She needed to look in the attic.
Still in a thoughtful daze, Jacqui walked into her bedroom. Khizar was still asleep, and she admired him for a moment. He looked so peaceful.
He stirred as Jacqui sat down on the edge of the bed.
She put a hand lightly on his shoulder and said, “Hey, good morning.”
Khizar frowned like he couldn’t remember where he was, then his expression cleared. “Good morning, darling.”
“Did you sleep well?” Jacqui ran her hand down his and intertwined her fingers with his.
He brought her hand to his mouth and brushed his lips across her fingers.
“I did. What are you doing up already?”
“I remembered something.”
Khizar didn’t react at first. Only after a moment did he seem to realize what she was saying.
He sat up in bed and asked, “What did you remember?”
“On my eighth birthday, an old man came to visit me. He brought me a gift—a stuffed teddy bear. He told me that it had a secret, and that it was my job to look after it until I was older.”
Khizar’s eyebrows knitted together. “Do you still have the bear?”
Jacqui’s eyes sparkled. “I do. It’s in a box up in the attic.”
“Then let’s go find that bear!”
Chapter 13
Khizar
Khizar followed Jacqui down the hall and helped her pull down the stairs to the attic. He insisted on being the first one up the wooden steps and offered her a hand as she climbed in after him.
Almost every diamond miner would tell you that they had an instinct telling them when they were about to strike it big. It was practically a sixth sense, something more than intuition, maybe closer to a premonition. Khizar knew exactly what they meant; he felt that same clairvoyance as he climbed the attic stairs.
Jacqui pulled the string to turn on the overhead light and took a moment to orient herself among the plastic bins organized in neat stacks around the attic. She finally pointed to a stack sitting along the far wall, underneath the tiny round window.
“There, I think. That stack should be things from my old bedroom.”
“Any idea which one?”
All the plastic bins looked alike to him. They were a drab olive green, fit with the same color lids.
Jacqui shook her head. “No, but one of them should be just stuffed animals. That should be the one.”
Khizar lifted the top box off the stack and set it down on the attic floor. Jacqui pried the lip off and leaned over the box. She stuck her hand inside and shifted the top layer of things around.
“Not this one.”
In spite of his eagerness to find the diamond, Khizar found himself interested in young Jacqui’s life. He peered into the box.
“Are those trophies?”
Jacqui laughed. “They are. For math, mostly. My high school had a team that competed in math competitions.”
Khizar was intrigued, but the pull of finding the diamond was growing stronger by the minute. He was struggling to focus.
When Khizar didn’t answer, Jacqui added, “I think there are probably some soccer trophies in there, too. I played for a couple of years right after I came to live with my adopted parents.”
That he couldn’t just let go.
“Soccer, huh? Do you still play, or watch?”
“I watch, but I haven’t played in years. Yoga is about the only thing I have time for these days.”
Khizar gave her a grave look. “We are going to need to have a conversation, then.”
Jacqui looked at him, unsure. “About?”
“I didn’t think about vetting your choice of soccer team before I proposed. This could be a serious issue.”
Jacqui was surprised into laughter, and Khizar was surprised that he felt like laughing with her. He’d never had this with a woman before, this feeling of camaraderie that seemed just as important as physical attraction.
She tossed a squishy ball at him, still laughing, and he batted it away with one hand. He grinned at her and picked up another bin.
“What about this one?” He set it down on the floor and Jacqui opened it.
“Ah, not this one. I think this is mostly old clothes.”
Khizar set another box on the attic floor, then moved the two already opened bins back over in a stack by the wall. Jacqui opened it and shook her head.