by Indiana Wake
No sooner were they in the relative safety of the trees than Ray pulled her into his arms, digging his fingers into her hair and kissing her passionately. He had kissed her before, it was true, but never quite like this.
Something about it gave Janet a sense of panic and suddenly the cool seclusion of the riverbank was not quite as magical as it had seemed just moments before. She put both hands on Ray’s chest and gently pushed. He immediately opened his eyes, stepped back, and looked at her.
“Sorry, I guess I’m just not used to all this,” Janet said apologetically as she blushed. “I mean, I’ll get used to it in time.”
“I guess you’re still young and I should have thought about that. So, come on, let’s walk.” He smiled again, clearly trying to hide his disappointment as he held out his arm for her to take. “Come on, I promise you, you’ll be quite safe.” He chuckled, and it somehow returned the magical feeling to her, although perhaps not quite as forcefully as before.
“I really am sorry,” Janet said again and felt extremely embarrassed. Like an inexperienced child, a fool, and she wondered what on earth Ray must think of her. After all, he’d bought her such a wonderful gift, an intimate gift, and she had behaved like a girl at her first barn dance. She hoped it wouldn’t put him off her, but she knew that she couldn’t just suddenly become someone she wasn’t.
Her sensible self told her that she acted like an inexperienced girl because that is exactly what she was. She was just nineteen and had never had a romantic attachment in her life. And maybe Ray really should have given that some thought. After all, it was no secret that he was nearly ten years older than she was. He already knew all this stuff, he’d already had years to get over the nerves and the embarrassment of it all.
“So, did you have a good day at work?” he asked in a conversational tone.
“It was pretty much the same old thing. Same old pie, same old coffee, same old customers.” Janet laughed and was pleased that he didn’t seem at all angry with her.
“Maybe I’ll just have to make more of an effort to come down from the plains in the middle of the day and keep you company.”
“That sure would be nice, although I know you’d spend more time in the saddle than taking a rest and getting something to eat in the diner.”
“It’s worth it to me,” Ray said, and Janet felt herself glowing.
Not only had she not put him off her, but she began to wonder if he truly understood her misgivings, nervousness, and young heart. And if he did, that was the most wondrous thing in the world. It was more magical than the trees and the gentle whooshing of the river.
“I’d like that,” Janet said, keen to let him know that she really was falling for him. “So, how was your day? How were things out on the plains rounding up wild cattle?”
“Good enough, I reckon.” He smiled but a little flash of concern clouded his green eyes. “You know I work for Drake Darcey, don’t you?”
“Of course, I do. Just about every ranch hand in the area works for him.”
“And cowboys,” he said, keen to make his distinction.
“Yes, and cowboys. I reckon cowboys come here every summer with the idea of working at the Darcey Ranch.”
“It sure does have a good reputation.”
“And you like it?” Janet asked, wondering for the first time what would become of them both when it was time for Ray to move on.
Would he move on? Or would he find some way to stay there with her, maybe become a cowboy full-time for the Darcey ranch. Maybe even work the ranch itself instead of the plains. She couldn’t think about it all too long, for fear that she would simply end up imagining a very different scenario where he just upped sticks and left.
“Yeah, I do like it. Your friend works there, doesn’t he? What’s his name? Jimmy, is it?” Ray asked and wrinkled his forehead in thought.
“Yes, Jimmy works there,” Janet said and wished the subject of her old friend hadn’t come up.
“How long’s he been there?”
“Since he was a boy of fourteen. So, five years more or less.”
“I see.” Ray looked thoughtful. “So, I guess his boss likes him, or likes the work he does. It’s a long time for a kid to keep a job like that.”
“Well, he’s not a kid anymore.” Janet sounded a little defensive. “Unless you think I’m a kid too. I mean, I’m just nineteen like Jimmy is.”
“No, I don’t think you’re a kid.” He laughed amiably.
“Drake Darcey does like Jimmy, I suppose because he works so hard. He’s got this plan, you see, to save up every penny and get his own ranch one day. Darcey knows it and gives him all the hours because he’s such a good worker.” She shrugged and realized she felt a little disloyal talking about Jimmy with Ray, even if it was to praise him.
“Do you see much of Jimmy?” Ray asked, and Janet wondered if he might be a little jealous.
“No, not anymore.”
“So, you did? I mean, were you…?” Ray peered at her closely.
“No, we were just friends,” she said, but when Ray smiled, she felt a little stab of annoyance. “The best friends in all the world. Since we were this high.” She indicated with a flat palm. “And we’re still friends now, even though I guess things have changed between us.”
“I see.” Ray smiled his most devastatingly handsome smile. “So, how do you like that little trinket? It looks real nice, but do you like it?”
“I sure do, Ray. And thank you for buying me such a lovely gift. It was so thoughtful.” Janet was so relieved by his change in conversational direction that she didn’t bother to question it.
10
“Well, good morning, Connie. You sure are bright and early,” Janet said some days later when Connie wandered into the diner.
“I just wanted the taste of a cup of coffee I didn’t have to make myself.”
“I sure do know how that feels.” Janet and Connie chuckled. “Just coffee?”
“Please.” Connie settled down at the table nearest the counter.
The diner was deserted, but Janet knew it was just the calm before the storm of the midday rush. Every day was the same, just as she always complained it was, but it was always a good day when Connie walked in through the doors.
Janet poured the hot coffee and then wandered over to Connie’s table to set it down in front of her. She also set down a thin sliver of apple and blackberry pie, a little free extra for one of her ma’s closest friends.
“You are a good girl, Janet,” Connie said and smiled. “You always have been.”
“Maybe not always,” Janet said with a grimace.
She wandered back behind the counter and decided to pour herself some coffee also. Staying where she was, she leaned against the counter and settled in for a few minutes’ conversation. She’d always liked Connie, always found her amusing, and she never seemed like an older woman at all.
“I hope you’re not harping back to the days when you were nothing more than a child, Janet. Nobody looking back would ever blame you for grieving.” Connie shook her head and clicked her tongue.
“I guess I’ve just been thinking back to those days more than ever lately.”
“And why is that?”
“I suppose because everything feels like it’s changing, and I want to make sure the past doesn’t disappear entirely.”
“Now, why on earth would the past go anywhere? To be honest, most people want to forget it, but if you want to hang onto it, I can assure you the past is always lurking just around the corner.” Connie chuckled. “For good or for bad.”
“I guess that’s true.”
“You don’t sound convinced, honey.” Connie took a sip of her coffee and winced. “Good Lord, that’s hot.”
“Coffee usually is,” Janet said and gave her a cheeky grin.
“That’s more like it, that’s my Janet.” Connie made a theatrical point of blowing across the surface of the coffee. “I must admit, I’d rather have you as mischievous as a
lways than see you down. What’s troubling you?”
“Jimmy,” Janet said truthfully, realizing that it was the first time she had admitted it to anybody. “I miss him.”
“Do you really need to miss him? I mean, what’s to stop you seeing him?”
“Ray.”
“Honey, Ray might be handsome and exciting, but he doesn’t get to tell you who your friends are. You’re not married to him yet, are you?”
“Oh no, I didn’t mean that Ray had stopped me,” Janet said, and then wondered how true that was. After all, his questions about Jimmy just days before down by the river had certainly made her think. “I mean that now that I have Ray in my life, it doesn’t seem right to be with Jimmy. Not from Ray’s point of view, although I’m sure he wouldn’t be too keen for me to have another man in my life I’m so close to, but from Jimmy’s point of view.”
“You mean it’s too painful for him?” Connie put the hot coffee down and settled for a forkful of cold fruit pie instead.
“I think so. Although I honestly don’t know. I haven’t seen him for a while.” She remembered how they’d left things at the town barn, how Jimmy had been the one to act reasonably in the end. How he’d taken the reins of that conversation and manfully done the right thing.
“Has he moved?” Connie asked and Janet was taken aback. “Oh, don’t look so confused. I’m just teasing you. My point is, you know where he lives, you know where he works, and you know what he does with his time better than anybody else. It’s not like he’s disappeared. He hasn’t left town, you can still see him.”
“But he hasn’t come to see me. I mean, Jimmy knows where I live too, doesn’t he?”
“Yes, but he’s in a somewhat awkward position.” Connie raised her eyebrows. “I mean, you’ve got Ray Burnett and the whole town knows it. I’m not saying Jimmy is being awkward, he just probably thinks that your friendship, if you’re going to continue in it, is something you should probably make the first move about.”
“Do you really think so?”
“He might be sore about things, Janet, but he’s still Jimmy. He’s a good man, and you know as well as I do that he wouldn’t keep butting into your life to try to wear you down. To try to get you to change your mind about anything. He’ll just have been keeping his distance and not just for his own sake. Come on, Janet. There isn’t anybody in the world who knows Jimmy Dalton better than you do. Just think about it, you’ll soon know I’m right.”
“Of course, you’re right.” Janet sighed. “I suppose I have been a bit defensive about it all. You know, everybody wants me to be with Jimmy. Right down to Katie; even though she doesn’t know how to say it, or really what’s happening, I can see it in her eyes.”
“And you’re tired of it, aren’t you? You want everybody else to butt out of your life.”
Janet’s eyes opened wide.
“Well, yes, that’s exactly it. I’m tired of the feeling that I need to explain myself.” The sense of relief of having Connie give voice to the very thing that she had been thinking for weeks was immense. “I have this horrible feeling that I’m letting everybody down just by wanting to live my own life. Ma, Daddy, Katie. Half the town, if I’m honest.”
“And Jimmy?”
“You might think so, but no. I mean, he’s the only one who’s stayed out of it. Sure, we had a few words in the beginning, but I guess he was surprised by it all. But he’s the only one who hasn’t turned sad eyes on me in the hopes that I’ll just give in and be the person everybody else wants me to be.”
“That sounds like Jimmy.” Connie nodded and smiled warmly, finally risking a tiny sip of her coffee. “Oh yes, that’s better,” she said, taking another, much larger sip.
“What do you think, Connie?” Janet asked, not entirely sure she was doing the right thing by asking.
“I think the world of Jimmy Dalton, Janet. But I think the world of you too, as you very well know. We only get one life, and it’s ours to live, each one of us. Whether we live it right or wrong is only up to us, and that’s how it should be. Who you want to let into your heart is your business, nobody else’s.” Connie paused to take another forkful of pie which she chewed thoughtfully.
Janet felt her spirits soar; finally, somebody knew exactly how it was she felt, not just right now, but for such a long time.
“But don’t forget, in amongst all this, that you don’t have to settle for the first man you stumble across. It’s a very long life, honey, and there’s plenty of time to decide what you really want out of it.”
“You don’t think Ray Burnett’s right for me?” Janet asked, finally feeling the little regrets she had suspected would come when she had first asked for Connie’s opinion.
As much as Connie had understood the feelings of Janet’s heart, Janet also knew that she was a woman who would say her piece without tailoring it in any way to suit her audience. If she were asked for her opinion, she would give it.
“You’re nineteen-years-old. Obviously, to a woman of my age, that seems so very young. And the truth was, I was already married a year by the time I was your age. There are girls all over Oregon, all over the country in fact, who have already decided by your age who it is they will love forever. And you know what? Most of the time I reckon it works. But even if that’s the case, it doesn’t mean you haven’t got time to think about it.”
“Do you like Ray?”
“He’s handsome, he’s full of confidence, and he works for a living. I guess there’s enough there to like about him. But I don’t know him yet, do I? And I reckon that’s my whole point. It takes time to really get to know a person, and I wouldn’t want you to go rushing into something just to prove a point to your ma and pa, or even little Katie. Forget any ideas about straightening your spine and being determined to live your own life. You’ll do that anyway, with or without any grand gestures. Just concentrate on what it is that you really want and give yourself time to discover it. That’s all I’m saying.” Connie held her palms up. “Which I guess is a lot, but you know how I like to rattle on.”
“I know you rattle on, Connie,” Janet said and was pleased when Connie burst out laughing. “But I sure do appreciate it.”
Despite Connie’s words, Janet sensed something more behind them. It was all fine advice and yet, by the time that dear woman was leaving the diner, Janet couldn’t help but feel a little sense of something she didn’t quite understand niggling away at her once again.
11
It had taken an hour or so to get going that morning, given that his horse had thrown not one, but two shoes. Jimmy always used his own horse for work at Darcey’s ranch, and he always had. His horse was still young and liked to be out always. But Drake was good enough to pay for his feed and his upkeep, and the blacksmith re-shoeing Jimmy’s horse at Drake’s expense was a regular occurrence.
Jimmy had taken a little time to wander about as he waited, sitting on a five-bar gate and having a few minutes conversation with two of the other ranch hands. They laughed and joked amongst themselves and Jimmy, sitting there in the sunshine as he waited for his horse, started to feel more like his old self.
He’d always enjoyed his work, and only the break with Janet had disillusioned him. But he was a sensible man, and he quickly got things straight in his own mind again. Sure, he still loved her. Sure, he still wished he’d made some move sooner, declaring his feelings sooner, making her realize that she was loved.
Perhaps that would have been the very thing she was looking for, that break from the normal, that excitement. But there was always the idea that it would have been the very last thing she wanted and in many ways, he was glad that he’d never put himself forward.
The fact that she had Ray in her life now was rejection enough, but a true rejection of her would have been something altogether worse. As it was, this was nothing more than an idea, an unspoken thing. He ought never to have had any expectation of something more between them and he knew that the bruising of his heart was more his fau
lt than hers.
But with everything thought out, Jimmy had begun to feel better. He’d faced it properly and was finding the idea of getting on with his life a lot easier. Working with the horses and the cattle was the very thing he had always wanted to do, and his old ideas of saving every penny towards a ranch of his own were beginning to settle comfortably about his shoulders once more.
“He’s ready when you are,” Jerry Croston, the blacksmith, yelled out in his rough, booming voice.
“It always amazes me that horses don’t bolt around you,” Jimmy said as he approached the blacksmith with a laugh. “I mean, despite the yelling, they always seem real calm.” He shook his head from side to side and the old blacksmith laughed.
“I suppose you can get used to anything, son,” Jerry boomed again and handed the reins to Jimmy. “Well, I’ll just go in and see Drake for my money.” He nodded his head and wandered off.
Jimmy spent a minute or two to re-fasten the saddle which seemed to be sitting a little loosely on his horse’s back. Once it was done, he opened the saddlebag and gently eased in the thick wedges of bread and butter he’d wrapped up for himself that morning before leaving the house.
It really was thick, and so he pushed his hand right down to the bottom of the bag to make sure that his midday meal wasn’t about to be squashed beyond all recognition.
And that was when he felt something in the very bottom of the bag, tightly pinched between the hard leather seam. He ran his fingers over a papery role, gently easing it away from the strict confines of the seam, holding onto it tightly to pull it free from the saddlebag.
Jimmy looked down at his hand and blinked. He could hardly believe that he was staring down at a roll of banknotes which had been neatly secured with a band.
He didn’t want to open it, he didn’t want to count it. His mouth went dry; the money was not his and he had no idea what it was doing in his horse’s saddle. It took him a few minutes to come to terms with what was happening, and although he hadn’t entirely grasped it, he knew that whatever it was, it couldn’t be good.