Put a Ring On It (27 page)

S
teady, pounding rain drenched the windshield of Lila's SUV as she made the drive to Black Dog Bay, Delaware. The night sky was starless, the roads were treacherous, and Lila stayed in the right-hand lane of the highway, praying that she wouldn't skid on an oil slick or scrape a guardrail or misjudge her braking speed.

She wanted to turn on the radio and take a sip of coffee from the travel mug resting on the console, but she was too afraid to release her death grip on the steering wheel.

Buying this car had been a mistake; she could admit that. A huge mistake. Almost as huge as the vehicle itself.

Once upon a time, in her heyday of hawking callus cream on late-night cable, she had driven a sporty little black coupe. She'd never given a second thought to issues like braking speed or turning radius.

And then, ten months ago, her father had died. And after the funeral, she'd come home to the news that her producers had opted
not to renew her contract. Six weeks later, her husband had explained that, while he would always love her on some level, he was not actually
in
love with her. Because he was in love with someone else.

The morning after Carl broke the news that he was abandoning her for something new, Lila had decided she deserved something new, too. And Carl deserved to pay for it. She'd stalked out of the house, roiling with rage, and driven to the nearest auto dealership.

“I want the biggest car you have on the lot,” she told the first salesman she saw. “Fully loaded: leather seats, sunroof, power everything.”

The salesman didn't miss a beat. “Backseat DVD player?”

“Sure, why not?” she'd replied, though she had no children. She didn't even have a dog. There'd be nothing in her backseat but baggage after Carl sold the house she'd spent five years decorating with custom flooring and fabric and furniture.

“Do you have a color preference?” the salesman asked as he led her toward a line of shiny new vehicles.

“No.” She pulled out her checkbook. “Let's just get this done before my husband closes the joint accounts.”

And that was how she'd ended up with this all-wheel-drive behemoth with an interior large enough to set up a pair of sofas and a coffee table. This sumptuous, supersafe SUV—or, as she privately referred to it, the “FU”-V.

She'd driven back home in a spurt of renewed optimism, feeling invincible.

Then she'd turned into the circular driveway in front of their stately brick home and realized that she had blind spots the size of a small planet and insufficient clearance to maneuver the vehicle into the garage. She'd had to park outside and slink in to face the
scorn of the man who'd vowed to love her in sickness and in health, for richer or for poorer.

Except that man hadn't been waiting for her in the house. He'd vanished, taking his laptop and golf clubs with him, leaving a certified letter from his accountant explaining that because his businesses had been “gifted” to him by his father, she wouldn't be entitled to any portion of his company's equity or revenue going forward.

All her outrage and optimism sputtered out after that, followed quickly by her savings, because Carl did indeed freeze the joint accounts.

But she still had this FUV, cocooning her within steel crossbars and countless air bags as she cruised down Coastal Highway 1. She had a world of comforts at her disposal—heated leather seats, climate control, enough cup holders to accommodate a case of cola, and, of course, the backseat DVD player. She'd signed the purchase agreement thinking that she was buying a guarantee of safety and protection.

Ding.

She instinctively tapped the brake as she glanced at the dashboard. An orange alert light in the shape of an exclamation point was blinking. She had no idea what that meant, but she knew it was bad.

Reminding herself to stay calm, she tried to watch the road ahead and maintain her speed.

One hazard light wasn't the end of the world. She could call Triple A. How did the Bluetooth system work, again?

Ding.

Another light illuminated—this time, the engine temperature alert.

Ding.

The oil level alert.

Ding.

The battery life alert.

BEEP BEEP BEEP.

The antitheft alert blared to life at eardrum-shattering decibels.

Lila didn't realize she was yelling until she heard the sound of her own voice in her ears in the split-second pauses between beeps and dings.

Her fingers gripped the steering wheel so tightly her wrists trembled. She tried to focus on the road, but all she could see in front of her was a cluster of red and orange lights, announcing crises she hadn't even imagined.

She glimpsed a gas station on her right and swerved into the parking lot, skidding on the wet pavement and jumping the curb in her haste. For a moment, she worried the enormous hulk of machinery would simply topple and roll over, but it righted itself with a shudder.

The cacophony of beeps and dings continued. She threw the transmission into park and started jabbing at buttons on the dashboard and key fob. Nothing changed—the lights kept blinking, the alarms kept blaring.

She heaved the door open and jumped out, stumbling on the retractable assist steps that automatically unfolded.

“Shit!” She fell into a gasoline-scented puddle. Though she managed to catch herself with her hands, the water splashed onto her cheeks and collar.

The car alarms kept sounding.

She grabbed the edge of the massive metal hood and pulled. Nothing budged. She could barely see at this point; her hair was plastered to her face in the icy downpour.

“Stop.” A calm, authoritative male voice filtered through all
the honking and dinging. A hand pressed down on her shoulder. “Give me your keys.”

Shaking and breathless, she whirled around to face a man wearing a baseball cap and a dark wool jacket. He smiled at her and held out his palm.

Lila hesitated for a moment, worst-case scenarios flashing through her mind. If she handed over her keys, this guy could steal her car. She'd be stranded here, shivering and alone.

Without the three-ton vehicle that she could barely drive.

Good.

She pointed toward the driver's-side door. “They're in the ignition.”

The man stepped onto the metal ledge, reached into the SUV's cabin, and cut the engine.

Everything stopped at once—the dinging, the honking, the panic and despair.

Lila listened to the raindrops spatter against the pavement during the long, lovely pause.

Then the engine rumbled to life again as the man turned the keys in the other direction.

She started to protest, but the words died on her lips when she realized that she could
hear
the engine now. She could also hear the steady squeak of the windshield wipers. All the alarms had been silenced.

And the guy that had done the silencing was now staring at her.

She took a faltering step back.

He kept right on staring. “Lila?”

She took another step back.

He took off his hat, and suddenly those features fell into place in her memory. The brown eyes and thick hair and the deep, teasing voice. “Lila?”

“Ben?” She clapped a hand to her mouth, suddenly aware of how bedraggled she must look. “Ben!”

Without another word, he opened his arms to her and she ran to him, closing her eyes as she pressed her cheek against his shoulder. It had been years since he had held her, but she suddenly felt sixteen again, hopeful and shy but safe.

“What are you doing here?” Something about the way he asked this made her wonder how much he'd glimpsed of the FUV's contents.

“I promised my mom I'd come stay with her through the summer,” she mumbled into his jacket. “She's been having a hard time with everything.”

His arms tightened around her. “I heard about your dad. I'm so sorry. He was a great guy.”

“Yeah, it's been a tough year. But we're hanging in there.” She looked up at him.

He cupped her chin in his hand. “It's so great to see you.”

“What about you?” she asked. “I thought you were still in Boston.”

“I moved back last month. I'm taking over my dad's company. We're starting some new projects down by Bethany Beach.”

She was grinning now, not her camera smile but her real smile. She knew she looked toothy and ridiculous, but she couldn't stop.

Because the first boy she'd promised to love forever was smiling down at her with what could only be described as adoration. “You changed your hair.”

She nodded. “I went blond a few years ago.”

“It looks great. You always look great, Lila.”

“Oh, please.” She pulled away, trying to straighten her hair and her shirt and her earrings all at once. “I'm a drowned rat.”

Ben shook his head. “You get prettier and prettier. Listen, here's my card. We should get together sometime and catch up.”

She forced her lips into a more demure expression as her mother's voice resounded in her head:
Don't be too eager. There's nothing a man likes more than a woman who has other options.
“Thanks. I'd like that.”

“You're staying with your mom?”

She nodded.

“Take it easy on the drive into town, and get your car checked out, okay?” He nodded at the SUV. “This model has a lot of electrical problems. Probably a short somewhere.”

“How do you know?”

“My foreman used to have the same car. Emphasis on
used to
.”

Lila climbed back into the FUV, buckled her seat belt, and just sat for a few minutes. Relishing the heated seats and warm air gusting out of the vents. Watching the dashboard for any more emergency lights.

Reeling from the unexpected gift she'd just been given.

Finally, she put the FUV into gear and started back down the highway to her hometown. And five minutes later, when she passed the quaint clapboard sign adorned with the silhouette of a Labrador retriever—
WELCOME TO BLACK DO
G BAY
—she removed one hand from the wheel, turned on the radio, and scanned through the static until she found a song she could hum along to.

Maybe coming home wouldn't be so bad, after all.

Photo by Anna Peña

Beth Kendrick
is the author of twelve women's fiction novels, including
New Uses for Old Boyfriends
,
Cure for the Common Breakup
,
The Week Before the Wedding
,
The Lucky Dog Matchmaking Service
, and
Nearlyweds
, which was turned into a Hallmark Channel original movie. Although she lives in Arizona, she loves to vacation at the Delaware beaches, where she brakes for turtles, eats boardwalk fries, and wishes that the Whinery really existed.

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