The Color of Love

by Sharon Sala

  The empathy was her downfall. Tears welled. “Thought I lost me too.”

  “Are you in much pain?” Peanut asked.

  “Some.”

  That one word made his heart hurt.

  “I need to tell you something. This isn’t how I imagined I would say it, but I’ve spent the whole damn afternoon thinking I was never going to get to say it, and then God gave me a second chance. I have been sending you flowers and gifts for weeks and weeks and telling you in every way except face-to-face that I am head over heels in love with you.”

  Ruby gasped, and then reached for his hand. “Once I hoped and then thought it couldn’t be… Not in your league.”

  He lowered the bedrail and then sat down on the bed beside her. He slipped his hand beneath her fingers, wanting to hold her, yet afraid even to touch her.

  “If I spent the rest of my life in sackcloth and ashes, I would still not see myself worthy of you, but I am a selfish enough bastard to want you anyway. If you could see your way to letting me properly court you in the hopes that you might learn to love me, it would pretty much make my day.”

  Ruby choked on a sob as she clutched his hand.

  “Today when I thought I would die, your face was the first thing I saw. All the years I’ve known you and asked favors of you, and you always came through for me. You have been a white knight for so many in Blessings. I never dreamed you would ever be mine. Yes, to everything you just said.”

  The knot in Peanut’s throat began to ease. Not only was Ruby going to be okay, but she’d said yes to being his girl.

  “I’m taking you home with me for the first few days until we can get your house cleaned up. Right now, it is a crime scene. Besides the blood everywhere, there is fingerprint powder, as well as the footsteps of a team of crime scene investigators who’ve tromped all over.”

  Ruby blushed at the thought of being a guest in his house, and he saw it.

  “You’ll have your own guest room and bath, and all of your friends can come at will to my house to check on you and visit with you any time. I’m just offering shelter, darlin’. I won’t ask for more. Whatever you give me comes on your time, at your speed. Deal?”

  “Yes…and a good deal.”

  Peanut had a big, silly grin on his face when the chief walked in, but he didn’t give a damn.

  Lon was relieved Ruby was awake and talking.

  “Hello, Miss Ruby. You sure gave us all a scare. The whole town went into mourning when you disappeared, thinking they might never see you again, and now I’m sure they all know you’ve been found. God only knows what kind of a celebration they’ll be planning for you once you’re back on your feet.”

  “Really?” Ruby said.

  “Why would you be surprised?” Peanut asked. “Honey, everybody in Blessings loves Ruby Dye, including me.”

  Lon eyed the hospital gown she was wearing. “Do you have clothes to wear home? It’s cold outside.”

  “I was in my slip and underwear when Jarrod knocked. I put on my robe to go to the door.” Her voice began to shake, and her hands started to tremble. “There’s blood all over the clothes. He…” She took a deep breath and started over. “He hit—”

  Peanut couldn’t stand it. “Doesn’t matter. You don’t need to explain. We saw it. Give me a second,” he said, and walked out of the room.

  Lon patted her leg beneath the sheets. “He’s had a hard day too,” Lon said.

  A few minutes later, Peanut came back with a pair of scrubs, some fuzzy hospital socks with no-skid soles, and a clean hospital gown to wear as a robe. There was a nurse right behind him.

  “Ruby, honey, she’s going to help you dress.”

  Ruby nodded.

  “We’ll be right outside the door with a wheelchair. When you’re finished, we’re out of here.”

  The nurse grinned as the men left the room, shutting the door behind them. “Someone sure thinks the world of you.”

  Ruby put a shaky hand to her face. “I see that. I wish I’d seen it sooner, but better late than never, right?”

  The nurse chuckled. “Absolutely. Now let’s see if we can get this top over your head without hurting you.”

  A few minutes later, she walked out to get the wheelchair.

  “She’s ready to go,” she told Lon. “I have to take her out and see her to the car. Hospital rules.”

  “I’ll go pull the car around to the ER entrance,” Lon said, and hurried out the door.

  Ruby was sitting on the side of the bed when Peanut just walked over, lifted her up into his arms and put her down in the wheelchair as if she weighed nothing, then tucked a blanket around her legs.

  “It’s getting colder outside,” he said.

  “Then we need to get you on the road to home. Maybe you won’t get there too late,” the nurse said.

  “I don’t care what time it is when we get there, as long as I’m back in Blessings before I close my eyes tonight,” Ruby said.

  “Amen to that,” Peanut muttered, and walked beside her chair all the way to the exit.

  “So cold,” Ruby said, shivering as Peanut lifted her out of the wheelchair and into the back seat of the cruiser.

  “I’m riding with her,” he told Lon, and crawled in beside her.

  Lon grinned at him. “Don’t forget to buckle up,” he said, and shut the door behind Peanut.

  Lon got inside the cruiser, then glanced over his shoulder to make sure they were settling in okay.

  “Miss Ruby, I have the pills the doctor sent and a prescription to be filled, along with your discharge papers. I’m going to make this as comfortable a trip home as I can for you.”

  “I’ll be fine,” Ruby said. Then out of nowhere, she started crying again. “I’m sorry. It’s so surreal…all of this. I thought I was going to die today, and then it turned out to be one of the best days of my life. I’m just so grateful.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Lon said, and put the car in gear, then keyed up the radio. “Chief Pittman to dispatch.”

  Avery Ames, the day dispatcher, responded. “This is dispatch. Go ahead, Chief.”

  “Be informed we’re leaving Dublin. I’m bringing Miss Ruby home.”

  Avery let out a little on-air whoop. “Ten-four, Chief. Over and out.”

  Peanut put his arm around Ruby’s shoulders and pulled her close against him.

  “Lean against me all you want. Sleep if you can. I’ll try to cushion the bumps for you.”

  Tears were still rolling as Ruby leaned in. At first, it felt awkward. Her reference points with Peanut had been in friendship. She didn’t know how to be with him as a man who loved her, but she would figure it out.

  Within minutes, she was asleep.

  Peanut held her in his arms all the way home.

  * * *

  It was dark when the chief drove back into Blessings. He’d killed the siren over an hour ago but kept the lights flashing, and they were still spinning as he passed the city limits sign.

  Ruby woke up when he began slowing down. She was so stiff and sore she could hardly move, and speaking was almost impossible.

  “Where?” she asked.

  “We’re home, sweetheart,” Peanut said.

  Ruby nodded and patted her heart to indicate how much it meant to her.

  “Would you look at that!” Lon said, as he turned up Main Street.

  People were lining both sides of Main, holding lanterns and flashlights, and some were holding candles. The ones standing beneath the streetlights were holding up WELCOME HOME signs, and signs that read WE LOVE YOU, RUBY.

  When they saw the chief’s patrol car and the flashing lights, they began cheering and chanting “Ruby, Ruby, Ruby,” over and over as Lon drove past.

  Ruby pressed her hands against her heart as tears rolled down her cheeks.

  Pean
ut was nearly speechless. “Wow,” he said softly, and gently hugged her. “This is how much you are loved.”

  Lon drove all the way up Main, then turned right toward Peanut’s residence. “Someone left the lights on for you,” he said as he turned into the circle drive in front of Peanut’s house.

  “Probably Laurel. She was here cleaning today.”

  Lon put the car in park and killed the engine, but left the headlights on. “I’ll help you get Ruby inside,” he said.

  Peanut handed him the house key. “You unlock the door. I’ve got her.”

  “Will do,” Lon said as he grabbed all of her paperwork and meds, then headed to the front door.

  “Don’t move, honey,” Peanut said. “I’ll come around to the other side.”

  Ruby sighed. It was hard to relegate herself to needing help. She was usually the one organizing it for someone else.

  Peanut opened her door and then leaned in and picked up her and the blanket. She gasped as he lifted her up.

  “Did I hurt you? I’m sorry, honey.”

  She patted the side of his face and then leaned her cheek against his jacket as he carried her inside.

  Lon had lights on in the front of the house.

  “Down this hall,” Peanut said. “First door on the left. Open it please, and turn those lights on too.”

  Lon moved ahead of them, turning on lights as he went, and then stepped aside as Peanut carried Ruby into his guest room and sat her down on the side of the bed.

  “Welcome back, Miss Ruby,” Lon said. “I’ll leave you to settle in. Rest well.”

  “I’ll see you out,” Peanut said, and followed Lon out of the room.

  Ruby felt her mouth and her swollen eye, and then got up and gingerly moved to the bathroom. She dreaded facing what she looked like, but she had to know the extent of the damage Jarrod had done to her this time.

  When she saw herself in the mirror, she groaned. Oh my God! Will I even look the same when all of this is healed? And then she took a deep breath and reminded herself that she was alive, and for now, that was all that mattered.

  Peanut came hurrying back into the room and saw Ruby standing in front of the mirror. “That will heal,” he said.

  Ruby didn’t know he was there until he spoke, and then she nodded. “Hurts much,” she managed to say.

  “Pain pills. You have some pain pills,” Peanut said, and ran back out to the table where Lon had left the meds and her discharge papers. He came back with the pills and a glass of water.

  Ruby slipped the pills between her lips, then managed to get enough water in her mouth to swallow them. She set the glass on the bathroom counter and then walked back out into the bedroom where Peanut was busy turning down the bedclothes.

  “I don’t have a nightgown for you. Are you okay to sleep in the scrubs?” he asked.

  She patted her scrubs. “Sleep in these,” she said.

  Peanut sighed. “I want so much to hold you, but there isn’t a spot on your body that I’d dare to touch. I’m so glad you’re safe and that you’re here. Will you be able to manage on your own tonight? My room is just across the hall. I’m going to leave the door open, so if you need anything at all in the night, just call out. I’ll hear you.”

  Ruby walked into his arms and laid her head on his chest. “My forever hero,” she mumbled, as he pulled her close.

  “If you need, I could call someone to come sit with you,” he offered.

  Ruby shook her head. “I can do it,” she said, and then winced.

  “Do you want anything? Food? Some milk? I have straws.”

  “Tomorrow,” she said.

  “Then I’m going to leave so you can have your privacy. The remote to the television is on the table beside the bed. There’s a night-light in the bathroom.” He brushed a kiss across her forehead. “Sleep well, sweet lady. Tomorrow is a new day.”

  He shut the door on his way out, and now she was alone.

  She sat down on the side of the bed and removed all her clothes, then walked barefoot into the bathroom. She wouldn’t be able to close her eyes until she’d washed Jarrod Dye off her skin.

  The warm water burned the skinned knuckles and cuts on her hands, but she didn’t care. She wanted to wash her hair as well, but the thought of getting shampoo in her badly bruised eyes or infecting the wound on her mouth was enough to stop her. Instead, she stood in front of the warm spray and kept soaping and scrubbing, and then doing it again. Finally, she turned off the water and dried, put the scrubs back on for pajamas, and crawled into bed.

  The last thought on her mind was that Peanut loved her. Now all she had to do was give herself permission to love him back.

  Chapter 3

  Jarrod Dye had a broken nose, seven stitches in his head, twenty-two in his arm, and he’d never made it home for ribs. He’d used his free call from jail to ask his girlfriend to contact a lawyer, but when she found out what he’d done, she freaked out and hung up on him. He should have called his brother.

  Still, in the long run, it didn’t matter. He didn’t have money to pay a lawyer and was going to have to rely on a court-appointed one, although he didn’t have a chance in hell of escaping his fate.

  He’d crossed state lines and assaulted, robbed, and kidnapped his ex-wife. Without a doubt, it was the dumbest thing he’d ever done. He hadn’t counted on Ruby fighting him. She never had before. And he sure hadn’t counted on her escaping. If there was any kind of positive to be had from where he was at, it was that her escape had kept his charges to robbery, assault, and kidnapping. If she hadn’t escaped, he would have had a murder on his conscience too.

  The upside of spending what was left of his tomcat years in jail was that the collection agencies weren’t going to be hounding him anymore. He’d have a roof over his head and three meals a day, compliments of the State of Georgia.

  As for his damn ex-wife, he never wanted to see her face again. He liked her better the way she used to be, before she turned into the bitch from hell.

  * * *

  The pain pills Peanut gave Ruby eased the pain, but they also put her to sleep, and then to dream, resurrecting memories of every abuse she’d suffered at her ex-husband’s hands—things she never talked about, things she’d spent years trying to forget.

  She woke up twice in the night, once bathed in sweat with tears on her face, and the second time in mute panic, thinking Jarrod was throwing her bound-and-gagged body over the side of a bridge.

  She threw back the covers and hobbled into the bathroom. When she came out, she sat down on the side of the bed, eyeing the wounds on her hands. She wanted the blood washed out of her hair. She could go to her shop and have one of the twins do it for her, but that would mean revealing the extent of what had happened to her, and she wasn’t sure she was ready to endure that kind of inspection.

  Still, the more she thought about it, the more she realized that what she was dreading had nothing to do with the way she looked, and everything to do with having to talk about the abusive ex. No one knew why she’d divorced him and ran, and now everyone would know.

  Her shoulders slumped. Damn Jarrod Dye to hell and back. She’d tried so hard to escape her past, and just when she thought she was home free, he’d dragged his sorry ass back into her life and broken the fragile wall behind which she’d been living.

  Then she thought of Peanut asleep in the bed across the hall. He was so dear to her, and the knowledge that he loved her was the best gift she’d ever received. Still, there was something she had to tell him, something she had to confess that might end her happily ever after.

  Finally, she lay down and pulled the covers up over her shoulders. The sheets were smooth and soft and smelled of a rain-washed morning. She shifted slightly, trying to find a comfortable place to lay her head, and drifted off to sleep again, dreaming this time that she was standing in a do
orway looking down the aisle of her church. The pews were full of people she knew, but she was looking for Peanut. She was supposed to have dinner with him at Granny’s, and she was certain he hadn’t forgotten.

  The organist began to play, which was the signal for the services to begin. Now she didn’t know where to sit because all the seats were taken and people were frowning at her. She wasn’t in her proper place.

  All of a sudden, Peanut was down at the end of the aisle, in front of the pulpit. He beckoned to her. She knew if she took that first step, she was accepting way more than a seat at church, but there was no hesitation when she started toward him.

  She was halfway down the aisle when something woke her.

  To her surprise, it was morning and someone was knocking on her door.

  * * *

  Peanut hadn’t slept worth a damn and was up before daylight. He’d sent a text to his secretary to reschedule all of his appointments for the next two days and told her not to call him unless it was a big-ass emergency. He knew she’d laugh at his phrasing, but he didn’t care. He was a man in love, and soon everyone in Blessings would know it was Ruby he loved.

  Then the sun came up and the morning was passing, and Ruby hadn’t let out a peep. He ate a bowl of cereal, drank two cups of coffee, and couldn’t stand it any longer. He had to know if she was okay, or if she needed any help. He poured her a cup of coffee, stirring in the two spoonfuls of sugar she liked, then took it to the guest room and knocked.

  “Come in,” she said.

  Thank God, he thought, and entered. He tried not to react to the darkening bruises and smiled.

  “The swelling has gone down in your eye. Does it feel better, baby?”

  He called me baby. This is real. This is really real.

  “Yes, better,” she said.

  “I brought coffee the way you like it, and I let it cool enough so that it won’t melt the straw.”

  She held out her hands. He leaned over and kissed her cheek, then put the cup in both hands.

  Ruby took a quick sip, grateful for the sweet, warm liquid running down her throat.

  “Sit with me?” she asked.