Читать книгу Winning Ruby Heart - Jennifer Lohmann - Страница 14

CHAPTER SIX

RUBY STOOD AMONG the other racers at the starting line, tapping at the dirt with the toe of her running shoe. The weather was perfect. Most of the race would be spent in the trees, so the bright overhead sun would be welcome, rather than a hindrance. The temperature was cool enough that she shouldn’t overheat at kilometer twenty and there was—thankfully—no rain in the forecast. Her main concern was that the loop crossed two streams and she’d not had much practice running with wet feet.

Still, she thought, lifting her head to look at the morning sky visible through the bright green spring leaves above her, she’d invited the deities Nike and Hermes along for the journey and they’d obliged. She could feel them crouching among the other racers. There would be no measly three minutes to haunt her drive home this weekend.

Haley had flatly refused to provide an alibi for another weekend. Her cousin had said she didn’t have a problem lying to Ruby’s parents, but Haley was all out of plausible excuses and she didn’t have the energy to think of implausible ones the Hearts would believe. Ruby had been about to forfeit her entry fee when her mom had announced that she was taking a spur-of-the-moment spa weekend, which meant her father would use the opportunity to stay in the city and work. Or whatever else he did.

She shifted her weight from side to side, partially to keep muscles pliable and partially to move the uncomfortable knowledge of how naive and self-centered she’d been far enough into the back of her head that she didn’t have to stare at it throughout the race. When she’d been training she’d been so focused on herself. Her entire family had been focused on her. All the spare resources went to Team Ruby. She hadn’t even noticed how unhappy her family was until she didn’t have anything else to occupy her mind and they no longer had her to rally around any. Her career hadn’t been the glue that held them together; it had been the butterfly bandage barely keeping them from falling apart when really they’d needed stiches. Now they were left with a scar that would never go away.

This time around she was racing on her own, with her own meager resources. Even though she wasn’t doing it to win, her entire family—maybe not Josh—would say she was being selfish. And they’d be right. She was here to find the good parts of Ruby Heart again. She hadn’t realized that for her first race, but she knew that now. Ruby Heart had been a scandal and she’d done something horrible, but she couldn’t be all bad.

She shivered as it felt as if a mouse ran down her spine. The crowds were sparse enough that she could glance around and see each and every person waiting for the gun to go off. Including the man she wanted to see least, the man who could wreck her whole plan to rediscover Ruby Heart. Micah Blackwell was watching her from the sidelines with his head cocked, a vague smile on his face and his hands on the wheels of his chair as if he were going to dart away from the sidelines to race after her at any moment. Right behind him stood his cameraman and the giant camera stared at her with its black, unblinking eye.

The starting gun boomed and Ruby burst forward. Try to catch me, she wanted to yell. She wanted to laugh. Micah could chase her all he wanted, but she was Ruby Heart, and he would never catch her.

* * *

MICAH SAT ON the sidelines, tapping his fingers against the wheel of his chair and watching Ruby work to keep her muscles warm for the race. The neon green hat Ruby had been wearing at the first race must have been completely abandoned in Iowa, because she wore a different hat today. The mud-brown canvas wasn’t nearly as eye-catching as the neon had been, but it didn’t need to be. The set of Ruby’s shoulders would attract as much attention as any ugly hat. Her hot pants were a velvety gray, and she wore a tight yellow running shirt. When she moved, he thought he saw a gray parrot silhouetted in the fabric of the back of her shirt. Not quite trying to hide in the crowds today. People would remember the parrot. He was going to remember the way her muscles shifted and moved, like watching a panther stretch.

Her body stilled. She had seen him watching her. Then she straightened and her shoulders rolled back. As the countdown got closer to one, Ruby tilted herself forward. When the gun went off, her muscles contracted for a blink of an eye before she burst forward. Ruby Heart was back. And different.

* * *

SHE FINISHED IN just under four hours, fifteen minutes, smashing her past race time and on a harder course, and all that was left to do was to enjoy the euphoria of finishing a race and eat her banana before she fell over. Instead, she took a sip of her beer and looked around. The congratulations friends and family offered other runners boomed over the clamor of the band onstage. The spectators also offered assistance. “How do you feel? Have a seat, I’ll get you some chips. The guac is real good.”

The top finishers in the race hung around, chatting with one another like old friends and cheering for the runners crossing the finish line. Step over that line from pain into party, their cheers promised. Supportive. Encouraging. A reminder of what it had been like to be a member of a team, even though these were all individual racers.

Her runner’s high put a goofy smile on her face and she stood there, not certain where to put her hands, where to look, wishing she had someone to hold a plate of chips and guacamole for her. Finishing one small plate of food was enough to make her feel ready to take the shuttle back to her hotel, so Ruby left the postrace celebration.

She, Ruby Heart, used to being surrounded by coaches and her mother at the end of a race, accustomed to the cheers of an Olympic stadium, had been the only racer on the bus ride back. Of course, old Ruby Heart had been accustomed to winning, not achieving personal bests.

The last of her race euphoria abandoned her when she crossed the threshold into her hotel room. As the sweat crystalized on her body in the dry hotel room air-conditioning, she wondered, who is Ruby Heart? Whoever she was, she needed to find dinner and rest, or else it wouldn’t matter who Ruby Heart was, because she’d be as stiff as a stadium seat in the morning and would have to drive like a zombie with her joints all locked up.

The phone next to the bed rang and Ruby had the relief of having something to do. “Hello?”

“Ruby?”

The velvet voice said her name, like it did in her dreams before turning on her. You had someone shove your failure into your arm and then you pissed your dreams away. When she hadn’t seen Micah at the finish line, she’d convinced herself that his presence at the starting line had been a figment of her imagination. And been disappointed that he’d given up so easily.

A part of her—one larger than she cared to admit—wished Micah were at her door. Company, any company, would be nice, but especially company that understood what it meant to create and then smash a personal goal.

But those desires were overshadowed by terror that the press wolves were only waiting for the call of their leader to descend upon her. With no talking, not even the television, to drown out the beats, the drum of her pen tapping the hotel pad filled the room.

Ruby put the pen down. Pretending to be someone she wasn’t, lying to herself and everyone around her about her true nature, isolated her. Cabin fever, only without the fresh pine scent of the woods.

Lying created multilevel problems, like the fear deep in her breast that her falsehood would be found out. Because she knew what happened when the world discovered you’d been lying to them. Only this would be worse, because their anger would be unleashed at Ruby’s true self, rather than a publicity designed cover girl.

These ultra runs were about conquering your mind as much as your body, so she drew on the reserves of mental energy that kept her putting one foot in front of another and responded without a hint of fear in her voice. “Hello, Micah. Couldn’t get the hotel staff to give you my room number this time?”

“Didn’t have Amir follow you to your floor.” His tone was gentle and correcting, but also offered something. He was playing nice today.

She wondered what else he would offer in exchange for her story and how hard she could push him away before he snapped. “That you did that is incredibly creepy.”

He chuckled. “You’re right. In this case, the bald truth serves me better than a well-crafted story. In Iowa, Amir was on the same floor and discovered your room number by sheer luck. Luck failed me this time. But that’s okay, because I’m not calling for business.”

She picked up the pen. Put it down. Stood to walk around the room, only to be stopped by the cord. The last phone in the world to have a cord was in her hotel room. The bed squeaked when she sat back down on the brown-and-orange-striped comforter. “And I’m not the same naive fool I was five years ago, so tell me a story I might believe.”

There was silence on the line for a while before Micah said, “Okay. I’m here on business, but I know I’m not going to get an interview today. Amir is still partying with the racers, so a camera isn’t even available. But I’d like the chance to convince you to sit for an interview. And not just an interview—an entire feature series where you can tell your story.”

“Over the phone?” She could leave the receiver sitting on the bed, take a shower and he could try to persuade her all he wanted. If she turned the volume on the phone all the way up, maybe she could listen to his voice stroke her skin while the water rushed over her.

“Over dinner.”

Ruby was so shocked she couldn’t say anything for several seconds. He really thinks I’ll say yes to dinner? Then she opened her mouth to say no, and the intake of her breath was the loudest sound in the room. The joyous group in the hall, probably a runner and her family celebrating the finish, had passed out of her hearing. If she said yes, she would be eating dinner with Micah Blackwell, who probably still hated her. If she said no, she would be eating dinner alone.

“Okay.” Regret and her teeth chewed at her bottom lip, but she didn’t take back her answer. She was intimate with the sound of her own chewing. Even when sitting around the table with her parents, there was rarely any talking. Just forks scraping across plates and the booming way you disappointed us echoed through a room, even when no one said a word. Dinner with Micah would at least be different. “Where should I meet you?”

“Tell me your room number and I’ll bring dinner to you.”

“I’d rather go out.”

“We can do that, but I get recognized, especially at sporting events. Do you really want to sit at a table with me and have someone ask who you are?”

No. But neither did she want the memory of him lingering in this room, even if only for one night. “I just have one chair.”

“Lucky for both of us that I bring my own.”

Right. “I’m in room 415.”

“There’s a Mexican restaurant that is supposed to do good takeout. Give me some idea of what you like and I’ll be at your room in about an hour.”

Ruby gave him a couple generic Mexican-food suggestions, said what she didn’t like, and he hung up, leaving her to be grateful she only had one change of clothes and couldn’t fret about what to wear. The warmth in his eyes would relax her shoulders. His smile would invite her to share intimacies. And all of those were professional tricks designed to lure unsuspecting athletes into his trap. She wouldn’t fall for them.

Which meant she had to push her curiosity and interest in the power of Micah’s shoulders out of her head. She was never going to see him shirtless. And I don’t want to! she told herself, though not strongly enough to believe it. It was just a professional interest in his physique, was all. One athlete to another. She’d ask him about his weight-lifting regime. They could compare notes.

Despite her promises to herself, she took the time to blow-dry her hair after her shower.