Asking him to take her out to dinner, to his home, to the circus, to a father-daughter dance, to attend her graduation...
Mick always said no.
She was someone Mick only barely acknowledged in this house, in this space. Outside these four walls she hadn’t existed, not for Mick, and apparently not for Jaeger, either.
Piper felt the tip of a red-hot knife punching holes in her heart. She felt the burn and the piercing pain, and the remote fell to the floor. She watched as tears splashed onto the black plastic, and she heard a buzzing in her ears. She placed her shaking hands under her armpits and cursed her father and cursed Jaeger, cursed these two men she’d loved but couldn’t, wouldn’t, love her in return.
* * *
“Hey, it’s me. I’ve tried to call a couple of times, but your phone keeps going to voice mail. Very excited about the provenance. I won’t be able to talk for a while, but text me, okay?”
Jaeger closed his phone and frowned. Piper had sounded excited and she’d asked him to call right away, so why was her phone off?
God, he hoped that everything was okay, that nothing had happened to her or Ty. Jaeger pulled out his seat at the round table and sent his siblings a distracted smile as he sat down.
Sage, sitting opposite him, leaned forward to speak across the table. “What’s wrong?”
Jaeger picked up his tumbler of whiskey and shrugged. “Piper found the provenance for the stones.”
Linc sat up straighter, immediately eager to hear more. “Seriously? Where?”
“A relative has a diary, and Piper thinks there might be more Blues.” Jaeger pitched his voice low and kept his sentences brief, not wanting to give anything away.
“More?” Beckett’s demanded. “How many?”
“Three. Piper wants us to go up to the Hamptons tomorrow to take a look.”
Linc pointed a finger at him. “You’d better let us know as soon as you do.”
Jaeger nodded, still uneasy that he couldn’t reach Piper. He looked around the richly decorated ballroom and saw the reporter from earlier, Annette, looking at him from a neighboring table.
He’d lied to her earlier. There was someone special in his life. He didn’t want there to be, would feel a great deal more comfortable if Piper wasn’t so important, but she was. The uncomfortable feeling in his chest when he couldn’t reach her just proved it.
He could deny his feelings until the freakin’ cows came home, but what was the point? It didn’t change the fact that he had feelings for a woman for the first time since Andy, and they were growing bigger and bolder.
He’d known her only a week, for God’s sake.
Yet he knew Piper was the source of his recent happiness. When he allowed himself to dream, he saw himself in her house, a baby monitor on the table next to them, listening to Ty’s occasional snuffle, cocking their heads to hear if it turned into a whimper or a cry. He wanted to stretch out on her couch and watch the game, a beer in his hand, her head on his thigh as she read one of her weighty art books. He wanted to listen to her explain cubism and Picasso, take her to Europe and watch her face as she explored the great art on that continent.
Eat hot croissants in Paris.
Sit in the teacups with Ty in his lap at Disneyland.
Read Ty a bedtime story.
Tell Piper another story using his mouth and hands.
She should have been here, with him, at his side where she belonged. His fear and her secrets and the stones and the press be damned. Her next to him, him next to her—that’s the way it should be.
Jaeger felt a broad hand on his shoulder, and he looked up. Jaeger smiled at his friend and rival, James Moreau, and shook his hand.
“Sorry I missed out on poker the other night,” James told Beckett after he’d greeted all the Ballantyne brothers and kissed Sage’s cheek.
“I get it. You were scared. Perfectly understandable,” Beckett taunted him.
“Up yours,” James genially replied.
“I heard you lodged a claim with Mick Shuttle’s estate to recover the money he owes you,” Linc stated as James slid into the empty chair.
“Shuttle bought many pieces from us over the years. I never thought his damned check would bounce,” James muttered.