Five Stolen Rings

Chapter 26

STELLA

For someone who claims to be afraid of relationships, Jack sure has jumped on board fast.

“No,” he says when I pull my hand out of his. He reaches out and grabs me again, shivering against the snowy cold as we walk. “Come back.”

I rub my stomach, groaning. “I ate too much.” Then I add, “My parents’ house is just up there.” I point with our joined hands. “They’ll see us if we walk up holding hands. My mom is probably watching out the window as it is. Are you okay with that?”

I didn’t realize I was a hand-holder, but I totally am. Maybe it’s because Jack has nice hands, or maybe it’s because I’ve seen what they can do. They hold me close; they apply Band-Aids when I’m hurt; they twine into my hair when we kiss. Either way, his fingers laced with mine is a sensation I don’t think I’ll tire of any time soon.

“I’m okay with anyone seeing,” Jack says with an easy shrug. He hesitates and then goes on, “Did you miss the part about how much I like you? Or did I unknowingly give the impression that I wanted to keep this secret?”

I don’t let myself smile. “No,” I say. “I just wanted to make sure.”

He only nods like he understands, inhaling deeply and then letting his breath out as he looks at our clasped hands.

“I guess I can admit I’m having a hard time wrapping my head around everything.” He squeezes my hand and then glances back up at me. “Is this okay? ”

I stop, and he stops with me.

“What do you mean?” I say with a little frown.

“I mean… ” he says, “I don’t know.” He rubs the back of his neck with his free hand and doesn’t look at me as he goes on. “Is it okay to have something I’ve always denied myself?”

The disbelieving snort that escapes me is far from ladylike. “I’m not a thing you’ve denied yourself,” I say. “I’m a person.”

“I know that,” he says, rolling his eyes—I can just see it in the yellow-orange light of the street lamp. “But I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve forced myself not to act on my feelings. All the way back in high school, I wasn’t allowing myself to say what I wanted to say or do what I wanted to do. It sort of feels like giving in now that I’m standing here holding your hand.”

“You’re not giving in,” I say as Billy Joel runs through my head— She never gives out, and she never gives in—she just changes her mind . “You’re changing your mind.”

He cocks one brow at me. “Is that what I’m doing?”

I nod decisively. “I think so. You said yourself you don’t have any good reason not to date me. ”

“Mmm,” he hums, and something lighter crosses his features now. “It’s true. I don’t.”

“So there’s no point holding onto a mindset that no longer makes sense.”

“You and Dr. Barb would get along swimmingly,” he says, and he gives my hand a little tug.

“Who’s Dr. Barb?” I say as we begin walking again.

“My therapist,” he says drily. “And an advocate of this relationship since day one.”

“Good old Barb,” I say with a smile. Then, with a glance at my parents’ front door, I add, “I will be introducing you as my boyfriend. Speak now or forever hold your peace.”

Jack gasps as we start up the driveway, an exaggerated, scandalized sound. “Your boyfriend? We haven’t even gone on a date yet.”

It’s true; we haven’t. But I can tell he’s going to be my boyfriend anyway.

“Come on, boyfriend,” I say, pulling a little harder on his hand as my smile blooms. “I think it’s time for you to meet my parents.”

We’re just stepping onto the front porch when Jack’s phone rings; it’s the Darth Vader theme, which causes me to raise my eyebrows.

“Is that what plays every time I call you?” I say.

“No,” he says, his brows drawing together as he frowns. “That’s Maude’s ringtone. Don’t look at me like that,” he adds, “all judgmental. She wasn’t a good stepmother.”

I grin but mime zipping my lips.

Jack stares at his phone for a moment, clearly disconcerted; then he takes a deep breath and answers.

“Stepmother dearest,” he says in a flat voice. “What can I do for you on this fine Christmas Eve?”

I can vaguely hear the tones of Maude’s reply, but I can’t understand the words; when Jack’s face goes slack, however, I start to get worried.

And when his expression distorts into sheer horror, I officially begin to panic.

“Hang on,” he says, his free hand squeezing mine so tightly my bones might crack. “There really are security cameras?”

“You said there weren’t any security cameras,” I say ten minutes later, once we’ve told my parents we’re going to see Maude. We climbed into Jack’s car and pulled out of the driveway at record speed, which was no doubt suspicious—especially since Maude is not a particularly likable person. She’s definitely not someone I’d be desperate to visit on Christmas Eve.

My mother clearly had questions, but she thankfully didn’t ask any of them.

“I didn’t think there were,” Jack says, his voice tense, his hands tight on the steering wheel.

“You said you checked it out?—”

“I looked!” he says. “I went over there and looked around.”

“You looked?” I say, my mouth gaping. “You just looked? That’s it?”

“What else would I have done?” he retorts as we start climbing into the foothills. “I know what security cameras look like, Princess. I didn’t see any.”

“Oh my goodness,” I say faintly, scrubbing my hand over my face. “I’m going to be arrested.” I turn to face him in my seat. “Couldn’t you have gotten house plans or something?”

It’s a ridiculous thing to say, of course; I realize it the second the words leave my mouth.

“Of course I couldn’t,” Jack says with a snort. “And if anyone gets arrested, it will be me.”

“That’s just as bad!” I say as panic bubbles in my gut—and into my mind’s eye pops the image of a witch’s brew, or maybe the surface of some prehistoric muddy swamp, thick and gross and bubbling.

That’s what’s forming inside me right now: a witch’s brew of sheer anxiety, crampy and painful.

“My parents will never let me date a criminal, even if it’s you,” I go on.

“Your parents love me,” Jack counters. “I’ll explain the whole thing and they’ll think I’m an idiot, but they’ll still love me.”

“Oh—that’s possible.” My fingers drum on my thigh as my scattered brain works through potential outcomes. “That’s very possible.”

“Of course it is.” His voice is a bit softer now, and he reaches over, stilling my dancing fingers. “Calm down, Princess. Worst comes to worst, I’ll kidnap you and we’ll elope.”

A halfway manic laugh escapes my lips, bubbling over into something fully hysterical until there are tears streaming down my face and I don’t even know if they’re from laughing or crying.

“Maybe you should stay in the car,” Jack says when we pull up in front of Maude’s house. He’s looking at me with a disconcerted expression, and I don’t blame him, but I shake my head .

“No,” I say, wiping the tears from my eyes. “This is partially my fault. Let’s go. Really—I’m good.”

It’s only when I’m halfway out of the car that I realize I am not, in fact, good.

“Ah,” I say miserably, looking at the seat I was just sitting in and shifting uncomfortably. “That explains the cramps and the crying.”

“Hmm,” Jack says, leaning over my shoulder as we stare at the blood stain. “That will come out with a bit of peroxide.”

I hear the sound of a zipper, and I turn around just in time to see him pulling off his jacket.

“Can’t take you anywhere,” he murmurs as he ties the jacket around my waist, but there’s a little smile on his lips, and his eyes are alight with humor.

“Maybe Maude has a tampon,” I say in a small voice.

Jack shakes his head, his smile growing. “She’s in her sixties, Stella girl. You’re going to have to wait until we can get out of here and hit up a gas station.”

“You know,” I say, tightening the knotted jacket, “if you’re going to invite me into your life?—”

“Already established.”

“—Then it would be a good idea for you to keep feminine supplies on hand. Just—in case. For the future.”

“Mmm,” Jack says, nodding slowly, and he doesn’t even look grossed out.

Hot doctor boyfriend for the win!

“How heavy is your menstrual flow? What kind of products do you prefer?” my hot doctor boyfriend proceeds to ask, and my insides wilt.

Stupid doctor boyfriend with his stupid doctor brain.

This is the least-sexy conversation I’ve ever had. “It varies,” I mutter, my cheeks heating. “Depending on where in my cycle I am. We don’t need to discuss it in detail.”

He shrugs, a grin curling over his lips. “If you insist?—”

“I insist,” I snap. “Let’s just go inside.”

I swear I hear him chuckle, but he doesn’t say anything else as we hurry up the driveway and to the porch.

When we reach the front door, we don’t even have to knock. It swings open like we’re about to enter a straight-up haunted mansion, and honestly, I feel a little like I’m going to my doom.

Jack steps inside ahead of me, and I follow with my pulse jumping erratically.

“Maude,” he calls.

“How did she even get the door to open on its own?” I mutter, looking at the front door as I push it closed. “Do you think we could rig something like that?” It would be a cool party trick.

“Focus, please,” Jack says, and I roll my eyes.

Can’t a girl distract herself with side tangents every now and then?

“Maude Ellery,” I say, my voice dampened in the heavy atmosphere that always seems to loom in this house. “Hi. It’s Stella, the person who took care of your animals while you were gone.” I clear my throat. “I hope you found them fed to your liking. I watered your plants too, and I aired out the rooms, so your allergies wouldn’t act up.”

Jack shoots me a look that plainly says What the heck are you doing?

“I’m introducing myself,” I hiss. “Someone needs to make some headway here.” Then, after clearing my throat again, I go on, “We’re going to come into the living room, okay? And we can all talk. ”

Great. Now I sound like a hostage negotiator. But honestly…what is this, if not a negotiation of sorts?

Even though I see Jack shaking his head out of the corner of my eye, he follows me under the wing of the split staircase and into the living room. It only takes two seconds of looking around to find his stepmother.

She’s seated in a wing-backed chair, posture impeccable, an intimidating frown on her face. She’s draped in a glittery purple dress, and there are actual high heels on her feet.

That has to be a scare tactic, right? Does a woman in her sixties wear high heels in her own home?

“Hi,” I say, bobbing my head at her. I shift uncomfortably. “Uh, do you by any chance have a tampon?”

It seems foolish not to at least ask.

But Maude just eyes me, looking utterly disdainful. “Certainly not,” she says. “I’m well into my menopausal years.” She hesitates, sniffing, and then goes on, “But incontinence is not uncommon for women my age. I do have some panty liners, if you?—”

“Yes, please,” I cut her off.

She does not appreciate being interrupted—the look she shoots me is part irritated, part disapproving—but she nods all the same, waving one spindly hand toward the hallway off the kitchen.

“In the cupboard beneath the bathroom sink,” she says. “I’m surprised you don’t already know that, considering how much you’ve poked around.”

I wince at this—she’s not wrong—and then hurry to the bathroom. I reemerge a few minutes later feeling significantly better.

Of course, the scene I find when I come back is enough to send me running for the proverbial hills: Maude Ellery, sitting in the chair beneath the scantily-clad portrait of herself, looking significantly haughtier than she does in the painting.

That woman can glower.

“Sit,” she barks at me when I appear, and I scurry over to the couch, plopping down next to Jack, who seems to be handling the situation better than I am. He’s observing Maude with cool indifference—though I’m not sure he has any legs to stand on, since she literally has video footage of him breaking into her house.

Maude’s nostrils flare as she looks back and forth between the two of us, but she doesn’t speak. Neither does Jack; there seems to be some sort of staring contest going on, or maybe a battle of wills to which I was not invited. The silence expands and mutates in horrible ways until I’m ready to say something just to end it.

But Maude apparently reaches that point at the same time I do, because just as I’m opening my mouth to say something undoubtedly idiotic, she speaks again.

“ Explain, ” she says, arching her eyebrows imperiously.

And look. I am ashamed to be in this situation. But I’d rather explain what happened than have to come up with something to fill the silence.

I am not a dumb woman. I am intelligent and strong. But please do not ask me to fill an awkward pause. It will go very poorly.

“So,” I begin, my hands clasped tightly in my lap. “Yes. So. What happened was?—”

“I broke in to your house, without Stella’s approval,” Jack cuts in, his voice smooth. “I resisted all her attempts to get me to leave. She’s not at fault here.”

Maude’s spidery brows inch impossibly higher, and Jack nods. He leans forward, elbows on his knees, and inhales deeply; then he spits out the accusation he’s probably been holding for years.

“You took my mother’s rings.”

Maude’s eyes glint with something like satisfaction. She crosses her bony legs and leans back in her chair, lounging very similarly to the way she does in the portrait on the wall behind her.

“Yes,” she says, sounding almost bored. “I did.”

Jack’s hands twitch, as though he’s trying not to clench them in anger. “They weren’t yours to take,” he says evenly.

“Hmm.” Maude reaches into a flap of her dress—is that even a thing? Is she wearing a muumuu? I can’t really tell—and pulls out a very familiar little box.

Oh, dear.

The little hinges squeak as she opens the lid, and she holds it out for us to see—at which point my head whips toward Jack, my jaw gaping.

“Did you not even take the mood rings out?” I say, my voice incredulous.

“No,” he says through gritted teeth, keeping his eyes on Maude. “Because I didn’t think she would look.”

“Because you didn’t see the security cameras,” I say, rubbing my hand down my face. “Good grief, Jack.”

He finally takes his attention away from Maude, turning it on me instead. “Hey,” he says, a little frown furrowing his brow. “That’s my line.”

And in spite of the absolutely ridiculous situation we find ourselves in—in spite of the very real trouble that could be coming our way—I can’t stop my little smile. Even though he broke into his stepmother’s house, I’m smiling at him.

Oh my goodness. Am I going to be one of those women who visit their boyfriends in jail every week for years? Is that my lot in life?

No. Absolutely not.

“Listen up,” I say, pointing at Jack. “You better figure this out now ”—I gesture around us at Maude and the rings—“because I am not going to visit you in prison, Jack. Okay? I’m not going to do that. I really, really like you. But I deserve better than a conjugal visit boyfriend. And you, frankly, deserve better than jail. So explain yourself to Miss Maude Ellery”—I put a nice z sound at the end of miss , just like the lady herself did, and she nods with approval—“and do it politely, please, and in full consciousness of the fact that while you may hold the moral high ground, you do not in fact have any legal legs to stand on.”

Jack gapes at me, but I just gesture to Maude.

“Go on,” I say. “Explain.”

“Yes, Jack,” Maude says in that dry, sarcastic voice. “By all means, do explain yourself. And make it quick; I haven’t ruled out calling the police, you know.”