I jerk my head up so I can look at him, "Did you hear me? I know where Sarah hid the necklace."
"What?" Now he's fully awake like I am and he's giving me all of his attention.
"She said she left it in the one place she first lost hers, where she first lost her heart." He looks at me and waits. "If I was going to leave something for you - I would leave it in the first place I ever saw you. The first place our eyes ever met."
Chapter Ten
____________
Cooper
She doesn't realize what she's telling me, what she's saying to me. I don't push or bring it to her attention. Not right now. Instead, I just answer the question she didn't ask me. "The ballroom."
"The ballroom." She gives me a big smile that lights up her whole face.
"But Angela said they already searched there, top to bottom."
"That's great but Sarah and her man didn't meet in a ballroom. She first saw him...,"
"In the garden." We say it at the same time making each other smile bigger. "But the garden's been changed several times throughout the years."
"But not the garden shed. And that is the one place she could be one hundred percent sure her husband wouldn't look - because he couldn't be bothered going to such a lowly hovel."
I kiss her hard and roll us until we are both standing up. "Let's go find ourselves a necklace."
We make it back to the house and sneak around to the garden in the back. She leads me into the brick structure where we made out earlier. On the floor is the same empty paint can that fell when I was losing focus on everything other than Saff.
Saff goes right to the can and starts to sink down on her hands and knees. I don't like seeing her in that position. Well, not for anyone else but me. And that's only if I'm behind her. I go to help her up when she sinks down even lower like she's looking for something on the floor level.
"Do you realize we were probably the first people showing one another love in this very place since Sarah and her lover were here?" She mumbles into the floor, heavily distracted. "Cooper, I think...I think I see something."
She gets up and walks to a workbench attached to the wall. Once there she goes back down on her knees and reaches under the seat.
"Be careful, Saff."
"Oh, I think...I can almost...damn it." She slaps her hand down on the floor and starts looking around. "Hand me that trowel thing over there, please."
I hand her the tool and she's back to poking around under the bench. Something clangs and then a small metal box drops onto the ground. She slides it out and uses the trowel to break the rusted lock on the side.
I step closer to her suddenly feeling protective of her for no good reason. Once she opens the box there is a velvet pouch lying inside next to one very old, worn letter. Her hands shake as she lifts it out of the box and pulls back the edges. Inside is the Heart of Sorrows.
The stone is a fierce purple-blue and all around the stone is frilly gold. It has to be almost as big as the palm of my hand. When Saff holds it up so we can take a better look I realize it is as big -bigger- than hers.
"It's the Heart. Last touched by two people who loved one another more than anything, more than freedom, more than money, more than the fear of dying for one another."
Before I can help her to her feet a shadow is moving out in front of us. Coming into the bleak light of the bare bulb hanging from the ceiling steps Brendon Mayborne. The Third. Holding a gun in one hand and a flashlight in the other.
"That necklace is rightfully mine. It belongs to my grandfather and I will be taking it now."
"No." I move to stand in front of Saff. The last thing I want is her arguing with this man. "It belongs to Sarah and she would definitely not want you or any of your grandfather's people having it. She would want it to go to the museum."
"That cheating whore and her bastard of a garden gnome wouldn't know what to do with a necklace that expensive. She hid it from my grandfather so she could use it to finance her life with that peasant."
I feel Saff tense up behind me, ready to fight for the woman who died for love.
"You know, it's kind of eerie, the similarities between you and your common lover."
I step more fully in front of Saff not liking the way this guy is looking at my angel. "Yeah," I have his full attention now, "but I'm not a gardener...and I came with backup!"