“What’s a matter, Jake? Worried about Little Red here? Didn’t you tell her you like boys?”
“Shut up, Emmitt.”
Harper blinked, shock making her rise slightly above her terror for a moment. Jake sounded scared, but also cold.
And hard.
She realized something else. Suddenly Jake was staring at her, not at Emmitt. It was just for a split second, but his eyes compelled her.
“I’m going to cut her right in front of you if you take another step, then I’ll make her watch while I gut and skin you. Get back, you fucking runt.”
Jake held his ground, though. The sharp knife shifted to Harper’s cheek. “How would you like a scar on your little girlfriend here?” Emmitt taunted. “Think she’d be so pretty then?”
“Let her go.”
Emmitt tensed, pressing harder with the knife. Harper clamped her eyelids shut, tears leaking from beneath her eyelids. She was suffocating. She couldn’t breathe. Everything went into brutal slow motion.
Something pelted her face—hundreds of little missiles—and time suddenly leapt forward. She felt a sharp stinging sensation at the corner of her mouth, and then her lungs hitched, and she was breathing in dirt. Emmitt’s tight hold on her relented. She lunged forward, tripping. Someone caught her—Jake. He righted her forcefully before his hold was gone. She realized she wasn’t the only one coughing. Emmitt was, too . . . with hoarse, violent choking sounds.
She spun around, her coughing fit freezing for a moment at the vision of Jake standing next to his uncle. He gripped Emmitt’s large knife in his hand. Emmitt was bent at the waist, coughing violently and digging at his eyes with his fists, trying to clear his vision from the dirt and small stones Jake had thrown into his face.
Jake lifted the cruel-looking, long silver blade. Harper’s heart stopped. He paused with knife poised in the air and glanced over at Harper. She sensed his terror. His helplessness.
Then something clicked in his eyes as he stared at her.
He brought the knife down, plunging it into his uncle’s back and then his side. Emmitt grunted and went down hard to the forest floor on his knees. He fell forward to his hands. Jake made a wild sound in his throat, and the blood-smeared knife fell to the forest floor.
“Grab a pack, Harper,” he told her after a few seconds of staring down at Emmitt, who was gagging and writhing around, on his belly now. Jake’s voice sounded hollow and funny to Harper’s stunned brain, but hearing it unfroze her, too.
She raced over to the fallen tarp, still coughing dust and dirt out of her throat. She tossed aside the tarp frantically and grabbed the two packs. When she turned, she saw Jake picking up the knife, a disgusted, desperate expression tightening his thin face as he stared at Emmitt.
“Jake,” she rasped.
He blinked and met her stare. Some message passed between them quick as electricity. He nodded and came over to her, reaching for one of the packs. Hastily, he jerked the tarp completely away from the area, picking up Harper’s bloody shoe and the fallen bottle of antiseptic cream from a blanket. He tossed them into his pack along with Emmitt’s horrible knife.
“Let’s go,” he whispered tensely. His hand closed around hers, and as always, Harper followed his lead.
She took one last look over her shoulder at Emmitt gasping and writhing, struggling to push himself up off the ground. Then Jake pulled on her hand, and they were running like mad through the forest.
thirty-five
Present Day
Harper awoke with a small sob. Again, tears dampened her cheeks. She remembered more details of her dream than she had earlier today, but it was still murky. Mostly, it was the swelling emotion in her chest that lingered.
It took her a moment to find her bearings. She saw the glow from the distant yacht bridge and felt their subtle rocking in the water. The star-strewn sky curved above them, a half-moon lighting the surroundings to a surprising degree. Memory hit her in a rush. They’d fallen asleep after watching the fireworks.
“Jacob?” she murmured. She flipped over onto her belly on the sofa.
“Harper?” He stirred at her movement, his fingers falling out of her hair, his knee bending and rubbing against her shoulder. She rose up over him, planting her hands next to his head and settling her body beneath his spread legs. He felt warm and solid and wonderful. His hand rose again to her head, but his eyes were still closed. “It’s okay, Harper. Everything’s going to be all right,” he said groggily.
A pain went through her at his automatic, unconscious response. Again, that feeling of sharp longing sliced through her. She thought of how Jacob took care of the troubled Regina Morrow, and gave children of his town a moment of carefree summer fun with the fireworks; how he sponsored the women’s shelter Harper had gotten Ellie into, and how he protected neglected or abused animals with the local shelter. He did all those things—and probably countless other acts of kindness and generosity that she didn’t know about.
And how the first thing he did, even in the midst of sleep, was assure her—Harper—that everything was all right
Even so, people like Ruth Dannen and thousands of others made sly, nasty comments about his character.
A huge, powerful feeling of love and compassion rose in her. She pulled her sundress up to her waist and yanked the blanket up over her shoulder and part of her head, tenting them partially. She leaned down and rained small kisses on his jaw, finally settling on his mouth with a fevered kiss. It took her a moment to awaken him, but knew she had when his firm lips started to move beneath hers and his hands grasped her upper arms.