On Her Way Home (42 page)

“I have something for you,” he whispered into her hair. Releasing Jo, Mac swiftly crossed to the bed and grabbed his jacket. Reaching into the pocket, he pulled out a package and put it in Jo’s hands. “You left these.”

Through blurry eyes, Jo glanced curiously up at Mac. Shakily, she unraveled the twine and lifted the lid from the box. Her breath caught in her throat. The gloves Mac had given her, the one’s she’d left on the bureau, lay flat in the box, one atop the other. Around the finger of the top glove glowed a brilliant gold wedding band. Joy, full and sweet like Jo had never felt before, flooded into her soul. Her red-rimmed eyes, radiant with love, stole sweetly up to Mac’s.

“You left before I could give it to you,” he murmured deeply. “I ordered the ring in town the day I brought Leif home from the hospital. That night Kirby told me you’d bought a ticket,”—he smiled ironically at Jo—“and that you were planning to leave at the end of the week. I knew it wouldn’t get here before then, so I drove to Missoula to pick it up. It’s why I left.” Clutching Jo tightly around the waist, he continued, “When I got home this morning and they told me you were gone…” Mac paused, his face pained, “I thought I was too late. You were right. I was a coward.” The horrible admission choked out of Mac’s mouth. “The morning after Leif was shot, when I came into my room and found you sleeping there with Sam, I knew I didn’t want to ever lie in that bed without you. There would be no reason for any of it…for shooting Tom, for living through the war…if I don’t have you.” Mac stared into her, hoping she could forgive him, hoping she would understand how difficult it was for him to ‘let go.’

Jo stood on her tiptoes and pressed her mouth to Mac’s, her soft, delicious lips molding to his. The kiss deepened, built, as Mac drew Jo to him and kissed her over and over again, telling her how much he loved her.

Finally, their lips parted, and Mac leaned his forehead against Jo’s with his hands threaded together at the small of her back. Grinning at her, he teased huskily, “If you’re going to kiss me like that…we better get this ring on your finger.”

A shy blush stole over Jo’s face, tantalizing him.

He laughed and hugged her tightly against his chest, pleased at the prospect of making her blush for the rest of his life. “I don’t deserve you, Jo, but I’m asking anyway… Stay on the ranch with me. Have at least seven or eight children with me?”

Through shiny tears, Jo beamed coyly up at him, “Are you proposing?”

He nodded and with twinkling eyes added, “I promise…I’ll never make you put the bales of hay into the mow by yourself again.”

Jo laughed, holding out her hand so Mac could slide the shiny gold band around her finger, binding her to him forever. “I want that in writing.” She grinned, stretching up on her tiptoes to plant a sweet tender kiss to his lips.

As Mac wrapped his arms possessively around Jo’s waist, a long shrill train whistle sounded outside, announcing its departure…and Jo’s arrival.

Epilogue

Jo sat in the black truck squished pleasantly next to Mac’s big warm body as they bumped down the road. Folds of silky white lace floated around the cab of the pickup like drifting clouds. The fabric draped over both Mac and Leif as Jo sat in between them on the ride home from town. Three weeks ago, Mac had announced his love for Jo, and today she’d become Mrs. Mac Hawkins. The sound of her new name thrilled her. She was Mac’s, and he was hers. Jo had often wondered what it would feel like to be married, to commit herself fully to someone, and to have someone do the same in return. In all of her wondering, she’d never imagined the deep contentment and wholeness that she felt now.

Mac swerved sharply, avoiding a large rock in the middle of the road. The action caused Jo to slide across the seat and smash closer into him. He smiled down at her warmly, enjoying the proximity. The last three weeks had
been near to unbearable for him. With his ring on Jo’s finger and her bedroom only ten steps down the hall, Mac had regretfully retired to his room each night, alone. Tonight, he’d have his wife with him. The thought prompted him to press down heavier on the accelerator. The truck shook roughly as it plowed through a set of deep ruts in the road.

“We never did plow this road,” Leif commented with his hand out the open window, gripping the roof of the truck.

Jo tucked her arm under Mac’s and rested her small hand on his upper leg. “Don’t you dare,” she ordered, smiling up into Mac’s face, as another hole nearly tossed her into his lap. “I like it just the way it is.” A wide, hungry smile spread over Mac’s face as he looked down at her.

“Whoa!” Leif cried as the wheels bounced crazily off of another rock. “Watch the road, will you?” he barked at Mac, shaking his head in annoyance.

“Sorry,” Mac clipped. The intimacy of Jo’s hand resting on his thigh was seriously distracting him. Not that her touch hadn’t distracted him before, because it certainly had. It was late in October, and he was still taking daily dunks in the river. Today, though, it was different. Jo was his wife and had license to be as personal with him as she wanted to, and to say that Mac liked it was an understatement of serious magnitude. Something about “his wife” flirting with him made every gesture, touch, and look a thousand times more appealing. If Jo kept tracing little circles on his upper thigh, he wasn’t going to be able to make it through an evening of company. Mac scowled into his rearview mirror. Behind him on the road was a line of cars driving out to the ranch to celebrate the wedding with food and gifts.
Hopefully, they won’t stay long
, Mac thought irritably to himself.

***

The sky was just turning black when the last guest pulled out of the ranch yard and started down the road for home. For Jo’s sake, Mac was glad they’d come, but for his own, he was glad they were gone.

Yesterday Mac was saying goodnight to Jo outside her bedroom, and after a long heated kiss in the hallway, he joked, “Let’s go to town tomorrow and get married.”

At first, Jo had been surprised. “Are you serious?” Mac smiled wolfishly at her. “I assume your leering means yes,” she kidded with a chuckle.

Mac sighed. “I can wait if it’s what you want. I know you want your mother here.”

Jo thought about it for a minute and then decided that not even a tiny part of her wanted to wait. She was ready to be Mrs. Mac Hawkins. “If you’re serious,” she said, eyeing him closely, “let’s do it.”

Stunned that she’d agreed so easily, Mac worried. “Won’t you regret not having your mother here or not having a planned wedding?”

Jo grabbed his hands and pulled his arms around her waist. “Not at all,” she said, drawing her head to his and kissing him passionately, her blood pounding in her veins and her body aching for him. Mac trapped her against the wall and twisted his hands in her hair, rubbing her jaw with his thumb while he kissed her.

“Umm huh,” Leif cleared his throat as he climbed the last step, spying them down the hall. His eyes twinkled with laughter as Mac turned to glare at him.

Embarrassed, Jo scrambled out from under Mac’s arm and headed to her room. Pausing at the door before escaping into the room, she glanced back at Mac and mouthed seductively, “Tomorrow.”

So here they were--married, and the last guests were driving down the road, leaving their good wishes behind them. Kirby and Mattie had left earlier this afternoon following the wedding to visit Mattie’s sister in Great Falls. Leif was meeting up with them there and then traveling by rail to spend a few weeks with his and Mac’s father. Jo had been upset with the plan, thinking it was too soon for him to be traveling with his injured shoulder. She’d turned to Mac for support, but he’d sided with Leif, for obvious reasons, namely an empty house with his new bride.

As the headlights faded down the road, Mac stepped up on the porch and lifted sleeping Sam from Jo’s arms. He was completely tuckered out after the long, exciting day. Mac shifted Sam into one arm and then reached out and pulled Jo to her feet with his other one. Her lace dress swished behind her as they climbed the stairs to the second floor, hand in hand.

Jo held the door to Mac’s room open, but instead of following her in, he walked directly past his room and into Jo’s. Suddenly shy, Jo trailed after him, entering the room just as Mac flipped the covers back and laid Sam down on the white sheets. Sam flopped to his side and tucked his little legs up to his chest. Jo walked to the side of the bed and lovingly pulled the blankets up around his sweet face. Stroking the hair back off his forehead, she dropped a kiss on his brow. They stood quietly in the room for several minutes gazing at their sleeping son.

“Thank you,” Jo said reverently. “I wanted him to be mine from the first moment I saw him.”

Mac ran his hand under the heavy mass of hair at the back of Jo’s head and rested it on the nape of her neck, gently caressing her skin with his long fingers. “What about me?” he probed lightheartedly, looking down into her glowing face.

Jo’s chest heaved on a thoughtful sigh. Her loving eyes traced the outline of Mac’s face, his smooth jaw, the cleft in his chin, his thick and wavy black hair, and finally his bright blue eyes. Stroking his jaw, she breathed, “I’ve wanted you my whole life.”

Mac hugged her fiercely, filled and healed by her powerful, all-encompassing love.

“Mac,” Jo crooned, looking up at him from under her jet-black downy lashes. “Don’t start something you can’t finish.” Her sparkling eyes danced seductively.

Mac cocked his eyebrow, confidently accepting Jo’s challenge with a hot, scorching smirk that made her stomach flip-flop and her toes curl. With his arms around her, he skillfully maneuvered her into the hall and quietly shut the door to Sam’s room. His eyes glowed with warm intense light as he crushed his mouth to hers. Fire licked up Jo’s body, arousing a ferocious longing that nestled in the pit of her stomach. Mac’s warm mouth stroked hotly over hers as he wrapped his arms around her, picking her up and dragging her down the hall with him.

Trailing soft kisses down her throat, he twisted the handle and flung the door to his bedroom open. Stepping inside, his large hands slowly descended, undoing the shiny pearl buttons at the back of her dress, one by one. “Jo…I love you,” he murmured softly, kicking the door to their room shut with the toe of his boot.

Dear Reader,

I was raised in the panhandle of Idaho, Canada thirty miles to the north and Montana only ten miles to the east. My love for this rugged and beautiful patch of the world, with its soaring cedar trees and sparkling rivers, inspired the setting for my novel. As a child, bouncing along in the back of the truck bed on some mountain road to a huckleberry patch, drifting leisurely in an inner tube down a cold, bubbling river, or resting my arms out the window of our family’s massive white station wagon as it sped down a gravel road, I would spy old buildings nestled in cozy valleys and proudly perched on swelling hills. I fell in love with these lost and forgotten homesteads, these aged and weathered barns. I always ached to know the hands by which they were built.

The fences sag lower now, the barns are grayer, and still I find myself wondering about the people who built them. Surely, their time was not an easy one, not as romantic as played out in the imaginings of a young girl, but still I can’t help but feel that the people who lived and worked this glorious land share a connection with me: Our eyes were fed by the same deep blue mountains, our bodies clothed in the same sweet summer sunlight, our lungs filled with the same fresh piney scent, and our souls—blessed to be raised here—nourished by Him, whose hands created it all.

How privileged I feel to be raising my four children in this same land that nurtured my siblings and me, as well as our parents before us. My father worked at a lumber mill in the middle of town that closed many years ago, and my mother grew up on a dairy farm only a mile down the road from my current home. In a hundred years, those sites will be the new lost and forgotten buildings. People will likely pass them and wistfully say, “My, what a simpler time.” Though they might not have it just right, a part of me will always believe that that is true.

I hope you enjoyed this story. I certainly enjoyed writing it. A ruined barn, nestled on the Idaho-Montana border that I’ve passed by for many years, no longer sits empty…Jo and Mac live there.

Sara Petersen

Sara Peterse
n
resides in Bonners Ferry, Idaho with her husband, Jeff and her four children. She's spent the last twelve years as a stay at home mom, chasing kids around the house, and supporting her husband in his military and academic pursuits. Two years ago, she took up her pen (laptop) and rekindled her long lost passion for writing. When she's not making up a story in her head, she can be found playing dodgeball on the trampoline with her kids, tending plants in her tiny greenhouse in the backyard, or outside enjoying the beauty of northern Idaho. If you'd like to contact Sara, you can email her at
[email protected]
. This is her first novel.