Another Man's Treasure (a romantic thriller) (Palmyrton Estate Sale Mystery Series Book 1) by S.W. Hubbard

piece of gold is starting to feel like the stranger who rides into town in an old-time Western.
    I enter the jewelry store.
    The man behind the counter has shoulder-length gray hair pulled back in a ponytail, exposing a high forehead and prominent nose.  His long fingers open the drawstring pouch and he gently shakes the ring out onto a velvet pad on the countertop.  The moment he sees the twisted vine design his eyes light up.  Holding the ring inches from his eye, a smile animates his serious face as if he’s encountered a long-lost childhood friend.
    “You designed the ring?” I ask.
    “Yes.  It was part of a vine series I did in the seventies.”  His voice is dreamy.  He’s speaking to me but his eyes never leave the ring.  “This piece was purchased by a math professor as a gift for his wife.  He brought her in afterwards to have the ring sized.  A lovely woman.  Very slender fingers.”
    He’s talking about my parents.  He actually remembers them.  I try to imagine my father seeking out this off-the-beaten-track store to select the perfect gift for my mother.  Spending a significant amount of money.  My father, who never picked out a gift for me in my life.  For my birthday and Christmas he’d give my grandmother a hundred bucks and tell her to buy me something.  By the time I was a teenager, he didn’t even bother with that.
    “Are you interested in selling this?” Atwell asks.
    “No!”
    The edge in my voice gets his attention.  He stops examining the ring and studies me.  “They were your parents,” he says finally.  “Yes, I see the resemblance.  You favor your father.”
    Unfortunately.  My mother was the great beauty: auburn hair, green eyes, delicate features.  But I seem to have received more than fifty percent of my genes from my father, from my wiry brown hair and lanky frame to my ability to add columns of figures in my head.
    “Yes,” I say.  “This ring belonged to my mother.  It was missing for a long time and I recently found it.”
    His eyes meet mine and hold for a beat; he seems to intuit that his beautiful creation hasn’t spent the past thirty years in happy circumstances.  “Losing it must have upset her,” Atwell says softly.  “She was very pleased with your father’s gift.”
    “I’m amazed that you remember them so clearly,” I say.  “Do you have such complete recall of all your customers?”
    He smiles and shakes his head.  “Some I prefer to forget as quickly as possible.  Your father was a fri--, not a friend, an adversary of mine.” His smile spreads to his eyes.  “Roger and I competed against one another in a chess league.  He was quite a player.  Does he still—.”
    Atwell’s voice trails off.  At my age, I assume that people I’ve lost touch with are still alive, but at his age, that’s not a safe bet.  I’m not in the mood to explain our sorry family history, so I keep it brief.  “My mom has passed away.  My dad recently had a stroke and hasn’t fully recovered.”
    “I’m sorry.”  Atwell has a sort of Buddhist simplicity about him that I really like.  No gushing, no pity; accept what is and move on. “Your father wanted a special gift for your mother, so he came to me. They were clearly very much in love.  And I was very pleased that particular ring was to be worn by your mother.  It suited her perfectly.  I remember her holding up her hand to admire it.  She said, ‘I’ll never take this off.’”
    But she had.   I look over Mr. Atwell’s shoulder into a cluttered office behind the shop.  Not a computer in sight, but rusty metal file cabinets bulge with orders and receipts.  “I wonder if you could tell me when they bought the ring?” I ask.
    This is an imposition, I know, but Mr. Atwell is neither impatient nor inquisitive.  He ambles back to his office to rummage through the files while I wander around the shop looking in the display cases.  I feel like I should buy something to thank