Even before his harsh breathing had begun to ease, he withdrew and bent behind her, releasing her from the spreader bar.

“Slowly,” he instructed as he helped her to straighten, his hands on her shoulders. Harper understood what he meant. She felt disoriented and a little dizzy, not only from having blood flow toward her head for a period of time, but from extended arousal. “Stand still a moment,” he murmured when she looked over her shoulder at him, and immediately started to go into his arms.

She waited, watching his tense face and the rapid rise and fall of his powerful chest.

“Okay?” he asked after a moment of holding her upright.

She nodded.

“Then come here.” He swept down and planted a hard kiss on her mouth, grabbing her hand at the same time.

He led her to the bathroom and opened the glass door to the shower. Harper turned on the water while he disposed of the condom. Then they were standing under the hot water together. He held her tight against him, running his hands up and down the length of her wet body. He didn’t say anything, but the fullness of the moment left a tightness in her chest.

“You gave so much of yourself,” he said, his mouth moving against her ear and then her neck. “Thank you, Harper.”

“You always give so much to me,” she replied through a tight throat. She clutched at the dense muscle of his shoulders, emotion flooding her.

“Shhh,” he soothed softly, nudging her chin with his nose. How was it he always knew what was happening inside her? She lifted her face, and his mouth fastened on hers.

He washed her after that, his hands on her body a sensual worship. He brought her to climax while he held her, his mouth eating up her sharp cries. And as she recovered from his deep, intoxicating kiss, she finally acknowledged that something had changed. Nothing would ever be the same again.

Not between her and Jacob.

Not ever in her life.

Harper said she was fine after that, but there was a dazed quality to her that made him worry he’d taken too much from her and worn her out yet again. After they’d dressed and left the bedroom, twilight had fallen. He led her up to the galley, where they made a tray laden with Lisa’s fried chicken, salad, two small strawberry crème brûlées and a bottle of chardonnay. They took it to the top deck to eat. He demolished the meal, his hunger made sharp by the memory of their lovemaking . . . by the light in Harper’s eyes. He’d never felt her smiles so deeply as he did that night, under the light of the setting sun.

After they’d eaten, they took their wineglasses to the rail and gazed out across the rippling water as night slowly descended.

“Is that the fireworks barge there?” Harper asked, pointing toward shore and the dark shape on the water in the distance.

“That’s it,” he murmured, nuzzling her fragrant neck. She’d thrown on a gold sundress after they’d gotten out of the shower, leaving part of her sun-kissed back and her shoulders bare. He stroked her silky skin as they looked out at the darkening water. He seemed incapable of stopping touching her.

“Why did you start sponsoring the fireworks?” she asked, her relaxed, mellow voice making him think the meal had revived her. He urged her with his hand on her upper arms, and she curled against him, her back to his front, both of them facing the shimmering lake. He wore only a pair of shorts. Her exposed skin felt good against his own.

“I like fireworks.”

She twisted her chin and looked up at him, and he sensed her amused exasperation at his enigmatic answer. He smiled.

“I never saw a firework display until I was almost sixteen years old. Every kid should have an opportunity to see fireworks a couple times a year. It should be a summertime childhood guarantee. Fireworks. Ice cream. A barbecue. Maybe I can’t supply the ice cream and the barbecue to everyone, but I can provide the show.”

She spun in his loose hold and put her hand at the back of his neck, beckoning him. He noticed the blazing quality of her eyes, and then he was sinking into her sweet, generous kiss.

Jacob reclined against some pillows on the sofa, and she lay between his long legs, her head resting in his lap. He’d brought out a blanket. She snuggled beneath it, warm and content beneath it and next to the heat of his body. He’d turned on a stereo earlier, and the sounds of classical music swirled around them in the darkness. She looked up at the brilliant fireworks display in the sky, but her entire awareness was caught up in the sensation of his fingertips lightly skimming her bare shoulder, the feeling of his body beneath her and his long, strong legs bracketing her. She stopped fighting it. For the first time, she accepted the full, sweet feeling in her chest.

She’d fallen in love with him. And there, in that moment shared so completely with him under the stars with colorful fireworks shooting across the sky, she knew that no matter what happened, no matter how short or long their time together, she would do it all again. He was a man who deserved to be loved unselfishly. Wholesale. For all of his many glories. For all of his sadness.

For all of his secrets.

Twenty Years Ago

Jake drove them hard all that day, only allowing them brief respites for food and water. This wasn’t hiking like Harper was used to doing with her parents, an easy stroll through pre-blazed trails. This was grueling, sweaty work made even more challenging by the fact that Jake was as fastidious and careful in their movements in the forest as he was ruthless in keeping them traveling at a brisk pace. If they broke a branch during that exhausting ten-hour trudge, Harper would have been shocked. He insisted they move through the territory with utmost caution. She came to admire his agility in the woods, his almost dancerlike avoidance of trees and brittle brush beneath his feet. She came to resent it, too, as the warm summer day wore on and her fatigue mounted. Not just her exhaustion weighed on her. The first several hours of their hike had been undertaken in the rain. The wet, in combination with the fact that Jake’s old tennis shoes were a little large on her, had brought out a blister on her right heel. The pain became excruciating.

“Jake, I can’t take any more of this. We gotta stop. Please?” she begged him through a parched throat. They’d just approached a clear stream and Jake had bent to refill their canteen. The coolness coming off the water and the soothing sound of the trickling brook had made her long for peace and rest.

He stood and handed her the canteen. She drank from it greedily and then handed it back to him.

“Why are you crying?” he asked her sharply.

“What?” she touched her face dazedly. “It’s this blister,” she admitted, lifting her foot. “It hurts so bad.” She blinked at the sound of his curse and looked down to where he stared. Crimson blood had leaked through the dirt-stained white canvas.

“God damn it, Harper. Come here.”

She followed him and sat where he directed, sitting on a large rock beside the stream. He pulled out of his pack the familiar first-aid equipment they’d used for her wrists. He washed her foot in the cold water. She gritted her teeth at the mixed feeling of pain and relief.

Jake noticed.

“You should have said something.”

“I didn’t want to complain,” she grated out miserably. “You’ve seemed so worried ever since we left the cave.”

“We’re out in the open now. We’re vulnerable,” he said irritably as he dried the blister with a corner of a blanket. He smeared on some antibiotic ointment and then bandaged her. For the hundredth time since she’d first met Jake, she wondered at how such a skinny kid could make her feel like she was in the hands of a competent adult. He could make her feel like a stupid little kid like some adults could, too. “Your feet are important, Harper. You should have told me when you first thought you were getting a blister.”

“I was trying not to complain,” she repeated. Unwanted tears swelled in her eyes, products of her fear and exhaustion . . . and shame at the irritation in his tone. He was scared, and seeing his fear undid her.

He glanced around the forest distractedly as he pulled an extra pair of socks out of their pack.

“Shit. They got a little damp,” he said, grimacing at the socks.

“I don’t care.”

“I do,” he snapped. “Don’t you know anything? We need to keep your feet dry, damn it.”

“Well excuse me! I’m sorry I can’t control whether or not I get a blister. You were pushing us like we were on some kind of a death march.”

“The marching part isn’t death,” he seethed. “The standing still is. If Emmitt has caught our trail, he’ll catch up, and it ain’t gonna be pretty when he does.”

She started back at his harsh statement. After a few seconds, he seemed to focus in on her face. He clenched his eyelids shut. She saw the muscles in his thin neck convulse as he swallowed.

“Do you think you can make it another half hour or so?” he asked her levelly after a moment. “There’s a place up ahead that offers a little shelter. We can camp there for the night, and leave at first light.”

“You wanted to keep going until night comes. It can’t be much more than four or five o’clock, can it?” she asked, miserable at seeing his fraying nerves, hating that she was the one holding them back on their flight to safety.

He shoved her foot into a sock. “It’s going to be all right. Just answer me. Do you think you can make it?”

“Yes. I’m sorry, Jake.”

He looked every bit as miserable as she felt when he looked up at her, the bloody tennis shoe clasped in his hand.

“It’s not your fault,” he said. “I’m sorry for . . . you know.”

“You don’t have to apologize. You have a right to be scared, Jake. We’re just kids. You don’t always have to be so brave for me.”

He ducked his head. She knew, because of that invisible bond they shared, that he was embarrassed.

“We’ll be scared together, okay?” she asked, forcing a grin. Somehow, witnessing his flash of fear and watching how he carefully contained it made her want to be there for him. “And we’ll be brave together, too. And you’re right. Everything will be okay.” She reached down and took the tennis shoe from him, hiding her wince as she put it back on.

That night, they camped out on the edge of a bluff that was obscured by trees and a rocky overhang. They put out the slightly damp blankets and clothing to dry. Harper insisted that she hold up to her promise and cut his hair. Afterward, Jake carefully cleaned up the dark blond strands and buried them under a rock.

“I did a good job,” Harper told him later, reaching out to comb her fingers through his thick, soft hair. He started slightly at her caress, then stilled like a cautious animal. His hair was a good excuse to touch him, something she increasingly took pleasure in doing. “I can see your eyes better this way. You look handsome.”

“Cut it out, Harper,” he mumbled, and she knew by his pink cheeks she’d embarrassed him. He ducked his head and jerkily backed away from her hand.

“You do.” She studied him curiously as he poked around in his backpack for something, avoiding her stare. “What’s wrong? Hasn’t anyone every told you you’re nice looking before?”

“No. I don’t give a damn about what people think of how I look,” he said, frowning furiously. “Shit. Where’s that cream for your blister?”

“Liar. You care. And stop cussing so much. It doesn’t sound good coming out of your mouth.”

“Harper—” he began, a dangerous expression on his face.

She cut him off by lunging toward him, grabbing the backpack, and immediately finding the ointment in a side pocket. Scowling furiously, he set about tending to her wounds.

Harper consoled herself with the fact that despite his edgy state, he still seemed to take as much comfort in having an excuse to touch her as she did him.

She didn’t need Jake to tell her that they wouldn’t be allowed a fire that night. Emmitt might see it if he was stalking them and close on their trail. She’d never camped out in the relative open, like they would tonight. Last night’s close run-in with the mountain lion still had her traumatized. She’d never sleep tonight, envisioning either a mountain lion pouncing on them and ripping at skin and muscle with sharp teeth, or Emmitt grabbing them from the realms of sleep. She couldn’t decide which scary thought was worse, but was leaning toward Emmitt versus the starving mountain lion.

Of course, she couldn’t voice any of these fears out loud to Jake. She and her stupid blister were the reason they were exposed tonight, anyway. And while Emmitt Tharp might have something horrible in mind for Harper, he probably would kill Jake . . . possibly right in front of her.

Her fears began to smother her by nightfall.

They wrapped themselves in all of the blankets and huddled on the hard earth, clasping each other tight for warmth. Harper thought of that first night they’d slept together, and how she’d been so shy and uncertain about suggesting they share body heat. Now she couldn’t imagine sleeping in that black, oppressive darkness without Jake holding her tight against him. He’d single-handedly kept her terror at bay for the last several days. He’s saved her from Emmitt Tharp. She shivered upon saying the name of their stalker again in her head. Homesickness overwhelmed her, a bone-deep longing for the sight of her parents’ faces, the safety and confidence her father always instilled . . . her mother’s touch.

She squeezed back tears with her clamped eyelids.

“Shhh,” Jake soothed, his mouth near her ear. She should have known she couldn’t hide her misery from him. Her fear. He pressed his lips to her temple. “It’s going to be okay, Harper. I’m going to keep you safe.”

“I’ll keep you safe, too,” she insisted raggedly. “I’m going to tell my parents all about you. They aren’t going to let Emmitt see you or hurt you anymore. I know they won’t. Jake?” she asked in a small voice when he didn’t say anything.

“It’s okay, Harper. I can take care of myself.”

That feeling of unfairness she’d been having amplified even more. It wasn’t right, that this amazing, smart, nice boy had to carry so much weight on his narrow shoulders. Surely her parents would see that? They would come to care about him, maybe as much as Harper had.

Maybe she could convince them to take Jake in! Their town house in Georgetown was large. Her mother hardly ever used her den. She preferred to write in the atrium. They could clear the den out for Jake’s bedroom.

The idea burned in her, chasing away her boiling fear.

She wouldn’t say anything to Jake yet. She didn’t want to get his—or her own—hopes up. But her parents trusted in her opinion, much more so than any other parents she knew trusted their child. For now, her plan would have to stay her secret, though.

She exhaled shakily, her head tucked beneath Jake’s chin. His fingers flexed on her shoulder.

“You hear that?” he asked softly.

She listened, fear welling up in her.

“What?” she squeaked. “Not . . . not Emmitt?”

“No. That sound, way off in the distance,” he whispered. “Listen.”

She listened with all her might. Finally, she heard it: the far distant mechanical chuffing sound.

“What is it?” she asked Jake breathlessly.

“I think it’s a helicopter.”

Excitement zapped through her. She sat up partially. “A helicopter? Maybe we should start a fire to signal them!”

“We can’t. It could signal Emmitt, too. Besides, it’s too far off. Miles probably, given the way sound travels in these mountains.”

He urged her with his fingers, and she came down next to him again, hugging him close.

“Don’t be so disappointed,” he said quietly after a moment. “We should be in Barterton by nightfall tomorrow.”

“Yeah,” she whispered. Somehow, hearing that helicopter, that distant evidence of another human being, had made her feel very lonely.

“Tomorrow is going to be another long day,” he said bracingly. “I don’t want to spend another night out in the open, so we’ll have to push hard, even with your sore foot. So try to sleep, okay?”

“I can do it. Don’t worry. I won’t hold us back,” she whispered, going over her secret plan in her head to have Jake come live with them again, taking courage from it like she would the warmth of a fire.

Miraculously, she fell asleep in the vastness of that terrifying night, feeling safe in the enclosure of Jake’s arms.