Jake
The folded piece of notebook paper fell from Harper’s numb fingertips. Grief tore through her, choking off everything for a pain-filled moment. She’d read loneliness and longing between every blue-inked word.
And there had been no one to hear him. No one for twenty years.
She realized that his arms were around her, and his lips were on her ear. “I’m sorry,” he said hoarsely. “I didn’t mean to upset you. I never thought I’d show them to another person. I’ve been going back and forth since I first saw you here in Tahoe Shores about whether or not to show you.”
“Don’t be sorry. I want to read them all,” she said emphatically in a rush. “They were meant to be read. They were meant to be read by me.”
Another wave of sadness washed over her at the realization, and then he was silently urging her to stand. He lifted her into his arms and carried her over to the bed, where he put her down gently. He slid onto the mattress with her and took her into his arms.
“Don’t cry,” he entreated quietly as he held her, as she sensed his misery. “Please don’t cry for me, Harper.”
She hugged him tight to her, unable to stop the torrent of grief. “I’m crying for Jake,” she said.
He didn’t try to halt her grieving then. He just held her until the storm had passed, and she slept.
• • •
When she awoke the next morning, she immediately thought of the box of letters, and knew that she’d rise from bed in a moment and read every last one of them, finally hearing that lost boy’s thoughts, finally acknowledging his dreams.
For the moment, though, she lifted her head and studied the man who had held her fast throughout the night. Something told her he always would hold her so securely, always would keep her safe, even when he himself suffered.
Jake had always been like that.
Again, she visually traced the miracle of his handsome face as he lay sleeping.
He’d been the one to pull out that old Converse box. He hadn’t meant to upset her, of course. Her grief had been inevitable. But surely in revealing those letters, he was unburying a part of his past . . . revealing a vulnerable part of himself.
Exposing Jake Tharp to her loving eyes.
He looked strained, even as he slept, and Harper wondered if he’d just recently fallen asleep. She touched his face softly, willing some of his tension to fade. Maybe in time, it would. Something told her that perhaps she hadn’t been the only one grieving the loss of Jake Tharp last night.
And that was just as it should be.
forty-two
Two Weeks Later
Harper looked up at the sound of the door opening. She sat cross-legged on the floor near the fireplace of Jacob’s suite. Actually, they’d both started to call it their suite or their bedroom in the past few weeks. Harper had even caught Elizabeth saying your suite a few times recently. It was a natural consequence of the fact that she’d spent every hour there at the mansion with Jacob when she wasn’t working, ever since Regina’s death.
“Are you reading those things again?” Jacob asked her, a small, incredulous smile on his mouth as he walked toward her. He looked especially tall and incredible to her from her position on the floor. He’d come from his office, she knew, even though it was Sunday. She scanned his face, looking for signs of fatigue or grief, but no . . . He looked good. Very good . . . all powerful, virile male. He wore a pair of jeans that looked fantastic on his tall, fit body and a dark blue T-shirt that showed off his muscular arms and chest ideally. They’d been out on the yacht yesterday afternoon, and the sun had given his skin a healthy glow. His gaze on her was warm, as always.
Even though he spent a lot of time with her in the evenings, he’d worked every day since Regina’s funeral, often returning to his office once Harper fell asleep. Harper tried not to complain. She thought focusing on work was helping him through the difficult period. But increasingly, she was growing worried. Often she was aware of him returning to bed at night, and holding her against him. When that happened, she sometimes sensed his arousal. But they didn’t make love. They hadn’t, ever since Regina had died.
There was a chained quality to him she couldn’t comprehend.
Although he was attentive and loving to her when they were together, he seemed strained. Although he touched her frequently, and they’d never been more intimate in their communication, they never came together in the fierce, no-holds-barred manner in which she’d grown used to . . . which she loved. Harper was starting to suspect that Regina’s death, and the guilt he’d carried since he was a child, had scarred him more deeply than she’d first suspected.
Even though she was nervous about confronting him about their strained physical distance, she was determined to do it tonight. The longer she waited, the further he might move away from her. And afte
r all they’d been through, distance between them was something she refused to tolerate.
He sat down on the couch near her and she set aside one of the letters. Milo was in her lap. She idly petted the drowsy puppy’s ear.
“I like reading the letters,” she replied to his question with a smile.
“They don’t make you cry anymore,” he said quietly, studying her face with that sharp, narrowed gaze that saw so much. “I’m glad.”