up straight and frowned. “You’re not recording this, or planning to sell this to the newspapers, are you?
Jamison laughed to set the guy at ease. “No. I’m not desperate for money.”
Evans relaxed. After a minute, he spoke again, but his voice was different, distant.
“It’s not even about being happy. It’s about love.” He looked Jamison in the eye. “I love her on a level she can’t even imagine. I love her soul and she doesn’t yet understand that she has one.” He looked away as if in pain, up at the mountains. “That’s the hard part. If she were a little older, she’d understand just how much I love her. Right now, she probably thinks I’m in it for the sex.”
Jamison tried to think of something quick to keep unwanted images from the screen in his brain. He thought of Skye, about how much he loved her and yet he didn’t think he could make her understand. And she probably felt the same about him, that he was unable to truly understand where she was coming from.
He didn’t know how long Evans had been waiting for him to say something, but the guy was looking at him funny.
“I think you know what I’m talking about, Mr. Shaw. Having a hard time convincing the Somerleds to let you see Skye?”
“More like I’m having a hard time convincing her.”
“Well, you’ve a little more than age to overcome, don’t you? All that religion and style of life crap.”
“Yeah.”
“Well, if you love her, you’ll do what’s best for her, even if it means sitting behind a desk and eating your heart out during your lunch hour every day.”
“And why didn’t you keep doing that?”
“Because I want what was best for her, Mr. Shaw, and that’s me. But what is best for our Skye, huh? If she were Mallinson—if you could get her to fear and fight, would she fight to have you?”
Jamison left Evans more confused than ever. When he got home, his mother thought he’d been smoking something.
“Just eggs, I think. Burned eggs.”
But it wasn’t the smell of abused protein that made him want to vomit. Grandpa was really gone. The funeral would be tomorrow. And the time Skye had asked for was like an hourglass in his head, only every grain of sand that fell sounded like a boulder crashing down a hillside. He wondered if the cracking noise was coming from the hour glass or his heart.
CHAPTER THIRTY
It never failed. Each morning Jamison got a punch in the stomach when he remembered that Granddad was gone. He vaguely remembered the same thing happening after they lost Grandma, and he couldn’t remember how long it had taken for it to stop feeling like a cruel trick.
Half the town turned out for the viewing. Many batches of white robes came through the receiving line and each time, Jamison looked for Skye among them. He was getting worried when Lucas and Jonathan’s group came through without her.
His mom’s attention was drawn away as the broad shoulders blocked Jamison’s view of the rest of the room.
Lucas held out his hand, his eyes daring Jamison to take it.
He looked the man in the eye, grabbed on and gave the big hand a firm shake.
“Shaw, as I’ve told you before, I’m not to interfere. Your memories are safe from me, sir.”
At least one heavy stone was suddenly gone from his chest.
Safe. Check.
No longer Young Jamison? He’d kind of miss that, but since Old Jamison was gone, there was no need.
He reached out and stopped Lucas from moving on. “Please, call me Jamison.”
“All right, Jamison it is. And Jamison?”
“Yeah?”
“Don’t worry. She’s coming, and she’s bringing you a surprise.”
It was nearly eight o’clock and the line was still out the door of the mortuary. People had plenty they wanted to get off their chests about the rude old Scotsman they’d all run from at one time or another. On the other hand, he had personally been offered seven jobs and heard the phrase “any grandson of Ken Jamison’s...yada yada yada,” too many times to count.
He just smiled and nodded and shook hands for hours, but his eyes kept scanning the crowd for white.
Then a lone blur. Gone again. Back.
She looked at the flowers, read the cards, laughed. He could feel that laughter reach out across the elegant room, to cover his chest like a remedy for what ailed him.
Happy. Check.
All four states of being present and accounted for. It wasn’t complete, though. Underneath that current of happiness ran the