The Love in his Heart

by Indiana Wake

  “What about John and Garrett? Are they late too?” Janet looked back to the boarding house confused.

  “No, looks like they went on ahead.”

  “Leaving you to sleep? Well, that sure was hard of them. They could have given you a good shake, couldn’t they?” Janet said and was glad she had better friends than John and Garrett seemed to be.

  She knew that wasn’t entirely fair, for both men had seemed perfectly decent men with nice manners every time she had encountered them in the diner. And as far as she knew, Connie Langdon didn’t have any complaints about Ray’s workmates.

  “Don’t be too hard on them, honey. Sometimes I sleep like a log, a real big one, one who can’t be shaken awake.”

  “Well, I hope you don’t get into much trouble when you get to Darcey’s ranch.” Janet smiled.

  “Me too.” He chuckled again, leaned forward and kissed her quickly on the lips, and began to back away ready to leave. “I’d better get going.”

  “Yes, of course,” Janet said.

  “I’ll see you later.” Finally, he turned, and she watched with a dull feeling as he hurried away out of sight.

  “Who was that?” Katie asked.

  Janet looked down to see her little sister’s disgruntled expression.

  “Oh, that was just Ray, honey.”

  “Oh.” Katie was clearly unimpressed.

  “Is something the matter?” Janet asked but knew in her heart it was the way Ray had all but dismissed the child.

  Katie was the first member of Janet’s family that Ray had met, and she had to admit she felt a little disappointed in how things had gone. She knew what a bright and inquisitive child Katie was, not to mention how sensitive, and she would have sensed the dismissal even if she couldn’t yet put such things into words.

  “Why doesn’t Jimmy come around anymore?” Although she seemed to have changed the subject, Janet realized that Katie, as young as she was, was just about grasping the thread of everything that had happened in the last weeks.

  “Well, I guess we’ve both been busy.”

  “But you’re still friends?”

  “Sure, we're still friends,” Janet said and wondered if that was true.

  She hadn’t seen a thing of Jimmy since the barn dance a few weeks ago. She had been to two more barn dances since then, and Janet had expected to see him there. But he hadn’t been, not once.

  The only comfort she had in it all was that Beth Standfast had been to both barn dances, dancing with different men each time.

  Although why she should feel comforted that Jimmy had nobody when she had Ray was a thought that made her so uncomfortable she had to shake it from her mind.

  “Is Ray your friend now instead of Jimmy?” Katie asked dolefully.

  “They are both my friends,” Janet said and wondered how on earth she was going to explain it all to a seven-year-old girl. “They’re just my friends in different ways.”

  “I don’t understand.” Katie looked suddenly miserable, as if she was on the verge of tears.

  “It’s all right, honey. Everything is just fine, you don’t have anything to worry about. And you will understand it when you’re a little older, I promise.”

  “All right,” Katie said as a confusion she clearly didn’t understand broke free along with her tears.

  “What’s the matter? Come here.” Janet stopped in the street and pulled her little sister into her arms, tilting her head back now and again to dry her tears.

  “I don’t know what the matter is,” Katie said and sniffed loudly. “Everything just feels different.”

  “You’ll get used to it, Katie.” Janet squeezed her tightly and kissed her soft ash colored hair. “What do you say we go and find just about the biggest flower print fabric Oregon has ever seen, huh?”

  “All right.” Katie smiled, brightening a little, but Janet couldn’t escape the feeling that the little girl was only doing so for her big sister’s benefit.

  * * *

  Summer was really making itself known now and by late morning, the sun was already scorching the back of Jimmy’s neck as he slowly walked his horse the length of the immense perimeter of Drake Darcey’s ranch.

  It was his turn to check that all the fencing was in order, a task that was performed two or three times a week. Darcey had cattle keeping in his blood, inheriting the ranch from his daddy, who had inherited it from his daddy before him. He knew that attention to such details were the things which kept a ranch running well.

  The area was no stranger to rustlers, people who would painstakingly open up gaps in the fencing over the course of several nights to make the job of stealing so much easier not only to perform, but to get away with. And then, of course, there was the damage to the fencing often caused by the herd themselves. They were heavy beasts, and hardly delicate as they determinedly scratched their rear ends against the thick wooden posts, sometimes almost uprooting them altogether.

  But Jimmy didn’t mind the days when he was taken off the herd and given the solitary duty of checking the perimeter fencing. It gave him peace and quiet and time in which to think, even though that was something he really wanted in the last few weeks.

  But he knew he couldn’t outrun his feelings forever, as well as he knew that an emotion not acknowledged was doomed to stay buried and make itself known at a later date. He’d learned that much a few years ago when he had lost his beloved mother.

  Jimmy had learned about grief early enough, and how to deal with it. As painful as it was, he’d still taken every available lesson from the experience. Now, as he deviated from the fencing to walk his horse down a steep bank to the river for a much-needed drink, he put those lessons into practice.

  In its own way, losing Janet the way he had had been a bereavement of sorts. Not a death, obviously, but certainly the ending of things; a long friendship, a way of life.

  He’d spent several days in the beginning either denying his feelings or deciding they were something else altogether. He came up with instant schemes to get on with his life, even seriously considering Beth Standfast as the perfect girl for him in the days following that awful barn dance.

  “Come on, boy, time for a drink.” He led his horse down the steep bank.

  He let go of the reins and watched his horse take a few steps into the water and majestically lean down to slurp noisily.

  “Beth’s not the girl for me. At least not yet,” he said quietly as if talking to his horse. “Janet’s the only girl in my heart and I guess it’s just gonna stay that way for a while. I’ll just have to let it run its course, what do you think?” He chuckled to himself as his horse stared at him blankly. “Not going to answer? Come on then, back to work for us.”

  When Jimmy reached the fencing at the most northerly point of the ranch, his attention was drawn out across the plains. In the distance he could see two cowboys and instantly recognized them as John and Garrett, the two men who had blown into town on Ray Burnett’s coattails.

  As far as he was aware, they were decent enough men. The ranchers very rarely had much to do with the cowboys, since they always worked so far apart it was hardly as if they worked for the same establishment at all. And cowboys came and went. They were a seasonal break from the normal which Jimmy had hardly given a second thought to in the years he had worked for Darcey.

  As he continued to watch them rounding up a small but wild little bunch of free roaming cattle, he wondered where Ray Burnett was. Surely, they should have been working as a team on the less than placid beasts.

  Still, what did he know? He’d never much bothered about the cowboys and the way they did things. Jimmy had always just gotten along with his own work, seeing out every day, sticking to his plan.

  For a moment, he almost allowed himself to wallow in the idea that Ray Burnett would not be in town forever. He was a cowboy, after all, and by nature they roamed from place to place. But he quickly realized that the sudden disappearance of Burnett wouldn’t change whatever it was Janet
was feeling in her heart. And if she had begun to fall in love with the man, there was a good chance she’d follow him wherever he went.

  Jimmy felt his heart plummet, but knew it was something he had to face. He couldn’t just wallow in daydreams in which Ray left town and Janet came back to him. She had never been his in the first place, had she? As she had rightly pointed out, they were only friends.

  And barely that these days.

  With a sigh, he turned away from the plains to concentrate on his own work once again. It was then he saw none other than Ray Burnett cantering toward him. The man slowed a little as he approached and had a thunderous look on his face.

  “What are you doing up here?” Burnett said gruffly as if he owned the place and not Drake Darcey.

  “Perimeter fencing check. Happens three times a week. Why do you ask?” Jimmy replied with equal gruffness; who on earth did this man think he was? “The question is, what are you doing here?” Jimmy went on. “You work the plains, not the ranch as far as I’m aware.”

  “I’m just making my way out onto the plains.” Ray Burnett looked suddenly uncomfortable.

  “Well, don’t let me stop you.” Jimmy realized immediately that the man was late for work; extraordinarily late for work.

  No doubt he had snuck across the ranch lands from the east in the hope that he would be able to join John and Garrett without the boss seeing him.

  “Nobody needs to know that you’ve seen me here.” The discomfort had gone from Ray’s face and was replaced with pure aggressive antagonism.

  It was clear that he was seeking to intimidate the younger man, to bully him into silence. But the truth of the matter was Jimmy couldn’t have cared less. He’d had no intention of running down to the boss and giving him a detailed account of what he’d seen and what his own suspicions were. In Jimmy’s world, it didn’t signify.

  “I couldn’t give a damn what you do from one day to the next, Burnett. If you’ve got something to hide, I couldn’t summon the interest to go in search of it, so you have nothing to worry about,” Jimmy said, and Ray looked taken aback. “But don’t you ever come striding across this ranch to threaten me again, do you hear?”

  Jimmy might well have been the younger man by almost a decade, but he was also a little bigger, a little stronger, and had certainly never lacked for courage in his life. He wasn’t a fighting man, but he was not a man to walk away either. If Burnett went out of his way to find trouble, Jimmy certainly wouldn’t disappoint him.

  “I’ll be on my way.” Burnett tried to sound bored, but Jimmy knew he’d rattled him.

  And, as childish as it might be, as he watched Burnett go, Jimmy took a few moments to enjoy the little victory.

  9

  The following day, Janet was just closing up at the diner when she felt a hand on her back. She shrieked and spun around to find herself looking at Ray.

  He was laughing heartily, obviously pleased and amused by the effect he had on her.

  “Oh, Ray!” she said breathlessly. “You near scared me to death.”

  “You were miles away. What were you thinking about?”

  “Nothing, really,” Janet said but knew it was a lie.

  She’d been distracted ever since she saw Ray the day before, sensing something she couldn’t quite get a hold of. Maybe it was just Katie and her young girl’s lack of understanding, her tears, which were eating at Janet. Maybe it was disappointment at the way he had greeted the first of her family he’d met. Either way, she was beginning to wish she hadn’t bumped into him at all the day before. She would have felt much more settled if she hadn’t.

  “How did you get along yesterday with the fabric for your little sister’s dress?”

  The question surprised Janet, for she hadn’t thought for a moment that he’d even heard what she’d said about that.

  “Well, Katie was pleased,” she said with a shrug. “But my ma less so when we got home.” She thought of the blue fabric with the gaudy yellow flowers that Katie had picked and winced. “Katie wanted big flowers, Ma wanted something much less showy and easier to pattern match.”

  “And Katie won?” Ray laughed his rich, deep laugh, and reached out to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear.

  Janet felt soothed suddenly, as if the disquiet of the last day or so had been gently washed away on the tide of Ray’s laughter. His bright green eyes were narrow slits as he peered at her intently, his handsome features free of any hint of the agitation she had seen there the day before.

  She wanted to kick herself for the lousy night’s sleep she’d had worrying about it all. Why had she thought there was anything to be concerned about? He’d kissed her, hadn’t he? He’d explained his reasons for needing to hurry away.

  Janet reached for his hand, gently stroking the tanned skin. She decided there and then not to look for monsters where there were none. No doubt things were just different when you were getting to know a man. Maybe years of Jimmy’s company had given her the impression that life was something different than it really was. Whatever it was, she was just going to embrace the new way of life and stop worrying about every little thing.

  “Oh yes, Katie won.” Janet laughed.

  “You know, I’m sorry I wasn’t real talkative yesterday. Your little sister seems like a sweet girl.”

  “Yes, she is very sweet, and very sensitive,” Janet added, feeling protective of her sister in a way that clearly showed.

  “Well, you just tell her I’ll make it up to her next time I see her, right?” He looked hopeful, his eyes widening in a way which made him look much less seductive and much more boyish than he had done a few minutes ago.

  “Sure, I’ll tell her.”

  “And I’d like to make it up to you too.” He stepped toward her, gently pushing her back just a little until she was leaning against the locked door of the diner.

  Janet felt suddenly a little breathless and overexcited, but also a little afraid that somebody might see them there. It was a balmy summer’s evening and still very much broad daylight, and the streets were far from deserted at that hour.

  “Ray,” she said and placed a steadying hand on his chest.

  “You misunderstand me.” He gave her a cheeky smile as he reached into his pocket. “I just wanted to give you this.”

  He handed her a small velvet bag, so tiny that it easily fit in the palm of her hand.

  Janet looked up at him quizzically and then back down at the bag again. He was giving her a gift, and she didn’t care what it was, she would treasure it forever.

  Without even opening the bag, Janet felt special. Whatever Ray had bought her, he had thought of her beforehand. It didn’t matter if he was apologizing, or if he just wanted to buy her something nice. What mattered to Janet more than anything was the idea that Ray Burnett, the impressive, handsome cowboy, spent time in his day thinking about her.

  Janet had been thinking about him almost non-stop since the day he had first walked into the diner and winked at her. And, as exciting as it had been to spend all her time daydreaming about her new beau, she had wondered more than once if she had had anything like the same effect on him.

  “What is it?” she asked with wide-eyed wonder.

  “Well, open it and take a look.” Ray chuckled, his hand resting on her waist.

  Janet opened the tiny velvet bag and tipped the contents out into her hand. It was a slim, delicate little chain with a neat, heart-shaped locket attached to it.

  “Oh, my goodness,” Janet said and felt joyous tears spring to her eyes. “It’s so beautiful, Ray.”

  “I reckon it’ll be made more beautiful when you put it on.” He took it from her, somehow managing to open the minute clasp between his giant fingers. He reached around her to fasten it about her neck, his face just inches from hers as he did so.

  She could feel his warm breath on her cheek as he worked and suddenly wanted to kiss him more than anything. No sooner had he fixed the necklace in place and leaned back to admire it than J
anet leaned forward, placed a hand on either side of his face, and kissed him.

  “Take a walk with me?” he said in a raspy voice. “Just down by the river.”

  “All right, but I don’t have long. My ma will be expecting me.” She was irresistibly drawn to touch the tiny locket as it lay against the creamy skin of her collarbone.

  “I told you it would look more beautiful on you.” Ray held her eyes for a moment making her heart pound against her chest. Then he took her hand as they walked along the street.

  Janet had the most wonderful sense of belonging as they walked hand in hand. She didn’t feel at all embarrassed to be holding a handsome man’s hand in public, not like she would have been just weeks before. She felt different, older, a woman now that she had been given a piece of jewelry. That meant something, surely.

  On their way through the town to reach the path down to the Willamette River, they crossed paths with Connie. Her mother’s aging friend smiled at Janet a little uncertainly before nodding at Ray.

  “Don’t worry, Mrs. L, I’m only taking a walk with Janet here. I’ll be back in time for dinner.” He grinned broadly. “I wouldn’t miss that now, would I?”

  “That is a fine compliment, Mr. Burnett,” Connie said brightly, although Janet couldn’t help but think there was something forced about it.

  “It’s all true.” Ray chuckled as they continued on their way.

  In no time at all, they were alone, enjoying the privacy of the tree-lined walk along that part of the riverbank. It was shady and cool, and a light breeze came off the rushing, wide river.

  Janet had always spent time down by the river, playing, even swimming, and generally looking for mischief with Jimmy. But this was the first time it had ever seemed to her like a magical place. It was secluded, it was cool and comfortable, and it was theirs.