Page 16 of Never Been Witched (Starfall Point #3)

She pulled a small gold ring out of the dresser and held it up to the light. He didn’t know a lot about jewelry, but it looked like a small sapphire surrounded by tiny diamond chips, set in dulled gold.

“Probably late nineteenth century,” she murmured. “Stone’s not exactly showy, but respectable and nice clarity considering the age and the fact that it’s probably been back there a while.” Alice glanced up at him and blushed at her own rambling. “Sorry, occupational hazard.”

So much trouble.

She tilted the ring back and forth. “There’s an inscription inside the band. ‘V & S.’ You know, Riley and Caroline and I found a ring sort of like this once. There was a big mix-up over the inscri—” She was smiling when she suddenly paused and glanced up. “Never mind.”

“I’d like to hear the rest of that story,” he told her.

“It’s a long one.” She slipped the ring onto her finger and beamed, even though it was a loose fit.

He wanted to offer to buy it for her, right that second, just to keep that smile on her face.

But she probably wouldn’t have appreciated that.

She’d stuck to the bounds of employer-employee propriety so far. Collin didn’t want to ruin that.

“Hey, Willard!” she called, carefully putting the false drawer back in its place. “How much for this?”

“Did you find something, Alice?” Willard asked, sounding pleased as he peeked around a marble statue of a dryad.

“Yeah, at the back of the drawer,” she said, handing the ring over. “It’s not marked, but I want to give you a fair price.”

“Oooh, drawer treasure, that’s the best kind,” Willard hummed. He looked at the ring and glanced at Collin.

“Where did the dresser come from?” Collin asked. Alice beamed at him as if he’d said exactly the right thing. He’d never understood the phrase about one’s heart leaping in one’s chest, but his did. He had to prop his hands against a glass display case to keep his knees from giving out.

Pull it together, man.

“Oh…that dresser? Don’t tell your grandparents,” Willard said, leaning to conspiratorially whisper to Alice. “But one of your grandpa’s third cousins sold it to me.”

“Cousin Avery?” she asked quietly. “He and Franklin haven’t spoken since Cousin Avery’s mother died a few years back.

I think it was because Franklin expected Avery to hand over anything inherited from the ‘family line’ the minute Avery’s mother was buried.

Avery expected to be able to mourn his beloved mother, who was a really nice lady. ”

Collin wondered why none of these reasonable-sounding relatives stepped in on Alice’s behalf when she was a child, but figured the answer was something like, “because her grandparents were horrible human beings.” According to the comments he’d heard about the Proctors, the couple were difficult at best, “raging assholes” at worst.

That last one came from Caroline.

“I won’t say anything,” Alice promised. “Avery was free to sell his furniture to whoever he wanted. Back to the ring. What do you want for it?”

Willard held the ring up to the light. “Not exactly the Hope Diamond, but a nice little piece. And you did bring in a pretty significant bit of business for me today, Alice. Plus, since it was technically found in a dresser belonging to your extended family, why don’t we consider it a finder’s fee? ”

“I couldn’t do that,” she said, her eyes falling back to the waxy pie thing again.

Collin wondered, what was with the waxy pie thing?

“And Avery was a third cousin pretty far removed,” Alice added. “We weren’t even invited to their reunions.”

“Wasn’t it just your birthday?” Willard asked, peering over his glasses at her.

“Four months ago,” Alice objected.

Willard placed the ring in her hand. “Besides, you’ll have to pay to have it resized.”

“I have to pay you something , for my conscience’s sake,” she told him.

Willard named a price that was less than what Collin paid for an average lunch.

He immediately liked Willard and pledged to give him all the business he could.

The ring, Collin noticed, was already on Alice’s finger, and for some reason, that made him very happy.

Alice searched through her handbag to pay in cash, and when she put it down on the register counter, she dislodged a stack of what looked like glossy furniture magazines.

She apologized quickly, but Willard only grinned at her. “Brand-new auction catalogues, fresh from the East Coast. I’m glad you came in today so you could see them.”

“Anything interesting?” Alice asked.

He hummed. “Oh, the usual landfill fodder posing as Fabergé, but a few nice ones. Mollerson’s has some nice Steiff pieces.”

Collin hoped one day he would understand what any of that meant. Alice paid and began leafing through the catalogues. She seemed to freeze as her hands touched a particularly colorful page. She breathed out, “Oh, my.”

At first, Collin thought he was looking at a close-up photo of a painted shoe, which showed how much he knew.

It was a bowl, maybe, made from stained glass.

The rounded panels were cut from shell-pink glass with beds of roses, violets, and pansies blooming from the base up.

Each petal was divided by black leaded iron, with a border of sunshine yellow around the lip.

“Wow,” she said, her hands running across the page.

“Wait.” Collin cocked his head and placed his hand on the paper, his fingers brushing against hers. “Is that a stained-glass tub ?”

She snatched her hand away and smiled shyly up at him.

“Yeah, I’ve never seen anything like it.” She squinted down at the description. “I’ve never even heard of the manufacturer. Canton Glassworks? I know it’s incredibly impractical and will probably explode in a shower of water and glass when filled… But it’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”

And the way her face looked when she touched the page, he knew he would find a way to give it to her. Yes, he’d resisted the urge to buy the ring, but a stained-glass bathtub was an appropriate birthday present from a friend…ly…business acquaintance, right?

So. Much. Trouble.

“It probably graced the bathroom of a very happy mistress for one of history’s most indulgent political figures,” Willard told her. “Who didn’t care if said bathroom was flooded.”

“How dare you. It looks more like something a fairy queen would take bubble baths in,” she snipped back, even while her eyes were alight with glee.

“Is that a reasonable reserve for a stained-glass bathtub?” Collin asked, noting the very bold, very red number on the bottom of the page.

“I have no idea,” she admitted, shaking her head. “I would have to do some research.”

“I finally found something you don’t know,” Collin said. “I didn’t realize that was possible.”

She gave him a half-hearted glare. “Well, you could enjoy it less.”

“No.” He shook his head. “I don’t think I could.”

After bidding Willard goodbye, they worked their way down the street. Alice kept twisting the ring around her finger, occasionally stopping to smile down at her hand.

“I really should get back to the shop,” she murmured, grinning up at him. “But I can’t remember when I’ve enjoyed myself so much. And I’m just going to call this ‘professional research’—scouting out the competition.”

“I’m flattered you’re willing to bend the strictest description of your duties for me,” he told her as they moved through the crowd.

A lot of locals stopped Collin to say hello and welcome him back to the island.

At first, it was kind of nice, but when it took them almost an hour to make it up one block, it became a little embarrassing.

While those same locals were perfectly polite to Alice, there was a distance there, a reserve that wasn’t present when she was with Riley or Caroline. Strange.

“It’s like spending the day with a politician,” she teased him as they walked away from a conversation with Betty Cortez, who ran Starfall Point Pages.

“Bite your tongue,” he told her. “I think my Grandpa Fort had long-term plans for me.”

“People missed you, that’s nice,” she assured him. “And they’re a little curious, which is natural. You were away for a while, from what I understand.”

He nodded. “College and life and everything else kept me away. I studied business, which I needed. I paid my dues, working every position from night-desk clerk on up to GM. I shadowed some of the best hotel managers in the business. Eventually, I was able to consult for other hotels, telling them how they should run things,” he said.

“It was better, learning the hard way. Unfortunately, that’s how I learn best.”

She nodded. “I get that.”

There was a moment of silence as they walked together on the crowded street, the color and energy of other people’s cheer surrounding them, and he had the strangest, almost compulsive urge to fill it.

And even though what he was about to say might make her think less of him, he wanted her to know him , the truth behind the rumors and the polished veneer.

“The stories that a lot of rich kids tell you about emotionally distant parents who handed them off to the staff and went on their merry jet-setting ways? That wasn’t my parents,” he told her.

“They let me know every day how much they loved me, how grateful they were to have me.

They were the model of what a good, loving relationship is supposed to be.