Lucky Stars (Ghosts and Reincarnation #5)(41)
Author: Kristen Ashley

However, when her eyes moved to the others at the table, they were all again watching her and Jack. Yasmin was doing it with a broad smile. Joy was pressing her lips together but you could see her eyes dancing. Mom was looking at Jack in a way that Belle just knew she was getting a feeling in her bones. Gram was glaring at Jack and Belle with a look on her face that heralded Belle, at some point during the day, being given the third degree.

And therefore Belle decided instantly the table was no safer than Jack.

Though, Belle had been wrong about the third degree coming from Gram at some point during the day.

She’d decided to dish it out right then.

“Can I ask, at this juncture, what you were doing in Belle’s room this morning?” Gram demanded of Jack.

Belle felt her heart sink and she knew it was only courtesy that drove Jack to answer her grandmother.

“We had a chat.”

“I can see you had a chat. Everyone can see you had a chat,” Gram snapped. “Yesterday, you two were entirely different beings than you are right now. If you were in each other’s presence, which was rare, the animosity veritably crackled. At least it did from you.” Her eyes narrowed on Jack. “Today you two are all sweetness and light. What gives?”

“Mom, cut it out,” Belle’s mother, as usual, unwisely decided to go head to head with Gram and entered the conversation.

Gram glared at Mom. “Don’t tell me to cut it out.”

“I’m telling you to cut it out,” Mom returned. “Leave them be.”

“I won’t leave them be. Leaving them be got Belle knocked up!” Gram’s voice was rising.

Belle put her elbow to the table and rested the side of her head in her hand.

Regardless of her embarrassed posture, her family didn’t let up.

“In her current condition that can hardly happen again,” Mom returned, Gram’s eyes bugged out and Belle closed her own eyes before opening them again when her grandmother retorted.

“That’s not the point!” Gram snapped.

“Then what is the point?” Mom snapped back.

“I don’t know!” Gram shouted and looked at Jack. “You were present at this chat. Maybe you can tell us the blasted point!”

“Oh lordy,” Mom muttered at the same time Yasmin giggled and Joy mumbled, “Oh dear.”

Belle wished silently for the floor to open up and swallow her just as Jack spoke.

“I think the point, right now, Lila, is that you’re embarrassing your granddaughter and I’ll ask you to stop doing it.”

Belle’s head snapped up and her neck twisted so fast it made her dizzy.

The air in the room took on an edge.

“Jack…” Belle whispered.

His eyes moved to hers and he said gently, “I’m speaking to Lila now, poppet.”

“You shouldn’t rile her,” Belle advised.

He turned his torso toward her and asked, “Are you enjoying this conversation?”

She hesitated before responding honestly, “Not really, no.”

He turned back to the table, his gaze moving in the direction of her grandmother and stated firmly, “Then this conversation is over.”

Belle chanced a glance at the table and saw Gram looked fit to be tied but Mom was grinning ear to ear.

“Told you!” Mom announced, pointing at Gram then her finger moved to Belle. “Told you too.”

“Told them what?” Joy asked and Belle saw her mother’s body give a small twitch as her face lost a goodly amount of colour.

She dropped her hand and muttered, “Nothing.”

Everyone at the table was silent for several long moments.

The only one who moved was Jack and this was so he could pour Belle some coffee.

Belle plucked up the courage to break the silence and said in a quiet voice to Jack, “I don’t drink coffee because of the baby.”

He stopped himself from filling his own cup and replied, “Of course.”

He put down the silver service and took her cup from her place, lifted it to his lips and took a sip.

Belle watched Jack sip from a cup she didn’t even use but was somehow still hers and felt, weirdly, the intimacy of this act almost equalled him putting his hand on her pregnant belly for the first time.

The pleasant feeling this gave her was so overpowering it scared her half to death.

She tore her eyes from Jack drinking coffee and caught Yasmin openly staring at her with a huge grin on her face.

Then Yasmin declared, “I’m coming to breakfast every day. This is fun!”

Belle didn’t think it was fun. Belle thought it was torture.

She didn’t share this.

Instead, she caught Joy gazing at her with a bright but pensive look in her eyes.

“I must say,” Joy added, not moving her gaze from Belle. “I agree. I’m glad you’re all here. It definitely livens up the place.”

Belle knew Joy liked her Mom and Gram, like, a lot.

Belle also knew she wasn’t really referring to them.

She felt a warm rush slide through her system and she smiled at Jack’s Mum.

Joy smiled back.

Chapter Ten

Belle and Jack and the Sea

Belle

Belle sat on a thick, woollen rug on the rocks outside The Point watching and listening to the waves smashing against the cliffs.

She was silently asking the sea for peace.

Unusually, the sea wasn’t giving it to her.

That was because her life had again turned on its head.

And it was all Jack’s fault.

After breakfast two days before, he had, as he told her he would do, driven her to her shop in St. Ives.

She didn’t understand why he needed to drive her to her shop. She was temporarily pregnant, not temporarily blind.

However, she did not ask him this.

The drive had been silent which made Belle intensely uncomfortable. What made her more uncomfortable was that it appeared not to make Jack uncomfortable in the slightest.

He’d pulled his sleek, maroon Jaguar around the cobbled street that lined the sea and without her giving him the first direction, stopped at the winding path that led to her shop in town.

She’d turned to him to offer her gratitude for the ride and saw he was already turned toward her.

Before she could speak, he did. “I’m going to London now, poppet. I’ll be home late. Rachel’s picking you up.”

Belle nodded, a little surprised he was driving to London and back in a day (it was over five hours away) but she wasn’t going to comment.

She was about to twist away to exit the car when his hand came up, his fingers curled around her neck and he pulled her close as he leaned in.