THE NEXT MORNING Cody was dressed, packed and had fortified himself with about a gallon of fresh-squeezed orange juice before he could bring himself to awaken Ruby. He was too afraid that last night, the most wonderful night of his life, would turn out to be a dream or a fluke.
But how could it? How could he be mistaken about the sensuous way Ruby felt in his arms or the words they’d spoken in passion? At the airport, Ruby had said she needed to find out whether her feelings for him were love or lust. Later, during lovemaking, she’d said she loved him.
On the other hand, words spoken in passion were not always the most reliable. And one night of lovemaking did not make a marriage. Especially between a couple as mismatched as themselves. Especially when one of them had been a virgin.
He felt a shudder move through him at the awesome gift she’d given him. He loved her. He couldn’t imagine letting her go. Not after last night. He had so much to say to her, so many plans for their future, for making her happy, he felt he was about to explode.
He roused Ruby to wakefulness with a kiss and a cup of steaming cafe con leche.
One dark eye winked open. When she saw who was standing over her, she smiled and stretched lazily. “Mmm, coffee.” She took the cup from him.
Maybe it was the coffee she was glad to see, not him.
“The plane leaves in an hour. You’ll have to hurry,” he said, hoping his voice didn’t betray his nervousness.
She grinned. “You sure look like you’re in a hurry to get away from here.”
He shrugged. “I couldn’t sleep so well this morning.”
Her smile faded. “Is this what they call morning-after regrets?”
His heart froze. Did her question mean she was having regrets?
The words of love and persuasion that were about to come tumbling out of his mouth froze. He didn’t know what to do. He didn’t want to guilt her into staying in a marriage.
What five minutes ago had seemed so simple and straightforward when he was only dealing with himself became more difficult with Ruby’s feedback…or lack of it.
“No regrets,” he said carefully. “Except that we have to leave so soon…”
She laughed. “Okay, okay, I’ll get up.”
Ruby scrambled out of bed and went into the bathroom. She took the world’s fastest shower and came out ten minutes later looking daisy fresh, not to mention just plain beautiful. It was all he could do not to stride over and throw his arms around her and beg her not to file for divorce once they got back to Heartbreak Ridge. He would have given any amount of money to know what she was thinking.
She appeared to be thinking about the luggage problem. “I dread stuffing all this junk into a taxi!” She laughed. “Wouldn’t it be better just to stay here and write everyone that, sorry, but we couldn’t possibly go back to Heartbreak Ridge because I overdid it on the souvenirs?”
Wouldn’t it be great if they could just jump back in bed and not think about Heartbreak Ridge again for a million years?
Cody nodded. A lump in his throat made speech difficult.
“Oh, well, I guess that’s not an option.” With what seemed like forced chipperness, she ran about the room stacking baskets and boxes, grabbing the last bits of belongings strewn about the room, mostly the undergarments they had discarded in such a wonderfully sensual way last night.
She caught his glance as she snatched her fallen panties from the foot of the bed. Her cheeks flushed red, and she stuffed the panties quickly into a duffel. Hiding the evidence.
She obviously didn’t want to talk about last night at all. In fact, she seemed to be staying as far from him as the little room might allow. Maybe she thought that if she got too close to him she would set him off again, and he would throw her onto the bed and make love to her until they missed their plane.
Maybe she was right. Heck, he wouldn’t mind making love to her until they missed their fortieth birthdays.
She plopped the duffel on a box and turned to him with a big smile. “Well, that’s that. Are you ready to go?”
That’s that. Suddenly, he saw his marriage pass before his eyes. Her manner was all business. Ruby wasn’t generally shy. She’d spent weeks and weeks blabbing to him about her hated virginity. Now that it was gone, she seemed not to want to talk about its absence—and what that might mean to their relationship—at all.
Cody nodded again. “I suppose so.”
He gathered as much stuff as he could into his arms and left his honeymoon hotel room with a heart as heavy as lead.
OKAY, SHE WAS GETTING NERVOUS.
Not that she hadn’t been nervous before. All morning she’d been on pins and needles, moving in fast-forward, trying to get through the proceedings with as little embarrassment as possible. The cab was barreling down the street toward the little airport, and Cody still hadn’t said anything about last night.
Like that they’d made love and it was more wonderful than she ever imagined it could be.
Like that she’d told him she loved him.
Like that maybe they shouldn’t get a divorce now.
Maybe these concerns had slipped his mind. She had no doubt that Cody was a practical gent; perhaps he was too concerned about making it to the airport in time, so that they wouldn’t miss their flight.
But was he so worried about missing their flight because he didn’t want to be stuck in Mexico for another day with her?
She didn’t know what to say, but she had the sinking feeling that “it” was happening to her. “It” was what she’d read about in all those books that had seemed so wacky to her before—women falling in love with men who couldn’t make a commitment to them. With men who couldn’t express their feelings. With men who ran the minute it looked like things were getting serious. Psychologists had made a bundle of money analyzing the type; Oprah would be out of business without them. That had to be why he wasn’t talking to her.
Either that or he hadn’t enjoyed last night, was too polite to give her an unfavorable review yet too honest to lie outright. Maybe he didn’t want her to get her hopes up. Maybe this was his way of saying adios.
She tried to imagine herself and Cody on Oprah, maybe under the heading My Marriage Was Over Before the Honeymoon Was. But Cody didn’t seem right on that imaginary stage, spilling his problems to the world or listening to long-winded, far-fetched explanations by guest psychologists.
She saw the airport tower through the windshield, and her pulse kicked up another notch. How could Cody do this to her? Didn’t he realize that until last night she had been a virgin? Didn’t he know that she might like a little feedback, especially considering that he was her husband? Didn’t he suspect that after the most glorious night in her life she might not be thrilled to run home and get a divorce?
She folded her arms and turned to him, her breath coming in heavy gasps.
Cody looked alarmed. “Is something wrong?”
He was so handsome, it made her furious. She would have to fall in love with one of the world’s best-looking men, only to have him turn a cold shoulder to her on the morning after what was, for all intents and purposes, their wedding night.
“Yes!” she cried, beyond caring if she made a fool of herself. “Something is very wrong.”
He blinked in surprise. “What?”
“You! Don’t you know how to behave? Haven’t you ever read books or been to the movies?”
He looked at her as if she’d gone stark raving mad. And maybe she had—but he’d driven her to it! “You’re not supposed to hustle your wife into a cab the morning after the first time you make love to her!”
“Of all the…” He rolled his eyes. “We have a reservation.”
“Hang the reservation!” she cried. “I don’t want to go home.”
His eyes lit up, but before he could speak, he tilted his head and looked at her suspiciously. “Why not?”
“Because I don’t want to get divorced!”
His face broke into the world’s most blissful smile. “You don’t?”
Tears suddenly streaked down her cheeks. “Of course not! After last night, how could I?”
She was in his arms again, and it felt so wonderful, so right. He rained kisses down her cheeks, on her lips, on the tip of her nose.
“Ruby, I love you,” he whispered.
“I love you, too,” she said, her lips seeking his for another kiss.
Before she could get one, he pulled away slightly. “Are you sure about this? Sure it’s not just lust?”
“It’s lust, all right,” she joked, “and then some.”
“Are you sure you could stand a lifetime with me?”
“I couldn’t stand a lifetime without you!”
“What about Heartbreak Ridge?”
“Vacations. We can take vacations.”
“What about all the adventures you were going to have?”
She laughed. “Staying with you and raising bees and sheep and chickens will be adventure enough. And kids, Cody. I want to have kids. Wouldn’t that be an adventure?”
His eyes were so full of warmth, so full of love, she thought she might collapse. In fact, she did; she put her head against his chest and hugged him tight. When he spoke, his voice was so raspy and full of emotion it sent shivers through her. “That would be heaven, Ruby.”
Heaven. In Heartbreak Ridge. She never thought she’d associate those two. She had to be in love!
She put her hands on Cody’s shoulders and tilted her head for a kiss. When his lips touched hers, it was pure magic. Heat radiated through her—and something else. A feeling of well-being she’d never known before. The certainty of knowing she would spend the rest of her life with this man made her future seem, for the first time, not a void to be frantically filled, but a wondrous luxury spreading out before her like a plush red carpet, just waiting for her footsteps.
She gasped. “Cody!”
He looked at her, eyes bright. “What is it?”
“I have an idea. Instead of getting divorced, let’s get married.”
He laughed. “We are married.”
She clucked her tongue. “But that was so frantic, and I messed it all up, anyway. Let’s do it right the next time, with orange blossoms and all the something old, something new stuff. Let’s invite the whole town again and have a big party with champagne and caviar.”
He grinned. “They’ll think we’re crazy.”
“Señor?”
Not as crazy as the cabdriver, apparently. Ruby realized suddenly that they were stopped in front of the airport, idling, and that he was turned to them, waiting for them to hop out, grab their things and pay the fare.
But even when she and Cody looked into the cabbie’s expectant eyes, they didn’t move out of each other’s arms.
She glanced at Cody. Cody glanced at her. They grinned.
“I don’t feel like cutting our honeymoon short, do you?”
She shook her head. “In fact, I think we should extend it.”
Cody turned to the baffled cabdriver and asked him to take them back to the hotel. Then he bent down and kissed her again, this time slowly, so that she had no doubts about how they would be spending the rest of their time in Mexico.
They weren’t going to be doing any more shopping, that was for darn sure.
“GUESS WHAT? We’re getting married!”
Cody’s announcement at the Feed Bag was met with amazed stares. He and Ruby stood in front of the old cigar box that served as cash register, hugging each other and grinning at the usual suspects assembled for lunch.
“You are married,” Merlie reminded them.
Cody shrugged off the argument. “That was just practice.”
“You mean you’re renewing your vows?” Jim Loftus asked. “You’re supposed to wait a while to do that.”
“We can’t wait,” Ruby said. “We’re going to renew them every couple of weeks.”
The sheriff laughed. “Well, I’ll be. Maybe mine won’t be the only successful romance in Heartbreak Ridge, after all.”
Jerry laughed. “Who knows, with the new hotel coming in, there might be all sorts of lovebirds gathering here soon.”
Cody frowned. “Hotel? What hotel?”
Amos Trilby spoke from a back booth. “Jim’s gone and picked him a sucker—er, I mean winner—for that house of his. Some nutty lady from Houston proposed turning that old house into a luxury inn. You know, where the elite will meet.”
Cody was stunned. “A luxury inn in Heartbreak Ridge?”
The question was met by guffaws all around, except from Jim, who bridled indignantly. “I don’t see what’s so funny.”
“Neither will Miss Innkeeper when she arrives and discovers the only guest her hotel is ready for is a wrecking ball.”
Jim sputtered in dismay, and the room erupted into jeers and hoots and arguments.
Cody grinned at Ruby. “And they think we’re crazy?”
She laughed. “You’ll get used to it. I sure have.”
Sam sidled over to them to welcome them home with a handshake for Cody and a kiss on the cheek for Ruby. He made a sweeping gesture of the diner, which was still abuzz about the new hotel. “See what happens when you leave town?” he asked Cody. “You miss all the excitement.”
Cody hugged his wife. “Believe it or not, we had some of our own.”
The sheriff looked concerned. “We were a little worried when you two didn’t come back on time. We thought maybe you had some trouble.”
Cody glanced down and saw Ruby’s cheeks flush red. She’d become a champion blusher in the past weeks, but then, she’d done plenty to blush about.
“As a matter of fact, things didn’t go at all according to plan,” Ruby informed the sheriff.
Sam frowned. “Really?”
Cody laughed. No telling what sorts of catastrophes he was imagining! “Everything went wrong.”
“You should let Cody tell you about it sometime,” Ruby said. “We thought we were going to wind up in divorce court.”
All the attention in the room was on her and Cody.
“That would have been terrible,” Sam said.
“No, that would have been the plan.”
“Plan C,” Ruby explained.
“But we’re on plan D now. That’s the Ruby-Cody lifetime happiness plan.”
The sheriff tilted his head, confused. “I don’t quite understand.”
Merlie shook her head. “Don’t try, Sheriff. I told you that Treadwell girl was going to ruin your sweet nephew, and just look—a few weeks married to her and he’s already as addle-headed as she is!”
Cody felt a silly grin spread across his face. “Am I?”
He looked into his wife’s brown eyes and felt an almost sinful happiness pulse through him. If he was addled, it was because he was crazy in love.
“You always were, sweetheart,” Ruby whispered reassuringly, giving him a long, proprietary kiss. “You just didn’t know it till I came along.”