The Promise of Forgiveness (8 page)

“W
hat are you going to do with these?” Ruby handed him the rose petals she'd gathered, and he slipped them into his shirt pocket.

“Save 'em.”

She envisioned a heaping mound of shriveled petals hidden inside a shoe box stowed at the back of his closet. “Why?”

“They remind me of Cora.”

That he doted on the stupid bushes after the woman had left him and his daughter was pathetic and touching at the same time. He eyed the petals that had blown out of reach, and she crawled across the ground to retrieve them. “How old are the bushes?”

“A couple of years older than you.”

“I don't have a green thumb,” she said. “Maybe you can share your secret on how you've kept them alive in this”—
bleak
—“climate.”

Listening to Hank impart gardening tips wasn't how Ruby had envisioned her visit with him, especially when he hadn't said he was sorry for giving her away or waiting to contact her until after his health had grown frail. But the reality of his mortality weighed heavily on her. She curled her fingers over the petals in her palm. She could remain angry and resentful or . . . She unfurled her fingers. She could give Hank a chance to earn her forgiveness before he withered away and ended up in a box. She had to try, not for her and Hank's sake, but for her and Mia's.

“Looks like we got them all.” Hank crawled to his feet. He stumbled, and Ruby grabbed his arm to steady him.

“Think I'll go rest.” He climbed the porch steps, then stopped to catch his breath on the landing.

“Hold up.” Ruby plucked a petal from the bottom step. “This one fell out of your pocket.” He took the petal and disappeared inside the house. Assuming Mia would want an update on the horses, Ruby headed to the barn. “Joe?”

“In the storage room!”

The sound of his muffled voice sent a tingle racing down the back of her neck. She hurried her steps, then stopped when her conscience spoke.

What do you think you're doing
?

She wasn't doing anything.

You're supposed to be focusing on Mia, not targeting your next boyfriend
.

Just because she enjoyed Joe's company didn't mean she was looking to hook up with him before she left for Kansas. Right now he was the only one at the ranch who gave her the time of day. She felt sorry for him because he'd lost his son, and the last thing she wanted was to hurt him. The only way that would happen was if she let things go too far between them. And there was no chance of that.

Ruby had already been burned twice—the first time by Glen Baxter and the second time by Dylan. Any idiot knew there were three strikes in baseball. The only way to protect herself was to run at the first inkling of trouble. So that's what she did—she left men before they could leave her. As long as she remained just friends with Joe, neither one of them would get left behind.

“Ruby?”

His voice jolted her back to the present.

“What's wrong?” He walked toward her, carrying a small chain saw in his hand.

“Sorry. I was lost in thought.” She smiled. “Have the horses calmed down enough for Mia to visit them?”

“She can fill their grain feeders while I clear the debris out of the corral.” He narrowed his eyes. “Are you okay?”

“Why wouldn't I be?”

“If you're not used to storms like this, they can be unnerving.”

“Believe me,” she said, “I've weathered worse storms than the one today.” She went back to the house and surveyed the mess on the porch. Resisting the urge to stop and shake out the bedspread, she entered the kitchen and found Mia feeding Friend.

“When can I see the horses?” Mia asked.

“That's what I came in to tell you. Joe said you can fill their grain feeders if you want.”

Mia made a dash for the back porch, then stopped. “You want to help me?”

Caught off guard by the invitation, Ruby was speechless.

“If you don't want to, that's okay.”

“No, no. I'd love to go with you.” She followed Mia back outside. Cleaning the house could wait.

“Is Hank okay?” Mia asked.

“Yes, why?”

“He acted like he didn't hear me a while ago when I asked why he was going upstairs.”

“The storm tired him out. He'll feel better after he takes a nap.”

Once they arrived at the barn, Mia went straight for Pretty Boy's stall. “He's your favorite, huh?” Ruby stood in the aisle and watched Mia pat the gelding's rump and then flip open the feeder attached to the side of the stall.

“Pretty Boy looks me in the eye. I think he can read my mind.”

Ruby wished she could read her daughter's mind.

Mia walked over to a large blue barrel across from the stalls, grabbed the scoop sitting on the lid and filled it, then dumped the grain into the feeder. “You want to do Lonesome's?”

“Sure.”

Ruby shoved the scoop into the barrel and poured the kernels into Lonesome's feeder. “You want me to fill Sugar's, too?”

Mia nodded, then slipped a grooming brush over her hand and gently worked the bristles across the jagged scars that marred Pretty Boy's hide. The frown that was usually present on Mia's face vanished. Her daughter seemed at peace around the horses. With Hank napping and Joe cleaning up the property, Ruby intended to take advantage of their privacy and Mia's calm disposition.

“Before we left Missouri you refused to talk about what happened between you and Kevin Walters. I think it's time, Mia.”

The brush froze against the horse's neck. “It's not a big deal.”

But it was. “Losing your virginity at fourteen is a
really
big deal.”

Mia rolled her eyes. “It's not like other kids aren't having sex.” Then she added, “At least I knew enough to use a condom and didn't get pregnant like you did.”

Ruby pressed her hand to her warm face. Just once she wished her daughter would act like her age and not ten years older. “You were
lucky
you didn't get pregnant.”

“No, I was lucky I listened to all your safe-sex lectures.”

Ruby had begun talking about the birds and the bees when Mia had gotten her period at age eleven. At least she'd done one thing right in her daughter's eyes. “You're still too young for sex.”

“Everyone's doing it, Mom. If they aren't taking their clothes off, then they're going down on their boyfriends beneath the bleachers in the football field.”

Usually grown children complained that they didn't want images of their parents making out in their heads, not the other way around.

“How come you didn't tell me you were dating Kevin?”

“We weren't dating.”

OMG
. “So you don't even like Kevin?”

Mia dropped her gaze.

“Did Kevin pressure you into—”

“No. It was my idea.”

“Did he know it was your first time?”

Mia wiped a finger across her eye, and Ruby's heart broke. “I wish you would have come to me first. We could have talked about it.”
I could have talked you out of it
.

“There's no point in talking, Mom. You don't understand me. You don't even know me.”

“Oh, c'mon. You're being unfair.”

“I can't believe you even care.”

“You're my daughter. Of course I care.”

“Seriously?”

Ruby opened her mouth to protest, but Mia threw the grooming brush on the ground. “When are you going to call Hank ‘Dad'? 'Cause he is, you know. Your real father.”

She'd call Hank
Dad
if and when he earned the right to the title.

“And why are you so mean to him?” Mia asked.

How had this conversation become about Ruby? “I'm not mean to Hank.”

“You never say anything nice to him.”

That isn't true.
“Hank and I are adults and—”

“You hate him 'cause he didn't want you when you were a baby.”

Ruby hadn't thought there was anything Hank could say to convince her that he'd made the right decision in putting her up for adoption, but she understood now that he'd been in no position to raise a child on his own after Cora had run off. And Hank had never asked Ruby's parents to keep her adoption a secret. Maybe she was angry with the wrong person. But accepting Hank as her father was asking a lot when she'd already been let down by one father in her short lifetime.

“I don't hate your grandfather.”

“He thinks you do.”

“Did he tell you that?” When Mia looked away, Ruby knew her daughter was fibbing. “Hank might be my father, but he's still a stranger to me.”

“It doesn't matter,” Mia said.

“What doesn't matter?”

“You'll never let us be a real family.”

Hank and his dusty ranch were hardly the symbol of home and hearth. “I don't know what you're talking about.”

“Because you don't listen.” Mia's upper lip quivered. “You only care about what
you
want. It's always been about you.”

“That's not true. I took the job in Kansas because I was worried about
you,
not me.”

“No, you're making us move because you're embarrassed by what I did.”

Now Ruby couldn't look her daughter in the eye. She had been worried about people blaming her for Mia's poor judgment. They'd claim Mia didn't know any better because her only role model preferred live-in boyfriends to marriage.

“You're wrong,” Ruby said, even though her daughter was right. She cursed when Mia ran from the barn. What good would leaving Pineville do if their problems followed them all the way to Kansas and wiped out their fresh start?

“F
eeling better?” Ruby eyed Hank closely as he shuffled into the kitchen.

“Are the horses okay?” he asked, ignoring her question.

“They're fine.” But she was exhausted. Her confrontation with Mia had left her raw. When she'd returned to the house an hour ago, she'd made a fresh pot of coffee, needing a dose of caffeine before she tackled the dust that had blown into the house.

“I forgot to mention earlier that your stock tank is ruined,” she said.

“Which one?”

She was terrible with directions—couldn't tell north from south or east from west. “It's near the area where your fence was torn down.”

“What's wrong with the tank?”

“Someone peppered it with bullets.”

The caterpillars above his eyes rippled across his brow.

“I put a frozen pizza in the oven for supper.” The freezer was stocked with frozen meals, but there were no fresh fruits or vegetables in the house.

Hank removed paper plates from the cupboard, his crooked fingers trembling as he struggled to separate the stack.

“You need to report the damaged tank to the sheriff.”

“Tomorrow,” he said.

He didn't appear too concerned that his property had been vandalized again. “Why not now?”

“The sheriff's busy dealing with emergencies after the storm.”

Ruby conceded that a damaged water cistern probably wasn't a priority after a major weather event. “Will your insurance cover the cost of a new tank?”

“Don't have insurance.”

“Why the hell not?”

“You shouldn't cuss, daughter.”

Ruby wanted to remind him that she wasn't his daughter in any true sense of the word, but she let it pass. “Why don't you carry insurance on the ranch?”

“Canceled my policy last year. Didn't see a point in spending the extra money.”

Hank probably figured he'd be dead sooner rather than later, so why waste the money. “Do you have enough savings to replace it?”

“If you want to know how much money I have, why don't you ask?”

Fine
. “How much money do you have?”

“Petro Oil owns the pump jacks on my property, and their leases bring in ten thousand dollars a month.”

Hank earned $120,000 a year? “If you have that much money”—she gestured to the run-down room—“why do you live like this?”

“What's wrong with the way I live?”

Ruby wouldn't be human if she didn't admit that she'd love to get her hands on some of Hank's cash. She'd buy a new car and a two-bedroom house for her and Mia, so they wouldn't have to rent a trailer or a dumpy apartment in Elkhart.

“Tomorrow we'll drive into town and speak to the sheriff.” Ruby's cell phone went off, and she recognized the Kansas area code. “I've got to take this.” She retreated to the parlor, then a few minutes later returned to the kitchen.

“That was my new boss,” she said. “The Red Roof Inn is opening two weeks ahead of schedule. I need to report early to the management training class.” At least she had a legitimate reason to give her daughter for leaving the ranch sooner rather than later. “Mia and I will have to catch the Greyhound bus to Elkhart on Tuesday.”

Hank's face turned pasty. The paper towel he was folding into a napkin fluttered to the countertop and then his legs buckled. Ruby sprang forward, catching him by the waist. They tumbled to the floor, her body cushioning his fall.

“What's the matter?” She pushed him onto his back and shook his shoulders. “Hank? Is it your heart?”

Mia waltzed into the kitchen, eyes widening when she saw her grandfather struggling to breathe.

“Get Joe. Hurry!”

Mia raced from the house.

Less than a minute later the back door crashed open. In one glance Joe assessed the situation. He removed a medication bottle from a cabinet and stuck a pill in Hank's mouth.

“What are you giving him?” Ruby asked.

“Valium.” Joe grasped Hank beneath the armpits and hoisted him into the chair Mia had pulled out from the table.

Ruby got to her feet, wincing at the pain that shot through her tailbone. She dampened a clean dishcloth with cool water and placed it across Hank's forehead. He swatted her arm, but she held the rag in place.

“What does the Valium do, Hank?” When he remained mute, Ruby shifted her gaze to Joe.

“The pacemaker's rhythm can be disrupted if he becomes anxious. The pill calms him down.”

Mia planted her hands on her hips. “What did you say to upset him?”

That Mia was accusing Ruby of causing her grandfather's collapse hurt like hell. She might not have formed a bond with Hank like Mia had, but that didn't mean she wanted something to happen to him. “I told him that you and I are leaving on Tuesday.”

Mia gasped. “We are?”

“I have to report to my new job early.”

“I don't want to go.”

“We'll talk about this later.” Ruby narrowed her eyes, warning Mia not to challenge her decision and upset Hank further.

Mia left the kitchen, slamming the door behind her.

Ruby removed the cloth from Hank's forehead, relieved the color had returned to his face. She brought him a glass of water, but he pushed it away. Not in the mood for his orneriness, she said, “Drink it, or I'll pour it down your throat.”

While he guzzled the water, she eyed Joe. The fact that he knew right where Hank kept his pills and what to do with them proved he was more invested in his boss and his job than he pretended to be. She set the empty glass in the sink, but when she turned around, Joe was gone.

The timer
ding
ed and Hank shifted in the chair. “Stay right where you are.” She grabbed a dish towel and removed the hot baking sheet from the oven, then cut the pizza into slices and placed one on a paper plate for him.

“You gonna shove this down my throat, too?” he asked.

She fought a smile. “Damn right.”

“Your mother never swore.”

“I wouldn't know that about her, because you don't talk about Cora.”

“Fetch me a fork 'n' knife.”

She'd forgotten about his missing teeth. She handed him the silverware, then opened the back door and poked her head outside. Mia had put Pretty Boy in the corral and was sitting on the top rail, gesturing wildly with her arms—probably bitching about her mother to the horse. No sense telling her supper was ready—she'd eat when she grew hungry. Ruby joined Hank at the kitchen table. “What time should we leave in the morning?”

“Don't matter to me.” He got up from his chair, tossed his half-eaten meal into the garbage, and left the room, his footsteps echoing through the hallway and up the stairs. Then another door slammed.

The pizza in Ruby's mouth tasted like cardboard, and she forced herself to swallow. Hank acted as if he didn't want her to leave. He'd claimed he didn't have any regrets giving her up for adoption, but maybe he'd had to convince himself of that in order to live with his conscience all these years. But if he really wanted her to stay, why didn't he just say so?

She hadn't answered his summons because she'd wanted him to embrace her as his long-lost daughter. Well, maybe she had a little. But she'd come mainly because she'd wanted to learn who the real Ruby Baxter was. She'd never expected to want to know more about the real Hank McArthur—the man hidden beneath layers of dust and grit.

She stored the leftover pizza in the fridge, washed the dishes, then filled a bucket with cleaning solution and carried it into her and Mia's bedroom—she'd saved the worst mess for last. A half inch of grime coated the bed and rug. Once she wiped down the furniture and washer and dryer, she removed the comforter and went outside to shake the dust free. Joe had been busy. He'd reattached the porch door, then collected the fallen tree branches and piled them next to the barn. Dusk descended on the ranch, but Mia's backside was taking root on the corral rail.

Ruby grabbed her pajamas and went upstairs to shower. When she returned to the kitchen, she let Friend out in the yard to do his business. The dog came back in and settled down for the night on his pillow. A short time later Mia came into the house, sat at the end of the bed and pretended to watch the rotisserie oven infomercial on the TV.

“There's leftover pizza in the fridge, if you're hungry.”

Mia ignored her.

“You were the one who said you didn't want to stay here after we got off the bus.”

“That was before,” Mia said.

“Before what?”

“I knew about the horses.”

Ruby shoved a hand through her damp hair. “Mia, I—”

“And we can't leave Hank.” Mia popped off the bed and paced across the carpet. “He's got a sick heart. Who's gonna help him if he has another attack and Joe's not here?”

Ruby envisioned Hank lying unconscious on the floor with Friend's head resting on his leg. It was possible his heart could give out at any moment, and once she and Mia left the ranch, it might be the last time they ever saw him alive.

“You go,” Mia said. “I'll stay until school starts.”

If Mia thought she could push Ruby away that easily, she'd misjudged her mother. But how could she take her daughter away from Hank and his horses when the Devil's Wind was the one place that made her happy? On the other hand, Ruby had to support them. If she didn't show up in Elkhart, her new boss might give her job to someone else. Then what?

But . . . maybe after another week or two at the ranch the shine would wear off Hank and the horses and then Mia might be open to moving on. Exhausted by the day's events, she decided to stew over the consequences later. “I'll notify my supervisor that I can't make the training session.”

“Really?”

“I'll call her in the morning.”

Mia's mouth curved into a genuine smile, and for once Ruby felt like she'd done something right in her daughter's eyes.