Ginger's Heart (a modern fairytale) (33 page)

Klaus looked back and forth between his son and Ginger. “You know? I need to water the horses and check on . . . things. I be right back?”

Before they could respond, Cain’s father slipped out the door, leaving them alone.

“Do you like football?” Cain asked her, squelching a wince, feeling—for the first time in more years than he could remember—young and self-conscious around a woman.

“Um, honestly? It’s not my favorite.”

He gestured to the chairs. “You came all the way down here. Stay a few minutes. You have to finish your beer.”

She looked wary for a moment, then grinned at him. “Sure. Just for a few minutes.”

They sat down side by side, but Cain was so aware of her—of her slight citrus scent, her plum-colored dress, her pretty shoes—he couldn’t help but notice her transformation. Besides, the last time he’d seen her, she was spitting mad at him, and today she seemed much more gentle, like her old self, like the girl he’d once loved so desperately.

“You look nice, Gin,” he said, forcing his glance away from her. He stared at the TV and took another sip of beer.

“Thanks,” she said. “I, well, if you want the truth, an old friend of mine told me to stop feelin’ sorry for myself.”

“Sounds like a total bastard. I’ll beat him up for you.”

She burst into a small laugh, shaking her head at him.

“I’m sorry, princess,” he said, wincing to recall the harshness of his speech.

Her smile faded, but her voice remained gentle. “I hated your words, but I needed to hear them.”

He nodded, looking away from the aching sweetness of her face, reminding himself that he was an emissary on Woodman’s behalf. Looking after her was fulfilling a promise to his cousin. Nothing less, but nothing . . . more.

“So, uh,” he said, “I tried out your Presbyterian church, and I think it’s a real nice service.”

“Wait, um, did you just say you went to church? And enjoyed it?”

“I’m not utterly godless, Gin.”

“That’s up for debate,” she shot back.

“Damn,” he said, chuckling softly as he took another sip of beer.

“And nice compared to what? The Church of Motorcycles, Sluts, Cussin’, and Beer?”

“Fuckin’ sassy,” he whispered, looking at her out of the corner of his eyes and enjoying her immensely.

She was right. He didn’t especially like going to church, but in the two weeks he’d been going to hers, she hadn’t show up, which bothered him. It had been an important part of her life when Woodman was alive, and he was anxious that she start going again. She needed the community—she needed to feel less alone. “They’re doin’ a, uh, a carolin’ thing at your gran’s place.”

“A
carolin’
thing?”

He nodded. “Friday night next. I’ll pick you up at six and we can go together.”

And suddenly all that gentleness and sass jumped ship. She sat back in her chair, her face pinched. “I don’t think so. I’m not . . .”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” said Cain, “is there a very important Lifetime movie that requires your attention?”

She whipped her face to the side, her eyes narrowing in annoyance. “No, I just don’t—”

“Great. You’re free. I’ll pick you up at seven, and if you’re not dressed—”

“I know. I know. You’ll haul my ass out of bed and throw me in your dad’s truck.”

He couldn’t help grinning at her. “You’re a fast learner.”

Her nose twitched. “Fine. I’ll go. But I don’t promise to have a good time.”

“I think we’ve already established that your pleasure is irrelevant.”

“Sweet talker.” She rolled her eyes at him before turning back to the TV. “This how you got all the girls?”

“Nope,” he said, placing his empty bottle on the table between them. “My personality sucks. It was my dimples. And my ass.”

“Ha!” she chortled. “So full of yourself.”

He raised his eyebrows and grinned. “Can’t change a wolf’s howl.”

“Or an ass’s hee-haw,” she returned, taking a big gulp of her own beer before placing it next to his.

Damn, but she was quick. And funny. And gorgeous. But around her eyes, he still saw deep, deep lines of sadness. Church once a week wasn’t going to be enough. She needed somewhere to go, more to do. She needed to get the fuck out of her goddamned cottage.

“What you been doin’ with yourself?” he asked.

“Visitin’ Gran.” She took a deep breath and sighed. “And I’ve gone ridin’ a couple times.”

“When are you goin’ back to work?”

She shrugged, avoiding his eyes, though they were trained on her. “I don’t know.”

“You loved nursin’. I remember you tellin’ me.”

“I
did
love it,” she said. “But, I don’t think I’m ready to—”

“So you’re just sittin’ around at home all day? Goin’ to be a lady of leisure like your momma?”

“No! I just . . . I’m . . .”

“You’re what?

She blew out an exasperated breath “Know what? It’s none of your business what I’m doin’! What are
you
doin’? Loafin’ around this tack room drinkin’ beer?”

In fact, he’d been doing a great deal of work at Wolfram’s Motorcycles. He’d finished all the electrical wiring of the lighting in the showroom and service bays, and he’d ordered some of the more expensive equipment he needed to offer top-notch service on European bikes. He’d purchased a desk, two guest chairs, and a nice Persian rug for the office, and found a townhouse to rent in Lexington, halfway between Apple Valley and Versailles. It was in a gated community with lake views and a swimming pool, far nicer than
he
required. All that had mattered to him was that it might appeal to Ginger. And he had less than zero interest in exploring why she’d been on his mind so much as he’d signed the lease.

He still wasn’t ready to tell her that he was putting down roots in Kentucky, however.

“I’m stayin’ busy,” he said, keeping his eyes on the TV. “By the way, the hinge on your back gate is busted, and some of the pickets are rottin’ on the fence. I’ll be by to fix it tomorrow. If you don’t relish my company, be scarce, huh?”

She stood up. “Cain, I don’t need your help. I’m perfectly capable of—”

“Maybe a good excuse for you to go see your gran,” he said, looking at her meaningfully.

Her eyes narrowed again, and her voice took on a seriously irritated edge. “How much longer you stayin’?”

“I haven’t decided yet,” he said, looking back up at the TV dismissively. “Does it matter?”

She took so long to answer, he shifted his face to look up at her. She was watching him, her face thoughtful, her bottom lip caught between her teeth. His eyes zoned in on her mouth like a beacon, and his body unexpectedly tightened.

“No,” she finally said, shaking her head. “Not to me.”

Without another word, she walked to the tack room door and slammed it shut behind her.

Damn Cain anyway
, she thought, pulling into a parking space at the Silver Springs Care Center and cutting the engine of her SUV. He had arrived bright and early to work on her fence, and of course her mind had immediately segued back to three years ago, when she’d woken up to find him washing Gran’s truck. A flood of memories had engulfed her—his smile when she’d said “Hey!” from her bedroom window, the way he’d caught her gaping at him from the kitchen as she made them eggs, how they’d gone riding afterward, how she’d fallen even more in love with him.

On the one hand, it felt warm and innocent to remember those fleeting, golden days with Cain—her heart had been so full and hopeful that she and Cain might finally find their way to each other. But on the other hand, it made her heart twist with pain, with embarrassment and regret. The following day she’d declared her feelings to Cain and been ripped to shreds for her honesty. And to console herself, she’d made the abrupt, impulsive decision to be with . . . to offer her body to . . .

Her heart started racing, and she jerked the rearview mirror to look at her face.

He’s just away. He’s just away.

“He’s just away,” she whispered, wetting her lips and blinking her eyes against an unexpected burn.

She’d noticed over the past couple of days that it was becoming harder and harder to block out her memories of Woodman and trick herself into believing that he was only temporarily gone. She never allowed herself to think of him as gone forever—
never
—but as she spent more time with Cain and her heart came back to life little by little, it was more difficult to stay cold about Woodman’s loss. She felt a growing pressure to confront it—to put a name to it and deal with it. Like water behind a dam, the pressure was growing and growing, and someday the dam wasn’t going to be able to handle the volume anymore. The high walls would eventually crumble. The floodgates would open. And Ginger would have to come face to face with what had happened to Woodman, and the myriad complicated feelings that accompanied the reality of his loss.

“Not today,” she said softly in the quiet of her car. “Not yet. For now . . . he’s just away.”

Lifting her chin, she grabbed her purse and headed into the care center, where she signed in at the front desk. As she headed for the elevator, she heard someone yell, “Hold it!” and she just managed to keep the doors open for Nurse Ratch—
Arklett
—to rush inside.

“Miss McHuid,” she said politely, offering Ginger a tight smile. “Good morning. Here to see your grandmother?”

“Yes, ma’am,” said Ginger, giving the starched, white-haired lady a small smile.

Nurse Arklett opened her mouth as though to ask Ginger something, then said, “No. I don’t suppose . . . no.”

“I’m sorry?” asked Ginger.

“Miss McHuid, this goes against everythin’ I teach my girls here—fraternizin’ with the visitors—but I am in dire straits. We are losin’ four nurses come New Year’s, and I just haven’t had time to replace them yet.”

“Four at once? Why so many?”

Nurse Arklett huffed through her nose. “New retirement center just opened in Paris. State-of-the-art. Hirin’ anyone with an RN degree.”

“Ahhh,” said Ginger. “Well, no one runs as tight a ship as you, ma’am. I learned more from you durin’ my trainin’ and employment here than, well, than I learned durin’ all three years at nursin’ school. They’d be silly to leave you.”

“Miss McHuid,” said Nurse Arklett, following Ginger out of the elevator on the fourth floor, “I don’t suppose you’d consider comin’ back in January? Three or four days a week? Until I can hire a few new nurses and train them?”

“Come back here to work?”

The older woman winced and shook her head. “No, I guess not. I’m terribly sorry I bothered you. Regards to your—”

“Wait! Yes!”

“What?”

“Yes, ma’am. Yes, I’ll come back to work. Three weekdays and every other Sunday sound okay?”

“Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays?”

“That sounds fine. I can start on January second.”

Nurse Arklett smiled. “I’d be so grateful. Nine a.m. on January second, Nurse McHuid. In scrubs. Ready to work.”

“Yes, ma’am. I’ll be here.”

“Stop by HR on your way out today. I’ll tell them to expect you.”

“Thank you, ma’am.”

Her boss nodded crisply, then headed quickly down the hallway to parts unknown. Ginger waved to Teresa, a nurse she knew, at the fourth-floor nurses’ station.

“Hey, Gin— I’m sorry. Hello, Miss McHuid.”

“It’s Ginger again,” she said with a grin. “I’m comin’ back to work in January.”

“Aw, Ginger!” said Teresa, coming around the counter to give her a big hug. “I’m sure glad to hear that, honey. I’ll let the girls know too! We missed you!”

And that’ll show you, Cain Wolfram, that I
am
gettin’ back on my feet again and I do
not
require your assistance or goadin’ or interference anymore.

Pushing open the door to Gran’s room, Ginger was surprised to find the room festively decorated for the holidays: a small boxwood with tiny red velvet bows, flanked by two poinsettias, sat on the dresser. A dark green, bright white, and red afghan was neatly folded at the foot of her bed, and a statue of a Santa Claus with a little blonde girl on his lap sat on her bedside table.

“Well, Gran!” she said, leaning down to kiss her grandmother hello. “What little elves have been here to visit you?”

“Gin-ger,” she said, her lips attempting a wobbly smile. “Hel-lo, d-doll baby.”

“Hello, beautiful,” said Ginger.

“You’re . . . in high . . . s-spirits.”

“I’m comin’ back to work,” she said. “Three days a week and every other Sunday.”

Gran’s eyes lit up, and Ginger could hear her small gasp of pleasure. “I’m s-so . . . p-pleased.”

“I’ll spoil you tons, Gran. Sneak you contraband ice cream and the like,” she said, flicking an eye around the room. “Now are you goin’ to tell me who keeps bringin’ you flowers?”

“N-no.”

“Why not?”

“It’s m-my . . . s-secret for . . . now.”

Ginger pulled a book off her grandmother’s bedside table. “
The Christmas Box
. May I read it to you?”

Gran looked up at Ginger thoughtfully, then made a small sound like laughter and said, “Yes, b-baby . . . start on . . . the b-bent page.”

“Oh. Someone’s already readin’ it to you?”

Her grandmother nodded, leaning back on her pillow and closing her eyes, a rare look of composure and contentment relaxing her face. “Started it . . . l-last n-night. B-but . . . you can . . . r-read it t-to . . . me . . . t-together. In f-fact . . . that’d b-be . . . p-perfect.”

***

When Cain pulled up in his daddy’s truck on Friday night, Ginger was
reluctantly
ready to go caroling and stepped out onto the porch in jeans, a white turtleneck, and a bright red cardigan halfway buttoned. She wore her gran’s pearls around her neck and had a red velvet hairband in her blow-dried hair.

Cain rolled down the window. “Would’ve come to the door. I’m not a total caveman.”

“Yes, you are . . . and besides, I didn’t need you to,” she said, walking around to the passenger side and opening her own door. She stepped up into the truck and pulled the door closed, giving Cain a saucy look. “
And
for your information, I’m goin’ back to work in January.”

He nodded, his dimples deepening, respect or pride shining in his eyes, and it meant so much to her, she felt her own lips tilt up in return.

“Goin’ back to work. Way to go, princess. Big step.”

“Yes, it is.” She buckled her seat belt as he backed up and headed down the driveway of McHuid Farm. “What exactly did you think? That I’d just sit around in my house forever watchin’ Lifetime?”

“You were doin’ a real good imitation of makin’ that your life’s mission.”

“I just needed some time, Cain.”

“I can understand that,” he said softly, turning out of McHuid’s to head into town. “I’m glad to hear you’re movin’ forward, Ginger . . .” He glanced over at her and sniffed experimentally. “. . . and showerin’ regularly again.”

“Always such a flatterer,” she said, giving him a pissy look.

“If you’re lookin’ for someone to blow sunshine up your ass, I ain’t a contender for the job. Ain’t never seen you as a china doll, princess. Sorry.”

His words sank in, and she felt the stark and utter truth of them. Cain had
never
treated her like she was fragile. Hell, her mother barely let her leave the house after her heart issues, but there was Cain, goading her into jumping from a two-story barn window. There was Cain, who didn’t soften the blow of his rejection when he told her he didn’t want her. And now here was Cain, threatening her, forcing her out of her house, back into the world, when, truth be told, she would have kept watching TV in dirty pajamas for a much longer time.

This was textbook Cain for as far back as she could remember—challenging her, getting under her skin, but treating her like an equal, even though he called her princess. There were times when he had her back, as he had at the funeral parlor, when Miz Sophie jumped down her throat, but as a rule he didn’t mollycoddle her, and unlike everyone else, he didn’t underestimate her either. Somehow the way Cain treated her made Ginger want to be more, to be
stronger, to be
better. Maybe because he believed in her in a way that nobody else did. He
believed
she was strong, and that made her strive to
be
strong.

“Don’t be sorry,” she said, straightening her spine and raising her chin as she looked out the windshield. “Because I’m
not
a china doll. Never was.”

Cain nodded. “Don’t have to tell me. I’ve always known that.”

“How?” she asked, turning to him. “How did you always know that when everyone else always treated me like . . .”

She gasped, realizing where her question, where her train of thought, was headed. It would betray Woodman, wouldn’t it, to admit that he didn’t see her as strong? He didn’t see her as an equal. He saw her as delicate and fragile. He saw her as someone to protect and manage. Wait. Not
saw
but
had
seen her as someone to . . .

She inhaled sharply and squeezed her eyes shut as her mind tried to change the tense of her thoughts to the past.

No!

“Stop,” she said quickly. “I mean, f-forget it!”

“Actually, I’d like to answer you, if that’s okay,” said Cain, glancing at her as they stopped at a red light close to Silver Springs.

“Cain, please just . . .”

He spoke over her. “When your heart got all screwed up, when you were a kid, the whole town knew about it.
The little princess at McHuid’s was airlifted to Vanderbilt
, they said.
Maybe she’ll die
, they said.
Poor little thing
, they said.” He stopped talking, clenching his jaw for a moment and staring at her, his eyes fierce. “I
hated
it. I hated every word. I hated the thought of losin’ you. I was only eight, but I told myself that if you came home, then you were stronger than death, Gin. Stronger’n death, with the heart of a lion. And I told myself that if you could beat death, that would make you the strongest little girl in the whole world.”

“Cain . . .,” she said softly, moved to tears by a version of her story she’d never heard before.

A car beeped at them from behind, and Cain thrust his middle finger into the rearview mirror before shifting back into drive. He stared out the windshield as they pulled into the care center.

“And then you came home,” he said, pulling into a parking space and turning to face her. His face, his beautiful face, was trained on her, his eyes soft, his lips tilted up just a touch. “You came home. And you were runnin’ around and yellin’ and playin’ and ridin’ just like always, and I said to myself,
My God, it’s true. She’s stronger than death. She’s stronger than anythin’
. And it was so strange to me because no one else seemed to see it. Your folks pulled you outta school and got you a tutor, and your momma tried her best to keep you quiet, keep you inside. No one else seemed to see that you were so strong, you’d beaten death. No way life was goin’ to take you down if death couldn’t finish the job.”

Ginger took a deep, shaking breath and lowered her chin to her chest, which tightened with emotion. “But life
does
get me down.”

“Course it does.” Cain nodded. “I know it does. I know that, Gin.” He shrugged. “Still doesn’t change the fact that when the clouds part, you’re goin’ to be okay. You’ve got the heart of a lion, princess. And you’ve got the fightin’ scars to prove it.”

She thought of all the times in her life he’d called her “lionhearted l’il gal,” and suddenly it made sense to her. He was referring to her strength. He’d been talking about her survival.