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“We don’t need to be so old-fashioned. Forget the ring. I’m a woman of the new millennium and all that.”
He shook his head. “Oh c’mon. My wife wears a ring.”
“Hey, Dimples. We’re not really married. You get that, right?”
She glanced to his left hand. He already wore a gold band.
Lucy removed the lid, revealing pear-shaped sapphires surrounding a massive diamond.
“I can’t wear this.” She held it up. Light bounced off the diamond. “It has to be three carats.”
“Nah, it’s a fake.” He took the box from her, removed the band from the velvet lining, and pushed the ring gently up to her knuckle.
It slid right off.
He pushed the ring gently onto her finger again.
It dropped back into his hand.
“Shucks, it doesn’t fit. I’m not your Cinderella.”
“It has to.” He pressed it up to her knuckle and squeezed the band, so the flimsy metal molded to her finger.
“Classy. I see you spared no expense.” Sarcasm came in handy at that moment.
His fingers trailed across her hand before he shoved the little box back into his jacket.
Lucy followed him out the door, staring at the ring.
In what reality did she wear a fakey-fake engagement ring to go on a honeymoon with William?
He hoisted the bags and equipment boxes filled with cameras and various gadgets into the back of the old red truck he’d driven the first day she met him, hurrying around to the passenger side just in time to open Lucy’s door.
His hand rested against her elbow for a moment. A flash of light caught the metal of the gold band on his left hand, taunting an impossible reality. Her blood pressure spiked; her breath turned ragged.
The scent of him swirled in the air—spice, citrus, and the forest at dusk.
“Relax,” he said against her ear.
For the briefest of seconds, she thought he might nip at the soft skin of her earlobe where his lips brushed. A shiver slinked around her, over her, straight through her.
His grin broke the spell.
“What’s with the not shaving thing?” Lucy climbed inside.
He glanced at the hem of her dress where it slipped up on her thigh, for about four beats too long. She cleared her throat and tilted her head to the side.
“It’s my cover.” He closed her door.
Cover?
He moved his hand over the hood as he jogged around the front of the truck. Once he climbed inside, her nerves did that purring thing they were so fond of when he was around.
“Do people recognize you a lot?” she asked.
“Not here in Confluence. But why take the risk?” He backed out of the parking lot. “It helps that people see what they want to see. What they expect to see. They don’t expect to see a reporter, so they don’t.”
“Kind of like an alter ego. Except instead of spandex and a cape, you grow a beard and drive a truck?”
