A feeling of mixed grim satisfaction and inevitability went through him at her words. “But you were curious, weren’t you? You had to keep digging for the truth? You contacted adoption services at the Department of Health and Human Resources in West Virginia today.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she whispered.
He dropped his hand from her face. “I know that you called West Virginia adoption services today and were asking questions in the adoption department about my adoption. I’m friends with the department head. Back then, when I was a kid, she was my adoption caseworker. She told me about you calling soon after she learned about it from one of her managers. Miranda has been pretty protective of my case over the years.”
“I never called there.”
He opened his mouth to argue, but took in her blank expression of shock.
“Who did, then? Miranda told me that a woman called, and she gave her name as Harper McFadden. That’s what brought this whole thing up with you today, right?”
She swallowed thickly. He found himself touching her again, cupping the side of her head, moving his fingertips along the column of her neck. He couldn’t stand seeing her so discombobulated and knowing the reason why was him.
“One of my reporters—Burt Chavis—came to me today. He’s been wanting to do a story on you, preferably one on the insider trading scandal and Clint Jefferies. He wanted my permission as his editor to pursue it.”
He stiffened. “Did you give it to him?”
“Don’t look at me like that, Jacob,” she said. Despite his prickle of annoyance at being told that a local reporter was indeed intent on reanimating his ghosts, he was glad to see the familiar flash of fire melt Harper’s shocked expression. “I told him that what he had was unsubstantiated and weak. I also told him that I’d never use my relationship with you to gather insider information.”
He winced. “All right. Fair enough. Who do you think did call the adoption offices in West Virginia, then?”
“That’s what I started to say—Burt Chavis came to me with some information that was weakly relevant to a story, and Ruth Dannen, our features editor, overheard him broaching the topic with me. I think they might have teamed up after Burt left my office today. Ruth wasn’t very happy when I shut her out of the conversation. She accused me of protecting you because I’m sleeping with you.”
“So you think Ruth could have called the adoption offices, asking about my case and pretending to be you?”
“I think there’s a pretty good chance, yes. One thing is for certain: It wasn’t me,” Harper said so steadfastly he believed her. Her gaze flickered over his face. “Don’t worry. I’ll confront Ruth about it. And as long as your adoption records are kept sealed tight, I honestly don’t think that story has legs to run on.”
“So how did you connect Jake Tharp to me? I thought that with time and your dad’s hypnosis, you’d completely forgotten me. And back then—when we were kids—you never answered my letters—”
He started in shock when he felt a violent shudder go through her.
“Oh my God,” she exclaimed, her hand covering her mouth. For a second, he thought she was going to be sick.
“Harper, it’s going to be okay—” he began, alarmed. She threw herself at him, cutting him off, her arms encircling him. Emotion swelled in him. She hugged him so tight. It was the way she used to hug Jake Tharp.
The sweet, desperate way she used to hug him.
“I never got them. I never got any letters, Jake. Never. Oh my God,” she repeated, her hands running anxiously over his back and shoulders. She leaned her head back and abruptly shoved at his chest. He gaped in bewilderment at her blazing expression. “I’m so mad at you! How can you think I wouldn’t remember Jake Tharp?”
“I just thought . . . maybe it all didn’t mean to you what it did to me. You had a family who adored you, a safe home.” She moaned, shaking her head furiously, but he continued to try to make her understand. “And when you told me about your dad treating your phobias and panic attacks with hypnosis, I thought maybe he’d encouraged you to forget the whole trauma . . . and Jake. I thought I was forgotten with all the rest of it.”
“I would never forget you,” she nearly shouted, touching his shoulders and then his hair. “After they told me you were dead, your memory haunted me even more. I felt like you were dead because of me. It was all my fault. If I hadn’t begged you to risk your life and save me, you’d still be alive. The world just felt like this big, horrible, unsafe place when I thought you were dead . . . knowing it was my responsibility that you were.”
“No, Harper, listen to me,” he insisted, grabbing one of her anxiously moving hands. He worried she was about to spiral into a panic. “You didn’t cost me my life. You gave it to me. Don’t you get that? Defying Emmitt and fighting him was the defining moment of my life. I would have never had the courage to do it, if I didn’t have you to do it for.” He hesitated. “You know he’s dead, right?”
He could tell by her blank expression she didn’t.
“He died in prison two years ago from a heart attack.”
She hugged him again, and for a strained moment, neither of them spoke. He clutched her tight to him, feeling the indescribably sweet beat of her heart against his.
“I can’t believe this is happening,” she gasped after a moment. “You look so different. You are so different . . . and yet, you’re not. I felt so close to you from the beginning, even though I couldn’t figure out why. I’ve been thinking more about Jake—about you—than I have since I was a teenager. I kept dreaming about being with him . . . you. I couldn’t figure out what was happening to me—”
He pulled her tighter against him when she shook with emotion. For a wild moment, they were those two ragged kids all over again, so desperate to touch each other, so needy to affirm their bond and to know that they weren’t alone in a vast, scary world. He just held her while she cried, trying his best to absorb her grief, her disbelief . . . and yes, her joy. He sensed her stunned happiness in the way she continued to touch him frantically, as though she were trying to reassure herself of the reality of him. It was her anxious touch that tore at him more than anything.
“I don’t understand . . . and I want to so badly,” she said wetly. “There was never any car accident?”
“Car accident?” he asked, leaning back and peering at her face, puzzled.