The predawn air clung cool against Ruth’s skin as she hurried through the sleeping streets of Bethlehem. Her body felt different somehow – awakened, yet heavy with memories of the night. The weight of grain Boaz had given her pressed against her hip, but it was the weight of other memories that made her steps unsteady.
His warmth still lingered on her skin. The way his breath had caught when he found her beside him. How his voice had roughened speaking her name in the darkness. The tender urgency of his hands filling her shawl with barley – six measures, he’d counted carefully, deliberately, his fingers brushing hers with each pour.
“Go before anyone recognizes you,” he had whispered as the stars began to fade. The words echoed now in her mind, taking on new shadows in the growing light. Was that protection or dismissal in his voice? Care or shame?
Ruth’s fingers traced her lips, remembering. The night held secrets that daylight might destroy. Perhaps this was all it was meant to be – one moment of sweetness for a bitter life. One night when a Moabite widow felt like a woman again, desired, seen, known.
The scent of him still clung to her clothes – barley and wine and man. Would it fade like everything else? Would he regret in daylight what darkness had allowed? She clutched the grain closer, as if it could answer.
“What happened?” Naomi would ask. But how could Ruth explain what she herself didn’t understand? How the night had transformed her from gleaner to beloved and back again? How she had felt, for a few precious hours, like she belonged somewhere, to someone?
The sun began to stain the eastern sky as Ruth neared home. Soon the city would wake, and last night would become just another memory, just another almost. Unless…
Her heart fluttered against her ribs like a caged bird. Because there had been something in the way he’d touched her face before she left, something in how he’d said “Wait for me” that felt less like ending and more like promise. Or was that just another thing the morning light would burn away?
