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“Don’t worry, big guy. I’ve got it covered.”
That’s when I slip my hand into my back pocket and pull out a small velvet box.
Once, the same box held my hopes and dreams before they were pulverized in a New York minute by Barry the fuck and that banshee Calypso, hanging on his arm.
Now?
Now it’s just a protector for an overpriced piece of useless jewelry.
I set the ring box on the counter and flip it open.
The five-carat Bulgari ring inside nearly blinds poor Cindy in the shop’s lighting.
The diamond is obscene, marquise cut and set inside a concentric frame of white gold. It’s an antique, one of those things you buy as much for the prestige as the size of the ridiculously large rock.
I’d bought it for Calypso because it suited her.
Like hell I’m going to recycle something picked for another woman for Libby.
She’d probably just laugh her head off at the sight of the thing, anyway.
Cindy stares, though.
So does Alaska, and he gives me a wide-eyed look. “Boss, is that the same—”
“Yeah,” I tell him. “Trust me, I don’t need it anymore.”
Cindy bites her lip. “You want to sell this?”
I nod. “I’ve got the papers and everything. It’s over sixty years old, used to belong to some big Italian opera guy. Paid a small mortgage for it. Different times.”
With a sharp gasp, Cindy tears her wide eyes away from the ring and back to me. “Oh, my. I don’t think we can…” She swallows. “I’ll have to talk to the owner, Holt. We-we need to get an appraiser, you see, and—”
I chuckle. “Deep breath. I’m not expecting full price. How about you hold that for me, lock it up in the safe, and write me the paperwork so you can hold it for appraisal? When you’ve got the owner’s approval and a price, you can call me, and we can trade off for the sale and the bracelet.”
“S-sure,” she says, looking a little pale.
I think it might just scare her a little to have that kind of responsibility on her hands.
There’s probably never been a ring this expensive in Heart’s Edge in her life. She’s probably too young to even have been a sparkle in Gerald Bostrom’s eye.
Thinking of Bostrom is sobering, though.
As much as I’m riding on cloud nine, we still have trouble.
While Cindy bustles away to open the safe and draw up the paperwork, Alaska gives me an amused look. “You sure you want to be selling off that ring? Seems more like you should be buying one?”
I snort. “She’d kill me if I popped the question this soon. That’s moving so fast she’d push me off the cliff if we showed up by the valley to do the flower toss all the locals do.”
Not to say I’m not thinking about it.
Thinking about it way more than I should be.
“Love doesn’t run on schedules,” he says gravely.
I give him a flat look.
“That some mountain man wisdom you learned up there in the wild?”
With a long, patient sigh, he just eyes me. “One day, boss, you’re gonna stop giving me a heap of shit.”
“Not today, pal,” I tease, before frowning as my phone goes off in my pocket. “One sec.”
I step away from both Alaska and the jewelry counter as I pull out my phone and check the number. It’s one of the guys on my crew, Steve, who keeps an eye on the office when I’m not there.
I swipe my thumb over the screen and lift the phone to my ear.
“What’s up?” I say.
“Hey, boss,” Steve says, but I can already tell from the tone of his voice that something’s very wrong. “You might want to get down here quick. You’ve got company—and she’s real upset.”
* * *
“She” turns out to be the wrong Potter.
I was so worried about Libby I went tearing back to the site like my ass was on fire, leaving Alaska to wrap up the transaction and get the paperwork finished so I can either get my ring back or get paid—and I may or may not have broken a few laws, both speeding and texting while driving.
It scares me to think why Libby would be in my office, but she isn’t answering her phone and didn’t call me first.
It fucks with me even more when I go busting into the trailer and see the state Sierra Potter’s in.
She’s hunched in the chair opposite my desk like she’s cold even though it’s blistering hot out—curled in on herself with her arms wrapped around her like she’s trying to hold her heat in, damn well shivering.
Her arms are bare.
They’re covered in bruises.
Her sleeveless pink blouse is ripped and dirty. Same for her white denim capris, and where her legs are bare, she’s covered in scratches. Some of them deep, the blood drying but still wet enough to be bright red.
