Nate didn’t even know the man. How could he begin to understand?
Exhausted and holding her gooey hand away from her body, she slid to the floor. Avoid Joe. That’s all she had to do. That and buy toothpaste…and ant spray.
~*~
As soon as Ruth entered the pharmacy, Betsy ran from behind the counter and wrapped her in a tight hug. “Thank you so much! I am so grateful to you.”
Ruth’s cheeks colored from the unexpected affection.
“I about died a hundred deaths when I saw those birds. And Chet and I were so far away. We couldn’t get to Chip fast enough. What if those crows pecked his eyes out?” Betsy shivered. “I know I sound melodramatic, but honestly, that’s all that went through my mind. And then you grabbed him, and the crows flew off.” She pulled a tissue from her tunic pocket and dabbed her reddened eyes. “I don’t know what would have happened to him if you hadn’t gotten there so quickly.”
It had been impulse that had sent Ruth racing to the boy. She was no hero. “No one was hurt.”
Betsy’s warm gaze stayed on Ruth. “I keep thinking you remind me of someone, but I can’t figure out who it is. You look familiar somehow.”
A woman approached, taking short steps on stacked heels.
Betsy retreated behind the counter, obviously disappointed their time had been interrupted.
Not that Ruth sought praise, but the connection she felt with Betsy warmed her. It had been a long time since she’d had a girlfriend. Heaving a sigh, Ruth walked down the far aisle and shivered against the cold radiating from the row of refrigerated units holding milk, soda pop, and bottled water. Not bound by brand, she divided cost by ounce and grabbed the winning tube of toothpaste. She turned the corner to the next aisle, hunting for bug spray.
Nate was staring at the display in front of him.
Quickly she retreated but then stopped. Why did she always avoid people, even those she knew? With a surge of bravery, she walked back up the aisle. “Hi, there.”
“Hey. Hi, Ruth.”
Her heart fluttered as his gaze lingered on face.
“Doing your shopping?”
“Yeah. Toothpaste.” She held up the red and white tube.
“I can’t figure this out,” Nate said. “I shave every day. You would think I would know which blades to buy.” He nodded at the rack. “One blade or six? Disposable or reusable? Easy grip or traditional? Do I want black or green or blue?”
“I like these.” Ruth pulled a pack from the rack. “Two blades work better than one, but more than two are a waste.” Blushing, she turned.
“Thanks. How about I buy you a cup of coffee?”
“No need.” She didn’t want him to feel obligated to entertain her each time they met.
“Seriously, how about a cup of coffee?”
“I am thirsty,” she murmured, “but I don’t like coffee.”
“Beverage of your choice.” He gave her a thumbs-up. “I’ll even toss in lunch if you’ll permit me.”
“Hey, you two.” Betsy grinned as they approached the counter.
Paying for their purchases, Ruth and Nate headed toward the door. “Off to get something to eat, Bets,” Nate said. “See you tomorrow.”
~*~
They snatched one of the café tables on the sidewalk. Nate held her chair. The blue umbrella shaded the table, but the metal seat felt hot against her legs. Ruth unwrapped her club sandwich, the intricacies of the task absorbing her attention. She had to quit avoiding people, assuming they didn’t like her. Mr. Charlie tried to tell her that. He was right. Lifting her head, she smiled at Nate.
A man and woman walked by, chattering in a foreign language, maybe German.
“I’ve always wanted to travel,” Ruth said wistfully.
“Why don’t you? The world’s an amazing place.”
“People don’t make a lot of money in Logan.”
He laughed. “Isn’t that the truth? Where would you go if you suddenly inherited a million dollars?”
She twirled the straw in her sweet tea. “Scotland. That’s where my mom’s family is from. I used to imagine that I owned one of the old castles there.”
“I’ve seen pictures,” he said with a chuckle. “You don’t want one.”
“I suppose not.”
A pair of bike riders zipped along the edge of the road, leaving a hot breeze in their wake. Cars passed. Chattering voices surrounded them. Saturday was social time in town. The door to the deli opened, and the scent of baked bread wafted out. Three teen girls dressed in blue jeans and cropped tops pushed their way out, carrying large beverages. They stared at Nate as they passed, the second girl running into the back of the first.
Ruth hid a smile behind a bite of sandwich, enjoying their envy.
“Well isn’t this a pretty scene. My cousin and my best girl sitting together.”
The air punched from Ruth’s lungs. Her worst nightmare had just walked down the sidewalk and now hovered over her. The man she planned to avoid was here in Logan. “Not your girlfriend, Joe,” Ruth squeezed the words from her tight throat. “Not ever.”
Nate wiped his mouth. “Joe, it’s been a long time. Mom didn’t tell me you were in town.” He stared hard into the man’s face.
Joseph Ackerman pulled an empty chair from the next table and slid it beside Ruth. His blond hair, the color of Nate’s, remained firmly in place while Nate’s shifted in the moving air. Blue eyes, identical in color to Nate’s, stared at her. But Joe’s eyes lacked the warmth she found in Nate’s.
“So you two have met?” Joe placed a hand on Ruth’s arm.
She pulled away.
“Bet you didn’t know ol’ Natie and I were cousins.”
Wishing she could shrivel up and disappear, Ruth gazed straight ahead, avoiding the eyes of both Nate and Joe. Cousins. The first guy she was interested in since Joe, and they’re cousins. She needed to throw up.
“What are you doing in town?” Nate shifted his chair slightly toward Ruth.
“Your mayor wants advice on a budget issue. And here I am.”
“I wasn’t aware we had a budget issue.”
“Some new money coming into the coffers.”
“Don’t we have a treasurer who handles our money?”
Joe picked at his fingernail. “Apparently, your mayor wanted a financial expert. My name came up.”
Shrieks bit into the air. Metal chairs scraped against concrete.
“I can clean it up,” a male voice said. “It’s just crow droppings. Sit back down. It’s OK.”
“I hate those birds!” A female voice one notch below hysteria screamed.
“Exciting times here in Logan,” Joe said. “I always did enjoy my visits.”
Ruth balled the remainder of her sandwich in the wrapper. “I need to go. I’m meeting some friends in a few minutes. I don’t want to be late.”
“Let me walk you home.” Nate rose from his chair, the scowl on his face deep enough to swallow the Grand Canyon.
“I can manage.” She needed to get away, to think.
Joe stood. “It has been my pleasure, Miss Ruth Cleveland.” He doffed a pretend hat. “I hope to see you again. Perhaps we can pick up where we left off.”
Her cheeks burned. No way in God’s world would she ever befriend Joseph Ackerman.
“Let me walk you home,” Nate repeated. The lines around his mouth were tight.
“No. I’m fine.”
“Watch out for crows.” Joe’s voice teased as she headed down the sidewalk.
~*~
Ruth snatched the homemade blanket from the end of the bed and clutched it to her chest. With too much built-up adrenalin coursing through her body but unwilling to leave the safety of her locked doors, she paced. Back and forth through the bedroom, to the living room and then the kitchen, only to repeat the path again as she fingered the ring that hung from a chain around her neck.
The nerve of him!
She collapsed onto the living room chair. Anger flar
ed. She continued to roam across the floor. Hadn’t Joe done enough harm? Now he was back—and for what? When life finally provided a bit of satisfaction, fate turned on her. She grabbed the quilt and brought the knotted-squares to her face, inhaling the scent. The warm covering, made from clothing no longer needed, was one of the few reminders of her past that she had kept. As her heartbeat slowed, she tried to separate emotions from facts.
Seeing Joe had been a shock, but worse was having him claim her as his possession. She wanted to claw his eyes out. She stared through the front window, seeing nothing but his mocking grin. What must Nate be thinking of her? It was a lifetime ago, but her sin followed her.
She walked to the bedroom and shoved her hand under the mattress. For a second, she felt nothing but the hard flatness of the plywood that supported her bed. Her heart did a flip. Probing with her fingers, she finally touched the thick envelope. She thought of the day Joe had given her the money. Sliding to the floor by the bed, she opened the envelope and counted the hundred-dollar bills. Twelve of them. Blood money, all of it.
Someone knocked on the door. The tap came again. Nate’s rap.
Shoving the money back under the mattress, Ruth clung to the blanket as she crawled onto the edge of the bed.
“Ruth, are you in there?” He rapped again.
She chewed the edge of her lower lip. They were cousins, Nate and Joe. Blood ran thick among kin in the south. Nate seemed like such a nice guy, but what did she know about men? For the first time in a good while, she ached to have her mom tell her what to do; to have someone give her the well-thought-out decision she felt incapable of making.
“Ruth, I know you weren’t meeting friends. Please talk to me.”
She walked to the door and leaned against it.
“Ruth, please…”
She opened the door and motioned for him to enter.
“You’re bleeding,” he said.
Ruth licked the chewed edge of her lip.
“Are you all right?” he asked. “You ran off like you were being chased by the devil himself.”
Nate reached for her, but she moved away toward the chair where she had tossed the blanket. She sat down, squeezing the blanket to her chest. “I didn’t know Joe was your cousin.”
Nate lowered himself onto the couch, never moving his gaze from her face. If the coffee table had not been between them, their knees might have touched. His voice softened. “I had no idea you knew him.”
He was trying to calm her, but Ruth didn’t know if she appreciated or resented the effort. Everything felt confused and jumbled. “We met the summer I graduated from high school,” Ruth said. “My mom cleans house for his family in Atlanta.” She paused. “I’m not his girlfriend.”
“I wondered.”
“I don’t know why he said that. I haven’t seen him for almost five years until my boss took me to the State House.” She wouldn’t share the shock or her anger at Joe’s mocking glance from the floor of the chamber.
“It’s been longer than that for me,” Nate said. “Our families used to get together a couple times a year when we were kids. Eventually, it became too much of a hassle to get our schedules lined up. Everyone was busy, especially Joe.”
Uncomfortable silence knitted a wall between them. Nate shifted on the couch. Ruth rubbed one of the yarn knots on a pillow, wishing Nate would leave her to her thoughts.
“I didn’t know he was a congressman until today,” Nate said.
For the first time, Ruth doubted Nate’s honesty. How could he not know? He and Joe were family. Cousins know about each other.
Nate cleared his throat. “This might be none of my business, and tell me if it is, but you didn’t seem happy to see him.”
“I was surprised.”
Nate ran his hands through his hair, creating furrows in the soft blond strands. “I guess I’ll have to accept that, but just so you know, I don’t believe that’s all there is to it.” The pause stretched long. “If he tries to hurt you—in any way—I’m here for you.”
“Why would he want to hurt me?” She licked a dot of blood from her lip.
“When we were kids, he always had to win: board games, swimming, favors from our parents. It didn’t matter. But nothing made him happy.” Nate rested his arm on the back of the couch. “Man, if I lived like he did, I’d never complain. I dreaded the times we would get together, wondering what fancy new possession he would rub under my nose, what castoffs he would bring that I was supposed to be grateful for.”
“I never had a cousin. There was just Mom and me.”
“What I’m trying to tell you,” Nate said, staring hard into her face, “is that whatever is between the two of you, if he thinks you came out on top, well, he’ll try to even the score.”
The fact that Joe had called her his girlfriend wiggled in the back of her mind. Did he have intentions that she was unaware of? No, Joe was now a professional man, a congressman, and he was in Logan on important business. The fact that she lived in Logan was coincidental. He was a big man and she a tiny fish. And Nate…she wasn’t sure anymore.
Nate stood. “One more thing before I go. Joe saw us together, and that could be a problem. He may assume things, and I doubt his competitive nature has changed.”
Ruth locked the door. Nothing would entice her to date Joe again, but where did that leave her and Nate? She had hoped a relationship might grow between them. But if Joe mentioned to Nate why she had twelve hundred dollars of his money, Nate may decide to never look at her again.
10
Monday, June 3
Monday morning. Clouds touched the rooftops as though heaven refused to hold them up. Nate prayed for rain, for a break from the oppressive humidity. Maybe a good storm would scare some of the crows back to where they came from.
Inside the house and perched on top of a ladder, he filled his spatula with mud from the red plastic container hanging from his belt and scraped the compound across the seam in the drywall, leaving behind grooves that would need sanded later. He stared at the wall. Just like his life. Do your best, but God comes along and buffs up the edges.
Chet sat on a stool beside Nate’s ladder, his plaster-encased leg extended to the side as he pressed mud into lower seams. “Hey man,” Chet said. “You going to finish, or do you want to keep on daydreaming?”
Nate dug deep into the bucket of mud. “Good to have you back, buddy.”
“What did you think about the church service yesterday?” Chet ran his spatula across the drywall.
“It felt strange. You know, as if I wasn’t really in church.” Nate scraped his empty pail, swiped the mud on the wall, and then climbed down the ladder.
“Reminded me of church camp when I was younger.” Chet looked at Nate. “Hey, maybe you can build us a fire on Sundays. We can sit around it while we sing in the heat. Hmm. Bad idea. We don’t need more heat. How hot do you think Hell will be?”
“Hot. If no more show up than yesterday, Hell might be a crowded place.” Nate scooped mud from the five-gallon bucket and smeared it into the red container.
“Give folks a chance. It’s a big change, coming to the wilderness instead of sitting in an air-conditioned building.”
“We should be in a building.”
Chet leaned back against the wall. “Not really. I liked it. It reminded me of the early Christians and how they met in homes. It felt neat.”
Nate grimaced. It was fine and dandy to sit in his yard and watch the sheriff drive by, but that wasn’t church. They needed to be in God’s house.
Chet repositioned his leg, the sound of the cast sliding across wood mimicking the plaster skimming the wall. “I hear the mayor’s got a plan to get rid of the crows.”
Nate worked his jaw. He really didn’t care what the mayor did. Most likely, the plan belonged to Joe anyway. Of all the times for his cousin to show up. Gone for years and then on the very day Nate was with someone who might become important to him, there he was. Joe never did anything without a re
ason, and Nate suspected the reason he was in Logan had more to do with Ruth than the mayor. The thought twisted as he slid the spatula across a seam. “Did you know Joe’s in town?”
“No kidding. Cousin Joe? What for?”
“Apparently he’s helping the mayor spend the new tax money.”
Chet laughed. “Should be an easy job.”
“He saw Ruth and me at the Main Street Café.”
“And?”
Nate sat on the top of the ladder and dangled the empty trowel between his knees. “You remember how jealous Joe was of everything; well, I’m afraid he’ll think Ruth and I are a couple and hit on her.”
“Are you?”
“Am I what?”
“A couple, doofus.”
There wasn’t anything special between Ruth and him. At least, not yet, but Joe didn’t deserve her. His jaw tightened as he remembered how huge her eyes had grown when Joe had shown up. A deer in the woods would be happier to see a hunter with a gun than she had been to see Joe. With Ruth’s gentleness, the brute would eat her alive.
“Earth to Nate…you didn’t answer my question.”
“No, we’re not a couple. There, you happy?”
Chet held up his hands. “Hey, I just asked.” He scraped his loaded trowel along the seam. “I think Ruth’s tougher than you give her credit for. She didn’t seem afraid of those crows Friday night.”
She hadn’t, had she? That crow in her house—it must have been the surprise that scared her more than the crow.
“Betsy wants the two of you to come to supper some night next week. Any preference?”
“I don’t know.” Nate rubbed a hand across the top of his head, tipping his hair with spackle. “Things are weird right now.”
“Well, let me know. Unless you tell me some other time, Bets will expect the two of you next Thursday night.”
Swell. Nate slapped mud on the wall, trying to shove his thoughts into the small seam. They had a dinner date, and he didn’t even know if Ruth was still interested or if Cousin Joe now held her attention.
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