“Come with me to Scotland. Tomorrow. I can get you a seat on the plane.”
Her mouth drops open but she doesn’t say anything. She gives me a brief, confused smile. “I don’t…are you being serious?”
“When am I not serious?” If she could feel how fast and hard my heart is beating, she wouldn’t ask me that. “I’m serious. I’ll get you a ticket. Just come with me.” Please.
She’s staring at me, trying to read my face, and I know she’s having a hell of a time pulling anything from it. Finally she shakes her head. I can’t pretend it doesn’t hurt.
“But I can’t,” she says. “I wish I could. I mean…I would. But…my job.”
“Use your vacation days.”
“I can’t just up and leave them. They wouldn’t let me go.”
I know it’s futile now, but I can’t help it. “You can ask. It sounds like they owe you for a lot of things at this point.”
Fuck it. I put the phone back to my ear. “Hello, miss? Yes, actually I’d like to buy another seat, business class, since there is room. If there is one next or close to me, that would be brilliant.”
“What are you doing?” Kayla asks, panicking.
I put my hand over the mouthpiece. “Don’t worry about it.”
The clerk asks me for Kayla’s name and info.
“Kayla Moore,” I tell her, then I have to pause. I don’t even know this girl’s birthday. Just what the fuck am I doing here?
“Uh, love,” I say to Kayla. “Mind supplying me with your birthdate?”
“Lachlan,” she says. “Don’t.”
I give her a long look, trying to read her, what’s she’s really feeling, really thinking. “Don’t what?” I ask her. “You don’t want to come?”
She looks so utterly helpless that I almost feel bad for putting her on the spot. But fuck, the hope it brings is worth it.
“I want to come,” she says quietly. “I just don’t think it’s possible. It’s so last minute. Do you really want me to come with you?”
I nod quickly. “I’m getting the ticket.”
“No.”
“No, listen. I’m getting the ticket. The flight leaves tomorrow at three o’clock. I will be on it. If you don’t make it happen, then that’s the way it goes. But that ticket will be there, in your name.”
She’s shaking her head. “I can’t let you do that. The cost—”
“The cost is worth it in the event that you show up.”
“And if I don’t? I mean, if I can’t make it work?”
I manage to give her a half-smile. “Then at least I tried.” I exhale loudly. “Your birthdate, love.”
I can see the wheels turning in her head. Spinning around. Going over every scenario. Not sure what the right answer is.
Finally she says, “July first, nineteen eighty-five. And it’s Kayla Ann Moore.”
I grin at her and get back to the phone. “Pardon me, miss, you still there? I have the information you need.”
And just like that, there’s hope.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Kayla
In a few seconds, everything has changed. Everything. I’ve gone from feeling deep, aching, crazy despair to thinking of brand new possibilities in the blink of an eye.
Because he asked me to go back with him.
It’s everything I have wished for. Hoped for. It’s the same scenario that has played out in my head over and over again the last few days. The dream that he would ask me, would actually want me to go. The sign that this, us, is something. It has legs, and given the right circumstances, could go on and on.
He ends the call on the phone, his long fingers curling over it, giving it a squeeze, as if he’s not quite sure what he’s done. He turns his head to me and a half-smile slowly appears. This time his beautiful lips are twisted with something like shyness. It’s disarming to see him look so unsure and anxious, though I can’t be sure if it’s over what he just did or whether I can go or not.