This moment is real.
It’s magical.
It’s meant to be.
Jack pulls out of the kiss with slow reluctance and opens his eyes, locking them on mine. He follows up by pecking me on the lips, then takes a step back from me but never breaks our soul-filled eye contact.
“Once upon a time, I would have said that it’s ironic you are here tonight and that we’re standing right under the entrance to my mom’s namesake. But you’ve taught me there’s no such thing as irony. It’s all a part of the bigger plan.”
I nod my head. I couldn’t agree more completely. But if that’s the case, then I need to know one thing.
“But what about Jana?” I blurt.
“Jana?” Jack looks at me, puzzled.
“I know you had dinner with her Wednesday night.” I’m desperate to know his reasons, but I don’t know if I have the right to ask. After all, I broke up with him.
“She called me—if you really want to know. And it was nothing. She still had my letter jacket from high school, of all things, and wanted to return it.” He pulls me close again. “Kate, I couldn’t have gone out on a date with another woman when my heart was with you. My heart is with you. For as long as you will have it.”
My shoulders soften like melted butter. All the tension I’ve been holding since Monday night melts. It flows down my arms and drips off my fingertips into a puddle on the ground.
Jack continues before I can say a word. “Early Saturday morning, I called my dad and asked him to bring me something very special. He’s been traveling, so he wasn’t able to give it to me until today. Of course, when he gave it to me, I figured I didn’t need it any longer.” He begins to dig in his pocket. “These last four days without you have almost driven me crazy. You’ve shared your faith with me and it’s changed my life. You have changed my life. I’ve been beside myself thinking that I lost that.”
People are starting to make their way back to our area now, but he continues talking. Neither of us cares about the sound of a small, but growing crowd.
“Kate, this isn’t how I planned to do this, and it’s not even when I planned to do this, but I see that everything has been brought together right here in this very spot tonight for a reason. What my dad gave me earlier today is a ring I bought my mother in Mexico.”
He pulls his hand in his pocket and is holding a circle of sterling silver, with deep aqua turquoise and bright orange coral inlaid in a triangle pattern. It’s the most unique ring I have ever seen.
Under his mother’s arch, with her ring held in his fingers, Jack Cooper pulls me close with one hand, holding the ring next to my fingers with the other.
“I know things between us have moved fast, but more than that, I know that I love you and I can’t lose you again. We can take our time—whatever makes you comfortable. But I can’t leave this spot unless I know you’re mine and you’re not going anywhere. One day, I want to give you my mother’s diamond ring, but for now, I want to give you something that symbolizes what you mean to me.” He holds the ring in front of me. “Kate, I love you. Will you wear this ring? I want us to be together—I believe forever can start right here, right now.”
From years of watching old movies and reading romance novels, I know the proper answer to this question. I’m so taken aback, though, that all I can do is cry. Wet tears roll over my eyelids like marchers in a parade—they just keep coming and coming and coming. Finally, I nod my head and my whole body shakes with affirmation.
“Yes.” It’s only one word, but it’s enough.
He slides the ring onto the fourth finger of my outstretched hand. Incredibly enough, the ring fits perfectly. I don’t know why I thought it might not. Al was correct. God plans the details and makes everything right.
Once again, Jack scoops me into his arms, this time lifting me off my feet and twirling me around. The sudden movement makes the chimpanzees behind us pant-hoot with laughter as they too jump up and down.
It’s fitting that the chimps are the first to hear about our commitment, about the future that we will share.
After all, they’re sophisticated in their relationships and their communications. And if anyone knows that fact, it’s me, Kate Cormick, noted Chimp observer. Just wait until I tell Jane Goodall at the next awards banquet I attend in my dreams. She’ll never believe it.
Sometimes, though, seeing isn’t believing. Sometimes, you just have to go on faith and get out of the way in order to get to your future.
You Don’t Have to Stop Reading!
* * *
Start the Holiday Hearts Series Now
Sweet Escape Romances that celebrate true love and the holidays all year long!
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The Right Resolution
https://books2read.com/TheRightResolutionBook
The Right Resolution
by Kristen Ethridge
Sneak Peek—Chapter One
* * *
“I thought I might find you here.”
Eve Larson pulled her gaze reluctantly away from the rolling waves that stretched back toward the horizon. She hadn’t heard that voice in a year, but it only took a split second and a syllable to take her mind back to another time, twelve months ago, in front of these same waves.
“Spencer. What are you doing here?”
She took a minute to size him up. He stood on the sand in a most un-beach outfit of moss green wool sweater, wide wale dark brown corduroy pants, and soft cocoa leather moccasins. Neat, clean, sharp. Typical Spencer.
Eve felt a faint tug of awareness and shook her head slightly, trying to clear the quickening rhythm from her pulse. The last time they’d spoken, it hadn’t gone well.
“Eve? You okay?” The reflection of the waves showed in miniature in Spencer’s green eyes.
She wished she wouldn’t have looked up.
She wished she wouldn’t have noticed.
But more than anything, she wished she wouldn’t have cared.
“I’m fine. I’m just a little caught off guard.” Eve turned back toward the waves. “What are you doing here? You didn’t say.”
“Same thing you are. Taking a few days off for the new year.”
Eve’s pulse began to race again, this time with the quick kindling of anger, not conditioned awareness. “You never take days off. And you could go anywhere in the world. Don’t tell me that it’s coincidence that you’re standing in front of my mother’s beach house in Port Provident, Texas, just by chance. You’ve thrown me a lot of lines, Spencer, but this time I’m not biting.”
She squared her shoulders. No matter what he said, she would not turn her body, she would not turn her gaze. She would not give Spencer Canley another chance to tell her another tale.
Spencer took three steps, the sand giving a nearly soundless crunch under the soles of his expensive shoes. “I’m not trying to bait you.”
“So what are you doing here?” Her patience was wearing thin. Spencer had intruded on her few days of hoped-for solitude, the days she’d planned to spend with a quiet focus on her future.
Not a focus on the white dress she should have been wearing.
Not a focus on the aisle she should have been walking down.
Not a focus on Spencer’s brother, Mark, who should have been waiting there for her.
“It’s not really a vacation, Eve, but you already figured that out.”
She nodded. “So what is it?”
“I still work for Mark.” He paused. “He asked me to bring you this envelope.”
“A letter?” Eve turned, her disbelief overriding her resolve to stay still as a statue. “Mark and I are through. We’ve been through for a year. What more is there to do?”
Spencer reached in his back pocket and pulled out an envelope. A scowl pushed his brow into a furrow. He handed the paperwork to her slowly.
Eve reached her hand out, then hesitated. But there wasn’t really any point. Mark Canley got what he wanted, when he wanted it. There weren’t ma
ny people who would stand in his way. Not a brother. And certainly not the former love of his life.
Emphasis on former.
The paper felt cool and slightly damp to the touch. With a deep breath, she slid her finger in the gap on the envelope flap and tugged it open.
The letter was short and to the point. It didn’t take more than a few seconds for Eve’s eyes to scan the terse sentences Mark had scrawled in bold ink.
A lump like wet sand began to fill her throat. She tried to swallow it away, but her mouth had gone dry.
“He wants my ring back?” She almost didn’t recognize the scratchy whisper as her own voice.
Spencer nodded. “He didn’t let me see the contents of the letter first, but I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s what was in there. He’s been talking about it for weeks.”
“But…why?” She struggled a bit for the words.
Spencer pushed his hands into his pocket, then squared his own shoulders in much the same way Eve herself had only moments before when she first heard the voice from her past. “He’s getting engaged. That’s a one-of-a-kind stone, and he decided he wanted to reset it.”
“But my mother helped him pick it out.” Memories of the mother she lost to breast cancer too soon flooded into a mind already jumbled with too many thoughts.
“It’s a stone that used to belong to the Russian imperial family. He doesn’t care about the rest of it.”
“He doesn’t care about anything,” Eve said into the wind. “Except himself.”
Spencer didn’t change position, just stood alongside Eve, as a brief gust kicked a wintry spray back on them both.
“I’ve known him my whole life, Eve. I used to idolize my older brother. But now? I’d say your assessment is correct.”
“Come on,” Eve said with a touch of resignation. “It’s getting cold out here. The wind’s picking up.”
She turned around and began to walk back across the damp sand. Spencer followed in her wake, amazed by the calmness she displayed to the outside world. Did Eve ever show emotion? After a moment’s shock, she seemed to just take it in stride, just like she did a year ago when Spencer was dispatched by Mark to break off the engagement between Eve and Mark.
Maybe being around Mark so long had hardened her heart to any emotion.
Spencer knew that had become true with him. And his recent understanding of that small, but damning fact helped him know he had to get out from under his brother’s shadow and self-centered life. It had been a hard realization, since he’d spent most of his years on Earth believing the Canley brothers were tied by a bond of blood that couldn’t be broken.
It had taken Spencer a while to figure out how to disengage without getting scorched by Mark’s fire. The woman in front of him had gotten burned badly. It was a lesson Spencer had quietly taken to heart.
After walking up the stairs that ran along the side of the deck of the house held high on stilts, Eve slowly turned the key in the lock and opened the weathered door. The whole house seemed to have seen better days. The green paint had faded to a light lichen shade and a shutter was missing from the left side of one of the front windows.
Eve never seemed like the type to let herself go—or for that matter, anything she controlled. But maybe Spencer had been wrong about her taking everything as a matter of course. Maybe this year had been harder on his former almost-sister-in-law than he’d initially thought.
“I have it in the back room,” she said without even turning around. “You can wait here if you’d like.”
She gestured toward a striped couch, faded in a motley pattern by where the sun’s rays had fallen through the window and sprayed across the fabric.
“You brought it with you for a weekend at the beach?” What woman carried her former engagement ring around when she traveled? Spencer’s curiosity was piqued.
Eve stopped at the start of the short hallway and turned around. “As you noted, it’s a unique stone.” She pursed her lips tightly, their thin outline turning a bloodless white under the pressure. Then, without another word, she stepped down the hall and softly closed the bedroom door behind her.
Spencer looked around the room, buffeted by the silence around him. Only the wind outside howled. This time last year, he’d stood in the same room.
It seemed very different now, colder. Less cheerful.
Maybe it was just the weather. Outside the windows, storm clouds collected on the edge of the horizon and bunched up like a mass of black cotton balls filling the dusk sky.
A rumble of thunder shook the small beach house on its pilings. Spencer felt the wobble beneath his feet. He wished he hadn’t put off coming down here to Eve’s end of the island so long. Now it looked like he would get caught in a downpour.
Maybe that’s what he needed, though, he thought dryly. Maybe a good, hard rain could wash away the guilt he felt about this trip and the last trip he’d made to Eve’s little bungalow. Time certainly hadn’t made the tightness in his throat go away.
Over the growl of the thunder and the splash of the oversized raindrops that landed with more force than a water balloon fight between children, he didn’t hear Eve walk back into the room.
She held a chain delicately between two fingertips. The picture froze in his mind. The curve of her thumbnail, the clean glossy finish of the delicate shade of rose nail polish, the subtle twinkle of the thread-thin chain as it caught the glow of the light overhead.
Even though he’d told Eve he was running an errand for his boss, Spencer told himself this was a personal matter between two ex-lovers. Eve seemed to be returning it willingly. There wouldn’t be conflict between her and Mark and that meant he wouldn’t have to take sides—because he knew in his heart and his mind, he wouldn’t be able to pick Mark’s side.
But if she just gave it back at Mark’s personal request, then, he could merely pretend to be nothing more than a courier between the two parties.
The diamond looked different than the last time Spencer saw it. A year ago, it rested snugly at the base of Eve’s left ring finger, flanked by a wedge of smaller diamonds on either side. Now, it dangled at the end of the thin chain, surrounded by three pavé-style rings of sapphires. It was completely different, and yet, completely unmistakable.
The Kiss of Kiev. A three-carat circle of light and ice, given as part of a brooch made for the Empress Consort Maria Alexandrovna of Russia, to honor the birth of the Russian Grand Duchess Alexandra Alexandrovna in 1842. After the pretty, curly-headed blond died of meningitis at age six and her bereaved mother was moved to tears at the mention of her daughter’s name, it was ordered packed away, where it was not recovered for several generations. Lost again after the death of the Russian imperial family at the hands of the Bolsheviks in 1917, it reappeared two years ago at Houston’s finest estate broker. It was then bought by Mark Canley and at the time, the society pages that wrote about the ring and the engagement declared it to be a demonstration of his royal-sized love for his fiancée.
Perhaps, thought Spencer, anything the diamond touched was doomed to a dark end. The little Grand Duchess. The Romanovs themselves.
Mark’s engagement to Eve.
Although this fool’s errand made Spencer feel as muddied and awkward as the storm-drenched shoreline outside the living room window, maybe he was doing Eve a favor by removing it from her life.
Who knew what destruction it would witness next.
“Well, then, I suppose this is yours.” Eve laid the stone on her palm and pushed it in Spencer’s direction.
Lightning cracked outside and the raindrops unleashed with more ferocity than Spencer had seen in years. He couldn’t help but feel this was some kind of sign that even Mother Nature disapproved of the deed he’d been put up to.
“Not mine. Mark’s.” Spencer didn’t want to be in this any deeper than he already was.
“One and the same. You’ve done your brother’s dirty work for years. You hide it behind that pretty title on your business card, but you
r hands are just as dirty as Mark’s are, Spencer. You’re cut from the same cloth.” Her gaze locked on him like the point of a laser sight on a gun. “A self-absorbed, ruthless lot, the Canley brothers. Thank goodness your mother stopped after your younger brother. Houston would be overrun with any more of you.”
Spencer stood still, too stunned to even put the precious stone into the tiny padded envelope he’d brought to keep it safe.
“You think I’m just like Mark?”
Eve gave a short, cutting laugh, then replied. “Of course I do. You’re like two peas in a pod. The CEO of Canley Communications thinks up ways to run over people and the Senior Vice President of Operations carries them out. The Canley brothers, always together. And always up to something.”
Spencer looked down at the stone in his hand. The facets twinkled like broken icicles in a sphere of perfect glass. “He didn’t ask for my advice or counsel beforehand. I’m just doing my job, Eve.”
“Really? Is that what you tell yourself, Spencer? Because that’s even worse. You do his dirty work and you don’t have enough of a backbone to tell him no. I used to think you were different. I used to think I could trust you, but then last year…”
She tucked a lock of dark blonde hair behind her ear, running her fingers softly through the strands. Eve looked like she would blow over in a strong wind—like the downpour and gale that whipped around outside—but she never broke eye contact, never gave the slightest hint that she wasn’t speaking with total conviction.
Except for that shy sweep of the hair. Taught to read the body language of others in a class he took for his MBA, Spencer knew exactly what that gesture meant.
He wanted to prove her wrong. And now he knew he could.
What he couldn’t figure out is why, suddenly, it mattered so much for him to do so.
Gorilla Dating Page 21
