Jake

by Harmony Raines

  “You’re not. You just need answers so you can move on. So you can all move on.” He stroked her cheek as he looked into her eyes. “Whatever you need. Whatever I can do to help. Let me know.”

  “Why?” Her forehead creased as her suspicions were aroused. No one did something for nothing in this life, least of all a person like Jake. Not for a stranger. Damn, she was cynical.

  “Because I couldn’t save Sally. But if I can help save your daughter, it might help me shed some of the guilt.” He shrugged. “Plus, I have broad shoulders. I’d like to help you carry the burden.”

  She patted his right shoulder. “You do have impossibly broad shoulders.”

  “I can smell the coffee.” Jake subtly let the subject go and she was grateful to him.

  As he reached for the door, she placed her hand on his lower arm. “What is this?”

  He turned his head to look at her. “This is me opening the door.”

  A wave of annoyance swept over her, but she let it go. “You know what I mean.”

  Jake let go of the handle and straightened up. “Do you ever think life happens for a reason?”

  Her eyes narrowed, she was about to tell him no, she did not. But that wasn’t true. “Sometimes. But then I think…why does bad stuff happen for a reason? What reason could there possibly be for Sally to die and leave Milly an orphan?”

  “I can’t answer that. But I do think you stopped on the road for a reason.” His eyes pierced hers. “There’s a connection between us, Lana. I know you feel it, too.”

  “I don’t know what I feel. Sometimes I think I’m numb to emotion.” That was a lie, but she had to push him away. At least for now. At least until she met with her informant tomorrow and got some answers. She couldn’t jeopardize her reason for being here.

  Chapter Nine – Jake

  Lana was holding back, and he wasn’t sure why. He’d offered to help her find out what happened to her daughter and although she hadn’t refused his help point-blank, she hadn’t accepted it either.

  She has her own agenda, his bear said as Jake entered the kitchen.

  “Ah, there you are.” Donald was drinking coffee with Max. They were talking about football or baseball. Jake followed neither. Who had time to watch grown men run around after a ball when there was work to do? “I thought you’d gotten lost or gone with Sula out to see the ponies.”

  “Nope, I was unloading the car, with Jake’s help.” Lana approached her father. “How many cups have you had?”

  Donald raised a cup. “This is my second. It’s good stuff and just what I needed after the long drive.”

  “So what brings you to Bear Creek?” Max asked as he got up from the kitchen table and went to fill two coffee cups, which he handed to Lana and Jake. He locked eyes with Jake for a moment and gave him a puzzled look.

  “Sula wanted to visit the mountains this weekend and when my boss asked me to come to Bear Creek for a meeting with one of his contacts, it seemed like the perfect plan.” Lana sipped her coffee. “Oh, that is good. Just what I need.”

  “What do you do?” Jake asked casually as he sipped his coffee while watching his mate. He couldn’t take his eyes off her. She was beautiful, with her hair pulled into a messy bun and a smear of lipstick across her kissable lips.

  “I work for a magazine.” Lana shot her dad a warning look as he coughed as he swallowed his coffee the wrong way. “It’s a gossip magazine,” she admitted reluctantly. “Revealed.”

  Jake nearly choked on his own coffee. “Revealed!”

  “Yes, you’ve heard of it, I guess. Most people have.” Lana sighed, her jaw tight as she drank her coffee.

  “Heard of it!” Max laughed out loud. “They did an expose on Jake a few years ago. It was not pretty.”

  Jake snorted. “That’s an understatement. The reporter from the magazine went undercover at my office and when they couldn’t find any dirt or any employees who would bad-mouth me, they went to my competitors and printed libelous stories.”

  “As I said, it did not go well.” Max shook his head. “They even came here to the house looking for a family feud that didn’t exist.”

  “I understand why you don’t like the magazine, and I have to agree some of their actions are less than desirable…” Lana looked apologetic.

  “Is that why you agreed to stay here?” Jake asked quietly. His heart beat rapidly in his chest. If Lana replied yes, he wasn’t sure how he would react.

  “No!” She put her hand up in protest. “I really did come here to Bear Creek for a meeting. It’s tomorrow in town.” Her jaw tightened as she held something back, something she didn’t want to share with the men in the kitchen.

  “Is it about Kiki?” Donald asked quietly.

  Lana swung around to face her dad. “I didn’t want to tell you. I hate getting your hopes up. And it might not be. My editor, Blake Jefferson, got an anonymous letter asking for a meeting. There was a photograph of Blake Jefferson’s daughter, Amber. The sender implied they had information about Amber’s whereabouts.” She looked down at her coffee cup. “It might not have any relevance to Kiki at all.”

  “Amber Jefferson is missing, too?” Jake asked.

  “I had no idea until this morning. But she went missing around the same time as Kiki.” She gave a wry smile. “He told me it was one of the reasons he hired me. Because we were both looking for our children.”

  “Lana thinks I don’t know, but she took the job at Revealed so she could utilize their resources to help track down Kiki,” Donald said casually, which earned him a surprised look from Lana. “I’m old, not stupid. I have known you your whole life and I know how your brain works.” He tapped his head and nodded at her.

  “Maybe you should be the investigator and I’ll stay at home and look after Sula.” Lana’s cheeks flushed red as she set her coffee cup down on the countertop and went to her dad. “I should have been more open with you. I didn’t want to worry you since you took Kiki’s disappearance so hard.”

  He patted her hand as she placed it on his shoulder and kissed his cheek. “I know you want to protect us all from what happened. But hiding the truth never helped anyone. If Kiki had been more open about where she’d been and who the father of her child was, we might have an idea of where to look for her. Instead, it’s like finding a needle in a haystack.”

  “You don’t know who Ursula’s father is either?” Max asked. “We have no idea who Milly’s father is. Her biological father that is.”

  “Maybe we should pool resources,” Donald suggested.

  “Good idea,” Jake agreed. He hadn’t told his mate yet, but there was no way she was going to her meeting with this informant alone tomorrow.

  No way in hell, his bear agreed.

  “Wait. No offense, but we’ve only just met. We don’t even know if there is a link between Amber and Kiki or Milly’s mom. I can’t just share anything I’ve found through my job at Revealed. It’s unprofessional and unethical and I’ll likely get fired, and I need my job.” Lana stood up straight and put her hands on her hips. Jake had never wanted a woman more. “You are no doubt good at what you do. Let me do the job I’m good at.”

  Her face reddened as she squared up to him. “It’s not about who is good at what. It’s about how we can work together to figure this all out.” He kept his voice low and soothing. Jake couldn’t even begin to imagine what Lana must be going through. The thought of Milly growing up and then one day walking out of his life, never to be seen again, was almost too much to bear.

  She stared at him for a moment and then her shoulders slumped forward as she dragged a hand through her hair. “You’re right. I’m sorry, I was losing sight of the bigger picture. But I’m still going to need to talk to my boss. But I’m willing to wait until after my meeting tomorrow.” As her features relaxed, she looked older, paler. Tired.

  “Why don’t we go and get some fresh air and I’ll show you around?” Jake drained his coffee cup. “We can check on the kids.”

&n
bsp; “Josephine would love to say hello, too,” Max told them. “She’s waiting for Milly to wake up from her late afternoon nap.”

  “We’ll walk over there to say hello.” Jake stood up and took the cups to the sink. “If that’s okay with you, Lana?”

  “Sure.” Lana picked up her coffee and finished before walking over to the sink. “If that’s all right with you, Dad? Or did you want to come, too?”

  Jake was relieved when Donald answered, “No. I’m okay here. Unless you need a chaperone.”

  “I think I’m old enough to look after myself,” Lana answered quickly.

  “I’ll stay and keep you company until Tad and Heather come back in with the kids.” Max leaned back in his chair. “Did Tad say he was going to cook dinner?”

  “He did.” Jake walked to the door leading to the back yard. “We can hurry him along. You know how he gets when he’s with those ponies and I’m starving.”

  “Me, too.” Max grinned. “Tell him if he doesn’t hurry, I’ll be forced to start dinner and it’ll rival anything Lillian has ever cooked.”

  “I’ll tell him.” Jake laughed as Lana joined him. “Lillian is Heather’s mom. She paints abstract art and cooks abstract dishes.”

  “She sounds like an interesting woman. Does she live locally?” Lana asked as they went outside into the fresh air. The breeze coming off the mountain was unseasonably warm as it stirred the small fine hairs on his arm.

  “She lives here.” Jake indicated the two newly built houses that were situated on the other side of the fence around the back yard. They were a hundred feet or so away from each other and at an angle which meant each of the three houses had some degree of privacy. “When Max met Josephine, I got scared they would move away and leave me, so I built them each a house and forced them to live in them.”

  Lana grinned. “I can imagine you are a force to be reckoned with.”

  “We’ve been together all of our lives.” He looked back at the original house where he still lived. The house he hoped to persuade Lana and her family to move in to. “We all love this place. I have never seen it as mine.”

  “Even though you worked hard to keep up the payments on the house when your parents died?” Lana asked.

  “What’s mine is theirs. If ever they needed anything, I would give it to them. Not that they ever ask. Max lives a simple life, he’s a mountain ranger. Tad has his own fortune squirreled away inside one of his sculptures I expect.” Jake took Lana across the backyard, which was filled with spring bulbs, all fresh and new and full of hope as the sun warmed the ground after a cold winter.

  “What about when they adopt their child?” Lana asked. “Will Max be able to support them? Or does Josephine work?”

  “They’ll manage. Max has saved a lot of money over the years. The house is new, cheap to run and rent-free.” Jake opened the gate at the far side of the yard and held it for Lana. “Josephine looks after Milly and she’ll stay home with the child they adopt. She used to foster children before she married Max. That’s how they met.”

  “Wow, that was lucky. If you hadn’t agreed to adopt Milly, they would never have met.” Lana put her hands on her forearms and rubbed her skin through her thin sweater.

  “Here. Take this.” Without thinking he slid out of his suit jacket and held it for Lana to slip her arms into.

  “I’m fine.” She waved him away, but her teeth chattered as a cool gust of wind ruffled her hair.

  “I insist.”

  Lana didn’t argue further and slid a hand through each sleeve and Jake helped as she shrugged it on. “Thank you. It’s cooler here than in the city.”

  “It’s the mountains and the wide-open plains, the wind sweeps down with cooler air while your city is sheltered by tall buildings.” Jake headed across to Max and Josephine’s house. He wanted his sister-in-law to meet his mate.

  “It’s an incredible place, I can see why you’ve stayed here.” She walked alongside him, matching his long strides. But only just. “You’ve never felt the need to move to the city and live closer to your office?”

  “Nope. I always liked coming home. The commute isn’t too bad. I like the time in between to think things over and unwind.” They reached the steps leading up to Max’s house. Perhaps he should have called ahead and let Josephine know they were coming. What if she didn’t want a complete stranger in the house?

  “There you are.” The front door swung open and Josephine stood framed in the doorway with Milly in her hip. “We’ve just woken up.”

  “Dada!” Milly called as she saw Jake. Lifting her small hand and balling it up, she rubbed her eyes as if she couldn’t believe it was him.

  “Hi there, little girl.” With his mate momentarily forgotten, he ran up the stairs and held out his arms for Milly. His daughter immediately leaned forward and kicked her feet as if she were swimming in midair. As Jake’s hands closed around his daughter, Josephine relinquished her hold.

  “She twists the three of them around her little finger,” Josephine told Lana. “They don’t stand a chance.”

  “I know what you mean. Sula does that to her grandpa. She’s given up trying it with me. But I think she knows she’s met her match.” Lana walked up the steps and stood a couple of feet away from Jake and Milly as she watched father and daughter interact. “She is a cutie.”

  “Is Sula your daughter?” Josephine asked.

  Lana waved her hand in the air as if fending off Josephine’s question. “Sula, or Ursula, as her mommy named her, is my granddaughter. She calls me Nana and her Grandpa is actually her great-grandpa.”

  “And Sula is short for Ursula?” Josephine asked as she studied Lana. Not in an unfriendly way, but in an extremely interested way.

  “Yes, when she was little, she struggled with saying her own name. It always came out as Sula and it stuck.” Lana smiled wistfully.

  “I can’t wait to meet her.” Josephine pointed inside the house. “Do you want to come in? I could make coffee.”

  “I promised Lana a tour,” Jake said quickly. “We’re going to lose the light if we don’t hurry.”

  “A rain check?” Lana asked hopefully.

  “Sure.” Josephine switched her attention to Jake and Milly. “Come on, little lady. Let’s get you freshened up before dinner. We’re all over at your house, aren’t we, Jake?”

  “We are. Tad offered to cook for everyone.” He handed Milly back to Josephine and then took hold of the little girl’s hand and kissed it. “I’ll see you later, Milly.”

  “Bye, bye.” Milly waved her hand and then leaned on Josephine’s shoulder as she watched Jake and Lana walk away.

  “Bye, bye, honey.” Jake waved and then blew a kiss to his daughter as they retraced their steps.

  “Josephine is right, Milly will have you all wrapped around her little finger,” Lana said with humor in her voice and a smile on her lips. “Children are such a joy.”

  Her mouth turned down at the corners and she looked out toward the mountains. The urge to wrap her up in his arms was almost too much to bear. He would slay dragons for this woman.

  Fiona might not appreciate that, his bear said ironically.

  You know what I mean. I would move heaven and earth to make things right in Lana’s world.

  He had to make her see they could work together to find out what happened to Kiki. Maybe Lana’s meeting tomorrow would shed some light on what had happened to her editor’s daughter and that might lead them to answers about Kiki.

  One day he hoped to find someone who might give him some clue as to why Sally’s life became so self-destructive. But he suspected that would not happen tomorrow. It would be too much of a coincidence for all three deaths to be linked.

  But then if anyone had suggested after years of waiting that all three Harrison brothers would meet their mates in such a short period of time, Jake would have told them they were crazy.

  Yet it had happened. Coincidence or fate, it didn’t matter what they called it, Jake believed a
greater power was moving the pieces of their lives around as if it were one of Lillian’s abstract paintings. All they had to do was keep pushing forward and pushing for answers.

  By the time they were done, he hoped the picture of their lives it revealed was one of peace and happiness. Anything else was unthinkable.

  Chapter Ten – Lana

  “The honeysuckle smells wonderful.” She inhaled deeply as the fragrant blooms spilled their fragrance into the warm evening air.

  “Max tends the gardens. Josephine and Heather have helped since they moved in.” Jake leaned his back against the post and rail fence that protected the garden from whatever wild creatures might roam down from the mountains.

  “Do you get many bears or wolves around here?” Lana asked.

  Jake’s elbow slid off the wall and he jumped up straight, his face flushing pink under his tanned skin as he tried to recover himself. “Some. There are plenty of bears and wolves around here. But mainly they stick to the mountains.”

  “Do they cause any trouble?” Lana asked as she stared out across the open fields surrounding the Harrison house.

  “Not really. There are seldom any wild animal attacks. Bear Creek is a safe place. A good place to raise kids.” Jake turned around. “Sula looks as if she’s having fun.”

  “She does. My dad said she’s been struggling at school. A couple of the other students have been telling her Kiki is dead.” She rubbed her cheeks, willing herself not to get all misty-eyed again. Lana rarely cried in front of people. It was a sign of weakness. But with Jake, she felt safe, as if he would never take advantage of her in any way.

  “Kids can be cruel. They don’t always think about how words can hurt just as much as fists and feet.” He nodded toward the children. “Bella and Zack are good kids. Their father was a real jerk so they know life can suck sometimes.”

  “Kids are supposed to grow up safe and secure. They’re supposed to have both parents under the same roof and know what it’s like to be loved.” She gave a short laugh. “At least that’s how I grew up.”