I slid off my diamond engagement ring and placed it on the nightstand beside my phone, then pulled the quilt to my chin and shut my eyes. It didn’t take long at all for me to nod off.
I awoke later when Charles returned via the sliding glass door. The room now lay in complete darkness other than the faint glow from his cell phone.
“Sorry, didn’t mean to wake you,” he whispered as he made his way over to the bed and began to grope for the lamp. “We forgot to jam up the door like we said, and I was having trouble with the lock and key again. Go back to sleep.”
“It’s okay. I’m up now,” I mumbled, helping him with the lamp. Our hands collided, and something went skittering to the hardwood floor below.
“Oops,” I said.
Charles dove to the floor so I didn’t have to.
I glanced at the empty nightstand just as he popped up with my phone in hand.
“Can you grab my ring, too?” I asked, accepting the cell phone from him.
He returned to his hands and knees and searched under both beds.“Ang, I don’t see it down here.”
“But it’s gotta be there. I took it off before my nap and put it right by my cell phone,” I argued, getting out of bed to help.
We searched for a good five minutes but both came up short. So I decided to ask the cat for help—a decision I did not take lightly, but this was my engagement ring, after all.
“Octo-Cat, have you seen my ring?” I said, right after I picked up Paisley and removed any evidence of their shared nap. He’d never tell me a thing if he discovered what I’d let happen. He had a huge soft spot for the tiny rescue dog, but rarely was it enough to overcome the selfishness that came standard issue with his being an upper-middle-class cat.
“I’ve seen it,” he answered around a yawn. “Nothing special, if you ask me, but then again, neither is UpChuck.”
I pulled the pillow out from under him, and he rolled onto the mattress.
“Give that back,” he moaned.
“Take what you said back,” I demanded.
“No.”
“Where’s my ring?”
“I don’t know.”
“Yes, you do. You clearly have it out for Charles, so it makes sense you’d try to sabotage our wedding by—”
“I’ve had enough,” he spat, popping to his feet. “Call me when you come to your senses. C’mon, Mutt.”
Paisley looked at me with wide, shimmering eyes.
“Go,” I said. “Keep him out of trouble.”
She wasted no time scampering after him as Charles crossed the room and opened the sliding door, allowing both animals to disappear into the night.
“It’s really not here, is it?” I said, staring hatefully at my bare ring finger. How had I lived with it like this for so long? Darn it, I never should have taken that ring off.
“Let’s go check in with reception,” Charles suggested, moving toward the wooden door on the other side of our room. At least it was easy to open from the inside. “I saw Millicent was still up when I came through that way.”
Sure enough, Millicent sat in her chair with her book. At this point, I had to question whether our proprietress was, indeed, an art installation and not a businesswoman.
“Excuse me?” I said, stopping in front of her.
She held up a finger and continued reading for at least a minute before she finally raised her eyes to meet mine.“Yes?” Her eyes were wide, her expression mostly blank.
“Has anyone turned in a ring for the lost and found?”
“We don’t have a lost and found,” she replied with no follow-up questions and no hint of apology.
The fluffy orange cat hopped up onto a nearby windowsill to glare at me and Charles. Maybe all my time with Octo-Cat had made me cynical, or maybe I was still miffed about him bullying little Paisley, but something seemed off about him.
“Oh. Well, I have a lost item. A pretty important one at that.”
“I’ll let you know if anything turns up,” Millicent said, tucking an orange curl behind her ear and revealing an earring I hadn’t noticed her wearing before—a big dangly one with a little gemmed tassel.
The Persian’s eyes zoomed toward the gaudy piece of costume jewelry, and he wiggled his behind as if to attack.
“Not now, Louis,” the lady told him. He growled and ran across the room to hide. Poor cat must’ve been starved for stimulation if he got so worked up over earrings.
“Yeah, well, thanks for your help,” I mumbled, wondering if Millicent would even remember having our conversation.
“Oh, while we have you,” Charles interjected, waving his hand in front of her.
Millicent groaned and tore her eyes from the book a second time.“What is it now?”
“There seems to be a problem with the door to our room.”
She bobbed her head and shifted her jaw.“Uh-huh. Which one?”
“Both, actually,” he said with a chuckle. “One doesn’t open, and the other doesn’t close.”
“Oh, right. I put you in the Shoreline suite. The locksmith should be here early next week to fix both of them. I wasn’t going to book anyone in until that was taken care of, but then you two showed up with your little problem, and well, I had to do something to set it right.”
Charles’s brow furrowed. I could see he was about to go into full-on lawyer mode if I didn’t do something fast. “But—”
“Yup! Okay, thanks,” I said, grabbing him by the hand and leading him back around outside.
“I don’t think she likes us very much,” he said once we were both outdoors and out of earshot.
“Who would?” a nasty voice spat.
I looked around and found the big, orange Persian from earlier slinking by. Louis, that was the little scamp’s name.
I tamped down my urge to scold him like I would whenever Octo-Cat took up an attitude with me and refocused my attention on Charles.
“Care for a moonlight walk on the beach?” he said, waggling his brows.
“I thought you’d never ask,” I said, falling into step beside him as we strolled outside and headed for the water.
“This would have probably been a better proposal than the RV, huh?”
“I liked your proposal,” I said, stretching up to give him a quick kiss.
“If you liked that, you’ll really like this. I’m pretty sure I found your grandmother.”
I gasped.“Really? Where?” It’s not that this news surprised me. It just made me so, so happy.
“Oh, no no no,” he tsked playfully. “You don’t get to jump to the end of the journey after sending me on that seagull chase.”
He moved to regale me with tales of his heroic exploits as he tooled all around the Katahdin area, trying to make heads and tails of Bravo’s directions. “I may have had to sample a few different fries to help me determine which were the good ones. Well, according to a seagull, anyway.”
“Eww, you ate out of the dumpster?”
He fixed me with a wounded expression.“Drive-thru, but thanks for assuming that.”
We both laughed for a good long while as we slowly moved along the beach, hand in hand beneath the night sky.
Everything would be okay. I knew it then. I’m pretty sure I’d known it this whole time, but it was easy to forget when my nerves got the best of me.
With Charles at my side, I could conquer anything. We’d meet my grandmother and find my ring.
We just had to take one thing at a time.
One foot in front of the other.
Yes, everything would be just fine.
10
I had another rough night of sleep. Coming here had only added to my worries. It’s not like I expected to find instant relief just knowing I was near to my grandmother, but every time I was left alone to my thoughts, dread prevailed.
The walk with Charles on the beach had put my mind at ease, but as soon as he drifted to sleep, the swirling cyclone of anxiety wreaked havoc once more.