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“Oh, um, right, sorry.”
“Nothin’ to be sorry about. It was his loss.” Velma winked at Ruby who smiled and nodded her head.
I held the door open for her as we exited the store. I wanted to tell her I’d been worried about her after the viral video that had exploded online, but I didn’t want to bring up a bad subject. I’d tried to get ahold of Remi to ask if she was okay, but he’d been unreachable because he was on a training exercise in Montana.
Stifling heat met us as we stepped onto the sidewalk, and I cleared my throat. “How long you been back in town?”
I figured it couldn’t have been long. I hadn’t heard about Ruby Rhodes’ return, and that was something the gossip mill would have churned out.
Ruby blew out a breath, and my eyes automatically shot down to her mouth. Her lips were full and cherry red. My chest tightened, and it was hard to breathe as I watched the corners of her mouth tilt up in a half-smile. “I crossed the county line about ten minutes ago.”
“Ya here for a visit?”
She nodded as a flash of sadness filled her gaze. I wondered if her emotional state and visit home had anything to do with that video. I still had no idea what had happened. I’d watched it, but I hadn’t recognized the woman in it.
Ruby had always had a light about her, even when she was a kid. She had that ‘it’ factor that people talked about. She was always singing and dancing. I knew that the city might’ve changed her, but I just couldn’t believe all of what the articles were saying.
As much as I wanted to know how she really was and what had happened, I steered the conversation to a safer topic. “How’s Remi?”
Remi Rhodes, Wyatt Briggs, and I were the three musketeers growing up. We’d been inseparable. I didn’t have a single childhood memory without at least one of the two of them in it. We all left Wishing Well right after high school. I moved home five years ago, after I got out of the Navy. Wyatt lived in DC, but he’d been back in town a couple of weeks ago for his mama’s surprise birthday party, the one she’d planned for herself, and he planned on moving back here this summer. But I hadn’t seen Remi in years. We texted every now and then, but he hadn’t set foot in Wishing Well since I’d been back.
“He’s good. It’s his busy season.”
Remi was a hotshot out in California, and fire season usually lasted from April until October.
“Right, yeah.” I nodded. “How long are you going to be in town?”
“I’m leaving Saturday,” she stated firmly.
Saturday. That was so soon.
The radio on my shoulder crackled, and I knew that this conversation was about to be cut short. I had mixed emotions about that. Ruby Rhodes had made me feel more about a woman in the past five minutes than I had in a long time. That was dangerous. She was dangerous.
“Kane, we have a call about kids jumping off the bridge at Emerald Lake,” Sabrina Price, the dispatcher, relayed.
I pushed the button on the side of the speaker. “On my way.”
When I lowered my arm back to my side, I noticed Ruby was looking up at me with an expression I couldn’t quite put my finger on. It was as if she was seeing something she couldn’t believe.
I’d never been one to wonder about what people were thinking. To me, reading minds wouldn’t be a superpower; it would be a curse. I would prefer that everyone keep their thoughts and opinions to themselves. But as I stood with Ruby, I needed to know what was going on behind her crystal-blue gaze.
“What?” I asked.
“You’re a cop. Like a real cop.”
“I am.” I grinned, unsure exactly what that observation meant. I couldn’t tell if that was a good thing or a bad thing in her estimation. It surprised me how much I wanted to stay and ask her follow-up questions. So much so that I was relieved I couldn’t. My reaction to Ruby had caught me completely off guard, which was not a place I liked being. Everything around me could be chaos, but I was always in control of my emotions, my actions, and my thoughts.
My chin dipped in a nod. “It was good seeing you, Ruby.”
She blinked up at me as her lips parted, but no sound came out. I found myself holding my breath to hear what she was going to say.
Her eyes closed as her head shook slightly back and forth, as if she were internally saying no. What she was saying no to… I had no idea, but I really wanted to find out.
When she opened her eyes again, a sweet smile lifted from the corners of her mouth. “You, too. And thanks again. I will pay you back.”
“Don’t worry about it. Consider it a welcome home present,” I said.
“I’m not home. I’m just here for six days,” she reiterated before turning and walking toward the pump, where an old red Civic that looked like it had seen better days was parked. She got inside, and the engine turned over twice before it roared to life, and she drove away.
