On Her Way Home (33 page)

Softly, he smoothed the hair back from her face with his calloused hand and rubbed his thumb across her swollen lips.

Jo kissed it, looking directly into his eyes.

Unable to resist, he dropped his head and pressed another breathtaking, gentle kiss against her lips. It was filled with a love that he had yet to voice, causing Jo’s heart to contract tightly in her chest.

“Pa?” Sam’s young voice surprised them from the open barn door. Mac lifted his lips from Jo and turned his head to the sound of his son’s voice. Sam was just inside the barn, barely out of the rain, and was watching them curiously.

Mac’s arms were still on either side of Jo, caging her against the rough barn wall. In a hoarse and strained voice, he asked, “Sam, what are you doing out here?” Sam’s hair was wet from the rain and droplets dampened the shoulders of his plaid button-down shirt.

“He’s with me,” Kirby answered, stepping around the barn door to stand behind Sam. His eyes gave away nothing as they fell on Jo and Mac locked in an intimate position, a heavy current clearly threading between them. Kirby cleared his throat and dropped his hand to Sam’s shoulder, looking down at him. “Sam’s going to help me with General,” he explained.

In the heat of his anger and subsequent desire, tending to General had escaped Mac’s mind. He was fairly certain General was banged up from colliding with the bull and needed looked over. Glancing longingly down at Jo, Mac sighed, loath to let her go. Reluctantly dropping his left arm, he set her free from his cage.

Jo took a heady breath and cleared her throat, trying to gain composure, but her legs were wobbly and her cheeks were blazing warm and red. Kirby entered the rest of the way into the barn, leading General behind him. The horse was dripping wet and walking with a strange hitch in his step.

Avoiding Kirby’s eyes, Mac walked to the horse and ran his hands carefully over its left flank. The horse shied nervously to the side and pulled his head against the reins. Mac frowned, concerned about the swelling that was already appearing along General’s left side. “Let’s get him unsaddled and cooled down, and then I can take a better look,” he said. Kirby took Sam’s hand in his and, holding the reins in his other hand, led General into his stall. Mac’s eyes followed the animal, scrutinizing its odd gait.

“Will he be all right?” Jo asked.

Turning to her, Mac released another heavy sigh and shrugged his shoulders. The searing desire that had been coursing through him moments before was slowly ebbing making room for a dawning awareness of the recklessness of his actions. His eyes roamed over Jo, taking in her flushed freckled cheeks and luminous blue eyes. Inadvertently, his eyes flicked to her lips. They looked warm, pink, and tempting.

“I need to see to General,” he said brusquely, unsure of what to do or how he should leave things with Jo. Now that there was a crack in his armor, a weakening in his resolve, he didn’t know how he would stop the whole dam from bursting. Before, he could only imagine what Jo’s lips might feel like on his, what the weight of her soft and curvy figure would feel like in his arms; now, he knew, and it was more pleasing than any of his imaginings had done justice.

Jo stepped close to Mac, looking up into his face. Warm and womanly, she entreated, “And Charlie?”

Silence filled the space around them as Mac settled in his mind whether he would submit to her appeal or not. He said nothing but indicated with a resigned blink of his eyes that he would rethink his dismissal of Charlie.

A glowing smile spread across Jo’s face, not of a gloating or triumphant nature, but of genuine gratefulness and relief. Intimately, she slipped her small, gentle hand into Mac’s and smiled shyly at him. She gave his hand a meaningful squeeze. If Kirby and Sam hadn’t been in the barn, Mac would have hauled her sweet body into his arms again at the demonstration of affection. Jo turned to leave, and their hands drifted apart, their index fingers still tangled, unwilling to separate.

Once outside, Jo streaked across the yard, jumping over small rivers of muddy rain water from the heavy downpour. She burst into the kitchen sopping wet, with mud caking her boots and her dress plastered to her.

Leif had filled Mattie in on the incident and the ensuing confrontation between Mac and Jo, so she had been waiting anxiously by the back door for Jo to come in. As soon as Jo was in her sight, she threw a towel around her shoulders, gathered her up in a hug, and began mothering her. Feeling raw and shaky from both of her draining encounters, Jo happily accepted Mattie’s tending.

While she was in her room stripping out of her sodden and soggy clothing, Mattie filled the tub for her. The sound of water running in the tub called to Jo. Her back and shoulders were already growing stiff from the collision with General. The warm water eased the ache in her joints as she sunk down into it, closing her eyes and resting the back of her head on the rim of the tub. Jo tried hard to relax in the soothing bath and let the afternoon’s alarming events dissolve away, but her stomach was a tangle of knots that she couldn’t unravel. She kept reliving the fright of the bull charging, Mac’s mouth on hers, the intensity in his eyes, the tone of his voice when he’d shouted at her to run. His call had been wild and feral, filled with desperation. And his kisses.
His kisses
, she thought to herself
, they were deep and absorbing, and full of…love?
Not allowing her mind to drift in that hopeful direction, Jo slunk down deeper into the tub, submersing her head completely under the water in an effort to drown out the invading thoughts.

***

Freshly bathed, Jo snuggled on her bed wrapped in a comfy quilt and listened to the drum of the rain on the ranch house roof. Taking her journal from the drawer of her bedside table, she recorded the day’s events, knowing that writing it all down would help to sort her thoughts. Things never seemed as confusing or conflicted when sprawled across a page in black and white. Reading her entry through, she quickly realized that she had neglected the chore that had sent her across the pasture in the first place. In her dash from the bull, she’d dropped both milk pails in the grass and forgotten all about Shirley.

When Jo came downstairs a few minutes later to complete the chore, she found the pails, brimming with milk, already sitting on the kitchen counter. “I forgot all about the cow,” she said contritely to Mattie, who was sweeping up clumps of mud in front of the back door.

“Never mind about that, Jo,” Mattie said. “Charlie did it and brought the milk in a few minutes ago. He, Leif, and Kirby are in the parlor, and as soon as I’m done here, I’m going to join them,” she said with an eager smile.

“Here, I’ll finish that,” Jo said, taking the broom from her.

“Oh, that’s all right, Jo. You don’t need to do that.”

Staring sincerely into Mattie’s eyes, Jo insisted, “Please, Mattie, you are so good to me. Let me do this.” Mattie obliged and retreated to the parlor, leaving Jo alone in the kitchen.

Every brush of the broom across the floor added more unease to her mind and more shyness at the prospect of seeing Mac again after their intimate encounter in the barn. Would they go on as before and pretend nothing had happened? Would their encounter change things between them? These questions and more nearly drove Jo mad as she swept the kitchen floor, waiting for the familiar sound of the back door to open. She didn’t have to wait long. Just as she was sweeping up the last of the muddy clods, Sam and Mac came charging in through the door, tracking in a fresh mess with them.

“Sorry,” Mac apologized sheepishly, noting the broom in Jo’s hands.

She stared up at him, bravely meeting his eyes. An awkward and uneasy stillness impregnated the room, typical of any first greeting wherein the relationship between two people has been vastly altered in the space of a kiss.

While Mac was tending to General, he’d had ample time to think over the day’s events, and it was with a heavy but resolute heart that he had entered the kitchen. Though now, face to face with Jo, he fought the same battle he’d conquered in his mind not thirty minutes ago. She had obviously bathed, and the smell of orange blossoms was bouncing enticingly off of her, dulling his willpower. He couldn’t think clearly when she looked up at him all fresh and warm and utterly inviting. Shaking the undermining thoughts from his head, he mumbled inconspicuously to Jo, “I’m going to go clean up.”

In that uneasy and aloof manner, he left the kitchen, and Jo listened to the heavy thud of his footsteps as they jogged up the hall stairs.

She and Sam joined the rest of the family in the parlor, Sam going directly to Leif and climbing up familiarly on his lap. Leif glanced up at Jo, seeing her for the first time since her run-in with the bull and Mac. “How are you, Jo? Are you hurt anywhere or sore?”

Out of the corner of her eye, Jo saw Charlie’s dark head rise and his shoulders stiffen as he listened intently for her answer. Not wanting to add to his guilt or angst, Jo lied to spare his feelings, “Not a bit.”

Leif nodded his relief and turned his attention to the energetic bundle of happiness on his lap.

Taking a seat next to Charlie on the sofa, Jo picked up a book she had been glancing at earlier and avoided the uncomfortable silence in the room by pretending to read it; in reality, she was scrutinizing the faces of those around her. Naturally, Charlie seemed more distant than usual, and when Jo had sat down, he had barely looked at her. Whether it was out of guilt or lingering wounded pride, she didn’t know. All she did know was that she didn’t like this awkwardness between them. Sincerely regretting her mistake in calling Charlie “just a boy,” she wondered how to go about mending the fissure between them. At the time, she was distraught and hadn’t thought her words through. Now, in the cozy haven of the living room, she realized how offensive they must have been to him. She wondered how the conversation with Mac had gone and what Mac had said to Charlie when he told him that he could stay. Was it sentimental? Had he apologized for inflicting such a harsh sentence upon Charlie over a mere accident? Knowing Mac as she did, it seemed highly unlikely, and in fact, she was right.

After Jo had left the barn and Mac had finished tending to General, he approached Charlie, who was milking the cow, and gruffly said, “I won’t be taking you to town with me in the morning.” Charlie glanced up at Mac, a spark of relief flickering behind his guilt-ridden eyes, and dipped his head.

In true manly fashion, that constituted the sum of their reconciliation. Women would have been affronted by the simplicity of it. No bearing of soul or acknowledgment of wrongdoing? No pleading for forgiveness and promising to never be so hurtful again? Those remonstrations were not the way of men and certainly not the way of Mac.

In an effort to appeal to Charlie, Jo scooted closer to him on the sofa and slyly nudged his foot. His eyes, lifting from the Aviation magazine he was studying, peered at Jo. She smiled warmly and affectionately at him. The gesture went far in healing the splintered bond between them.

Charlie grinned hesitantly back at her and mouthed the words, “I’m sorry.”

Jo shook her head side to side, signaling Charlie that all was forgiven and forgotten and that she hoped he would do the same.

Returning the gesture, he nudged her foot with his, assuring her in their private way that he already had.

Without a look or word to anyone, Mac entered the parlor and took a seat in his oversized parlor chair. Jo’s stomach curled in knots at his presence. There was something massively appealing about a man freshly-washed with mussed, wet hair and a clean-shaven face. He picked up a copy of
The Saturday Evening Post
and flipped it up in front of his face, clearly pensive and in no mood for conversation. Jo could barely look at him without slipping into a flurry of delicious memories, so willingly she left him alone, averting her eyes to the other occupants in the room.

Mattie was knitting away, seemingly unaware of the uncomfortable tones bouncing off the walls, and Kirby was beside her, his fingers hooked on either end of her knitting spool, unrolling its white string as needed. It was still strange to Jo, to spy him performing these thoughtful acts for Mattie. He would patiently sit next to her for hours in the evening, slowly unwinding her yarn without complaint, but to all others he was short tempered and could barely stand to be bothered.

The clock chimed loudly from its place in the corner, offering the only other sound in the room apart from the click of Mattie’s needles. Leif and Sam had left their position in the chair in exchange for the floor, where they were pushing a set of wooden trains around a toy track. Sam removed his train from the track and shoved it across the hardwood floor and deep red rug toward Jo. The little wheels chugged all the way to a stop at Jo’s feet dangling above the floor. She scooted off the couch and took a seat on the rug, leaning her back against the sofa. She winced, a slight tenderness sparking along her left side, but quickly covered it, fearing Charlie would notice her discomfort. Picking up the toy train, Jo pushed it back across the rug to Sam, and they played the game absently for the next few minutes.

On Sam’s turn, he pushed the train faster and farther than usual, and it careened off course, crashing noisily into the stone fireplace. Racing to pick it up, he caught his foot on the wood rocking chair and toppled roughly onto the floor, bumping his chin on the ground.

“Sam!” Jo clamored to him, softly picking him up and setting him on her lap. Coursing tears puddled down his red face as he held his banged chin and cried into her shoulder. All in the room momentarily stopped their pursuits to look after Sam.