Lee Mckenzie - With This Ring

“Are you taking Max with you?”

“I can if you want me to.”

“No, leave him here. He’s good company. I promise I won’t feed him again. Is there anything else I’m not supposed to do?”

Brent scratched the dog behind the ears. “He’s pretty tough. Aren’t you, boy?”

Max panted in agreement.

Brent remembered what his mother had said earlier. What about toiletries? He’d rather not have to make another trip to the drugstore but if Leslie needed something, he’d get it for her. “Do you need me to pick up anything for you?”

“I’ll be fine.”

He suspected she was going easy on him, and he had no argument with that. “You can put your things in the spare room,” he said. “Make yourself at home.”

“Thanks. I really appreciate everything you’ve done.”

Be interesting to see if she still felt that away after she saw what was in the bag. “I guess I should pick up something for dinner, too. Do you like pizza? Or Chinese?”

“Chinese would be great. Do you get it from Wong’s Kitchen?”

“Isn’t it the only Chinese restaurant in town?”

“I guess it is. I don’t eat a lot of takeout but I do like their curried noodles.”

“One of my favorites, too. What else would you like?”

“I’ll leave that up to you. Surprise me.”

Mr. Wong’s menu had all the usual standards. No surprises there. Leslie would definitely be surprised that Brent wasn’t over his high school crush, though. Hell, even he was caught off guard because until today, he’d been pretty sure he was.

You might be able to fool yourself, but you can’t fool me. His mother was right. He wasn’t fooling anybody. Least of all himself. He wasn’t over her, and he probably never would be.

AS SOON AS Brent pulled out of the driveway, Leslie checked her voice mail again. Five more calls. This time only one person hadn’t left a message. Nick had returned hers and said to let him know if she needed anything. Her mother had called again, this time with a harsher reprimand and a reminder that if she wasn’t going through with the wedding, she would have to return all the gifts. Leslie punched the key to delete it.

Two more from Allison, whose worried tone had escalated to annoyed. “I know you’re checking your messages, Leslie. Why won’t you call me?” and “I’m sending John over to your place again. I can’t believe you’re making us worry like this.”

She banged the receiver back into its cradle a little harder than she needed to. “Damn it, Allison. This is not about you.”

But she knew everyone, with the exception of her brother, would make this their business. Thank God she didn’t have to go home and deal with the phone calls and people dropping by to check up on her.

She picked up the bag of clothing Brent had brought for her and carried it into his spare room. As she emptied the contents onto the bed, Max jumped up and flopped down next to them. The teddy bear immediately caught her attention. Max’s, too.

“Hey,” she said, snatching it out of his reach. “You have your own bear. Brent gave this one to me.” She picked it up and for a few seconds, tears blurred her vision. Early that morning a courier had delivered Gerald’s wedding gift. The diamond necklace and matching earrings were stunning, but they hadn’t triggered any kind of emotional response. Maybe because she’d been expecting them. Not those exact pieces, but she’d known he would give her something extravagant.

The teddy bear was unexpected, and kind of sweet. Most men sent flowers when they were trying to make a woman feel better but it was becoming apparent that Brent wasn’t like most men, at least not the ones she knew. She set the bear against the pillow and wiped her eyes on the sleeve of his T-shirt.

“I’ll call him Max.” The dog looked up at her. “That seems like a good name for my teddy bear, don’t you think?” When her life was back to normal and she was back in her own home, she would still have Max the teddy bear as a reminder of being rescued by Brent and being here.

She turned her attention to the clothes. He’d really been concerned they might not be good enough for her. He also thought Gerald wasn’t good enough for her, and she liked that. So, no matter what Brent had given her, she would not hurt his feelings by being anything but appreciative.

The jeans looked to be her size, so she wriggled out of Brent’s sweat pants and pulled them on. They were pretty much a perfect fit, just snug enough to be flattering, and soft and faded enough to be comfortable. She hadn’t been sure what he’d bring for her, but she hadn’t expected anything quite this wearable. She decided to leave on his T-shirt, though, and save the other things for the next few days.

Could she stay that long? She was certainly in no hurry to face her family and friends, and in even less of a hurry to tell them about Gerald and Candice.

She picked up the pink toothbrush and opened the package. There was no place to store it in the bedroom so she took it into the bathroom.

While she’d been in the bath, she hadn’t paid much attention to her surroundings. Brent had done a great job of renovating the bathroom while keeping some of the old fixtures and maintaining the heritage feel of the small home. The vanity was an old washstand with a sink installed in it. She loved antiques, and converting it had been a clever idea. A shelf above the sink held a plastic holder with one toothbrush. A blue one. She stuck her new pink one in next to it.

Gerald had kept a toothbrush at her town house but the en suite bathroom had a long, marble-topped vanity with two sinks, so his things were separate from hers. Here, the two toothbrushes stood with their handles crossed and their bristles facing each other. Like they belonged together. She quickly pulled hers out and set it on the shelf. Somehow the two toothbrushes together seemed way too personal.

She was about to leave the bathroom when she spotted her jewelry beside the sink. She scooped up the pieces, but one of the earrings slipped out of her palm.

She grabbed for it and missed. “Damn it!” she said as it slithered down the drain.

She peered into the opening and saw it was partly blocked by two cross pieces. If she had any kind of luck the earring would have caught on one of them, but this was not her lucky day. The earring was gone.

She opened the doors of the vanity and pushed aside a stack of toilet paper so she could see the pipes. She had no idea what she was looking for, but she supposed the earring would be caught in the lowest part of the curved pipe. When Brent came home, she’d ask about calling a plumber.

She could always forget about the earring. It wasn’t as if she would ever wear it again.

Would Gerald expect her to return the jewelry? Knowing him, he probably would. Well, he could think again. She could take them back to the store and get something more practical. Something she’d actually wear, something that wouldn’t remind her that she’d almost ruined her life. Except anything she bought with that money would be a reminder that she nearly had. Better to do the right thing and return the jewelry.

And that meant asking Brent to help her get the earring out of the drain.

“What the hell,” she said to her reflection in the mirror. “What’s one more favor?”

She put the necklace and the other earring in the top drawer of the little dresser in the bedroom. While she was standing there, the phone rang. She ran into the kitchen to check the caller ID. C. Girling, again. “Oh, buzz off,” she said to the phone. “If he wanted to talk to you, he would have called you back an hour ago.”

She went back to the bedroom to finish putting her things away.