by Austin, Lori
Perhaps because he’d spent so many days in his youth not certain whether he’d have a home the following morning, Leon loved the town of Kelly Creek more than anything else. He was devoted to the place and its people.
Ruth had been adopted both as a Kelly and a Kansan, and while she didn’t fit in here as well as Leon did—Ruth was not sure if she truly belonged anywhere—she had to admit that despite the droughts and the floods, the blizzards, the twisters, and the grasshoppers, Kansas had its appeal.
She glanced out over the prairie, where the wind kicked up old snow and swirled the powder around and around like a winter tornado. Kansas was wild, free, and spacious. It reminded her of Noah.
“Ruth?”
She turned her attention from the treeless landscape back to Leon, who stared at her with determination in his eyes. When Leon got determined, Ruth got tired.
“Pilgrimage?” she repeated, stalling.
Leon’s posse awaited him at the sheriff’s office. She wished he’d get a move on so she could be alone with her memories.
“Do you come here to give thanks for your good fortune? To remember how you came to be the daughter of the most influential man in town and the most sought after hostess in Kelly Creek?”
Ruth smiled. How could she forget her origins? In Kelly Creek she was an icon to charity—the girl who arrived with the first group of orphans to be placed out in Kelly Creek and made good. Even if Ruth had been able to forget, the yearly visit from the Aid Society agent would have reminded her.
The society didn’t abandon their orphans and never look back. They made certain their children were safe and well cared for. Admirable, to be sure, but it also reminded everyone in town that the orphans did not belong.
For several years, Miss Burton had come. Each time Ruth asked about Noah, Miss Burton would stare at her blankly and say, “Who?”
When Miss Burton married and moved farther west, others from the Aid Society had arrived. None of them had ever known Noah, so Ruth had stopped asking, but she’d never stopped hoping.
She’d been accepted in Kelly Creek because of her new name and her father’s money, though no one ever forgot that Ruth wasn’t really a Kelly, including the Kellys.
“Ruth?”
Her mind had wandered again. She was not being fair to Leon.
“Certainly,” she agreed. “I give thanks for my good fortune every day.”
Which was true. She was blessed to be here.
Not that the years had been easy. She had nursed her new mother through a final bout with the lung fever that had plagued her on and off since she’d come to Kansas. In the two years before Cora Kelly passed on, she had more often than not called Ruth by her dead daughter’s name. But she had meant no harm. Still, it had been a relief when Cora went to be with the daughter she missed so much.
Upon her mother’s death, Ruth had taken over the hostess duties for the rapidly expanding Kelly empire. As each year passed, Robert Kelly loaned money to new and old settlers alike, and when disaster descended, he inherited their land, and they went elsewhere. As a result, Kelly Creek was aptly named.
Ruth spent her days plotting parties, planning dinners, and running the household beneath the benevolent gaze of the long-dead Kelly daughter, whose painting hung over the mantel in the parlor.
She spent her nights attending those parties, eating those dinners, and wondering if Susan Kelly watched her from above and did not approve. Such thoughts only made Ruth try all the harder to be the perfect daughter Robert Kelly desired. But no matter how hard Ruth tried, she never seemed to succeed.
It had been difficult for a shy girl like Ruth to assume the role expected of her, but she’d done it for her father. Eventually, she’d become on the surface what everyone believed her to be through and through—the mistress of the only society Kelly Creek had, the belle of every ball, a woman who belonged there, even though in her heart the only place she’d ever belonged was with Noah.
“Ruth, we’ve known each other a long time.” Leon sat next to her on the bench and took her hand.
“Ever since I arrived you were kind to me.”
Leon was kind to everyone. Leon enjoyed helping the whole wide world.
“You’re easy to be kind to, and I want to take care of you.”
Ruth knew what would come next. Leon and her father had decided some time ago that it would be best for Kelly Creek if Ruth, the reigning belle, and Leon, the town’s most eligible bachelor, married.
Leon had asked her to marry him at least five times already. He said all the right words. She had no doubt he loved her, or at least believed that he did. But each time he asked, Ruth said no. Both Leon and her father were getting impatient. Still, she couldn’t bring herself to say yes.
Ruth extricated her hand from his and looked west, then north, then south. Nothing and no one. She sighed. Perhaps she should reconsider Leon’s offer.
While Leon was a good man, a strong man, and she liked him, Ruth didn’t feel any passion for him, no consuming and abiding emotion. To spend her life with a man, it would seem she should feel something stronger for him than friendship.
Perhaps her hesitancy had something to do with the fact that Leon was devoted to Kelly Creek and its people. That devotion was what made Leon, Leon. But his love would always be split between her and everyone else. Was she so selfish that she needed to be the most important thing in someone’s life? She wasn’t sure, since she never had been. What she really needed was time to think about all of this.
Ruth glanced down the street. “Don’t you have to go?”
“In a moment.” Leon went down on one knee and took her hand back. “Won’t you please marry me, Ruth? Your father approves. We’ll suit. You know we will. Let me take care of you.”
“Oh, Leon.” She sighed, and her gaze drifted back to the flat, empty landscape.
“I love you, Ruth.”
All of her life she’d longed for love. Her parents had taken her in, given her shelter, clothes, food, and a name, but neither of them had loved her. Her mother had been too ill, too lost in the past, to worry about Ruth. And her father …
The light had gone out of him when his wife died. Ruth wasn’t sure if he was capable of loving anyone anymore, no matter how much Ruth might need the love.
She’d always imagined that when someone at last said they loved her, the entire world would become wonderful. But the words only complicated things.
Ruth had begun to wonder if she were capable of deep emotion. Every boy she’d ever known, every single young man, had left her cold and unmoved—except for one, and that had been so long ago. She’d been a little girl. She’d known nothing of love. But the memory of what she’d felt then was like nothing she’d ever felt since.
Only Leon was tolerable. Perhaps that was all she could hope for. Ruth touched his cheek.
He must have seen something new in her face, because he caught his breath and his eyes lit with hope. “You’ll marry me?”
“I’ll think on it.” She was surprised at her own words. But now that they were said, she realized she would think about marrying Leon this time. Her father approved, and Robert Kelly approved of precious little. How many years would she wait at the train station for someone who was never going to come?
Leon frowned, then opened his mouth as if he meant to say more, but a “Ho!” from down the street brought him to his feet, his gaze already on the distance and not on her. “I have to go. Should I see you to the wagon?”
“No. I’ll think awhile right here. It’s a lovely night.”
His concerned brown eyes turned back to her. “I don’t like leaving you alone.”
“I sit here alone every Christmas Eve.” A fact that made her heart heavier with each new year. “I won’t stay long.”
Leon hesitated, obviously torn. “Well, all right. But don’t stay too long. I’ll call on you when I get back. I may be gone a week or more.”
“I’m sure your parents will miss you at Chr
istmas dinner, and I’ll miss you at the New Year’s Ball.”
“I’ll do my best to be back by then.”
He leaned down and brushed his lips over her cheek. His mouth, warm against the winter chill of her skin, was pleasant enough. Yet she felt … nothing.
No spark, no inner heat, no desire to pull him closer and allow him to kiss her for the first time as a man should kiss a woman. All Ruth felt was the wind in her hair and that same old ache in her heart.
“Perhaps we can announce our engagement that night.”
Ruth looked out over the dark, flat empty landscape. “Perhaps,” she allowed. “Godspeed.”
He hesitated another instant, then, with a sigh that revealed an impatience he rarely allowed to escape into his manner, he left.
Leon was a good man. Why couldn’t she give him what he wanted? Why couldn’t she be what he needed?
Because she wanted someone else. Someone who obviously didn’t want or need her.
Why did she come here every year? This was the tenth Christmas Eve Ruth had sat on this bench. Well, not this bench. This bench was new. Even the original bench had not outlived her silly vow.
She could do worse than marry Leon Harker. Still, she had never felt the complete and utter safety in his presence that she’d felt in the presence of …
“Stop it!” She stood and began to pace the platform. “If he hasn’t shown up by now, he won’t be showing up anytime soon.”
As if to prove that point, the winter wind howled out of the west like a ravenous coyote, shooting straight up Ruth’s skirt one second, then down the collar of her coat the next. She shivered.
What if Noah did show up? What would she say? What would she do?
She had known Noah Walker for a matter of days and waited for him ten years. She was a fool!
Her love was that of a child for the first person who had paid her any mind. Understandable. What wasn’t understandable was to continue to hope for the impossible, to continue to dream of a man who had never truly existed except in the eyes of a little girl.
“But he was always such a beautiful dream,” she murmured.
Ruth peered around the station one last time. She wouldn’t come here again—on Christmas Eve, at any rate. For a moment, the line between what had once been and what was now blurred, and she saw the milling throng of orphans and parents, saw Noah striding away, disappearing forever, saw herself searching for him, always searching.
Snow filtered down. Huge, lacy flakes drifted across her cheek and caught in her eyelashes. Ruth blinked, then laughed.
It was snowing. How odd. The sky had been clear only a moment ago. Christmas miracles happened in the tiniest of ways.
She started toward the station, planning to go through the building and exit onto the street, where her wagon waited. But a shuffle, like a footstep on a plank, made her freeze, then turn.
She was still alone on the platform, though she no longer felt that way. Her gaze wandered. No train coming down the tracks, no riders on the horizon, not even the shadow of a rabbit racing through the night. Only the snow cascading down in wider and wider swirls of white.
She should get home. Instead, Ruth turned her face up to the silent night and stuck out her tongue. She caught a few drops of snow, then closed her eyes and let the pinpoints of ice cool her hot face and burning eyelids.
Giving up this night would be like losing him all over again.
Strengthening her resolve, Ruth clenched her hands, lowered her head, and opened her eyes. The station windows had gone dark.
She’d stayed much longer than she’d intended, and Mr. Woodcock had gone home. Muttering to herself, Ruth descended the platform steps and made her way through the alley between the train station and the hostelry to the south.
The moon had vanished beneath the snow clouds, and the alley was darker than dark. Her skirt swirled between her ankles, nearly tripping her as she hurried along. She had that odd sense of being watched again and at one point could have sworn she heard someone breathing heavily in the shadows.
Ruth burst from the alley and onto the street. Kelly Creek was deserted, everyone at home with their families, as she should be. Her horse snorted a welcome and pawed impatiently.
“Sorry, Annabelle.” Ruth patted the mare’s soft nose. “You’re a good girl to wait for silly old me.”
“Ruth.”
Her name whispered out of the alley. Annabelle nickered and shied. Ruth wanted to do the same.
She couldn’t have heard her name rasp from that gaping darkness. She’d just walked out of there, and if someone was in there… . She shook off that thought and hurried to her wagon.
The odd shuffling noise came again. Louder and nearer this time. She spun about as a large, man-shaped figure lurched out of the alley.
Ruth drew in a breath to scream, and the moon chose that moment to drift from behind the clouds, casting silver rays across the street, across her, across him. The scream died unvoiced.
“Noah,” she whispered.
He stumbled, and she caught him, but he was larger than before, and she wasn’t much bigger. His weight drove her to her knees, and he landed on the ground unconscious.
Ruth stared at her hands. The bright, shiny light of the moon turned the blood to black.
***
Pain and fever did strange things to Noah’s mind. In the midst of dying, he found again the only thing worth living for.
Maybe he was already dead. Because alive he’d never see Ruth, never hear her voice call his name, never feel her small, gentle hands flit over his face. So dead he must be.
He’d never figured dead could hurt so damned much.
“You have to get up, Noah. Get in the wagon and I’ll take you to the doctor.”
That brought him awake in a hurry. “No!” He lurched upward and nearly passed out again from the pain. When the black dots stopped singing and his gut stopped dancing, he opened his eyes, then shut them tight once more.
Idiot! He had come to Ruth. He must have been more feverish, more delirious, than he’d thought.
“Noah.” Her voice wavered and broke.
Noah cursed himself some more. She wasn’t used to having half-dead men paw her in the street. He’d frightened her, and he hated himself for it.
“You’re hurt,” she continued, and her voice was stronger. “I can get the doctor, but it’ll take twice as long.”
“No doctor,” he ground out. “Just give me a minute and I’ll be on my way.”
“No!”
The word was so loud, Noah’s eyes snapped open, and he glanced furtively around. But the town was as dead as he soon would be if he didn’t get this bullet out of his belly.
“Y-you just got here. You can’t leave. Especially not like this.”
He hadn’t just gotten here. He’d been here quite a while, hiding in the alley, waiting for the night. Then, when he’d heard her footsteps, he’d crept forward. He hadn’t been able to help himself.
He’d watched her and the sheriff. Though he hadn’t been able to hear what they said, he could see that they were fond of each other. Although the chaste peck on the cheek the man had given Ruth told Noah fond was all they were. The happiness that had gone through him at that realization was out of proportion to the reason he was here—to make certain Ruth was all right before he crept off to die.
But instead of seeing her and leaving, he’d gone into the welcoming darkness, then awakened in her arms.
He was in Kelly Creek because he needed to see the only good thing in his life one last time. And he’d ruined that, too.
“Into the wagon.” She tried to help him up, but he was too big. That hadn’t changed, either.
Noah took her hands. They were wet. He looked down and saw his blood all over her. “I’m sorry.” He tried to rub it off, on his pants, his coat. The thought of Ruth being touched by his bad blood made Noah half-crazy.
She caught his wrists, stilled his movements. “Stop that! You can’t help
it that you’re bleeding.”
Little did she know.
“I don’t mind blood. I’m not a ninny. Now come along.”
“No doctor, Ruth.” The world swam sickeningly, and he fought the murky swirl that threatened to pull him under once more. “I-I mean it. This is a … gunshot wound. There’ll be too many questions. Understand?”
He could tell by her frown that she didn’t. “Someone shot you? Who?”
“Never mind. You’re right. I can’t go on tonight. I need a place where I’ll be alone.”
“Your horse?”
“Tied him in front of the hostelry. Figured they’d take him in when I died.”
She tsked at him like a schoolteacher. “You’re not going to die. I won’t let you. I have a place you can go. A place where you’ll be all alone.”
This time when she tugged he helped her, and together they tumbled into the wagon. As he hit the seat, a spike of pain grated in his belly, and the oily blackness descended again.
It seemed like only a moment when he heard her calling. “Noah? We’re there. You’ll have to help me.”
He fought the darkness and forced himself to focus on Ruth. Her smile was his reward. She still had the same pixie face, the same Irish green eyes, the same red hair, though it had been tamed into an elaborate concoction of curls. He liked it better wild.
“Ruth O’Leary,” he murmured.
“Ruth Kelly. I was adopted. Can you make it inside?”
“I will.” He took a shallow breath, trying not to jar his injury, and got out of the wagon.
His horse, tied to the back, snorted and pawed. Dog did not like to follow anyone or anything. Dog liked to lead.
Silly to have a horse named Dog. No one knew he called the animal that but him—and Dog, of course.
He’d always wanted a dog, but his hand-to-mouth, here-today, gone-tomorrow lifestyle did not permit such frivolities. So Noah had named his horse Dog, and when no one was around to hear, he talked to him like one.
An abandoned farmhouse loomed out of the night. Painstakingly, Noah and Ruth made their way across the hard ground, littered with snow.