More than once, some floozy or other had shown up at McHuid Farm looking for Cain, a fact that would have definitely gotten him fired had Ranger not relied heavily on Klaus’s expertise and advice. And though Cain showed up surprisingly faithfully for work, he was surly and distant, even, on occasion, to Ginger.
A hellion and a troublemaker, Cain was not considered a nice or appropriate young man, which just made him ten times more fascinating and somehow Ginger’s besotted heart clung to the notion that the Cain she’d known as a child was still alive, shrouded under the debris of disappointment and pain. He was just a troubled teenager who’d eventually straighten out. In her heart of hearts, she still believed that the Reds-hat-wearing, rib-loving, German-speaking kid who opened his arms and caught her every birthday could be recovered if she could just love him enough.
She took a mirror out of her canvas bag and checked out her reflection, staring at the porcupine quills of cooling rollers sticking out of her skull. They’d give her big, bouncy waves, and because Cain had called her princess for as long as she could remember, she’d borrowed her mother’s Sun Queen 1985 tiara, and tonight she planned to be every bit of the princess he imagined. With her hair started, it was time to put on her face. But first she wanted to answer Gran’s questions.
But do you really know him? Are you really seein’ him clearly?
Placing the mirror back in her bag, she stepped back onto the porch.
“Gran? The answer is . . .”
Her grandmother’s head rested on the back of the wicker sofa, soft snoring sounds filling the small porch. Pulling a blanket from an untaped box, Ginger draped it over Gran gently, careful not to wake her.
“. . . I know his heart,” she said softly.
And if he’d let me love him, I could help him know it again, too.
“And I do see him clearly,” she whispered, her voice breaking with uncertainty as her own heart asked, Do you? Or do you just see what you want to see?
Biting her bottom lip in troubled thought, she headed back into her grandmother’s kitchen to finish getting ready for the dance alone.
***
An hour later, Ginger sat on the front porch swing at the main house, having helped her grandmother to bed, with promises that she’d stop by in the morning and tell her all about the dance.
Trading worries for excitement, Ginger had relived the kiss a hundred times by now, giggling as she perfected her makeup and slipped her dress over her head. The way his tongue had slid against hers, making secret places in her body come alive, as though he’d flicked a switch and turned her on for the first time in her life. The memory of his hands on her face made her tremble, and the way he’d tenderly nuzzled her nose with his made her sigh. She wanted so much more from him tonight—a hundred more kisses to keep her company during the long, lonely months ahead, when he’d be far away. She would ask him to write to her, and he would, wouldn’t he? Of course he would, she assured herself. She didn’t know a lot about boys, but a kiss like that was real, was almost a promise—it told her she meant something to him, it told her that tonight was just the beginning of a million happy nights spent together.
Only the beginning . . .
She smoothed her hands over the homecoming gown she’d selected with her mother three weeks ago, happy she’d have a chance to wear it after all. It was royal blue, with a fitted, strapless bodice and a full, chiffon skirt. The bodice had silver and crystal beadwork that would sparkle as she and Cain danced across the Apple Valley High School gymnasium. Her blonde waves were held back by her mother’s shimmering tiara, and she’d borrowed a diamond and sapphire tennis bracelet from her mother’s jewelry box too. Grinning at herself in Gran’s bedroom mirror, she had to admit she looked every bit the princess tonight—no jodhpurs or muddy riding boots in sight—and she desperately hoped that Cain liked what he saw. He’d been with so many girls over the past few years, from what she could gather. She wanted to stand out. She wanted to be special. She wanted him to want her as desperately as she wanted him.
Playing with the straps of her matching royal blue purse, she looked up as she heard an engine turn from the road into the driveway. But when she saw Woodman’s BMW at the bottom of the hill, her eyebrows knitted together in consternation. Dang it. He was probably coming to say good-bye before he left tomorrow, and while she was glad of that—because she wanted a few minutes to say good-bye to him—the timing was terrible. Cain would be here any minute, and she didn’t want for Woodman to be standing by the sidelines as she drove away with Cain.