Jack’s gaze slid questioningly to Angus but Angus just gave him a nod and Jack waited, although he did so impatiently.
Finally, Cassandra came back to herself and pulled away.
Taking a step back, she said decisively, “Yep, mate, you’re Joshua.”
Jack again looked at Angus then back to Cassandra and found himself saying “So, my soul holds his trace.”
This, for some bizarre reason, made her laugh.
When she got control of her hilarity, she shook her head. “No, Jack, you are Joshua.”
Jack’s eyes sliced back to Angus.
Angus caught Jack’s look and muttered, “We’ve a professional difference of opinion about what reincarnation means.”
“I see you gave him that trace business,” Cassandra said to Angus, her voice amused.
“It’s the way it is, lass,” Angus shot back.
“It isn’t, Angus. I mean, whoever heard of traces of souls drifting through eternity? That’s rubbish!” Cassandra retorted.
“And whole beings reincarnated again and again throughout time isn’t rubbish?” Angus returned hotly.
“Nope,” she replied calmly.
Angus’s face got redder than its normal red and Jack astutely surmised the Scot was about to blow.
Jack, thinking both theories were rubbish and also thinking that them having a passionate argument about it was preposterous, was quickly coming to the end of his patience.
Therefore he cut in, “Are you done with me?”
Both their eyes came to him and Cassandra said, “For now.”
Jack nodded, left the room, found Yasmin and asked her a favour to which she agreed. Then he and Yasmin drove to Belle’s cottage and Yasmin packed Belle’s belongings while Jack collected his own and the dogs’. They took them to the car then they took them to The Point.
Jack collected Belle from the stables, they had a late lunch and, after lunch, she wandered away and disappeared.
He found her in the library seated in a chair she’d pulled to the window. Her legs were tucked underneath her, a sketchbook was in her hands, a box of coloured pencils on the armrest, the page was blank and she was staring out the window.
He walked to her, pulled the sketchbook out of her hand, tucked it under his arm then took her hand and pulled her out of the chair.
She watched him do this as if she was in a trance herself before her body jolted and she started, “Jack –”
He ignored her, leaned down, grabbed the box of pencils and, his hand still in hers, he guided her to his study.
There, he dropped her hand and positioned a chair at the window behind his desk. He went back to her, led her to the chair and, with a gentle shove, he pushed her into the seat. He gave her back her sketchbook and pencils and then turned to sit behind his desk.
As he opened a file, he felt her eyes on him.
“Jack,” she called softly.
“Yes, love?” He kept his eyes on the papers in front of him and forced himself not to look at her.
He was attempting to establish normal. Before the baby died, they hadn’t had time to create a “normal” but, when they did, he had decided this would be it.
“Nothing,” she whispered.
Minutes later, when he allowed himself to glance at her because he heard her pencils scratching on her pad, he saw her head was bent and she was drawing.