Regina, but for the loss of the boy he’d once been.
A moment later, he lifted his head and spread his hands at the small of her back. She looked up at him, and he solemnly kissed her mouth.
“I’ll ask Jim to come back and stay the night here, just to make sure Elizabeth is okay. Let’s you and I go home,” he said a moment later.
Harper nodded.
• • •
As bone-tired as she was upon entering his suite, Harper knew that Jacob was exponentially so. She encouraged him to take a shower and she’d call Lisa to see if food could be sent up. He insisted he didn’t want anything. While he was in the shower, however, Harper did contact Lisa and request that some tea, water, and a light meal be sent up, just in case Jacob changed his mind.
Harper took a quick shower after him, slipping into the soft robe. When she left the bathroom, she paused in the open doorway. Jacob sat on the sofa in the seating area of his suite. He wore a pair of black pajama bottoms. The soft lamplight gilded the tanned skin of his ridged abdomen and muscular arms. She saw a red and white shoebox in his lap. The lid lay on the cushion next to him. As she neared him, she saw that the shoebox was old: a Converse All Stars. He stared fixedly at a piece of folded notebook paper.
“Jacob?” she asked softly.
He looked up at her, his gaze unfocused, like he’d been miles away. Slowly, his stare sharpened on her.
“Come here,” he said, scooting aside the lid of the shoebox and patting the cushion.
She came down next to him.
“Better late than never
?”
She blinked at his wry question, confused. She looked down at the box and saw several dozen envelopes, each with Return to Sender marked on the front in a bold hand.
A tremor went through her. Oh God. Was that her father’s writing?
She picked up the piece of paper he’d been reading, squinting to read the handwritten note penned in blue ink.
Harper,
It’s almost Christmas, and I’m worried. Two of my letters to you have come back to me. Others might have been returned, too, but I’ve moved twice in the past couple of months, and I might have missed them. I’m starting to think I copied down your address wrong, but you were right next to me in the courthouse that day. (Remember, your dad looked mad because we were sitting so close?) Anyway, since you were right there, I think you would have noticed if I got the address wrong. I want to try and call, but the Stevensons—my new foster family—don’t have a lot of money, and I think I’d get in trouble if I tried to call long-distance. I’ll try to save up my lunch money and call on Christmas Eve.
I’m living in Charleston now, so I’m including my new address. I’m not sure if you’ve been getting my letters or not, but just in case you haven’t . . . Grandma Rose died last October. I told you it in another letter, so I won’t go on about it again here.
The family I’m with has three other foster kids, one older than me and two younger. The littlest one is four. Her name is Abbi, and she likes me for some reason. She doesn’t really talk, just cries and grunts a lot. I think she had it really rough before she came here. She said “Jake” the other day while we were playing with her ball in the driveway, though. Judy, my foster mom, was all excited. She told me Abbi had never said a full word before, but I think she just said that to make me feel good. Judy is pretty nice, but my placement here is just temporary so I’m trying not to get too close. I think Judy and Bob (that’s her husband’s name) might adopt Abbi, though, so that’s good.
My caseworker told me that there might be a couple that lives nearby that might take me in permanently. Adoption services calls me a “special” kid—ha—because I’m so old, and no one really wants older kids, let alone a thirteen-almost-fourteen-year-old. But Miranda says this couple is “special” as well, because they’re old, too, like grandparents instead of parents.
Charleston is okay. The library is tons bigger than the one in Poplar Gorge. They’ve got computers I can use, and I’ve been spending a lot of time on them after school. Oh yeah, I checked out The Lord of the Rings yesterday. I’m already to the part where Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin get to Bree. You were right, it’s really good. I still like your version better, though.
I hope you and your family have a good Christmas in Georgetown. Do you get a big Christmas tree? Remember how big some of the evergreens were in the woods? Well, maybe you don’t want to remember that . . .
I hope you aren’t forgetting me.
Merry Christmas, anyway. Write soon. I want to hear about your tree and lacrosse and what you’ve been reading and stuff.
Your friend,
Jake
The folded piece of notebook paper fell from Harper’s numb fingertips. Grief tore through her, choking off everything for a pain-filled moment. She’d read loneliness and longing between every blue-inked word.
And there had been no one to hear him. No one for twenty years.
She realized that his arms were around her, and his lips were on her ear. “I’m sorry,” he said hoarsely. “I didn’t mean to upset you. I never thought I’d show them to another person. I’ve been going back and forth since I first saw you here in Tahoe Shores about whether or not to show you.”
“Don’t be sorry. I want to read them all,” she said emphatically in a rush. “They were meant to be read. They were meant to be read by me.”
Another wave of sadness washed over her at the realization, and then he was silently urging her to stand. He lifted her into his arms and carried her over to the bed, where he put her down gently. He slid onto the mattress with her and took her into his arms.
“Don’t cry,” he entreated quietly as he held her, as she sensed his misery. “Please don’t cry for me, Harper.”
She hugged him tight to her, unable to stop the torrent of grief. “I’m crying for Jake,” she said.
He didn’t try to halt her grieving then. He just held her until the storm had passed, and she slept.
• • •
When she awoke the next morning, she immediately thought of the box of letters, and knew that she’d rise from bed in a moment and read every last one of them, finally hearing that lost boy’s thoughts, finally acknowledging his dreams.
For the moment, though, she lifted her head and studied the man who had held her fast throughout the night. Something told her he always would hold her so securely, always would keep her safe, even when he himself suffered.
Jake had always been like that.
Again, she visually traced the miracle of his handsome face as he lay sleeping.
He’d been the one to pull out that old Converse box. He hadn’t meant to upset her, of course. Her grief had been inevitable. But surely in revealing those letters, he was unburying a part of his past . . . revealing a vulnerable part of himself.
Exposing Jake Tharp to her loving eyes.
He looked strained, even as he slept, and Harper wondered if he’d just recently fallen asleep. She touched his face softly, willing some of his tension to fade. Maybe in time, it would. Something told her that perhaps she hadn’t been the only one grieving the loss of Jake Tharp last night.
And that was just as it should be.
forty-two
Two Weeks Later
Harper looked up at the sound of the door opening. She sat cross-legged on the floor near the fireplace of Jacob’s suite. Actually, they’d both started to call it their suite or their bedroom in the past few weeks. Harper had even caught Elizabeth saying your suite a few times recently. It was a natural consequence of the fact that she’d spent every hour there at the mansion with Jacob when she wasn’t working, ever since Regina’s death.
“Are you reading those things again?” Jacob asked her, a small, incredulous smile on his mouth as he walked toward her. He looked especially tall and incredible to her from her position on the floor. He’d come from his office, she knew, even though it was Sunday. She scanned his face, looking for signs of fatigue or grief, but no . . . He looked good. Very good . . . all powerful, virile male. He wore a pair of jeans that looked fantastic on his tall, fit body and a dark blue T-shirt that showed off his muscular arms and chest ideally. They’d been out on the yacht yesterday afternoon, and the sun had given his skin a healthy glow. His gaze on her was warm, as always.
Even though he spent a lot of time with her in the evenings, he’d worked every day since Regina’s funeral, often returning to his office once Harper fell asleep. Harper tried not to complain. She thought focusing on work was helping him through the difficult period. But increasingly, she was growing worried. Often she was aware of him returning to bed at night, and holding her against him. When that happened, she sometimes sensed his arousal. But they didn’t make love. They hadn’t, ever since Regina had died.
There was a chained quality to him she couldn’t comprehend.
Although he was attentive and loving to her when they were together, he seemed strained. Although he touched her frequently, and they’d never been more intimate in their communication, they never came together in the fierce, no-holds-barred manner in which she’d grown used to . . . which she loved. Harper was starting to suspect that Regina’s death, and the guilt he’d carried since he was a child, had scarred him more deeply than she’d first suspected.
Even though she was nervous about confronting him about their strained physical distance, she was determined to do it tonight. The longer she waited, the further he might move away from her. And afte
r all they’d been through, distance between them was something she refused to tolerate.
He sat down on the couch near her and she set aside one of the letters. Milo was in her lap. She idly petted the drowsy puppy’s ear.
“I like reading the letters,” she replied to his question with a smile.
“They don’t make you cry anymore,” he said quietly, studying her face with that sharp, narrowed gaze that saw so much. “I’m glad.”
“It was natural that they made me sad at first. All those years we missed together.”
“Are you still mad at your parents?”
She exhaled and looked away, finding the topic a difficult one. “Yes. But I think I’ll come to terms with it. Someday. I know they thought they were doing the right thing for me.”
“I agree,” Jacob said.
She gave him a sharp glance. “They were wrong, though.”
He didn’t respond. He didn’t need to. They both knew her parents were wrong. They hadn’t understood Jake’s and her connection. They’d considered her connection to that boy to be an adolescent infatuation, a side effect of her trauma . . . something to be erased so that she could get back to her old, safe life. They hadn’t realized that their precious daughter had been changed forever in those West Virginia mountains.
“It wasn’t the trauma of being kidnapped that made me so dysfunctional and anxiety-ridden for years, Jake,” she said quietly. “Believing you were dead was the final straw. My parents were responsible for me thinking that. I was smothered by guilt and sadness. I’d never truly felt like the world was random and meaningless and scary as hell until my parents told me you were dead.”
“That’s a pretty good description of how I felt,” he said after a pause. “When I thought you were forgetting me. And then eventually, when I finally accepted you’d forgotten.”
