Dying to Please by Linda Howard

had
saved
it from his father's stupid decisions. Judge Lowell had never done anything but sit on a bench and dispense opinions as if they were Pez.
    His Sarah deserved more than that old man.
    She deserved . . . everything.
    He wanted to give her a gift, something that would make her think of him every time she saw it. And he wanted it to be something she wore, so he could imagine her wearing it every day, touching it, treasuring it. He couldn't give her clothing; that was too crass. Flowers faded and died, then were discarded.
    Jewelry, then. Wasn't that what gentlemen had given their special ladies all through history? Special pieces of jewelry had been imbued with mystery, intrigue, even curses, though of course there wouldn't be anything cursed about his gift. He couldn't even make it as special as he wanted, because there wasn't time for him to have a piece made; he would have to buy something commercially produced, but even with that handicap he would find something out of the ordinary.
    He would have to buy it from a store he hadn't patronized before, so there wouldn't be a chance of anyone recognizing him. And paying by check or credit card was out of the question; he didn't want anyone to be able to trace the gift back to him. In time,
she
would know, but that knowledge was for the two of them alone.
    He drove to his bank and withdrew five thousand dollars, and left annoyed because the drive-through teller had asked to see his driver's license. On reflection, though, he decided she had done the correct thing. He hated to be delayed or questioned, but sometimes one had to accept the burdens of society.
    From there he went to the Galleria, where he could be certain he would be merely one face among many, even on a weekday. There were several jewelry stores, and he browsed through all of them before making his selection. Sarah needed something simple and classic; she would be as appalled as he by gaudiness, but anything paltry would be an insult.
    He finally settled on a teardrop pendant, a lovely ruby surrounded by diamonds, and suspended from a gossamer chain. The combination of ruby and diamonds captured her essence, he thought, exotic warmth surrounded by perfect coolness.
    He paid in cash, to the clerk's astonishment. With the square, flat box in his pocket he went into another jewelry store and bought a simple chain, secured in a box much like the one that contained the ruby pendant. That chain was a paltry hundred dollars, but it was the box he wanted, not the contents.
    Next he had stopped at an office supply store and bought a small shipping box, filler paper to buffer the contents, and a roll of tape. He even remembered to buy scissors to cut the tape. Ordinarily it would have annoyed him no end to be put to so much trouble, but this time he was patient about all the steps he had to take. After all, this was for Sarah.
    Once back in his car, he removed the cheap chain from its box and carefully replaced it with the pendant. There. Now if Sarah called the jewelry store whose name was on the box, she would find that no one there remembered selling a ruby-and-
diamond pendant, that in fact they had no such item in stock. He pictured her lying in bed, tenderly touching the pendant around her neck and wondering who had sent her such a lovely gift.
    He put the jeweler's box inside the shipping box, dropped in a small note to let her know how special she was, packed in the filler paper, and sealed the box. Too late he realized he hadn't bought a cheap pen for addressing the box. Scowling, he took his gold fountain pen back out of his jacket pocket. What would the rough cardboard do to the nib?
    He could go to another store and buy a pen, but his patience was abruptly at an end. Unscrewing the cap from the expensive pen, he quickly printed her name and address on the box, in his irritation digging the nib into the cardboard. If necessary, he would buy another pen, but this box was going in the mail without any further