The Promise of Forgiveness (19 page)

W
ednesday morning Mia burst into the back porch, where Ruby was tossing a load of dirty clothes into the washer. “Can I go with Joe to fill the new stock tank with water?”

“What new stock tank?”

“The one Grandpa ordered. They delivered it yesterday.”

“I thought I was going to help you make an obstacle course for Poke to play on.” Hank had suggested that Mia put some objects in the corral to keep Poke busy; otherwise he pestered the bigger horses, testing their patience.

“Hank and I did that yesterday when you were at work and Poke didn't care about the stuff, so we put it back in the barn.”

She considered reminding Mia that she'd taken another day off work to hang out with her but didn't want to put her on the defensive. Still, it rankled that she sat at the bottom of Mia's list of people she wanted to be with. “Just be—”

“Careful, I know.”

Ruby removed Hank's bedding from the dryer and stood at the window, mindlessly folding a sheet while she watched Joe lift Friend into the truck bed. The dog was more attached to Mia now than Hank. As the pickup grew smaller in the distance, her thoughts shifted to Joe. He'd been avoiding her since the carnival and she didn't know why.

Before she'd arrived at the ranch, Ruby would have jumped to the conclusion that she'd done something wrong or Joe had lost interest in her because another woman had caught his eye. But she shoved her fear aside, telling herself that if Joe had changed his mind about wanting to be a part of her, Mia's, and Hank's lives, that was on him, not her.

Maybe the carnival had brought back too many sad memories of Joe's previous life and he wasn't ready to move on. Whatever his reasons, it made her sad. She'd connected with Joe in a way she hadn't with any of the other men she'd dated and had found comfort in knowing that, like her, he'd made mistakes with his child.

Have a little faith, Ruby.

A sliver of panic worked its way inside her head. What if Joe turned out to be like Glen Baxter? Or Dylan. Or Hank all those years ago?

Mia approves of Joe
. Ruby was grateful for her daughter's blessing, but Mia was motivated by the hope that her mother's relationship with Joe would keep them from leaving the Devil's Wind.

Hank appeared in the doorway. “Where are Joe and Mia going?”

“To put water in the new stock tank.”

“You hungry?”

Ruby checked the display on her cell phone. “It's only eleven.”

Hank's mouth twitched. “Been up since five.”

“I'll fix lunch as soon as I finish the laundry.” After he went into the kitchen, she called out, “Hank!”

He came back to the doorway.

“Don't you have a doctor's appointment this afternoon?”

“Two thirty.”

“Want me to go with you?”

“I can drive myself.”

“I know. I thought you might like company.”

“Suit yourself.”

Okay, she would.

•   •   •

“
That doesn't look good.” Joe stopped the pickup and got out.

Mia and Friend followed him over to the windmill. “What's wrong?”

His gaze climbed upward. “The sails are barely moving.”

“Sails?”

“The blades.” He examined the gearbox, squinting against the blowing dust.

“You look mad,” Mia said.

He was mad. Someone had put a hole in the oil reservoir. The round-the-clock wind had burned up the gears and destroyed the motor. “The oil leaked out.” Another attempt to sabotage the Devil's Wind.

“Can you fix it?”

“It'll have to be replaced.” Next he checked the connector and the pump rod—both were loose. Maybe the person had been interrupted before they'd finished the job. He fetched a screwdriver from the toolbox in the truck bed and tightened the parts. “We're done here. Let's go.” He whistled to Friend, and the dog leaped into the truck bed.

When the water tank came into view, Joe kept his eyes peeled for anything that appeared unusual or stood out against the barren land.

“Where's the one with all the bullet holes?”

“Is that why you're tagging along with me?”

“I wanted to find out if my mom exaggerated. She said there were like a hundred holes in it.”

“Not sure about a hundred, but it was close.” He backed up the truck. “The company that delivered the new tank hauled the old one to a salvage yard.” He unrolled the hose and draped it over the side of the tank, then opened the valve.

Mia shielded her eyes from the sun. “I don't see any cows.”

“Once they catch the scent of water, they'll head this way.” Joe inspected the base of the tank for leaks.

“You kissed my mom.”

He'd known if he waited long enough, Mia would divulge the real reason she'd accompanied him this morning.

“I told my mom it was okay if you wanted to be her boyfriend.”

He was glad to have Mia's blessing, but he wondered how she really felt about him, especially after she'd thought of Sean as a father. “Why is it okay for me and your mom to be together?”

Mia tapped the toe of her sandal in the dirt. “I've got Hank now, and my mom doesn't have anybody.”

“Your mother has you.”

“That's different. It's not like I can just leave her.”

Kids didn't have to run away to leave their parents. Aaron had been here one minute and gone the next. “It's good that you and your grandfather hit it off.” He'd rather keep the conversation on Mia than on him and Ruby—mostly because he felt like an ass for telling Ruby he missed being part of a family and then, like a coward, he'd shut her out after the carnival.

“Hank gets me,” Mia said.

“Gets you how?”

“I don't know.” She shrugged. “He understands me.”

Joe opened a second valve on the potable water tank.

“Are you going to ask my mom out?”

He hadn't thought to take Ruby on a date.

“Don't you think she's pretty?”

“Your mother's very pretty.” Ruby's tangled blond hair was sexy, and although the lines fanning from the corners of her eyes gave her age away, her smile reminded him of a willful teenager. She looked as wild and untamed as her spirit.

“Are you worried she might dump you because she's dumped all of her other boyfriends?”

Joe coughed to cover his smile. If only Mia knew that he was worth dumping.

“She hasn't slept with that many guys. There were lots of times growing up that I can't remember a boyfriend living with us.”

He didn't care how many guys Ruby had invited into her bed. He wasn't qualified to stand in judgment of anyone.

“I know you like my mom.” Mia raised her arms in exasperation. “I've seen the way you watch her when she leaves for work. You don't want her to go.”

That was true. He didn't want Ruby working at the saloon because he worried that one of the rowdy customers would step out of line and make a pass at her. And yeah, he liked believing she was his.

“We're gonna stay at the ranch,” Mia said. “At least I am. My grandpa said I can take the school bus into Guymon when classes start in a few weeks.”

“What does your mom have to say about that?”

“She told the boss lady at the motel in Kansas that she's not coming. I guess that means she's gonna stay, too.” Mia dropped her gaze. “I kind of get why my mom was so hurt when she found out my grandpa didn't want to raise her.”

“Your mom and Hank will work things out.”

“I know.” She peered over the rim of the water tank. “How many trips will it take to fill it all the way?”

“Three.” Joe sat on the tailgate next to Friend and avoided Mia's stare, baffled that the teen had unnerved him—like mother, like daughter.

“My mom told me that you had a son.”

Oh, man, he did not want to talk about Aaron.

If you want to be with Ruby, you can't pretend the past never happened
.

“What was his name?”

“Aaron. He was six years old”—he forced the words out of his mouth—“when he died.”

“What happened to him?”

“He got run over by a car.”

“That's sad.”

S-a-d—a three-letter word packed with enough emotion to choke a person to death. “Aaron would have been close to your age if he'd lived.”

“How did he get hit by the car?”

“It was an accident. He rode his bike into the street without stopping to check for cars. And he wasn't wearing his helmet because he was mad at me.”

“Why was he mad?”

“I told him he couldn't play video games with a friend.”

“I did something stupid because I was mad at my mom.”

Joe patted the teen's back. “Everyone makes mistakes. Sometimes all we can do is say we're sorry.” Joe accepted that he hadn't failed Aaron completely—he'd loved his son unconditionally. No amount of guilt or pain would convince him that Aaron hadn't been aware of how deeply he'd been loved by both his parents.

“Can I see a picture of him?”

Joe pulled his wallet out of his back pocket and removed a school photograph of Aaron.

“He looks like you.” She held the picture up to his face. “He's got your eyes and mouth.”

What kind of man would his son have grown up to be, if he'd had the chance to become an adult? He studied the heavens, searching for Aaron's shadow in the moving clouds, hoping that wherever he'd ended up, he could still feel his father's love.

Mia handed over the photo, then jumped to the ground. “Will you ever get married again? Maybe have more kids?”

A pain sliced through him—the sting sharp, but the throb afterward sweet. If he'd been asked that question a few weeks ago, he'd have said
no way
. But today . . . “Maybe.”

Because Joe wanted to believe Ruby, Mia, Hank, and all their problems could sway him not to spend the rest of his life alone.

“H
ank, are you ready to leave?” After lunch he'd gone into his bedroom to nap and Ruby worried that he'd forgotten his doctor's appointment.

“Be right there!”

She went outside to wait on the front porch. When he joined her, he asked, “Is Mia coming?”

“No.” He didn't protest when she slid behind the wheel and he had to sit in the passenger seat. “She wants to stay with Poke.”

Once Ruby turned onto the highway, Hank spoke. “I've been reading your mother's diary.”

So that's what he was doing every day instead of taking his nap. Her fortune-telling session with Big Dan came to mind.
Perhaps there's something you began in the past that you need to finish
. Was she ready to find out what her mother had written?

“You want to know what she said?” Hank asked.

“Is it bad?”

“No.”

Whew
.

“Your folks agreed they'd tell you about your adoption on your eighteenth birthday.”

So her parents hadn't intended to keep the truth from Ruby forever. As if someone stuck a pin in her heart, the anger she'd harbored toward her folks suddenly burst, leaving her chest deflated. “Why didn't they tell me on my eighteenth birthday?”

“You'd just given birth to Mia a few weeks earlier and your mother didn't want you getting upset, so they decided to wait a little longer.”

Too bad they hadn't followed through. “Mia was already three months old when my parents died in the crash and they still hadn't said a word to me.”

“Your father wanted you to know the truth when you were sixteen.”

That was a tough year for Ruby and her parents. She'd caused her mother numerous headaches—breaking curfew, skipping classes, smoking pot, and then her father had canceled their summer trip.

Hank removed the pack of Winstons from his shirt pocket and tapped the end against his palm. Ruby wouldn't object if the cigarettes kept him talking. He took a deep drag, then lowered his window and exhaled.

“Did she say why my father wanted to tell me sooner?”

“Cora wanted to see you.”

Shock robbed Ruby of her voice.

“A social worker called your mother, asking permission for Cora to visit. She said Cora might be moving to Missouri and wanted to establish a relationship with you.”

“Don't leave me hanging. Why didn't my parents let me meet her?”

“Your mother didn't want Cora influencing you.” Hank drew in another lungful of tobacco. “You were a hellion. ‘Rebellious' was the word your mother used.”

“It's true.” Ruby guided the truck over to the shoulder and allowed the vehicle riding their bumper to pass. “But that wasn't a good enough reason to keep me from seeing my birth mother.”

“She was afraid you'd run off with Cora because you two weren't getting along.”

If Cora had tried to talk Ruby into leaving Pineville, there was no doubt in Ruby's mind that she would have gone just to piss off her parents. She wanted to resent them for keeping Cora's request a secret, but the mother in Ruby understood Cheryl Baxter's fear of losing her child. Ruby had felt that same anxiety when she and Mia first arrived at the Devil's Wind and Mia had latched onto Hank. Fortunately for Ruby, Hank didn't want to steal Mia away. Cheryl Baxter had no way of knowing Cora's intentions. Ruby took some measure of comfort in learning that her mother had loved her despite her being Cora's offspring.

“Your father hoped Cora might be able to straighten you out.”

Ruby's throat tightened and her thoughts drifted back to the day Glen Baxter had turned his back on her . . . “Why can't I go with you?”

“Because I said so.” Her father wouldn't look her in the eye.

“Are you punishing me for the D I got in health class?”

“No, Ruby. Something else has come up,” he said.

That something else had been Cora.

Ruby pulled a notebook out of her overnight bag. “I already marked which roadside attractions we're going to see.” This was the year her father had scheduled a run through Texas. “First we're stopping at the Houston National Museum of Funeral History. Then, the next day, it's Barney Smith's Toilet Seat Art Museum in San Antonio. And before we come home, I want to take pictures of the Cadillac Ranch in Amarillo.” Her father opened his mouth, but Ruby talked over him. “And if we have time, we can stop in Lubbock and see the thirteen-ton boulder with John Wayne's head carved in it.”

“Not this year, Ruby.”

Tears filled her eyes. “What if we go a different week this summer?” She desperately needed this trip. There were a million questions she wanted to ask her father about boys and sex. Ruby's mother wasn't comfortable talking about the birds and bees with her.

“I said no.”

Her father stormed out of the trailer and her mother fled to her bedroom. Ruby stood in the living room, her gaze swinging between the closed doors, trying to digest what had happened. She waited all evening for her father to phone and reassure her that everything was okay. When he didn't call, she left several voice mails, but he never answered them. She didn't speak to him again until he came home in September.

Knowing that her father had disagreed with her mother's decision to reject Cora's plea made it all the more clear why he'd scratched the road trip at the last minute—he was afraid he'd let it slip that she'd been adopted.

What had made Cora believe she could waltz back into Ruby's life without there being consequences? If she'd waited to make contact until after Ruby had turned eighteen, then Ruby and her father wouldn't have had a falling-out. And maybe she wouldn't have developed such a deep mistrust of men, which resulted in Ruby kicking Sean out and had led to Mia losing her virginity to Kevin.

Why not blame Cora for all of it?

Hank helped himself to a second cigarette, his fingers trembling when he held the lighter. Her anger turned into empathy for him. “Are you upset that Cora tried to contact me?”
And not you?

“No.”

“What do I do now?” she asked. “Go look for her?”

He let the lighter flicker out, then removed the unlit cigarette from his mouth. “Whatever you decide, I don't want to know if Cora's dead or alive.”

“Why not?”

His bony shoulders lifted an inch, then settled back into place.

Neither spoke the remainder of the drive into Guymon. Ruby mulled over what she'd learned, feeling a measure of relief that Glen Baxter hadn't stopped loving her—he just hadn't known how to handle the situation with Cora. And Ruby understood her mother's fear of losing her daughter, but she was sad that Cheryl Baxter hadn't put Ruby's interests ahead of her own.

So much hurt and pain . . .

And there was nothing Ruby could do to change the past.

•   •   •

“
You want a cup of coffee?” Ruby asked Hank when he appeared in the kitchen Saturday afternoon.

He sat at the table and she placed a mug in front of him. “Thought you were working today.”

“Stony closed the bar. He's in Dallas, visiting a friend.”

Hank sipped the hot brew. “Charles called. He's still checking into my lease with Petro Oil.”

“Good.” Ruby was glad Hank had gotten his lawyer involved. She hadn't forgotten the strange look Stony and Steward Kline had exchanged when the oil agent had dropped a copy of the lease off at the bar. It was probably nothing, but after Big Dan's claim that Unforgiven was a town full of secrets, Ruby wouldn't be surprised if the two men had shady pasts.

“Be right back.” Hank left the kitchen, returning a few minutes later with the diary. “Finished it last night.”

Ruby didn't want to talk about the journal entries. She hadn't yet processed the knowledge that Cora had attempted to contact her. She couldn't summon up a kind thought for her biological mother after the woman had thrown Ruby's family into chaos and destroyed her relationship with her father.

“You should read it,” he said.

“I will.”
Eventually
.

“Your mother's favorite color was yellow.”

“I knew that.” Her father had given her mother a dozen yellow roses each Valentine's Day.

“Do you know your mother's favorite dessert?”

“Lemon Bundt cake.” A pang of longing hit Ruby. Her mother hadn't been perfect, but Ruby had loved her.

“Your parents were good people.”

Glen and Cheryl Baxter had always been there for Ruby—until Cora had interfered. Ruby wished her adoptive father were alive to reassure her that she and Mia would grow close again. Each night she crawled beneath the covers with the same fear—if push came to shove, would Mia choose Hank over Ruby?

“I'm real proud of you,” Hank said.

Where had that come from? “Why?”

“You did what I didn't have the guts to do. You raised a fine daughter by yourself.”

The sincerity in his voice shoved Ruby's heart into her throat. Why had he made this confession today—when his dry, wrinkled skin appeared paler and the charred bags beneath his watery blue eyes reminded her that the grim reaper stalked him?

“Has the doctor's office called with the results of your blood tests?”

“Yesterday. I'm fine.”

Fine
was not an adjective a doctor would use to describe Hank's health. She opened her mouth to ask for details, then changed her mind. They both knew his days were numbered. She'd rather pretend he'd live forever and they had decades to make up for lost time.

Especially now that she'd forgiven him.

Ruby hadn't woken one morning and experienced an epiphany—it wasn't like that. Her heart had been softening toward him since he'd stomped his cigarette out after Mia had said grandpas shouldn't smell like ashtrays.

“Mia's lucky to have you for a mother.”

“I think she might argue that point with you.”

The knocker banged against the front door, the sound echoing through the house. Hank left the room, and she set her cup on the counter before following him.

“I need to speak with Ruby.”

“Deputy Randall.” She moved past Hank and stepped outside. “What brings you by?”

The officer stared at Hank, eavesdropping behind the screen door.

Hank muttered beneath his breath, then walked off. Ruby sat in a chair. “Did you catch the person who's been vandalizing the ranch?”

“No.” Randall leaned against the porch rail, his gaze shifting from the door to the porch steps to the rosebushes and then back to the door.

“Is this about the little scene I witnessed in the sheriff's office?”

His face paled, catching her off guard.

“You're afraid I'll tattle on you.” Call her stupid for provoking him, but his attitude pissed her off. “Oh, wait. I forgot,” she said. “Women aren't welcome in town . . . except the ones you want to screw.”

He clenched his jaw. “It's not what you think.”

Ruby struggled not to laugh. “I know what I saw.”

“Leona and I are friends. We grew up together.”

“So that excuses you two for cheating on her husband?”

“We're not having an affair.” He shoved a hand through his neatly styled hair, leaving a clump sticking up at the back of his head. He looked like a lost little boy.

“Then what happened in your boss's office?” she asked.

“A mistake. A onetime mistake.”

Ruby had a history of onetime mistakes. Who was she to judge?

“I'd appreciate you not bad-mouthing Leona. She doesn't deserve it.”

Randall was worried about his job. “I won't.” Maybe if she granted him this favor, he'd work harder to find the bad guys.

“Is there a problem?” Joe walked up to the porch.

“No problem,” Randall said. “I was just telling Ruby that the local Little League is having a fund-raiser tonight at the ballpark in Guymon.” He nodded to Joe. “We need an extra outfielder for our team if you're interested.”

“What time does the game start?” Ruby asked.

“Six. But come early. There'll be hot dogs and activities for the kids. Your daughter might enjoy it.” Randall got into his patrol car and left.

“Why do I get the feeling a softball game isn't the real reason he stopped by?”

She pointed to the chair next to her. “Take a load off.”

Joe accepted her invitation, and she caught a whiff of male sweat and faded cologne when he sat down. He studied her, his warm stare reeling her in. This was the first time they'd been alone together since they'd kissed in the barn after the carnival. “The deputy has a dirty secret.”

“Oh?”

“The sheriff's wife.”

“No kidding.”

“I caught them in the act when I stopped by the jail to report Hank's stolen oil lease. Randall's afraid I'll spout off about it while I'm working at the saloon.”