Page 82 of Priceless
I glanced at his face and gave my head a tiny shake.
Those big shoulders fell, and he lowered his arm. “Yer sister said ye never saw my messages. Never saw my apology or my explanation. So I’ll tell ye here and now—it was never a set up. Never a joke. It was an accident. A misunderstanding I should have corrected at the start. But I was already smitten, Laira, and I worried the truth would embarrass ye. That’s the heart of it. And if ye cannae forgive me, at least I’ve given ye the truth.”
It ripped me apart to see that he was suffering as much as I was. But could I trust my eyes? I’d trusted so easily before.
I looked in his eyes again and felt a monster-sized sob coming. My body wanted me to believe him. My mind was sitting this one out.
I turned away. Time to run again. “I shouldn’t have come.”
“Oh, no ye don’t.” Vonnie pushed her way between Jacob and I. “Raina and I spent a lot of time workin’ on the pair of ye, tryin’ to get one of ye to swallow yer pride and make the first move. The fact that both of ye have says everything that needs sayin’. The rest of us, the people who care about ye? We’re done sufferin’. Ye’ll kiss and make up, or we’ll all stand here until ye do.”
“Vonnie.” Jacob shook his head. “It isnae so simple.”
“But it is.” Raina chirped. “We all know about Jocko.”
Vonnie nodded.
My sister went on. “And I was wrong, Laira. I accessed your messages. I read everything Jocko sent, everything Jacob wrote. And I listened to the voicemails. It seems to me, you are deeply and completely loved by two men. And lucky you, you can have them both! What else could possibly matter?”
“Aye.” Vonnie raised her hands. “And on behalf of every one of us who cannae find one true love, I say…kiss him, ye bloody eejit!”
“Here, here!” Every person in the bar shouted.
Jacob watched me closely, hoping for a second chance, waiting for the slightest hop that I might reconsider.
I tried to be tough. I knew what I came to say, but I was having a hard time remembering why I needed to say it. Now, I needed to believe that everything that had happened, each carefully bubble-wrapped moment had been as honest and as priceless as I’d believed they were. But what I needed most of all…was him.
Raina was right—what else could possibly matter?
His wet eyes crinkled, followed by a tentative, hopeful smile, and he held out his hand again.
I wasn’t an idiot. I took it. I trusted my sister, trusted Jacob, and gave myself permission to grab happiness and hold on tight.
Jacob pulled me to him, spun me around, then caught me and kissed me while everyone cheered. Then he put his head against mine to speak in my ear. “Hello, Laira. We’ve not been introduced. I’m Jocko, the tall and handsome but scarred, kilted and witty Highlander.”
When he dared check my reaction, I decided to kiss Jocko with everything I had, to drive him wild…and make Jacob wonder. When the alarm registered on his face, I laughed and pulled myself closer and whispered back, “It serves you both right.”
He sighed loudly. “I do love ye, woman.”
“Sorry?Wholoves me?”
He stared deep into my eyes. “Both of us, lass. Both of us.”
EPILOGUE
If I stood still, I could still hear the echo of the priest’s voice in my mind, overlapping with the strange Gaelic of the handfasting. Like the ocean waves, folding onto each other.
If I closed my eyes, I could feel both the weight of the white stole on my shoulders and the soft wool of the MacKinney tartan draped over our wrists, binding us together as we’d promised to love and care for each other for always. The knot we made, the symbol of our bond, now dangled from Jacob’s belt and flapped like a drunken bird when he danced.
The fiddles kicked up again. Highlanders thumped past in boots that might have kept time better had the wearer not been drunk. A cheer rolled from one end of Jess’s backyard to the other, loud enough to wake the cows beyond the fence. In fact, the toasts and cheers were getting so random they might have been cheering for the cows themselves.
The tent was a white mountain sewn together with ropes and fairy lights. Long tables groaned under pies and meat and cakes that smelled divine. Someone tipped a bottle toward me in salute. Two grandmothers compared photos on their phones. One little boy had found the cake knife and was holding it highlike a sword, evading his mother, who half-heartedly trailed after him.
I lifted my hand into the sparkle of the lights and stared again. Three big diamonds in a row. The light shining off them reminded me of the crinkles around Jacob’s eyes.
“One for each decade I waited for ye,” he’d said, when he presented it to me.
Poetic enough for any bride.
