Heiress for Hire (Cuttersville #2)(69)
Author: Erin McCarthy

"Show him the picture."

Piper plucked the drawing off the suitcase and held it out to her father. "This is what she looks like. That’s the lady I keep seeing in the mirror."

"That’s Amanda. A sort of… rounder version."

Another reason to love him. He could tell the difference between her and Fatty Face. Not that she needed any more reasons to love him. He was doing pretty damn good already.

"No, it’s not." Piper’s voice caught. She sounded really upset and her lip was trembling, her fists screwed up.

Danny caved. "Alright, shh, it’s okay. We’ll go take a look." He dropped Amanda’s underwear in the box.

They went down the hall together, stepping over the pile of pennies. "I hope she stops dropping the pennies after I leave. That would be such a waste."

Danny didn’t say anything, obviously thinking that he was just indulging the two nutty females in his life. She didn’t know how he explained the pennies, but he seemed to be of a mind that if you ignored something, than eventually it would go away.

Maybe he was right. But in the meantime, Piper was stressing out.

"Just lift it," she told her father, running her fingers over the glass.

He did, and it came off easily enough. When he set it on the floor, Amanda gasped. There was a cubby in the wall behind the mirror. And it was filled with papers and a few sacks.

"What’s all this?" Danny took the papers and started rifling through them. "Old letters."

"They say he didn’t do it," Piper said, biting her bottom lip. "She wants everyone to know he didn’t do it."

Suddenly Amanda knew who she meant. The Crying Lady’s dishonest husband. The one everyone had thought had been a murderer and a thief. "Let me see, Danny."

"You can’t read them. They’re in German."

But she understood. The woman cried because no one had believed that she and her husband truly loved each other. That he wasn’t a criminal.

"What’s in the bag?"

Danny shook it open. "A ring. A wedding ring, I think."

"It’s gorgeous," Amanda whispered, running her finger over the silver band, with encrusted diamonds running all around it. "She must not have been able to wear it, afraid people in town would turn against her if they knew she still loved her husband, was waiting for him."

Danny rolled his palm so the ring turned. "It could be anyone’s ring, Amanda."

"It’s mine." Amanda lifted it up, a feeling of rightness settling over her. It wasn’t a coveting of the jewelry. There was no Lord of the Rings freaky obsession invading her, but still, she knew it was meant for her.

Lifting Piper up into his arms, Danny tossed her a little to get a good grip. "What do you think, baby girl? It’s pretty, isn’t it?"

She patted his shoulders. "I think everything is exactly the way it’s supposed to be now."

Amanda looked at her almost husband and her soon-to-be daughter and nodded. "You said it, girlfriend."

"Can we go home now?" Danny asked.

"Absolutely. We have plenty of time, by the way, so don’t have a cow." She kissed his cheek, slipping the ring on her middle finger. "That’s farm humor, get it? Have a cow."

"I get it." He rolled his eyes, but he was smiling.

Amanda laughed.

Sharing her life with the people she loved? Priceless.