Because of the Ring

by Stella Bagwell

  A pent-up breath suddenly drained out of her and she suddenly wondered why this man had the power to make her feel like a foolish teenager. For Pete’s sake, she was twenty-three years old! She’d dated several men in college and then there’d been Tony. It wasn’t as if this was the first time she’d been alone with a man.

  But not one like Hayden Bedford.

  Doing her best to ignore that last thought, she said, “I’m sorry, Hayden, for being so edgy. It’s not my plan to make us both miserable. Really.”

  The wan smile he cast her was both understanding and regretful. “I know, Claudia. Forget it. Let’s go enjoy our lunch.”

  Moments later as they waded to shore, Claudia was glad she’d decided to remove her shoes. The water was extremely warm and the sand as soft as a baby’s blanket. Even after they found a spot to sit, she set her shoes aside and delighted in digging her toes into the hot, loose sand.

  “It’s hard to believe this place was once an air base. Supplies, equipment, everything would’ve had to have been ferried over from the mainland. What did they use for fresh water?” she wondered out loud.

  Hayden handed her one of the sandwiches from the ice chest. “I’m not sure. Obviously, there’s a few sources of fresh water on the island because it inhabits lots of wildlife. Even alligators.” He motioned with his head toward the grassy dunes a few feet behind them. “Don’t wander into the dunes,” he warned. “Rattlesnakes are plentiful around here. Not to mention fire ants.”

  Smiling ruefully, Claudia unwrapped cellophane from a tuna sandwich. “Stingrays, sharks, jelly fish, alligators, fire ants and rattlesnakes. Everything around here will either bite, sting or kill you.”

  “That’s true,” he agreed as he gazed out at the endless gulf water. “But it’s wild and beautiful, don’t you think?”

  Yes, it was wild and beautiful. Dangerous and uncontrollable. Just like the feelings she had for him, Claudia thought.

  “Very,” she agreed. “I’m glad we came here.”

  “You’re not too hot?”

  The sun was still a fierce ball in the western sky, but the stiff sea breeze kept the heat from being unbearable. “No. This is lovely.”

  “Good. I was worried about you earlier. Back on the boat after you’d…had that vision.” He’d been more than worried, Hayden realized. When he’d opened the cabin door to see her falling straight toward him, he’d been terrified. Her white face had been glazed with a sickly sheen and for a moment he thought she was going to lose consciousness, maybe even her breath. In that instant he realized just how much he was beginning to care for this woman, how bleak it would be to never see her face or to hear her voice again.

  Feeling his eyes moving over her, she turned her head slightly to look at him. The sincerity she found on his face touched her even more than his words. “You shouldn’t have been. I get dizzy and sweaty and strange sensations zing through my head. But thankfully it passes quickly.”

  He took a long drink of bottled water, then tossed a couple of crumbs from his sandwich out to a pair of gulls strutting along the damp shoreline. “Claudia, I want to apologize to you for my behavior back on the boat. I—”

  “Hayden, please. Let’s just forget it—”

  “No. I can’t forget it,” he interrupted. “Actually, I’m still trying to figure out what came over me. I’m not even sure I remember everything I said to you.”

  She lowered the sandwich to her lap and stared at him. “You wanted me to throw the ring away. Is that the way you still feel?”

  Leaning back on one elbow, he shot her a pained look, then glanced toward the rolling surf. “I don’t know what to think about that ring anymore, Claudia. Something is certainly making me act out of character. But I think…”

  He paused, then with a rueful groan he scooted close enough to lay his hand on her forearm. “You have a lot more power over me, Claudia, than that damn ring.”

  “And that bothers you,” she said regretfully.

  His lips twisted. “A heck of a lot,” he admitted. “You’re a young, beautiful woman, Claudia. Your future has just begun. You don’t need to mix yourself up with a jaded, divorced man. You need someone who believes in rainbows and happy-ever-afters.”

  The pained look on his features filled her heart with heaviness and she suddenly realized that she could never be happy unless this man beside her was happy, too. The thought was so unexpected, so real, it startled her and for long moments she could say or do nothing. Then finally she reached out and pushed her fingers through the hair at his temple.

  “You could believe in those things, too, Hayden. We could believe in them together.”

  His eyes darkened. Not with anger, but with a fatal kind of sadness. “Not me, Claudia. I guess I’m too disillusioned, maybe even afraid to let myself think about having someone to love and share my life with. When you—”

  “Hayden, why are you allowing Saundra to crush your spirit this way? If—”

  “It’s not just Saundra or the divorce, Claudia,” he interrupted. “Oh, I’ll admit she left a black, ugly spot inside me, but a person can usually wash away a black spot if they scrub hard enough.”

  Her fingers moved to his cheek. “Then why?”

  “It does something to you, Claudia, when you lose your family. Your mother. Father. Wife. Once they were all gone I realized that loving someone was really just a game of chance. You play your cards and you win or lose. I lost. And I just don’t have it in me to gamble for happiness a second time.”

  He couldn’t have been more point-blank, Claudia thought. He was telling her straight-out to forget about anything serious ever evolving between the two of them. He was determined to keep his heart to himself. If she was smart she would accept his feelings. But she couldn’t. Somehow, some way, he’d become a part of her life. She couldn’t just let go. At least not without a fight.

  “I thought that way, too, after Tony,” she said quietly. “But now, well, things have changed for me.”

  “I’m glad,” he softly replied. “I’m glad that one of us isn’t ruined.”

  Claudia wanted to shout at him that he wasn’t ruined. She wanted to lean her head into his, to kiss him with her heart and her soul, to give him back all those precious feelings that he’d lost. But instinct told her that too much had already happened between them today. She needed to give him time.

  Dropping her hand from his face, she looked away and took in a steadying breath. “If you’re finished eating, I’d like to look around a little. Are there any roads or trails around here that we could walk on?”

  Relieved that she’d changed the subject, Hayden rose to a sitting position and fished a couple of sports drinks from the cooler. Handing one of the bottles to her, he said, “About a quarter of a mile on down the beach is a dirt road leading into the island. I’m ready for a hike, if you are.”

  Twenty minutes later the two of them were standing on a solid concrete runway that stretched for hundreds of yards in an east and west direction. At another point, not far from where they were standing, a second runway crossed in a northeasterly to southwesterly direction. Other than a few clumps of grass and bits of prickly pear pushing up through a few cracks, the airstrips were in perfect condition.

  “This is incredible,” Claudia exclaimed as she gazed around her in wonder. “It’s so eerie and desolate-looking. Yet I can almost see the planes taking off and landing and the activity of the crews on the ground.”

  “These are only a part of the runways,” Hayden informed her. “There’re many more as you head over to where the barracks were located.”

  Claudia wiped her sweat-damp face with the back of her arm. She was hot and tired, but she was glad she’d made the effort to see more of the island. The more she saw, the more convinced she became that the reasons for her visions originated here.

  “Hayden, did William ever talk about this place? Or his life while he was stationed here?”

  After several swallows from the bottle he wa
s carrying, he said, “Not that I can remember. I’m sure he talked to Dad about it at some time or another. But with Dad being gone, too, that doesn’t help matters.”

  She glanced up at him. “I just keep asking myself how this place and your grandfather fits in with my ring.”

  Hayden shrugged. “I’ve been asking myself the same thing and it doesn’t fit as far as I can see. What business would he have had with a woman’s opal ring?”

  Gloria instinctively touched the ring on her finger as if it could conjure up its own answers. “Perhaps he bought it for your grandmother? Did he know her then?”

  “I don’t know all the particulars about how they met or when. But I’m pretty sure they went to the same high school and I do remember Grandmother talking about how she worried like all the other women when their sweethearts went off to war. So apparently the two of them were an item before he left for the military.”

  Nodding thoughtfully she said, “That could account for his having the ring. He must have bought it for your grandmother. But something happened and she never received it. Or maybe she did and sold it later on.”

  Hayden shook his head. “I don’t think so. Grandmother was really sentimental. She never sold anything that was given to her as a gift. And I’m dead certain she’d never sell a piece of jewelry that Granddad gave her.”

  “Hmm. Neither would Betty Fay,” Claudia agreed. “So I guess that rules that theory out.”

  “Was the ring new when Betty Fay received it?” he asked.

  Claudia made a helpless, palms-up gesture. “That’s been a question my family has bantered back and forth for years. I think my mother halfway believes Betty Fay purchased the ring at a pawn shop and made up the whole idea about it having romantic powers.”

  “Now there’s a woman with some sense,” he muttered.

  “Who? Betty Fay or Marsha, my mother?”

  He cast her a good-natured frown. “Marsha. But,” he added quickly before she could protest, “that wouldn’t account for your visions of William.”

  A tiny ray of hope filtered through her. If he could open his mind enough to believe in her visions, then he might be able to open his heart to the future.

  “William and the ring are tied together. I’m sure of it,” she said, then her eyes brightened with another idea. “What about letters or a journal, Hayden? Surely, William wrote to someone during his stay here. If we could find something like that—”

  She broke off as his expression turned futile.

  “I’m sorry, Claudia, but if anything like that did exist, it would have burned. My grandparents lost their house to fire back in the eighties. All their personal belongings were destroyed.”

  Claudia’s heart plummeted. “Well, so much for that,” she said glumly.

  The disappointment on her face caused an invisible weight to settle on Hayden’s shoulders and he had to admit that something in the past two days had changed him. He’d gone from thinking this woman was a fraud to desperately wanting to help her, to make her happy. None of it made sense.

  Love doesn’t always make sense, Hayden.

  The inner voice nearly jerked the ground right from under his feet. He couldn’t be falling in love with Claudia! He’d spent most of the afternoon swearing to her that he’d never love again. And he wouldn’t. He was wizened, not gullible, he reassured himself. Just because she felt good in his arms didn’t mean anything special. She was an attractive female. It was supposed to feel good to kiss her. And as for wanting to make her happy, well he was basically a caring person. He didn’t want to see anyone miserable.

  Feeling more reassured now that he’d reasoned with himself, he took her by the upper arm and urged her back in the direction of the beach. “Come on, we’d better head to the Stardust. The sun will be setting soon and it’s a long drive from here to San Antonio.”

  Especially when you were coming up empty-handed, Claudia thought. But worse than that, this time with Hayden was ending. Tomorrow she would fly back to Fort Worth and try to get her life back to normal. But how could she, when just the idea of never seeing Hayden again was tearing her heart right down the middle?

  “Yes, I suppose you’re right,” she said wistfully. “I only wish—”

  She broke off with a strangled cry and grabbed her forehead with one hand.

  Instantly, Hayden slipped his arm around the back of her waist. With a hand beneath her chin, he tilted her face up to his. “Claudia! What’s wrong? Are you having another vision?”

  “I—no. But—” Shaking her head, she tried to focus on his features, but a dark-colored object kept getting in the way. “I’m not sure what’s happening. I’m not seeing your grandfather but something is clouding my eyesight,” she said frantically.

  “The boat? The white house?” he prodded urgently.

  “No. No, it’s something else.” Closing her eyes, she strained to see the object more clearly and by the time she did figure it out, she was weak with shock. “Hayden! There’s a book—a diary—something on the boat!”

  He stared at her, his expression instantly skeptical. “There can’t be. After my grandfather died, I removed everything on the boat that belonged to him.”

  She clamped both hands around his arms so tightly that her fingers dented his flesh. “Then you must have missed it because it’s there! In a dark, hidden place. I’m sure of it, Hayden. We have to look!”

  “All right. All right,” he said soothingly. “We’ll go search, but try not to be disappointed when we come up with nothing.”

  “Maybe you’d better try not to be too red faced when you have to eat crow,” she swiftly countered.

  In spite of the heat, the two of them picked up their pace. Fifteen minutes later they were back on the beach, wading to the Stardust. After Hayden helped her climb back aboard, he suggested she start searching the sleeping quarters of the cabin while he investigated the area above.

  Inside the tiny bedroom, Claudia began to poke under mattresses and drawers while asking herself if she’d gone stark, raving mad. Had she conjured up the image of a diary just out of wishful thinking? And even if they did find such an article, it probably wouldn’t be legible after all these years of being near moist saltwater.

  In spite of her doubts she continued to examine every crack and crevice in the walls and floors, just in case a board had been loosened enough to slip something beneath it. But after more than an hour of nothing, she left the cabin feeling worse than defeated.

  She found Hayden stretched out on his belly peering with a flashlight into the bowels of the boat where the engine sat.

  Carefully standing to one side of his shoulder, she asked, “Do you see anything?”

  Without bothering to glance up at her, he answered, “Not yet. What about you?”

  “Nothing. I must have been seeing wrong. Or perhaps it’s not on the boat but some other place your grandfather often visited.” She looked toward the west and the huge orange ball sliding toward the watery horizon. “It’s going to be dark soon. Maybe we should forget it and head back to the mainland.”

  “I have one more place to look and then I’ll lift anchor,” he told her.

  Feeling both hopeless and foolish, she watched him hoist a small square in the floor near the helm. “This is where the batteries are stored,” he told her. “I’ve been inside this little cubbyhole dozens of times and I’m sure there’s nothing down here except a couple of deep-cell marine batteries. But to give you peace of mind, I’ll make sure.”

  Once again he stretched out on his belly and directed the beam of flashlight into the darkened cavity.

  “Is that area walled off or is it a big open space?” she asked curiously.

  “I’ve never tried to figure that out,” he answered. “Dark, spidery places aren’t usually what a person looks at when he goes sailing.”

  “All right,” she said, trying not to be annoyed by his tart remark. “Just put the lid back and let’s go. We’re chasing air castles, anyway. I guess I
’ll do what my mother keeps urging me to do. Go home and see a psychiatrist!”

  “Hell,” he cursed, his voice partially muffled as he lowered his face into the darkened cavity. “You’re not crazy, Claudia. You’re just a hopeless romantic.”

  Confused by his remark, she said, “I told you before that everyone says I’m a cool, practical woman. And the way I remember things that night on your back porch, you wholeheartedly agreed.”

  He lifted his head long enough to glare at her. “Why is it you women remember every little word a man says to you? I was annoyed that night. I probably said a lot of things. Besides, that was before I got to know you.”

  The idea that he might be softening tilted her lips into a pleased smile. “You’re a good man, Hayden. And I like you even though you don’t want me to.”

  He didn’t make any sort of reply and Claudia glimpsed a sheepish expression stealing over his face just before he ducked his head back into the small storage area.

  Moving to the helm, Claudia rested her hands on the steering wheel and glanced up at the sky. A handful of clouds in the west were now painted with the pink and purple hues of sunset and pelicans glided peacefully over the water. Everything appeared calm and beautiful. Which made it seem even more odd when a cool chill suddenly raced down her spine. She glanced to the east, half expecting to see a summer squall heading toward them, but the sky was amazingly clear.

  “I don’t expect you to keep looking, Hayden,” she told him. “I can accept being wrong. Forget it. Let’s pull up anchor and get out of here. Something doesn’t feel right.”

  “Just a minute. There’s one more corner—” His muffled voice trailed off and then he said, “Well, I’ll be damned. I think I see something.”

  Claudia practically jumped to his side. “What is it?”

  He raised up to a sitting position. “Can’t tell yet. It looks like some sort of box. Could just be an old battery holder or something like that. But it’s out of my grasp. I need a tool long enough to reach with.”

  Moments later, with the aid of a small fish net, Hayden managed to drag the object close enough to get his hands on. When he pulled the small metal box up onto the deck both he and Claudia stared at it as if they’d just pulled up sunken treasure.