Ruby Read Online Free

giving my hands a rest,’ she snapped defensively.
    ‘That’s just past where I’m going so it’s daft for you to carry them on your own. When you’ve got your wind back we’ll get going, but I’m not carrying your handbag.’
    The young man’s expression was friendly and his smile wide as he waited for her to stand up again. Once she was on her feet he quickly picked up the cases and loped easily along the street, leaving Ruby almost running to keep up. In no time they were by the familiar front gate to the Blakeley family home.
    ‘Here, this is the house.’
    The man put the cases down on the pavement.
    ‘Thank you,’ Ruby said, looking up through her eyelashes into a pair of navy-blue eyes. Under his intense gaze she felt strangely shy.
    ‘You didn’t tell me your name,’ he said.
    ‘I know I didn’t,’ she replied.
    With his eyes still fixed on her, the young man held his hand out. As she took it he gripped firmly and, as he held on slightly longer than was necessary, Ruby felt a strange tightening in her throat that she couldn’t identify.
    ‘Well, I’m Johnnie, I’m from down the street. I live here; Walthamstow born and bred. Are you visiting?’ he asked, still holding on to her hand.
    ‘No, Johnnie-from-down-the-street,’ she smiled as she withdrew her hand from his. ‘I live here as well. I’ve been in evacuation for five years and I’ve just come back. It all seems strange, though. I know where I am but it doesn’t feel like home any more. It’s all different.’
    ‘That was the war …’ He paused for a moment and then raised his eyes upwards. ‘Ah! I was a bit slow there! Of course you’re Ruby; Ruby Blakeley, the missing sister who’s been having such a time of it she didn’t want to come home again. And none of your brothers came to meet you? They should be ashamed of themselves, leaving you to drag your own cases through the streets.’ Johnnie Riordan shook his head slowly, his disapproval all too obvious.
    ‘I wasn’t dragging them, I was carrying them,’ Ruby frowned. ‘How did you know all that about me?’
    ‘Your brother Ray has a very loose mouth; blabs all the time. Lucky he missed call-up; we’d have lost the war after he’d given chapter and verse to Hitler’s spies.’
    Ruby tried not to laugh. ‘And you? Why didn’t you go and fight?’
    ‘Just missed out, but I’ve been doing my bit in other ways.’ He winked.
    ‘That’s what they all say … So how do you know my brothers?’ she asked curiously.
    ‘Ah! That’s for me to know and you to find out.’ He winked again, and another very strange feeling fluttered gently through her chest. ‘And I’m sure you will very soon, just as soon as you tell your brothers you met me. I’ll be seeing you then, Ruby of the red hair!’
    With a wide grin, a tip of his hat and a flamboyant backward wave the man strutted down the road in the direction from which they’d come. Ruby watched as he casually kicked a ball back to a group of children playing in the middle of the road and then disappeared into a gate halfway down the street.
    She guessed he was older than she – he certainly looked it – maybe even older than her brothers, and he had an edge of danger about him that excited her momentarily; but she knew it wasn’t the time to be thinking about handsome young men.
    She was home, but all she wanted to do was turn and head back to the security of Melton and to the Wheatons, the substitute parents who had cared for her and loved her as their own.
    She pulled back the wooden gate, took a couple of steps along the short concrete path and, after banging sharply on the door knocker, waited impatiently for what seemed an age before the door opened.
    ‘Hello, Mum,’ she smiled.
    The woman looked at her for a moment before registering that this was her own daughter.
    ‘Ruby! Hello, dear, you’re early. I was just going to walk down to the bus stop to meet you, but you’re back here already.’
    ‘I was