Broken(63)

She placed the ticket back in the box and pulled out a scrap of material, a dark green cotton with pink paisley. Her lips twisted into a grimace as a flinch shook her shoulder.

“Do you remember?”

Unable to help herself, Jocelyn found herself giggling. “How could I forget this ugly pattern? I’d saved my allowance for a month to buy fabric to make a dress. Unfortunately, when my dad took me to town I saw a pair of earrings I had to have and the only fabric I could afford was this ugly pattern.”

“You convinced me to model the dress so you could see if it hung properly. I wasn’t a happy ten year old. Not to mention, my brothers still tease me about it.”

“You were so adorable.”

“I guess even then I was enamored of you. I kept this little scrap.”

The implication of his words hit her like a fist to the chest. The sudden rush of tears stung the back of her eyes as a lump formed in her throat, making it difficult for words to move past her lips. Instead of saying what was on her mind, she replaced the piece of fabric back in the box and retrieved a newspaper article speaking of her triumphant debut at Bryant Park. Another news clipping spoke of a show she’d done in London. There were several more like it. As she wordlessly riffled through the contents of the box, a shiny object caught her eye.

With shaking fingers she picked up the tiny gold ring lined with opal baguettes, her birthstone. “This is…” A fat teardrop fell from the corner of her eye, and plopped on her lap. Biting her bottom lip to hold back the sob hovering on the edge of escape, she held the ring up to the light.

Cade took it and slipped it on her left ring finger. “It’s the promise ring I gave you. The one you threw at me when you told me you never wanted to see me again. I didn’t have the heart to get rid of it.”

Jocelyn’s lips trembled as shame tore through her breast. She held her hand up to study it, remembering how much it had meant to her when he’d given it to her, how proud she’d been to wear it. How it symbolized the promise of their future together. To have treated something like this so callously cut deep as she was sure it had done Cade at the time she’d given it—no, tossed it back at him.

So caught up in her own misery, she’d never given thought to the people she’d left behind in a desperate attempt to shut out the memories of a happier time. A life she’d felt she no longer deserved. Not once had she considered her father or Cade. Or that Cade might still be in love with her to the point where he had a box of keepsakes. Even when she believed he’d hated her for what she had done, he’d kept a chronicle of their lives together. A piece of material from that ugly dress she’d made at thirteen. Tickets to just about every movie they’d ever been to. A ribbon she used to wear. He even had the first Valentine’s Day card she’d given to him.

Knowing how diligently he’d kept these precious mementos humbled her beyond anything. Nothing he could have said would have meant as much, convinced her as much as the contents of this box. He loved her. And always had. As much as she’d tried to deny her feelings for him, burying them deep down inside until not even she could guess the truth, Jocelyn loved Cade, too. With all her heart.

What a coincidence it was that the two men she loved, her father and Cade, would compile these precious memories pertaining to her. The meaning wasn’t lost on her. Despite her being away, neither man had stopped loving her. Her father’s collection didn’t surprise her quite as much as Cade’s did, and she was truly touched by it. So much so, words couldn’t properly express everything she was feeling. The power of real love was awesome and overwhelming.