Page 318 of Romeo

Granny searched my face.

I smiled through the tears. “I’ve only ever been this sure about one other thing.”

Her brows drew together.

I looked toward Frank and Claudia.

Claudia’s hand rose to her mouth.

Frank went completely still.

I didn’t have to say Charlie’s name.

Granny understood.

So did they.

Years ago, I had looked at Claudia and known I could trust her with the most important thing I had ever been responsible for. The decision had hurt. It had frightened me. None of that had ever made me question whether it was right. Charlie had the parents and the family I’d wanted for him, and seeing Frank and Claudia standing together now only reinforced what I had always known.

This decision was different because it was for me.

But the certainty felt the same.

Granny’s eyes filled. She nodded once. “Then that’s good enough for me.”

My breath left me in a shaky rush.

She pulled me into her arms, careful of the flowers caught between us, and I held on as tightly as I could. For those few seconds, I wasn’t standing in the Bourbon Bar in New Orleans about to marry a Cajun biker after the strangest twenty-four hours of my life.

I was Granny’s girl.

When she released me, she kissed my cheek and turned toward Jasper.

He straightened immediately.

Granny studied him for a long moment before looking down at her left hand.

I saw her fingers touch the ring before I understood what she meant to do.

My breath caught.

I had never seen Granny without it.

Not once.

The ring had been on her hand every day I had known her, worn smooth through years of living and loving the man who had put it there. Sometimes she twisted it when she talked about him. Sometimes she touched it without seeming to realize she was doing it at all. I had stopped thinking of it as jewelry years ago. It was simply part of Granny.

“Granny.”

She slid it from her finger.

The tears came back immediately.

Granny looked at the ring resting in her palm for a long moment before lifting her eyes to Jasper. Whatever she saw in him seemed to settle something inside her, because she walked over and held out her hand.

Jasper stared at the ring.

For perhaps the first time since everyone arrived, he had absolutely nothing to say.