“I’m sure she will be. Especially if we find the right ring. Her name?”
“Violet,” he said.
She closed her eyes, like she was doing some kind of weird transcendental meditation thing. “I have just the thing for her.”
She took out a tray and set it up on the glass top. “I make these,” she said. “And this is a moonstone. It’s not traditional, but it’s very pretty. You have all these colors reflected there, including violet, of course. Set into rose gold with eternity knots around the band. For forever.”
Forever.
His.
He had never been sure forever existed. Four Corners was forever. And it was work.
Well, if it took work to make it forever, if it took a ring, he’d do it.
“I’ll take it,” he said.
“Do you know what size ring she wears?”
He frowned. “They come in sizes?”
She laughed. “Is her hand about like mine?”
No, Violet’s hand wasn’t like this woman’s. Violet’s hands were hers. And they were perfect against his skin. Fit right around his cock. He couldn’t look at another woman’s hand and try to compare them.
“Her hands are likehers,” he said.
Sammy laughed, and he didn’t know what the hell was so funny. “Well, if she needs it sized feel free to bring her back here. I’ll do it for free.”
He walked out of the place, holding a little paper bag, and then got back in his truck. He decided to stop at the bakery around the corner and get a box of treats. The woman there suggested sugar cookies with purple icing, and he was happy enough to go with that. And that was how he found himself walking toward his house with a large pink box, that small paper bag and a grim sort of determination.
He opened up the front door to find Violet standing up on a chair dusting the top of the cabinets.
“What the hell are you doing?” he asked, crossing the room, wrapping his arm around her waist and lifting her down from the chair. “You have to quit climbing all over everything like a spider monkey.”
Her face was pale, breathless. “You scared me to death,” she said.
“Sorry. But you looked like you could fall.”
“I wasn’t going to fall. Though I might have, given that you gave me such a fright.”
“I caught you,” he said.
He had the box in one hand, along with the bag, and her in the other.
She looked up at him, her eyes wide. “How was... How was Copper Ridge?”
“Good. I met your dad.”
“Oh,” she said. “Well...” She patted his chest. “I don’t feel any bullet holes.”
“No bullet holes.”
She tried to laugh. It seemed to get caught halfway up her throat.
And then, he couldn’t help himself. Because she was in his arms. And he was about to make her his.
He kissed her. Just kissed her. Simple and sweet. Or maybe it would have been sweet if he were sweet. If he wasn’t instantly imagining her naked beneath him. If he wasn’t filled with a sense of primal possessiveness that overtook everything else.