The Secret Between Us novel · Chapter 12 of 24

Chapter 12: The Ring

That night I took the chain off over my head for the first time in three years.

The boathouse was warm.

Caleb had lit the stove, and the rain ran down the window in long silver threads.

I sat on the edge of the bed with the gold band in my palm.

It was a plain ring, narrow and a little scratched, and it had a dent where I'd caught it once in a winch.

"Give me your hand," Caleb said.

He knelt in front of me on the old floorboards.

I held out my left hand, bare and trembling.

He slid the ring over my knuckle.

It fit.

It always had.

"I should have done this in front of people," he said. "In front of my mother. In front of the whole damn town."

"We'll do that too."

"Is that a promise?"

"It's a threat."

He laughed, and then he kissed my wrist, and the laugh turned into something else.

He took the chain from my other hand and lifted his own off over his head.

He worked his ring free of it and pressed it into my palm.

"Your turn," he said.

My fingers shook as I pushed it onto his hand.

He closed his fist around it.

"There," I said. "Now you're stuck with me."

"I've been stuck with you since I was twenty-four."

He kissed me then, slowly, without hurry.

It was nothing like the first night.

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