Total pages in book: 76
Estimated words: 76205 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 381(@200wpm)___ 305(@250wpm)___ 254(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76205 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 381(@200wpm)___ 305(@250wpm)___ 254(@300wpm)
ENNIS
“Ennis will be working with you as your assistant,” Brad said to Bruce. Then, to me, “Daphne tells me you’re thinking about staying in the States.”
“If I can get a green card.”
“Consider it done,” Brad said. “I’ll have my attorneys handle it.”
“This is a big step,” I said.
“If you’re going to turn me down, tell me now,” Brad said. “That way, Bruce can bring in his own people.”
“I don’t have any people,” Bruce said.
“Seems like kismet, then. What do you say, Ennis? You can both hire who you need.”
I stood and held out my hand. “Deal, Brad. Thank you.”
The next night, Daphne and I had dinner together at her house. Brad wasn’t there—he rarely was—and Daphne’s mother-in-law had excused herself early.
I got right to the point.
“Has Brad checked with the Peace Corps yet?” I asked Daphne. “About Patty?”
“Not that he’s told me.”
Damn. Was Patty a priority to Brad Steel at all? Was Daphne? His child? He was never home, and he basically gave the responsibility of his up-and-coming winery to me, an Englishman.
Daphne sighed. “Maybe it’s time to let her go. Maybe we both need to let her go, Ennis.”
Let her go?
The Australian diamond ring sat in the pocket of my jeans, and I absently touched it through the denim.
I couldn’t let her go.
I just couldn’t.
But perhaps Daphne was right.
I finally nodded. “You’re right, love. I just didn’t want to think our relationship meant nothing to her, and when I had that dream, I had a sliver of hope and a sliver of dread at the same time. I don’t want her dead, of course, but part of me wants to believe I meant something to her.”
“Of course you did.”
“Perhaps. But the Peace Corps apparently meant more. Something she never even discussed with me.” I threw my gaze to the floor. “It doesn’t make any sense.”
“It doesn’t. But like I said, Patty isn’t the first friend who’s left me in the dust, never to be heard from again, which makes me think maybe it’s not that abnormal of a thing.”
Again I felt horrid for her at that thought.
Why should anyone think it’s normal to lose people they love? Young people.
I pulled the ring out of my jeans pocket and stared at it.
Daphne’s eyes went wide. “Oh my. You were going to propose to her, weren’t you?”
“I’d hoped to. It was false hope. I knew she wasn’t here. Even if the dream had turned out to be true, it wasn’t a good dream, Daphne. She was hurt. Or dead. Or something.” I rubbed my forehead. “It’s so hard to even say the words. I suppose I hope she is in Africa. At least then she’s all right.” I fingered the platinum band and the large orange stone surrounded by clear diamonds. “This belonged to my great-grandmother from Australia. It’s a fire diamond, and it’s worth…well… a lot.”
“I wish I could have seen it on Patty’s finger,” Daphne said. “It would have gone so perfectly with her hair.”
“I know.” A smile edged onto my lips. “I hated the thing when Mum gave it to me. Thought it was an awful color. Until I met Patty. I fell hard for her, and I knew then why Mum had given me the ring. It was for Patty.”
“Maybe someday…” Daphne said wistfully.
But I shook my head adamantly. “No. I’m letting her go, Daph, which means I can’t hold on to this.”
“Sure you can. You’ll meet someone else.”
“I don’t want to meet anyone else. How do you get over the love of your life?”
“I don’t… I don’t know.”
“Tell me this. If something happened to Brad, would you get over him?”
She closed her eyes. “I can’t let my mind go there.”
“And that’s what I mean.” I grabbed her hand and shoved the ring into it. “It’s for you, Daph. Keep it. Give it to one of your children. Maybe you’ll have a girl next. Or wear it. Just keep it. I know you’re going to have a huge family.”
“Ennis, I can’t. You don’t know. You may want it back.”
“All right. You keep it for me, then. I’ve got all the papers with me. I’ll give them to you. Put it in a safe, and if I ever ask for it back, you’ll have it.”
She smiled then. “All right, Ennis. If that’s what you want.”
“It is.”
But I knew I’d never ask for it back.
BRIANNA
“Such a sad story,” Callie says. “You never wanted it back?”
“I never did. Then, when Daphne died—or so we thought—shortly after Marjorie was born, I never thought about the ring again.”
“Turns out it was stolen from our mother,” Donny says. “It was left for me in a safe-deposit box by a woman named Brittany Sheraton. We found out she and her father had been paid off in jewels for helping to run a human trafficking ring on some property of ours in Wyoming.” He shakes his head. “It’s a long story. A big mess. Anyway, one of their payments included the ring. We didn’t know who it belonged to when I found it, but I always thought it would be perfect for Callie.”