forest. Would he go back there now that he didn’t have a house to live in?
She had a feeling he would. She had a feeling he was hunkered down somewhere alone. A cave, or a cropping of trees. Somewhere he felt safe. Did you not come to me because you didn’t know how? Because you felt so lost in this world? Was it because she hadn’t gone to him? She’d wanted to, only Agent Gallagher had thought it best that he deliver the news, get the answers he needed. And truth be told, she’d needed some time to get herself together after what she’d seen. God, her heart hurt.
She couldn’t simply sit around waiting for news, and the sheriff’s office wasn’t mounting a search. He wasn’t a criminal. Well, if you didn’t count the whole bird-freeing thing (but his grandfather had apparently talked his step-grandmother into not pressing charges for that). Nor was he a missing person. He was a victim. And he’d walked away from Thornland Estate without a backward glance.
Harper threw on her coat and pulled on her boots, grabbed her purse, and locked her door behind her. Twenty minutes later, she was pulling off the highway onto the back road that led to the closed-off logging trail.
The walk to what had been Jak’s house was easier now that some of the snow had melted. Despite her worry and fear that she wouldn’t find him, Harper was able to appreciate the beauty of the forest. The air so clean and fresh, the birdsong all around her, the sense of being part of everything in some indefinable way. Jak had walked through this forest all of his life, thinking his own thoughts, dreaming his own dreams, learning, growing . . . not a single person to share any of it with. The loneliness he must have felt . . . she couldn’t even fathom how he’d survived any of it, but mostly the loneliness. Mostly that.
She came to the house he’d lived in. Everything was still . . . hushed. She walked to the door and knocked but received no answer. At the back of the house, she put her hands around her mouth so her voice would carry. “Jak?” she called into the forest, stepping closer. She felt him, she swore she did.
“Jak?” she called again, louder. “Please come out. Please. I’m alone, and I’m . . . afraid.” It was true, but she knew she was using manipulation. If he could hear her, he would come. He wouldn’t resist her plea for help. She knew him, and she used his goodness. Because I love him, she told herself. Because I haven’t even said it to him yet and he needs to know. He needs to know he’s loved.
She heard a rustling. Footsteps. And he appeared, stepping between two trees, his head lowered. He looked so different now than the first time she’d seen him standing amidst the forest. His coat was store-bought, his boots clean and new, his jaw only showing the bare bit of scruff. When he looked up, the expression on his face was wary, afraid, filled with . . . grief. Shame.
“Jak,” she said softly, using her arm to gesture to the forest around them. “You . . . you don’t belong here anymore.” You belong with me. Come home with me.
He looked down, shaking his head. “I know, Harper. But . . . I don’t belong there either. I don’t belong anywhere.”
She rushed to him, wrapping her arms around his waist, pressing her face to his chest, breathing him in. “I know it feels like that, but it’s not true,” she said, holding him tighter. He’d gone still when she’d wrapped him in her arms and now he let out a tortured sigh, his arms coming around her, running over her hair, her back, a groaning sound emanating from his chest.
She tipped her head, looking up at him. “Jak,” she breathed. “I was so worried.”
Confusion skated over his face before he let go of her, stepping away, turning again. “You saw,” he said, his voice a broken whisper. “You don’t have to pretend. I know you saw all of it. You saw. What I did. You . . . saw.”
Oh God. He’s . . . ashamed. So wrong. Although he had to be more upset by the revelations she knew Agent Gallagher had shared with him, by the news of the terrible crime committed against him. She took him in, his shoulders hunched,