Priceless Marriage

by Bonnie Gardner

  RUBY PUT THE POTATOES on to boil, then placed a couple of ham steaks in a skillet to cook. In all the excitement of the afternoon, she’d forgotten to get anything else started, and this was as quick as anything. With gravy and a can of peas, the meal would be filling. And working on putting together the meal would serve to keep her mind off what she’d just learned.

  Her eyes still burned, but she’d finally managed to stop crying, even if she did have to swallow an occasional sob. Maybe Sam could forgive her, but Ruby wasn’t sure she could forgive herself. Her hasty actions had sent him out in an emotional tailspin and had surely been the cause of the carelessness that had led to his injury.

  Fresh tears filled her eyes, and Ruby shut them quickly to stanch the flow. “No,” she told herself sternly. “You are not going to do this anymore. You are going to feed Sam a filling dinner and then send him home. Then you can think about it. Then you can blame yourself all you want.”

  “Blame yourself about what?”

  Ruby spun around, to see Sam standing in the doorway. She wondered how much of her impromptu lecture he’d heard, but rationalized that it mustn’t have been much or he wouldn’t have asked. “Nothing,” she said airily. “I was just giving myself a little pep talk.” She turned back to the ham sizzling in the skillet. “Supper will be ready soon.”

  “No hurry,” Sam said, making himself at home in the kitchen. He reached into the cabinets above the counter and collected plates and glasses, then set them on the table. Then he went back for flatware.

  They worked together in companionable silence, in a scene that seemed so familiar, yet so alien, considering their recent circumstances. Still, Ruby liked the feeling. It was almost like old times.

  Finally, Sam broke the mood. “Ham? How are you going to face Oscar and Petunia?”

  “What?” Ruby turned to look at him.

  Sam arched an eyebrow, cocked his head toward the skillet, then grinned.

  “Oh. The ham.” Ruby felt her face go warm, and she didn’t know why. “It isn’t as though I’d met the pig that donated these particular hams, Sam,” she finally said. “I’m not a vegetarian, you know.” She shrugged. “I guess I just get attached to things too quickly. I hate to lose them.”

  “Something tells me we’re not talking entirely about Petunia and the kids,” Sam said, playing with the utensils he’d already set on the table.

  “No, I suppose I’m not.” Ruby tested the potatoes, then switched off the burner below them. “I just have to mash the potatoes and we can eat.”

  Sam didn’t press the issue, and Ruby didn’t elaborate. She wasn’t really sure what she’d meant, and she didn’t want to have to explain. She just quietly mashed the potatoes, then put them on the table.

  She wanted to get supper over with. As much as she loved Sam, she needed him to leave. She had so much to think about. So much to deal with.

  And she couldn’t think clearly—not about them, anyway—with Sam so close.

  “SUPPER WAS GREAT, as usual, Ruby,” Sam said, picking up his plate and carrying it to the sink. “Even if you were being disloyal to Petunia and the kids.” He winked and placed the dishes in the sudsy water.

  “I wish you’d drop that bit about the pigs. I hate being reminded that my food was once walking around.” Ruby cocked her head toward the scraps on her plate. She pushed herself up and carried her plate to the counter. “Sorry there’s no dessert,” she said as she scraped her plate into the trash.

  “Really? You haven’t made dessert once since I’ve been here.” Sam wondered if there was a hidden meaning in that message. Did Ruby want him to stay longer?

  “I don’t feel like I gave you enough to eat. It was just potatoes and ham and peas, and you worked hard all day.”

  “Providing entertainment for you and Melinda and Oscar. I swear that pig was laughing at me.”

  Ruby chuckled. “Well, it was funny. And I wouldn’t be surprised if Oscar hadn’t been toying with you. You know, pigs are supposed to be very intelligent animals.”

  “Smart enough to get you to wait on them hand and foot,” Sam agreed. “And to keep them away from the butcher.”

  “Don’t remind me of that.” Ruby shuddered. “Are you sure you’ve had enough to eat?”

  “I’m not hungry, Ruby. At least, not for dessert.” Sam turned back to the sinkful of dishes. He didn’t want Ruby to see the yearning in his eyes.

  “I know, Sam,” she said, and he knew she understood. He also understood why she couldn’t give him what he wanted.

  He understood it, but he didn’t have to like it. “Well, as soon as my pants are dry, I’ll go and leave you alone.” He rinsed a plate under running water. “You drying?”

  “What?” Ruby looked as though she were a million miles away. “Oh. The dishes. Sure, I’ll dry.” She took a towel out of a drawer and reached for the plate he’d just rinsed.

  The clothes dryer was still going when they’d finished the dishes. That was fine with Sam. It would give him a little more time with Ruby. “Well, all done,” he said, when she had put the last dish away. “What should we do now?” He braced both hands on the counter, trapping Ruby between them. Maybe it would work.

  Ruby turned, then stopped, realizing the box he’d placed her in. “What are you doing, Sam?” she said, impatiently trying to cover her discomfort. “I don’t have time for this silliness.”

  “Silliness? You seemed pretty serious earlier.” Sam reluctantly pulled back and let Ruby go free.

  She brushed past him. “Look, Sam. Your clothes are still not dry, but you’re decent enough. Wear the sweats back to the apartment. You can bring them back in the morning. It wouldn’t hurt for you to have a change of clothes here, considering….”

  She didn’t finish, but Sam could see the beginnings of a smile play around her mouth.

  “Considering that Petunia and Oscar and the others still live here, and farming is a messy business,” he finished. Sam sent up a silent “hoo-ah!” If he had extra clothes here, would a toothbrush be far behind? No, it was too soon, so he’d best quit while he was ahead. “Good idea,” he said, nodding his head toward the gray sweats. “I’ll wash these tonight and bring them back in the morning.”

  “No need, Sam. It’s just as easy for me to do it with the rest of the wash. I’ll see you in the morning.”

  “Maybe not,” Sam said. “I think I’m going to go poke around the pavilion a little while before I come over.” He stopped. “Damn. I forgot to ask Melinda about the night it fell while she was here.”

  “She’s not going anywhere. Just call her,” Ruby said.

  “Maybe I will.” Sam collected his wallet and car keys off the bathroom sink, then returned to the kitchen. Ruby was standing by the door, looking like a host eager to get rid of a houseguest who had stayed too long. He brushed past her, but instead of going out, he caught her in his arms and kissed her soundly. Then he let go. “See ya,” he said, and hurried out the door.

  Sam glanced back over his shoulder long enough to see the half smile on Ruby’s lips. Yeah, he’d gotten to her. And he was damned pleased with himself. He was making progress. It might be a little slower than he would have wanted, but progress it was. He’d kissed his wife, and she hadn’t pushed him away this time.

  “Hoo-ah!” he cheered as he slid into the car. “Hoo-ah!”

  IT WASN’T UNTIL SAM HAD driven away and Ruby had settled herself in bed that more questions about his injury surfaced. How could he have been injured so severely and she not have known?

  When had it happened?

  And why, after that phone call the night she’d learned their numbers had won, had it taken so many months for Sam to finally come home?

  Ruby punched her pillows and tried to make herself comfortable in her bed. Funny, she’d never slept with Sam in this bed, but now it seemed empty. Now it seemed as if sleeping alone in a bed meant for two was wrong.

  No. Ruby sat upright and shook her head. She was not going to let Sam b
ack into her heart…or her bed…until she had all the answers. Until she knew exactly what he expected from her and what she could expect from him. Until then, she was going to proceed with the divorce as if nothing had happened between them. She was going to continue with her plans for the rest of her life without Sam.

  Until he proved that he was going to stay.

  Ruby yawned and stretched and again tried to make herself a comfortable nest in her bed. At least Sam had said he’d be late in the morning, so if she did have trouble sleeping—and she had no doubt she would—she wouldn’t have to worry about Sam finding out about it.

  Or asking questions.

  Besides, she still had too many of her own.

  SAM DIDN’T REALLY KNOW what he was looking for around the fallen pavilion. He wasn’t an engineer and he knew nothing about construction, and he sure was too late for finding prints of any kind.

  Still, he felt he needed to look at it to get a feel for what had really happened. When he reached the site, he realized that this was a wasted effort. The debris had already been removed, leaving nothing there but a patch of bare earth and a few scattered scraps of charred wood.

  He parked the Corvette by the edge of the road and looked at the spot from the window. A few tattered remnants of yellow crime scene tape littered the ground, but the relentless spring winds had long since taken care of most of the tape. As if a couple of strips of plastic tape would keep anybody out. Sam would bet that every citizen of Jester over the age of three had probably poked around the ruins.

  He got out of the car and stepped closer. The wood had been gray and weathered or even rotten, and the structure might easily have collapsed from the weight of the snow. So why would anyone try to burn it? Luke did say he had an engineer’s report that confirmed his suspicion about the bolts being tampered with.

  Sam squatted and tried to get a feel for the place, looking for some sign that might tell him something, anything. Most of the burnt debris had been removed already, but he hoped he could find some tiny shred of evidence that had not been cleared away. He focused on one section of broken timber and spotted what looked like the remains of a bolt. He ran his finger over the broken edge. It was smooth.

  He might not be an engineer, but even Sam could tell that this bolt had not broken by accident. It would have been sharp or rough.

  “Not much to see, is there?”

  Sam looked up as Luke McNeil approached him, trailed by a young woman he didn’t recognize. Sam pushed himself to his feet and shielded his eyes from the morning sun as he waited for Luke to reach him. “Nope. I don’t know what I expected to find, but I thought maybe I’d get a feel for something.” He shrugged. “Nothing jumped out at me.”

  “Yeah. That’s the same feeling I get every time I look at this. I have proof it was tampered with, I have my suspicions, but I can’t pin anything on anyone.” Luke must have realized that Sam was looking at the woman with him, because he stopped. “Oh, Sam Cade, have you met Jennifer Faulkner? She’s Henry Faulkner’s granddaughter.”

  The woman, tall and slender, with a more polished, elegant look than most of the women in Jester, smiled at him and offered her hand. “So you’re the mysterious man who’s been nosing around town.”

  Sam grinned as he closed his hand around her fingers. “I must be losing my touch if you noticed me. I was trying to come in under the radar.” Her grip was firm, and she met his gaze with startlingly blue eyes.

  “No, you’re not losing your touch. Luke told me. I’m too much of a newcomer around here to recognize if anything is amiss. I had only come here recently to settle my grandfather’s estate,” she explained.

  “But I talked her into staying,” Luke said, with a look on his face that was anything but professional.

  Sam wondered if something was going on between the two, but he didn’t know either one well enough to ask, and neither volunteered any details. Of course, he could ask Ruby. She’d know.

  With the gossip brought in by the customers at the Mercantile, there was nothing that happened in town that Ruby didn’t hear about sooner or later. The Jester grapevine was nothing if not efficient. If Ruby hadn’t heard it firsthand, co-owner Honor Lassiter would have and passed the news on.

  Funny how the Jester grapevine worked. Everyone seemed to know everything. Except about who’d tampered with the bolts on the pavilion and who’d tried to burn it.

  “Well, it was nice meeting you, Jennifer,” Sam said. He turned to Luke. “I guess I’m not going to find anything out here, and Ruby needs me to help her at the farm while that Nick guy is out of town. What do you know about him?” he asked as an afterthought.

  “Not much,” Luke said. “Seems like a nice enough fellow. Showed up after Ruby bought the old Tanner farm. He’s been helping her with the remodeling. Seems to know his business. Doesn’t come into town much, and when he does, he’s alone.”

  That should have satisfied Sam, but somehow it didn’t. He couldn’t imagine Ruby taking up with a drifter, but if Luke didn’t know anything about him, Sam reckoned he’d best keep his eyes on the man. It wouldn’t be the first time some two-bit con man eased his way into a lonely woman’s affections and cheated her out of all her money. And that insinuation in the newspaper had done nothing to assuage Sam’s suspicions.

  Of course, he’d seen nothing that would indicate that those were Nick’s intentions, yet he could not forget finding Ruby in the man’s arms the first day he’d gone out to the farm. Or the way he’d tucked her hair so tenderly behind her ear. As if he had every right to.

  But from now on, Sam was bound and determined to keep Ruby from easing her loneliness in anyone’s arms but his.

  “Well, I guess I’ll head on out. Ruby’s counting on me,” Sam said lamely. “I’ll try to do some poking around tonight.”

  “Good enough, Sam,” Luke said. “Like I said, I’ve got my suspicions, but I don’t have anything concrete. Anything you find out could help.” He took Jennifer by the waist in a courtly manner and steered her back toward his vehicle, parked behind the Corvette.

  “Later,” Sam said. “I’ll see what I can dig up.” And maybe I just might do some digging around about Nick Folger, too, he thought.

  LATER THAT MORNING, Ruby hummed contentedly to herself as she puttered with the growing trays in the greenhouse. This was to be her first paying crop, and she couldn’t wait to deliver her first order to Gwen Tanner, who was looking for something other than iceberg lettuce to serve in the boardinghouse.

  “There you are.”

  She jerked around, pulling up more than one lettuce sprout as she did. “Sam, I didn’t hear the car drive up. You startled me.”

  Sam kissed her quickly on the lips, then stepped back. “Sorry about that, but you were making such a racket that you wouldn’t have heard a train wreck.”

  “I was not,” she answered indignantly. Sam had always teased her about her humming, and it felt wonderful to fall into that familiar routine. “Did you learn anything out at the pavilion?”

  “Not about the pavilion,” he said, pinching off a sprout and sticking it into his mouth. “Luke McNeil was with a very attractive woman, however. It seemed more than a casual acquaintance,” he said, munching on the sprout and reaching for another.

  “Stop that,” she said, slapping his hand away. “I have a paying customer for these greens, and you’re eating up all my profits.” Ruby picked up her pile of discards and thrust them toward Sam. “Here. If you’re hungry, go rinse these off. I bet that was Jennifer Faulkner. She and Luke were childhood sweethearts, but Jen moved away. They picked back up when she came back to settle her grandfather’s estate. Now, they’re engaged.”

  Sam arched an eyebrow. “Seems to be going around. First Shelly from the Brimming Cup, then Melinda Hartman. Is there something in the water?” He stopped. “Who’s going to buy these twigs, anyway?”

  “Gwen Tanner. She wants to serve them in the boardinghouse. She’s trying to get a little more upscale with her m
enus.”

  “In Jester? Who’s going to eat the stuff?” Sam paused. “Speaking of Gwen, when did she get married? Is she part of the marriage boom, too? I couldn’t help noticing that she’s obviously pregnant, yet I haven’t met her husband.”

  Ruby pulled off her gardening gloves and grimaced. “Ooh,” she said, shaking her head. “That’s a touchy subject. Gwen’s not married, and she won’t say anything about the father. She’s just going to raise the child alone, and fixing up the boardinghouse is part of her plan. Not that she really needs to depend on the income from the boardinghouse, what with her part of the lottery money, but she likes to cook and prepare the meals, and she’s been enjoying using her money to decorate the place.”

  Sam leaned back against the growing trays, resting his hands on the edge. “Yeah, well, the boardinghouse is getting a little too elegant for my taste.”

  “Well, it’s Gwen’s place, and she didn’t ask you.” Ruby wished they could steer this conversation to another topic. She was so envious of Gwen and her pregnancy, husband or no. Ruby had longed to be a mother for so long, but she’d never had the courage to become pregnant. Not with Sam going away on those dangerous secret missions so often. Not when she had been so afraid that she might be left to raise the child alone.

  Gwen was so much braver than she was. Had Gwen purposely gotten pregnant now that she knew she’d have the money to take care of a child? Ruby’s own biological clock had been silently ticking away for years while she waited and hoped that Sam would finally come home to stay. Now she wondered if maybe it was too late, and she’d never get the chance to be a mother.

  Chapter Nine

  A day later Sam still couldn’t help feeling pleased with himself that Ruby had insisted he leave an extra set of clothes at her place. He grinned widely as he drove through the open countryside toward the farm. Though he’d promised himself that he wouldn’t push it, he had the shaving kit he’d always kept stocked and ready for middle-of-the-night alerts stashed in the small trunk of the Corvette. It never hurt to be prepared.