Most were salvageable, but there was one that was in pieces. As soon as I saw the colors of the ripped bits, my heart hurt. I knew which it was. It was one I kept telling myself I’d one day frame. I’d completed an impressionist image of my mother holding me as a baby in her arms, using watercolors. It was my best work, inspired by one of the only photos my aunt had where my mother actually seemed to be looking at me lovingly, like we were normal. It had taken so long to complete. Would my aunt still have that photograph? Did I have the heart to do it again?
No. I didn’t. It was lost to me forever.
“Why?” I couldn’t help asking in pained disbelief. Tears spilled shamelessly down my cheeks in hot rivulets. “I have nothing worth taking.”
“I’m sorry, Taylor,” Ryder said gruffly, on a knee beside me. He added darkly, “I’m sorry I didn’t walk in on the motherfucker.” He picked up a charcoal drawing I’d done of a big oak tree, a high school art-class assignment I’d kept. Carefully, he placed it in the box with the others I’d saved.
I looked around the rest of my room. My nightstand had been swept clean as though by an angry swipe of a hand across its surface, leaving my alarm clock, books, notes and any jewelry I hadn’t put away smashed against the wall.
My jewelry box!
I tried to find it in the mess, not because I had any valuable jewelry, but because I had some items of sentimental value. After a frantic scan around the floor, I spotted it. Like everything else, it lay damaged, its contents spread like confetti. I started sifting through the debris, picking up and discarding necklaces and bracelets, searching and searching frantically.
I didn’t even know I was murmuring “Where is it, where is it?” until Ryder cupped my arm and gently turned me to face him. His intense, pale gaze caught me, stilling me. I don’t know how he did it, but everything in me paused as his...energy surrounded me. I couldn’t look away. I felt a surge of power that raced through my veins to my mind, and somehow I could feel his need to help me. It struck me as completely strange, but I was feeling too distraught to question.
“Tell me what you’re looking for. Let me help you.”
I nodded, swiping a hand over my cheek. “A picture. A charm bracelet.” It didn’t have valuable stones, so no one could be interested in it.
His eyes caught on something protruding from under a filmy, floral scarf and he picked it up. “Is this the picture?”
I couldn’t help the smile that trembled on my lips or the fresh tears of relief that bubbled over my cheeks once again. It was old and faded. The colors had washed out a great deal, which was why I kept it out of the sun in a special place.
“Yes,” I breathed, and my heart slowed. It was the picture in which my mom and I were at the fair, standing behind one of those goofy mock-up boards where you stick your head in the hole. She was a cow with large milk udders, and I was a fuzzy baby chick. “My mom. It’s my only picture of her.”
I stared at the familiar picture, absently running my finger over the lines of her face. “You look like her.” Ryder studied it impassively. “Where is she?”
I remembered the moment the picture was taken. “I don’t know where she is. Now I just need to find the bracelet. It’s her charm bracelet.”
“Is this it?” He had reached over and flipped the jewelry box right side up to unveil the bracelet. Being heavier than my other jewelry, it hadn’t been flung out.
I hadn’t even looked. I’d been so busy looking through the piles on the floor, I’d missed the most obvious place it could still be. It was tarnished from being set aside so long, but with a good polishing, the silver would shine again. Each charm had a meaning, and my mother had explained each to me patiently that day, that one special day at the fair. I never forgot. It had been, simultaneously, the best and worst day ever.