Priceless Marriage

by Bonnie Gardner

Sam paused at the door. “Thanks for dinner, Ruby.” He turned to Nick. “Good working with you.”

  Nick just nodded, and Sam felt he had to say something else to Ruby. “Same time in the morning, then?”

  Ruby, who seemed distracted, looked up. “What?”

  “Do you want me here at the same time tomorrow?” he repeated, more slowly this time.

  “Oh, no. Nick’s taking me to Pine Run to pick up some supplies. He has the truck,” she said by way of explanation. “Since the Seed ’n Feed in Jester closed, we have to go to Pine Run for that sort of stuff. The hardware store doesn’t have everything we need so it’s easier to go to Pine Run than wait for Faulkner’s to get it,” Ruby explained. “I expect it will be an all-day trip.”

  “Anything you need me to do out here?”

  “Not a thing that can’t wait,” Ruby said.

  A day off was not what he wanted. He’d much rather be going to Pine Run with Ruby, but Sam knew this would be a battle he couldn’t win. Couldn’t get much in the way of supplies into his Corvette. And so far, Sam had seen no indication that Nick was making moves on his wife. He just hoped Nick wouldn’t wait until they were out of town and out of sight.

  Considering the stiffness in muscles he hadn’t used in a long time, maybe he could use the time to recuperate and regenerate. And he’d go to the library, or maybe Ex-Libris, the bookstore, and see what he could learn about farming. He feigned a salute, turned and headed out into the falling darkness.

  Damn, he wished there was a way to get rid of that Nick fellow. Or at least know what his intentions were. It was too damned soon to confront the man. But Sam sure would like to know what Nick was up to, especially since he and Ruby were going to be alone together all day tomorrow. Ruby had won a lot of money. What if Nick was just itching to get his hands on it?

  A million dollars might seem like a pretty good motive for a man to woo a woman, even one half as beautiful as Ruby. Sam would have to keep an eye on “Just Nick.”

  Sam slid into the Corvette and started the engine. He had to come up with a way to show Ruby that he meant what he’d told her about staying, he decided. A sure sign of his intention to stay would be to get rid of the Corvette and replace it with a more practical vehicle. The Corvette might be great on the open highway, especially with Montana’s “reasonable speed” laws, but it sure wasn’t fit for these back country roads.

  But he loved this car, he thought as he drove slowly out onto the rutted dirt road that led from the house to the highway. He wouldn’t do anything rash right now.

  As he drove slowly through town, he noticed signs of the new prosperity brought by the lottery win. Some of the street names had changed, but it was more than just renaming streets Mega-Bucks Boulevard or Lottery Lane. The shabbiness seemed to have gone—as had the old pavilion in the park. It had looked as though it was ready to fall down last time he’d visited Ruby in Jester. Maybe it had collapsed before the town had come into its unexpected good fortune.

  It seemed as if the townspeople and merchants had gone whole-hog and pulled out their Sunday best, dressing up the town to the nines. Hell, that corroded green horse statue in front of the town hall had been cleaned and polished until it shone like a new penny.

  Sam laughed out loud. But, Cozy’s Drugstore was already closed. He still couldn’t get a box of Epsom salts on the way back to Gwen’s. So much had changed, yet so little.

  Still, if he was going to win his wife back, he was going to have to come to terms with the town of Jester, Montana—with what it had to offer and what it didn’t. Ruby, for better or worse, loved it here, and he loved Ruby. He truly did. So he’d best get used to it.

  Sam parked in front of the boardinghouse and went inside. He reckoned he’d have plenty of time to figure out just what he could do to make sure that Nick was out of the picture.

  And he was back in it.

  Chapter Four

  “All right, Nick, you win, but four o’clock seems awfully early to eat.” After her trip to Pine Run, Ruby let Nick talk her into stopping at the Brimming Cup for supper.

  Her shopping expedition had been successful, but tiring, so she was just as happy to let Dan Bertram cook for her as to do it herself. But being in town made it more likely that she’d run into Sam. And she was still dealing with her feelings about Sam’s sudden appearance in Jester after so long.

  “It won’t be that crowded yet, and besides, you’re a woman of means,” Nick said as he steered the truck into a parking slot in front of the diner. “You can afford to let others do for you now and then.”

  Ruby had almost talked herself into being excited about eating dinner in town, then she noticed who was coming out of Ex-Libris, the bookstore, just down the street. Sam!

  Her husband had never been much of a reader, and Ruby couldn’t imagine what he’d be doing at a bookstore. Of course, Amanda Devlin, the owner, kept a tray of goodies baked by Gwen Tanner on hand for her customers. And considering Sam’s insatiable sweet tooth, maybe that was the reason. But he was carrying a paper sack. Amanda didn’t sell cookies, just books. “I wonder what he’s doing there,” Ruby said, not realizing she’d voiced her curiosity out loud.

  “Who?” Nick said, cutting the engine. He followed the direction of Ruby’s gaze. “Oh. Sam.”

  Sam must have seen the truck, for he crossed the street and headed their way, raising a hand to wave. “So much for avoiding Sam all day,” Ruby muttered as she pushed the truck door open. Besides, she wanted to know what her almost-ex-husband had clutched in the sack in his other hand.

  He caught up with them in front of the Brimming Cup.

  Hoping that Sam was just being friendly before continuing on his way to Gwen’s boardinghouse, Ruby managed a smile. “I see you’ve been to the bookstore,” she said, nodding in the direction of the bag.

  “Yeah, thought I’d better bone up on organic farming,” he said. “Got a couple of general interest books on gardening, and I ordered some on organics. I might have grown up in a farming community in Georgia, but my folks were schoolteachers,” he continued by way of explanation. “And peanuts are not exactly the same as organic vegetables,” he added.

  “I see,” Ruby said. She guessed she’d have to give Sam points for trying. “Does that mean you’ll finally be able to tell the difference between a petunia and a pansy?” she added with a mischievous grin.

  “Probably not, but I might be able to tell a daisy from a dandelion.”

  Ruby chuckled, and Nick arched an eyebrow in question, so she guessed she’d have to explain. “Once when we were in base housing in Florida, Sam helped me weed a flower bed. However, he pulled all the plant seedlings and left the weeds.”

  “Well, the weeds were bigger….” Sam said, shrugging sheepishly.

  “But the seedlings were all lined up in a row.”

  Nick looked as though he were trying to suppress a smile, but to his credit, he didn’t laugh.

  “Needless to say, I was not amused.”

  “Not amused? Hell, she threw a genuine hissy fit. And that’s the last time Ruby asked me to help her with her flower beds.”

  “And I’m pretty sure you did that on purpose so I wouldn’t ask you anymore,” Ruby said, hitting Sam playfully on the arm. Then, realizing what she’d done, she shoved her hand self-consciously into her pocket.

  Nick started to go into the diner, but Ruby shook her head slightly in a gesture she hoped Sam wouldn’t notice. Dinner with Sam last night had been too strained, and she didn’t want to do it again quite so soon. Gwen put on a good spread at the boardinghouse. Ruby hoped that Sam would continue on to Gwen’s and leave her and Nick to eat in peace.

  “You going to eat at the Brimming Cup?” Leave it to Sam to get right to the point.

  Ruby had no choice but to nod.

  “Yeah,” Nick said. “You want to join us?”

  Ruby could have kicked him for issuing the invitation. Instead she shot him a pointed glare.

  “Thank you. I
think I will. Gwen is cooking up some French dish for supper. I wasn’t looking forward to it.” Sam all but shuddered, and Ruby smiled, remembering Sam’s aversion to European cuisine. “I’m thinking a big fat burger sounds good.”

  “You would,” Ruby muttered. Her husband had always been a meat-and-potatoes man. “Dan does cook up a good meat loaf. But it goes fast. We’d better get inside before the place fills up,” she said, resigned. “I guess it is good that we’re here so early. It can be standing room only on Friday nights.” And the sooner they ate, the sooner she could make her excuses and head for home.

  Of course, she’d still have to deal with her feelings about Sam—not to mention her sexual attraction to him—tomorrow when he showed up at the farm to work.

  Nick pushed open the diner door and the bell tinkled, announcing their arrival. Ruby guessed there was no turning back now. There was no way she was going to offend Dan Bertram, the cook, by leaving. Though everyone in Jester knew that Dan’s bark was far worse than his bite, he could come across like a pit bull and would surely grouse about her rudeness for weeks.

  She’d do anything to prevent that. Even choke down a meal with her ex-husband.

  The threesome stepped inside.

  There were three spots open at the counter—not all side by side, Ruby noted—and none of the four tables or six booths were empty. She made a beeline for an empty stool beside Seth Hollis, who seemed more interested in waitress Valerie Simms than in his dinner. The stool on the other side was taken by a man she didn’t know. Then someone touched her arm.

  Ruby looked over her shoulder as Sam’s hand closed around her elbow. “This one is about to be empty,” he said, nodding toward a front booth at the large glass window, where a man was signaling to the waitress for his check.

  Valerie hurried to the table with the bill. “I’ll have this table cleaned up in a jiffy and you can sit,” she said, glancing over her shoulder toward Sam.

  “No hurry,” he said pleasantly. Nick just watched as Valerie accepted the cash, made change and stepped back so the couple could leave.

  As promised, Valerie had the table cleared and wiped down in no time. Sam gestured for Ruby to sit, and then slid in right beside her, giving Nick no choice but to take the bench across from them.

  Maybe it was dirty pool, Sam thought, but he had to figure out a way to get close to Ruby. And near her he was. Though there was ample room on the padded, blue vinyl seat, he crowded close to her so that they were hip to hip. He felt a pleasant, electric tingle as he edged up to her and their bodies touched. Then he drew in a deep breath of the raspberry shower soap Ruby always used, and his groin tightened. He hadn’t noticed it before. Had she saved it for the occasion of going to town? Or for Nick? Ruby seemed to stiffen, but she didn’t draw away.

  It was a damned good thing he was sitting down, or his feelings for his wife would be out there for all the good folks of Jester to see. Reluctantly, Sam scooted an inch or two away. He was still close enough so that a deep breath on either of their parts could leave them touching, but for now, he was safe.

  He accepted the plastic-covered menu Valerie handed him, but only pretended to peruse it. He knew what he wanted: a fat, juicy burger and fries. And Ruby. And not necessarily in that order.

  Ruby, too, seemed to be studying the menu. Sam knew it was a pretense for his benefit, because the menu at the Brimming Cup probably hadn’t changed in twenty years. If not longer. Ruby gnawed at her lip, a slight frown wrinkling her alabaster forehead, a sure sign that something was bothering her. Sam was pretty certain it wasn’t what to pick from the restaurant menu.

  He smiled to himself, then looked up at Valerie, who waited patiently, her order pad in hand. “I’ll have a burger, rare, and fries,” he said. “I don’t suppose you could scare up some iced tea for me, could you, sugar?” He flashed her a grin.

  Valerie looked puzzled. “Iced tea? That isn’t on the menu.”

  Ruby smiled and shook her head slowly. “It’s okay, Valerie. My darling husband is a foreigner. Where he comes from they have iced tea with everything.”

  “Not to mention co-cola for breakfast,” Sam interjected, grinning. He loved the fact that she’d referred to him as her “darling husband.” It just about made his day.

  Making a face at Sam, Ruby continued. “Just bring Sam a cup of hot tea and a couple of glasses of ice. He can take it from there.”

  “Sure,” Valerie said, then jotted down the other orders.

  At least Ruby remembered what to do when good, sweet Southern iced tea wasn’t available, Sam thought. If he was going to survive in this one-horse town, he was going to have to teach Dan how to make decent iced tea and cornbread. But, he guessed, he’d have to wait until he was certain he would be staying.

  RUBY FELT AS THOUGH she’d been tied up in knots for hours instead of maybe thirty minutes. She poked at the pile of green beans left on her plate. Sitting so close to Sam had resurrected all those old feelings she’d hoped to suppress. Whenever she was close to him, her heart seemed to beat faster, the air seemed thinner and it was all she could do to eat. If she kept this up, she’d be nothing but skin and bones in the space of a week.

  She looked away from the half-eaten meat loaf dinner, now cold and unappetizing, and sighed. She’d managed to swallow enough to keep from offending Dan, but what she’d eaten had tasted more like plastic packing peanuts than real food. The lack of flavor had nothing to do with Dan’s good cooking or her desire for food, but the feelings for Sam that she still found impossible to quell.

  It would be so easy to fall in love with him again—as if she had ever fallen out. It would be so easy to let Sam back into her life. But she would be holding her breath wondering if, one day, he’d decide that sleepy Jester, Montana, was too slow for him and he needed more excitement.

  What was she going to do?

  “You haven’t eaten much, kid,” Nick said. “What’s got you off your feed?”

  Ruby shook her head. “Nothing,” she murmured. “Just tired after a busy day.” Oh great, she thought. Just what she needed—having Nick point out that she hadn’t eaten with her usual gusto. She knew full well that Sam would remember her lack of appetite meant she had something on her mind. “You know I had a big lunch in Pine Run,” she added, hoping that Sam wouldn’t see through her flimsy excuse. He knew she’d always had a healthy appetite.

  And she knew that his confident military ego would allow him to see very quickly that he was the cause of her lack of appetite. He would be quick to take two and two and come up with four. He would have to know that she still wanted him.

  She laid her fork down and sighed.

  Sam covered her hand with his. “It’s all right, Ruby. You don’t have to eat if you don’t want to.”

  Ruby wanted to pull her hand away. She hated the way Sam’s touch made her skin tingle and turned her brain to mush. No, that was a lie. She loved it. She craved it, but she didn’t want to feel that way now, when she needed to be able to think clearly. And she didn’t need to show him that he bothered her so.

  He already knew, anyway.

  Sam patted her hand and signaled to Valerie. “How ’bout you fix up a piece of Shelly’s Dutch apple pie over there to go? Ruby can have some later if she gets hungry.”

  Valerie looked at her for confirmation, and all Ruby could do was nod her head. There, he’d done it again. Sam knew that she was a sucker for Shelly Dupree O’Rourke’s signature pie, and he knew that she’d be starved later. Valerie scurried away.

  Sam patted her hand, and Ruby felt herself go all soft inside. The only thing that was keeping her from throwing herself in Sam’s arms was the fact that they were sitting across the table from Nick. The only thing that was keeping her from begging Sam to take her and make mad, passionate love to her was that they were in full view of the staff and patrons of the Brimming Cup diner. And her own stubborn pride.

  “Don’t do that,” she snapped, angry that Sam could evoke such sensations in the
middle of a public diner.

  “Sorry…!” Sam said. “You used to like it when I touched you.”

  He lifted his hand, and suddenly Ruby could think rationally again. At the same time, she felt oddly bereft at the loss of his touch. What was the matter with her? Why couldn’t she look at the man who had so disappointed her, had driven her to the brink of divorce, without aching to be in his arms?

  “I liked to eat library paste in second grade, but I got over it,” Ruby retorted.

  Valerie returned with a good-size piece of dessert on a cardboard plate, covered with plastic wrap. She handed it to Ruby. “Will there be anything else?”

  “I reckon that’ll do it,” Sam said, taking charge as usual. He slid out of the booth and looked over at Nick. “You take our Ruby home and see to it that she gets plenty of rest, and I’ll be out at the farm at first light.”

  Nick reached for his wallet, but Sam shook his head. “No, this one’s on me,” he said, and Ruby looked up with a start.

  Ruby could feel Sam’s eyes burning into hers. “Sam, I can certainly pay for my dinner,” she protested.

  “I know you can, Ruby,” he said in that seductive Southern drawl of his. “But I reckon you’ll need every penny of those lottery winnings to make that farm a go. Consider this my contribution to the cause.”

  “My winnings?” Ruby stared at him. He was looking so doggoned self-righteous. Why was he making such a big deal about the money?

  “I have a big ol’ military pension of my own. I can’t live high on the hog, but I won’t starve,” Sam said, as if reading her mind, and Ruby wondered if he was making a point or merely making a comment.

  Finally, Sam cleared his throat and spoke again. “So I reckon I can afford to spot you for dinner,” he said, his voice unnaturally thick. “You go on home. I’m gonna have a piece of pie and a cup of coffee before I go,” he told her. “I’ll see you in the morning.” Sam offered his hand, and Ruby accepted it as she slid out of the booth.

  His touch made her tingle, but Ruby still had a long way to go before she’d trust him with her heart again. “Thank you for the pie,” she murmured, the take-out pie clutched tightly in her hand.