He thrust deep. A muscle in his cheek jumped from tension.
“Mine,” he growled. “Say it, Harper.”
She gasped, staring up at him incredulously. “I’m yours,” she said, shaking her head on the pillow. “And you’re mine, Jake.”
He started, his eyes flashing at her words. He began to shudder. He groaned gutturally and began to pour himself into her for the first time—all of his need, all of his longing and pain.
All of his shame.
She panted, held in a grip of shock, unable to believe her senses.
Maybe Jacob hadn’t meant to reveal the truth during their emotional lovemaking, but he had, anyway. Hadn’t he?
He’d stamped himself onto her soul just now. And in doing so, she’d spied a crack in his armor. He met her stare, still panting heavily from his orgasm. She peered disbelievingly into his eyes like they were a window to her past.
“Jake Tharp?” she whispered. “It is you, isn’t it?”
Twenty Years Ago
Harper and he burst through the front doors of the Barterton Police Station at around dusk, hand in hand and gasping for breath. From the alarmed look on the female receptionist’s face, Jake guessed they looked pretty bad after finishing the last leg of their journey fueled solely by adrenaline and fear.
The sheriff of Barterton, Adam Maddington—a thin, serious man in his late thirties—was notified of their arrival. He immediately informed the state police and the FBI via phone.
The small police station had been relatively sleepy when Jake and Harper stumbled into it, but it started to bustle with a sense of emergency and purpose with their arrival. From snatches of distant conversation between employees, Jake started to realize that Harper’s kidnapping and the hunt for her was a gigantic deal.
“Guess we know the reason for that helicopter we heard now,” Jake mumbled to Harper as they sat side by side, listening to Sheriff Maddington and two deputies talking tersely on separate phones.
“You mean . . .”
He nodded. “Yeah. They were searching for you.”
Sheriff Maddington also called for some EMTs to come check their injuries. Afterward, he settled in to patiently listen to their story.
“You mean your uncle, Emmitt Tharp, is still back there in the woods somewhere?” he interrupted Jake’s description.
Jake glanced over at a dirt-smudged, bloodied, bruised Harper uneasily and nodded. It made him sick, to think of how he’d plunged that knife into human flesh . . . how Harper had wa
tched him. He’d felt like he didn’t have any choice. If he didn’t disable Emmitt, his uncle would catch up to them for sure.
Is that what Harper’s memory of him would be? Is that how she’d remember him, as a killer?
State troopers and two FBI agents arrived at the station during the sheriff’s questioning. They joined in the interrogation. Occasionally the adults talked tensely with each other in a muted tone Jake couldn’t make out. The overhead lights in the police station felt very harsh on his dry, burning eyes. He and Harper just sat there on two straight-backed chairs, gripping each other’s hands tightly.
There was talk of organizing a search party to find Emmitt. Jake volunteered to go with them to the location where he’d stabbed his uncle. The two agents wouldn’t agree to that plan, however. Instead, they got a map and Jake pointed out their path on it as best he could. One of the deputies who was familiar with the area told him that his descriptions of the landscape were top-notch and extremely detailed.
“Jake’s an expert in the woods,” Harper told the group of men. “He saved my life more than once.”
“You were lucky Jake was there. We all were,” one of the agents agreed, patting Jake on the shoulder before he walked away with the map in his hand. Jake flushed in mixed embarrassment and pride at that, ducking his head to hide it. Harper just held his hand even tighter.
The EMTs arrived. After examining them both, they proclaimed them essentially healthy. They told Sheriff Maddington that the worst of their combined injuries was the knife cut at the corner of Harper’s mouth. She required stitches.
Harper squeezed his hand so tight it brought tears to his eyes while the female EMT put four stitches in the wound. He knew she suffered far worse, though, so he didn’t say a word.
“Mr. Maddington, has someone called my parents?” Harper asked after the EMT had finished. Jake noticed she was visibly trembling.
“Do you think she could lie down somewhere, Sheriff?” Jake asked before Maddington could reply to Harper.
Maddington looked over at Jake, and then at Harper, and nodded. “That’s a good idea, young man.” He called out a request for some cots to his deputy. “And your mom and dad have been contacted, Harper. It was one of the first calls I made. I understand they’ve been staying at a hotel over in Poplar Gorge ever since you went missing. They’re coming here to the station, and should be here soon. Those are going to be two relieved parents.” Maddington transferred his gaze to Jake. “I put in a call to your grandma too, Jake. I need to check the number you gave me, though. It said that line was out of service.”