Peace of Her Heart
Page 17
“Okay, well, you’d better just cut to it. What is this big romantic thing?” Maddie asked, beginning to grow frustrated.
Nick made a quick nod of his head and took a deep breath. Then he slid off of the sofa and onto one knee. He pulled a little jewelry box out of his pocket and held it out to Maddie.
Maddie thought she was about to throw up. An engagement ring? There was no way this was actually happening. After the initial wave of nausea, she had to press her lips together to suppress her laughter. It was utterly ridiculous that Nick was proposing to her. She spluttered a little and slapped her hand over her mouth.
“Ooh, I’m overdoing it, aren’t I?” Nick asked, slipping back up onto the sofa.
“That depends on what exactly it is you are trying to do,” answered Maddie, a huge smile opening across her face.
“Let me just try this again from up here,” Nick said, shaking his shoulders a little, blushing, and then gluing his gaze to his own hands and the little jewelry box. “Maddie, Raffie took your heart and gave it away,” he said, and Maddie stared at his face, his expression unsure for the first time since she’d known him. “But I was hoping that I could give it back to you,” he said, and he opened the little box.
Inside was a gold ring with a heart made of red stones. It looked so much like the ring Maddie had twined around Raff’s neck that for a moment she thought it had been somehow recovered, before she noticed a few small differences. She brought her hands to her mouth and gave a little gasp.
“I was hoping,” Nick said, his clear voice eroding into a mumble as he shook his head in self-doubt, “that maybe this whole thing would be romantic.” He put the jewelry box down on the sofa next to Maddie, straightened himself up, and sat back on the couch. He shook his head and turned his eyes up to the ceiling. “I hadn’t planned the on-one-knee thing,” he continued, as Maddie took the little ring out of the box. “That was me improvising. I’m not so good at improvising.” She held the ring up to the light of the window. “I thought we’d do this at lunch and they’d bring the ring with the dessert, you know, that whole thing.”
The ring was the wrong size for the finger she had worn its predecessor on, but it fit the next finger perfectly. She twinkled it in the light streaming in from the window. It was, she realized, a far more expensive ring than the garnet ring she’d lost. She was no jeweler, but she could tell. “What are these stones?” she asked.
“Rubies,” he answered.
“So, yesterday you must have taken Raff to jewelry stores—”
“—so that he could show me rings that looked like your old one,” Nick affirmed. “This ring had opals in it originally. I had to get them to swap the stones. But Raff said that ring looked pretty much like it. Was he right?”
“Yeah, he was right,” Maddie answered.
“Again, sorry about the proposal-type thing,” Nick said, scooting along the sofa and taking Maddie’s hand. They both looked down at the pretty red heart. “I had to think on my feet, and I guess it wasn’t that good.”
“Well, I mean, considering how bruised your feet are from last night, I think you did great,” Maddie answered, cuddling a little closer to him and looking up into his face.
He didn’t say anything, but lifted her hand in his and turned it this way and that, making the jewels shine. After a few moments he said, “Hey, it matches your pajamas!”
“Yeah, it does!” she said. “And it matches your bedroom.”
“It matches the bedroom at my dad’s house. You haven’t seen my actual bedroom at my own house,” Nick reminded her.
“Well, you should think twice before you take me there,” Maddie said, turning and wrapping her arms around him, and laying her head against his chest. “I might leave my heart on the bedside table. Then what would you do?”
“Ha, you mean this ring?” Nick laughed. “Maddie, if you ever did lose your heart at my house, I’d be honored to have you stay forever and look for it,” he said, pulling her all the way into his lap and holding her tight.
“Okay, well. That was a little bit cheesy,” Maddie teased.
“Maybe it was,” Nick answered. “I told you I wasn’t good at romance.”
END
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Sincerely,
Lyndie Strawbridge
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