He looked closer. The diamond wasn’t a diamond.
A tear pooled on the ruby. His tear, and then he watched another fall. And another, and soon the ruby was wet with the spill of his emotions.
Deep emotion. Affection.
…one is supposed to feel a tug at the heart when so touched.
Roman closed his fingers over the wet ruby. The pin stuck his palm, and as his tears seeped into the wound, he realized with startling clarity the name of the feeling he harbored for Theodosia.
He stood transfixed, gazing into the softly lit heavens. His ranch materialized within the early morning clouds. He saw his horses running through fields. He’d carried the image in his mind for ten long years, and he knew it by heart.
It faded right before his eyes, and in its place a woman’s face floated into the mellow sky. Her lips moved as she whispered to him.
When you truly love someone, Roman, no sacrifice is too great to make.
The heart-shaped ruby clutched in his hand, Roman mounted.
He followed the pull in his heart.
The tug on his heartstrings.
He headed west, toward Templeton. He needed money. All the money he had.
Senor Madrigal would have to find another buyer for the twenty-five thousand acres of Rio Grande grassland.
Roman was going to Boston.
From there, he reckoned he’d set sail for Brazil.
The manand woman chatteredendlessly. Luby and Pinky Scrully were their names, and Theodosia sat between them as Luby directed the ox-driven wagon down the mulberry-tree-edged road.
She had just sold her ruby brooch to the owner of the Willow Patch mercantile when Luby Scrully entered the store, announced that he was passing through town, and ordered supplies for his trip. She hadn’t cared where the man was headed; when she heard him say he was passing through Willow Patch, the only thing she cared about was leaving with him.
The Scrullys had been more than willing to have her along on their journey to Gull Sky and had refused to accept the money she’d tried to offer them.
They’d been traveling for two days now, and Roman had not found them. He wouldn’t. No one in Willow Patch knew she’d left with the Scrullys, so no one in Willow Patch could tell Roman where she’d gone.
She hugged John the Baptist’s cage to her breasts, and as the wagon rumbled along, she watched red, yellow, and orange leaves fall from the trees and flutter to the ground.
“Yeah, Theodosia, honey,” Pinky said, patting Theodosia’s arm, “me and Luby’s on our way fer a visit with our son, Gilly. Don’t ’spect we’ll enjoy the visit much, though, what with his wife there.”
Luby threw his wife a sidelong frown. “You’re jealous, Pinky, and that’s the truth of it. It pains you somethin’ awful to know Gilly loves another woman ’sides you.”
Pinky laughed. “I reckon you’re right, Luby. I’ll git along with that wife o’ his as best as I can, but Lord how I long fer them days when Gilly was jest a young’un. ’Member how happy we was then, Luby?”
Luby nodded. “Time goes on, though, Pinky. Least we still got each other. Be worser if one of us was dead.”
“Speakin’ o’ the dead,” Pinky said, “I heared tell that four men in the Blanco y Negro Gang’s done meeted up with the only knowed cure fer birth. Yeah, dead’s what they are, and I heared it said right in the street back in Wilier Patch. Don’t nobody know who killed ’em, but they was shore killed and dead. Where you headin’, anyway, Theodosia, honey? Y’ain’t said more’n a handful o’ words in two days’ time. Me? Well, I’ve been curious as all git out about you, but I been mindin’ my manners and keepin’ quiet. Cain’t keep quiet no more, though. Where you headin’?”
Lost in the memory of the day Roman had saved her from the notorious gang, it was a moment before Theodosia could answer. “Boston,” she murmured.
Pinky nodded. “That’s a place on the Missersipper River, ain’t it? Yeah, me and Luby was there ’bout two years past. S’where Luby buyed me a new kitchen knife. I busted the ole one when I throwed it at a rattler that slithered itsef into the house. Didn’t hit the rattler. Hit the stove. Knife broke, and the rattler bit my leg.”
A fresh wave of nostalgia sucked Theodosia into deeper grief as she recalled the day Roman had caught a rattlesnake with his bare hands. That had been the day he’d made her eat baby hotcakes. “And play in the mud,” she whispered.
“What was that, honey?” Pinky asked.
“Nothing,” Theodosia replied. “Nothing.” Feeling tears fill her eyes, she pretended to sneeze into her hands. Her action squeezed the tears onto her fingers. They slid down her palm and disappeared beneath her sleeves.
