Page 28 of In the Pursuit of Haven
“I’ve been dealing with some hard things.”
“And you can’t share them with me?” I asked.
“I’m… no, Roxy, I can’t.”
“No?” I heard my voice hit a hysterical note.
“Hey, hey, I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” He touched my arm. “You’re shaking! Babe, sit down. You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“I’m not sitting down!” Even though I want nothing more than to lean against his strength and wait for him to make this all better, but he won’t!
He let out a breath. “C’mon, you know me. I’m not the devil. I’d never do anything to hurt you on purpose.” And just like that his arms went around me like we’d never parted. “I’m sorry about missing out on our anniversary dinner. I completely forgot.” He ran his hands up my back so he could caress my shoulders. “I was such an idiot—I should’ve known it was a special night. You’d dressed up and you looked beautiful. That note was beautiful too, by the way. Everything was beautiful. The only thing missing was you. I was out of my mind with worry.”
He wasn’t the only one.
“You look more beautiful tonight,” he whispered. His eyes flicked to mine.
I shook my head before he could try to wine and dine me into accepting the same problems as before. “You were gone for more than two hours before I left!” I ripped away from him. “And Divine is not your coworker!” I argued.
“Yeah… actually….” His hands went to his hair instead of mine. “We pretty much are.”
“Pretty much?” I wanted to punch something. “What ground rules were you laying down with her, huh?”
“I can’t sa— … I told you nothing’s going on with her. You know what? Let’s go to bed.”
“Tell me exactly why you left me on our anniversary, Jessie!”
“Do you want me to lie to you?”
“No.” I jerked away from him.
I was so through with him right now. Forget those blankets. For all I cared, he could curl up with Finn for warmth tonight… and the cat! Let him sneeze the whole house down.
I stomped up the stairs and slammed the door behind me. Haven’s letters rustled at the sudden cyclone I’d created. Haven wasn’t the only one who could carry a storm through her fingers… and Jessie wasn’t the only one who could keep secrets!
And I’d thought I was shaking hard before. My breathing was out of control. I tried to steady myself, realizing at the same instant that I’d left my bag of clothes downstairs. I was trapped in Haven’s room by my own anger because there was absolutely no way I was shuffling through the hallway to get at my pajamas after that dramatic exit.
I could only hope that Jessie spent the night tossing and turning on that uncomfortable couch because he refused to meet me halfway on this.
And if he didn’t?
Despair threaded through me. Nothing was working. Remembering his flat-out denial to confess anything about that woman deflated me in a second. Why couldn’t he explain what was happening… unless it was just too awful? I thought he was different from my father, from all those horrible men my mother had dated before Charlie and Richard and… all the other guys I’d forgotten before she’d met her fabulous dentist.
Everything special between us was ruined. More tears came, hot, resentful ones.
I hadn’t missed how guarded Jessie turned when I’d mentioned his uncle, nor his abrupt change of subject so I’d stop asking about Dimond’s rattle. My suspicions that I’d stumbled on something earlier with these letters rushed through me again and I turned to the last one.
My fingers trembled, seeing that it was from Matthew. Was this the last time my aunt had heard from him?
“Haven, I really think we have a chance to find this treasure! We’re so close I can almost taste it. Robert wasn’t sure he could trust our family, and I don’t blame him because… well, sure, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out why he wouldn’t, but he knows I’m different from my old man. We can thank Felicity for that—she says you’re in on their secret engagement, so I can talk freely about that too. Leon and I both know Robert would do anything for her, so when she pushed him to open up to me, he did.
“He has a clue to help us find this treasure! Can you believe it? It’s a silver-handle cane. His family has had it for generations. It was passed down from that bloodthirsty magistrate—you know, Jonathan Corwin? The one who sent nineteen people to the noose? That guy who lived in the Witch House! Yeah,thatfamily.”
Of course! Get to the point. I was dying here.
“We’ve figured out the clue on the cane. Unbelievable! It told us where to go.”
What? Where?
