Free Upon a Mystic Tide by Vicki Hinze

had for Cecelia.” Bess couldn’t fathom it.
    Miss Hattie’s gentle green eyes grew piercing. “True love is always like that. Don’t you think?”
    A sweeping chill settled over Bess’s skin. Something important had just been revealed to her; the sensation crept through her, and she couldn’t shake it. “I suppose so.” Like Tony’s message, she didn’t understand this one, or how it applied to her, but she had no doubt that it did apply.
    “That’s as love should be, anyway. When both people are truly committed.”
    A little ache rippled through Bess. “I can’t imagine a love like that.” Realizing she’d spoken aloud, heat surged up her neck and she let out a nervous giggle. “Don’t we all wish we could?”
    “Someday you will.”
    “Maybe.” Not for a second did she believe it. But Miss Hattie clearly did, and Bess didn’t want to be the one to shatter the woman’s illusions.
    Lucy gathered their dishes.
    Miss Hattie’s fork slipped off her plate, hit the table, then clanged. She passed it to Lucy. “Bess, may I ask you a question, dear?”
    She really didn’t want to answer personal questions, but Miss Hattie smiled so sweetly, and she looked so charming, with her bun a little worse for the wear from the wind on the walk over from the inn to the village. “Sure.”
    “I understood you to say you and John have been separated for a long time.”
    “Yes.”
    “Why do you still wear his ring?”
    Lucy paused her gum-snapping and rag-wiping of the next table, avidly listening and trying hard to pretend she wasn’t. Bess shifted on the wooden chair, then moved the silver-knobbed salt shaker next to the pepper at the end of the table, nestled to the wall. A ketchup bottle there was half-full.
    “I didn’t mean to intrude, or to make you uncomfortable.” Miss Hattie gave Bess’s hand a pat atop the table. “If you’d rather not answer, dear, then, please, don’t.”
    “No.” Bess had wondered the same thing herself. It was time she knew the answer, and she half-considered thanking Miss Hattie for nudging her into searching for it. She looked up from the metal napkin holder stuffed with white paper napkins and shrugged. “I guess at first I kept wearing it because it felt comfortable. I was used to it, you know? And,” this proved harder to admit, “I think I never really believed it was over for John and me. By the time I realized it was, I—I don’t know. I just didn’t want to take it off.”
    The tiny gold band winked at her, and she vividly recalled their wedding ceremony and John putting the ring onto her finger. “I suppose it sounds kind of foolish now, but I promised him on our wedding day that I’d never take it off.” She let out a nervous, little laugh. “So I haven’t.”
    “Doesn’t sound at all foolish,” Miss Hattie said. “Promises are made to be kept.”
    Yes. Yes, promises are made to be kept. Yet, John had made promises too and he’d broken them. He’d vowed to always love her, but he hadn’t. He certainly hadn’t loved her anything like Collin had loved his Cecelia. In fact, John couldn’t have loved Bess at all. A lump of sadness swelled in her chest and she cursed herself as forty kinds of fool because that truth still had the power to hurt her so much. It shouldn’t hurt even a little. Not anymore. “After the divorce is final, then I’ll take it off.”
    “A few more weeks, hmmm?”
    Bess nodded. A flurry of motion caught her eye. Lucy rushed over to Fred, then whispered something into his ear that had him smiling and letting out a muffled “Hot damn!”
    Lucy popped him on the thigh with her red rag. Fred flushed purple and grunted out a hasty apology for cursing—not that it did him any good. Lucy’s glare warned that he had not yet been forgiven and reminded Bess of the killer looks Maggie leveled on T. J. Fred looked about as worried as T. J. usually did, too: not at all. Bess cocked her head. Maybe she should have laid a glare or