The Loves of Ruby Dee (37 page)

He had known Ruby Dee would be hot. He had suspected, from what she’d said, that she would be nearly virginal. She had been both of these things, and so much more. He was struck with a sense of amazement at what had happened with her, and with himself. The force of his emotions startled him.

Ruby Dee shivered, and Will tightened his arm around her as he brought the edge of the duster up around her hips, which nestled against him. Her tears wet his shoulder and trailed down his neck. He kissed her silky hair and inhaled its sweet scent. She was softer all over than he had imagined. Her shoulder glowed in the morning light falling through the barn door. “You’re beautiful,” he whispered, and she stirred against him, burying her face deeper into his neck. The delicious sense of arousal stirred again in his groin.

Lifting up on her elbow, she kissed his shoulder and moved downward to his breast. She raised her face and looked at him, her eyes all full of heat, her hair falling all around her pale cheeks. “Will... well, my goodness.”

“Yeah,” he said and kissed her, long and lingering.

But the sense of time growing short crept back over him. He rolled her to her back and looked into her face. He picked hay from her hair, caressed her cheek.

“I take it you are gonna marry me,” he said, with a crooked grin, though inside he quivered with uncertainty.

“I want to,” she said, her eyes warm upon him.

That she didn’t say yes bothered him.

Hardly speaking, they got dressed, and then Ruby Dee sat on a bale of hay with Will’s denim jacket around her shoulders, while he stood three feet away, smoking a cigarette at the edge of the door. The sun, not yet up, was turning the eastern sky golden, but the sky to the west was dark with clouds.

Ruby Dee was the first to say it. “What about Hardy?”

Will blew out a stream of smoke. “We’ll get someone else to stay with him. You’ll be able to come as much as you want. It won’t be like you’re leavin’ him.”

She stared at the pattern the morning glow had begun to make on the barn floor. Will heard again his father’s plea: don’t take her, just because you can. He thought he understood, now that he had made love to her. This was something Will could give Ruby Dee that the old man never could.

“You tried other people before me.”

“We found you. We’ll find someone else.”

Her dark eyes rose to look into his. “He won’t take anyone else. Look how he’s changed since I came. He’s a man again.”

He tossed his cigarette outside in the dirt and pressed his boot on it. Then he came and crouched in front of her, taking her hands in his.

“Ruby Dee, I don’t want to hurt him. I see how he’s changed, and I know why he’s changed. I know it’s you that’s brought him back to life. But I don’t want to let go of what we could have...I can’t let him take this away from us. We have a right to our own life.”

“I know,” she said, simply...but as if it made no difference. Her brown eyes searched his. “I love you, Will.” Her lips trembled, while his heart thudded, waiting for what would come next. “I want..
.
we may have already made a baby,” and she gave a trembling smile, then it faded, and her eyes filled with pain. “But I love Hardy, too. Can you understand?” Her eyes begged him to.

And he did, in a way. “I know. It’s okay.”

“Oh, Will, I’m so caught. And I can’t stand knowin’ that I’ve come between you and your daddy.” The words came out so painfully, and then she was sobbing.

Will straightened, bringing her up with him. He lifted her face to look into it. “Honey, it isn’t you. It’s between me and Dad. And there’s nothin’ you or anybody can do to change it.”

“Maybe you could talk to him. Maybe you could tell him you would come back to live here, with him.” She regarded him hopefully. “You could still keep the other place for your own cattle.”

Will shook his head. “No. Dad’s closin’ the Starr. There won’t be a job here for me anymore.” There wouldn’t be a reason for him to be there at all, he thought.

She looked shocked, disbelieving. Then she squeezed her eyes closed and dropped her forehead against his chest. He held her, and he knew he wasn’t going to let her go, no matter the price he had to pay.

She raised her head. “Hardy may close the ranch, but he will still be here, alone.”

They looked at each other her for a long moment. Will breathed deeply. “I’ll wait, give him time, for awhile.” And then he kissed her. A kiss to make her remember.

When she left him, he thought how crazy it was that her love for the old man was exactly what he himself loved about her so much.

* * * *

Hardy knew, of course. He knew it the minute he looked at her, when she came into the kitchen. He was just entering the room, as if he had been listening for her footsteps.

Ruby Dee met his gaze, felt her face burn and throbbing start low in her belly, as what she and Will had shared filled her mind. She saw Hardy’s anger, and then his hurt. She didn’t know what to say to him, so she turned away to begin breakfast.

Will came in and ate breakfast with them. The meal was silent.

Chapter 28

 There was so much to be done for the party. Phone calls to be made and answered, cleaning and polishing, the grass to be trimmed, presents and flowers and extra food to be bought.

For the better part of two days, Will and Wildcat worked to ready his house for the newlyweds, where they would stay, using his second bedroom, until they could find a place of their own. Ruby Dee thought it was sad that Lonnie wouldn’t be living at the ranch, but she supposed it was for the best. Crystal seemed quite frightened of Hardy, who didn’t care to have anyone new around him.

Hardy withdrew to his shop, where he spent long hours. After lunch on Tuesday, Ruby Dee plunked the telephone and the guest list in front of him on the table. “I can’t call everyone, Hardy.”

He grunted, but after a minute, he picked up the receiver and began to dial. Ruby Dee brought him a cup of coffee, with a bit of sugar. As soon as Hardy had finished his calls, he got up and went out the back door, without a word to Ruby Dee, leaving his coffee untouched.

In the afternoon she brought him peanut butter crackers and tomato juice. “With you spendin’ so much time out here, you’re probably hungry,” she said, squeezing past Hardy to set the plate and glass on the workbench.

Hardy didn’t take his gaze off the leather he carved. He didn’t even speak to her.

“That’s a new saddle, isn’t it?”

“Yep,” he said, after a minute. He continued to work, making a diamond pattern.

“It’s really beautiful.”

Nothing, not even a grunt.

“I think we’ve called everyone about the party. I only asked sixty, because I figure we might get some people just droppin’ by or comin’ along with others. I know you don’t want any more than about seventy people.”

He didn’t say a word.

“Hardy, are you gonna talk to me?” She waited, staring at him. She would stand there and stare at him all afternoon, if he wanted it that way, she thought.

He raised his eyes at last. “Just what is it you want me to say?” His voice was hard.

“Not a thing, Hardy Starr, not one blessed thing.” She stalked out of the shop, only to turn around and come back and ask if it would be okay to lend Lonnie and Crystal bed sheets and blankets. She thought she certainly had better ask, or Hardy might suggest they were stealing from him.

“Aw’ight,” was all Hardy said.

Ruby Dee had the feeling she could have put her hand out and touched the glass wall Hardy had put around himself. She didn’t know how she could have expected anything else; Hardy was hurt, and Hardy hurt could be vicious.

Again and again she questioned herself about why she felt what she did for him. She had come here to take care of him, and he had become her charge. She never took that lightly. Now on top of that she had come to truly care for him, to love him in a way she couldn’t explain. She was like that, and Will understood it. He didn’t press her, and as guilty as she felt about hurting Hardy, she felt the same way for putting Will off.

A hundred times she thought to tell Will about his daddy and Jooney, and how Cora Jean had said that Ruby Dee looked like Jooney, enough to be her twin. She wanted to explain that and so many other things, so he would understand what she meant to his daddy. But somehow she couldn’t do it. Somehow, even though she and Hardy had never spoken of it, it was their private secret. Surely Jooney was Hardy’s secret, kept safe within him all these years. Ruby Dee did not want to violate it...and maybe, too, she wanted to hold onto that tie with Hardy.

Only once did she almost tell Will about Hardy’s offer of a third of the ranch if she stayed with him. But she decided she would never tell anyone about it. She would not add to the hurt Hardy was already inflicting by dissolving the Starr Ranch, instead of giving it to his flesh and blood, his sons.

If ever she came close to hating Hardy, it was over this. Her anger about it was so intense that one day she blurted out, “How can you offer to will me, a stranger, one-third of the ranch and then go and shut it down and take away your sons’ heritage?”

Hardy looked at her. “My daddy didn’t give me this ranch. I bought it from him. It’s mine, and I can do with it as I see fit.”

“Did it ever occur to you, Hardy Starr, that your daddy was wrong? You’re hurtin’ Will terrible by this, Hardy. If you doubt that, you’re not at all the man I thought you were.”

He said nothing. Hardy never had been one to explain himself.

At least now Ruby Dee understood where Hardy got his hardness. She explained it to Will, late Wednesday afternoon, while they were loading linens and other household items into his pickup.

“Hardy had to buy this ranch from his daddy. Did you know that?”

“No. No, I didn’t know.” He was obviously surprised. “I always knew Dad had to work hard for everything he ever had, but I never knew my grandfather, except by rumor. Most said Dad was like Grandpa, just like they always said I was like Hardy. I’ve spent a good deal of time tryin’ not to be,” he added, and there was sadness in his voice.

“Will, you are like Hardy,” Ruby Dee said, and he frowned at her. “You’re all the good parts, the strong and honorable parts. The part that lives as you wish and makes no apology to anyone, and doesn’t place blame, either. It’s why I love you.” Her voice grew faint. Quite suddenly she trembled, had the urge to run and hide.

Then Will kissed her, and the fearful urge vanished. She touched his cheek.

He said, “We could get married tomorrow.”

She didn’t answer, but what she thought was: who would be with Hardy?

After a long minute, Will said, “I’m not stayin’ for supper. I promised to help Ambrose Bell finish haulin’ his hay in from the field.”

He was stiff and cold. She’d hurt him.

She had a sense of being pressed on both sides, as if she were trapped in an envelope.

Feeling depressed, Ruby Dee took a long hot bath, in bath oil, and did the entire work up: skin, hair, nails, hands and feet. She was combing out her wet hair when the telephone on her dresser rang.

“Lonnie?” She was glad to hear his voice! Suddenly, as odd as it seemed, she felt she could tell Lonnie her feelings. Of all people, Lonnie would understand, and she almost blurted it out, but then his voice sounded so happy, that she just couldn’t burden him.

Holding her robe around her, she sat on the bed to listen as he described how much Crystal liked the State Fair and how she was scared to death on the ferris wheel but kept wanting to ride on it again and again. He sounded like Crystal’s hero. He seemed truly happy.

Ruby Dee told him about the party on Saturday. Will had told him about it, but with none of the details. “Your daddy has hired a caterer to put on a big spread,” Ruby Dee said, “and there’ll be music, too.”

“Dad’s springin’ for all this?”

“Yes, Lonnie. He’s even bought new clothes for the party.”

Lonnie reported that Frank and Georgia were flying down to Cozumel for a week’s vacation, so they wouldn’t be coming. Ruby Dee had been wondering whether to invite them. She told him Will had invited Crystal’s mother, and Lonnie gave her a few more names of people to contact. Crystal wanted her cousin up in Daihart, Texas, to come, and it took her a few minutes to find the telephone number for Ruby Dee.

Just before they hung up, Ruby Dee said, “Do you want to speak to your daddy? I’ll take him the cordless phone.”

“No,” Lonnie said. “We’ve got to get back over to the fairgrounds. Toby Keith is entertainin’ at the rodeo tonight, and Crystal sure doesn’t want to miss him. We’ll see y’all tomorrow afternoon,” and then he was gone.

Ruby Dee hung up and felt foolishly let down, tossed aside. Well, for goodness’ sake, she scolded herself, she wanted Lonnie to be happy! Besides, happiness was so fleeting, she thought pensively.

She stared at the pink glow the scarf-covered lamp cast on the wall. She guessed Will hadn’t told Lonnie about Hardy closing down the ranch. She didn’t think it would affect Lonnie the way it did Will, though.

Tying her robe, she slipped on moccasins and went downstairs. The house was quiet and dim, with the day’s light fading. Hardy’s room was empty. Letting Sally out the back door, Ruby Dee looked across and saw a light burning in Hardy’s shop.

Will had not come for supper, and Hardy was staying away.

Almost before she realized what she was doing, she was out the screen door and striding toward the shop. Hand upon the cool ceramic knob, the door creaking.

Hardy glanced at her. His glasses were partway down the bridge of his nose, his shoulders hunched, his hands dark with the stain he applied to the skirt of a saddle.

“It’s really coming along,” she said, nodding at the saddle.

Hardy kept on rubbing on the leather. “How long have you been makin’ this saddle, Hardy?”

He shrugged. “I don’t keep track.” Rub, rub went his hand.

Ruby Dee stood there several more minutes. “I thought you might want to play a game of dominoes.”

"No."

“I’ll wait for you to finish here.”