I turned slightly, and the man was still looking at me. I smiled my best smile and held out my hand.
“Hi,” I said. “I’m Ruby.”
“Hi,” he replied, taking my hand in his, and kissing the back of it. I was a little taken aback, but my good graces kicked in, and I smiled sweetly. “I’m Lincoln.”
“Lincoln? That’s an interesting name. You aren’t from around here, I take it?” I asked, looking into his deep green eyes. He smiled, and I was almost blinded by his perfect white teeth.
“I live in New York,” he replied, and I detected a slight accent in his deep voice.
“New York, really? I’ve never been there.”
“No? It’s a wonderful place to live.”
I nodded and smiled, as all the years I wasted in Sugar Hill doing absolutely nothing flashed before my eyes.
Jimmy sat two cold, frothy beers in front of me and I thanked him and turned back to the stranger.
“What brings you to Sugar Hill, Lincoln?” I liked the way his name rolled off my tongue, and I wanted to say it three more times just to feel it.
“Just a little bit of business. I won’t be here long,” he replied.
“Oh,” I said. Of course. He knew better. He knew to get the hell out of Sugar Hill as fast as he could. “Well, nice to meet you, Lincoln,” I said, as I picked up the beers.
“Nice to meet you, too, Ruby” he said, his eyes trailing away from mine, and looking me up and down. I turned to walk away and he laid a hand on my arm to stop me.
“Ruby, could I take you to dinner tomorrow night?” he asked, his green eyes shining into mine. “If you’re free, that is?”
Once again, Crit’s face flashed in my mind, but I pushed him away. If Crit didn’t want to make our relationship official, what harm would it do to go out with someone else?
I was bored to tears and dinner with a handsome stranger sounded like the perfect cure.
“Why, I’d love to, Lincoln!” I replied. I sat the beers back down on the bar, grabbed a cocktail napkin and scribbled my phone number down on it. I had to ask Jimmy for a pen first, and I ignored the knowing look he gave me.
I handed Lincoln the napkin with a grin.
“Call me,” I said, picking the beers back up and walking away, making sure to exaggerate the swing in my hips just slightly.
I didn’t have to turn around to know he was watching me walk away.
☼ ☼ ☼ ☼ ☼ ☼
I wanted to believe none of it was true. I wanted to believe there was some sort of mistake, some miscommunication of some sort. But everyone who could confirm this for me was dead.
I went through an entire six pack of beer as I searched Pa’s office.
My office.
It was so hard sometimes to realize they were gone, that I would never hear Pa tell another groan-inducing joke, or taste Ma’s chocolate cake again.
It was so hard to believe, even after a year now, that this was all mine.
My responsibility.
My burden.
Or, hell, maybe it wasn’t. Apparently, everything I had been busting my balls to save for the last year belonged to some faceless stranger I had never heard of.
I was about to give up when I finally found what I was looking for. Johnson had showed me a copy of the loan agreement at his office, but I wanted to find a copy in Pa’s papers to confirm this was all true. And now, here it was, in my hand. With Pa’s unmistakeable signature at the bottom, along with LaCroix’s.
Undeniable and yet totally unbelievable.
I spent the next hour looking at my bank accounts, trying to make some sense of what I was dealing with before unloading all this on my brothers and Georgia. I was hesitant to tell them at all, but this was just too much to bear on my own.
By the time I was done, it was way past midnight and I felt worse than I did when I began. I sat in the kitchen, having given up on the beer long ago, an open bottle of whiskey sitting in front of me.
I downed shot after shot until I felt like I could get to sleep.
It was going to be a very long day tomorrow.
☼ ☼ ☼ ☼ ☼ ☼
As soon as I opened my eyes, I felt guilty for agreeing to have dinner with the handsome stranger at the bar, and I felt ridiculous for feeling guilty, all at the same time.
Crit Hope had a hold on me that I couldn’t shake.
Despite his refusal to make our relationship official, I still felt loyal to him. Hell, I loved him, and to be honest, he was the only thing in life that I wanted.
I rolled over in my bed and grabbed my phone from my bedside table. I needed to talk to Crit, to hear his voice, to find some shred of hope that everything was going to eventually work out between us.
He answered on the second ring.
“Ruby, I’m really busy right now,” he answered gruffly. Not even a hello or a how are you.
“Sorry, Crit,” I replied, suddenly not knowing what the hell to say to him. “Is everything okay?” I asked after a pause.
“No, everything is not okay at all. Shit is hitting the fan all at once. I gotta go.”
“Okay, well…um…could I see you tonight? It’s been a week since we’ve seen each other.”
“Jesus, Ruby, I just told you I was busy. I don’t have time for this right now.”
Like a stab to the heart, his words shot through me. What the hell was wrong with him? Why wasn’t I enough?
“I just asked if I could see you, is that so bad?” I sounded needy and whiny and I hated the sound of my voice more than ever right now.
“Ruby, you just don’t quit, do you?” he asked, frustration rising in his voice.
“Crit, you don’t have to be so rude to me,” I replied.
“Look, I’m not being rude. I told you I have a lot going on. I’ll call you later.” The click of the phone was like a bullet to my heart.
I stared at the phone in my hand, and then threw it across the room in frustration, tears stinging my eyes.
Why was I wasting my time with him? Why did I let him treat me like an afterthought constantly? I was tired of being treated this way, tired of being hurt, tired of hiding something that should be celebrated. My eyes filled up with tears as I laid there, replaying our conversation in our head. Maybe I shouldn’t have pushed it, but damn he didn’t need to be so short with me.
My phone started ringing again, and I jumped out of my bed to answer it. Maybe Crit had a change of heart. Maybe he realized just how rude he really was being. Maybe he had finally come to his senses, or at least was calling back to apologize for hanging up on me.
“Hello?” I answered hopefully.
“Ruby? This is Lincoln. I was just calling to work out the details of our dinner tonight. Are we still on?”
Lincoln. Handsome, rich, and a man who follows up on his word. Lincoln, a stranger, but a stranger that actually wanted to spend time with me.
What the hell was wrong with me? I was wasting time with Crit, and like my Daddy always said, life was short and heaven was just waiting to snatch us all up before the devil could get to us.
“You bet we are, Lincoln,” I replied.
“Excellent. I know a wonderful place to go. Can I pick you up at seven? What’s your address?” he asked.
There was no way in hell I was going to give him my address. The last thing I needed was to start this off by being embarrassed of where I lived, or introducing him to my father.
“I’ll meet you at the Sugar Hill Saloon at seven, if that’s okay? I live out in the sticks,” I lied.
“Sounds great, see you then!” he said, his deep velvety voice like music to my ears.
“It does sound great. See you tonight, Lincoln,” I replied, drying the tears that had fallen down my cheeks.
Maybe it was high time to give up Crit Hope. Maybe I was wrong about him. Maybe I was just intoxicated by his kisses that I couldn’t see that he clearly wasn’t interested in me.
Like they say - don’t kiss a fool or let a
kiss fool you. Maybe I had been playing the part of the fool all along.
I jumped out of bed, forcing all images and thoughts of Crit out of my head.
“Lincoln, Lincoln, Lincoln,” I said over and over as I went about my day.
It rolled off my tongue smoothly, and I was hoping the date went just as smooth. I had given Crit too much of my time and energy. It was time to put my focus on someone who deserved it.
☼ ☼ ☼ ☼ ☼ ☼
“Mr. Johnson, it’s Crit Hope,” I said into the phone, my head splitting with an awful hangover headache.
“Crit, hello son, how are you today?”
“To be honest, I’m pretty upset. This whole thing has me spinning in circles trying to wrap my head around it all. You sure took me by surprise.” I called Johnson as soon as I woke up and shook the fog from my head. I had tossed and turned all night, despite the whiskey’s best efforts, and my stomach was in knots.
“I know, Crit, and I apologize for that.”
“It’s alright, sir, I understand why you didn’t tell me, but I’m ready to face this head on. I was calling because I was hoping to get the phone number for this nephew of LaCroix’s.”
“He just called me. He’s in town now and I’m meeting with him this afternoon. I’ll set up another meeting for the three of us. You free tomorrow?” he asked.
“I sure am. I’ll clear my schedule, just let me know what time to be there.”
“Will do, son, will do,” he replied. “In the meantime, Crit, you just relax. We’ll work this all out.”
“I hope you’re right,” I said, before hanging up the phone. If he wasn’t right, then this man was going to have a huge fight on his hands.
I had been through so much already, and the last thing I was going to do was let someone take this farm away from me.
I set about my day, trying to forget everything for a while. I fed the horses and helped Jesse clean the stalls. Just being around the horses helped. They always calmed me down.
Later, I had my biggest challenge - sitting around the breakfast table with Seth, Jesse and Georgia without telling them what was going on.
I had decided to wait till I met with this man to see what I was facing before bringing them into it. If I could get through this without having to tell them, I intended to do just that.
I hated keeping secrets from them, even though I should have been used to it by now.
Lingering in the back of my mind this whole time was Ruby. I had been a complete ass to her on the phone and I felt like shit about it. I told myself I’d call her and apologize later after all my work was done and I had calmed down a little.
I didn’t know what to do about Ruby. I cared about her tremendously, and while I hadn’t meant to get involved with my kid sister’s best friend, it had happened. What I thought was going to be just a one night stand had turned into two, three, four nights, and then all of a sudden we were this ‘thing’. A thing without a name.
I had asked her to keep it between us those first few nights, primarily because of Georgia. I just didn’t want to hear it from her. I knew she’d probably feel uneasy about it, and it was the easier choice to just keep it quiet. I had to admit, I liked it that way.
It kept me from having to answer questions I didn’t know the answer to just yet. I had been single for a long time, and the longer you linger in one place, the harder it is to break free from it. I wasn’t sure at first how I felt about Ruby.
She was the hottest filly I’d ever seen, and when we made love, it was incredible. Her body was like an amusement ride, and when she and I were together, everything else faded away. We had fun together. We laughed in bed, which is something I had never done with any other woman.
That was the thing about Ruby. She was all fun and games, which is what attracted me to her in the first place. And the secrecy of it all only added to the fun, made those nights of sneaking off to the barn even more of an adventure.
After a few months of that, I took a real shine to her.
I had finally decided to come clean and stop hiding like a dog with a shoe in the closet, when my folks died. Then Georgia got together with Beau, and that just made everything so twisted. I didn’t want her to get hurt, and those Haggard boys were nothing but bad news in my eyes. If I had told her I had been sneakin’ around with Ruby all that time, I wouldn’t have had a leg to stand on.
Then Jesse set all those fires. I was beside myself with worry.
And then that motherfucker of a steer had taken me down in Houston. I didn’t just fall - he tore me up like a rabbit in a coyote’s mouth. It hurt more than anything I’d ever felt.
But more than anything, it hurt my pride. I felt like less of a man, broken, useless. Ruby flittered around my hospital bed like some kind of voluptuous, sexy Florence Nightingale and there was nothing I could do but wince in pain with every movement. I couldn’t touch her, kiss her, love her, not like a real man, not like she deserved.
It took months for me to heal completely. I had to take it slow as fucking molasses and it was overwhelming. I’m a big man, a strong man, and in those months afterwards, I felt like half the man I really was. It was downright humiliating.
Mix all that together, and there just never was the right time to come clean about Ruby.
Truth was, I loved her.
She knew it and I knew it.
Everything would work out just fine, we just had to wait for the right time, is all.
And now I have to deal with this shit.
I had no choice but to take my blows, and see where everything landed with LaCroix’s nephew. Once I had everything settled, then I could work everything out with Ruby.
She’d understand. She always did.
☼ ☼ ☼ ☼ ☼ ☼
My car puttered to a stop at the back of the Sugar Hill Saloon. I came in the back way, not wanting to run into Lincoln in the parking lot. I didn’t want him to see my beat up jalopy that screamed to the world how poor I was.
I pulled my rear view mirror down and took one last look at my lipstick. Small beads of sweat had collected on my forehead on the sweltering drive over and I cursed the hot Texas summer for the tenth time that day. My red curls were betraying me, the smooth locks I had worked for an hour to achieve in my bathroom earlier were now sticking out around my head in a frizzy mess.
Part of me wanted to start my car back up and drive back home. Or, over to Crit’s. I couldn’t stop thinking about him, and much to my dismay, I couldn’t stop feeling guilty about going out with Lincoln. But every time I picked up the phone to cancel, I was reminded of Crit’s words the last time I talked to him, and I put the phone back down.
I wasn’t breaking any rules going on a date with someone else. At least not any spoken ones. Since I had been seeing Crit, I hadn’t really tested the waters with anyone else. I wasn’t quite sure how he’d react.
But men are men, and I wasn’t naive about their tendency to be possessive. If I was being honest, the possibility of making Crit jealous was lingering in the back of my mind, and I kind of liked it. Maybe he needed a little wake-up call.
And if me going out with a rich, handsome stranger was what it took, well then so be it. Sometimes a girl had to play hardball.
I took a deep breath, grabbed my bag, and closed the door of my car with a little more aggression than was necessary.
To hell with Crit, I thought. I was going to have a good time tonight, and push him as far out of my mind as possible.
I turned around, took three steps around the corner and froze. A long, sleek black limousine was doubled parked in the gravel parking lot, and a very tall, very large man wearing a navy blue suit and dark shades stood at the back door, his arms crossed in front of him, his expression blank and intimidating.
I continued walking slowly, looking around the parking lot for any sign of Lincoln.
The butterflies that had filled my stomach fluttered wildly, and I swallowed hard. There was no mistaking who that limo belonged to
, but if there was any doubt in my mind, the big fella nodded to me and called my name as soon as he spotted me.
“Good evening, Miss Ruby,” he said, opening the door. Lincoln emerged from the back of the limo with a blast of cold air and handsome charm. The corners of his eyes crinkled as they met mine, his velvety hands sliding over my arms as he looked me over.
“Ruby, it’s so nice to see you again,” he said, his smooth voice sounding even smoother than on the phone earlier, the intense stare of his dark green eyes shooting right through me.
“You look beautiful,” he murmured, his eyes trailing over my little black dress that hugged my too ample curves and plunged to a low v in the front, revealing what I thought was my best feature - the buxom breasts I had apparently inherited from my absent mother. Lincoln’s eyes lingered an extra second on them, and I knew I had chosen correctly for the evening. I certainly wasn’t expecting this limo, though.
“Thank you,” I replied, flashing him a confident smile while my insides churned with insecurity. As much as I liked to dress up now and then, I was most in my element while drinking beers in the back of the barn in my jeans and boots.
I wasn’t really used to people with money, and as I had suspected by the way he was dressed when I met him the first time, this limo only proved that my suspicions about Lincoln’s bank account were correct.
He was loaded.
“Nice limo,” I said, trying to appear as nonchalant as possible.
“Thanks,” Lincoln replied. “Shall we?” he asked, gesturing for me to get inside. I smiled, and sank down into the buttery soft leather seats, a blast of cold air hitting my skin. By the time Lincoln slid in next to me, my nipples had hardened from the temperature change.
The door closed with a soft thud, and Lincoln turned to me with a smile.
ABANDON ALL HOPE: The Hope Brother Series (Book Two) Page 4