On Her Way Home (15 page)

Mac’s drive and execution working the cattle was relentless. At times, Jo felt like one of the herd, being pushed and driven mercilessly by him. The first day she had worked alongside Mac, he had been cool and efficient but also helpful. She didn’t know what changed, but in the days that followed, Mac had by degrees become even more stand-offish than usual. He never approached Jo or offered any advice or instruction regarding the cows. He ate hurriedly, rarely spoke, and instead of sleeping around the fire at night like everyone else, he hunkered down in the corral with the cows. At first Jo thought he was simply on edge about the cows and the two new ranch hands that worked for him, but as the week wore on, it seemed like more than that. He spoke in short, clipped sentences, not only with Jo, but with Kirby and Leif as well. On the fourth day, sharp tension between Leif and Mac settled in the air like a heavy cloud before the storm rolls in. Kirby, noticing the friction between them, had deftly managed it, suggesting that Leif and Charlie split off from the herd for a while to round up stragglers. After that, the tension eased some, but the cracks in Mac’s granite surface were once again sealed over. The brilliant smile he had shown Jo on the beach a few days before hadn’t reappeared since.

Despite Jo’s best efforts she couldn’t delete Mac from her thoughts, couldn’t stop tracking his figure through the dust at the back of the herd, and couldn’t stop worrying over his frequent mood changes. The fact that this was obviously a one-sided obsession sickened Jo, and even stranger than that, she felt a baffling sense of loss. She should be grateful that he hadn’t sought her out, relieved that he hadn’t spoken to her, but those feelings wouldn’t register. After that first morning when she’d woken up next to Leif, Jo worried about what Mac thought of her. She didn’t want him thinking she’d slept near Leif intentionally. Especially after she’d made it clear that she disapproved of Mac’s improprieties. Why it mattered to her she refused to admit to herself, but that night and every night since, she’d strategically spread her bedroll out between Kirby and Charlie, carefully avoiding further indiscretion.

Over the course of the week, Jo’s ranching skills improved, and by the time they started the push to the summer pasture, she and Charlie were both successfully tracking cattle. It had definitely been a struggle to learn the cow’s language, with Jo taking more time than Charlie. In spite of her progress, a few problems did arise, as expected.

Riding at the back of the herd one day, Jo had the job of keeping stragglers and slow cattle from lagging behind. One particularly squirrely cow insisted on separating from the herd every time Jo took her eye off of it. Tired of Jo’s pressing, it ran into a deep brushy draw and refused to come out. Jo’s arms were scratched and stinging from her efforts to cut through the brush and bring the animal back. With Leif and Charlie gone for a few hours, Mac had been the one to ride back to her. Skillfully, he had threaded his way through the bushes and, easily reading the cow’s movements, had reunited it with the herd. Before Jo could thank him for his assistance, he had trotted off to resume his position at the front. Normally, Jo would have been riled at having him come to the rescue, but she had been struggling with the stupid animal for so long that his help had come as a big relief. Mac was a natural on horseback. It seemed with the minutest amount of effort, he could keep the lead cows heading in any direction he chose. Jo admired his ability, as well as Leif’s and Kirby’s.

***

Tonight was their last night spent under the stars, so Kirby pulled his harmonica from his saddle bags and filled the night with its reverent hum. Caught up in the vibrating melody, Jo’s mind wandered as she furtively watched Mac. Lying on the ground with his hands locked behind his head, he rested against the saddle, appearing relaxed and at ease for the first time in days.

Bravely, Jo approached him. Sitting next to him on the ground and pulling her knees up to her chest, she commented softly, “The stars are sure bright tonight.”

Mac didn’t respond, just stiffly glanced in her direction and then back into the night sky.

Undaunted, Jo tried again, targeting the one weak spot she’d noticed in Mac’s stony façade. “I’ve been meaning to tell you how much fun I had on Sunday with Sam. If I ever need a happy thought to cheer me, I’ll just picture his cute little face as he tried to catch those minnows.” Jo’s friendly comment hung unanswered in the air. Quickly losing her courage, she said nothing more, just stared at the stars in silence, hoping Mac would eventually speak to her. She could hear his even breathing and feel his steely eyes on her profile.

Several more minutes passed before Mac rose from his saddle and rubbed the back of his neck with his hand, saying more to himself than to her, “I better go check on the herd.” Without even a nod in her direction, he picked up his rifle and walked away. Jo was left with the same feeling that accompanies the last wallflower at a dance.

Shrugging his coldness off, she returned to the fire and prepared for bed, rolling her blankets out between Kirby’s and Charlie’s. Sitting cross-legged on her bedroll, she met Kirby’s eyes over the glow of the fire. The lull of his harmonica stopped as he brought it away from his mouth and rubbed his cheek with his hand, deep in thought.

Staring fixedly at Jo, he said, “You know…meanness don’t happen overnight.” The words drifted into Jo, his meaning falling on her like downy snow. With a slight nod in the direction of the herd, he added with implication, “Neither does the softening.”

His light smile and wisdom heartened Jo. She laid her head down, eyes crowding with tears and warmth brimming in her heart. Kirby’s insight and quiet manner of putting it forth reminded her of Pa. No longer “ole crusty” to Jo, Kirby graduated to the list of people who held a place in her heart. She drifted to sleep as Kirby’s harmonica played a soft lullaby in her ears.

***

The week spent outdoors rounding and driving cattle was more difficult than Jo had imagined, and the next day when she saw the outline of the ranch house rising from the land, she wanted to weep in relief. Dirty, smelly, and exhausted, the weary ranchers straggled into the yard.

Catching sight of them from the house, Sam came flying down the porch stairs to greet them, tossing his hat in the air and whooping around the yard. Leif hopped down to swing the gate open, and the group led a small sample of cows culled from the herd into the pen, dust whipping around the yard. When it settled and Jo could see again, her eyes lit on Sam, who was bundled tight to Mac’s chest in a bear hug. Mac’s hostility was a farce. Jo knew it. No one who loved a child like that could be as cold as he pretended to be.

Soaking in the deep tub that night, Jo formulated her new plan. She would fix the picture of Mac and Sam’s embrace in her mind and recall it every time Mac turned his cool stare on her.

Before she climbed into her deliciously, clean, soft sheets, Jo knelt beside her bed. “Heavenly Father, Thank Thee for bringing us safely home and for protecting Mattie and Sam while we were away. I thank Thee for the blessing of Thy Spirit, which is teaching me. I will trust in thee. I will stop questioning Thy purposes in leading me here and stop doubting Thy hand in my life. Please, forgive my judgments and stubbornness. Help me to find happiness here and bring happiness to those around me, especially to little Sam. Bless me with courage to befriend Mac. Amen.”

Chapter Eighteen

July rolled in hot and sticky with hay shooting high in the field and the yellow wheat tips brushing the blue, blue sky. Life at the ranch was summer sweetness: long days of work followed by cool evenings and private dips in the mountain river. Jo’s love for the ranch and the people on it grew like seeds planted in moist earth and sprinkled with rain.

Mattie and Jo spent hours together tending the garden, weeding, hoeing, watering, but mostly they shared life and friendship, memories from sadder times, and hopes for things to come. In the absence of her mother, Mattie became Jo’s supporter, her encourager, her friend in womanhood. The languid evenings spent kneeling in the garden pulling weeds lent themselves to easy conversation and deeper revealings. Jo shared with Mattie the emptiness she’d felt after the death of her father, her longing for a home of her own, her distress over Krissy, her shame over the foolishness with Will.

In all of her sharing and disclosing, Mattie had listened patiently with understanding and compassion, knowing that as Jo shared these parts of her soul, she would find healing, and she did. Jo was alive in the world, like a bird set free from its cage. Her eyes drank up the land, her body toiled in the heat, her mind sharpened and cleared; she was renewed. Like spring fresh upon the earth, Jo spread her awakening to all within her reach. Some nights she played cards with Charlie, and was to him what Mattie was to her. Charlie had someone, for the first time in his life, who took an interest in him.

One night while the two of them played cards in the bunkhouse, Charlie said to Jo, “My father is a stranger to me, and I am to him.”

Jo thought of her own father, who knew her like he knew his own hand. “I’m sorry, Charlie,” she offered, “I’m sure he is missing you during this time apart.” She would never say this to him, but Charlie reminded her of a loveable playful puppy that one can’t tear themselves away from. With gangly arms, and feet he’d yet to grow into, he was always happily loping around the ranch, anxious to be near people and receive attention from them. He was loveable and loyal, just like her old collie, Rooster.

Charlie shook his head. “No, we’ve been apart before. I’m not saying he doesn’t care for me. I am his son, after all. I’m just saying, well, he doesn’t know me.” Charlie shuffled the deck and talked more about his life in town and about his aspirations for the future. He had no heart for lawyering like his father wanted.

“It’s going to sound stupid,”—he peeked up at Jo, timidly—“but, I love the cows. I like cutting them from the herd; I like judging their movements. The other day when that calf stood up on wobbly legs for the first time, I…well, I don’t know how to say it, but I just felt like this is where I belong and what I should be doing.”

Jo listened to him go on about his dreams to be a rancher like Mac and Leif. She listened to his worries that his father would stand in the way. Jo enjoyed conversations with Charlie. Even though she was an older sister, this was the first time in years that she actually felt like one.

Jo’s friendship with Leif had grown too. Over the last few weeks, his flirting had thankfully died to only a few teasing comments thrown her way daily. Jo guessed that he had a sweetheart in town, and perhaps the decline in flirting accounted for stronger feelings toward whomever it might be. Last Saturday, after cutting the hay, he charged down the stairs, shiny and polished from his shower. He whistled out the door, hopped into the truck, and peeled out of the yard on the way to town. Of course, Charlie had tagged along too, hoping to catch another show at the theatre.

Oddly enough, Jo’s friendships with Leif, Mattie, and Charlie weren’t the only ones blossoming. Taking to heart Kirby’s advice about “meanness not happening overnight” and especially the bit about “the softening” taking its due time as well, Jo had been steadily seeking out more time with Mac, and surprisingly he hadn’t rejected her.

A few days before, Jo had the unpleasant task of cleaning out the chicken coop. She’d just scooted the chickens out to the yard and was busy scraping week-old manure from the roosting boxes when Mac approached her. Her pulse quickened as it always did when she saw his daunting figure advancing. Resisting her natural inclination to look away, she implemented Kirby’s advice and smiled brightly at him. “If you’ve come to swap chores with me, you’re out of luck,” she teased, scraping a pile of white goop out of the box with her trowel. “You couldn’t tear me away from this lovely task.”

As usual, Mac took his time before forming a sentence, but when he did open his mouth to speak, it completely caught Jo off guard. “Thank you,” he mumbled.

A glob of goo dropped onto the dusty ground as Jo lowered the trowel to her side and gaped at Mac. His sudden shift in moods was like riding a seesaw.

Gesturing to the coop, she replied, “Oh, it’s no problem. This is
actually
one of the few tasks on the ranch that I am qualified for.”

Mac cleared his throat. “What I mean is thanks for staying on.” Jo’s eyes jerked to his again. Uncomfortable, he shuffled his feet. “At the ranch, I mean.” Jo’s pupils narrowed suspiciously, positive this was a hallucination brought on by excessive chicken fumes. Trying to assess his sincerity, she studied his eyes. They were hard, as normal, but also frank and honest. Not knowing what to say, she simply nodded. His “thank you” had completely surprised her.

***

July had been full of surprises for Mac as well. Sitting in his office one night after carefully updating his cattle totals, he’d thought about Jo, and Charlie too. He’d underestimated them both. True, Jo wasn’t a natural at ranching like Charlie was, but she had been helpful, and it occurred to him that she and Charlie both deserved words a thank you. At the time, he’d dismissed it from his mind, telling himself that it was their job, but in the morning when he ran into Charlie at breakfast, the thought arose again. Instead of ignoring it, he called Charlie into his office and told him that he was a natural rancher and that he was pleased he’d joined the outfit. Charlie’s face lit into a brilliant smile like the flash of a photograph. He clomped around the desk and shook Mac’s hand up and down, expressing to him how grateful he was to have this opportunity. Feeling uncomfortable at Charlie’s exuberance, Mac swiftly thought up a chore for the boy and sent him on his way. Undeniably though, Mac felt he’d done the right thing.

Later when he’d ridden back in from the range and caught sight of Jo scraping away at the chicken mess, he felt a niggling compulsion to thank her as well. Choosing to ignore it, he tromped to the barn to brush General down. Finally, the bothersome compulsion got the best of him and he tromped back across the yard to Jo. When she looked up at him with those bright eyes of hers and twitted off that little joke, it got him thinking about all she’d completed since arriving on the ranch. Suddenly, the unpleasant task of thanking her wasn’t so unpleasant, and he found himself sincerely meaning what he said. He was grateful she’d stayed on despite his best efforts to run her off, and not just because of the help she was on the ranch. It felt good to see his son with a woman. Mac was hard-headed but not as chauvinistic as he’d led Jo to believe. He wasn’t one of those men who thought a boy spending time with a woman was going to turn him into a namby-pamby. Sam needed nurturing, a talent that Mac couldn’t chalk up on his list of natural abilities. Jo was always squeezing Sam and pulling him onto her lap, tickling and teasing him.

One afternoon, he even found Sam and Jo flopped out on the floor in the kitchen. Sam’s cast iron toy soldiers hunkered down in muffin tins, with cannons and cavalry perched on top of pots and pans, ready for the attack. He'd watched them play together making silly whistling noises and explosions. Jo was lying on her stomach, pretending to shoot at Sam, with her dress slinking dangerously up the back of her thighs. Mac had tried to leave unnoticed, but just as he was turning, Sam saw him, “Pa, look what Jo and I builded.” He'd seized Mac’s hand, pulling him into the room, and the spell was broken, Jo speedily standing up and smoothing her dress down. Artfully offering Mac as a replacement, she'd excused herself, and Mac spent the next half hour playing war with his son.

Mac had been purposely distancing himself from Jo since the morning of the cattle drive when he’d found Leif and her snuggled together. However, after watching Sam and Jo play together, he no longer felt an inclination to do so. Instead, he felt a bothersome longing to be included in their games and laughter. There was no denying it. Mac was as drawn to Jo as his son was.

***

Today Mac and Kirby were going into town, anxious to settle a contract for beef and schedule a day to drive the culled cows into town and load them onto a railcar headed east. They planned on taking Sam with them, thoughtfully giving Mattie a break from having him underfoot. Before leaving, Mac approached Jo, Charlie, and Leif, who were already toiling in the fields, turning, bailing, and stacking hay. He appeared anxious, even borderline concerned, about Jo’s hands, worried that moving hay bales would cause another round of blistering. He ordered her, rather bossily she thought, to have more sense this time and quit before she was bleeding.

Annoyed by his tone and his insinuation that she was dim-witted, she glared at him, saying impertinently, “Worried I’ll get blood on your hay?”

Mac trained his steely eyes on her, glaring back. “Leif,” he called over his shoulder, “after lunch I want Jo to muck out the barn. Don’t let her back in the field.”

Jo fumed at his high-handed decree, treating her like a child who needs to be ordered about so she doesn’t hurt herself. Straightening her spine, she bit her lip, working hard to calm her indignation. Reading her thoughts, Mac cocked his eyebrow, daring her to say out loud the names she was calling him in her mind.

Oh, how badly she wanted to wipe that smirk off his face, but instead she plastered a honey sweet smile on her lips. “I’ll be happy to muck out the barn, if it will save me the repeat of being crammed in the water closet with
you
as my nurse.” She elbowed him rudely as she swept past.

Mac’s hand shot out, catching the back of her retreating shirt, he gave it a little tug.

Jo gasped and whipped around.

Leaning in, his voice low for only Jo to hear, he said boldly, “You liked it, and you know it.”

Jo scoffed at him. “Pfft, liked you pouring alcohol on my blisters and caging me in the room like a big ole bully? I think not.” She straightened her back, hoping he wouldn’t call her bluff. Even mentioning the incident had caused her palm to burn, evoking the memory of his thumb rubbing slow circles around it.

Mac lowered his gaze to her neck then shockingly grabbed the end of her braid, flipping it over her shoulder. Raising his hand, he placed it alongside the pulse at her throat, his thumb resting lightly on her chin. The rough pads of his fingers grazed achingly against the silky skin of her neck. With two fingers, he lightly tapped along with the rhythm of her pulsating blood and smiled knowingly into her eyes.

The mood shifted intensely from sparring and teasing to shattering physical awareness, as they stood close together, with Mac’s hand skimming the vulnerable skin at her creamy throat. Wary, Jo took an immediate step back, breaking the contact. Her painful past acting as loyal sentry alerted her to the dangerous feelings surfacing within her.

Mac quickly straightened, resuming his indifference. “Your pulse gives you away.”

Feigning nonchalance, like his touch hadn’t made her stomach leap into her throat, she smiled. “If my pulse increases when I’m around you, it’s only because I’m usually angry.” With that parting shot, she turned and walked away; this time, he let her go.

Leif saw the exchange between Mac and Jo. At first he thought he needed to go over there and knock his brother’s block off. He’d taken one step when he saw Mac reach out and touch Jo. Leif had been just about as astonished as Jo herself was. He watched for a brief second then shifted his eyes away, uncomfortable viewing the intimate contact. Mac had always been a magnet for women, but that was before the war when he was polite, charming, and friendly. Leif smiled to himself. He hadn’t seen that cocky grin on his brother’s face in four years. He risked a glance back and saw Jo walking away stiffly. His smile fizzled into a frown. As happy as he was to see a spark in Mac’s eyes again, he didn’t want it revived at Jo’s expense.

***

Deep in the afternoon, Jo was enjoying the blessed cover of the barn and the sweet breeze blowing through it while pitching forks of soiled hay into the wheelbarrow. She was trying to force herself to stop thinking about the intimate contact with Mac this morning and was losing the battle. It was mortifying that Mac had noticed her affectation toward him, and worse that he had called her out on it. And here all along, she thought she’d done a good job of hiding her attraction to him. Deciding he was completely boorish for confronting her like that, she tried to push it from her mind, but the nagging feeling that she had no place left to hide would not leave her conscious. Mac, knowing how she felt, left her exposed, and there was nothing scarier in the world to Jo than vulnerability. She would have to strive harder to bury the feelings she was developing for Mac. If a standoffish, withdrawn brute like him could detect them, Jo cringed at the probability that he wasn’t the only one in the house who’d noticed.
He’s probably enjoying all sorts of hilarity at my expense
, she thought, recalling all the disparaging remarks he’d made to or about her. He’d called her “round,” asked her if she was stupid; then there was the day in the field when he’d told her she didn’t even look like a woman. Oh yes, he was probably getting a good laugh over the fact that her pulse nearly leapt out of her throat in his presence.