Above Rubies (Rockland Ranch) (40 page)

             
                                          ****               

             
That week Naomi flew to Tucson for the trials.  The slimy foster father and his wife were convicted of almost every one of the charges and Naomi flew home secure in knowing that this guy would never harm another child, and in fact, would probably be in prison until he was an old, old man.  The judge had postponed sentencing, saying he wanted to meet Kit and her daughter before he finalized his decision, so Naomi came back to Wyoming and returned to Arizona with Kit and Mimi Star and Rossen in tow.

             
Kit had no idea what was going on and didn’t think Naomi even understood why the judge wanted to see her.  When she walked into his chambers carrying Mimi, he stood up and came around his desk and shook her hand.  He looked into her eyes and watched Mimi for a second and then with a sigh, leaned back against the edge of the desk and rubbed the back of his neck with his hand.

             
“I’m sorry to drag you all the way back to Arizona.  I imagine it’s a place you never wanted to see again.  I just had to see for myself if the system was as bad as it appeared from the court documents.  After meeting with you, I can see that Ms. Rockland’s representation was indeed accurate.”

             
He sighed again.  “Miss Star, I'm sorry to the bottom of my heart for what you've had to endure at the hands of the State of Arizona.  It didn’t take me thirty seconds to figure out that that man was not fit to have a dog in his custody, let alone a young woman.  He'll never be around another child, but that is of no help to you and what you've been through.  I can see you've made the best of a bad situation, and that you've chosen to overcome the wrongs done you and love this beautiful child.  I’m proud of you for your selflessness. 

“
Under the circumstances, I'm choosing to subvert the wishes of the drug investigators here.  This man’s motel was confiscated by the authorities because he and his wife had been manufacturing drugs.  I am going to award the proceeds of the sale of that motel to you.  It could never be enough to right the injustices done you, but it’s a start.  Honestly, a large portion of the proceeds had to go to cleaning up the hazardous materials, but the balance is yours, along with the rest of the money he had in his accounts.  You’ll find all of the information here in this file. Ms. Rockland can see to the transfers for you and help you select a trustee to handle the lion’s share of it until you are twenty one.  I suggest you hire a professional to handle investing it for you.

             
“I also want you to know that I have personally asked for the resignations of those who handled your casework and am, in fact, pursuing criminal action for some of those involved.  I can’t promise to fix the system, but I can promise you I'm going to try.  No one should have to go through what you have in your short life.”  He handed her a large file folder and ushered them to the door.  “Once again, please forgive me for dragging you here.  I’m so sorry, and I hope this in some small way can make up for your troubles.  You’ve become an extraordinary young woman, in spite of it all, and I wish you all the best in the balance of your life.” 

             
The four of them stood outside the door of his chambers looking at each other.  Finally, Naomi said, “Oh, my.”

             
Rossen took the folder and looked inside and then repeated her sentiments.  “He just awarded you almost seven hundred thousand dollars.  He’s right, it can never make up for everything, but that’s a lot of money.”

             
As they walked down the hall, Naomi said almost to herself, “I wondered why he wanted to meet the two of you in person.”

             
                                          ****             

             
The last week of the semester Rossen and Mimi went to Logan to stay for a few days.  He hadn't called and when Kit came home from classes Monday evening to find them in the living room, her face lit up even as tired as she looked.  She hurriedly changed her clothes and apologized about having to leave on a date and Rossen knew as she left and kept turning around that she wished she could stay home instead. 

He wondered if he had
, in fact, pressured her too much to do things like date, to enjoy this season of her life.  She'd hardly even looked at the poor guy.  She was home two hours later, and then she and Joey and Treyne went to do something with their family home evening group.

             
The rest of that week as he hung out and watched her around campus, he was appalled at how much she was trying to do in the five day period.  She hadn't even had to fit a trip to Wyoming in on Wednesday to come home and see Mimi like she had been all fall.  And she hadn't been back to LA for almost three weeks.  Her life had probably been even crazier.

             
She had dates every night that week, and even one for lunch as well, and she worked out with Joey and Matt in the mornings and then with Matt again on Thursday before her date that night.  Rossen watched her do her final project in her sculpture class and then she had finals in Spanish and music.  For some reason she'd also gone to take two other tests that he didn't know what they were for and she passed off another belt with Matt.  Rossen had finally gotten to meet him and was almost glad he hadn't known much about him before.  When he realized what good friends they were, he knew he'd have been miserable wondering about the two of them these last months.

             
When Friday afternoon rolled around, Matt brought her home around two thirty.  They sat in his car talking for almost an hour.  When she finally came in, she was sobbing and walked through the living room to go into her room and close her door, without even talking to Rossen or Mimi.  She came out twenty minutes later and began loading a couple of duffle bags and some boxes out to put them next to the front door.  Then went into the kitchen and started to empty the fridge into a box too, crying all the while. 

She never approached
Rossen and he had no idea what to do about her.  When she went into the bathroom and started loading stuff out of drawers into yet another box, he finally put Mimi in the playpen and went in and literally forced Kit to stop and pulled her into a hug.  She just continued to cry, and when he couldn't stand it any longer and asked her what in the world was wrong, she began to sob all the harder.  Joey came home about then and looked at the two of them standing in the bathroom with Kit still sobbing against his chest.

             
Rossen looked over Kit's head at Joey and mouthed the word, “Help,”. 

Joey came up close and asked, "Was Matt by any chance here recently?"

              He nodded, "She talked to him in his car for almost an hour before she came in here and has been like this ever since.  Why?"

             
Joey hesitated, "I just saw him and he doesn't appear to be much better.  I wondered if this was going to happen."  She pulled Kit away from Rossen's embrace long enough to ask, "What's going on, Kit?"

             
Kit looked up with misery shining from her teary eyes and cried like her heart was broken and said, "Oh Joey, he asked me to marry him."  Her face crumbled and she buried it against Rossen’s chest again.

             
Joey wrapped her arms around them both. "Oh, Kit, I'm so sorry."  Rossen was incredibly lost.  As if she sensed this, Joey paused in rubbing Kit's shoulder to explain, "This is the fourth one this week, and this one matters.  Matt is her closest friend here.  I kept trying to tell her he was in love with her, but she didn't believe me.  I was afraid this day was coming."

             
Kit pulled away from the two of them to continue tossing toiletries into the box almost with a vengeance.  Rossen looked on until the drawer was empty, then took the box from her and took it to the front door, too.  Eventually she had everything she intended to take and had settled down to only intermittent tears.  Mimi stood at the edge of the playpen watching it all with her two fingers glued to her mouth.  Rossen started to load the pile by the front door to the bed of his truck and when Treyne came in, Rossen asked him if he would mind driving Kit's car home instead of riding with Joey.

             
When everything was loaded, Rossen coaxed Kit to come to the truck and helped her and the baby in buckle in, and drove away.  A few blocks down the street, he saw Matt standing on a porch watching them drive by and he silently cussed him as the tears started once more.  Rossen didn't dare even ask her anything for fear she'd melt down again.  The only time they even talked was when he stopped at a drive through to order her dinner.  She finally fell asleep forty five minutes into the drive and even then, every once in a while she gave a little hiccupping sob.

Chapter 25

             
They were home and he'd helped her unload and unpack, and she'd gone to bed, before it finally dawned on him that he'd just helped her completely clean out her college apartment.  He sat straight up in bed, realizing for the first time she'd just quit college and he had helped her!  She'd been so upset that he hadn't thought a thing about it when she stripped her closet and emptied the bathroom drawers. 

How had he not seen this coming?  He got up to pace the
narrow confines of his room, then went next door into the game room to pace some more.  He looked up at the speed bag and was sorely tempted, resisting only because he knew he'd wake the whole house.  That little!  He didn't even know what to call her in his head.  Thinking back at some of their recent conversations, he began to understand that she had been planning this for a long time, maybe even since the very beginning. 

             
He went back to bed, but couldn't sleep for thinking of all the things he was going to say to her in the morning, when he explained very succinctly, that she was heading back to school in January.  He fell asleep somewhere along the line and when he woke up he was surprised to realize he'd slept way in. 

When he came into the great room
, everyone was already there eating except Kit.  She was rushing back and forth from her room to the front porch carrying her suit bag and luggage and purse and what all he wasn't even sure.  He'd momentarily forgotten she was flying out to LA early this morning.  Mumbling under his breath, he followed her back to her room and as he walked by, automatically picked up Mimi Star as she was reaching up from her crib, saying “Dah-eee.”  Kit went to step past him at her door and he reached out to stop her, saying, "Kit, slow down for a second, we need to talk."  She looked up at him, and he realized she must have cried a good portion of the night.  She wasn’t in a very good mood this morning either.

             
"What?"  She almost barked it at him.  Whew!  She was
really
not in a very good mood this morning!

             
He fell into step beside her as she marched back out to the front porch with her purse and a carry on.  She set them down near some shoes and a leather rope case that were sitting there, turned on him and snapped, "I'm kind of in a hurry here to catch a plane, what do you want to talk about?"

             
She was in such a temper that he had to work to keep from cracking a smile.  He'd never seen her quite like this. Without sugar coating it, he said, "Well, for starters, you're not quitting school already." 

             
He was ready to do battle, but he wasn't anywhere near ready to handle the temper she turned on him. After staring him down for a long second, she said almost slowly, "You
big, fat, boneheaded jerk
!  Don't you
even
try to tell me what I can and can't do!  I have done everything you asked and then some!  I have gone off and left my daughter!  I have dated more stupid, pig headed, chauvinistic, egotistical men than I ever want to see again in my life!  I have earned sixty two credits this semester, sixty two!  I've gone without sleep, I've driven and flown thousands of miles. I've turned down marriage proposals from five different men, one of whom I completely trashed!  I have sung in front of millions of people and worn high heels to do it!  I've gotten a purple belt in Karate.  Except for taking statistics, which I didn't have the right prerequisites for, I've been through your whole list
to the letter
!  I have done everything you asked me to, just to keep you happy and I'm done!  Nothing is good enough for you!  I'll be eighty and still be a child to you!”

             
She barely paused for breath, then went on, "I am going to California today, and I'm going to get through this concert, and then I'm going to come home and hold our daughter and sleep for a week!  I'm going to bask in being settled down!  I'm going to revel in it!  Do you hear me?  I'm going to build my own house this spring, and plant a garden barefoot, and ride a horse until I can't even walk, and then I'm going to sit on the porch in a rocker and watch our little girl play, and when she's tired of that, we're going to go swim in the pond, and then while she naps, I'm going to work with my clay for as long as I want.