A Thread So Thin Read Online Free PDF Page A

to look at the ring. It was exquisite, a brilliant square-cut diamond in a simple, wide platinum setting, very modern and sleek and exactly what I’d have picked if I’d chosen it myself. Garrett knew me so well.
    “What should we do with this? I know you don’t want to wear it, but…do you think you might just want to hold on to it? For a little while. Just until you make up your mind?”
    He held out the ring and looked at me with spaniel eyes. I knew it didn’t make sense for me to take the ring until I could give him a definitive yes, but he looked so miserable. I just didn’t have the heart to turn him down a second time.
    “If you want me to,” I said.
    “I do.” He took the ring out of the jewelry box and laid it in my open palm. It felt awkward, holding it without actually putting it on.
    “Wait a minute. I’ve got an idea.”
    I handed the ring back to Garrett, dug into my evening bag, and pulled out a thin silver chain. “I had this left over from one of my jewelry projects,” I explained before threading the chain through the ring and putting it around my neck. The chain was long, so the ring dangled just beneath my silver choker, almost like I’d added a diamond pendant to the silver piece. Later, I’d be able to wear it under my clothes. No one would know it was there and, for now at least, that’s the way I wanted it.
    “There!” I said after I fastened the clasp. “What do you think?”
    “It’s fine. Makes it look a little like we’re two eighth graders going steady, but if you like it…” He shrugged noncommittally, but I could tell he felt a little better seeing the ring hanging around my neck.
    “It’s a gorgeous ring. Thank you.” I reached out to squeeze his hand, wanting him to feel how much I meant what I said.
    Taking in a deep breath and then letting it out slowly, he pulled his hand back and looked at his watch. “One minute to midnight. This isn’t exactly how I pictured us beginning the new year.”
    “No? How did you picture it?”
    “With you and me on the dance floor. Cheek to cheek. Lip to lip.” He pushed his hair up off his forehead.
    “Well,” I said, slipping my arm under his and curving my body toward him, “there’s still time for that. I know we made kind of a spectacle of ourselves before, but what do we care? We’ll never see these people again. So what do you say? Do you want to dance?”
    “Hmm,” Garrett mused. “I don’t know. Can I have some time to think about it?”
    “Nope.”
    “Well, in that case, lead the way.”
    I did, holding his hand as we returned to the floor, wrapping my arms around his neck and lifting my lips to meet his as the band-leader counted down the seconds to midnight, and the balloons fell, and the crowd cheered, and I wondered what other surprises the new year would hold.

3
Evelyn Dixon
    D epending on your point of view, January and February are either the best two months of the year in New England or the worst. Probably more people would opt for the latter than the former but, personally, I love this time of year.
    Yes, it can be bone-chillingly cold, so cold that a lot of people book flights to Florida or the Carolinas and don’t come back until March. And if it’s an especially hard winter, they might not return until April or even May, kind of like the groundhog, Punxsutawney Phil, who pokes his nose out from his cozy winter burrows on February 2 and, depending on where the shadows fall, either heads back inside to hunker down until the signs appear more favorable or waddles out into the open and declares that spring has arrived.
    Chilly winter weather tends to have an equally chilling effect on New Bern commerce. There are fewer people around to buy things, and those who are here tend to stay close to the warmth of hearth and home rather than brave freezing temperatures and the snow-heaped sidewalks of downtown New Bern, credit cards at the ready. Some stores, like the ice cream shop and the