Ruby Falls (7 page)

Summer finished trying on the dresses and brought them to the counter where Myra was waiting. “They’re all lovely, but I’m on a small budget.”

“Of course they’re lovely. I know my business. I’ve been doing this for forty years, dear. And don’t worry about the price. I’m giving you a fifty percent discount.”

“Oh, Miss Myra, I couldn’t do that.”

“Of course you can, and you will. No arguments. I’m an old woman, and it’s not good for my heart, you know.” Myra put the items in the paper bag, and then she added another item.

“What’s that?” Summer asked, catching a glimpse of pale, pink silk.

“A surprise. Something for you to try on at home.”

Summer smiled. “Yes, ma’am.” She paid and left the shop. Stopping at the window, she waved to her new friend.

Myra waved back and murmured to herself, “Maybe that’ll get that boy out of his coma. Yes, I do believe she could be the one to do it.”

*****

Deputy Wilcox sat at his desk, flipping through the latest copy of Wild Game Magazine.

Sheriff Calhoun got up from his desk on the other side of the office and put his hat on his head. “I’m going to get some lunch, Duane. I’ll be back in about an hour.”

“No problem, boss.”

The Sheriff walked out the door, and Deputy Wilcox continued flipping pages. The fax machine started humming, and some pages printed out. He got up, went over, and picked the sheets up off the tray.

He scanned the copy. It was a Missing Person’s bulletin. He smiled, walked over to the shredder, and inserted the pages, one by one.

Chapter Five

It was Sunday afternoon. Jessie and Cary had gone off somewhere, and Pop was visiting a neighbor. Steve had gone to town, and Summer was home alone. She was curled up, sitting on the front porch swing watching the sky. It looked like a storm was blowing in, as she watched the clouds blowing across the horizon. She could feel the wind picking up.

Summer was thinking about her situation and growing more depressed by the minute. She wondered if there were people out there worried about her. Parents? Sisters? Brothers? Friends? Lover? What if she never regained her memory? A tear rolled down her cheek.

A pickup truck coming down the highway drew her eyes, a plume of dust rising behind it. As it slowed down near the farm, Summer saw that it was Steve’s truck. Just then, big, fat raindrops began to fall.

Steve turned up the gravel drive, saw her on the porch, and stopped the truck. He made a mad dash for the porch, just as the skies opened up with a downpour of rain. His boots pounded up the steps and onto the wooden porch.

“Wooey!” he yelled, shaking his head like a wet dog. “I made it just in time.” He laughed and turned to look at Summer. It was then that he noticed the distraught look on her face and the track of tears down her cheek.

She tried to laugh, reaching up to wipe the tears away. “Yes, you just beat the storm.”

“Summer, what’s wrong?” he asked, crossing the porch and kneeling down in front of her.

“Nothing,” she answered, lowering her head. Suddenly, she put her face in her hands, and her shoulders started to shake, as she couldn’t hold back the sobs.

Steve sat down next to her on the swing, and took her in his arms. “Baby, tell me what’s wrong.”

She clung to him, crying silently into his shirt. He rubbed her back with the palm of one hand and kissed the top of her head. “Shh, honey. It’s okay. I’m here.”

Steve let her cry it out. Finally, she wiped her eyes and pushed away from him.

“I’m sorry. I’m being silly. It’s nothing…I just get…”

“What, baby? Tell me.”

“Scared, I guess. What’s going to happen to me? What if I never get better?” She looked up into his eyes searchingly.

“I…I don’t know, sweetheart.” He looked at her, wishing he could take this hurt away from her. “Aren’t you happy here?” he asked.

“Yes, it’s not that…but, I can’t stay here forever.” She got up out of the swing and went to stand by the porch railing, looking out at the storm clouds.

Steve sat watching her, wondering why there was such an ache inside him at the thought of her leaving. He got up and stood behind her. He looked out over the rolling fields and distant hills of this land he loved so much. Then he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her back against his chest. Bending his head, he whispered in her ear, “I’m glad you’re here, Summer. Very glad.”

They stood that way for a long time, silently watching the rainfall and the lightening flash in the distance.

“Come on, baby. I’m gonna make us something to eat.” He wrapped one arm around her shoulders and led her inside.

They walked into the kitchen, and Summer immediately started to get a pan out.

“No, babe. You sit. I’m making this meal.” He took the pan out of her hands and pushed her toward the kitchen table.

“But Steve, I’m supposed to do the cooking. That’s what you pay me for.”

“Hush, woman.” Steve set the pan on the stove. He took down two mugs and filled them with coffee. Walking over, he set one steaming mug down in front of her.

She looked up at him, smiling. “I could get used to this.”

“Used to what?” He walked back to the stove and lit the burner under the pan.

“Being waited on.”

“Well, don’t get too used to it,” he said, looking sideways at her from the stove with a grin. He went to the refrigerator and got out some eggs, butter, and some other items.

Summer watched him as he got down a mixing bowl and cracked eggs into it, tossing the shells overhand across the room into the trashcan. Then he grabbed a whisk out of a drawer and began beating the eggs. When he was done, he turned back to the pan and plopped in some butter.

He proceeded to make them both steak and eggs while Summer sipped her coffee. She watched him closely, noticing how at ease he seemed in the kitchen. “You seem very domestic,” she remarked.

He turned his head and smiled at her as he dished them both up a plate and carried it to the table. “Not too domestic. This is my only specialty.”

They dug in.

Summer had to admit, it was delicious. “You’re not a bad cook. Why do you pretend you’re helpless in the kitchen?”

“It got you working for me, didn’t it?” He grinned.

She laughed, nodding. “Yes. I guess it did.”

They ate in silence for a while.

Finally, Summer pushed her plate away. “That was delicious, Steve. Thank you.”

He gestured toward her plate with his fork. “Must not have been that good. You didn’t even finish.”

“Are you kidding? There was enough food on that plate for a family of four. I’m stuffed. If I keep eating like this, I’m going to gain twenty pounds.”

“Horse shit! You don’t eat enough to keep a bird alive,” Steve stated, shoveling another forkful of scrambled eggs into his mouth.

Summer got up to carry her plate to the sink. “Well, I don’t do as much strenuous work as you do, so I don’t need to eat that much. You want me to get fat? You like fat women, huh?”

“No, ma’am. I like you just the way you are.” Steve put his fork down and wiped his mouth, scooting his chair back. “Come here.”

Summer turned from the sink, wiping her hands on a kitchen towel. “What?”

“Come here,” Steve repeated.

She walked over to him. He grabbed her by the wrist and pulled her down on his lap. “Steve!” she screeched. “What are you doing? Let me up.”

“Hmm, you may have gained a couple of pounds, at that,” he said with a grin.

“Oh! Let me up this minute.” She struggled, trying to free herself from the arms he had wrapped around her waist, but he held tight.

“Now, now, settle down, woman! I was just teasing you. There’s not an ounce of fat on you, except in all the right places.”

She looked over her shoulder at him. “Are you saying I’m too skinny?”

“I’m saying I like what I see. Now, shut up a minute,” he ordered. Then he took her jaw in his hand and gave a peck on the lips. “Now, get your cute butt up, girl. I’ve got work to do.”

“In the rain?” Summer asked, getting up.

“I’ve got to get that old pickup running for you,” he explained, walking across the floor and stopping in the mudroom. He looked back at her with a smile. “I cooked, you get to do the dishes.”

He stepped out into the mudroom.

Summer carried the dishes to the sink. She could hear Steve opening the freezer chest door and digging around in it. A moment later he came back in the kitchen and set several wrapped packages of meat on the drain board.

“What’s this?” she asked.

“I thought I’d grill out steaks for dinner tomorrow night,” he explained.

“That sounds great. I could bake some potatoes and make corn on the cob,” Summer offered.

“Sounds good, babe. Well, gotta go.”

She followed him to the doorway, leaned against the door jam, and watched as he put on an old quilted lined flannel shirt as a jacket, and put an old cowboy hat on his head. Then, surprising her, he grabbed her by the waist, pulling her up against him for another quick kiss, and then he was out the door, and running across the yard through the downpour to the big metal shed.

She stood watching through the window as he disappeared through the large, open double-doors. Her hand came up to run her fingers across the lips he’d just kissed, remembering the feel of his mouth on hers.

Lord, what was happening to her?

Summer finished the dishes and wiped down the table. She glanced up at the clock above the sink. It was three o’clock. She had all the laundry done, the house clean, and she really didn’t have any other chores to do. She looked out the window toward the shed.

The rain had slacked off to a drizzle.

On impulse she grabbed two bottles of beer out of the refrigerator and headed out to the big shed. Crossing the yard, she entered the doors and stopped just inside, letting her eyes adjust to the dim light.

A metal clanking sound came from the back.

“Steve?” she called out, not seeing him.

“Back here,” came the response from deep inside the shed.

Making her way around some broken down farm equipment, she found him in the back, bent over the engine of an old, beat-up, red pickup.

He turned as she approached and straightened up when he saw her. “Darlin’, you’re an Angel. I was just thinking how good a beer would taste,” he said, nodding toward the bottles she carried.

She held one out to him, and he took it, twisting off the top. He flipped the bottle cap across the shed with a snap of his fingers and turned the bottle up drinking thirstily.

Summer took a sip of her own beer and looked around the shed. She noticed several antique cars that were in the middle of being restored. “What are all these?”

“My hobby, I guess you could call ‘em,” he replied.

She noticed a car covered with a tarp. “What’s under that tarp?”

He turned, following her gaze. Walking over to it, he pulled the tarp back to expose a beautifully restored, cherry red, ’56 Chevy Bel Air in perfect condition.

“Wow. That’s a pretty car.”

He showed her several other cars, all in different stages of restoration. One of them was so rusted out, that it looked like it’d been sitting in a junkyard for years.

“You can fix that one?”

“Sure. As a matter of fact that ‘pretty car’, as you called it, used to look just like this one when I first got it.”

She couldn’t believe it. “You can do all that?”

He smiled. “Yeah, I enjoy it. It was my first love. I was going to start my own business, had a partner lined up and everything.”

“What happened? Why didn’t you do it?”

He shrugged. “It all fell apart. Life got in the way. I had other responsibilities by then, a wife and baby, and the old man needed me.” He nodded back toward the house.

She thought it sad that he’d let go of his dream. She looked around at the cars. “What do you do with them?”

“I sell them. Make a little extra money on the side. Actually, sometimes the profit from these cars has kept this place afloat.”

She noticed a car, way in the back, practically hidden. “What’s that one?” she asked.

Steve looked over his shoulder toward the car, which was covered under another tarp, and then back to her. “Come here. I’ll show you.”

She followed him over and watched him flip the tarp off. Dust flew everywhere, and she imagined that he hadn’t had the tarp off this one in a very long time.

“It’s a 1970 Dodge Charger,” he informed her.

Summer admired the car, which seemed to be in showroom condition. “Is it very valuable?” she asked, leaning down to look inside.

“Yes. Actually it’s probably worth more than any of the others, but I won’t sell it. It has sentimental value.”

She straightened back up and smiled. “Why? Was this your first car?”

He was quiet a moment, and then he replied softly, “No. It was my father’s car. He bought it just before he left for Viet Nam.”

“Oh.” Summer wasn’t sure how to respond. “He was killed there?” she finally asked.

Steve nodded, and then covered the car back up with the tarp.

Summer stared at him.

He took a long pull off his beer, and then turned and walked back to the pickup truck.

She followed.

“Can you drive stick?” he asked, changing the subject.

She stared at him blankly. “Stick?”

“Yeah. You know, stick shift? Manual transmission?”

“I…I don’t know,” she replied honestly.

“Well, darlin’, this truck is manual transmission, four on the floor. So, you’re gonna have to learn. Think you can handle it?” he asked with a grin.

“I don’t know. Do
you
think I can handle it?”

“I guess we’re gonna find out, aren’t we?” He waggled his eyebrows at her. “I should have this finished up by tomorrow, so you’ll have your first lesson then.”

Summer downed the rest of her beer and looked over at the truck worriedly.

Steve laughed.

Chapter Six

Summer carried the breakfast dishes to the sink and turned on the hot water.

“Uh-uh, no time for that, babe. Driving lesson time. Let’s go,” Steve informed her, getting up from the table.