Maybe, her mind tortured her, he’s still alive somewhere, somehow. That was the most excruciating maybe of all.
How many years had she believed that her parents would one day walk through the front door again? When Grandda had come to take her to Kansas, she’d been terrified to go. She still remembered shrieking at him that she couldn’t leave because when Mommy and Daddy come home they won’t know where to find me!
For years she’d clung to that agonizing hope, until she’d finally been old enough to understand what death was.
“Oh, Zanders,” she whispered. “You can’t play the Maybe Game. You know what it does to you.”
She had no idea how many days she huddled in her tiny apartment, completely withdrawing from the world. She didn’t answer the phone, she didn’t check her E-mail or mail, she rarely even stirred from bed. She passed her time mentally reliving every precious moment she and Dageus had spent together.
She’d had the most incredible month of her life, she’d met the man of her dreams and fallen head over heels in love. She’d had the promise of a blissful future. She’d held everything that she’d ever wanted right there in the palms of her hands, and now she had nothing.
How was she supposed to go on? How was she supposed to face the world? To get dressed, to maybe brush her hair, to go out on the sidewalk and see lovers talking and laughing with each other?
Impossible.
And so the days crept by in a bleak fog until one morning she woke up obsessed with wanting the artifacts he’d given her, in her apartment. Needing to hold the skean dhu, to wrap her fingers around it in the same places his had once rested.
Which meant leaving her apartment. She tried to think of some other way to get them, but there was none. Only she could access the safety deposit box.
Numbly, she dragged herself to the shower, got sort of wet, then sort of dry, then stumbled to the suitcase she still hadn’t unpacked. She tugged on rumpled clothes that may or may not have matched—frankly, she didn’t care, at least she wasn’t naked and wouldn’t get arrested, which would have forced her to speak to people, something she had no desire to do—and took a cab to the bank.
Within a short time she was ushered into a private room with her safety deposit box. She looked at it for a long while, just standing and staring, trying to summon the immense energy necessary to root around in her purse for her wallet. Eventually, she rummaged about for the key and unlocked the long metal box.
She opened it, and froze, staring. Atop her short sword, skean dhu, Keltar brooch, and intricately etched first-century arm band, lay an envelope with her name on it.
In Dageus’s handwriting.
She closed her eyes, frantically shutting the sight of it out. She hadn’t been prepared for that! Merely seeing his handwriting made her heart feel as if it were breaking all over again.
She took several slow, deep breaths, trying to calm herself.
Opening her eyes, she reached for the envelope with trembling hands. What on earth might he have written to her so many weeks ago? They’d only known each other five days before she’d left for Scotland with him!
She untucked the flap and withdrew a single sheet of paper.
Chloe-lass:
If I’m not here with you now, I’m beyond this life, for ’tis the only way I’ll ever let you go.
She flinched, her whole body jerking. Several long moments passed before she managed to force herself to keep reading.
I hoped I loved you well, sweet, for I know even now that you are my brightest shining star. I knew it the moment I saw you.
Ah, lass, you so adore your artifacts.
This thief covets but one priceless treasure: You.
Dageus
She squeezed her eyes shut as fresh pain lanced through her. The knot in her throat swelled, the burning behind her eyes grew excruciating—yet, still, she refused to cry. There was a perfectly good reason that she hadn’t cried since the night he’d disappeared. She knew that if she cried, it would mean he was really gone.
Which also seemed to imply, in perhaps a less than logical way, that as long as she didn’t cry, there was hope.
Oh, God, she could picture him! She could see them both, standing in the bank that day. He was tall, dark, and too gorgeous for words. She was so excited, so thrilled and nervous. So fascinated by him.
So distrustful, too, of the dastardly, impossibly sexy Gaulish Ghost. She’d watched every move he made, to be certain he really put her precious artifacts in the box before he locked it and gave her the key.
Still, he’d managed to slip the letter in at the last moment without her seeing it.