Patterns of Swallows (51 page)

But
she was getting colder by the minute, and exhaustion was beginning to
claim her. She made for her car to sit and wait for Bo to emerge
from the packing shed but thought better of it. She was likely to
fall asleep if she sat in the car, and then she'd miss Bo when he
came out. Not to mention, she could picture herself sleeping right
through the night and crawling out of her car just as the packing
shed employees were coming to work in the morning. Wouldn't she have
some explaining to do then?! Maybe she should go and wait in Bo's
pickup. That way she would have no chance of missing him.

He
had a blanket covering the seat of his pickup, and Ruth pulled it
around herself gratefully. She leaned her head against the window
and closed her gritty eyes. But the window was hard and cold.
Wouldn't it be heavenly to put her head down and curl up on the
spacious bench seat? The idea was irresistible, and Ruth was dead to
the world within minutes.

*
* *

Ruth's
first waking impression as she sat up in a rush was of Bo's very
startled face, plainly visible in the yard lights of the packing
shed. With one foot in his vehicle and one on the ground, he jumped
back and nearly lost his footing.

"It
was Mom's idea," were the first words out of Ruth's mouth. That
wasn't quite right; it wasn't exactly what she'd wanted to say, and
she shook her head, trying to clear it of its fog. Maybe this hadn't
been quite as good an idea as it had seemed (and it had never seemed
like a very good idea in the first place). What was she doing here,
cold and sleepy and ridiculous? How had she let herself get talked
into doing anything other than staying at home that evening and going
to bed at a reasonable hour?

"What
was her idea? You sitting in my pickup, waiting to scare me out of
ten years of my life? Your mother-in-law's going in for practical
jokes now, is she?" Bo's tone was amused, now that he was over
his fright.

Ruth
didn't answer, trying to collect her senses. Why was Bo looking at
her with that half smirk? She reached up and tried to smooth down
the rat's nest her hair had become. What a sight she must be! At
least Bo didn't appear to be angry at her anymore.

"What
are you doing here?" he asked finally, still fighting a grin.

"Bo,
I need to talk to you."

"Tonight?
D'you realize it's nearly midnight?"

"Well,
it wasn't my fault you worked so late."

"I
wasn't exactly working. Not the whole time, anyways. Just needed a
place to be alone to think and pray. And you're right, we do need to
talk. But I think tomorrow would be a better time. You're still
half-asleep." He made a motion with one hand as though he was
going to help her smooth her hair, but he pulled his hand back and
clenched the steering wheel instead.

"Besides,
we both have to be at work in less than eight hours. I'd better just
drive you home."

"I
have my car over there," Ruth said, waving a hand in its
direction.

"I'll
drive you," he said. "Don't worry about your car. I'll
swing by and pick you up for work in the morning. The car can sit
overnight. I'd worry about you making it home all right in your
doped condition." He nearly laughed outright at her.

"I'm
fine," Ruth protested, but Bo was already starting the pickup.

They
drove in silence for a few minutes. Then Ruth broke the silence by
coming straight to the point.

"Bo,
why are upset with me?" If they didn't get anything solved
tonight, she was sure she wouldn't get any sleep other than the hour
or so she'd had in the pickup.

"I
wasn't upset with you exactly," he said.

"You
were. It was obvious."

"I
wasn't upset. At least, not angry. Disappointed maybe. It's hard
to explain, but I'll try. Yesterday ... two days ago now, I mean ...
Sunday, when I saw you at church, I just had the feeling that I
didn't really know you. Or maybe that I never have. I thought I
knew you because I've known you so long, since we were kids and all.
But today, I realized that when you came back to Arrowhead when you
were nineteen, I made the assumption that you were the same girl
who'd left. But you'd had seven years of changing to do in that
time."

"But
I never changed. Not in essentials, I mean."

"Didn't
you? The fact that you fell for a guy like Graham when you came back
should've tipped me off that you weren't the same girl who left. I
would've thought that was out of character for the old Ruth. You
were always pretty good at seeing through people."

Ruth
flared up. Criticism of Graham, however well-deserved, was never
well-received by her. But she didn't bother to defend Graham. Or
herself for falling for him.

"And
you were engaged to Lily. I don't hold that against you," she
said, keeping her voice level and staring straight ahead.

"But
I didn't really know her. I never really knew her even when we were
kids. She lived on an entirely different plane than I did. When I
really got to know her, I knew I'd made a mistake."

Ruth
set her mouth. She wasn't about to say that marrying Graham had been
a mistake if that was what Bo was waiting to hear.

"I'm
not criticizing your choice of husbands, Ruth. Well, maybe I was a
little. I didn't set out to do that though. I was just using it as
an example of how I realized on Sunday that maybe I only thought I
knew you. Like I didn't really know Lily at all even though I
thought I did, maybe I didn't really know you either. I've been
going over and over things in my head since Sunday, and I've realized
that I'd seen very little of you since you came back to Arrowhead
since we were kids. Until you started working in the orchard. And
maybe, like I'd done with Lily, I'd made you into the person in my
mind that I wanted you to be without getting to know the reality."

Ruth
digested this for a moment and found it bitter in her stomach and not
at all like honey in her mouth, either.

"You
think I'm like Lily?"

"No!
No! That's not what I'm saying! I'm sorry, I'm saying everything
all wrong. I don't think you're like Lily. I see how you've looked
after your mother-in-law and then Lily and now Gabe, and I know
there's a great deal of the old Ruth in that. The Ruth who never
could turn away a stray. And I don't mean to call your mother-in-law
a stray, either. Or Lily or Gabe. I'm saying everything all wrong.
I just mean that maybe in certain ways you were the same old Ruth I
knew when we were kids but in ways you'd changed. Or that you just
weren't the person I'd thought you were. At least in ways. And
maybe, like with Lily, by that time, by the time I was getting to
know you again, it was too late for me to see you objectively. I was
already in over my head."

They
had pulled up outside the farm house, and Bo shut off the engine.

"It's
late, Ruth. I'll see you tomorrow. I'll be by about quarter to
eight to pick you up. Is that all right?"

"No!
No, it's not all right! You can't leave me with something like that
and expect me to go in and get a good night's sleep. We have to talk
this out, Bo. Tonight. I have to know where you're coming from
'cause I have no idea what you're trying to say. I don't know how
you think I've changed or how I'm not who you thought I was. I just
don't know what I did to change your opinion of me. And I'm not
getting out of this truck till I do understand." Ruth's voice
had gone up several decibels.

Bo
looked out his window rather than at her.

"It's
late, Ruth. This could be a long discussion. It's after midnight.
What will your mother-in-law think if she hears you come in at one or
two o' clock in the morning? We'll talk tomorrow."

"You're
worried about your good name, Bo?"

"I
don't care what people think about me. I care what they think about
you. It's sad but true; a girl always has more to lose when a
reputation is at stake."

"Well,
you can stop worrying about what Mom thinks. She's the one who sent
me after you to get this thing talked out, and if she's waiting up
and hears me come in late, I'll explain to her that it took longer to
talk out than I'd expected. It was upsetting her to see me upset,
and she wanted me to get it settled tonight. And now I do want to
get this settled. Tonight. What do you mean that I'm not who you
thought I was? At least in ways? What is that supposed to mean?
What did I do to change your opinion of me, Bo?"

He
looked at her very directly for a few seconds before answering.

"What's
going on with you and that fellow you had at church – what was
his name, James something?"

"Absolutely
nothing."

"Then
why did it look like there was something going on between the two of
you?"

Long
pause.

"Because
I was a complete idiot and I listened to my mother-in-law instead of
my conscience and gave in to playing the little games that,
apparently, everyone plays which supposedly work for them. At least
in the romance books. You have no idea how much I've regretted that
foolishness since then."

Bo
looked at her, astonished, and then burst out laughing.

"Let
me get this straight. I don't want to jump to conclusions. When you
say you were playing a little game, you mean ...?"

"That
I was trying to make you jealous, yes." There. She'd done it.
She'd blurted out the truth just like she was afraid of doing.

"Why?"
he asked slowly.

"Why
do you think? Don't be purposely dense. I'm not going to be the one
to say it first."

His
laughter started slowly and built. Soon they were both laughing till
neither one could breathe.

"I
can't believe it. I just can't believe it," Bo said when he had
regained control. There was a great deal of delight mingled with the
disbelief in his voice, however.

"Well,
Mom told me we had to do something drastic because you were a man of
your word and you'd promised me you'd never 'bother' me on the
subject again."

"And
you, you little idiot," he said fondly, "it never occurred
to you that you could just come to me and tell me you'd changed your
mind?"

"How
unfeminine!"

"To
change your mind?"

"No,
that's too feminine. A woman's prerogative and all that. I fought
against admitting I was so completely feminine for a long time."

Bo
roared again.

"I
mean, it's unfeminine to ... to do the chasing," Ruth explained
lamely.

"You
little idiot," was all Bo said again. His arms went toward her
but stopped short. A chuckle exploded from deep in the back of his
throat.

"Waiting
in my truck till midnight. I'm sorry I made you wait so long.
Course, you could've always just knocked on the office door, couldn't
you? You have no idea how terrifying – and wonderful –
it was to see you suddenly materializing in my front seat when I'd
just spent the past four hours doing nothing but thinking about you.
You'll have to thank your mother-in-law for me. I surely owe her for
that one. I don't know how I'll repay her." His words were
light, but there was sincerity in them.

"But
now that I've done all the explaining I need to do," Ruth said,
"you still have some to do. Why do you say that I wasn't who
you thought I was? Just because you thought I'd fallen for James and
you were disappointed in me for it? You thought he wasn't a man of
character?"

"No,
that wasn't it. To be honest, it was when you ran after me at church
that day. Now, of course, I'm glad you did. Otherwise, I probably
would've crawled away to hide and lick my wounds, trying to convince
myself I was happy that you'd found someone who made you happy. So
it was a very good thing you came after me, or we might never have
gotten to the bottom of all this. But at the time, it made me think
you were playing a different kind of game with me."

"You
see, I told you a woman shouldn't run after a man. But wha'd'you
mean? What game did you think I was playing? I don't understand."

"Well,
it certainly hadn't occurred to me that what I'd witnessed between
you and James was all about ... trying to make
me
jealous. That's the last thing I would've thought of. You'd made
your feelings toward me so clear when we discussed it all those
months ago."