CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Jamie – Now
Ihave a shadow. I mean, obviously I always have a shadow, but today I have an extra one in the shape of Nox.
It turns out when kids don’t have a lot to distract them—like other kids and school drama—they can get a lot of work done in just a few days.
Meaning Nox has completed all the work his teachers gave him and he still has today and tomorrow before his grandparents arrive to take him home to Glasgow.
So, he’s been hanging out at the front desk with me most of this morning.
When the receptionist called in sick, I set aside my work on With Love, From Skye to help out. Gran is supposed to walk with him into town later, so I can work on the book then.
“Welcome to the Thistle it’s always always been Jameson, so this is enough to catch my attention and make me lift my head. “It’s going to be okay.”
“H-how can this possibly be okay? That’s my son out there?
I have a—” I squeeze my eyes shut and will the queasy feeling to dissipate.
Shaking my head, I don’t say another word.
I stare straight ahead. I can’t look at my grandfather, but he doesn’t stop looking at me, though he stays silent. If only I could keep my thoughts quiet…
But they are riotous.
I saw her with that guy. I saw them together. It made sense. I hurt her and she moved on. I never thought of the possibility that the baby I saw in her arms could be mine…
I never would’ve believed she’d keep something like this from me.
Honesty. Truth. We promised each other that, hadn’t we? Always.
Round and round the questions—the implications—spin through my mind like a tornado, and it’s wreaking irreparable damage on everything it touches.
I thought we were friends? I thought we were rebuilding something here. I thought… Hell, I don’t know what I thought because clearly everything since the second she set foot in the inn a few weeks ago was a complete and total lie.