Forget Me Not (32 page)

He caught her full lower lip between his teeth as he spoke. “I think you know what I mean, Jo. We've been going along for the ride since the first night out on the trail. Do you want to get out of the saddle with me?” Her lips touched his like a tiny whisper. “We could get thrown on our butts. I'm not making any promises.”

“Neither am I,” she mouthed against him. “I don't want to run away from you anymore. I have to find out . . .”

“Find out what?”

“Why you're different.”

Her answer took him off-center. He would have thought she'd go into some song and dance about why they couldn't be together, and he was willing to accept that. But her coming back with a consenting reply floored him. Maybe he was hoping she'd tell him to go to hell. That he'd gotten things all wrong.

J.D. lifted his head and gazed into the upturned face and pair of eyes staring into his. Good God, she was an attractive woman with her amber eyes, ivory skin, and ripe mouth. He couldn't just take her down
to the ground and make love to her. She deserved better. But, dammit all, she was offering. Any man would do it. Most especially a cuss like himself.

Then why wasn't he acting on the moment rather than analyzing it? Maybe he wasn't as much of a son-of-a-bitch as he thought he was. Maybe—

Old Wednesday suddenly stomped into view and trotted over as if they were lost friends. The long-eared mule drew up to Josephine without her knowledge and began scratching the side of its jaw on Josephine's shoulder. Her eyes widened, and she clung to J.D. in an effort to shrug away.

“Quit that,” J.D. scoffed to the mule. He moved Josephine to his side, slid the bridle from his shoulder, and gave Old Wednesday a light slap on the neck with the reins. “You pain in the ass.”

Old Wednesday stood there, batting fringy lashes at him.

Josephine struggled to look over her shoulder at her shirt back. “Why, that no good . . . she smeared peach syrup on me.”

J.D. fit the grazer bit in Old Wednesday's mouth, then the headstall over the mule's perky ears. Tying the throat strap, he gathered the reins in his hand.

Old Wednesday had saved him from an explanation to Josephine. He didn't want her to think that he was the type who trifled with women, then brushed them aside. She wasn't like the girls at the saloon. Romping in the hay wasn't her style. She'd no doubt want more than the physical. Women like Josephine needed to be shown affection by being able to unwrap presents of store-bought trinkets, given bouquets of hothouse flowers, and taken on surprise buggy rides for sunset picnics. None of those things was in J.D. His mother had expected all and more from Boots; and when she hadn't gotten them, she'd left.

J.D. knew too well what eastern women expected. Their views pretty much stayed the same, even on the less populated frontier. Josephine was trying hard to
fit in, he'd give her that. But she was only temporary. She had plans to move on. She'd be better off in a big city where she could have all the comforts of the life she'd been accustomed to. So there was no reason to start anything up, just to watch it ride away.

“We better get back to camp,” J.D. suggested. “Rio'll probably come looking after us.”

Josephine nodded, her expression unreadable in the shadows that crossed the thicket of brush. She turned around, fiddled with the buttons on her trousers, then slipped them up and back into position. That done, she faced him once more. A curl the color of a slow flame fell over her brow, and he couldn't help brushing her cheek with his knuckles.

He was reluctant to leave, yet at the same time wanted to get out of there as fast as he could. A haze of feelings and desires were hitting him all at once, and he couldn't sort them out. “Let's go,” he said, his voice thick and foreign-sounding to his ears.

To his misplaced disappointment, he was sorry when she followed after him.

•  •  •

They reached the spring range in early afternoon the next day, and J.D. put everyone to work as soon as the stock was taken care of. There was a lot to do at the line shacks that would serve as bunkhouse and kitchen for Orley, Dan, Seth, and Print over the next several months.

Rodents and other small creatures had moved in during the winter, and the mattresses had to be aired out and repaired. The blackened chimney pipe to the potbelly stove had been clogged up by a bird's nest. The floors were coated with grime, while the windows barely let in enough sunlight through the webs of spiders. Lying dead in the sills were numerous bees, black flies, and yellow jackets.

J.D. unbuttoned his duster with gloved fingers and let the lapels hang open as he crossed the span of green grass toward the chuck. One moment he'd been
freezing, wishing he'd had two sets of long johns on with the wind slicing through him, the next he was sweating beneath the partial sun. The weather up here was damned fickle.

It had rained an hour ago, just enough to settle the dust. A few silver-trimmed clouds lingered, the last traces of the electrical storm that had passed through. After a good night's sleep, the rest of them would start back for the ranch at sun-up tomorrow. They'd cut their way south for a spell so they could follow the railroad line back home. It was a tradition to see who could reach the Wampum Saloon first. Everyone always made it there by noon and spent the rest of the day soaking in the spoils of the payroll. J.D. had consorted with the boys, doing his share of liquor tipping and dallying with women. Only this time, he was thinking about what to do with Josephine. He didn't want her in the saloon, but he could see no other place to put her.

“Hey, Jo,” he called to her as he approached. Since she hadn't made any prior protests about the nickname he'd fastened on her, he opted to use it again.

Josephine's back was to him. She'd been washing the pots and pans from the shack, and they were laid out all around her to dry.

Turning, she shaded her eyes with a damp hand.

“You want to go for a ride and see where we put the cattle?” He hadn't really expected her to care, but he'd wanted to spend a little time with her, just talk to her. Show her more of what his world was all about. He was hoping she'd be open to the suggestion because he had something to give her, and he felt awkward about doing it in front of the boys.

“I suppose. As long as we don't have to go faster than a walk, scale any steep mountains, or ford any rivers.”

“I can manage that.” J.D.'s heartbeat kicked up. “I'll have Rio saddle Peaches.”

“All right.” She wiped off her hands on her apron before removing it. Her pants didn't sag, and he guessed she must have put to use that length of rawhide he'd left on the endgate after coming in last night.

A quarter hour later, they were riding through patches of fir with the occasional view of Deerflat Lake in between the boughs.

J.D. felt more comfortable on horseback when he was with Josephine. This was what he was familiar with, and it served as a reminder of who he was.

A cattleman, first and foremost.

“What's over there?” Josephine asked.

J.D. followed her questioning eyes to the slight dip in the terrain, then an expanse of valley, and beyond a thick ridge of trees. “Rough country,” he replied. “A lot of timbered breaks in there that look like the foothills of a mountain range. Beyond that, a bunch of coulees head out on a big level divide, covered with grass and scattered with bull pines. A man could get himself killed in there, even on an experienced horse.”

“Are there rattlesnakes?”

J.D. cracked a smile. “Where we just came from. The plains are alive with them as soon as the sun heats up the ground. Some coil beneath the shade of a greasewood, some stretch lazily in the sun, some crawl around. All are quick to coil, rattle, and strike if you approach them.”

Josephine's face paled a shade. “Do you think it will be warm enough on the way back?”

“Nope.”

Catalpa, box elder, and white ash flourished, creating a private retreat for them to pass through. Overhead, a bird chattered from a branch. Tequila nickered, and Peaches replied.

“Stop a minute,” J.D. said, pulling back on the reins as she did likewise.

“What's wrong?”

“Nothing.” He reached into his duster pocket and came out with seven folded dollars. Then he fished for the coin at the bottom of the lining. He'd thought about paying her eight dollars for the week rather than the seven twenty-five he owed her, but he wasn't sure how she'd react to the overage. Maybe she'd think he was trying to pay for some extras.

“What's that?” she asked when he held out his hand to her.

“Your week's pay.”

Her eyes widened as she took the money. “Oh . . . my.” She clutched the currency, as if mesmerized. “You don't know how much this means to me. It's the first bit of money I ever earned.”

“You deserved it. Put it someplace safe.”

She stuffed it into her pants pocket.

By paying her, J.D. was pushing her one step away from him. He was giving her what she needed to get to San Francisco. He was reluctant to accept that, but he had to.

Nudging his horse, and Jo doing likewise, they continued on. J.D. felt as if he needed to know all there was about her before she left.

“Why is it you came West, Jo?” He caught her averting his gaze. “The truth.”

Josephine stared ahead when she replied, “I thought the West would be an adventurous place to see.”

“What gave you that idea?”

She sighed. “If you must know, the Beadle's.”

“Those dime novels?” J.D. held a chuckle at bay. “Is that what you've been reading at night? They aren't worth the paper they're printed on. It's all a bunch of exaggeration. I read one once.”

“I realize now that they are grossly overstated, but the elements of ro—” She stopped herself. “That is to say, the fiction is still enjoyable.”

“Why did you head for Sienna?”

“It was described in
Rawhide's Wild Tales of Revenge in Sienna.
The author said there were red brick hotels, fine restaurants, and an opera house.”

This time, J.D. couldn't keep the humor from his voice. “I doubt Sienna will ever have anything like that. It's just a mudhole town. Always will be.”

“I have come to that conclusion myself.”

“So what are you going to do in San Francisco?”

She turned her head toward him, her eyes meeting his for a few seconds. Then she looked away, her grip on the reins tightening. “I haven't quite figured that out. I doubt there is a high demand for archery instruction.”

“You could be a cook in some fancy restaurant.”

Shadows fell across Josephine as they rode beneath the boughs of alders. “You've got to be kidding.”

“Not really. You've been coming along. I'll bet you could bake a cake and ice it up pretty good with candied stuff on it.”

“Don't lie—I thought we were friends.”

Friends?
The word hit J.D. sideways. He had never thought of himself as a friend to anyone. He was boss to the boys, an acquaintance to Zev Klauffman at the mercantile, paying customer to Billy, and a good time to the girls in town. As for Boots, J.D. was a pain in the ass. Surely no son, and definitely no friend. Come to think of it, inasmuch as J.D. felt a part of the community, he could honestly say he had no one in particular whom he called friend. Neighbor, yes. Friend, no.

Why Josephine's assumption struck him as humbling, he couldn't figure.

They'd ridden in silence for a while when Josephine quietly asked, “Tell me more about your brothers.”

J.D. damned himself as he revealed what he kept closely guarded in his heart. “The first time Eugenia sat me down in the parlor and read me the official military letter, I suffered with her, but I didn't cry. When William died, I wanted to enlist more than
ever. But I stayed behind because Eugenia begged me to; she'd even taken to bed and swore she'd wither if she lost another son to the cavalry. So I remained home.”

“And Boots . . . how did he take the news?”

“He didn't talk to any of us about it. He shut himself up in the stables.” J.D. tried to relax the tension from his shoulders, but he found he couldn't. “The second letter came six months later. Eugenia didn't have to say a word to me. Her expression said it all.

“I was raised within a strong faith and church, and I asked her if God could have kept my brothers from dying. And she replied, ‘God is all-powerful, and he could have prevented it if he wished. But it was his will they be taken.' ”

A knot of anger had welled inside him as he recounted. “So I told her I'd never go into one of her damn churches again.”

Josephine caught his eyes and softly asked as they rode out of the cover of trees, “Have you ever told Boots any of this?”

“No.”

“Maybe you should one day . . . perhaps sooner rather than later.”

J.D. made no comment.

“How is it you came here?” Josephine queried through the clop of the horses' hooves. “Boots speaks with an accent from the South sometimes. Even you do to a small degree.”

J.D. reined Tequila left, up a slight grassy knoll. “I grew up in Mississippi on a cotton plantation.”

“Really? I can't picture you there at all.”

“I was. All my life until I was nineteen. After the war was over, I worked my way across the plains, building bridges in Illinois and laying railroad ties in Nebraska. I eventually made it out here and worked for a man named Dillard. When he died, I started the
McCall Cattle Company, in 'sixty-eight. I sent for Boots and Eugenia once I was settled. Eugenia only came to make sure Boots wouldn't go off his own way, then she went back to her folks.”

If J.D. ever married, his bride would keep whatever she had coming into the marriage. His reasons were simple: Eugenia's property had become Boots's when she married him. For a time they'd prospered, but after the war there'd been nothing left. Once out West, Boots had mismanaged the funds her father had sent with risky ventures such as a stud farm that had failed.