Forget Me Not (46 page)

“Where do you suppose the Bible is?” Josephine asked.

“There is no Bible,” J.D. replied as he swung the door closed. “Boots sent us out here on a blind chase.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, he thought he could bring us together.” J.D. checked the stove for kindling. “Frankly, I didn't think he had it in him to be so damn clever.”

“I didn't think he did, either.”

After closing the stove's door, J.D. removed his hat and ran his hands through his hair. “We'll head back as soon as the storm passes over.”

She nodded, then sat on the bed's edge. There was no other place in the room to relax, so J.D. joined her. They both sat with the tips of their boots facing the stove; they both stared ahead.

It was J.D. who broke the silence. “I know of a cattle buyer in San Francisco. He's got a nice wife. I've met her once. I think you'd like her.” J.D. rested his elbows on his knees and examined the scars on his hands. “I'll telegraph him and let him know you're coming. They could put you up for a while until you get settled.”

Josephine was speechless. She managed to say, “You'd do that for me?”

J.D. turned his head toward her. “Of course I'd do that for you.”

She was unable to contain her tears, and they fell freely. “I thought you'd forget about me . . .”

His thumb reached out and touched her chin, gently rubbing. “Now, how could I forget you, Jo?” His voice dropped in tone. “Every time I see the forget-me-nots on the banks, I'll remember that blue hat of yours.”

She lowered her chin to her chest, and suddenly she felt very ashamed and selfish. She'd hadn't given J.D. a chance. He wasn't like Hugh. She knew that. She'd known it all along.

“I'm sorry, J.D.,” she cried. “I didn't mean to hurt you. It's just that . . . for all the time I was married, I never once did anything outside of convention. I did what was expected of me, and I was miserable in silence. So when I left New York, I told myself that
from now on, I would be my own woman and go my own way. I'd do things for the fun of it.” She gazed at him. “I'd be my own woman.”

“You are that, Jo. I never tried to make you feel anything but.”

“I know that. But before I came to realize it, I'd set my mind on going to San Francisco and being independent. I wanted to have my own home and do what I wanted in it.”

“And so you should,” he offered quietly. “You could have had my home, Jo. I would have given it to you.”

She brushed at her tears. “That's so sweet . . .”

He caught her by the waist with his strong arm and brought her to his chest. His hand cradled her cheek, and he forced her to look at him. “I wasn't doing it to be sweet, so quit thinking I'm trying to impress you. I don't have a lot of money, and I never will be as rich as the men you've known. But I love you, Jo. And what I have is yours. I've got no use for it alone. Hell, it means nothing without you.” His thumb caressed her cheek. “I'm not saying I like your decision, but I understand it, I suppose. You need to prove to yourself you can do it. But, Jo, you have to look at where you've been. Here. With me and the boys. When you came, you didn't know squat about ranching . . . or cooking,” he said with a soft smile. “But you tried. And you learned. And you got better. You proved more to yourself here than you ever will in a city full of strangers.”

His thumb caught a tear before it fell beyond his fingers. “Just so you'll know, I'm proud of you, Jo.”

She couldn't meet his eyes any longer. It hurt too much. Burying her head in his shoulder, she spoke against the warm fabric of his collar. “Boots said a person should say they've made a mistake rather than go through with what they were intending just for pride's sake.”

“He said that?”

“Yes.” Her tears wet the material.

“Have you made a mistake, Jo?”

She heard the hope, yet fear, in his voice. She felt the same things in her heart, only they weren't the same hopes and fears. She hoped he could still love her, she feared that it was too late.

J.D. held her at arm's length and gazed into her eyes. “Do you still want me to take you to Sienna?”

“Sometimes . . .” she said in a shaky voice. “For more flour and sugar . . . beans and coffee when there's the need. Maybe some butterscotch candies, and a pattern and material . . . for a wedding dress. But I have to warn you, I can't sew as well as I can embroider.”

J.D.'s hopeful smile was lost on her lips as he kissed her soundly. She kissed him back, dozens of small, loving touches of her mouth on his.

“I love you, J.D.,” she whispered as he held her close.

“I love you, too, Jo.”

Rain began to patter on the window, softly at first, then like splatters of pebbles as the sky opened up wide to a long-awaited spring shower.

A droplet fell on Josephine's nose, and she tilted her head. “There's a leak in the roof.”

“Probably more than one. Nothing's ever fixed around here. There's always something that's broken.”

She smiled into the curve of his shoulder. “I can help you fix things.”

J.D. leaned back and pressed a quick kiss to her lips. “I can't think of anything more important that needs fixing right now than this.” His mouth covered hers in a slow, arousing kiss as he laid her back on the cot.

Josephine was lost in the hazy world of desire. Everything inside her was in disorder. She felt hot, as if she were blushing across every part of her skin. Her blood raced through her veins, and her heart hammered.
The heat seared a path to the pit of her stomach, and she wanted more than anything to surrender to the man she loved when she remembered Boots. He may have lied about the Bible, but . . .

“We can't stay,” she murmured against J.D.'s lips. He put his weight on his elbows. “It's Boots. He told me not to tell you, but he said he wasn't feeling very well. I don't think he was lying.”

J.D. shifted and sat up, lifting Josephine with him. “How do you figure he wasn't lying?”

“He wants me to reread Psalm Twenty-three. It's the one about greener pastures.” Her brow furrowed. “The one they say at funerals.”

“Boots is always going on about dying.”

“But what if he really is in great pain? I think he might be.”

J.D. pushed his hat back, gazed out the window at the steady flow of rain, then at Josephine. “All right. We better get back, then.”

•  •  •

An eerie kind of silver fog rolled in, the likes of which J.D. had never seen. All of a sudden, there it was. A thick blanket of it, so dense he could barely see five feet in front of him. If the fence hadn't been there to direct them back, he would have lost his bearings.

But as quickly as that fog came, it evaporated, leaving in its stead a sound rainfall to drench him and Josephine as they came upon the outbuildings of the ranch.

Toby raced out to greet them, tail wagging. As they rounded the corner of the bunkhouse, the front yard came into view. Boots sat outside in his oversized wing chair, hat on his head, a saucer heaped with a wedge of pie in his hand. He hadn't dressed; his striped nightshirt was plastered to his chest and only came to his pale calves; but his feet were covered with a pair of high stockings and boots.

He brought a spoon to his mouth, and the pie on it
was dappled with rain before he got to chew the peaches and crust.

“What the hell are you doing?” J.D. hollered at him as they rode up, disbelieving what he saw yet knowing that with Boots anything was possible.

Boots laughed. A deep and earthy timbre, a rich, full-hearted sound. “Eating peach pie.”

J.D. cocked his head and blazed, “Are you drunk?”

“I'm drunk on rainwater.” Boots ate another bite of pie.

“You're going to catch your death.” Josephine dismounted from Peaches and handed the reins to Hazel, who had come down off the porch where he'd been standing. “Hazel, how could you let him sit out here like this?”

Hazel gazed at her with his one eye, then shrugged. “If a body knows what's good for him, he doesn't argue with Boots.”

J.D. swung his leg over Tequila and stalked to Boots. “Jo said you were ailing badly, but you didn't want to tell me.”

“I'm not sick. Just a few broken ribs.”

“Then why'd you send us out to that line shack for a Bible that wasn't even there?”

“If I'd've told y'all to go out there and get me a box of cigars, y'all wouldn't have gone.”

“You're sure as hell right.”

Boots ignored J.D. and gazed at Josephine. “This is some mighty fine pie, Josie girl. Will I be able to eat more of them until the day they put me six feet under?”

Josephine put her hands on her hips. “You tricked me.”

“Will y'all be staying, Josie?”

He ignored her indignance, but she couldn't stay mad. A smile inched the corners of her mouth upward. “I reckon I will be.”

“Hey, J.D., she talks like us now.” Boots enjoyed another spoonful of pie.

J.D. wasn't amused. Although he and Josephine had settled things—and he was damn glad they'd gotten the chance before it was too late—the fact still remained, Boots had sent them on a wild chase in a storm that could have proved to be dangerous. For himself, he'd brave it, but he would never have forgiven Boots if something had happened to Josephine. “You sent us out there for nothing, you crazy son-of-a-bitch.”

“That's Dad to you,” Boots cautioned sternly.

J.D. stared, complete surprise taking hold of him and anchoring him to the spot. An unexpected warmth surged through his body, and he startled himself by replying, “You aim to sit out here for a while, Dad?”

“I expect I will until I finish my pie.”

There was a slight tinge of wonder to J.D.'s voice when he turned to Josephine. “Would you mind bringing out a piece of that pie for me, Jo?”

She was already making her way up the front steps. J.D. moved toward Boots, taking the rawhide chair that Hazel brought down from the porch and angling it next to his father's. He took a seat, shaking his head at the absurdity of the moment.

Rain sputtered downward, dripping off the brim of J.D.'s hat and landing in his soaked lap as he crossed his legs.

“How long y'all reckon it's going to rain?” Boots asked, drops of water dotting his chin.

“I couldn't say.”

Josephine returned with the pie but left before J.D. could thank her. He turned around, only to see Hazel and Josephine retreating into the house. Facing front, J.D. took a bite of the pie. Its crust was buttery the first bite, a little soggy the next, but he didn't mind.

He was sitting with his father for the first time, and nothing else mattered.

E
PILOGUE

F
or her wedding present, J.D. gave Josephine the one-hundred-sixty-acre parcel of land that fit like a puzzle piece into the McCall Cattle Company range. It was the very spot he'd shown her that spring day when they'd gone out riding after returning home from Bircher.

It had taken most of the summer to fence it off and include it with the rest of the land, but J.D. kept the line of barbed fencing up that kept her property separate from his. He'd told her it was so that she could feel she had something of her own.

J.D.'s thoughtfulness had filled Josephine with more love for him than she ever thought possible. But it wasn't separateness she wanted out of this marriage. It was togetherness.

So on a fall day, just days before they would set out on the roundup, J.D. and Josephine had ridden out to cut the wire and knock down the fence posts. Birdie, Gus, Jidge, and Print had come along to help. As did Hazel with the wagon, with Boots sitting on the bench seat to watch.

Freckles, who'd grown incredibly big, stood on the opposite side of the fence, ears pricked.

“I never heard of anyone thinking a cow was
lonely,” J.D. said as he took the wire cutters to the barbs and snipped the two-row string between the posts.