attitude.
“Hey, you’re wearing me out,” she admitted. “You’re like a moving target in an arcade game. Sit down before I shoot you.”
“That might not be a bad idea. Put me out of my misery.”
“Nah, like I said before, Harper. You gotta have faith.” She could have told him the latest developments, but judging by his guilt-ridden face, Seth had something to say.
“Spit it out,” she said. “Just say it.”
An awkward silence filled the room as he slouched beside her, sprawled in the farthest corner of her sofa. He crossed his arms, still not looking her in the eye. It suddenly dawned on her that his outward appearance and easygoing attitude had been a wall he’d crafted to hide who he really was.
She’d thought she knew him, and that simply wasn’t true.
In the past, Seth sometimes refused to answer the occasional question she’d thrown him, but it had never seemed important for her to press him for answers. She’d always believed his basic nature was trustworthy. He was an open book, a simple guy who was easy to read. If he had something to hide, she thought she could always spot it lurking in his dark eyes. And all it would take to get him to open up would be persistence on her part.
But after learning about Harper’s connection to the man who had saved her life as a kid—and how well he had kept his secret from her—she realized Seth was far more complicated than she had ever given him credit for. She had to take off the blinders and see him in a different light.
She wasn’t sure she could do that.
“I had no intention of you finding out about my father that way. At my damned bail hearing. I’m sorry, Jessie.” He struggled for words. “I wanted to tell you. But when you were leaving for Alaska, Mandy hit a new low. She needed…someone.”
Before her unforeseen trek to Alaska, she remembered how lost and utterly alone Harper looked the day she came to him for help in tracking down Payton Archer’s missing niece. She knew something was up and even asked him about it, but he deflected her pointed questions about his personal life and changed the subject. And she’d been too distracted to push him. The hunt for Globe Harvest—the insidious organization behind the girl’s abduction—had heated up and taken all her concentration.
Backtracking to that moment, his behavior now made sense. It had seemed harmless at the time, and she hadn’t pressed him out of respect for his privacy. Her mind raced with all the other times he had been evasive about his life, but she tried to stay focused.
“But why did you disappear like that? Sam had to tell me you were gone over the phone, even before I came back. What happened?” She touched his thigh. The intimacy of her gesture got his attention. His eyes met hers and stayed. “Did you think I wouldn’t notice you were AWOL? Did you think I’d be okay with that?”
Jess was surprised at the hurt in her voice—and in her heart. She had made room in her life for Harper, and his disappearing act felt too much like rejection.
“You didn’t need me anymore. Not really. Maybe you never did, but Mandy had no one. And the men in her life always took from her.”
Harper was the kind of guy who took in strays of the two-legged variety. She wondered if that was all she had meant to him in the beginning, but questions about Mandy surfaced.
“Was she in more trouble, Seth? I mean beyond her self-inflicted bullet to the brain of using drugs. Did she ever mention being scared of someone?”
“She was so messed up, Jessie…because of her addiction and other stuff.”
“What other stuff?”
“Life, her boyfriend, everyone was out to get her. You know the drill with addicts. They’re paranoid and delusional.”
“Did she ever say anything about blackmailing someone?”
“No, but I doubt she would have told me if she was. I wanted her clean. And breaking the law wouldn’t be a part of that. Besides, I hadn’t talked to her in weeks, not until the night I was supposed to meet her. And I have no idea why she called me out of the blue like that. She never said.”
Harper was a regular Boy Scout. His good nature reinforced her judgment that he was a solid, well-meaning guy when it came to others, but something else lurked deeper. Something personal that he was keeping from her. She could have accepted his explanation on its merits and gotten balled up in his angst over Mandy, but a major piece of the puzzle was missing.
“So why did you pick me…and Mandy? Does this have anything to do with your father, Seth?”
Jess held her breath, waiting for his answer. And by the look on his face, she knew what he had to say wouldn’t be easy to hear.
A flood of images from the day she was rescued filled her mind—an overload of horror that threatened to suffocate her. She struggled to picture the face of Detective Max Jenkins, Harper’s father. But all that came to mind were his strong hands and reassuring voice when he hauled her out of that house in his arms, freeing her from a living hell. She’d blocked too much from her memory. Even the good got jumbled into the bad.
“You’ve got to understand, Jessie. My father was a hero to everyone…” He lowered his chin and muttered, “…to everyone except me.”
Harper shut his eyes tight until he could start over. It took courage to talk about an ugly truth, one he probably had never intended to share. The least she could do was listen without passing judgment.
“I never understood why he chose other people…over me. My mother tried to explain it, but after a while, she just stopped. I think she felt it, too.” His voice took on the sharp edge of resentment. The years hadn’t tempered his pain, something she understood. “He gave everything he had to the job. And there was nothing left. Not for me…or her.”
When his eyes watered, he took a breath and sank deeper into her sofa. Misery personified.
“I cut him out of my life, Jessie. A preemptive strike. A kid’s way of saving face, I guess.” He shook his head, unable to look her in the eye. “As a kid, I was so angry all the time. Somehow, I lost my place. I let my anger take over until I didn’t know who I was or where I fit anymore. It became easier to be alone.”
She understood what he meant, completely.
“And I wanted to distance myself from my old man, and changing my name seemed like a good idea at the time my parents got their divorce. After that, it got simpler to reinvent a whole new me.”
A tear lost its hold and trailed down his cheek. He never bothered wiping it away. “But my dad’s investigation…when he rescued you and those kids? That really ate him up. There wasn’t much left, especially after…”
“What happened, Seth? Tell me.” She reached for his hand and held it.
Guilt grabbed her. Until Seth’s bail hearing, she hadn’t thought about the man who’d saved her life—a self- preservation tactic. Those days of terror were buried deep in the damaged psyche of a child—only resurrected by the nightmares that still plagued her.
“My dad began to drink…a lot. Eventually, we noticed he’d changed. Doctors told us the alcohol masked the symptoms of dementia caused by a series of strokes. But by then it was too late. We had to hospitalize him. He needed long-term care.” He clenched his jaw. “I got used to him being absent from my life, but inside it still hurts, you know? And I never got a chance to really talk with him. Hell, I’ve got more baggage than Samsonite.”
She knew his attempt at humor was a defense mechanism, a familiar tactic she favored, too. But of all people, she saw behind it, recognizing the crack in the foundation of his life that would remain broken.
“I’ve never heard you mention family. I always got the sense you were alone, Seth. How’s your mom holding up?”
“She isn’t, not anymore.” He shook his head and squeezed her hand. “Mom died a year ago. And now my father’s care is my responsibility. Ironic, huh? He’s got no one else. Not really. So I’m taking time to sort things out.”
Seth had revealed a great deal, but she saw there was more.
“You’re not telling me something. What is it?”
For the first time, he fixed his gaze on her.
“Look, Jessie. This thing with my dad had been between him and me. But as his mind deteriorated, I had to
