When I first mentioned him to Lorea, she said she might have to take up running, if only to stop me from making a fool of myself. Three or four runs a week was enough for me, but I wondered how many nights found him pounding the pavement. Bright yellow running shorts with a black racing stripe sans shirt revealed his muscular body. So hot. My heart sped up as the distance between us disappeared.
I tried to suppress the goofy grin threatening to cross my face by reminding myself that my cheeks were flushed dark red and I hadn’t shaved my legs for two days. Who was I kidding? I was a sweaty mess. All the same, I couldn’t resist staring at those chrome sunglasses as he ran past, wondering what color his eyes might be.
“Great night for a run,” he said between breaths.
“Yeah, it is.” I lifted my fingers in a wave. Inside I screamed, He talked to me! You idiot! And all you could say is, yeah, it is? Oh well, he had initiated conversation. I couldn’t wait to tell Lorea.
I wondered what the chances were that I might bump into him somewhere else in town but fully dressed. The Ketchum–Sun Valley area wasn’t a metropolis—the population was less than four thousand—so it could happen. Calm down, Adri.
I thought about my own appearance. The large black sunglasses I wore covered one of my best features. People always commented on my dark brown eyes, remarking how they contrasted nicely with my honey blonde hair. My soft curls were hidden when I pulled my hair back into a ponytail. There was a chance he would recognize me, but could I pick him out of a lineup? I hoped so. I found myself smiling for the rest of my run.
When I returned home and showered, my thoughts strayed to Dallas versus “the hottie.” It was nice to think of something besides wedding dresses, and I didn’t need to make a decision yet, especially since I’d only been asked out by one of the guys. All the same, it was fun to imagine possibilities. The pillow on my bed looked inviting, but I knew I needed to start picking out that hem. Instead of sleeping, I washed my hands thoroughly, gathered my seam ripper, and lifted Natalie’s heavy dress.
Fingering the soft folds of the gown, I plopped onto my sofa and flicked through my DVR list until I found a bunch of Antiques Roadshow episodes I had recorded. I pushed play, donned a pair of white cotton gloves, and started the tedious job of picking out the blind hem sewn into the satin underlying the last frilled layer. Forty-five minutes later, I had made it more than halfway around the dress. I was pleased to see the extra fabric folded neatly into the hem for just such an alteration as Natalie needed. Smoothing out the folds, I measured about four inches with my fingers and was satisfied that Lorea would be able to include a beautiful hemline for Natalie’s tall figure.
The seam ripper slipped on a stubborn stitch, and I jabbed myself in the palm of the hand. “Ouch!” I cried as the point broke through the material of my glove. I checked my hand for any sign of blood. That would be more than I could take right now—blood stains on a wedding gown. I wasn’t bleeding, so I put the glove back on and returned to the thick thread holding the hem in place. Scissors did the trick, and with a few snips the hem began to unroll again. As my fingers dug inside the hem to pull the stitching apart, they came in contact with something solid. I put my seam ripper down next to the scissors and examined the material with both hands.
There was something hard in that portion of the material. Pressing the hemline, I squinted, trying to see what had gone wrong. The hem bulged with some kind of solid mass. I inserted the sharp tip of the seam ripper and cut through the thread holding the hem together. I worked faster trying to free it, wondering all the while if I had stumbled upon some seamstress’s secret.
The wad of material came loose, and I pulled it out, feeling the hard bumps inside. At first, I thought it might be extra fabric, but it was something else. My chest tightened. The gown had come all the way from China—what if it was infested with cockroaches or something even worse? I shuddered and then commanded myself to stop being a wimp.
A tiny slit with my scissors assured me that the roll of fabric was not filled with insects or vermin. Instead, hundreds of little rocks had been packed neatly inside the bundle. What in the world? The tube of material was only about six inches long. Why would anyone put rocks in a wedding dress? Was this some kind of ancient Chinese folklore or good luck charm?
I took off my gloves and emptied a handful of the rocks into my hand. I studied them under the light, and a nervous feeling wound its way up my throat. The rocks were yellowish and brown and all about the size of pea gravel, but there was something about them that set a warning bell off in my head. Sucking in a breath, I lifted one of the stones and held it up to the light. It definitely wasn’t a rock. The light glinted off it, reminding me of crystal, but something told me that wasn’t it, either.
Moving the wedding dress aside, I cupped my hand and carried the mysterious stones over to my computer desk. I had an idea of what I thought the stones might be—in my wildest imagination—but I felt a little foolish as I toggled my mouse. Using Google,
