Ginger's Heart (a modern fairytale) (12 page)

“I’d sooner trust a fox with a chicken.”

“Yup. Still mad as a wet hen,” he said, grinning at her, wishing he wasn’t enjoying himself quite so much.

She flinched just slightly at his teasing—just the barest narrowing of her eyes before taking a deep breath and turning away from him. “Welcome home, Cain,” she said again without looking at him.

Then she raised the window and pulled her car forward, leaving him in quiet darkness once again.

~ Ginger ~

“Trainee McHuid, you have a call on line one. Please make it quick.”

Nurse Arklett, whom Ginger and all the other LPN student trainees called Nurse Ratched behind her back, gave Ginger a stern look before turning and walking away. Ginger patted Mr. Humphreys on the arm, placed the book of Roald Dahl stories she’d been reading on his bedside table, and made her way to the nurses’ station on the fifth floor of the Silver Springs Care Center.

As a student at Apple Valley Community College and a practical trainee at SSCC, she wasn’t permitted to have a phone on her person while she worked her shifts at the nursing home, lest it ring and wake or startle one of the residents, so she’d given her parents and friends the number at Silver Springs for emergencies only. Her mother, however, included picking up a bottle of milk on her list of emergencies. Nurse Ratched knew it and disapproved mightily of such misuse of privilege, though it was hard to say anything because, ever since Ginger’s grandmother had become a resident of Silver Springs, her parents were its most generous patrons.

Tanya at the nurses’ station gave Ginger a sympathetic look as she handed her the phone.

“This is Ginger.”

“Honey, it’s Momma.”

Ginger lowered her voice. “Momma, you’re not supposed to call me at work!”

“I know it. But I have such good news. I knew you’d want to know right away!”
She huffed softly. “What is it?”

“It’s Woodman. He’s home.”

Her lips parted in surprise, and she turned her back to Tanya for a bit of privacy. “Wait, what?”

“Woodman. He’s home, honey. Just got in half an hour ago. Sophie called to tell me.”

“But he wasn’t due home for another week.”

“Well, he got a ride home ahead of schedule.” Her mother’s voice changed from excited to reproachful. “With Cain.”

If the news that Woodman was home a week early had thrown Ginger for a loop, the notion that Cain was, after three long years, back in Apple Valley nearly fried her brain.

“C-Cain?” she whispered, her heart lurching at the same time her stomach flipped over. “Cain’s home?”

“Well, I guess,” said her mother dismissively. “But don’t mind about him. What’s important is
Woodman’s
home!”

Ginger looked straight ahead at the small lounge across from the nurses’ station, where several residents were watching
Jeopardy!
and four others were engaged in a game of bridge at the card table. A cheerful banner decorated with pumpkins and fall leaves was carefully hung over the four windows that looked out over the patio, and José from maintenance was replacing a bulb in the overhead light. It all seemed so
normal
, but how could
anything
be normal when Cain Holden Wolfram was finally home again? She swayed, then placed her palm on the column beside her to steady herself.

“Ginger? Ginger, are you still there?”

“I’m here, Momma.”

“Well, you and Woodman bein’ such old friends and all, I told Sophie you’d swing by on your way home from work tonight to see him. You get off at eight, right?”

“Eight. Right,” she repeated dumbly, her mind still whirling, her eyes burning with tears as she recalled the last time she saw Cain. She blinked to keep the painful memories at bay, angry that the mere mention of his name could have such a profound effect on her after all this time.

“So . . . you will?”

“I will,” she said. “Wait. Will what?”

“Land’s sake, Virginia Laire! You’re cotton-headed today.” Her mother paused, lowering her voice to a sorority sister–style purr. “Or maybe just excited to see your beau.”

“My . . .” Whatever trance she was in was quickly mitigated by her mother’s suggestion. “Woodman
isn’t
my beau, Momma. We’re friends.”

“He writes you once a week, and don’t think I haven’t noticed you mailin’ your letters back to him. And every time he’s home on leave, he’s takin’ you to the movies or for a bite at the club. You’re heaven together, Ginger.”

“
Friends
, Momma.”

“Your daddy was my friend too,” she said in a singsong, all-knowing voice. “But I also knew a good thing when it walked into my life, and Ranger McHuid was every bit as good a thing as Josiah Asher Woodman. You mark my words, daughter.”

Ugh. When her mother started calling her “daughter,” her feathers were getting ruffled, and Ginger would just as soon keep the peace.

“I love Woodman,” she said gently. “You know that, Momma, but I just don’t—”

“Love is love is love,” said her mother quickly. “You love him. That’s all that matters. Don’t forget to stop by after work and welcome him home, now.”

“Momma? Momma! We’re
not
. . . I don’t see him like—”

But the dial tone humming in her ear told her that Miz Magnolia McHuid had already hung up the phone.

Ginger took a deep breath before turning around and handing the receiver to Tanya.

“Everythin’ okay, honey?”

Ginger stared at Tanya’s perky smile and nodded. Then she headed to the nearest ladies’ room and promptly tossed her cookies.

***

An hour later Ginger pulled into the circular driveway at Belle Royale, cutting the engine of her white SUV and looking up at the grand old plantation house, second only to her parents’ in Apple Valley. Flipping down the visor mirror, she freshened up her lip gloss and took a minute to compose herself before ringing the doorbell. If Cain was staying here tonight and she had to see him, she had decided, she’d be polite, but she refused to be warm.

“I’ll shake his hand, and then I’ll give all my attention to Woodman,” she whispered to her reflection, nodding her head with purpose.

But her heart wouldn’t stop pounding, and her hands were all sweaty. And her reaction had nothing whatsoever to do with Woodman.

While she didn’t regret kissing Woodman at the homecoming dance three years ago, the reality was that, as much as she
wanted
to have romantic feelings for Woodman, she didn’t. She loved exchanging letters with him while he was away and spending time with him when he was home on leave, but the few kisses they’d shared in the past three years were . . . lackluster. And when she compared any of them—or all of them together, for that matter—with the one kiss she’d shared with Cain, they paled to almost nothing.

She did truly
love
Woodman, though. She looked forward to his visits home and loved being his date to the movies or out to dinner. Woodman was handsome and kind, and she felt like a queen on his arm. It wasn’t a mystery how he felt about her—his eyes reaffirmed everything she’d always known. And while she felt an increasing pressure to return his feelings since she’d graduated from high school, last June, he didn’t demand or force anything from her, which had allowed them to remain best friends who occasionally kissed. Mostly she just hoped it could remain that way indefinitely until they both found someone who set their souls on fire.

But who knows?
thought Ginger, hopeful and doubtful at once.
Maybe someday your feelings for Woodman will change and grow into the sort of love he wants from you.

After all, her feelings about Cain had certainly changed.

Once upon a time, he had been a god in her world, a bad boy she was sure she could reform with the power of her love for him. Now? He was a sharp and painful memory. The stupid little girl she’d been three years ago had actually believed that Cain couldn’t have kissed her that passionately unless he felt for her what she felt for him: pure, unstoppable, undying, romantic love. And clearly he hadn’t felt anything of the sort. After he’d kissed her, she’d never seen or heard from him again. Not an apology. Not a postcard. Not a visit. Not a word. For three years, nothing. And logic demanded she concede that his feelings for her had to be so inconsequential that she meant nothing to him. A little girl from back home. Not so much as a bean on his hill, while he’d been the sum and total of hers.

It had taken months to make her heart believe the truth. It had foolishly hung on for almost a year, hoping for a phone call or letter, praying that he’d show up with Woodman when his cousin came home for leave. But a year turned into two, turned into three, and no word from Cain meant that Cain had never cared for her and, by now, had probably forgotten her. So she buried her memories of him and did her utmost to forget about him too.

And now? Well, if he
was
back in Apple Valley, certainly she’d run into him sooner or later. God’s sake, his mother had moved away, and his father
lived
at McHuid’s. But she was no cow-eyed fifteen-year-old anymore. No, sir. She had graduated from high school, she attended college, and she lived, practically, on her own. Would she give him the time of day? Of course, she bristled. She was raised a lady, after all. But after kissing her and raising her hopes and standing her up and breaking her heart? Well, other than a polite hello, the most he could expect from her was exactly
nothing
. Screw Cain Wolfram to hell and back. She just hoped that he’d avoid her as absolutely as she planned to avoid him.

Getting out of the car, she walked purposefully up the wide steps of the mansion that had been in the Woodman family for two hundred years, and rang the doorbell. A moment later Miz Sophie appeared at the door.

“Why, Ginger!”

“Evenin’, Miz Sophie,” she said, her nose twitching from Sophie Woodman’s strong gardenia scent. Miz Sophie reminded her of Pigpen from the
Peanuts
cartoons, only instead of being surrounded by dirt, she was surrounded by a cloud of strong flower smell.

“Well, don’t you look simply precious in those work clothes,” she said lightly, with a disapproving smile.

Ginger glanced down at her outfit—a lavender V-neck scrub smock over matching, loose-fitting, drawstring pants, and white Keds. Miz Sophie didn’t approve of young ladies calling on young gentlemen, though she’d issued an invitation via Ginger’s mother and overlooked that convention in this case because her son was incapacitated and their families were such old friends. That said, the delicate sniff of her nose made it clear that Ginger should have changed before stopping by.

“I came right from work,” she explained, feeling her cheeks warm up.

“Of course you did. Always so busy. Not even a moment to . . . freshen up,” said Miz Sophie, shutting the door behind Ginger. Finally she shrugged lightly, and her expression warmed the slightest bit. “No matter. Woodman’s so tired, I bet he can’t see straight. Don’t stay long, now, lest you wear him out.”

Leading the way through the elegant front hall, Ginger followed Miz Sophie by the twisting spiral staircase, through a solarium, and out to the back patio, where the Woodmans enjoyed cocktails every evening. And there, with his white plastered foot up on a cushion, sat Woodman.

She stopped in the doorway, waiting for him to look up, and when he did, she knew he didn’t see her sneakers or scrubs, her hair in a ponytail, or her tired eyes. He looked at her face and beamed, and she couldn’t help but answer his smile with one of her own, because he was one of her favorite people in all the world, and she would always—
always
—be happy to see him.

“Woodman,” she sighed, her voice filled with warmth. “Woodman, it’s so good to . . .”

Looking more closely at him, she concealed a flinch. He looked
awful
. His face was gaunt and his color was bad. A thin sheen of sweat covered his brow, and when he tried to take a deep breath, it hitched, she guessed, from the pain.

“Where are your meds?” she asked, worry sluicing through her veins.

“Hello to you too, Gin.”

“Hello, Woodman. Where are your meds?”

He rolled his eyes. “Upstairs somewhere.”

Ginger turned to his mother. “Miz Sophie, would you be an angel and bring Josiah his meds?”

Sophie darted nervous eyes to her son, who sighed heavily before nodding. “In the canvas rucksack. Outer pocket.”

“You’re not takin’ them like you’re supposed to,” scolded Ginger as Miz Sophie hurried away.

“Gin, for the love of God, would you just come sit by me and let me kiss you hello? Take off the nursin’ hat for one minute and welcome me home, dang it.”

A slight smile made his eyes sparkle up at her as she leaned over him and kissed his forehead gently.

“Welcome home,” she said softly, lingering for a moment. “I’m glad you’re in one piece.”

“Me too.”

As she stepped back, she read his eyes clearly—the want, the longing, the bursting-at-the-seams love his heart held for her. She blushed and dropped his eyes, taking a seat in the chair across from him and leaving the one beside him empty.

“Did your retirement come through yet?”

The sparkle in his eyes dimmed as he picked up the mug of coffee on the table beside him and sighed. “Not yet.”

“But it will.”

He nodded. “That’s what they tell me.”