Acceptance.
The anger and pain banged inside her heart and then…
Then they were gone as she let them go along with the breath. She knew exactly what she was going to do with the ring.
By now you know my last wishes and I expect Briggs has
taken care of any incipient rebellion.
Chuckling, she could almost hear her grandfather’s big voice booming into her ear.
I have every expectation that you’ll do fine with what I’ve
given you, Jennet. Because, you see, when all is said and
done, I trust your heart.
Your mother’s heart that you inherited.
His scrawling signature ended in a slight blob of black ink.
She closed her eyes. The last of her his ghost whispered from the room and dissipated away. He was gone now. For good.
But her love wasn’t.
Her love for a misty Scottish moor and loch. For a rambling old mansion and gardens that had come to life. For a rambunctious lad whose smile made her heart hurt. For a man who’d never asked for her love or even known he held it in his wide palm.
She’d lost her love just as surely as her grandfather had lost his love decades ago. Yet that didn’t mean she couldn’t honor the emotion and honor her heart for feeling it.
This was Cam’s ring. For now and forever.
And her heart was his too.
“Mr. Steward?” His housekeeper hovered at the library’s double doors.
“What is it?” Cam knew he snarled and he knew he shouldn’t. But the frustration had built during the last week until he couldn’t hold it in any longer.
“There’s a package, special delivery.” Mrs. Rivers crept into the room, a small box in her hands. “It came just now.”
“Who is it from?” Pacing to the window, he stared out at the morning drizzle fogging the panes.
“From, well, no one.”
He glanced over his shoulder and she skittered back at the look on his face. He realized he was frowning and didn’t much care. He didn’t much care about anything, except finding Jenny.
He needed to find her to yell. Roar.
And God help him, weep.
During the last week, since he’d figured out she’d taken the ring, he’d continued to fail at that one simple step.
Find Jenny.
Tre had tried to help, but had been as baffled as Cam. Even from his home base in London, his friend hadn’t been able to crack through the labyrinth of solicitors guarding the old English goat who’d wanted the ring.
Cam didn’t care about the damn ring.
He wanted to find Jenny. Find her and do what with her, he still hadn’t decided. Yet the drumbeat of fury and need wouldn’t allow him let this go. Not until he saw her and had his say.
The old English goat was the key.
He felt it in his gut.
“What do ye mean it’s not from anyone?” He prowled away from the window and toward the package now lying on his standup desk.
“Your son needs his lunch, so I’ll be getting to that now.” She shuffled out of the door.
Ignoring her, he stared at the plain brown box. His housekeeper had been right. The post tag listed no return, only the stamp of the post office.
Calehill Road, Ashford.
“Where the hell is that?” He didn’t know a soul from there, wherever there was.
He plucked the box from the table and examined it. Occasionally, he received an odd item or two from a fan, but they inevitably gave their name and asked for some kind of correspondence back. The package wasn’t big enough to hold a bomb or something he’d need to be worried about.
He shook it.
There was something heavy inside.
Finally, his boundless curiosity reared inside, overcoming his frustrated restlessness. Grabbing his knife, he cut the edge of the box and pulled on it.
A red ring box sat in the middle of a puff of tissue paper.
“What the hell?” Someone was sending him a ring? Anonymously?
A chug of heat hit his chest.
Jenny.
He flicked the box open.
Jenny.
His blood ring, the ring she’d taken, glowed as if something burned inside. Lifting it into his palm, he stared at the gleaming angles of crimson and rose before folding his fingers around the hard cut of the gem.
For a moment, everything stilled inside. She’d sent the gem back to him.
Then, a clanging jumble of disbelief and confusion roared to life inside him. Why? Why had she taken the ring from him, only to send it to him a month later? And where the hell was Calehill Road, Ashford?
Yanking his phone out of his pocket, he punched in Tre’s number.
“What are ye doing, dobber?”
“Where is Calehill Road, Ashford?” Cam demanded.
“What are ye talking about?” A rustling came from Tre’s phone, signaling he’d been writing.
“Tre.” He looked down at the ruby again. “Jenny sent me the ring.”