On Her Way Home (29 page)

As the final day of threshing for Jo drew to its close, she walked through the spiky remnants of wheat stalks back to the ranch. When she arrived in the yard, Leif and Mac were gathered around the thresher. It was running at a slow pace, the machine spitting out coughs of steam like a sick person. Secretly, Jo hated the threshing season, hated the machine and everything that came with it. In her opinion it was a death trap. On the farm back home, a friend of Johnny’s, who was on the threshing crew, had lost his footing climbing up on the dangerous machine and had become trapped in the churning blades. His foot was ground to a pulp, and his leg was chewed and crushed up to the knee before her father and some other men could pull him out. He had died a few hours later, and Jo had feared the thresher ever since.

Watching Mac and Leif tinker around with it now, their limbs and clothes in close proximity to the many open gears, blades, and belts, worried her. Standing at a safe distance away, she watched them. Suddenly, the thresher chortled to life and began spewing steam at a very fast rate. Plumes of steam shot into the air, and Mac jumped down from the machine, shouting loudly, “Get back! Run!”

Leif and Charlie shot off in either direction, sprinting at full speed toward the barn, and Jo fled to the safety of the porch, preparing for the loud explosion that was sure to come. The engine was still rattling and coughing loudly when she reached the porch and leapt up on the flat boards. She whirled around expecting to see Mac directly behind her. He wasn’t there. Her eyes frantically searched through the steamy haze of the machine for him. Instead of following her as she’d thought, Mac was scrambling to bank the fire and shut the engine down, while steam poured out in a thick cloud in all directions. Jo stared at the impending scene in horror, remembering the frightening headline she’d read regarding a threshing crew in Illinois that had been obliterated by a boiler explosion.

“Mac!” She screamed his name desperately, but he either couldn’t hear her over the noise or chose to ignore her.

Slowly the gears and belts crawled to a stop, and the heavy plume of steam died to a whispery gray as the engine wound down. Seeing Mac, safe and sound, emerge from the gray cloud, Jo released a frightened breath and jumped off the porch, racing toward him. His face and arms were black with soot, and by the time Jo reached him, he was casually wiping them with a handkerchief. She barreled into him, fighting between the desires to throttle him viciously or hug him tightly. She chose the latter and pressed her head against his rough, soiled shirt.

Jo felt his arms tighten around her in a brief squeeze. She had been frozen in place, fear for Mac saturating every limb of her body, and now that the crisis was over, her body was working overtime to release the pent-up worry. She leaned into Mac and let his solid arms around her waist offer comfort, chasing away the sickening scenarios that played out in her imagination.

Mac let her cuddle him, touched by her worry and obvious relief. “Whoo-eee,” he sighed into her hair, “a bite of fresh bread with strawberry jam sure would taste good right now.” Jo’s head shot up to him, her eyes meeting his smiling, glittering ones.

Leif, Charlie, and Kirby had reached them, and they each glanced at Mac as if he was addled, but Mac just grinned, carefully untangling himself from Jo’s arms and wiping his blackened hands clean with the rag.

Her heart flooded with warmth and a love that startled her. She couldn’t believe he’d remembered that story about her father. The past, the present, and all Jo longed for in the future aligned in a moment of perfect simplicity. She was certain of one thing
. I love him
, she confessed to herself, gazing at him with sincere, exposed feeling. Jo stared up at Mac, her indigo orbs brimming with emotion, testifying of her love for him through their shining, bountiful depths.

In the connection of that moment, Mac, like Jo, was also certain of a few things: first, that Jo did indeed love him. In all his life, he’d never felt the magnitude or depth of that emotion more so than he did right now. It was written on her face as plain as sunlight in the sky, and though he was blessed and honored by her manifestation, it also cut him. She’d offered a gift to him, but he could not accept it, and that, tragically, was the second thing he was certain of. A dawning of the pain that was in store for her, the pain that he would cause her, threaded guiltily through his chest. The problem was…he couldn’t help himself where she was concerned. He’d never meant to get in this deep, but he was drawn to her and her to him, and now, there was nothing for it but heartache; only Jo didn’t know it yet.

Mac dropped his eyes from hers and worked the rag roughly across his palms, scrubbing at the grime while he thought to himself. Summer would come to an end soon enough, and a reckoning on its heels, but today…right now, Mac didn’t want to think on it. He peeked up at Jo. She was still smiling brightly, a sweet light in her eyes. He knew a sharp cut from him would dim that light; he even rationalized that it would probably be for the best, but
damn it
, he thought to himself,
I don’t want to do it
. Mac literally and figuratively threw in the towel, tossing onto the thresher the dirty rag he’d used to wipe his hands and beaming handsomely down at Jo. A longing of his own, deep within him, clawed to the surface, but he still would not give it voice.

“Well, what are we going to do with this hunk of metal now?” Leif asked, walking around the steel contraption with a disgruntled expression on his face.

“We’ll leave it right where it is and get back to the business of cattle ranching. I reckon we’re lucky to have gotten as much harvested as we did,” he said, scanning the field at the far end of the property.

“I, for one, am not sorry to see it end,” Kirby muttered, hating the threshing season almost as much as Jo. “Sod busting’s not for me.” He tucked his hands in his pockets and rambled to the house, breaking up the pow wow in the yard. Just as Kirby reached the porch, a truck turned up the road to the ranch, a flurry of dust trailing behind it. Everyone turned to watch as it approached.

“That looks like Wagners,” Mac guessed.

“Yep, and it looks like they brought their cows,” Leif said. “Just in time too, I think that bull,”—he nodded toward the corral where the ornery black bull they’d brought home the other day was penned—“is getting tired of bachelor life.” As if he knew he was being talked about, the black-y raised his horns and rolled his big ugly eyes toward Leif. “See what I mean,” Leif snickered.

“Well, it’s good timing anyway,” Mac announced, craning his neck to get a better look at the boiler. “Ray will probably be able to tell us what the problem with this machine is.”

The truck pulled up in a wide arc next to the corral, and a tall, thin man stepped out. After reaching up to take off his hat, he beat it against his leg and then waved it in greeting. “Howdy, neighbor, how goes it?” he called to Mac, walking over to him.

Another person, a young man around Jo’s age, also stepped from the vehicle. He was tall too, with a long, slinky torso and pleasant face. As they came to stand by her, Jo glanced around the group.
Good grief
, she thought to herself,
Is everyone in Montana a giant?
She felt like she was a seedling standing in a circle of pines. She was positively dwarfed by their height.

“Good to see you, Ray, Matt.” Mac extended his hand to both men for a hearty shake. Once all the greetings were over, he gestured to Jo. “Ray, Matt, this is Jo Swenson.”

Mr. Wagner turned to Jo with a friendly open face. “Nice to meet you, Jo,” he said shaking her hand. “I heard some scuttlebutt about a woman riding herd with this rowdy bunch, but I didn’t think it was true.” His kind eyes sparkled with amusement.

“Well, you know what they say, if a ma
n can’t do it, get a woman,” Jo joked back, winning Mr. Wagner over instantaneously.

“Well, I normally wouldn’t agree with that sentiment, but I suppose a girl that can knock the tar out of one of Leif’s pitches can ranch alongside him too.” Mr. Wagner jabbed Leif in the ribs with his elbow in jest. Jo laughed as Leif’s mouth sprung open in protest.

“How did you hear about that?” Leif demanded, in a slightly irritated tone, which caused another round of chuckles. “You weren’t even in town that day.”

Mr. Wagner put his hands in the pockets of his overalls and looked at the ground. “Nope, I wasn’t, but it’s all people have been talking about ever since.”

“Oh that’s just fine and dandy,” Leif groaned, throwing his hands in the air and glaring outrageously at Jo.

Smothering her laughter, Jo turned to Mr. Wagner. “Well, to be fair…
and
accurate,” she drawled, “it was
two
pitches, not one.”

Leif rolled his eyes at Jo. “Funny. She boasts like a man too!” he accused lightly. His words softened with a teasing smile as he tossed an arm around Jo’s shoulder and affectionately tucked her to his side.

Normally, the gesture would have annoyed Mac, but with Jo’s affection firmly planted in his corner, Leif’s playing didn’t bother him anymore.

“Well, we better get these cows unloaded,” Mac suggested, and Mr. Wagner readily agreed.

As the men rambled over to the trailer, Mac stayed behind, standing casually beside Jo but clearly waiting for them to be out of ear shot before speaking to her. He had adopted his regular stance, with his fists resting loosely on his hips, his legs shoulder width apart, and one foot slightly in front of the other. It was a deceptive appearance, like a lithe animal, relaxed and restful but able to strike without warning. She’d been witness to that the other day when he’d bounded over the desk in the span of a heartbeat. Jo found the particular quality of Mac’s to be extremely attractive, but it also left her always mildly alert in his presence. Especially in instances like now, when he was clearly lagging behind the others for a reason.

When the men were clear, Mac turned to her, glancing swiftly up and down the length of her in an appraising way, his jaw flexed and ticked as he chewed on the inside of his cheek, a telltale sign that he was mulling something over and taking his time forming the words he wanted to say.
He’s handsome
, Jo admired, taking time to study him while he was preoccupied sorting out his thoughts. His skin was a deep golden tan from working day after day in the summer sun, and the warm color next to his icy blue eyes made Jo’s stomach flutter and curl in warm knots. Her eyes settled on the small cleft in the middle of his chin. She imagined reaching up and tracing the divot with her finger. In her mind, slowly she moved her finger up to the smooth edges of his bottom lip, then up further to the middle of his mouth where his lips met. Realizing that her fantasy was quickly spiraling out of hand, Jo shook the thoughts aside and concentrated her attention back on Mac.
All
of Mac.

Impatient and growing jum
pier by the minute, she demanded, “What is it already? You obviously have something you want to talk to me about.”

Mac flushed a little. He hadn’t sorted out exactly how best to approach this, but if she was going to stand there and stomp her bitty foot at him, he wasn’t going to worry about being delicate. “Wagner’s cows are here to be bred,” he stated flatly.

Jo’s eyebrows drew together in puzzlement. “So?”

“So, I thought you might prefer spending some time in the garden this afternoon instead of…” Mac left his sentence open ended.

Understanding dawning on Jo, she sparkled and blushed. Her hair was twisted in a long braid over her shoulder, and she picked it up and twirled it around her index finger. Peeking up at him from under her downy eyelashes, she teased, “I’m a farm girl, not a city girl. It’s not new to me. Aren’t we just herding the cows into the pasture anyway? It’s not like we’ll actually watch the…breeding.”

Mac grinned at her, the cleft in his chin deepening and drawing Jo’s attention back to it. Thinking how adorable and naïve she was, Mac tried to make the situation clearer to her. “Yes, we are going to put the cows in with him, but we need to make sure he’s up to the task...and it’s not just you I was thinking about either. It’s pretty uncommon around here to have a girl as a ranch hand, and most folks, well men, aren’t used to guarding what they say when their working cows.”

Jo peered at him, the sugary sweetness in her eyes melting away to sparks. If there was one thing she couldn’t stand, it was being dismissed because she was female. It was the casualty of being the first girl in the family after a line of boys. It had never bothered Krissy, but Jo took it as a personal insult every time she wasn’t allowed to do what her older brothers were. Stiffly, she asked, “Are you dismissing me because I’m a woman?”

“Well, there’s probably going to be some talk you might not be too comfortable hearing,” Mac said looking at her pointedly. “I thought you might enjoy spending the afternoon in the garden or in the kitchen, or…” Mac’s words died off, as he saw heat rush to Jo’s face, the thrust of her chin making it plain that she was becoming cross.

“You
are
! You’re trying to get rid of me because I’m a woman!” she accused, poking her pert little finger into his chest hotly.

Mac grabbed her hand, swallowing a smile at her incensed pride. Women were so tetchy, and he’d noticed Jo’s particular aptness for it when it came to this kind of situation. “No, I’m not, and don’t get all fired up at me. I’m only trying to save you some embarrassment.”