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I make it downstairs, and Norah is already tooling around the shop with a watering can in hand.
When she hears my footsteps, she turns to me.
“Good morning, sunshine,” she starts. “Whoa, what’s wrong?” she asks as she takes me in.
“Isaac spent the night,” I confess.
“I would have expected a little more afterglow from the experience,” she says.
I sniffle. “He’s gone.”
She drops the vessel and opens her arms.
I run to her, and she wraps her arms around me.
“I forgot it was today,” she murmurs.
I nod into her chest.
“I think it’s time to drown your sorrows.”
“Absolutely,” I sob.
“What shall it be—wine, cookies, eggnog? Tequila shots?” she asks.
“Yes,” I mumble.
“I’ll call the girls,” she says as she pats my back.
Isaac
My heart races as panic tightens its grip. I’ve scoured our room, tearing through our suitcases and rifling through drawers in a desperate search for the missing bag. The small navy bag that holds my and Cobie’s passports and airline tickets—the gateway to our long-awaited Christmas holiday in Paris.
“Where can it be?” I mutter, my voice quivering with worry.
Cobie is on her knees by the credenza, her eyes scanning the floor. “I don’t see it, Daddy,” she calls.
I vividly recall placing the passports in the bag when we landed in Boise after checking the flight details one last time. Then, I tucked the bag into the front zippered compartment of my suitcase.
Didn’t I?
I know I double-checked that I had everything before we disembarked from the airplane, and I think it was with our things when I loaded them into the rental, but now, it’s like the bag has vanished into thin air.
“I’m going to go check the backseat of the SUV. You keep looking,” I tell her.
She nods, and I run down the stairs.
I have to find those passports. The joy of spending quality time with Cobie hangs in the balance, threatened by the absence of the crucial documents.
Keller is standing in the foyer. “Still can’t find it?” he asks.
“Nope. I’m going to check the SUV,” I say as I hurry past him.
“I’ll have Annette talk to the staff and see if any of them saw the bag,” he offers.
“Thanks.”
I search the SUV, front and back and even the trunk.
