by Jillian Hart
“Yer young Mr. Davis, aren’t ya?” Head down, unarmed, the rustler closed the door behind him. “I figured ya not might notice one cow missing. Guess I was wrong.”
“You don’t look like a seasoned criminal, mister.” Lorenzo’s saddle creaked as he swung down.
“Never stole nuthin’ before, and that’s the God’s truth. My wife and my son were hungry.” The man wasn’t as old as he’d first appeared, maybe twenty. Maybe younger. It was despair dragging him down and drawing lines into his gaunt face. The stranger looked like he was on the brink of starvation. “Whatever yer gonna do, do it to me. Just make sure Nan and the little ones are okay.”
The woman with the dark brown curls reappeared in the window. As she soothed her baby on her shoulder, the sunlight shone on her lean face. He’d never seen anyone look so scared.
“I don’t appreciate you stealing my family’s cow.” Lorenzo trudged closer, aware that Poncho came along with him, his friend and protector.
“Sure, I get that. What I did is wrong. I knew it at the time.” Fear rattled through him visibly. “All I can do is apologize. I can’t pay ya for the cow. I lost my job a while back. Couldn’t get another. We couldn’t keep our place, so when I saw this from the road… Why, we’re in a hard way, Mr. Davis. I couldn’t let my little boy go hungry.”
He and the stranger were not so different. They were near the same age. They both had responsibilities and loved ones to provide for. Loved ones they didn’t want to disappoint.
A toddler pulled open the door and stood staring out with wide eyes. Tears streaked his face. His mother darted into sight and snatched him back. Lorenzo noticed a dwindling pile of fresh firewood slumped against the side of the shack. An axe was sunk blade first into a downed, half-cut tree.
“Mateo, why don’t you take the cow back to the ranch? Have Cook wrap up leftover food from last night’s buffet. The Lord above knows we have enough to spare. I’m sure Mother will have a few things of her own to contribute. Put it all on a sled and bring it back here.” He didn’t turn to see the expression on his cousin’s face, but he knew Mateo understood as he rode off to fetch the cow. Standing there, Lorenzo felt his other hired men’s curiosity. “The rest of you come help me cut and stack more wood.”
“What? You mean, y-ya ain’t gonna have me arrested?” The man shook his head, disbelieving.
“Today is Christmas Eve.” He watched relief pass across the stranger’s face, saw tears spill down the wife’s. “Merry Christmas.”
Hard times came to everyone. No one was immune from them. He liked to think that if his Ruby were in the same situation someone would show her mercy. The snowflake she’d crocheted felt warm in his shirt pocket, where he kept it close to his heart.
“We’ll do what we can to help you,” he promised.
“Thank you kindly. I intend to work on yer ranch in payment.” The man swiped dampness from his eyes, embarrassed. “You don’t know what this means. My family is all I’ve got. My wife and boys, they are just everything.”
“I understand. That’s the way I love my family, too.” As he wrapped his fingers around the stout handle of the axe’s blade, he remembered what Ruby had told him. We have to be practical, you and I. My father’s spirit is broken. It’s going to take everything my brother and I can do to see him through. The full meaning behind her words hit him.
He’d just seen a glimpse of Ruby’s past and of Jon Ballard’s possible future.
The agony of his broken heart faded. He knew what he had to do. You work in strange ways, Lord, but good ones. Very, very good ones. He positioned a chunk of pine, brought the blade down into the wood, and the split pieces fell into the snow at his feet.
Ruby rapped her knuckles on Scarlet’s ornately carved front door, more nervous than she could say. How did she tell her friends she would be leaving the day after Christmas, just two days away? How could she endure saying goodbye?
Sorrow gripped her. She straightened her spine and gathered every ounce of her inner strength, but the sadness refused to let go. It held her tight in sharp claws that cut every time she breathed. There had been so many losses and many more were to come. She refused to think Lorenzo’s name, because she had to hold it together. This was a celebration, her last and her only Christmas party with her beloved friends.
“Ruby!” The door swung open and Scarlet stepped back in a swish of skirts. “We were waiting for you.”
“Sorry I’m so late. I’m still on foot these days.”
“I’ve been keeping your sweet Solomon in my prayers.” Scarlet grabbed her by the wrist, lovingly tugging her into a soaring foyer. “Come in, take off your wraps. Meredith was just saying she should have run out with her horse and sleigh to pick you up after work. I was all for that. Handsome men work on that ranch.”
“True.” Impossible to deny that. She set her bag on a nearby table, tucked her mittens and her cap into her coat pockets. “I hope I didn’t miss too much. I’ve never been to a Christmas party before.”
“No, but you’ve been to a Christmas ball. I was just telling everyone about the tree Mrs. Davis had decorated. Oh, give me that. I’ll hang it up.” Scarlet cheerfully took the old coat, treating it with care as she hung it in the closet with all the others. “Those soaring little candles and balls of colored glass. Breathtaking. Come on. We didn’t want to start without you.”
“You waited for me?” Clutching her bag, she stumbled around a maid carrying a tray of empty teacups and trailed Scarlet down a wood-paneled corridor. Open double doors led to a sunny parlor, where familiar faces turned to greet her.
“Ruby!” Everyone chorused, standing to hug her one at a time. First Fiona, with her skirt barely hiding her growing stomach. Then Meredith, alight with the happiness of a woman planning her wedding.
“I hear you looked amazing in that dress.” Lila, still wearing a newlywed glow, held her so tight. “I wish I could have seen you in it. Scarlet says you looked like a fairy-tale princess.”
“I’m no princess.” She blushed. Honestly. This was why she couldn’t help adoring her friends. They were good to her. If only she could be as good in return. “You were the one who repaired the dress so expertly. Besides, I think Scarlet was exaggerating. If Earlee had said it, I would have understood, but—”
“Wait! What does that mean?” Earlee wrapped her in a hug next.
“You see everything like a story,” Ruby pointed out. “A wonderful, happily ending story.”
“I do tend to be a little fanciful, but I can’t help it. It’s just the way my mind works.” Earlee rolled her eyes, adorable with her blond curls and sweetness. She looked particularly cheerful these days, perhaps because her job as a schoolteacher had made such a difference for her family. But that didn’t explain the sparkle of quiet joy in her blue eyes, almost as if she were in love. Interesting.
“She’s been this way as long as we’ve known her.” Kate stepped up next to give Ruby a hug. “I would have loved to have been at that ball so I could have given Narcissa a piece of my mind. Scarlet told us.”
“Saying what she did about your dress,” Scarlet explained, taking her hand and guiding her to the sofa next to her. “Come sit with me. I’ve been saving you a place. Narcissa said it loud enough that half the ballroom heard. I nearly lost it, but I remembered just in time that I was a lady.”
“You?” Kate quipped. “I’ve never seen you be ladylike before. Remember when you outran the fastest boy in the fourth grade when he pulled your braids and you took off after him?”
“You tackled him right in front of the reverend who was walking by on the street, and the next Sunday’s lecture was about self-control and the importance of restraining one’s temper.” Lila burst out laughing, joined by everyone else. The merry sound rang in the lovely room like carillon bells chiming, a melody of friendship.
“I remember.” Scarlet rolled her eyes. “I had the same urge last night with Narcissa. Can you imagine Sunday’s sermon if I had?”
More laughter rang. How wonderful it is, Ruby thought, memorizing the sound. She never wanted to forget it. She wanted to hold it close forever.
“Before we get to exchanging presents and dinner—” Earlee started.
“And then on to caroling,” Lila added.
“—I copied off the first few pages of my current story.” Earlee reached into her bag, pulled out a stack of parchment and handed it to Meredith to pass around. “As you know, I’ve been penning stories since I was a little girl.”
“No kidding. That’s not news.” Scarlet took two pages and passed the stack to Ruby. “Letting us read one of your stories is. This is exciting.”
Ruby glanced down at the first sentence before she passed the last remaining pages to Fiona. Earlee’s penmanship flowed flawlessly across the top of the paper. Unable to stop herself, Ruby began to read. “Ma, when is Da coming back from town?” Fiona O’Rourke threw open the kitchen door, shivering beneath the lean-to’s roof.
“Hey, this is me!” Fiona nearly dropped her pages. “It’s me, before I was married.”
“It’s the story of how you and Ian fell in love,” Earlee explained. “Do you hate it?”
“No, I love it.” Fiona beamed, reading on. “This is just like Ma and Da, too. Oh, you wrote about the day I met Ian.”
“Well, it is a romance. I wanted to write about some of the people I love most—my friends. Someone I know thought I should try to publish it. What do you think?”
“Publish it? That’s a fantastic idea.”
“Fabulous. Does this mean we are all in the story?” Meredith asked.
“Everyone but Ruby, since we hadn’t met you yet. Ruby, you make an appearance in Meredith’s book.”
“I get a book, too?” Meredith clapped her hands, delighted.
“Everyone will. I’m planning a series. It’s so fun.” Earlee ducked her chin, a little embarrassed as she pulled out carefully wrapped Christmas presents from the depths of her bag and set them one by one on the coffee table between them. “I’m hoping by the time I finish Lila’s book, another one of us will be engaged, and there will be a new story to tell.”
“Oh, I hope it’s me,” Scarlet enthused. “I need a tall, dark and handsome man to sweep me off my feet.”
“What about Lorenzo?” Kate asked.
His name tore Ruby into shreds. Just when she’d been able to push the misery of losing him into the background, there it was again, stabbing through her as fresh as a new wound. Shattered, she gripped the edge of the couch cushion, holding on. She drew air in through a tight throat and tighter ribs.
“What about him?” Scarlet shrugged.
“Don’t you like him anymore?” Kate asked. “What happened? I thought you were head over heels for him.”
Just breathe, she told herself. Relax. Maybe no one will notice. She wouldn’t have to confess what a bad friend she’d been, and they would never know what she’d done. Miserable, she forced herself to draw in air and breathe it out. She couldn’t lose her friends, too.
“I was madly in love with him.” Scarlet confessed with determined cheer, probably thinking she was hiding her heartbreak. “But I changed my mind.”
“Why?” Lila wanted to know. “You’ve loved him forever.”
“He is in love with someone else.” This time Scarlet’s determined words did not hold a trace of sorrow. “Someone suited to him perfectly.”
“Narcissa?” Kate groaned. “Oh, no, not Narcissa. Anyone but her. Poor Lorenzo.”
Ruby squeezed her eyes shut, knowing what Scarlet was about to say. It was too late. Scarlet must already know. And if she did, then she knew how Ruby had betrayed her. Grief cinched tight around her. She could not bear to open her eyes and see the disappointment on their faces, the disdain and perhaps the dislike she deserved. A good friend was loyal and true. Things she had not been. She hadn’t done it intentionally, but it had happened all the same.
“It’s Ruby.” Scarlet’s tone wasn’t accusatory, but it rang with certainty.
“Ruby?” Fiona sounded confused. “Ruby and Lorenzo?”
Here it comes, she thought, bracing herself. Spine straight, shoulders square, she was ready to take the hit. They were going to be angry with her. They weren’t going to like her anymore.
“I overheard Narcissa talking to Margaret at the ball,” Scarlet explained to an absolutely silent audience. “She told how she saw Ruby dancing in Lorenzo’s arms and that he professed his love to her.”
“To Ruby?” Earlee blinked, clearly astonished.
No one said anything. She couldn’t open her eyes. She couldn’t face losing her friends, some of the greatest treasures of her life.
“Ruby, I want you to know how angry I am.” Lila said it first, bouncing off the divan with a rustle of skirts and a groan of the cushion, her shoes striking hard against the carpet. She came closer, circling around the coffee table to loom overhead. “Judging by the way everyone looks right now, I’m not alone in my reaction. How could you?”
“It just h-happened.” It felt as if the last blessing left to her was being ripped away. “I’m so sorry.”
“You should be,” Scarlet concurred. “A handsome man has fallen in love with you, and you didn’t tell us, your best friends?”
What? Confused, she shook her head. She couldn’t be hearing them right. It was her own wishful thinking changing around Scarlet’s words. Surely Scarlet was hurt and angry and never wanted to see her again.
“We will forgive you, if you tell us all about it.” Lila plopped down on the coffee table in front of her. “What did he say to you? Did you say you loved him, too? Is he your beau, now?”
“No. Because I ended it with him.” She opened her eyes, ready to take the consequences. “I know you all h-hate me—”
“Why would we hate you?” Meredith asked.
“Because Scarlet and Kate love him. I tried not to fall for him, I honestly did. But he’s so wonderful.” She kept her chin up, surprised at the sympathy in Lila’s eyes, at the comfort in Scarlet’s understanding smile.
“We know how wonderful he is.” Scarlet’s heartbreak flashed on her face for one brief second before it vanished. “How could you have turned him down?”
“There’s something terribly wrong with you, Ruby. Saying no to Lorenzo?” Fiona took Ruby’s other hand. “Don’t you love him?”
“More than anything.” She may as well confess the whole truth. “But it’s not right. Scarlet, you said that if Lorenzo asked to beau you, you would say no so Kate could have him. Kate, you said the same thing. I’m not that good of a friend.”
“Don’t you understand?” Earlee circled the table to kneel close. “You are one of us, our dear friend.”
“And I said that about Lorenzo because Kate’s happiness means more to me than mine, as yours does to me.” Scarlet’s eyes brimmed.
“We will always be the best of friends,” Lila agreed.
“Which means no one wants your happiness more than we do.” A single tear trailed down Scarlet’s cheek as she smiled. “Accept him. No one deserves happiness more than you.”
Tears blurred her eyes, making the nodding faces and encouraging smiles fuzzy. “Isn’t it selfish, though, to put my happiness first?”
“Ruby, you are nothing but loving kindness. You would never hurt anyone for your own gain.” Meredith squeezed in to offer a folded handkerchief. “When God gives a person one, rare chance for honest happiness and true love, only a fool would turn it down. A great, grand blessing like that comes around once in a lifetime.”
“Just once,” Earlee agreed.
“But I’m only me. I’m his family’s kitchen maid.” For the life of her, she could not imagine living in the Davis home, wearing velvet and silk and greeting fancy guests at next year’s Christmas ball. Some dreams were simply too far out of reach for a girl like her. Her family was destitute.
“We are children of God, every last one of us, equal in His eyes.” Fiona’s fingers
tightened around her own reassuringly. “We are all deserving of love, and that means you.”
“Say yes to him,” Kate urged.
“Accept him,” Scarlet insisted. “We love you, Ruby.”
“We absolutely adore you,” Lila confirmed. “Now, go be happy. That would be the best gift you could give us on this Christmas Eve.”
“I adore you all, too.” Sobs shook her. She never imagined the friends she loved so much could love her the same way in return. She was the wealthiest person she knew, more blessed than she could say.
Chapter Nineteen
“Lorenzo just drove up.” Lila reported as she unwound her scarf in the church’s vestibule.
Ruby resisted the need to peer past Scarlet and over Lila’s shoulder through the doorway to see him. She thirsted for the sight of his dimpled grin, his carved features and the miraculous bond that snapped between them when their gazes locked. She shrugged out of her coat, laid it on the table, and her palms went damp. It would be hard to see him again, because she knew it was too late.
She’d said no to him. She’d turned down her one chance for real happiness.
“Don’t be nervous,” Meredith advised in a whisper, for there were others around.
“Nervous? Me? I’m not nervous,” she confessed with knocking knees. “I shouldn’t have come tonight. It’s going to be too hard to see him. There are plenty of sopranos, so I won’t be missed. Maybe I’ll slip out the back way.”
“No, stay. It will be all right,” Earlee encouraged.
“Stay and sing with us,” Lila urged. “Lorenzo will still want you. You’ll see.”
She adored her friends, but they were wrong. She thought of her father home right now sorting through their things, deciding what to take and what would become of Solomon. Her life was no fairy tale and it wasn’t about to become one. No matter how much she wanted it do. “I’ll stay only if I’m hidden in a crowd. You have to help me avoid him.”
“I’ll do whatever you need.” Kate sidled up next to her in the vestibule.
“I still think you just go up to him and tell him how you feel,” Scarlet advised, although she squeezed in close, too. “Come on, let’s head into the sanctuary. We’ll stay with you, Ruby, okay?”