“I did that, and she acted out.”
“Do it some more. She’s not ashamed of you. No sane woman could be.”
Maybe she was right, but he didn’t plan to test it, at least not until Ruby made the right overtures to him. But what if she’s waiting for you to reach out to her? his conscience needled. And wasn’t he the one who’d said a curt good-night and hung up?
After accompanying Maggie to her door, he stood there until she opened it. “Thanks for the strudel and for your advice and confidence,” he said. “It meant a lot to me.”
“You’re a blessing to me, Mr. B,” she said, and he’d swear that her lips quivered.
Instead of going back home after dropping Maggie off, Luther headed for the officers’ club. Maybe he could borrow a guitar and jam awhile with some of the men. It would beat thinking about his feelings for Ruby.
When he walked into the club, he realized that he should bring Ruby there. Perhaps then she would understand that to be disabled didn’t prevent a man from enjoying a fruitful life.
“Seen Roger lately?” a marine asked Luther. “I hear he’s in the big time, thanks to you. Somebody said he got a recording contract. Did he?”
Luther nodded. “That’s what I heard. He’s accompanying one of my friends, too.”
“Have a seat, man,” someone said. “Borrow Gus’s guitar and let’s jam a little.” Luther looked at Gus, who told him, “I’ve been entertaining these guys all evening. You’re welcome to use it.”
Like leaves dropping from trees in late autumn, stress and cares fell away from him while his fingers danced over those guitar strings. Jazz had a way of giving him that freedom, lightening his spirit and blowing him away from things worldly. At last, the pianist struck the first cords of “Back Home in Indiana,” and he closed his eyes and let the music enthrall him.
“You’re blessed to be able to play like that,” a retired admiral said. He hadn’t realized that the old man stood a few feet away, watching while the group played.
“I’m blessed. Period. And I’m more aware of it here than anywhere.”
“I know what you mean,” the man said, and as he limped away, Luther could see that he wore a prosthesis on each leg. Yes, he thought. Not only Ruby, but a lot of people ought to visit this club.
He phoned her the next morning as he drove to work, and the note of surprise in her voice was as he had expected.
“Hi,” she said, after he identified himself.
“Hi. I was calling because I’d like you to go with me to the officers’ club tonight. Will you?”
“Uh…sure. What time and what should I wear?”
“About eight o’clock, and street clothes will be fine. Thanks for agreeing to go with me.”
“How’ve you been?”
He refused to engage in some banal small talk with a woman who meant to him what she did. “There’s nothing new. We can talk this evening. See you then?”
“Okay. See you later.”
He hung up, knowing he’d put her off. He’d have to find a way to make up for it without bringing their relationship to a head prematurely.
Chapter 10
Ruby walked rather than ran down the stairs when the bell rang at eight o’clock, although that action brought a laugh from her. Who was she fooling?
She opened the door, gazed up at his beloved face and said, “Hi. Want to come in? It’s cold out there. I’ll get my coat.” She added the last so that he wouldn’t suspect her of wanting to drag him into a clinch.
“Hi. We can leave as soon as you’re ready.”
She took her coat from the closet in the foyer and, instead of handing it to him as she would normally have done, she proceeded to put it on.
He stepped toward her and took it. “Let me help you with that.”
Even with the cold air clinging to him, his nearness warmed her, and his aura enticed her to lean back into the comfort of his arms. She resisted the temptation, trying though it was, and moved away. She could feel his gaze upon her as she buttoned and belted her coat, but she willed herself not to look into his face.
“Don’t you have something to put on your head?” he asked.
Although she hadn’t planned to wear a hat, she recognized the question as a suggestion that sprang from his caring. “Excuse me a minute.” She went up to her room and put on a red velvet beret. “I’m ready,” she said when she came back.
He stood there looking down at her for what seemed to her like hours, and she shifted her weight from one foot to the other. Then she began to rub her arms. The movement of his Adam’s apple was the only evidence he gave that he was as disconcerted as she. Finally, he took a deep breath and exhaled, turned to the door and opened it.
Mad enough to chew him out—mad because he’d fought himself and won while she watched—she locked the door and walked down the steps in front of him. She’d have given anything if she could have opened the car door and seated herself before he reached the car, but he’d locked it. As if he read her mind, he joined her where she stood at the front passenger’s door, opened it and, with a firm hand, assisted her into the car. The devil had gotten into him, she figured, because he leaned in and fastened her seat belt, bringing his mouth as close to hers as it could get without touching and never looking at her.
“Have you ever seen a snapping turtle?” she asked him after he seated himself.
“I don’t believe I have. Why?”
“If I’d been one a second ago, you’d be missing part of your lip.”
His joyous laugh told her that his mood wasn’t as dark as his manner. “Heavens, if you’re feeling that evil, I’d better be careful. It wouldn’t do my reputation one bit of good to have it reported that I checked into the hospital with half of a mouth due to a woman’s bite.” He laughed aloud. “I hope your bark is worse than your bite.”
She wanted to ask him about his good mood and whether anything special had happened to make him happy. But with neither their camaraderie as friends nor their tenderness and passion as lovers governing their behavior, she didn’t know how to react. As if he sensed her dilemma, he turned on the radio, and though “Cotton Eyed Joe” wasn’t to her taste, it beat the silence that had become awkward, at least for her.
“Have you ever been in the officers’ club?” he asked as he drove into the garage beneath it. When told that she hadn’t, he replied, “You’ll probably be surprised. I came here for the first time only recently, and I can’t tell you the difference it’s made in my life. I’m not sure I could have pulled you out of that pool if I hadn’t spent some time here.”
“What’s different about it?”
He punched the elevator call button. “You’ll see.”
After he signed in, they checked their coats at the cloak room and, to her surprise, he took her hand and walked with her into a large room that was attractively decorated with masculine furnishings, Old Glory and the flags of the different armed services. Approximately thirty men lounged there talking, playing cards or sitting quietly alone.
“I want you to meet my friends,” Luther said as they reached the old admiral who was reclining in an overstuffed leather chair eating chocolates from a box lined with gold foil.
The admiral stood as they approached. “Admiral Conner, this is Ruby Lockhart.” The man extended his hand. “I’m delighted to meet you, Ms. Lockhart. We don’t see enough beautiful women in this place. Good for you, Biggens.” She hesitated when he introduced her to a man who extended the metal prosthesis that served as his right hand, but quickly recovered, smiled and shook the man’s hand.
Luther stopped at a group that lounged near a piano, smiled and said, “Fellows, I want you to meet Ruby Lockhart.” Some stood, and some didn’t. So she took the initiative and walked to each one to shake hands.
“Are you going to play tonight?”
She looked around and saw the admiral leaning against the grand piano. He walked to her with an obvious limp. “See if you can get him to play,” the a
dmiral said. “I love to hear that guitar.”
“I didn’t think to bring it,” Luther said. But the words had barely escaped his lips when a man said, “You may borrow mine, Commander.”
Luther dragged a chair close to the group, while a man hobbled to the piano with the aid of crutches, nodded to the group and said, “Lover Come Back to Me.” The old admiral limped to her and said, “Pull up a chair and sit down. I’d do it for you if I could.”
Unable to resist, she said, “What…what’s your handicap?”
“I’ve got two borrowed legs, and I’m damned lucky to have them. Most of the time, I don’t think about ’em, because I don’t even use a cane, but I can’t pull that big chair over here for you, and that makes me sad.”
“I’ll pull one over for each of us,” she told him.
“Thank you, my dear, and if you don’t mind, would you please bring me that box of candy on the table over there. We can have some while we listen to these fellows play. They’re good, you know.”
She pulled the chairs forward and got the chocolates for the admiral, whose age she estimated to be close to ninety. The pianist slid his fingers across the keys in a fast riff, and the group joined him in a rendition of “Lover Come Back to Me” that, to her estimation, equaled any that she’d heard. And she considered herself a good judge, inasmuch as she had at least six recordings of the piece. As they played, she shook her head. She hadn’t dreamed that Luther was so talented, and that he played so well and with such abandon.
He’s in his element, she thought to herself, but the thought troubled her. He belonged among these men. He was at home among them, and she needed to know whether to attribute that to their common experience as servicemen or to their being disabled.
As he drove her home, she asked him, “Is that a club for disabled servicemen only?”
His head snapped around at the question, but he immediately turned his attention to the business of driving. “No. It’s an officers’ club. Some of the officers hang out in the second basement, down in the gym and around the pool, and some were probably upstairs reading or writing, maybe asleep. No card playing, music or loud noise is allowed up there. Most of the men who frequent the second floor are disabled, and they tend to give each other moral support.”
“They were so cheerful. If I had the handicap of some of those men, trust me I wouldn’t be smiling. One guy was hurrying home to his wife. He went to the club to let his buddies know he got married last weekend. Another has married and fathered a child since he lost his right hand and a part of his arm. Luther, I am never going to complain again about anything. Imagine a man who lost both legs and can’t wear a prosthesis starting an Internet business and making a good living for himself and his four children.”
“I told you that coming here these past few weeks has changed my outlook on life. I no longer consider myself disabled, Ruby. Not when I see how those men go about life as if they didn’t have a handicap, accepting themselves as they are, marrying, raising families and working. I feel like genuflecting in their presence.”
She wanted to ask why he had wanted her to see those men, to meet them and talk with them. If she were his fiancée, she’d know his motive; those men were as brothers to him, indeed, several had served under his command. But she wasn’t engaged to him, and didn’t see a likelihood that she would be. I won’t ask him. If I’m patient, eventually I’ll know.
“By the way,” he said during a lull in their conversation. “Charles dropped the suit against me. We had a family conference and we spanked Charles thoroughly. He said you called and blasted him. Thanks for that.”
“It’s the least I can do, after everything you’ve done for me.”
Luther parked in front of Ruby’s house, got out, walked around the car and let a half smile float across his face when he saw her getting out of the car.
He walked with her to the front door and waited while she unlocked it. She stepped inside and looked at him.
“It’s been an interesting evening, Luther. I know I’m supposed to take something from it, and I’ll eventually figure out what that is. Good night.”
“Thanks for coming with me tonight. I’ll be in touch,” he said. He looked at her for a long time, almost as if memorizing her features, before he said, “Good-night.”
Ruby shut the door and went upstairs, muttering, “If he wants to punish himself, he’s welcome. But he’d better not wait too long to get over whatever’s holding him back.” She’d just taken off her suit when the phone rang. A glance at her watch told her that it was a quarter past ten, so the caller had to be one of her sisters. “Hello.”
“Hi, sis,” Amber said. “Can you come out next weekend? Some of our neighbors are giving a garden party on Saturday to introduce me to the local women. These people drink from dusk till dawn, and we’re not into that. Can you come?”
Ruby laughed. “Now that I’m the only one of us who’s single, I can be called upon at the last minute to dash across the country, eh? Okay. I’ll see you Friday night.”
She found herself looking forward to it, despite all the work at the office.
On Friday she went to work with her suitcase in tow, worked until eleven o’clock, took a taxi to the airport and boarded the plane at twenty minutes after two.
“I’m a fortunate man to have such a beautiful seatmate,” a deep, masculine voice beside her said. She looked up to see a tall, good-looking brother putting his carry-on luggage in the overhead bin.
I am definitely not going to spend five hours talking trash with this brother, she said to herself.
She looked over as he sat down, saw the ring on the third finger of his left hand and decided to put him in his place. “I’m going to sleep as soon as this plane takes off. I don’t like flying out west, and I hate making small talk. Have a pleasant trip.”
The man’s head turned very slowly in her direction, and he saw only as much of her as his peripheral vision would allow. He held that pose until evidently satisfied that he had communicated his distaste for her and then crossed his knees, opened his paper and began to read as if he had dismissed her. She’d always thought it bad manners to snicker, but in this case it was unavoidable.
Nearly three hours into the flight, the plane encountered turbulence, and the ride became bumpy. Ruby’s first thought was of Luther and how he would feel if the plane didn’t land safely. She told herself that a man couldn’t make love to a woman as he did to her if he didn’t love her. So what was wrong with them? Why couldn’t they admit to loving each other? He was holding something against her, and she’d give anything to know what it was.
At the moment, Luther was examining his reasons for cooling things between Ruby and him. They seemed to drift farther apart, and he didn’t want that. He got a pad and pencil from the desk in his den, and listed what he liked about Ruby. On the other side of the page, he listed the things about her that displeased him. Reading to himself later, he shook his head in amazement. He had written in the first column: I love her face, smile, height, walk, figure; the shape of her breasts and the way they taste; her voice, laugh; her hands and the way they feel on my body; her intelligence, wit, sharp mind, independence; the way she responds to me; the way she made love to me; her cheesecake, honesty, loyalty.
What didn’t he like about her? He listed two points: She doesn’t seem proud to be with me the way I am of her, and I don’t think she’s ready to settle for a man with my disability.
He walked over to the window and stared out at the snowflakes as they hit the window pane and died there. The things he didn’t like about her were things he couldn’t prove. He only sensed them, and he could be wrong. They needed to sit together in a moment of truth and reach an understanding. He loved her, and he believed she loved him. Still, their relationship had gone nowhere.
He had never told anyone how he felt about Ruby, not even her. Maybe the two of them were guilty of plural ignorance. After thinking a long while about the possible consequences, he
phoned his father.
“Hi, Dad. Where’s Mom?”
“She’s at her sewing circle. You need to talk with her?”
“No. I want to talk with you privately.”
After a lengthy pause, Jack Biggens said, “I’m here for you, son. What is it?”
“I wouldn’t tell you this, but I just can’t get a handle on it, and it’s getting worse.”
“Start at the beginning.”
“Ruby and I have always been pals, but I’ve been in love with her since I was nineteen. I waited for her to grow up, and I figured that when I graduated from the academy, I’d go after her. But she’d gotten involved with someone, and that left her bruised, so to speak.”
“Go on.”
“You’re not surprised?”
“Not a bit. Go on.”
“I escorted her to Opal and D’marcus’s wedding reception, and later, something happened between us. She swears she was cold sober, and that she did what she always wanted to do. I only have to touch her, and she goes up in flames. But I get the impression that she’s ashamed of a relationship with me, at least where her family is concerned. I kissed her in front of Amber and she was annoyed. I am also uncertain as to whether this prosthesis repulses her. Right now, we’re barely speaking. A couple of nights ago, I took her to the officers’ club and let her see disabled servicemen leading useful lives.”
“What was her reaction to that?”
“I don’t know. She told me she knew she was supposed to learn something from it, and that she’d figure it out.”
“I see. Does she know you love her?”
“She may have guessed, but I haven’t told her.”
“And she hasn’t told you how she feels. Right?”
“Right.”
“It doesn’t take an Einstein to figure this out, son. Stop playing it safe. With women, you have to take a chance. They see themselves as vulnerable in regard to men, and they are. Tell her how you feel. When she knows that you love her, she’ll be ready to tell the whole world. A woman like Ruby doesn’t respond to a man as you say she responds to you unless she loves the man.”
Forbidden Temptation Page 17
