Page 77 of Priceless
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Jacob stayed in France for eight days. All of them were torture. It was a special kind of hell standing alone, feeling the world being pulled away beneath your feet, and not knowing which tragedy was doing the pulling.
He saw a similar sort of betrayal in the eyes of his niece and two nephews. Their father was gone. His brother was gone. They’d never have a moment together again, never relive another moment of their childhood with him, never plan another trip together. What they had up to now was all any of them would ever have.
And Laira was gone. All that promise was gone. He’d never taste that hope again. Never know that “completed” feeling again. The memories he had now were all he would ever have. She was never going to forgive him—since he’d confessed it all in a text.
He threw himself into doing what he could for Sandrine and the children. Obsessed over details for the funeral. Took his time finding a suit. And waited for a call that never came.
The day after the funeral, he realized Connall’s family didn’t need him underfoot, so he went home. At that point, he simplyhad to know that Laira was all right. That was all he needed. And he wasn’t going to stop calling until he knew.
It nearly killed him to keep the calls to twice a day. Sometimes he left a message. He’d lost track of how many. Wished he could erase some where he’d said too much. Regretted not saying more.
Thanks to that first message he’d left, she would know everything now, and was punishing him by not answering. If she’d blocked him, she wouldn’t have seen any of the others, wouldn’t know how desperate he was to know she was all right. He knew he should leave her alone and pray she’d call.
A tougher man might have been capable of that…
It was almost a relief that she knew. His conscious was clearer. He’d been free to turn his original phone back on. But when he had, there was just one message from Laira, for Jocko. It took an hour for him to summon the courage to read it, and when he did, he couldn’t understand what she might have meant.
Can AI see the future?
A foolish question, and one he hadn’t seen, so he hadn’t answered. Jocko had failed her. Maybe that fact alone had given him away and not his confession.
The wild notion that she might have harmed herself destroyed what was left of him. For two days, he called at all hours. Frantic. Desperate. He finally called the police department and asked if someone could go to her home and check on her. He didn’t have an address, no, but he knew her name, her late husband’s name.
A tortured hour later, they called him back. The woman was home, was alive. Not happy to have been disturbed. There was nothing else they could tell him.
Alive. Ignoring him. Finished with him. There was no use calling again.
He went back to pulling pints and tending to his patrons. Someone must have told the widow the American was gone, for she was back to her old ways. But he must have lost his allure because she was gone again after a week. Maybe it was his curt answers to her sly questions. Maybe it was the fact that he finally looked her in the eye and let her see that his soul was missing—he'd never been back to Jess’ house to pick up that replacement.
After a while, Vonnie stopped asking what was wrong. Stopped asking about Laira. Told him it was good that he was moving on again. Good to have him back.
She was blind. He wasn’t there a’tall.
One day, his heir apparent came through the door with a bounce in her step he’d never seen before. She claimed nothing new had happened, only that she was glad he was still there, that she’d dreamed he’d disappeared, ran off to Colorado, never to be seen again.
“If I’ve a bounce in my step, it is because I was that relieved it was only a dream. I mean, what would happen to the place without ye?”
And he began to wonder the same himself. But he didn’t wonder long. Why should he consider such a trip just to have a door slammed in his face? Just a glimpse of her now would rip his wounds open again, and they might not close a second time.
No, there was no need to take the risk. He’d been so sure he couldn’t live without her, and here he was, fifteen days since theceilidh, still standing.
Fifteen days and still obsessing.
Raina hackedinto Laira’s phone account and opened her messages. When she was finished, she would mark them unread and never let on what she’d done. But she had to know just what this Scot had done to her sister, and whether or not he should be punished.
Because she was ready to do it with her bare hands if necessary.
She found the first of his sixteen texts and braced herself. Laira was intelligent, but who knew how vulnerable she might have been in her endless state of mourning.
“All right, Jacob. Show me your horseshit.”
Laira,love,
Ye said not to call until Connall’s funeral was behind me, but I cannae resist reaching out for ye now. The funeral is tomorrow. Everything is arranged. My brother had many friends here who loved him dearly. We just came back from the wake, and I am reassured by the fact that he was well loved and had a happy, albeit short life.
We had a piper and a bonfire, and I could easily imagine Connall there, dancing around the flames in his kilt. The weather held back until it was done. Now it’s raining hard, giving Paris a serving of Highland weather and trying to help us dilute our tears.
