And from comments she made he learned that she wanted children and a house of her own in the country.
“What about a husband?” he found himself asking.
She said seriously, “I don’t know if I want one of those.”
Will decided he didn’t want to pursue the reasons behind that. And he figured whether they talked about tomatoes or life plans didn’t matter, because the whole time he was sitting there, talking or listening, his mind wasn’t on any of it. What he was thinking about was how just looking at her made him feel, and even more, how her looking at him made him feel. How her skin would feel against his palm and beneath his lips, and how she would move and moan beneath him when he went into her.
And instinct told him she would be willing.
But he wasn’t ready to go down that road yet. No, sir. Will had the distinct sense that if he made love to Ruby Dee, he’d be completely lost, that there would be no going back, because he would belong to her body and soul. So he didn’t dare so much as touch her, because he figured he wouldn’t be able to stop.
By the end of the week, though, the old man started getting up earlier, coming into the kitchen on Ruby Dee’s heels. And he told Will with just one look that he was doing it on purpose.
Ruby Dee herself proved a big problem, too, when it came to getting her away from the old man. She always wanted to make certain he didn’t feel left out of anything. She was as protective of him as a she-bear, and many times Will had to remind himself that he had hired her to see to the old man. He himself had directed that her prime responsibility was to see to the old man’s welfare.
About the only time Will could be certain to get Ruby Dee away from the old man was in the evenings, for horseback riding. Since Ruby Dee’s mare had proved calm and reliable, they went riding further afield, which left the old man behind, although Ruby Dee never would stay out and leave him alone for too long. Also, Lonnie was always along. Lonnie was sort of like the proverbial bad penny that wouldn’t go away.
One night, while Will saddled Ruby Dee’s horse, he said to Lonnie, “Why don’t you go on down to Harney?”
Lonnie just laughed. “The old man himself told me to get my mess out here and ride with you.”
That was the old man’s way of making certain neither of them was alone with Ruby Dee.
One evening the three of them rode along the ridge above the spring creek—Lonnie on his favorite black-and-white paint, Ruby Dee on Lady Gray, as she had named her, and Will on the mustang, which Ruby Dee had christened Taco. They let the horses pick their way down the side of the ridge to the soft ground of the creek bed. It felt as if it were air-conditioned, and it smelled of damp earth and sweet green growing things.
Ruby Dee took off her boots and socks and rolled up the silk long underwear she’d taken to wearing under her dress when she rode. She only rolled the underwear legs to her knees, though, and she didn’t lift her dress any higher than that, either, while she went wading.
Will and Lonnie, holding the horses’ reins, sat on a rock and watched. She grinned at them and tried to splash them, but there wasn’t enough water in the creek, and they were sitting too far away. Then she spied a butterfly on the limb of a buckthorn bush. “Look!” Excited as if she had found gold, she went after that butterfly, chasing it all over.
“It’s a monarch,” Will told her, “probably goin’ south for the winter, and you’re gonna wear it out before it gets there.” He couldn’t take his eyes off her shiny swinging hair and her pale arms and legs dancing through the air.
Just then Lonnie said, “You know, she’s just like wonder wrapped in a body,” and his eyes were rapt upon her.
Watching her slip her hand carefully up beside the butterfly on a limb, Will had to agree. Then he cut his eyes to Lonnie, and they looked at each other for a second.
“There’s only two things to do with a woman like that,” Lonnie drawled in a low voice. “Either join in and be just as crazy...or else make love to her.” A hint of a challenge twinkled in his eyes.
Will jumped to his feet, and in long strides, tugging along his horse and Ruby Dee’s too, with Lonnie shouting after him, he reached Ruby Dee, looped his arm around her waist and hauled her clear off the ground. With her kicking and laughing, he held her against him for the space of three heartbeats, and then he swung her up into her saddle, easy as slinging a light sack of grain and feeling the sweet surge of recklessness while doing it.
Lonnie came running with her socks and boots, and together, Lon on one side and Will on the other and Ruby Dee laughing atop the nervous horse that was wondering what in the world was going on, they jammed socks and boots on her feet.
When Will swung himself into the saddle, he saw Lonnie looking at him, grinning with great enjoyment.
With Will leading, they rode through the trees and up again onto the ridge, where they dismounted and let the horses drag rein and graze, while the three of them sat side by side on the edge of the ridge and watched the red sun slip down behind the Texas plain.
Will looked over at Ruby Dee, sitting between himself and Lonnie. The breeze tugged at the stray, damp hairs around her face. She smiled at him and then turned her face to the coral sun.
Will’s gaze slid over and met Lonnie’s, and the connection between them burned away the rivalry. In that moment, he and Lonnie shared their caring for this one special woman.
The instant the red sun disappeared, Lonnie jumped up and went after his horse. Ruby Dee and Will were right behind him. All three of them were laughing and yelling like wild young things and trying to get on the backs of their startled horses. Lonnie went galloping toward home, and Ruby Dee raced off right after him. Will followed, giving his horse his head even while he was swinging into the saddle and riding hell-bent with an abandonment he’d long forgotten.
About halfway home, Will overtook Ruby Dee, and in unspoken agreement they hung back, walking their horses. They didn’t talk, but Will thought it said a lot that she chose to stay back with him. Lonnie was frowning when they finally rode into the horse barn. He got back at Will by reaching up and helping Ruby Dee out of the saddle. Rather than set her to the ground, he held her by the waist and whirled around, making her laugh. She had to hold on to him when he finally did set her down.
Standing there, holding her, Lonnie shot Will a satisfied look.
When they got back to the house, they found out that the old man had spent his time alone painting the porch swing for Ruby Dee. He had gotten several cans of partially used paint from the cupboards on the back porch and mixed them to a dusky blue, the color Ruby Dee had mentioned she wanted for the swing.
“Now, just how did you get your wheelchair around on the porch to get into that cupboard, Dad?” Will asked him.
“I roll down on that porch every time I have to go outside,” Hardy said.
“And what about the front doorjamb? You didn’t have any trouble gettin’ over that?”
“Son, this is a top-of-the-line wheelchair you boys bought me. I can go anywhere in it.”
Ruby Dee said, “Oh, Hardy, the color is just perfect. I can hardly wait to sit in it.”
She was so pleased that Will wasn’t about to push an argument with the old man. One thing Ruby Dee had done was bring happiness to the house, and none of them wanted to ruin that.
* * * *
One afternoon Lonnie observed, “She’s talkin’ to herself again. You know, Ruby Dee may be a little crazy.”
Standing at the opening of the tractor barn, where he and Will were working on the swather, he watched her hanging her colorful bras and panties on the clothesline. Will, wiping his hands on a rag, walked up to look, too. He saw her dress flattened against her legs by the breeze and heard snatches of her voice.
“Nah,” he said. “She’s not talkin’ to herself...She’s talkin’ to that friend of hers—Miss Edna.”
Lonnie was so surprised at his straight-arrow brother saying something that absurd that his eyebrows shot up, and for o
nce he didn’t have a comeback. A few minutes later, though, he said, “You know, Will, I don’t know how we’d ever go back to bein’ without her.”
Will met his brother’s gaze, then sighed. “Me, either, Lon. Me, either.”
And then one afternoon Will got a pretty big surprise, which made him realize Ruby Dee wasn’t just wrapped up in them and content to take what they gave her. Ruby Dee had plans.
He came into the kitchen and heard her on the phone, talking to someone about a mortgage. He heard that clearly—mortgage—and then something about fixed rates and a down payment. He didn’t have to hear much to know she was speaking about the price of a house. He saw the real estate section of the county newspaper open on the table, marked up with red ink, and lying there, too, was that peculiar paper, the one he had seen in her bedroom with the pictures pasted on it.
After she hung up, she looked at him. He said, “Are you lookin’ for a house to buy?”
She nodded. “I’m gettin’ a lot closer to havin’ the down payment.” Her eyes were fully on his.
Will swallowed. “The old man has come around. I imagine you’ll have a place here as long as you want it.” Then he added, “Dad probably couldn’t get along without you now.” He almost said we, but he didn’t.
She looked back down to the newspaper. “I was checking on a place down in Cheyenne. That way I’d still be able to take care of Hardy.”
Will didn’t know what to say to that, he was so surprised, even though he began to realize he shouldn’t have been. All this time he’d been thinking of his plans, and not taking hers into account at all. He was angry that she would have plans separate from theirs.
She lifted her coffee-brown eyes to his and said, “I can’t live with other people forever. I want my own house and my own babies to tend.”
“But not necessarily a man, right?” He hadn’t forgotten she’d said that.
And she answered smartly, “Not necessarily, I guess.”
Will turned and walked out the back door. He probably should have spoken up right then, but he figured she already knew how he felt about her. She had to know, and she had to know how the old man and Lonnie felt, too. They certainly did everything but cartwheels to make her feel welcome. If she didn’t see that, it was because she didn’t want to.
Ruby Dee went to the back door, to the screen door of the porch and watched Will stalk off up the hill. She didn’t think she should have to explain herself. Did he expect her not to have any future at all—to just go on caring for the three Starr men until she couldn’t do it anymore? To not want anything for herself? Will Starr of all people ought to know what it was to want something for oneself!
She was mad at him for not doing anything since their one kiss to show her that he wanted her. Oh, he was friendly, even affectionate. He sat with her in the mornings and talked, and he’d gotten the horse for her and he rode with her, but Lonnie did things like that, too, and so did Hardy. They all were sweet as they could be to her. All three of them!
That was the whole problem, and there was no use being angry at Will about it, she thought, depression falling over her like water, clean washing the anger away. All three of them wanted her.
She wasn’t certain what Lonnie might do if she chose Will, but she knew Hardy would have a fit. He’d have a fit and then he’d slip right back to the way he’d been before she’d come, one foot sliding into the grave, while the other one miserably kicked at everyone. Will and his daddy would be split apart again and Lonnie would be left dangling on the fringe. HELL TO PAY, that’s what would happen, and it would be all her fault.
She started to cry. Hardy came in and asked her what in the hell she was crying about now. She didn’t answer him, but grabbed her papers and went upstairs. He hollered after her to not cry so long that she couldn’t start supper. He was just trying to josh her out of crying, and that sweetness made her cry all the harder.
She sat on her bed and looked at her dream paper and the few listings in the county newspaper. She couldn’t bring herself to call about the cottage all the way down in Oklahoma City, so far away from Hardy, who did need her. But she had to get her own place. She could rent something until she could buy. She could still stay on with Hardy, but she’d have her own place and could get started on those babies. Lord, she wanted babies.
Days passed, though, and she didn’t go look at anything. She didn’t do a blessed thing. She just kept thinking how upset the men would be if she moved out, and how she would miss them so much.
Miss Edna said to her, “Ruby Dee, you have to stick to your plan.” And Ruby Dee answered, “Miss Edna, don’t bother me. I’m doin’ the best I can.”
Will seemed to keep his distance after their little snit that afternoon, but Ruby Dee sensed that his deep inner pockets were ripping wider and wider and everything was getting ready to spill out. She felt her own inner ripping and tearing. There was a tug-of-war going on inside her between her desire for her own home and babies, and her desire to care for the Starr men. She couldn’t have stopped loving the three of them, and she couldn’t have stopped wanting Will most of all, any more than she could have stopped breathing.
Then the rain came at last and by heavy storms. Hardy said it was always that way at the end of summer. The wind and thunder and lightning bore down on them in the early hours of the morning and brought them all out of their beds. Will and Lonnie jerked on their jeans and boots, while Ruby Dee, wrapping her robe around her, ran around unplugging everything electric, and Hardy monitored the reports on their weather radio and the television. Ruby Dee wanted to unplug the radio and television, but Hardy insisted they remain on.
Having expected the storms, Will had the generator ready in case of power outage, and he and Lonnie had already stowed or tied down anything that could blow away, so they all just sat around the kitchen while Ruby Dee made breakfast. She used water sparingly, frightened of turning on the faucet and perhaps drawing lightning. All of Will’s assurances wouldn’t change her way of thinking.
Will didn’t respect storms enough to suit Ruby Dee. He loved them and went out on the front porch to watch.
Ruby Dee called, “Don’t be out there. Lightnin’ could get you. You could be sucked up!”
He came back in, to keep her calm.
Lightning flashed like camera bulbs—the blinding bright ones used for television—and the thunder rolled like cannon fire. It scared Ruby Dee so bad that she dropped the bowl she was mixing pancakes in and broke it. “It was my favorite bowl...Oh, Hardy, was it your Mama’s? It was so old.”
“Hell, it was Lila’s, so it’s nothin’ but good riddance.”
Hardy tried to get her to go down to the storm shelter, even said he was going to take her down, but Ruby Dee was more afraid of holes in the ground than she was of storms. A storm made her think of a hole in the ground. She tried to hold herself together, because panicking sure wasn’t going to help anything. She’d do pretty good one minute, and then here’d come the thunder again.
Will asked her to fix him a double helping of pancakes, and she whipped up more batter. As she was doing that, lightning came like shell fire over the house, and she whirled from the stove and right into his arms, clutching him, hiding her head on his chest, and she didn’t think one iota about Lonnie and Hardy being there, either. She couldn’t. She was ashamed of herself, but fear had her by the throat. Anyone would have such a fear after they had been through a storm that blew away the house around them, taking a handful of people with it. With each crack of lightning, she kept seeing the woman who had been her foster mother, knocked up against a tree, dead, with a stick of wood right through her eyeball.
Will held her tightly, whispering that it would be all right. Then he told Lonnie to slide the doors between the dining room and living room together and shut the dining room drapes. “We’ll just move everything in to the big table, Ruby Dee.” He said it like he was planning a party.
The dining room was at the center of the house, and
it did feel a lot more sheltered. Hardy started telling storm stories, funny ones, like how a tornado had chased him to the house once, and had picked up his bucket of nails and set it down over at the Cottons’ place, five miles away, without losing a nail. He swore it was so, and that Cora Jean would know. Lonnie said he once saw a big oak tree picked up, turned around, and set back down in exactly the same spot. Ruby Dee thought that may have been made up, but Lonnie swore it wasn’t. After breakfast, Hardy had Ruby Dee rub castor oil on the joints of both legs and bind them. She knew the men were doing all these things to keep her from thinking about the storm, and their tender regard made her want to cry.
As it turned out, none of the tornados sighted came anywhere near the ranch. The winds had been severe, however, and as soon as the rain quit, Will and Lonnie went out to look around. They reported that shingles had been blown off the house, one of the windows in the old man’s shop had been rattled out, and a piece of tin had been peeled up atop the old tractor barn, but everything else looked fine. The telephone in the house was out, and Lonnie tried using Will’s cellular phone to reach the Reeves’s store, but he couldn’t get through, so he drove down to find out how they had fared.
Ruby Dee let Sally out the screen door and then slowly stepped out behind her. As frightened as she was of storms, she loved the time afterward. The heat and dust were washed away, leaving the sweetest earthy smell, and the sun, like the mighty power of the Lord, came breaking through the purple clouds, shining down on everything so still that it was as if the world had stopped turning.
Looking around, savoring the freshness, Ruby Dee walked across the yard and up the sloping drive toward the horse barn, where she had seen Will go. When she reached the big entry of the barn, she peered down the wide alley and saw Will’s form at the far end, silhouetted against the brighter light outside.
He heard her and turned, then called her to come see the rainbow. She hurried to his side, and he pointed. “There.”
“Why, it’s a double!”
The barn sat higher than the miles and miles of rolling hills to the southeast, and the ribbons of the rainbows arched from one hill to another. Captivated, Ruby Dee stood rooted to the spot, watching the colors deepen and then pale, fade and move to another spot.
The Loves of Ruby Dee Page 21
