At her words, his expression closed. He rested his hand on his son’s slender shoulder. “Tully’s finishing up with the horses for the day. Aren’t you supposed to help him?”
Zeke looked as if he were going to protest, but then he nodded and headed for the mud room. “When is dinner going to be ready?” he asked her.
“Not for another half hour. You have time to complete your chores.”
He shot his father a grin. “Ruth made cobbler with the last of the dried fruit.”
“Then bring in some cream when you come back to the house.”
“Yes, sir!”
The back door slammed as the boy ran toward the barn. Ruth smoothed her hands on her skirt.
“Caleb, I know this is a surprise for you,” she said quickly, needing to make him understand what had happened. “Zeke came to the village today. He was running away. Something about a new schoolteacher.”
“He’s not too fond of the idea of learning to read and do his numbers.”
“So I gathered.” She stared at the center of his broad chest, not able to look him in the eye. “John set him to work scraping a hide, which is a difficult enough task to make anyone want to return home. When Zeke finally admitted school might not be so horrible, he also mentioned that you and he had been without a housekeeper for some time. John suggested I fill in until your new one arrives. He thought it would be a way for me to thank you…for what you did.” She cleared her throat. “Back all those years ago.”
“What did you think?”
She didn’t know what to think. Standing here in the Kincaid family kitchen, she felt as if nothing had changed. It was once again nine years ago and her foolish young woman’s heart had fallen in love. She’d allowed herself to dream about what might have been, until she’d remembered her responsibility to her people. Her destiny was to heal those in need. Being a wife and mother was someone else’s destiny.
“I’m pleased to have the opportunity to repay my debt,” she said formally.
“Is that what I am? A debt?”
She forced herself to look into his face. “That’s not what I meant, Caleb.”
“Then why are you here?”
At least she had an honest answer for that question. “I don’t know. If you want me to leave, I will. Otherwise, I’ll stay until the new housekeeper arrives.”
Emotions flashed through his eyes, but she couldn’t read them. Instead of responding, he simply shrugged as if her decision didn’t matter to him one way or the other. Then he turned on his heel and walked out of the room, leaving her standing in a place of both past and present, wondering how she’d ever thought she had forgotten what it was like to love Caleb Kincaid.
* * *
“PA, RUTH SAYS she can teach me my letters,” Zeke said as he stuffed half a biscuit in his mouth. He chewed it and swallowed before continuing the familiar argument. “And if you teach me my numbers, then I don’t need to go to school. Right?”
Caleb tried to concentrate on his son’s words, when every part of his being was intensely aware of the woman sitting across from him at the freshly scrubbed kitchen table.
Instead of chili from the bunkhouse, they were dining on stew and fresh biscuits. The sugary smell of the baking cobbler filled the kitchen. The counters were clean, the dishes washed and put away. But even those unusual circumstances weren’t enough to keep him from thinking of Ruth.
She was so damn beautiful. He found himself wishing she’d grown ugly in their time apart. But he had a bad feeling that all the ugly in the world wouldn’t take away his wanting. She had always been able to ignite the fire within him with just a look or the sway of her hips. Now she had returned, and breathing in her sweet scent made him ache with longing.
Nearly as powerful as the need was the anger. He resented being reminded of how he’d once cared for her. How he’d been a fool, offering marriage. She refused him and had left the same day. Left him wondering what he’d done wrong.
“School is important,” Ruth said in her quiet voice. “A measure of a man is more than strength and experience. The measure of a man is taken by what he knows of his people and his world.”
“I know most everything ’bout the ranch,” Zeke announced before gathering up another spoonful of the stew. “Hank’s teaching me ’bout putting the right bull with the heifers and Tully’s teaching me how to repair tack. We’re working on a saddle right now.”
“There’s more to the world than the ranch,” she pointed out. “You need to know about other places and times.”
“Why?”
“It’s important to use your mind,” Caleb told his son. “When you grow up and inherit the ranch, you’ll probably head East to buy breeding stock. You don’t want those fancy East Coast breeders to think you’re stupid.”
“They won’t. I’m real smart.”
Before he could stop himself, Caleb exchanged a look of affection and exasperation with Ruth. She smiled as if to say Zeke was a handful, but worth the effort. The shared moment cut through him like a freshly honed blade, leaving him to bleed to death from the inside. He didn’t want to share anything with Ruth. Not now. Not ever. He should tell her to get the hell out of his house.
Yet he didn’t speak the words. And when his son finished his supper and carried the plate over to the sink, then announced he had to head out to the barn to help Tully with the saddle, Caleb didn’t stop him. The back door slammed again and he and Ruth were alone.
Silence stretched between them. He found himself staring at the way the lantern light gleamed on her dark hair. She kept her gaze on her plate, allowing him to study her smooth skin and the fullness of her mouth.
She looked older than she had the last time she’d been in this house. Mature. “It’s been nine years and you never married.”
He spoke the words he’d only meant to think. She glanced up. Color stained her honey-colored cheeks.
“I couldn’t. I’m a healer.”
“There’s nothing in the history of the Cheyenne that makes marriage forbidden.”
“I can’t explain it more than saying I believe deep in my soul that my duty is to be a healer. For me that means staying there—I can’t divide my heart by marrying. That’s why I couldn’t marry you.”
She’d said the same thing when he’d proposed. He hadn’t believed her back then, either. “I thought you were just afraid. Not that I blamed you. After what happened.”
Something dark and ugly flared in her eyes. She ducked her head. “It wasn’t that.”
“But you were afraid. If not of me, then of my world.”
She shrugged. “Your world is not a place I feel comfortable. I prefer living with my people.”
“You’re only half Cheyenne.”
She looked at him. “I have embraced their ways and their traditions. In all that matters, I am only Cheyenne. You never saw that because you wanted me to be like you.”
“No. I simply wanted you.”
He hated the remembering. He knew exactly how she kissed. So tentative at first, then with a growing passion. He knew the feel of her lips on his, the taste of her, the small sounds she made when passion threatened to overwhelm her.
She sat across from him—where his wife had sat, and his mother before her. He had imagined Ruth in that chair so many times. Now that she was here, it was too late. He was old enough to know there were no second chances, and dreams about them were only for fools.