From Bags to Riches. Sandra D. Bricker
me. Undefined disappointment curdled the words.
“Yeah. Okay. What is it?” The lid creaked as he opened it, and she stared down at an exquisite diamond and sapphire ring. “It’s beautiful. Whose is it?”
“It was my grandmother’s. Then my mom’s.”
His mom’s ring. Of course. He wants me to consign it.
Jessie swallowed around the lump she hadn’t noticed forming at the base of her throat. “Oh. And you’re showing it to me because—?”
“Well, I remembered that you’re into vintage jewelry, and I thought you might give me an opinion.”
“An opinion. What kind of opinion?”
“Just one in general. What do you think?”
“Well,” she started, then her lips closed tight.
“It’s nothing like the rings you’re used to, I realize,” he said. “But I thought it was kind of pretty. Mom said the diamond’s just under a carat, plus the two triangular—”
“Trillion,” she interrupted. “The cut of the sapphires is called trillion. And the band is really intricate.”
“Art deco inspired,” he told her. “Engraved art deco, I think she said.”
Realization dawned. “Oh,” Jessie said. “So you were thinking of placing it at the store. I could do that for you.”
“You really think a woman would want to wear it?”
“Of course,” she exclaimed. “It’s exquisite.”
“Try it on,” he suggested. “Let’s see it on your finger.” She grinned as she plucked the beauty from the box and slipped it on her right ring finger.
“Danny, it’s superb.”
“You think so?” Just before she pushed it all the way into place, Danny reached out and stopped her, removing it. “Not that finger,” he said. “This one.”
The exquisite ring had barely touched the ring finger of her left hand when Jessie’s pulse kicked into overdrive. She looked up at him, and their gazes locked as he pushed the band all the way into place.
“My grandmother said you have everything you need in this ring. All the somethings.”
“The somethings?” she repeated. “What are the somethings?”
“I don’t know,” he said with a shake of his head. “But one of them is a something blue, which is where the sapphires come in.”
“Ohhh.” She couldn’t help chuckling. “Something old, something new. Something borrowed? So, the woman who wears it has to give it back?”
“No. But she does have to pass it on to her firstborn son when he falls in love.”
“Ah. I see,” she said with a slow nod.
“So you really like it?”
Jessie smiled. “I love it.”
“It wouldn’t be a disappointment after the boulder you had before this one?”
“Not at all,” she said, still not entirely sure what they were talking about. “It’s unique, and it has vintage style of its own.”
“Yeah,” he said, inspecting it on her finger. “I guess it does.” After a moment, he added, “Hey. You want to wear it for a while?”
“Me?”
“Yeah. Break it in or something.”
“Rings don’t really need to—”
“Just until you decide.”
“Decide what?”
“Whether or not you want to marry me.”
Jessie nearly choked, and it took a solid minute to recover. “Are you proposing?”
“That depends. Are you going to freak out or say yes?”
“I’m not sure,” she admitted.
“Then I’ll get back to you on that.”
So much for Danny’s predictability. Of all the unpredictable things he’d ever said or done, this was the most unpredictable of all.
***
“He proposed, Piper. Asked me to marry him. He had a ring and everything.”
The burgeoning smile that made its way up her friend’s face was a little unsatisfying to Jessie.
“Did you hear me?”
“I heard you,” Piper replied, and she reached across the desk for Jessie’s hand. “Let me see the ring.”
“Well, I’m not wearing it,” she chastised.
“Why not?”
“Because. I didn’t say yes.” Jessie plopped her hands on the desktop and wiggled her ring-free fingers with a sigh. “You don’t wear the ring until you say yes.”
“What did you tell him?”
The unexpected pinch of revelation quirked Jessie’s brow, and she leaned back in her desk chair until it creaked. “Piper, you knew, didn’t you?”
“What do you mean?”
She rocked forward and leaned both arms on the desk. “Piper Brunetti.”
Piper flicked a wisp of her short copper hair and darted her green gaze to the wall behind Jessie. “What?”
“Oh!” she exclaimed. “That ridiculous thing in the car about my not wanting to marry again, and you making me promise if he proposed today . . .” Laughing at the realization as it unfolded before her, she added, “That’s what you meant when we were leaving the courthouse. You told Danny, ‘Today, not tomorrow. Today.’ You really thought I’d say yes because of that dumb conversation we had?”
With a sly smile, Piper remarked, “You did promise, after all.”
“How long have you known?”
“He may have mentioned it to me.”
“When?”
“Over breakfast.”
“You had breakfast with Danny?” Jessie’s hand exploded at the side of her head. “Okay. Mind blown. Who initiated that?”
“He invited me.”
“What did he say? Tell me everything.”
Piper’s green eyes narrowed. “He was concerned about the ring.”
“What about the ring? It’s gorgeous.” Wonderings pinged from one side of her mind to the other. “He was concerned?”
“Jack gave you the Rock of Gibraltar, sweetie.”
“Ohh.”
Jessie looked down at her conspicuously ring-free finger as the apparitional image of her former Neil Lane extravaganza materialized in all its three-and-a-half-carat brilliance. She’d built an entire new life there in that store of hers, all of it based upon the curve of a platinum setting. But would she want to carry around that much weight on her finger now?
Not a chance.
“So he showed it to you?” she asked. “The ring?”
Piper nodded. “He did.”
She deflated into a giddy smile. “Stunning, right?”
Her friend leaned on the edge of the desk and broke into a toothy grin. “Amazing. Did he tell you the story about—”
The jingle of the front door opening