“I know what you are talking about. They have a weighted bottom with something that looks like red heart fireworks shooting out of the top. Lord help us if Betsy gets drunk and takes one to Kinsey’s head.” She slung her purse over her shoulder.

“Hey, Jill,” he said as he took her hand in his.

“Hey, what?”

“I love you,” he said.

“Hey, Sawyer, I love you back,” she told him. “Red plastic tablecloths?”

“You sure are romantic this afternoon,” he teased.

“What’s not romantic about red plastic tablecloths?” she shot right back.

“For starters, they’d be real easy for Betsy or Kinsey to accidentally-on-purpose grab if they were fake falling. Can you imagine Betsy if a whole table full of burger baskets landed in her lap?”

Jill laughed as he opened the door and helped her inside his truck. “It might end the pig war and begin the burger war.”

“Where they throw food rather than steal pigs.”

When he was inside the truck, she said, “Or where they poison food instead of stealing livestock, so scratch that idea. We just need some cutesy things that remind the folks that it’s a fall-in-love day, not a war day.”

“How about a couple of bags of those heart-shaped red hots and some of those conversation hearts to go on the bar instead of pretzels and peanuts?”

She pulled her wallet from her purse, ripped off a check, and fished around until she found a pen. “I’m going to make a list. Candy for bar. Keep thinking, and I’ll write it all down as we travel.”

By the time they reached the outlet mall, the back side of her check was filled with ideas. He parked, and hand in hand, they started toward the party store. It was two stores up from the jewelry store and just past the leather-goods place where they sold boots, saddles, and all kinds of hand-tooled jewelry and luggage.

“Want to dash inside the leather store for a few minutes?” he asked.

“No, darlin’, I want to get this list taken care of and then get an apple dumplin’ over at that Cracker Barrel place,” she answered. “But it doesn’t take two of us to buy party goods. You go to the leather store if you want to.”

He gave her a quick peck on the cheek. “I’ll only be a few minutes.”

He darted into the leather store for about thirty seconds and then went straight to the jewelry store. He wanted a necklace with a heart pendant to give her for Valentine’s Day. The one he’d seen online had a banner across it with I Love You written in tiny, sparkling diamonds. If he couldn’t find that, then a bracelet with interlocking hearts, but it had to be yellow gold.

“Help you, sir?” an older woman said from behind the counter. “I bet you are doing late Valentine shopping.”

“Yes, ma’am. I was thinking a heart necklace,” he said.

“Sold the last one a few minutes ago. This year, folks are going in for infinity symbols more than hearts, so we didn’t order many of those. Want to see what we’ve got left?”

“Yes, thank you. Yellow gold.”

“That limits it. White gold is still the rage with the young girls. Yellow gold hasn’t been in vogue in years. In my opinion, it’s far classier. We have one double infinity bracelet in yellow gold. It’s all the way to the end of the display case beside the collection of antique rings we just got from an estate sale.” She motioned for him to follow her.

She brought out the bracelet, and he nodded.

“I like that better than hearts. I’ll take it.”

“Wrapped? We have some lovely red-rose wrapping paper.”

“Yes, but nothing with roses,” he said.

“Pink hearts?” she asked.

“Or yellow daisies,” he answered.

“For Valentine’s? We do have some yellow daisy paper that we got for Easter, but…” She paused.

“That’s what I’d like.”

“Be right back then,” she said.

He leaned on the counter and looked inside at display after display of diamond rings. It was way too early to think about that, but he wondered what Jill would choose. Then his eye settled on the small black velvet ring case with the antique rings. Six in all, and every one of them yellow gold.

The last one in the case was Jill. No doubt about it. That was what she’d choose, and it wouldn’t be just an engagement ring. It would be her wedding band as well. One emerald, half the size of a dime, graced the middle. Diamonds were scattered in the open scrollwork around it. The stone was the color of her eyes; the diamonds the twinkle in them when she was happy.

“Gorgeous, isn’t it?” The clerk set his wrapped present in front of him. “Cash or credit card?”

“Can I look at that ring?” he asked.

“The diamond one in the middle?”

“No, the emerald,” he said.

“It has a story behind it,” she said.

Remembering what Jill had said about liking things with a story behind them brought a smile to his face. “Written down?”

“No, just what the folks told my boss when he bought the rings. That one was the only one they knew much about. It was given to a lady in 1880 as a betrothal ring. She and her husband were married fifty years before he died, and although she was elderly, she was still healthy. Three days after he died, she joined him. They said it was from a broken heart. Her son inherited the jewelry and gave that particular ring to his grown son to give to his fiancée. They were married sixty years when she died, and he lived only a few days afterward. It was put in a lockbox and sold last week at a jewelry auction.”

“Third’s the charm.” He held the ring up to catch the light.

“I could hold it for you if you’d like to buy it,” she said.

“Thank you, but not now,” he said.

She put the ring back in the case and rang up the price of the bracelet. He handed her his credit card and started out of the store, but he couldn’t push the glass door open. His feet were glued to the welcome mat, and he couldn’t get the ring out of his mind or the voice that kept reminding him that he’d never find another one like it.

“Have you changed your mind about the bracelet?” the clerk asked.

“No, about the ring. I’ll take it. If you’ll put it in a box, I’d appreciate it, but I don’t need it wrapped,” he said.

* * *

At five minutes to opening, they finished getting the bar ready for a proper Valentine’s Day party. No one who brought their sweetheart out for the evening to the Burnt Boot Bar and Grill would be disappointed in the setting now. Heart-shaped paper coasters circled jar candles burning brightly in the middle of each table. The jukebox sported a huge foldout heart taped securely to the front and had already been filled with enough money to play all night.

Standing behind the bar and taking one more look, Jill nodded at Sawyer. “Turn off the lights except the ones behind the bar. I’m opening the chute. And look at who’s first.”

“I asked Callie where she wanted to go, and she said here,” Finn said. “We’ll need two cheeseburger baskets, two pitchers of beer, two red cups, and we’re going to claim a table. The parking lot is full. We’re lucky we got in first.”

In ten minutes there wasn’t a table to be begged, borrowed, or stolen. The bar stools were full, and folks milled about in tight little groups, waiting for their names to be called to pick up their beer and food.

Sawyer only had time to look up from the grill when he put baskets of food on the worktable. Cheeseburgers had red toothpicks. Hamburgers had pink ones. Jill yelled out names and filled pitchers as fast as she could.

Betsy showed up at seven thirty, with Tyrell right behind her. “Wow, Sawyer, you did this up really neat. I never thought this old run-down bar could look like a New York City nightclub.”

“Just needs a strobe light,” Tyrell said.

“It wasn’t all my doin’. Jill and I worked together on it,” Sawyer said.

Jill and Sawyer were swamped behind the bar until Callie and Finn took pity on them and pushed their way back behind the bar to help.