“Say yes, Harper.”
“I can say ‘yes’ on my own,” she told him with a flash of irritation, but her fixed stare on his mouth was an invitation.
He kissed her gently, coaxing away her impatience with him. Harper’s mouth. It had driven him to distraction when he’d been a boy. Clearly, it had the power to make him crazy as a man.
“Are you, then? Saying yes,” he asked against h
er mouth.
“Yes,” she whispered. She swallowed thickly. “I . . . can’t seem to help myself.”
“I know the feeling.”
He lowered his head again, drawn by her scent. Her taste. A moment later, he released his hold on her reluctantly.
“I should go,” she repeated.
“You go first. I’ll wait here for a bit, and then leave when the coast is clear.”
She took a moment to splash some water on her face and wash her hands. He noticed her anxious expression in the mirror as she smoothed her tousled hair.
“You look beautiful,” he said sincerely.
Her startled gaze flew to his. Their stare held in the mirror for a few seconds before she ducked her head, turned, and left the bathroom.
Why had he done it? Why had he wanted her to risk something big, like her job, in order to be with him? It was wrong, clearly, but he couldn’t seem to stop himself.
His expression looked grim and cold in the mirror.
It was his childhood longing—it was Jake Tharp—that was controlling him again, Jacob acknowledged as he washed his hands and splashed some water on his face. After that day at the courthouse, Harper had gone with her parents—the perfect, beautiful reunited little family—and left him alone.
Of course he’d known it was the only logical thing a twelve-year-old girl could do. She couldn’t do whatever she wanted. She was subject to the will and whim of her parents.
But had she at least wanted to keep their connection, like she’d claimed she had?
During Regina’s latest crisis in Napa, he’d spent some time with Dr. Fielding, her psychiatrist. Jacob had asked Fielding in a casual manner about hypnosis.
“Could a hypnotist make a patient completely forget their trauma?”
Dr. Fielding’s answer had been that a skilled hypnotist could distance a patient from memories of the trauma, make them feel less distinct and emotionally overwhelming, thereby lessening the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder.
“Could a hypnotist make someone completely forget a positive relationship? A friend, for instance?”
Dr. Fielding’s answer: “Very unlikely. A hypnotist can’t make a patient do something that the patient isn’t otherwise inclined to do.”
Jacob wiped off his face with a towel and faced the door, mentally donning the cold strength of his public armor.
Something that the patient isn’t otherwise inclined to do.
There stood the crux of the issue. If Harper had forgotten him under the influence of treatment from her father, then she’d done so because part of her wanted to.
Maybe she’d needed to, to free herself from memories of Emmitt Tharp, she had to forget Jake Tharp, as well. It pained him, thinking of all the memories being swept away, the ugly ones along with the sweet.
eighteen
Twenty Years Ago
It was pitch-black in the cave that night. He couldn’t see or feel her, but all Jake could think about was Harper McFadden’s body lying a few inches from his on the hard earth. He wanted to say something to her, but his mind kept going blank as to what.