Page 71 of Five Stolen Rings
“How about Maude?”
“Never mind; you’re fired,” I say with a grin as something inside me eases. “I’ll think of a name myself.” Then, shooting a look at her, I add, “What do you want to eat? Burgers? Tacos?”
“Tacos,” she says, and I nod.
“Tacos it is.”
We eat in the parking lot of the taco place, and then we head up to the foothills. After all the breaking and entering I’ve done at my stepmother’s place, it’s downright strange toenter through the front door. I try to get Stella to come look at the painting in Maude’s closet—a portrait of Maude in a racier-than-normal flamenco dress, holding an exaggerated dance pose—but she refuses, so I leave her to feed the animals and water the plants while I put the box back. When we reconvene a few minutes later, we head out through the front door and go back to the car.
“Where now?” I say as we shuffle down the driveway.
“Home,” Stella answers.
I glance at her. “Your home, or mine?”
I’m pushing it; I know. But she just sighs and shakes her head, a reluctant smile curling over her perfect lips.
“You’re incorrigible.Myhome,” she says. “And you will go to yours.”
“Your loss,” I say with a shrug and an exaggerated sigh that puffs into the icy night air. “The things I could—ow.”
She’s holding her hand up to whack me on the arm again, so I reach up and grab it.
“Behave yourself,” she says. “You were the one who wanted to be friends,Jacky.”
I shudder. “I’ll behave,” I say, letting go of her hand. “Just don’t call me that ever again.”
“No promises,” she says with a grin. She pauses as her expression fades into something more serious. “Tomorrow is Christmas Eve,” she says.
“It is,” I say, nodding.
“What are you doing?”
“Ah.” I rub the back of my neck, trying to quell my embarrassment. Because what kind of guy spends Christmas alone? I reallyshouldget a cat. “I don’t know. Just—hanging out, I guess.”
“Absolutely not,” she says, coming to a sudden halt. Sherounds on me, jabbing me in the chest. “You will come to my parents’ house at noon. I expect you to bring a gift for me. Got it?”
“I—what?”
“A gift,” she says, overemphasizing the word and poking me in the chest again. “Also known as a present.”
I roll my eyes and swat her hand away. “I’m familiar with the term, thanks. I just meant—” I clear my throat as something warm tries to rise in my chest. “Are you sure?”
“Of course I am. Come at noon. If you’re late, you’re on my blacklist.”
“You don’t have a blacklist,” I say lightly, but my heart is doing strange things, and my chest feels like it’s filled with balloons, or maybe bubbles.
“Sure I do. Fuller Nathan Smith Jr.,” she says, and I scowl.
“I guess I have a blacklist too.”
“Mmm,” she says with a nod. “Now let’s go. It’s cold out here.”
STELLA
When I wake up on the morning of Christmas Eve, I am a woman on a mission. I have—I check the clock—four hours to learn how to make a friendship bracelet, and while I was good at my job at the architecture firm, I am less good at arts and crafts.
Thank goodness for YouTube, and thankextragoodness for my mother’s sewing room, from which I pilfer about ten different kinds of embroiderythread.
