Forget Me Not (17 page)

J
osephine had burned the biscuits. She could smell their scorched bottoms without even looking.

She struggled to remove the deep pots from the fire, keeping the hot wire handles wrapped in a cloth as she brought them to the endgate. As she lifted the lids and pried a biscuit loose from the bottom with a fork, her dreary suspicions were confirmed by the dark brown underside.

The fork in her hand felt as heavy as the disappointment in her heart. Her cooking thus far had been going so well. She'd thought tonight would be the night she served a perfect meal. If she hadn't been arguing with J.D., she might not have burned the biscuits.

Reaching for a plate, Josephine began to stab the biscuits and take them out of the pot. They made a
clunk
noise as they hit the tin. Her irritation should have been directed at herself; she was to blame for their overcooked state. But she wasn't feeling rational and laid the blame solely on J.D. McCall for upsetting her. If he could only understand how lucky he was to have Boots with him. Josephine would have given anything to have a second chance with her own father. Were she to be so graced, she'd make more of an effort
to involve herself in his life and try to form a closer relationship with him. Most especially after her mother had died.

But that wasn't to be so, and a tiny part of her resented that J.D. still had the opportunity to mend his fences with his father but would rather chop down the posts entirely before making a move to fix them.

Josephine set the plate of biscuits next to the Dutch ovens, which now were supported on a board Rio had constructed on the wagon's side. The two boards ran the length of the chuck, and that was where Josephine had stacked the plates and laid out the napkins and the silverware, as well as coffee cups. This, Rio had told her, was how Luis operated. Every man served himself in single file, with the line moving smoothly.

For the past half hour, the cowboys had been coming in and making the small camp flourish with activity. They set their saddles around or near the fire, then collected their bedrolls, which had been stored in the chuck but had since been laid out on the grass by Rio after he unhitched the team. Everything seemed so precise and methodical to Josephine. Who would have thought men could possess perfect order and organization?

The last thing she needed to do was get the big coffeepot. Turning toward the fire, she was bent on taking the five-gallon pot from its hook over the coals, but when she reached for it, J.D. stopped her with a light touch on her wrist.

“Pot stays on the fire. The boys like it hotter than the underside of a saddle blanket after a long ride.”

“Do they?” She didn't want to acknowledge where his fingers connected with her pulse. Her skin felt hotter than the pot's bottom would be, the intimate contact sending currents through her. She'd felt this way when he'd helped her from the wagon. She didn't like it. Well, yes, she did. And she didn't want to. That was the problem.

“They do.” She sensed his gaze on her, examining and trying to determine her thoughts. She grew even more unnerved.

“I'll remember that,” Josephine replied, then pulled her arm away, unable to meet J.D.'s eyes.

Retreating to the wagon, she made a final check of the area, smoothed her hands down the white towel apron she'd tied around her waist earlier, then stood aside and waited.

She waited in vain. Nobody came. But they were looking at her. Boots included. They sat on their bedrolls, some smoking cigarettes, some with hats on, some with hats off. All with boots on and hands washed—she could tell by the dirt that remained from their wrists up. Glancing at the expressionless faces, she thought the worst. Maybe none of them was willing to risk indigestion again. She couldn't blame them. But the stew. It did smell good. Rio had said so. Why wasn't he first in line?

“Well . . .” she ventured, wondering if there was a hidden triangle somewhere that she was supposed to sound. “You can eat now.”

Boots was the first to leave his post at the crate. He made his approach and whispered in a low tone that wasn't at all reminiscent of the gravelly mine-shaft voice she'd first heard him use on her. “Y'all've got to call it like it is. Say something like ‘It's all right with me' or ‘Grab a plate and growl.' ”

“Pardon?”

Boots gave her a deep frown, as if she were testing his patience—something she knew full well he lacked. “Good gawd, are y'all going deaf? I said to call the grub like you're supposed to. Say ‘Come an' get it!' and say it like y'all're calling in them mountains over there.”

“Oh.” Josephine cleared her throat. “Um . . . come and get it.”

“Not loud enough,” Boots critiqued with a snort.

Josephine gave him a scowl, put her hands on her
waist, and yelled as loudly as a lady of her station could yell. “Come and get it!”

The cowboys got up as one whole, proceeded toward the wagon, then fell into line as if they'd just been invited to dine at Delmonico's.

Josephine stayed put, eyeing all those who were partaking of her latest offering. Helpings weren't generous. A bad sign. Some even passed up the plate of biscuits. How could they tell they were burned on the bottom? Her question was soon answered.

One of them, she believed he was Print Freeland, picked up a rock-sized biscuit in his wide fingers and examined its bottom. He put the biscuit back to rights, opting not to put it on his plate.

Josephine wanted to die.

She couldn't just stand around and watch them pick apart her meal. It was too much to bear. She escaped and went around the other side of the wagon. She took a short walk to the dry creek bed and made her way down the incline. At the bottom, she found a suitable boulder and occupied it. With her elbows slumped onto her knees, she didn't strike a very ladylike pose. She barely had time to ponder her next move before her privacy was invaded.

She heard tiny pebbles rolling down the embankment and recognized a pair of scruffy boots and the long legs encased in denims without bothering to look at the person wearing them.

Josephine didn't move to remedy her poor posture. What was the need? J.D. had already seen her state of defeat, her gloomy slouch. Here she sat in his baggy men's pants, with a shirtfront dusted in peppery flour and an apron smeared by the now brownish blood of raw meat. Indeed, she was a chuck-wagon cook. A bad cook, but a cook just the same. Her clothes were stained, and she probably smelled like stew and burned biscuits.

She tilted her chin up, and a strand of hair fell in her eyes. She viewed J.D. through the russet fringe.

“Can't I have a moment to myself?” she mumbled, her breath fanning the hair away from her mouth. She was not feeling herself. Decorum, above all else, was a value she most adhered to.

“I don't mind that you do, but the boys were wanting a word with you.”

“I already know what they have to say.”

“Do you?”

“I do.” Josephine straightened, her spine stiffening. Brushing the hair from her forehead, she said, “They wish to tell me my stew is tough as cowhide chaps, my biscuits aren't fit to throw, and the coffee is hideous.”

“Not quite.”

She gazed at him askance, taking in his features beneath the dying sun. He appeared tanner, taller than she recalled. It had to be the sunset and her position below him. Regardless, he cut quite a handsome picture with his windblown hair tousled against his shoulders and minus his hat. She got caught in the lure of his eyes. Blue yet gray.

“What is it they want to say?”

“Come with me and find out.”

Wistfully holding on to a sigh, Josephine rose and followed J.D. to the wagon, where some of the cowboys were lined up for—she blinked—second helpings.

“The stew is just like Luis used to make,” Rio commented with a smile as he scooped another plateful.

“The coffee don't taste like sheep dip anymore,” the one she thought was Ace Flynn announced from his spot at the fire.

“The biscuits ain't half bad when you cut the bottoms off'em,” another next to him responded. She thought his name was Orley Woodard.

“Yup,” Gus Peavy added from the line at the wagon. “If we had some of that White Goose's syrup, these biscuits would sop it up okay.”

“That's White Swan, you numbskull,” Boots threw
in from his perch on the crate, a biscuit in his hand. “Y'all never seen a swan, so you think that bird on the tin is a goose. Well, it's not. It's a trumpet swan.”

Gus shrugged his bony shoulders. “It don't make no never-mind to me. I like it whether it's a goose or a swan.”

“Miss Josephine, pour me another cup of that stuff you call coffee,” came the request from Dan Hotchkiss. “It's just the way I drink it: plumb barefooted and boiling hot.”

Josephine gazed at J.D. “Am I too obtuse to realize I'm being made the brunt of a joke here? Or are they serious?”

“They're serious.”

Josephine swallowed the lump in her throat and walked to the coffeepot, where a folded towel lay over the iron rod. She gathered the pot, faltering in her steps a moment to adjust to the dense weight that seemed only half of what it had been when she'd filled it. Had it been full, she never would have been able to lift it. She went to the first man but was unable to heft the pot up high enough to pour. He helped her out.

“Obliged, ma'am.”

“You're welcome,” she replied woodenly, still not believing what she was hearing.

Josephine made several more trips around the encampment with the smoke-blackened pot, the men refilling their own coffee cups. When she was finished, she went to the wagon to collect herself. With her back to the group of cowboys, she willed away the happy tears that had gathered in her eyes. It had been so long since she'd had such a concentration of approval, she didn't know how to handle her emotions. Sniffing quietly, she bit her lip and smoothed her hair, tucking the wayward strand behind her ear. She rounded the wagon's edge just as J.D. was fixing himself a plate.

“Aren't you going to eat?”

“Yes,” she replied softly. “I believe I will.”

Josephine helped herself to a small quantity of the food, too overcome to do more than sample the stew just to form her own opinion. She took her plate to the endgate and stood, her gaze following J.D. as he made his way to his spot with the others. Both of his hands were full—one holding a plate and one a steaming cup of coffee. He half crossed his feet while still standing, then scissored down to a squat, never spilling a drop from either cup or plate. Balancing his meal with his hands, he let his knees move outward so that the calves of his legs could bear the burden of his weight as he sank to the ground where he'd unrolled a heavy blanket. Though the motion appeared difficult, he'd pulled it off with unerring grace.

The coffee was placed by his side, the plate leveled on his knee. He dug in, and she quickly looked away as his eyes rose to hers.

“It
is
like Luis's,” J.D. said, adding his own view of the stew with a somewhat amazed tone.

Josephine picked up her own fork and sampled the meal. The stew wasn't half bad for a dish heavy with meat and potatoes and no demi glaze to thicken the sauce.

Conversations came to a lull while the group ate Josephine's supper. The occasional snap of the fire broke through the silence as she remained standing to eat. She'd sat too long in the wagon. Besides, there wasn't much time to eat, anyway. She'd be doing all these dishes soon.

When everyone had had his fill and the second pot of coffee had been put on the fire, Josephine brought out the dessert. She'd found another lidded pot that she'd put the dried apples into and poured several cans of milk.

“What's that in there, Miss Josephine?” Rio asked as she removed it from the edge of the fire, where it had been sitting in a half-dead bank of coals.

“Dessert.”

Rio declared, “Whoo-ee. Dees-sert!”

There had been a rousing line for the apples, but when Josephine put a spoon in them they weren't soft. In fact, the apples had barely puffed at all. They didn't look too good. Perhaps it was the artificial light. J.D. had gotten several kerosene lamps burning on the sideboard and the endgate.

Though everyone helped himself to a large portion, the dessert was inedible. Josephine knew that with her first taste. She'd been trying to mimic nutmeg baked apples with warm cream. The dried apples hadn't softened; they were hard and chewy in milk that was neither thick nor creamy. And the nutmeg had been grated too large for it to delicately flavor the dessert.

“Please,” she felt compelled to state, “don't eat the dessert. It didn't turn out right.”

Cowboys, she soon realized, had strong sweet tooths. Despite her warning, they managed to choke some down. But before long, calls to the dogs were made, and the tins were laid aside for the animals to eat the leftovers.

Josephine didn't want to end the best meal she'd cooked so far on such a sour note. She climbed into the wagon interior, collected her handbag, and brought it to the endgate where she could dump out its contents.

A small gold case with her pearl-white visiting cards plopped out, followed by a writing tablet with pencil attachment in her French pocketbook, a case containing a comb and mirror, a folding fan, a silver thimble, miniature button hook for shoes, some coin change, and her well-worn copy of
Rawhide's Wild Tales of Revenge.
The last to come was the tatted-edged handkerchief in which was tied a pound's worth of butterscotch candies. She undid the knot and proceeded to the campfire.

“Candy, anyone?”

“Good gawd,” Boots said in a flourish of spirit. “What kind?”

“Butterscotch.”

She had no trouble divesting herself of the treats, some of the boys helping themselves to two and three pieces. When she came to J.D., he took two, and her gaze followed his hand as he popped the caramel-colored candy into his mouth. He sucked sticky butterscotch from his thumb and raised his smoky gaze to her. Swallowing tightly, she turned and hurried to the back of the wagon with only a dozen of the sweets left.