“Is that a common practice?”

“Oh, heck, no. Most pawnbrokers charge some kind of redemption fee, sort of like interest fees on a loan. And some bleed people when they want to redeem an item. We’re not in business for the joy of it. I just happen to be a little more sentimental than most, and I don’t feel right about robbing people when they’re forced to hock something really special.”

“How do you know when it’s something really special?”

He narrowed an eye at her. “Your hands trembled when you brought this in to me. And your voice shook just a little. I’m not heartless. I pick up on stuff like that. Like I said, I would have put it up for sale if I got in a pinch, but I didn’t.”

He lifted out the ring holder, and Julie saw that he’d written the purchase price on the floor of the box. “Looks like it’ll cost you a thousand. I can sell it back to you on a payment plan if you’re tight on cash. The only catch is that you can’t take the ring until you’ve paid it off.”

Julie wasn’t tight on cash. She wasn’t rich, by any means. Unlike him, she did have a monthly payment on her house. But she’d managed to keep all her other expenses down, rarely hired help in her shop, and banked all the profits she possibly could.

“Can I just write you a check?” She laughingly added, “You know where to find me if it bounces.”

“You’re a straight shooter, Julie. Of course I’ll accept a check.”

She reached for her purse, which she’d set on the glass countertop. As she wrote the check, she said, “You’ll never know how much this means to me. When I hocked the ring, I knew my grandmother would understand. My whole future in Mystic Creek depended upon me making it with my business, so I really needed that thousand. But it still half killed me to sell it.”

“I understand.” He rested his bent arms on the glass surface, which brought his suntanned face closer and made his shoulders look even wider. “I got a raw deal with a pawnbroker once. He didn’t wait the customary thirty days to put my hocked possession up for sale, and when I walked in and found it in the display case, I was pretty steamed. I had my receipt, of course, but the bastard had written the wrong date on the original bill of sale to cover his ass. To add insult to injury, he charged me a small fortune to buy the damned thing back. It was my grandfather’s pocket watch, a priceless family treasure.”

Julie slid the check over to him, and he straightened to put it in his register. “So when you became a pawnbroker, you promised yourself that you’d deal fairly with people?”

He flashed her a grin, displaying nearly perfect white teeth. “Something like that. I was going through a rough time, and I sure didn’t need to be kicked when I was already down.”