by BETH KERY
“Didn’t the doctor recommend that she go back to rehab?”
“Of course he did, and they had a social worker come and talk to her to try to convince her to return. But they can’t force her to go, and Regina was flat out refusing.”
“Where is she now?” Harper asked, stepping closer.
“Back at her hotel room, sleeping.”
“Do you think she’ll be all right? Alone?”
“No. Last night I arranged for Elizabeth to fly in and stay with her. Elizabeth will get her back to Napa later today. Regina has a psychiatrist there that she trusts. I’ve let him know what happened. Regina agreed to go back last night. Let’s hope she remembers the agreement this morning.”
She touched his face with cool fingertips. The caress took him by surprise. He hadn’t been prepared for tenderness on her part. He would have thought he’d be reassured by it, but instead he was even more worried. Her calmness somehow made him wary . . . like she was pulling away from him. He would have preferred accusations and tears.
“You look exhausted,” she said quietly.
He reached up and held her wrist, keeping her fingers in place on his skin . . . always doubtful something would pull her away.
Even now.
“So do you,” he replied, his gaze running over her face. The scar near her mouth looked even paler than usual, and there were light purple circles beneath her eyes.
“You did all that for her,” she whispered.
He grimaced. “I didn’t feel like I had a choice. She’s been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, and she has a history of cocaine and heroin abuse. I wasn’t sure what else she’d taken, besides alcohol. She couldn’t tell me, the state she was in. That’s why I took her to the hospital.”
“I understand.” Her fingers slipped off his face. He saw her swallow thickly. She looked achingly beautiful to him in the pale morning light. So far out of your reach.
“It’s just all been . . . unsettling. I had no idea you cared about another woman that way, especially one so beautiful. And to wake up and realize you were gone . . .”
“I thought I’d get back before you got up. I didn’t want to wake you last night. Damn it, I don’t know how else to tell you to make you believe me.”
“Tell me what?”
“I’m not sleeping with Regina. It’s not like that.”
“You don’t have to keep saying that. I believe you. What kind of a friend would you be, abandoning her when she was in so much trouble,” she said, staring down at the ground. “I guess her date—that guy, David?—wasn’t much of one. A friend, I mean. He left her alone?”
“Yeah,” Jacob replied, frowning.
“It seems like you’re used to it.”
“What?”
“Riding to her rescue,” she replied quietly, studying his pant legs. “When you were called away the other night, when were supposed to have dinner. Did you go to Napa because of her? I only wondered because Elizabeth told me you were in Napa for an emergency.”
He put his fingers beneath her chin and lifted her face. “I can understand that you’re curious. But Regina deserves some privacy in all this. I don’t think it’s fair for me to talk about her problems to someone she doesn’t even know. I realize these circumstances aren’t ideal. I’m sorry it happened while we were here together. Trust me, I wish like hell it hadn’t.”
Her blue-green eyes looked moist. She nodded abruptly.
“You’re right. I would have liked you less, knowing that you were the type to abandon a friend when they were in need. I’m glad you went to help her.”
“Thank you,” he said, holding her stare. “Elizabeth will have things in hand. You don’t need to worry about it anymore. It’s done. Okay?”
She’s not going to be this forgiving forever.
He pushed down the sarcastic voice in his head. Harper hadn’t left, and she wasn’t freezing him out. For the moment, anyway. Still, he felt uncharacteristically doubtful about how to proceed.
She nodded, attempting a smile. “You should get some sleep before you have to get back to work again.”
He glanced around the sunlit pool area and over the balcony onto the Pacific Ocean, really taking in his surroundings for the first time since arriving home. The only thing he’d been able to consider since seeing that empty bed was finding Harper. A gust of sea air rushed over him, sweeping away the cobwebs of his sleepless night and anxiety. Or maybe it was Harper’s clear, crystalline eyes and gentle touch that had done that.
“How about a swim? It might help us to sleep a few hours.”
“I didn’t bring a swimsuit. That’s why I’m wearing this,” she said, nodding down at her shorts and T-shirt.
“You don’t need a swimsuit.”
She gave him a give me a break look. “You’re bound and determined to see me shamed in front of your staff at some point, aren’t you?”
“If you don’t want to, we won’t have sex.”
It was like she was fading, and he needed to connect with her again. The only way that felt right at the moment wasn’t Jacob’s way.
It was Jake’s.
He didn’t like the idea of reverting back to it, but the alternative of watching Harper continue to move away from him was worse. It was stupid on his part, but the compulsion was strong.
“Come on,” he coaxed. “It’ll feel good. Then we’ll go up and take a nap.”
He saw the hesitation in her eyes and thought he knew part of the cause of it. He turned and jogged up the flight of stairs to the glass doors. He opened one and reached inside, touching a button. Opaque blinds began to slide down the terrace windows.
“The staff knows not to come outside if they’re down,” he said when he returned to her.
She rolled her eyes. “You’re hardly really reassuring me, Jacob.”
He exhaled, seeing his misstep. She’d assumed his staff was trained not to come outside when the blinds were down because he was privately engaged with a woman when they were.
She’d assumed correctly.
Fuck. Sometimes, it felt like all the tools that had worked with him in the past with women—even his aloofness—weren’t assets with Harper, but liabilities. He reached up and tucked an escaped tendril of hair behind her ear, then brushed her cheek with the back of his knuckles. She was so soft. So beautiful. Something seemed to well up in him. God, he must be exhausted.
“Just swim with me,” he murmured, dipping his head and kissing her nose. “I know you like to swim.”
“How do you know that?” she asked, a hint of wariness crossing her features.
“You said you like the water when we were out on the yacht. You just seem like a swimmer,” he said, deflecting his error. “Come on, I dare you.”
She laughed and shook her head, finally shrugging in acquiescence. Relief swept through him. “What the hell? I don’t get a chance to take a dip in a place like this often.” She waved at the pool and terrace and the view of the Pacific Ocean.
“Okay,” he said, stepping away from her. He reached down to untie his shoes. “Whoever hits the water first wins the prize.”
She looked startled, and he thought he knew why. She’d expected a seduction, despite what he’d said. He’d told her he’d always undress her for sex. “What kind of a prize?” she asked.
He stood, shrugged, and kicked off his shoes. “The pride of being the fastest stripper, I guess.”
Her eyes caught fire. Victory flashed through him. He knew that look all too well.
“I’ll win,” she told him steadfastly, whipping off her shirt and immediately attacking the buttons on her shorts. “I’ve got less on.”
He laughed full out and turned away, jerking his jacket off. Even before he could start on his shirt, he heard a whoop and a loud splash in the water.
“Too slow, sucka.”
He turned, his expression rigid, his belt buckle clutched in his hand. She treaded water in the center of the pool, grinning from ear to ear.
God bless it, girl.
The voice rang out of his past, crystal clear. It was Jake Tharp’s overwhelmed voice. Maybe it was his.
He dropped his shirt to a lounge chair a few seconds later, a feeling of inevitability hitting him.
No. It was both of them—Jake and Jacob—combined. Only Harper could have brought Jake to life again in him.
Only Harper could have made it feel achingly bittersweet.
* * *
Twenty Years Ago
She surfaced a second after he did in the river, gasping and sucking air into her lungs. She stared at him blankly for a second while she treaded water, as if the fall had rattled her brain and she didn’t recognize who he was.
“Harper?” Jake asked worriedly. “You okay?”
Her sudden radiant smile floored him.
“Can we do it again?” she asked.
“What?”
“That was so cool!”
He scoffed doubtfully, swimming closer to her. “Did you hurt your head?” he asked, examining the bruise and abrasion on her forehead that Emmitt had given her. Maybe the cliff jump had made it worse?
“No.” She looked offended. “What, a city girl can’t get off on an adrenaline rush?”
“Maybe a city girl,” he mumbled. Their treading legs brushed together, sending tingling pleasure through him. “Don’t know about you, though. You said you hated heights. Now you want to do it again? Are you crazy?”
She laughed and stared up the stark face of the cliff.
“Wow,” she said. Her eyes sparkled. It was like she’d said, I did that.
“You did it, all right,” he acknowledged gruffly. She looked at him, perhaps startled that he’d read her mind. Her smile grew even wider. She slapped at the water.
“That was the most amazing thing I’ve ever done. I was scared out of mind.” She jetted backward on her back and then spun around completely in a circle, only to swoosh backward again. Jake scurried to keep up with her.
“What are you, a damn otter or something?” he grumbled.
“I can’t help it. I like to swim. And that was fantastic.”
She let out a whoop at having conquered her fear. Maybe it was more than that. She came to a standstill and pushed with her hands, leaping up in the water like a playful dolphin. Jake went wide-eyed at the vision of his Mountaineer’s T-shirt plastered against her supple torso and firm, thrusting breasts.
“God bless it, girl, get a hold of yourself. Do you want Emmitt to hear?” he spat. But that’s not really what he meant. What he meant was more like, God bless it, what the hell are you doing to me?
Her eyes flashed at him and she sunk down to her chin in the water. Regret and embarrassment swept through him at his show of temper . . .
. . . at her wide-eyed hurt and disbelief.
“Where do we get out,” she asked coldly after a moment, her brows slanted angrily.
He waved at a landing thirty feet or so downstream. She immediately launched into the water. By the time he caught up to her, she was already standing and walking toward the sandbar, jerkily straightening the soaked, clinging T-shirt off her hips, bottom, and thighs at the same time.
“Harper, I’m sorry. It’s just . . . you were being really loud,” he said, sloshing behind her in waist-deep water.
“You’re mean sometimes,” she declared bluntly, pausing to gather her T-shirt at the thighs and wring it out.
“I ain’t mean.”
She glanced around, her gaze narrowing on his face. He knelt lower in the water, trying to shield any evidence of the hurt he’d felt at her proclamation.
“Do you really want to do it again?” he blurted out.
Her gaze strayed to the stark cliff face, and again he saw that flicker of exhilaration on her expression. “I think so. Do we have time to do it now?”
He looked at the position of the early morning sun in the sky and shook his head. “It’ll take too long for us to hike back up. We have to be careful not to leave a trail. It’ll take time, not only to get up there, but to sweep our tracks. We need to stay low in the cave for the rest of the day. Maybe tomorrow at dawn we can go again. Tomorrow afternoon, I’ll scout around a bit. If there’s still no sign of Emmitt in the area, he likely took the false trail all the way to Poplar Gorge. It’ll be safe to start for Barterton.”
He regretted bringing up his uncle when he saw all the color drain from her face. “So you think he did take the false trail?” she asked hopefully.
“Maybe for a ways he did. It’s hard to tell. Even if he catches on, it’ll take him a while to do it. He’ll have to backtrack. Then he’ll have to hunt out the new trail.”
“Do you think he could? Even with as careful as we were?” She blanched, obviously recalling his admonitions for her lead feet yesterday. “You were careful, I mean.”
“I doubt it,” Jake said with false assuredness, disliking the return of her anxiety. He fumbled beneath the waistband of his briefs, his actions hidden by the river. A few seconds later, he triumphantly held up the bar of soap he’d stashed in his underwear.
“It survived the fall.”
She smiled. “Do we have time?”
He nodded. She dove toward him eagerly in the shallow water, stopping in front of him and mimicking his position. They both knelt on their knees, facing each other. His heart leapt when she reached for him with both hands, grinning.
“Nice, clean soap,” she enthused, feeling for the bar between his clutching fingers. She lifted his hand above the water, cupped it with both her hands, and moved aside his fingers to expose the soap. She began rubbing. Lather began to spread on their skin. He watched, spellbound, pleasure tickling his nerves. It felt so good, he held on to the soap desperately, not wanting her to stop touching him.
She reached suddenly, scrubbing his cheek. He started, and she laughed. He reached, returning the gesture and including her nose. Her eyes sprang wide in surprise, and then she was reaching with both soapy hands, raking them down his face.
“Hey,” he muttered in a put-out fashion, pinching his eyes closed. “You got it in my eyes.”
“I’m sorry,” she soothed. She heaved water in his face. He blinked water out of his eyes, bringing her into focus incredulously.
“Oh, you’re going to pay for that,” he promised.
She laughed hysterically and dove into the water, but he was already after her. He caught her foot, and she squealed.
Their “bath” was a squirming, tickling, poking fight for the soap interspersed with Jake reminding them both to hush their splashing and laughter.
He wanted to stay with her in that water forever, hearing her muted snorts and hushed, sparkling laughter, feeling her smooth limbs tangle with his and her hands on him, pinching and poking sometimes, flickering and sliding against his skin at others . . . making him ache.
It was like he stole those delicious moments from another world, as if they existed in some magical in-between space where Emmitt Tharp couldn’t enter, or Harper’s parents.
No one. No one, but them.
The fourth time he took note of the sun’s position, he regretfully spoke, shattering their golden, fragile little private world.
“We gotta get back,” he said, his fingers in her long, wet hair, wiping away remaining suds. She splashed water on the side of his head, rinsing away soap from his ear. He sputtered and rolled his eyes when she splashed him again. “I’m serious, Harper.”
She sighed, deflated. Regret swooped through him. Suddenly, she brightened.
“Race you to shore,” she said in a rush before she heaved face-first into the water.
“Hey, wait. That’s not fair,” he called, but
she was already showing off her smooth, strong crawl, impervious to his excuses. He watched, enthralled at the vision of her pale, kicking thighs and bare lower buttocks flashing just beneath the surface of the water. She was so pretty, yet so easy to be with. So incredible.
So untouchable.
How could he think that, he wondered numbly, when he’d just had his hands all over her? But that had just been them fooling around. Playing.
That wasn’t the real thing.
Instead of taking off after her, he treaded water until she stood on the sandbank. He needed the moment to bring his spiraling, uncooperative body under control.
When he stood and slogged toward shore a moment later, she waited at the edge of the water, wringing out her wet hair and wearing a golden smile.
“Too slow, sucka,” she teased.
“You got that right,” he grumbled, ducking his head to hide his dark look.
He had an uncomfortable thought that he’d always be too slow—too wrong—to ever fit into Harper McFadden’s world.
Chapter Five
Present Day
Harper thought maybe she swam faster than she had for her varsity swim meet finals to get away from Jacob, but there was no real competition. He caught her ankle almost immediately, yanking her backward in the water. She broke the surface, snorting with laughter and wiping water out of her eyes.
“Too slow, sucka,” Jacob murmured. Seeing his smug smile, she splashed water in his face.
“Hey,” he said, brows furrowed in an expression of mock offense. He grabbed the arm she’d been planning on using to splash him again. Then he grabbed the other, bringing her closer to him. She squirmed, trying to get away and laughing at her failure.
“Stupid to resist,” he said, still grinning even wider now. She loved seeing that smile.
“Cocky bastard.” She deliberately bumped her forehead into his, clunking their skulls. She saw his eye go wide in disbelief before she took advantage of his loosened hold and heaved her body away from him. He grabbed her again on the shallow end, and she surfaced, choking with laughter.