Sequins and Spurs

“How did you arrive?” Georgia asked.

“I rode in.” Ruby gestured to the corral, one end of which was visible from where they sat. She’d let her mare out that morning. “The Duchess is in the corral.”

“What about your belongings?”

“I had a couple of trunks shipped to the station in Crosby. I don’t own much that’s of use on a farm, though.”

“Ranch,” Nash corrected.

“I saw the mares ready to foal,” she replied. When he didn’t respond, she turned to Georgia. “Are your family all ranchers?”

“My husband owns a grain mill.” She glanced at her son, and Ruby picked up on something between them that made her wonder about his own family relationships. “Our daughter’s husband works there, too. Nash is the only horseman.”

When Joel got up and headed for the porch stairs, Nash followed. “Want to go see the horses, buddy?” He turned to his daughter. “Come to the barn with us, sweet pea.”

Claire glanced at her grandmother.

“Go with your father,” she encouraged. “We’ll be leaving shortly, and he wants to spend time with you.”

Claire set her doll on the porch swing beside Georgia and joined her little brother.

“She reminds me of Pearl,” Ruby said.

Georgia picked up the rag doll and absently smoothed its yarn hair. “She’s definitely the spitting image of her mother.”

“Not only her looks,” Ruby said softly, “but the way she’s so hesitant about everything.”

Georgia studied her. “Pearl was a good wife and mother. We all loved her.”

Ruby still heard no accusation in her tone or the appreciative statement. She glanced at the horse in the shade. “She was a good daughter, too, I guess.”

“She was devoted to your mother.”

Of course. Pearl had always done everything it took to please their mother. She hadn’t torn her stockings or misplaced her school books. She’d been a good student and had dutifully helped pull weeds, cook and put up vegetables and preserves. Ruby could still see them together in the kitchen, putting the finishing touches on a cake.

Her sister must have been a comfort to their mother. “How long was Mama sick?”

“Several years. There were times when it seemed she got stronger, but then she’d get weak again.”

Ruby had missed it all. The good days and the bad ones.

She’d been gone from home only a year when she’d realized her blunder. She had the freedom and independence she’d always craved, but there were no glamorous jobs for girls like her. She’d always been overly optimistic and impetuous, and more times than she cared to admit, those traits had landed her in tight situations. Leaving home with overblown dreams had been the most monumental of her rash mistakes, but she couldn’t run back to the place she’d escaped. There had been nothing here for her.

She’d been convinced she wasn’t cut out for a mundane life of cooking and cleaning and going to church. School had been torture enough—all those tedious days trapped inside and chained to someone else’s schedule. The world was too big and exciting, and life too full of possibilities to miss out on by following all the rules.

Besides, Ruby Dearing was not a quitter.

So she’d taken unglamorous jobs in saloons and gaming halls, avoiding crude advances and barely getting by, until eventually she’d joined a theater troupe and traveled. Sometimes the pay was good, other times just adequate. But she’d persisted.

If, at some point along that path, she could have swallowed her pride sooner and come for a visit... But there it was. She had held on to her dream until it was nothing more than a dirty rag. And now it was too late. She had always fallen short.

“Your mother loved you very much,” Georgia said.

Ruby had never doubted her mother’s love. Laura Dearing just hadn’t known what to do with her. “I was a disappointment. Even when I was here I wasn’t a pleasing child. I missed my father too much. I didn’t fit in with Mama’s routine or her plans. Not like Pearl.”

“Nobody’s perfect, Ruby. And everyone is different.”

She could wallow in self-recrimination or she could do something to make up for lost time. “Is it too late to plant a garden?”

“Probably not. Ours just went in a week or so ago.”

Everything she’d once thought tedious and unbearable now seemed like a lifeline to the stable life she had thrown away. “I’m going to get the house clean. And then I’ll plant a garden. I need to learn how to cook and put up things for winter.”

She didn’t miss the sympathetic look Georgia cast her way, but the woman replied, “I’ll help any way I can.”

“It appears you do enough already, what with the children in your care.”

“I have help at the house. If you need me, all you have to do is ask. Don’t be shy.”

“Shy isn’t one of my traits,” Ruby said with a smile.

Half an hour later, she trailed behind as Nash and his mother led the children to the buggy. When they reached the conveyance, Claire hugged him around the knees. Gently, he loosened her hold and hunkered down to look into her eyes.

Georgia deliberately stood a distance away to give them privacy, as did Ruby, but their words were still audible.

“I miss you so much, Papa.”

“I miss you, too, Claire.”

“I love Grandma and Grandpa.”

“I know you do. But it’s still hard to be away from home for so long?”

Claire nodded.

Nash wiped a tear from her cheek with his thumb. “It’s hard for me, too. Thank you for being brave and helping with Joel.”

Claire nodded, and they hugged. Nash stood, picked up his little boy and kissed his forehead. “Thank you for being a good boy for your grandmother, Joel.”

Joel hugged his neck, and Nash peeled him away to lift both children up to the buggy and then assist his mother. He bent forward for Georgia to kiss his cheek, and she waved a friendly goodbye to Ruby.

Georgia led the buggy away. Nash straightened his shoulders in a deliberate motion, as though fortifying himself and keeping a lock on his emotions.

Ruby stood a few feet away from him on the grass in front of the house. “They’re beautiful.”

He turned slowly, his dark gaze ruthlessly taking in her features, her rumpled shirtwaist, her hair. He had a couple days’ worth of growth on his chin and upper lip, but his black hair barely touched the collar of his laced shirt. His eyes were so brown they were nearly black, his brows two angry slashes above. “I have work to do.”

“I have questions I’d like to ask.”