The liveryman was delighted someone was taking the horse off his hands, and with a small down payment, she was able to use the horse as she pleased. It was hers in all but name. The horse's name was Caramelo, but Ruth had found that too much of a mouthful and had shortened it down to Carmel. She wanted to practice every evening after she got off work, and Kid was happy to oblige. It wasn't but a few days before she was competent on a horse.
"How about a race?" she asked.
"I don't think you're quite ready for a race, especially on that plug. Unless another bee comes along," he added with a smile.
"Well, a fast trot then," she amended and sure enough she rode ahead with Carmel in a trot.
He smiled to himself. It took moxie to almost kill yourself on a horse and then get right back up on it like she had. She had taken to riding like a duck to water. He wouldn't have taken her for a horsewoman, but she seemed to have physical finesse and the ability to pick up on the horse's signals and to soothe and communicate in response. Carmel was obviously impressed with her as she was devoted to her new mistress and did her best for her.
He imagined Ruth astride on the horse instead of just sidesaddle, her hair an unfurled mass streaming in the breeze. He swallowed thickly at the image. It was wrong of him to picture her like that, but he couldn't seem to help himself. Images like that seemed to pop into his mind unbidden when it came to her.
There were moments he felt as drawn to her as a moth was to a flame, but unlike the moth, he knew if he flew too close, he'd get burned. It wasn't safe to admire her too closely.
It wasn't that he hadn't courted women who were considered respected citizens of the community before, but they generally had rings that belonged to other people, a fairly safe way to make sure his heart didn't get too entangled. He had pursued a couple of unmarried women who didn't work in a saloon, but it had always been purely physical between them. He hadn't liked them as people.
He knew the kind of life he led left no room in it for a wife and children. He could barely stand it himself. And barring that, they were just too different. They'd fight like cats and dogs, not that he didn't think some of that fighting would be a lot of fun because he could tell it would be easy to push her buttons, but it was best for the both of them to keep their relationship, if indeed they had one, strictly plutonic.
She suddenly looked back at him with a beguiling grin, a grin daring him to keep up with her. Her intent wasn't to charm him. She had no idea she was driving him crazy with every smile she smiled, every word she spoke, every gesture she gestured, which served to make him even crazier. Most of the women in his experience knew the power they wielded as women, but she didn't or at least she had no interest in wielding it.
When he caught up with her, she said, "I think old Carmel could use a break, and you got better things to do than chase me around on a horse until dark."
If he did, he really couldn't think of any. He was enjoying his time with her. She was sweet and innocent. Light and good humor radiated from her. She had a funny way of lifting his usual bad mood like the lady herself was a tonic for his soul. If any man even thought of robbing her of these qualities, he'd have no trouble putting a bullet through said man.
He stared at her like a lovesick schoolboy all the way back to the livery, and he was glad she never glanced over to catch him watching her so intently. God had a sense of humor if He was making him fall for this puritanical, iron-willed slip of a girl. That thought alarmed him. How had he gone from simple attraction to thinking about love? He shook the idea away as quickly as it had come. He hadn't fallen, he told himself, he was just getting a little carried away by a pretty face.
He hopped down from his horse and went over to help her down, glad to have something to focus on besides the battle going on in his mind.
"I might as well get used to getting on and off it myself. You ain't going to be here to help me on and off forever," she told him.
"No, but if there's a man in the vicinity, they'll help you off the horse, so you might as well get used to it."
She put her hands on his shoulders and he put his hands on her waist as he brought her to the ground. "You going to go riding tomorrow?" he asked in an effort not to concentrate on how much he liked the feel of her waist and on the way heat seemed to gather at so innocent a place as his shoulders when her hands rested there.
"Tomorrow's Sunday," she reminded him.
"So it is." He seemed to have lost track of the days. He had already stayed in Santa Fe much longer than he intended. It wasn't good to hang his hat in any one place for too long. He'd made too many enemies for that, but he knew the reason he was still here, and it was standing right in front of him.
"You want to come to church with me?" It was a friendly question. She wasn't pressuring him about it like he would have expected from someone who had made it their life's calling to save people's souls. She led Carmel back to her stall and removed the saddle off of her.
"No, I don't think so." She'd asked the same thing last week and had received the same response.
"You ain't going to get struck down by lightening if you go, you know," she told him with a playful grin as she began brushing her horse down.
"I don't know about that. I don't think God's too fond of hypocrites from what I remember from Sunday School, and if I walked through the door of a church, that's exactly what'd I be."
She frowned. She obviously wanted an explanation but seemed to know he wasn't ready to say more, and she let the subject drop.
He took care of his own horse while she finished up and returned him to the stall that he was renting.
She was just shutting Carmel's stall door back when he joined her again. She pulled an apple out of her pocket. The apple in her hand and the impish look on her face helped Kid understand why Adam had eaten the fruit with Eve even though he'd been warned of the cost. She didn't have the apple for long though as Carmel reached over and snatched it up.
"Rosa knows I took it," she explained, wiping Carmel's slobber on her skirt, "but she'd throw a fit if she knew I was giving a perfectly good apple to a horse."
He chuckled and listened as Ruth told him all about Rosa's wonderful apple pies on their walk back to the boardinghouse. He wondered with amusement if she ever stopped to take a breath. He'd never met a man, woman, or child who could beat Ruth in that respect. He enjoyed listening to her prattle though.
Instead of her usual goodbye in front of the house, she told him, "Come upstairs with me."
She didn't wait for a response. She just assumed he was going to follow her, and he did. He couldn't help his curiosity. She'd never even invited him to the front door of the boardinghouse before and now she was inviting him to her room.
She stopped in front of the door to her room and turned around with an outstretched hand. "You ripped your sleeve. Give it to me, so I can fix it before it gets any worse."
No asking. She just commanded. He couldn't help but bristle. He wasn't used to people ordering him about; they didn't dare. He started at her a tad incredulously.
"Well?" she asked with a touch of impatience.
He jerked his shirt off as she whipped her head to the side, so that she wouldn't see anything improper. He then threw his shirt at her, which she neatly caught.
"I'll be as quick as I can," she promised with her head still turned.
"You're going to leave me out here like this?"
"I can't invite a shirtless man into my bedroom. It wouldn't be right, but it won't take me long." Then she shut the door, leaving him standing out in the hallway with his bare chest in plain view of any person who happened to walk by. If any of the other boarders came by right now, he'd be the laughingstock of Santa Fe, behind his back of course.
He paced outside the door furiously. The woman seemed not to be able to tolerate appearance flaws any more than she could tolerate moral flaws. She wanted as much control and order in the physical world as she could get as evidenced by her unchanging, tight hairstyle. He bet a person couldn't find a single speck of dust were he to search her room, not that he'd get the chance. The uptight woman needed someone to unwind her a little bit. He wished that person luck because it would be a job and a half.
She had been telling the truth. It only took her about 10 minutes. He examined her handiwork before he put the shirt back on. The stitches were barely visible as perfect and precise as stitches from a human being could be. He'd expected no less and he had no idea why the flawless stitching steamed him, but it did. He stormed away with his newly repaired shirt without as much as a grunt.
About halfway to his hotel he felt a little guilty. She hadn't meant anything by it. Maybe she had even meant it as a thank you for the riding lessons. He felt the nagging need to go back and apologize.
Rosa let him in. "She's in the parlor," she told him with a smile, which soured him further that she knew the purpose of his being there, but he mumbled a thank you as he brushed past her.
He found the parlor. Ruth was alone in the room, studying a piece of paper and biting her lip in concentration. He forgot about apologizing. "What's that?" he asked.
She looked up only for a second. "Mr. Black let me borrow a map. I'm planning out my route. Won't be much longer now."
"You're still going through with this?" He didn't know why the woman couldn't see she wouldn't last out there. Healthy, full-grown men didn't make it out there.
"I'm not buying a horse cause I like being sore and mucking out a stall," was her comeback.
He ran a hand through his hair in frustration. "Why don't you go home, Ruth? I'm sure it'd be a load off your parents' mind. I'll see that you have the funds to do it if money's a problem."
"And what exactly am I supposed to do when I get there?"
"I bet you had a boy there that was kind of sweet on you." The blush proved his assumption had been right. "Do what normal women do. Get married, raise some children, grow old and gray. That's the kind of life you really want."
The color this time came not from embarrassment but temper. "You don't know what kind of life I want."
"I can predict what kind of life you'll have if you continue with this wild notion," he retorted.
"If I want your opinion, I'll ask for it," she said, standing up and pointing to the door.
"Fine, get yourself killed for all I care!" He slammed the parlor door shut behind him. Then he realized he still hadn't thanked her for her repair work. He opened the door back up and her eyes were narrowed and cheeks flushed in anticipation of more angry words. He didn't know how she managed to still be attractive with a scowl on her face, but she did. "Thanks for the shirt!"
