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He yelled her name until he was hoarse, but every single room was empty. Her room looked basically untouched, except that her backpack was missing.
“Shit!”
He went to the kitchen and lifted the gaily wrapped package, finding a personal check from Kara in the amount of ninety thousand dollars and a single sheet of paper under the card and gift.
I’ll repay the rest as soon as I get a job. I left all of the things you gave me except for a few pairs of jeans and a couple of shirts. Thanks for everything. I’ll always be grateful.
Kara
What. The. Fuck. He didn’t want her damn gratitude. He wanted…her.
He crumpled the paper in a tight fist, his knuckles white from the effort.
She had left him?
No explanation.
No goodbye.
Just…gone.
He scooped up the gift and the sealed card, carrying them both to the living room while he poured himself a stiff drink. After knocking back a whiskey in one gulp, he poured himself another and dropped into a leather chair, setting the drink on the coffee table beside him.
He leaned his head back and closed his eyes, wishing he could get a do-over on the evening, starting with the part where he and Kara had left the condo for the party. If he could have a do-over, they would never have left the condo.
He had nearly killed his own brother tonight, had happily beat the shit out of him after he had found out that Sam had hit on Kara. It hadn’t been hard to figure out. Kara had been missing and Sam had a tell-tale handprint on his face, an obvious souvenir from a pissed-off female. Furthermore, Sam had led Kara to believe that Simon wouldn’t mind if Sam fucked his woman.
Granted, Sam had been two sheets to the wind, but Simon had been so out of control when his brother had made his drunken confessions that he didn’t care. He had pounded his brother into the ground, stopping only when his mother got between the two of them.
It was the only physical fight that he and his brother had ever had. Sam had never laid a finger on him, and Simon would have never imagined punching his brother. Until tonight. Until Kara. The thought of any other man touching Kara made Simon completely insane.
It hadn’t made Simon feel any better to know that Kara had rebuffed Sam, bitch-slapping him hard enough to leave a mark. She had probably been scared, confused. And she had left him. It made him want to lay into his stupid-ass brother all over again.
He opened his eyes, noticing that he had crumpled the card in his lap. Smoothing it out, he opened it.
Simon,
Happy Birthday! I wanted to give you something that I didn’t have to buy with your money, something special. I know you collect coins, so I thought of this gift.
This belonged to my father. It was his lucky penny. He found it on the exact same day that he met my mother. He swore it was only moments before he saw her for the first time. He always said it brought him the luckiest event of his life.
I’ve always carried it with me. I’ve made it this far, so I guess it has been lucky.
I know it’s not much, but I want you to have it. I know you don’t really need luck, but I’ll feel better knowing you have it. I hope it always keeps you safe.
Kara
Simon tore open the package and stared long and hard at the small, worn plastic case. He finally popped it open, and glanced at the lucky coin.
Astonished, he flipped it over and then over again. Hell, it was a 1955 Double Die Obverse. And in very nice condition. He wasn’t a professional grader, but he was willing to bet that it would grade high.
Did the crazy woman realize that she had been carrying around such a rare coin? A coin that would probably feed her for several months if she sold it?
Probably not. And he knew that Kara would probably rather die than sell something so sentimental, something that belonged to her dad.
But she had given it to him. She had parted with something extremely dear to her to give him a birthday present.
He closed the case and gripped the coin hard, placing it over his heart as pain ripped through his sternum. Why had she parted with this? Why had she given it to him? Instinctively, he knew it was special to her, so special that she always kept it close.