Page 55 of Unwanted

“Me? Oh, I…grew up in foster care in Missoula.”

“Foster care?”

She bobbed her head. “Yes. It’s a state-run program for kids who don’t have anyone to take care of them. Group homes or private residences.”

“Which one were you in?”

“Uh, both. I moved around a few times.”

He watched her closely, and she fidgeted for a moment, feeling exposed. Something stuck in her throat.

“And now you work at one?”

“Yes. I mean, part-time, mostly for something to do to fill my time during the colder months when my business slows down. I help out with the kids there.”

“But you work at night when they’re sleeping.”

She blinked at him. He didn’t miss a beat, did he? “Well, yes.” She felt like she was on shaky ground very suddenly. “They need night shift workers too.”

“You watch them while they sleep?” He tilted his head, his eyes running over her expression, reading her. Figuring her out, the same way he figured out words and customs and things he knew nothing about until he came upon them in the new world he’d been thrust into. Or, more specifically, had been thrust on him in the form of her, showing up at his home over and over again.

“Did you survive too, Harper?” he asked, his blue eyes piercing her.

She swallowed. She’d always sugarcoated her time in foster care to her friends and others she knew. But with him, she felt no need to. He’d called her honest, and she wanted to be. Not only with him, but with herself. Maybe brushing off her experience all these years as no big deal had done a great disservice to her own spirit. “Yes. I had to survive too. In different ways, but…yes.”

Their eyes met, and an understanding moved between them. “Are those the things you keep inside? The things you don’t tell people about?”

Harper nodded before spearing her last pear. She felt close to tears. Edgy. The way he was looking at her…like he knew every fearful, lonely moment she’d experienced, like he’d been there. She swallowed the pear with effort. If she kept sitting there, the emotions filling her chest were going to bubble over. They needed to bubble over. They were demanding to be set free. Just not there…not with his eyes probing her that way.

She stood so suddenly the heavy stool rocked backward before settling on the floor. His face filled with surprise as she took him by the hands. “Come on. I want to try out that thing you told me about.”

“What thing?”

“Yelling my secrets to the mountaintops.”

He gave her a quizzical look but didn’t resist when she led him to where his coat and boots lay discarded on the floor by the door.

They put their winter gear on and then descended the steps, walking to the back of the house again. The sun was higher in the sky now, and the ice sparkled golden instead of silvery white. Winter birds twittered in the trees, and the sounds of dripping water could be heard all around. She suddenly felt silly. The crisp air had made her feel better, helped her zinging emotions settle, and now she hesitated. What am I doing?

But as soon as the thought went through her mind, she spotted a rock sticking up out of the snow. Well…why the heck not? She took a deep breath and stepped up onto it, facing toward the blue-gray mountains in the distance. As if each and every sorrow demanded release, swirls of emotions rioted for first place in her mind. She cupped her hands around her mouth and yelled, “I’m so hurt and…and angry that no one in town wanted to take me in when my parents died! Sometimes I want to move far away from this damn town and never look back!”

She let out a huge heaving breath, watching the tips of those mountains, imagining she could see the vapor of her words—the long-held truth—floating away from her body to take residence in those dark peaks. She turned, stepping carefully off the rock where Jak stood looking at her thoughtfully.

“Better?” he asked.

She sucked in a big breath, her chest rising and falling. “Yes. I think so.” She paused. “Yes. You were right. It helps. I feel better al—”

“Keep going.”

She nodded once, climbed back up onto the rock, and turned toward the mountains. “Sometimes I hate God for taking my parents from me! I…” A sob came up her throat, but she tried to stop it from escaping. “Sometimes I wish I’d died that night too.” Her throat felt tight, as she instinctively tried to resist more painful words spilling from her tired, love-famished soul and simultaneously made the effort to force them out. “I’ve been so scared and alone.” And that was all she could do. The sob that escaped then was followed by a small hiccup as she tried desperately to get her emotions under control. She turned back toward Jak, but too quickly, slipping on the ice-covered rock, losing her footing, and plunging forward.

Jak caught her, his arms wrapping around her waist as she wept. “You’re not alone,” he whispered. The whimper died on her lips as she opened her eyes to his face directly in front of hers, his mouth mere inches from her own. Her heart stuttered, swelled. For a suspended moment, their quickened breaths mingled in the air between them. She blinked in surprise, her body stilling. He glanced at her lips, his gaze heating and his arms squeezing her just a little tighter. Kiss me, she thought. Oh please, kiss me.

She could see the indecision on his face but knew he had to be the one to advance whatever it was between them. For a frozen moment, the entire forest stilled. The whole world waited. And then as quickly as that, their mouths were meeting, and Harper exhaled a breath of relief and joy over the sudden, overwhelming pleasure of his mouth against hers. The knowledge that he had chosen her. And she had chosen him.

For a second, they were both still; then he let out a small sound, a combination of a grunt and a groan as he opened his mouth very slightly and rubbed it over hers. Despite the completely unpracticed nature of the kiss, sparks shot through her veins, her blood heating. She didn’t want to take control of the kiss. The waiting, the discovery of what he would do instinctively, was more arousing than anything she’d ever experienced.

He was holding her off the ground easily with his arms wrapped around her waist, and she sought even more closeness with him. She wrapped her legs around his body, bringing their cores together. He breathed out a harsh breath but didn’t disconnect his lips from hers. The meeting of their bodies seemed to give him more confidence in their kiss, and he tilted his head, his lips parted from the escaped breath. His tongue flicked hers, and she couldn’t help it then, taking his face in her hands and meeting his tongue with her own, showing him what to do. What she was practically dying for him to do.

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