The Loves of Ruby Dee (33 page)

He kept his arm around her as they went over to his pickup, which he suddenly remembered was hooked to the horse trailer. They had left one horse tied to it and the other two inside. Lonnie didn’t want to unhook the pickup, so he and Crystal slipped into the seat. It was dark, private.

As he kissed her, he pulled her blouse clear of her jeans and ran his hands up beneath it, over her skin that was at once warm and cool and smelled like flowers. Suddenly his need was pounding in him, a need that had started with so many dances with Crystal...and Ruby Dee.

As his hands released Crystal’s bra and found her silky breasts, he lost track of exactly which woman he was making love to. For a moment, Crystal’s breasts became Ruby Dee’s...the hands pulling at his head Ruby Dee’s hands...the warm skin beneath his lips, Ruby Dee’s skin.

But it was Crystal’s voice saying, “Lonnie...we shouldn’t.”

“It’s okay. No one can see.” He eased her down in the seat.

“No...it’s—”

But he stopped her words with his mouth and slipped his hand into her jeans, and she spread her legs for him.

Afterward, Crystal started to cry in his arms. This surprised him, because Crystal had never cried before.

“Hey, darlin’, what is it?”

That just made her cry harder. The next instant she shoved herself away from him and went to furiously putting on her clothes. Lonnie didn’t have to do much more than get his pants zipped up and his shirt buttoned. Then they sat there, Crystal giving a sniff now and again.

Lonnie felt bad. He knew he had offended her in some way, but he didn’t know how. If she had not wanted him to make love to her, he had sure missed the signal.

All of a sudden she said, “You love her, don’t you?”

“Who?” he asked, startled and confused, though deep inside he had an idea of who she meant. He thought wildly of what he should say.

“Ruby Dee.”

After long seconds, he said quietly, “I like Ruby Dee a lot. I care for her, and I can’t deny it. But I care for you, too, Crystal. And it’s you I’m with.”

More long seconds passed, and then Crystal came flying at him. “Oh, Lonnie, I love you!” She buried her face in his chest.

Slowly he brought his arms around her. He held her and kissed her hair. It was so soft and silky. She was a tender thing, the most tender woman he had ever known.

And then she pulled back and looked up at him, her face so shadowed that he couldn’t see her expression. She said, “Lonnie, I’m pregnant.”

If there was anything he less expected her to say right then, that was it. Good Lord, he had just...

He went cold, because he wasn’t certain he should have been doing with a pregnant woman what he had just been doing.

He swallowed. “Are you sure? I’ve used a condom—” He broke off, remembering.

She shook her head. “We didn’t. Not that first time.”

“But only that one time.” A desperation was clutching him.

“It only takes that, Lon,” she said, tears in her voice, and panic, too. “I’ve done two of those tests, and they both were positive. Mama won’t let me come home. She says she has enough with the little ones still there. And Georgia...she isn’t gonna want me and a baby, not one that isn’t hers.”

Lonnie sat there, feeling roped, tied and branded. He knew he was supposed to say something about marrying her, but he just couldn’t say it.

He didn’t think he
could
marry her.

“Do you think I should get an abortion?” she asked in a ragged whisper.

The idea made him sick. “Do you want to?”

"No."

“I don’t want you to, either.” He breathed deeply, and then, hardly realizing what he was doing, he reached for her. “I’ll help you, Crystal, just don’t get rid of it.”

“It’s not an it. It’s a he or she.”

Lonnie recognized his feeling then. He felt responsible for her. Protective of her, and of what was inside her. Never before had he felt responsible for anyone, and it confused the hell out of him.

But he still couldn’t say he would marry her.

* * * *

On the way home, Will followed the taillights of Lonnie’s horse trailer. It was after midnight. The old man had made it through the entire dance. He’d danced his share, too.

The glow of the dash light shone on Ruby Dee, sitting beside Will. But not alone, because there was the old man, again, on the other side of her, his arm stretched out and his hand resting on her shoulder.

When they reached the ranch, Lonnie pulled up to the horse barn. “I’ll get ‘em put away,” he hollered to Will, who drove on to the back walk of the house.

“I’m okay,” Hardy said, when Will came around to help him out of the pickup. And then the old man turned, extending a hand to Ruby Dee.

After Will had let the dog out, he followed them into the house. In the kitchen, the old man turned and looked at Will for a moment, almost challengingly.

Will said, “Ruby Dee, are you too tired to make a cup of your great coffee?” and he plopped himself down in a chair and took off his hat.

“Oh...that sounds good—it’ll take the chill off.” The old man stood there for a few more seconds, and then he walked through the dining room. Will heard the bathroom door close.

Slowly he rose, crossed the kitchen to Ruby Dee and stopped right behind her. With her hair just below his face, he inhaled the sweet, womanly scent of her. She continued to scoop coffee. When she was finished, she stood very still, and he stayed right where he was...close enough to feel her body move as she breathed. Then she turned and looked up at him.

She wet her lips. “I had so much fun tonight, Will. Thank you for taking me.”

He stared at her lips. “Thank you for goin’ with me."

Then they were gazing into each other’s eyes, and her eyes were saying she wanted him, and he was saying the same thing back to her with his.

“Thank you for bein’ so generous, with Hardy,” she said, in a breathless whisper. Her eyes were like liquid heat.

“He’s my father.”

Her lips parted, and her palm came up to rest on his chest, in invitation.

Will gazed at her, waiting and listening for a sound from the rooms beyond. He detected movement then, in the hallway. He cupped Ruby Dee’s face in both hands and kissed her. Her lips parted for him, drew him to her. Urgent and pleading. Will broke away, looked down and saw the desire glazing her liquid black eyes. Her hands moved to his waist, clutching him. He kissed her again, hot and hard and branding her as his own.

He didn’t let her mouth go until he had her gasping for breath. Until he had shown the old man what he intended, because when they broke away, there was the old man, standing in the kitchen doorway.

With a firm grip on Ruby Dee, Will looked at his father, and his father looked back, until he lowered his gaze and walked away, heavily, to his room.

Ruby Dee dropped her forehead against Will’s chest, and he felt her tremble. Questions swirled around them. She clutched his waist with her fists.

He stroked her hair and gazed into the darkness where the old man had stood.

He had shown the old man: there was something he could give Ruby Dee that his dad never would be able to. And the old man had seen what Ruby Dee felt for Will.

At last Will swallowed and managed to speak, quietly, reluctantly. “It’s late.”

“Yes,” she whispered. She raised shimmering eyes to him.

He kissed her quickly before leaving her there, staring after him.

As he went busting out the back door, he thought that this was not the time, was not the place. But he was getting damned tired of waiting for the right time and place.

Ruby Dee watched Will’s pickup pass the kitchen window. Then she turned off the coffee maker and hurried upstairs, furtively passing Hardy’s room. Thank heaven his door was closed.

She couldn’t face him, couldn’t stand to see his hurt. Couldn’t bear for him to see her caught in the swells of the river of passion...with his son.

Chapter 25

Ruby Dee drifted
up out of an erotic dream. The sensations lingered, taunting her and making her face burn. Making her damp and her body ache.

The dream had been of Will, that he had made love to her...in ways she had certainly never imagined in her waking hours.

Will would give her a home and her precious babies. Lonnie would cope with that—he had Crystal. But there was Hardy to consider. Hardy, whom she couldn’t bear to hurt...even for her home and precious babies.

Suddenly she realized that it was nearly eight o’clock. Goodness! She couldn’t recall the last time she had stayed in bed so late. And she smelled coffee....

Thinking eagerly of Will, she jumped up and grabbed her robe. But then she thought of Hardy, and slowed. Tentatively, on tiptoe, with Sally quietly walking behind her, she went downstairs.

But it was Lonnie in the kitchen, leaning back against the counter, his shirttail hanging out, his feet bare, coffee cup in hand.

Ruby Dee stopped in surprise when she saw him.

“I made coffee,” he said. “I’m not very good at it, though.” He looked apologetic. And tired. Lonnie never got up this early on a Sunday morning.

“It’s black and hot. That’s good enough this mornin’,” Ruby Dee told him and went to get a cup. She tightened the sash of her robe, her gaze going out the window, her heart farther still...all the way to Will.

His kiss still lingered on her lips and in her soul. He had kissed her like that on purpose, she thought suddenly. So why wasn’t he here?

Lonnie was getting the milk from the refrigerator for his coffee as Ruby Dee turned away from the window. They almost collided. “I’m sorry,” they said in unison.

And then they were looking at each other. Ruby Dee trembled deep inside. The reaction of her feverish body startled her, and so did the need that she saw reflected in Lonnie’s eyes. Eyes so much like Will’s.

But he wasn’t Will.

They dropped their gazes at the same time and moved to sit across from each other at the table.

Ruby Dee talked about making breakfast, but she continued to sit there. Lonnie said he needed to feed the horses, but he didn’t move.

Ruby Dee was struck by the notion that Lonnie was different that morning. He never rose so early on a Sunday morning. And he looked as if something was troubling him. She thought perhaps he wanted to talk about it, but then they heard Hardy getting up, so Lonnie rose to feed the horses.

 “I’ll make pancakes,” Ruby Dee called to him as he left. Pancakes were his favorite. He turned and gave her a wan smile.

Lonnie stayed out a long time, feeding the horses and walking around. He thought a lot about loading up his horses and heading over to Oklahoma City. The State Fair was going on, lots of buddies over there at the rodeo and horse shows. The idea grew in his mind as exactly the thing to do.

On his way, he could stop off and give Crystal everything in his savings account. That would get her her own place for awhile. He’d promise to send more when he could. He started cleaning out his trailer for the trip, but then Ruby Dee called him for breakfast.

After breakfast, he thought about driving over to talk to Will, but he figured Will would yell at him and tell him he had better marry Crystal.

He wanted to talk to Ruby Dee, but he knew that once he did, she would be lost to him forever.

Lonnie wished things didn’t have to change from how they had been for the past months, ever since the first day Ruby Dee had come.

But their lives were changing. Will had moved out—and he wanted to take Ruby Dee with him... and Crystal was pregnant. Summer was turning into fall, and Lonnie himself was going on thirty-one years old. He wasn’t a boy anymore, and he had to face that. It scared him, because he didn’t know how to be any other way.

That afternoon, when the old man was out in his shop and Ruby Dee was sitting on the front porch in her blue swing, reading, Lonnie went to her. She was sure pretty, in a blue dress almost the same color as the swing. He told her so, and she looked pleased. He loved to see her like that, with her Mona Lisa smile and the dreamy look in her eyes.

He leaned against the porch post and gazed out across the sweeping pasture that stretched a quarter of a mile to the road. Behind him, although he couldn’t see her, he knew Ruby Dee had closed her book and laid it in her lap.

He turned around, folded his arms and tucked his hands up beneath his arms. Ruby Dee’s eyes were on him.

He said, “Crystal’s pregnant.”

She inhaled sharply, then said, “All babies are blessings, Lonnie.” Her look questioned him.

He sighed. “I don’t know what to do.” He shook his head.

“Well, what do you
want
to do?”

“If I knew that, I’d be ahead.” He cast her a sheepish grin.

“And you want me to tell you what to do,” she said, her eyes knowing.

He shrugged. Ruby Dee knew about living, of that Lonnie was certain.

She gave a little shake of her head. “Well, I can’t tell you what to do. You’re the only one who can decide that. But I guess, since you asked, that I’ll give you my opinion. Which is to marry Crystal and be a daddy to the baby.”

He hadn’t expected her to say exactly that, and it annoyed him. “You’re saying I should own up to the responsibility and all that stuff, right?”

“You asked me, Lonnie,” she pointed out, which didn’t ease his irritation. Then she added, “But what I’m really sayin’ is, don’t throw away the wonderful opportunity being handed to you to be a husband and a father.”

“A father? I don’t know anything about bein’ a father, and I sure don’t think I can be a husband.” He paced, rubbing the back of his neck. “I don’t know if I can give Crystal what she’s expectin’ from me. I don’t even know if I love her.”

He looked at Ruby Dee, and he almost asked, “How can I love her, when I feel what I do for you?” But he stopped short of that. Some things had to remain unsaid, although that didn’t mean they weren’t understood. He could tell by the way Ruby Dee was looking at him that she knew how he felt about her. And he thought she felt a lot for him, too.

“Lonnie, when you go to join your life with someone else’s, it matters a lot less how you feel about them than deciding to be devoted to them.”