She rolled her eyes. The golden hour made them a prettycaramel color. “A man tucks an engagement ring into a hidden compartment inside a woman’s favorite novel and presents it to her, then gets down on bended knee and asks her to marry him—aproposal.”
“That’s a thing?” Her dog squatted on his side of the yard. Perfect.
“Look it up. But whoever left the book couldn’t have possibly known the ring was in it. And now some poor guy’s proposal is ruined!” She removed the box from the compartment and opened the lid. “Look.”
He hitched his eyebrows. Nice. Solitaire diamond, at least a carat and a half. White-gold band. Yeah, he’d done some ring shopping with Amanda.
“We have to find the person who put it there or this guy’s proposal will be ruined.”
There was no “we” about it. This whole engagement business put him in mind of Tag and Amanda, and that was the last thing he wanted to think about. “Well, I didn’t see anybody, so I don’t know how you’re going to find them.”
She plopped down on a chair—on his side of the deck—and began flipping through the pages. “Maybe there’s some clue inside. Or maybe I can visit the jeweler. They keep records, right?”
“No idea.”
“Ooh, it’s got a stamp inside the back cover. Moss Creek Community Church.”
“What?” That was his church—at least, his parents’ church. He and Amanda had attended someplace else, when they attended at all. But now Tag and Amanda attended there with his family.
“You know of it?”
“It’s off island, between here and Bluffton.”
She fiddled with her phone. “There probably wouldn’t be anyone there this late on a Thursday. Here’s the number.” She tapped her screen and put the phone to her ear. Half a minute later she sighed. “It went to voice mail, darn it. Why would someone leave a library book in my box? Wouldn’t they have to return it?”
“I guess you’ll find out soon enough. Call tomorrow and ask for Ms.Stapleton’s number. She runs the church library.”
“Wait, you know her? This is your church?”
“Used to be. But I don’t think you’ll have much luck finding the owner of that book through her.”
“Why not?” She tilted her head, seeming so innocent with those wide brown eyes blinking back at him.
“She’s a stickler for the rules.” Once, she’d gotten him out of Sunday school to interrogate him about the whereabouts of a book he’d checked out and lost. He wasn’t allowed to borrow books from her library again—not even once he’d become an adult.
“A stickler for the...” Sadie beamed at him and waved his words away. “You only think that because you haven’t seen me at my best. I can be quite charming when I want to be. By the time I finish with Ms.Stapleton, I’ll have her eating out of my hand. You’ll see.”
He almost wished he could be there to see it. “Well, good luck with that.”
Eight
The hero and heroine must spend time together in order for their relationship to develop. Devise a valid reason for their togetherness rather than relying on a number of chance meetings.
—Romance Writing 101
It had been all Sadie could do to wait for Sam to return home from work the next evening. She’d even given him twenty minutes before she knocked on his sliding glass door. And now he stood there, hair still wet, frown tugging a pair of perfectly nice lips.
“I need your help,” she said.
He crossed his arms, eyes narrowing with suspicion. “Is that so?”
“I talked to Ms.Stapleton today. She purged the library and is having a book sale this week—that explains why the person left it in my library instead of returning it—so I caught her at the church this morning.”
He quirked a brow.
“She was heartless! Imagine not even trying to return a missing engagement ring to the man who’d bought it. The poor guy could be planning to propose this weekend. He could have made a restaurant reservation weeks ago. They could be here on vacation and leaving soon.”
“Those charms failed you, did they?”
