“So you can fill it yourself, silly—write your own book. You know, like you talk about,” she clarified.
“What a very clever daughter you have, Ethan,” Vanessa said, cocking her head and smiling. According to Vanessa, another element of his “cloudiness” was his all-talk-and-no-action approach to writing a book of his own. She was always encouraging him to put pen to paper.
He’d made a start and cobbled together some sort of outline, but finding the time to write and be a single father was like trying to count the number of raindrops that fell in London any given year.
“Thank you, honey. I promise I will carry this with me everywhere and write longhand whenever the muse strikes me.”
Finally, when Vanessa left the room to shower and get dressed, Ethan snatched some much-anticipated time alone with his daughter.
“Can you believe it?” he gasped, running a hand through his hair. “What on earth happened to our lovely ring?” Not to mention pretty damnexpensivering, but Ethan guessed Daisy wouldn’t truly understand his concerns about that aspect.
She put her bare feet up next to his on the coffee table and frowned. “I know. It’s so weird, isn’t it? I don’t understand it. I remember that happened to me at school once though. I went to eat my lunch and got someone else’s lunch box, which only had ham and yuck plastic cheese on white bread with no yogurt. I was so annoyed.”
Despite himself, Ethan had to chuckle at the comparison. “Erm…yes, I suppose it is a bit like that.”
“Well, of course I know this is different, but you know what I mean.” She paused and looked down, scraping something from beneath one of her fingernails. “But what do you think happened, Dad, and what are we going to do now?”
“Well, there’s nothing we can do now, is there? Today, I mean. I suspect Vanessa was disappointed, though. Perhaps she might have known something or maybe expected…oh, I just don’t know.” He sat forward. “Okay, you and I are going back to Tiffany’s in the morning to get this straightened out. There must’ve been some kind of a mix-up while they were wrapping it up or something. Remember that nice man sent it away while we waited?” That was about the only explanation he could think of.
She nodded. “Yeah, that has to be it. Um, Dad?”
“Yes?” he replied, expecting some helpful insight into his predicament.
“Am I going to have hair on my toes like you do?”
Ethan burst out laughing. “Yes, definitely.” He moved his feet closer so that the outside of his right foot was touching the outside of her left one. “In another five years or so, your feet will look exactly like mine. And I hear that touching our feet together actually speeds up the process.”
Daisy squealed and ran back toward her bedroom. “Stay away then!” she cried, and while normally, Ethan would have taken the cue and followed to tickle her, instead, he didn’t have the energy.
He could only assume the staff at Tiffany & Co. would be able to shed some light on everything tomorrow, but what if they couldn’t? What then?
Should he confess all to Vanessa? No, that would be way too anticlimactic, considering. But what next?
He checked his watch. It wasn’t even close to noon yet. This would be the longest Christmas Day he had ever spent. Whereon earthwas the ring?
Chapter 8
Rachel rolled over in bed, habitually running her hand through her hair.
One thing she loved about hotel stays were the thick curtains—so thick that if you closed them well enough, you could scarcely tell it was daytime if it weren’t for a seam of light at the bottom.
Leisurely mornings had always been a luxury for her. For someone who was usually in the kitchen by 6:00 a.m., staying in bed until eight was quite a treat.
Although she’d woken earlier, full of concern about Gary and wanting to rush to the hospital to see him, but then she realized that it was far too early for visiting hours, even on Christmas Day.
So instead, she had cozied up with his pillow, then dozed and half dreamed about their soon-to-be engagement.
Relishing one last vision of herself in white, Rachel opened her eyes. Stretching her arms out in front of her, she gazed at her left hand and pictured that stunning solitaire on her ring finger.
She’d really wanted to go to sleep wearing it last night but felt so guilty about finding it in the first place that she’d returned it to its box.
Now leaping out of bed, she realized her excitement was indeed tainted by morning-after guilt. She really shouldn’t have rummaged through Gary’s bags, and she certainly shouldn’t have opened the Tiffany’s one.
Still, to think that if she hadn’t…
It was a wonderful surprise, particularly after the shock and worry of his accident. It was also quite romantic, considering—her all alone on Christmas Eve, discovering by chance that he was about to propose…fairy-tale stuff and more than Rachel could have dreamed of.
She had almost gotten used to life on her own, having lost both her parents in her teens, and a fresh bubble of happiness developed when she realized that after all this time, Gary would be her family.
