by Austin, Lori
“Hmm …” Leon murmured. “Strange, but I don’t think that’s the truth at all.”
“Don’t think, then,” Noah snapped. “Just do what you promised.”
Pieces of the puzzle floated into place. Ruth had once told Leon that he didn’t know what love really was, but perhaps he was beginning to understand.
Sacrifice. Devotion. Giving up rather than getting it all.
“I found three men buried in a gully about forty miles north of here,” Leon observed.
“So? You can’t blame every dead man for forty miles on me.”
“No, I guess I can’t. Much as I’d like to.”
Noah lifted a brow but didn’t rise to the bait.
“I suspect shit like that happens to you all the time.”
“Like what?”
“Bounty hunters, sheriffs, outlaws, scum. They’re all over the place. You never get a minute’s peace. Even if you found a place that was safe, you’d never know for how long. I mean, how could anyplace ever be safe enough?” He let his gaze drift to the barn. “For her.”
The muffled thud of hoofbeats across snow drew Leon’s gaze from the dying fire inside the barn. Noah headed south at an able clip.
He’d never answered, but he didn’t have to.
Leon could recognize, and appreciate, the sacrifice of a lifetime.
***
Ruth drifted on a warm, sunny cloud of sleep. Joy filled her heart; love filled her soul. The world, which had never been quite right, was suddenly as perfect as it could get.
Noah had made love to her last night with such passion and devotion, she’d known that he loved her even before his whispered words woke her from an exhausted haze of sleep. She hadn’t acknowledged them. She’d thought it best to save a discussion of love and forever for a time when they weren’t dazed by sex and sleep.
She’d always felt as if there were another Ruth inside her screaming to be free. When she’d been racing across the plains with Noah, sleeping next to him beneath the stars, sharing dreams of a future, that had been the Ruth inside. For the first time in her life she felt that she belonged somewhere, with someone.
Snuggling deeper into the warm nest of blankets, she relished the slide of the material, rough but exhilarating, along her completely bare skin. There were so many new sensations just waiting to be discovered. She wanted to discover each one with him.
The past several days had been difficult. The beauty of their time together before the incident, as she’d come to think of their deadly encounter with the three men, had only made the stiltedness of their days and nights after all the more uncomfortable.
Ruth would catch Noah watching her as if he didn’t know her at all, and she’d wonder what to say, what to do, to help him. She’d felt inadequate, stupid, and childish—not the woman he needed by his side for the life he would lead. Her fears had made her retreat into herself, desperate to find a means to make everything the way it had been—for a little while.
But how did one smooth over something as horrible as what had happened that night? Ruth had thought that if she let Noah be, let him have some time, kept her mouth shut awhile, he’d come back to her, and he had. Last night had been a blissful hello to the rest of their lives.
A pot clanked, and she came fully awake with a smile on her lips. Sitting up, Ruth brushed back her hair and opened bleary eyes to discover a cup of coffee right in front of her face.
Gratefully, she took it, sipped, then tilted her head. Good morning froze on her lips. The coffee splattered all over Leon’s boots. Ruth clasped the covers to her chin.
“What are you doing here?”
“I’ve come to take you home.”
Panic lit her heart. Furtively, she glanced at the rafters and the few neighboring trees. No one hung from them. She could breathe again.
“Where’s Noah?”
Leon picked up her dropped cup and retreated to the opposite side of the fire. “Gone.”
Ruth laughed. “He wouldn’t.”
Leon’s eyes met hers. “He did.”
Her laughter faded fast. “What did you say to him?”
Leon’s gaze dropped back to the fire. “I merely agreed to his deal.”
A chill raced down Ruth’s back. “Deal?”
“He traded you for his freedom.”
“No, he didn’t.”
Leon didn’t answer, just poked at the fire. His lack of response frightened Ruth more than words ever could. What point would there be in arguing a truth that couldn’t be changed?
“He said to give you this.”
Ruth looked up. Leon dangled the garnet necklace in front of her face. When she didn’t take it, he dropped the gift into her lap. She stared at the blood-red stone, the gilded gold, and her eyes burned.
Noah’s taking the necklace had been like a promise. His giving it back was more clear than a note. The truth was written all over the place.
Still, her heart refused to believe what her eyes could plainly see, what her mind already knew. How could he have told her he loved her and then left her behind? Had he even said those magical words at all?
She stared out the missing wall of the barn. Memories assaulted her. His touch, his kiss, his voice—and she knew the truth about last night.
What for her had been hello had been for Noah goodbye.
Chapter Nineteen
On Christmas Eve, 1878, Robert Kelly arrived home early. Not that Ruth would notice. She was as withdrawn in December as she’d been upon her return last January.
At first, most folks speculated that she was in a family way, and for a while Robert even hoped they were right. She’d have been forced to marry Leon then; she’d have been off his hands. But as the months passed and Ruth became paler, quieter, thinner, everyone realized that their theory was merely that.
Ruth no longer managed the house. Tildy did it now, and she did not do it well. Ruth didn’t do much of anything but ride her horse and stare into the fire.
When it came to parties, Ruth flat-out refused to participate. The annual Kelly New Year’s Ball would not ring in 1879.
There would be talk, and just when the talk was dying down, too. The lack of the party would remind everyone that last year an outlaw had been in their midst at Christmas.
Robert was still furious to have been duped. How embarrassing to have let a bank robber work in his bank. If he hadn’t loaned most everyone in town money at one time or another, he would have endured merciless mocking for that stupidity.
He had treated the boy like a son, offered him his daughter, and Walker had run off with her, then left her behind, ruined in mind, body, and soul. If Robert ever saw Walker again, he’d take great joy in shooting the man himself. Since Noah Walker had come to Kelly Creek, nothing was the same.
With a sigh, Robert handed Tim the reins of his horse. The groom sighed, too. Everyone missed the Ruth they’d known—the one Walker had destroyed.
“Sir?”
Robert paused with one foot on the steps of the porch and turned.
“Um—ah—well.” The groom shuffled his feet. Odd, Tim didn’t get flustered over much of anything.
“Spit it out, man.”
“Dog is gone, sir.”
“We don’t have a dog.” Robert continued up the steps.
“That’s Walker’s horse. Must have jumped the corral fence, he did. Anyways, he was gone this morning.”
Robert had been all for selling the horse the first time he’d found Ruth crying into its mane, but Tim had assured him that the animal was a worthy addition to their stable. Even Ruth’s horse, Annabelle, a more temperamental female even than Tildy, had come to love the big bay. The two of them occupied adjoining stalls and mooned about, rubbing noses in a manner that sickened Robert. Sometimes he felt as if everyone, including the animals, was against him.
“One less mouth to feed,” Robert muttered.
“Yes, sir. But—”
“But?”
“It’s about Miss Rut
h, you see she …”
“Yes. I’ll tell her.” He opened the door.
“But, sir—”
“I’ll take care of it,” he snapped, and shut the door before he had to hear any more.
The house wasn’t decorated; there wasn’t even the scent of cinnamon and sugar spice. He’d begrudged the trimmings of Christmas for years because they were painful to him, but this year he saw that not having them at all was more painful by far.
“Ruth!”
“Quit bellering.” Tildy bustled down the hallway from the kitchen. “She ain’t here.”
In the process of hanging his coat, Robert turned and stared at the housekeeper. “What?”
“You heard me. She took off before sundown, she did, and I haven’t seen hide nor hair of her since.”
“Where did she go?”
“She didn’t say, but it’s Christmas Eve, ain’t it? Where do you think she went?”
Robert put his coat back on. “This has gone on too long.”
“I’m of the same opinion. If you’d of listened to me the first ten times I said it, maybe this would all be behind us now.” She sniffed and retreated to the kitchen.
Robert raced back to the stable where Tim had just unsaddled his horse. “Why didn’t you tell me Miss Ruth was gone?”
“I tried, but you shut the door in my face, you did.”
“Did she say anything to you?”
“No. Only took off toward town as soon as I told her Dog was gone.”
“Damn!”
Robert hadn’t put the two incidents together until now. He resaddled his horse, not willing to wait for Tim’s no-longer-nimble fingers to do it, then raced in the direction of Kelly Creek.
***
Ruth sat on the bench against the wall of the Kelly Creek station. Same bench as last year, but so very much had changed.
Or had it? She was still filled with disappointment, just as she’d been every Christmas Eve for the last ten years of her life. She had not planned to come here tonight, then Tim had said Dog was gone. Before she knew what she was doing, she’d changed into her emerald silk dress, tossed every necklace her father had ever given her over her head, hidden those secrets with a heavy coat, then hitched Annabelle to the wagon.
Foolish. Noah wasn’t coming, and he never would again. Once she’d been unable to stop hoping, but it was high time that she did.
“What are you doing here?”
Leon’s voice did not cause Ruth to start, even though she had not heard his approach. Little startled her these days. She just didn’t care.
Even news that fall of the worst Indian uprising in the history of Kansas had failed to scare Ruth, as it had the rest of the women in Kelly Creek. When the Dull Knife and Little Wolf bands of northern Cheyenne had left Indian Territory, intent on returning to their cool Montana home, they had crossed the border and set fire to most of western Kansas, killing forty-one settlers in the process. Leon had worked night and day for weeks to make everyone feel safe. He’d done a good job, as always.
He sat at her side and took her hand in his. He had been sweet and attentive ever since they’d returned. Some folks had looked at her like a pariah, but with Leon treating her the same as always—and the fact that her father still owned most of the town—life had gone back to pretty much the way it had been before—save one thing.
Ruth’s hope was gone. She had discovered that living without hope wasn’t really living at all. But she wasn’t sure what to do about that.
“Ruth?”
“Hmm?” She turned her head. “What am I doing here?” She sighed. “I’m not exactly sure.”
She didn’t want to tell Leon that she’d ridden into town on a wish and a prayer, only to discover a deserted station—just like every other year.
“This has to stop,” he said quietly, firmly.
“It will.” She wouldn’t come here again—for Christmas Eve, at any rate. Funny, she hadn’t even realized she’d been waiting all year for this one last chance.
Leon made a disgusted sound and dropped her hand. He stood and paced in front of her on the dry and empty platform. There had been no snow for the Christmas of 1878, and it just didn’t feel like Christmas. Ruth wondered if it ever would again.
“Not just this!” He threw up his hands. “You eat when someone puts food in front of you. You sleep when they push you into bed.”
“It’s called living.”
“No, it isn’t. You exist, Ruth, but you don’t live.”
He was right. She had no argument for him.
“He left you. Can’t you despise him for that?”
In all the months since they’d returned, she and Leon had not talked about him. She had not talked about him to anyone.
“No,” she said softly. “It seems that I can’t.”
She’d wavered back and forth between fury and despair. Had Noah said he loved her? Or had she merely dreamed it? If he had said it, then that made his desertion unforgivable. But if he hadn’t, if he’d never loved her, only used her time and time again, everything she’d believed about Noah had been a lie. She wasn’t sure which explanation she preferred.
In the months that had passed since she’d returned home, Ruth suddenly sympathized with Robert Kelly all too easily. She’d become more like him than she cared to admit.
She could understand his anger at being left behind and his despair at losing all he’d ever cared for. She could understand his desire never to be hurt this way again, even to the point of being unable to return affection when it was freely given.
Leon’s boots appeared in her line of vision. “I love you, Ruth.”
She raised her head. “I know, and I’m sorry.”
He cursed—very unlike Leon—but then nothing was the same anymore no matter how much the same everything looked. “Love’s not something that should make you sorry; love should make you happy.”
“I know, and I’m sorry.”
“I still want to marry you.”
Leon professed his love weekly. She couldn’t seem to care about that, either, and it wouldn’t be fair to him to pretend that she did. “My answer’s still the same.”
No.
The word fell between them, unspoken this time, but having been spoken on countless occasions previously, Ruth did not see the point in saying it again.
“He wanted me to marry you.”
The inertia parted in a blinding flash of fury. “Did any of you men ever consider what I wanted?”
Leon blinked as if the concept were a new one. “We only wanted what was best—”
“How in blazes would you know what was best for me? Only I know what is best for me.”
“He wanted you to be safe and happy.”
“I may be safe, but I will never be happy.” The anger felt good. At least she felt something beyond pain. “Not here. Not with you.”
“Ruth Kelly, you apologize to the sheriff this instant!”
Ruth rolled her eyes at the sound of her father’s voice. She’d had it with him, too. She’d never please him, so why try? Now that she’d started to say what had never been said, she kind of liked it, and she wasn’t ready to stop.
“No. I won’t apologize. Both of you have been maneuvering behind my back, and in front of it, for years. You’ll stop right now. I’m not marrying Leon. I don’t love him, and it wouldn’t be fair or right.”
“Sheriff!” Deputy Barnett appeared in the doorway to the station.
Leon made an aggrieved sound. “Not now, Barnett.”
“There’s somethin’ you better see.”
Ruth put her hand on Leon’s arm. “I’ll be all right. Father and I will finish our chat; then we’ll go on home. I’m sorry it had to be this way, Leon, but someday you’ll be glad you didn’t marry me.”
He smiled and patted her hand. “Somehow I doubt that.”
Leon and his deputy disappeared, and Ruth faced her father once more. He looked madder than she’d ever seen him, and that was
saying quite a bit. Robert Kelly could turn red-faced and screaming with very little provocation.
“You’ll marry that man, Ruth.”
“No,” she said, “I won’t.”
He threw up his hands. “Don’t you realize that you’re ruined? Don’t you understand that my word in this town will only last so long? That Leon’s devotion can only be stretched so far?”
“Can’t you understand that I don’t care? Oh, no!” She put her hands to her cheeks in mock dismay. “I might not be invited to the next horribly boring party. I think I’ll expire.”
Her father stared at her in shock. “You’ve changed, Ruth. I don’t know you anymore.”
“You never knew me at all, Father.”
“Marry Leon and I’ll make it up to you. I’ll give you—”
“I can’t,” she interrupted. Why did he continue to believe that money could solve anything?
“Why can’t you?” he shouted. Robert Kelly might be the founder of the town, but he was still at heart a spoiled little boy who had to have his own way. “Leon wants you. No one else ever will.”
He strode to the door of the station. “Sit here a while and think about that. No one will ever want you.” He left, slamming the door behind him.
“I want you.”
Three words dropped from the sky. This time Ruth started, because they’d been spoken by a voice she never expected to hear again.
Noah jumped down from the roof.
And like a miracle the snow began to fall.
***
Up on the rooftop, Noah had heard every word.
He’d only planned to sneak into town, take his horse back, and leave.
Right. If that was the truth, he wouldn’t have come on Christmas Eve; he wouldn’t have been at the station at all.
He’d spent months in Mexico, working at ranches when they needed extra help, cleaning cantinas night after night when there was nothing else, making enough to pickle his brain in alcohol, trying to burn the memory of her from his lips and mind and heart with the tropical sun. It hadn’t worked.
He had to know if she was safe, happy, and married. He had to know if there was a child with his hair and her eyes. He had to even if he died for it.
A few moments on the roof had revealed many things. There was no child; she was safe; she wasn’t married—nor was she happy. The latter had kept him from leaving, even though he should have. Hearing her father berate her had shown him a truth.