by Adrianne Lee
My attention shifted back to Troy’s mother. Gwen was smirking, barely able to contain her amusement. “What kind of curse did she tell you was placed on the ring?”
Meg closed her eyes and inhaled, probably weighing how “hilarious” her future mother-in-law would find the answer. She seemed about lose it, her lower lip caught in her teeth. I feared she’d bite a chunk of skin off if she got more distressed.
“That’s just it,” I said in an effort to calm my anxious bride, praying Gwen had something to tell us that would also calm me. “Meg can’t recall the particulars of the curse. We were hoping that you’d remember.”
Gwen studied me as if she thought we were pranking her. “You’re serious about this?”
As serious as the thousand dazzling rhinestones on your jacket. She thought the idea of a curse was odd, and yet, she seemed to have a Bedazzler fetish. Okay, so it was understandable. After all, she worked in Gig Harbor for a craft shop. But still… Note to self: Don’t let Gwen anywhere near Meg’s wedding gown. “This isn’t a joke,” I assured her.
“Really?” She remained unconvinced.
“Really,” Meg said.
Skepticism pulled Gwen’s brows together, creating twin lines at the top of her nose. “Even so, why is this so important that you’re here this morning risking us all being late for work?”
I locked gazes with my best friend. It wasn’t my place to tell Gwen that the wedding hinged on this. That was up to Meg. Meg shook her head, gesturing with her hand that I should just tell Gwen. I shook my head harder. I had to draw the line somewhere. After all, I didn’t even believe in curses. Much. I said, “Tell her.”
“Okay.” Meg huffed. She lifted her hair off her neck and let it drop back to her shoulders. Then speaking so softly that I could hardly hear her, she said, “Unless the curse is removed from that ruby ring, I’m not going to marry Troy.”
“Excuse me?” Gwen almost toppled off her stool. “Did you say you’re not going to marry my son unless a curse is removed from Granny O’s ring?”
I swear Meg was holding her breath. I didn’t think she could find the air to get those words out again. I answered for her, “Yeah, that.”
Every trace of humor disappeared from Gwen’s regal face, replaced by a deer-in-the-headlights mien. “But you must marry Troy. He loves you. We’ve got an appointment to taste cake samples at the Wedding Bakery.”
If only that logic would fix this mess. “Meg loves Troy, too, but this curse has her pretty freaked out.”
“Well, if it’s any consolation, now I’m freaked out, too.” Gwen straightened her jacket and reached out to cover Meg’s hand with her own. “But I assure you, Meg, sweetie, there is no curse. You’ve just got a bad case of cold feet.”
Meg frowned. “What?”
“Girls, I have to run. I’ll be late if I don’t leave right this minute. And I am never late.”
“But…,” Meg said.
“No, no. I don’t want to hear any more about this. You just concentrate on my darling son and your future together. It’s going to be wonderful.” She led us out of the house to her car, got in, started the engine, and waved to us as she drove off.
Meg and I stood next to the garage, silent. I couldn’t speak for her, but I was feeling as numb as my jaw after a visit to the dentist. “What just happened?”
“We got the fast shuffle,” Meg said, sounding desolate. “She’s really good at brushing aside anything she doesn’t want to hear or deal with. She could make a mint selling those rose-colored glasses.”
I wasn’t sure if that was a good trait in a mother-in-law or if it would present Meg with a lot of headaches over the years. “Now what?”
She shrugged, sinking onto a nearby concrete retaining wall that ran the length of the driveway. “Now nothing. It’s over. I’m destined to be an old maid.”
Oh, brother. I sat beside her. After last night, I was feeling way too good about my chances of not living life celibate, and I wasn’t about to have that be my best friend’s fate either. “There must be something or someone who knows about curses and how to remove one.”
“I Googled curses on engagement rings. A gazillion sites popped up. It would take years to read all the articles.”
“Without any guarantee we’d find the curse that’s on your ruby ring,” I finished for her. “We could narrow down the Google search if we knew what the curse was.”
Guilt spread across Meg’s face. She thought this was her fault, when in fact, circumstances had just conspired against her. Again. She said, “It has something to do with weddings or marriages, but beyond that, it could be any kind of curse. What if trying to remove the wrong curse makes it worse?”
This was crazy. Why couldn’t Meg just get engaged like any normal person and proceed without one glitch after another? Like a foreshadowing, a dark cloud floated across the sun, momentarily robbing the bright light around us. Although it wasn’t cold, I shivered. What were we going to do? I didn’t want Meg to know that I was as disillusioned as she was. I only wanted her to be happy again. Like she’d been before coming back to Weddingville.
“Psst.”
“Did you say something?” I asked Meg.
“No. I thought it was you.”
“Psst.”
We both glanced toward the back door of Joe and Gwen’s house. The door was cracked open, and Joe O’Malley was leaning out. “Is Gwen gone?”
We hopped off the retaining wall, swiping at the rear of our running pants. I said, “She left a couple minutes ago.”
“Good.” He gestured for us to come into the kitchen again. We hurried over and back inside. He was dressed in a white T-shirt, blue jeans, and white socks, as if he’d been getting ready for work but stopped to speak to us. He strode to the counter, lifted a thermos, and filled a mug. “Coffee?”
We declined. We were both at least ten minutes late to work and very much in need of showers and a change of clothes after our run. But as anxious as I was to be heading to the bridal shop, I also wanted to hear what Joe wanted.
He gestured us toward the table, and as I sat, I noticed a daub of shaving cream dotted one cheek. “I overheard what you were discussing with Gwen,” he said, taking a seat at the table. “She doesn’t know anything about the ring because I never told her about it. Besides, look around. Gwen likes putting her own stamp on things.”
I hadn’t noticed before that the toaster cover, the tea cozy, and the place mats were all homemade. I wasn’t sure how they’d missed being Bedazzled, but then again, Gwen gave craft classes on all sorts of things.
Joe said, “Accepting a ring that had belonged to someone else would never do for her.”
“Is your grandmother’s ring cursed?” I asked, tired of getting the runaround.
“No. Not at all.” His answer didn’t ease the pained look in his eyes. “You have to understand that my grandmother was from another place and time. Illness forced her to come live in Weddingville with my parents and siblings. She’d never lived in just one place. Her home was wherever the Travelers were. She was lost and lonely, and her mind was slowly slipping away. Alzheimer’s. Not a curse.”
“But,” Meg said, her tone measured as she carefully selected her words, “she was lucid the day she told me about the ring.”
“Was she? Think back with the caveat of what I’ve just told you.” Joe turned sympathetic eyes on his would-be daughter-in-law. “Doesn’t it make you look at what she said differently?”
Meg let the words settle over her, and I saw a shifting in her body language, as if tension were slipping from tight muscles and worry dissolving in its wake. “I suppose…”
“Ah, that’s great.” Joe grinned, his handsome face echoing his son’s great looks. He stood up, our signal that it was time to go. “Now let’s not hear any more nonsense about you not marrying my son. You two belong together. Just pick out a ring and forget about the one Granny O gave Troy for his bride.”
A moment later, we found ourselv
es outside again, standing in the O’Malleys’ driveway. I clasped Meg around the shoulders. “See, no curse. Just the ramblings of a woman with dementia.”
It was late; even three blocks from town I could hear the commotion going on. My phone vibrated in my pocket for the tenth time. I stopped ignoring it. I had four texts from Gram and two from Mom. My stomach dipped. She’d had to take my early morning appointment, and I needed to be at the bridal shop in twenty minutes to take her appointment. I told Meg, and we started jogging toward town.
We’d gone around two blocks when Meg said, “It’s so sad, isn’t it?”
I gaped. She couldn’t be serious. “You’re sad because there’s no curse?”
She shook her head, puffing as we ran. “That all us kids thought that poor lonely old woman was a witch. Kids can be so cruel.”
Including me. Guilt and shame pounded the pavement with my every footfall. I’d always been convinced Granny O was somehow evil. Now, looking back as an adult armed with facts, I realized all the signs of dementia were there; I’d just been too young to recognize them. “I’m sure that’s the only reason you believed what she told you about the ring being cursed.”
Meg nodded, then suddenly stopped in her tracks, catching my arm and pulling me up short. “Oh my God, Daryl Anne. I remember. I know what she said about the ring.”
Of course she’d remember now, when it didn’t matter. She didn’t expand, just stood there with an array of emotions flickering across her face like credits at the end of a movie. I bumped her arm. “Are you going to make me guess?”
Meg’s gaze pinned me. “She might not have been a witch, and she might’ve been losing her mind, but even Joe will tell you that she did have ‘the sight.’”
I’d never told Meg, but Billie believed that, too. I just nodded, waiting for her to continue.
“She said that she’d seen the future and that if I wed Troy with her ruby ring, we’d have a long and happy union. If he slipped any other ring on my finger, however, we were doomed.”
“This is amazingly good news.” I smiled, wondering why she wasn’t smiling with me.
“No, it’s not. Have you forgotten the ring is in police custody, evidence in a crime that has not been solved?” Tension seemed to grab hold of Meg’s muscles with renewed vigor. “I can’t marry Troy until the Weddingville burglar is caught and tried and my ring is no longer evidence. The court system is so slow, even if the thief is caught right away, it could be years before he or she is convicted. Or longer, if the robberies go unsolved.”
Oh crap. She was right. “Maybe if you and Troy explain the situation to Sheriff Gooden, he’ll relent and release the ring.”
“Yeah right. ’Cause he’s sympathetic to young lovers.”
I remembered what he’d said to Troy after Meg lost it yesterday: “Imagine what your life would be like if you had married her.” Yeah, sympathy wasn’t going to work on Gooden. “Then maybe you could offer him some money for the ring?”
“You want me to bribe the sheriff? Have you lost your mind?”
Maybe. “Well, there has to be some way to get Granny O’s ring out of evidence and onto your finger.”
“Daryl Anne Blessing, I am not going to rob the evidence room.”
“Of course not.” That’d be crazy. Wouldn’t it? Lord, what was I thinking? Gram would have another heart attack if I got myself arrested, especially inside the police station in the act of committing a felony. But I had to do something, and the only resolution that came to mind was bumping up my investigation—which also had the potential of landing me in handcuffs. And not the kind in those Shades of Grey books.
* * *
Between scheduled appointments and drop-in shoppers, the next two days hummed like a beehive. Constant mayhem. Happy brides, disappointed brides, frustrated brides, undecided brides, tearful brides. The whole gamut. The side of my brain that thrives on order had come close to imploding. I hadn’t even thought about the Weddingville thief or come up with a sleuthing plan.
Right now, though, I was grateful for the lull this morning. I stood in the salon, finishing a cup of coffee, glancing out the window. Even foot traffic was thinner than it had been all week. It usually was on hump day. My gaze landed on Something Old, Something New across the street, and I stilled as if by an invisible hand. I hadn’t been inside that shop since Bernice accused Whitey of stealing the Roosevelt wedding server set. Irritation threatened to invade my moment of peace, and I stifled it. I’d rather focus on what was important. On finding the real thief. As I puzzled out how to do that, it occurred to me that I should start with the first robbery, start at the beginning. Isn’t that what Jessica Fletcher always does?
Something tickled my neck, and I inhaled a whiff of sandalwood amid the heavier scent of the four bouquets of yellow roses. Mom had purchased them the other day from the Flower Girl and arranged the blooms throughout this room. I spun around to find Seth grinning, holding a single-stemmed orange rose toward me. He was like a spotlight targeting an actor on stage, his attention shining on me, filling me with warmth and vanquishing my shadowy thoughts. The smile in my heart sprang to my lips. I tilted my head and gazed into his twinkling brown eyes.
“An orange rose? Didn’t you hear, Quinlan? The yellow ones were the better bargain.”
He lifted a brow, leaning toward me with mischief in his dark eyes. In a low, husky voice, he said, “Yeah, but orange signifies fascination and desire, Blessing, and that’s how I feel about you. Fascinated. And wanting you so much I can’t even think.”
He pulled me close, his mouth possessing mine in a mind-bending kiss. My stress fell away like snow melting from a roof as hot images of this man unleashed a need in me that left my knees weak and my brain addled. When we came up for air, I murmured, “Whew, you really know how to take a woman’s mind off what’s bothering her.”
“Is something bothering you, Blessing?”
I hadn’t had time to tell him about Meg and my visit to the O’Malleys the other day, but thinking about it now, I sighed. “Troy and Meg.”
“How come?”
I leaned my head into his chest, his heart a steady thrumming in my ear as I brought him up to speed. “Joe swore to us that there was never a curse on that ring, and I think Meg actually accepted his word for it. But almost as soon as we left, she finally remembered what Granny O said about it.”
“That the ring is cursed?” There was a touch of dread in his voice.
“I don’t know if I’d call it a curse, more of a long-held sentiment.” I explained what Meg recalled. “And Meg believes it with all her heart.”
“It’s a pretty romantic notion, but I don’t see a problem. The ring has been found. You should be relieved, not worried. And Meg should be thrilled.”
I peered up at him. “Not if the ring sits in some police evidence locker forever.”
He frowned, digesting this for a long moment; then he held me gently by the shoulders, putting enough space between us to better see me. “But that means…”
I nodded. “That Meg and Troy are doomed unless the thief is caught and prosecuted right away.”
“Honey, the police are working on that.”
I rolled my eyes. “Considering the stellar investigative skills Gooden showed solving the murder of Meg’s mother, how soon do you think he’s likely to figure out who’s ripping off Weddingville businesses?”
Seth pursed his lips. I knew he wanted to defend the sheriff’s and Troy’s abilities to clear this case, but he couldn’t deny the chances were pretty slim. The thief could be anyone, from a town resident to someone passing through. “There must be another way to get the ring released from evidence.”
“If you can make that happen, Meg and Troy would be forever grateful. Not to mention me.” And I’d have a good time showing him exactly how thankful. “Can you?”
He offered up the same possibilities I’d come up with and finally gave up. “No. Short of solving the crime ourselves, I got nothing.”
>
“I’m willing if you’re willing.”
He pulled me close again, kissing me long and sweet, and then, breathless, he stared at me like he was about to do what he’d done to me the night before. “I’m always willing where you’re concerned, Blessing.”
And I could feel the proof pressing my thigh. My own body screamed a responding, Hell yes! But the bridal shop salon was not the place, and this was not the time. I shoved my palm against his chest. “I meant, if you’re willing to help me catch the thief.”
“You? Us?” He released me like a match that had burned his fingertips.
I blinked. I’d just discovered how to deflate the moment in two easy seconds.
His raised eyebrows lowered, and he leaned toward me, looking as if I’d lost my mind. “Us?”
My mouth dried as I scrambled for a defense. “Yes. You and me. We could, um, investigate on our own. A little.”
“Correct me if I’m wrong, Daryl Anne, but didn’t Troy warn you not to get involved in an official police case?”
I could feel the heat spreading through my cheeks, and I started talking with the speed of an auctioneer. “Well, as a matter of fact he did, but see, this wouldn’t be interfering exactly. It would just be us asking some questions of other shop owners or staff and putting fresh eyes on each of the robberies. We might come up with an angle the police haven’t considered or maybe missed.”
He shook his head and glanced toward the ceiling. “Lord, what have I gotten myself into falling for this woman?”
Did that mean he wasn’t going to help? He grew thoughtful. He had to be weighing several things. The possibility of losing his part-time job with the police department if we were caught. His friendship with Troy. His wish for Troy to have a happy marriage. His natural inclination to rescue women in distress.
I waited. Patience, as you know by now, is not my strong suit, but I managed somehow to keep my yap shut while he processed my request. My phone vibrated. I checked the screen. A text from Meg: Can you meet me at Zelda’s right away?