The Groom Wanted Seconds: A Novella by Shirley Jump Page A

out the box inside. White rectangular cardboard, six, maybe seven inches long, the kind used for jewelry, but Rebecca doubted Jeremy would send such an expensive item through the mail. She tugged off the lid, and inside the box, nestled on a thick square of cotton, was…
    A pen.
    “Is it gold? Are there diamonds?” Candace asked.
    “Not exactly.” Rebecca held up the pen. “More like glitter and feathers.” She clicked a button on the side. “With a handy-dandy built in flashlight at the end.”
    The other two gaped at the clear barreled writing instrument, filled with glittery snowflakes and topped with bright pink and purple feathers.
    “He overnighted a pen ?” Maria shook her head. “Is there at least a note? Something more in the envelope? Like a Nordstrom’s card with unlimited available credit?”
    Rebecca reached inside again and came up with a square of paper, one of the hundreds on Jeremy’s mile high Post-it note cube that sat on the corner of his desk and got used for everything from grocery lists to call logs. “ Every successful business person needs a great pen for signing checks, and a way to remember to have fun at the same time. Congratulations on the sale. Jeremy.”
    She fiddled with the pen, the feathers tickling against the table. At its core, it was a great pen, heavy, with a thick nub that ensured smooth, even writing. Smart and silly all at once—and completely out of the realm of Jeremy.
    “I thought for sure it was jewelry,” Candace said.
    “Jeremy only buys practical gifts. Or at least, that’s what I thought. This…this is a surprise.” What was he trying to tell her? Had she been wrong about who she thought he was?
    Tears welled in her eyes, and for a moment, she couldn’t tell if they were tears of disappointment or tears of regret. God, she was a mess. First she had fallen for a guy who was sweet but distracted, who proposed to her like it was another item on his agenda. Then she’d gone and fallen for a guy who gave her everything she’d thought she’d been missing with Jeremy, and still had her heart broken. Now, Jeremy kept trying to win his way back into her heart, but that damned fear kept her from leaping back into his arms. What if she was wrong again? Or what if—
    He didn’t want her, once he knew the truth about their summer apart?
    That, she knew, was what lurked at the core of it all. Rebecca Wilson had screwed up her life, but good. And finding her way out of the mess she’d created was going to take a lot more than a pen light.
    *~*~*
    Desperate times called for desperate measures.
    That night, Rebecca stood in the line outside of The Spotted Cow, a crumpled five in her hands, and waited, as anxious as a three-year-old, for the server to take her order. After leaving Candace’s, she’d gone home and finished off the Thin Mints then proceeded to work her way through a package of Ho-Hos and a box of Pepperidge Farm Milanos. She’d debated baking her own cookies, and opted instead for a trip to the ice cream shop down the street from her mother’s house. The walk, she reasoned, would do her good, and help undo some of the sugar impact.
    The customer in front of her left with his triple chocolate cone and Rebecca stepped forward to place her order. “One scoop of coconut almond with a drizzle of hot fudge, in a dish. Two spoons.” Then she remembered and shook her head. “One spoon. Sorry.”
    A moment later, she had the ice cream, but her appetite for the treat had deserted her. She pulled out her cell phone and scrolled through the contacts, pausing on Jeremy’s name. Before she could think better of it, she pressed Send. The phone rang once, twice, and just as she was about to hang up, he answered.
    His deep voice sent a thrill through her. Every time she had talked to him, it had been like that, as if she was talking to him for the first time. Even with the weeks apart, her hormones reacted the same, as if they hadn’t gotten the memo from her