didn’t have to. When he tilted the ring, the simple message he’d chosen to prove his lifelong commitment came into view.
From this moment into eternity.
Jase’s eyes filled with tears. He hid them with one hand and gripped the little plastic bag with the other. So many emotions crashed through him—gratitude, disbelief, joy, curiosity, even sorrow—he couldn’t contain them all. Eyes closed, he clung to Rachel’s ring and told himself over and over this moment was real. He had it again. He didn’t have her, but he had her ring.
God had shown up.
He gave his eyes a swipe with the heel of his hand and opened them. “Who found it? Can you tell me the person’s name?”
“We generally keep that information confidential.”
But Jase needed to know if Cullen had been the one. “I—I’d like to thank whoever returned it.”
Officer Pratt slid the paperwork for the ring to Jase and shifted the metal box out of the way. “If you’d like to leave a message, we can relay it to the woman who brought it in.”
A woman? Then it hadn’t been Cullen. Unless Cullen’s mother had brought it. “By any chance, was her last name Wade?”
The officer shook his head. “No. The woman who brought it in said she found it in the pocket of a pair of pants someone had donated for a mission project.”
All at once, realization struck with the force of a bucket of cold water thrown in his face, carrying him backward through a series of events, each so clear in his memory the room seemed to disappear behind the images.
Putting her ring in his pocket before picking up Rachel for their date.
Sitting at the stoplight, laughing and talking the way they always did.
Seeing the light turn green and pulling forward, eager to see her reaction when he said, “Oh, look what I picked up today,” and handed the newly sized and freshly engraved ring to her.
A flash of motion in his peripheral vision, a crash, and…nothing.
His memories faded to blackness, like an old television set losing its picture, and the room in the police station came into focus again. What a fool he’d been. In his grief-numbed state, he’d discarded everything he’d worn that night, not wanting any reminders of the night he lost the woman he loved. And somehow he’d forgotten he put the ring in his pocket.
It hadn’t been stolen. It hadn’t even been lost. He’d given it away. Strange how his donated pants ended up in Wichita, Kansas. But thanks to the honesty of whoever purchased them, the ring was in his hand again. He wanted to repay the person somehow. Reward them. He had a little over three hundred dollars left in the emergency fund he’d set aside from the insurance payout for his totaled car. He’d gladly hand it over as a token of appreciation.
Jase pressed the fist holding the ring against his galloping heart. “Officer Pratt, you said you could get a message to the person who returned the ring. Would you ask if she’d be willing to meet me? I’d like to give her a reward, and I’d like to give it to her in person. Because what she did…” He swallowed. “She gave me back my hope.”
Kenzie
Kenzie adjusted the tension on the table loom’s warp. Someone, probably a curious child, had fiddled with the dials when she wasn’t looking, and now the last few rows were uneven. She slipped the shuttle through the shed, then pulled the beam, taking care with each step of operation and watching the various parts for signs of problems. All went smoothly.
She clamped the tension dial to keep it tight, then reached for the shuttle. Before she could release it through the shed, Ruby rounded the corner, waving her cell phone over her head.
“Kenzie, you’ll never guess who just called.”
Someone important, based on Ruby’s excitement. She gave her boss her full attention. “Who?”
“Officer Dillard Pratt from the Sedgwick County Police Department. The owner of the ring has been identified, has picked it up, and”—her voice rose in pitch and volume with every phrase—“wants to meet with you and give you a reward!”
Kenzie’s jaw dropped. When they’d filled out the paperwork at the police station, they’d put Ruby as the finder since Kenzie intended to discontinue using cell service when she went to Indiana. She hadn’t expected to know what happened to the ring, and her heart gave a flip of joy. “They found the owner already?” She couldn’t hold back a laugh. “All