Forget Me Not (45 page)

“Don't think it,” Boots muttered, then began gathering up the messy pile of cards. “Y'all win.”

“Oh . . .” But her heart just wasn't in the victory. J.D. sat to her right, the tension in his body visible from the tight set of his jaw. This wasn't any easier on her. How could she make him see that she had to go? But then again, how could he accept her departure, when she herself was having a hard time accepting it?

J.D. dealt another hand, and while he made the second pass with the faceup cards, Boots commented, “They've got a lot of gambling houses in San Francisco. And a lot of whores. It's not the kind of city y'all're used to, Josie girl. What are y'all going to do there?”

Josephine gazed at her cards but peered right through them as she replied, “I don't know . . . I haven't figured that out yet.”

“Y'all've got to figure it out before you go. Y'all can do passably well with cooking, but is your calling to be a grub cook in a café?”

“I don't think so.”

“Then what else can y'all do?”

Josephine thoughtfully bit her lip. “I can arrange a nice table setting.”

“Is that all?”

“No,” she countered, somewhat miffed. “I'm an excellent hostess.”

“The only hostesses in San Francisco work at the bordellos.” Boots flicked his cards, and J.D. shot him another one. “How do y'all look in your underwear?”

“What the hell kind of a question is that?” J.D. demanded, tossing what remained of the deck onto a ripple in the coverlet.

“A factual one,” Boots barked back. “Y'all know as well as I, them hostess girlies greet the customers wearing nothing but a lacy shawl—if that—and silk underwear.”

J.D. jerked to his feet. “Goddammit, I'm not playing cards anymore. Not when you're going to shoot your mouth off about ladies' underwear in front of Jo.”

“I'm just stating a fact.” Boots scooted a few inches higher on the pillows and swore as he did so. “She ought to know the kind of town she's headed for.”

“What do you know about it?” J.D. shot back. “You've never been there.”

“I know about it anyway.”

“You know about everything. You're never wrong.”

“The hell I'm not. I've been wrong about a lot of things, only I just don't admit it.”

Their quarrel came to an abrupt halt when they apparently remembered Josephine was present, but its aftermath crackled through the room with the same electricity as lightning.

Josephine stared at her cards on the coverlet, then lifted her gaze. “I'd better go so you two can . . .”
Can what?
Finish yelling at each other? She felt she was being intrusive. She'd rather they work things out, but J.D. was halfway out the door.

She stammered, “Boots, J.D. is leaving.”

“Good. Good-bye.”

When she turned to leave as well, Boots called out, “No, Josephine, y'all stay on a minute. I need to talk to you.”

Boots's tone softened to such a degree she was compelled to oblige him. She drew up to the bed. He
fished something from beneath the covers and shoved it into her hand.

Looking down, she saw that it was a palm-sized wood carving of a cat. “Why, Boots . . . you made this.”

“Whittling gives me something to do.”

“Thank you.” Tender emotions filled her.

“Yeah, well, never mind about that. I need y'all to ride out to the northeast line house and get my Bible,” he said. “I'd ask J.D. to get it, but he doesn't put any faith in the Good Book. He wouldn't waste his time going out there.”

“How far a ride is it?”

“Just follow the fence line that runs parallel to the house. The first shack y'all come to with a small corral in back, that's it.”

“Oh. But I'm certain I don't have to go that far. One of the boys probably has a Bible that they'd—”

“I want my own.” He trifled with the bed coverings, inching them toward his chin. “Have y'all ever read Psalm Twenty-three?”

“The Psalm of David . . . yes. But I've forgotten exactly how it goes.”

“Well, y'all ought to refresh yourself. Y'all might have to use it on me. I didn't want to say anything to J.D., but I'm feeling poorly.”

“You are?” she said in a fearful rush. “You have to let me tell him.”

“No!” Boots snapped so loudly the tabby jumped off the mattress and hid beneath the bed. “Don't let J.D. know y'all're going out there. Y'all keep it quiet. Sneak out to Hazel, and watch for J.D.”

“But . . .”

“Good gawd, I thought I could count on y'all to do this for me.”

Josephine helplessly acquiesced. “All right, Boots. I'll get your Bible for you. It may take me a while.”

“Take your time.”

•  •  •

“I need y'all to ride out to the northeast line house and get my Bible.” Boots licked his dry lips, and J.D. offered him the glass of water on the bedside table. J.D. had been gone from the room for half an hour when Boots hollered through the house for him. “I'd ask Josephine to get it so that y'all could stay with me, but she doesn't know a horse's ass from its head. She's liable to get lost.”

J.D.'s eyes narrowed skeptically. “Don't start in on Jo again, and since when do you read the Bible?”

“Since I say I've got a notion to,” he snapped.

“What'd you leave it out there for?”

“In case I ever got bit by a rattler when I was all alone checking the fences.” He coughed and held his side with a grimace. “I figured I could give myself my own eulogy. There ought to be something in that book that applies to me.” Glaring at J.D., he asked, “Now, are y'all going to get it or not?”

J.D. shoved his hands in his pockets, not relishing the idea of the two-hour ride with the steel-gray clouds that had been forming. “Looks like a storm coming in.”

Boots didn't let up. “Are y'all or not?”

“Good God,” J.D. countered, “I'll get it. But it may take me a while if the rain comes.”

With a half-smile, Boots replied, “Take your time.”

23

J
osephine had been riding Peaches for more than a good hour, and she still hadn't seen any signs of the line shack Boots had told her about. All she'd seen was miles of short-grass pasture and cattle. There weren't nearly as many of them as there had been on the drive. But every now and then, a small group of the brown-and-white-faced cows stood chewing their cuds by a stand of scrub brush.

Red-winged blackbirds soared in a heavy sky that threatened a downpour. Although she didn't want to be caught in a storm, she hoped it would rain. They needed a torrent of it to fill up the creek that meandered through the property.

Josephine mentally chided herself. She wasn't part of the
they
, as in Josephine and J.D. She was an outsider. A hired hand. A cook.

But she could have been more. If she had let herself.

She hated leaving without J.D. understanding her reasons for turning him down. But how could she make him understand when she herself was having a hard time coming to terms with her decision?

She wanted desperately to salvage their relationship. To remain his friend. No . . . that wasn't the
truth. She wanted to be more than his friend. She wanted . . .

Peaches's ears prickled. In the distance came the rumble of thunder. Josephine shuddered. It had taken all of the courage she possessed just to get back on the horse after having been thrown off. All this way, Josephine had been gripping the saddle horn with one hand and the reins with the other. If Peaches spooked, Josephine would be stranded out here by herself.

The rumbling came again, only this time it didn't sound like the growl of thunder, rather the pounding of hooves. Fear prickled the back of her neck. Hazel had protested her riding out here alone. But her insistence, her mentioning that Boots had asked her to get his Bible because he was feeling so poorly, had made Hazel relent. After saddling Peaches and giving her a leg up, he'd cautioned her against the two bulls that roamed the land and could be grazing anywhere.

The image of the bulky animal with its pointed horns made her throat go dry. Maybe one of them was charging in on her to—

“Josephine!”

She swung her head to the right with a thump of her heart.

“What are you doing out here?” J.D. asked, reining his horse alongside hers.

The thought of being discovered hadn't crossed her mind. Hazel had said that with the foul weather coming in, the boys would be staying close to the main pastures. She hadn't thought up a reasonable excuse for why she
was
so far from the house on a horse.

“I . . . I felt like going for a ride.” She could never lie very well to J.D. He'd known from the start she wasn't a cook, and he'd know right now that she wasn't telling him the truth.

“Who saddled that horse for you?”

“Hazel.”

“Did he put you up to this?”

“No.”

“Somebody did.”

Josephine worried the inside of her lip. It was no use. If she had to be honest, she'd be vaguely honest and not admit to the graveness of the situation. “Boots wanted me to get his Bible.”

“Oh, hell.” J.D.'s brows shot down in a frown. “He told you that?”

“Yes.”

“Damn him.”

“J.D., I don't think—”

“He told me the same thing.”

Josephine grew puzzled. “He did? He asked you to get his Bible, too?”

“He probably doesn't even have a Bible in that shack.”

Clouds rolled on top of one another along the horizon. The wind picked up, ruffling the end of Josephine's braid that rested across her shoulder on her breast.

“We can't turn back now,” J.D. said. “There's no telling what this weather's going to do.”

“How far do we have to go?”

“Not that much farther.”

They rode in a brittle silence, Josephine not knowing what she should say. She periodically glanced at J.D. from the corners of her eyes, noticing how his hands held the reins. He'd tucked his gloves into the band of his pants, and his bare fingers gripped the strips of leather.

His hands were slightly swollen, cut in places by the barbed wire that fenced off his prideful possession: the land. Though she couldn't see his gaze directly as he stared ahead, she felt it. His eyes reflected a strong spirit that mirrored a good heart.

She had never known a man like him. So rugged yet tender.

Against her will, a tear slipped from her eye, and she quickly dashed it away.

“Keep a watch for cattle,” he said. “They might run if a stab of lightning comes down.”

She nodded, unable to speak.

The fence line seemed endless, yet it wasn't long enough. This might be the last time she'd ride with J.D., and she wanted to remember the details. But she couldn't keep a clear head.

She felt J.D. occasionally watching her as the wind kicked up the curls that had formed at her temples from the dampness in the air. He couldn't be finding her attractive in the Stetson and men's clothes she wore. At length, she asked, “Why do you keep looking at me?”

“I'm thinking you ride like you've been riding on a ranch all your life.”

Those words got to her, and it was all she could do not to break down and cry. All the agonized endurance she'd had to go through in the kitchen and on the drive was suddenly justified by this man's simple faith. It was more than she'd ever been given her entire marriage . . . and it was what she wanted were she to marry again.

Too soon, the line house came into view. J.D. led her horse into the corral, helped her dismount, then closed the gate on Peaches and Tequila. He opened the door to the shack and let her enter ahead of him.

The building was small and plainly furnished. There was no shade on the window, and what little glare of sunlight was beyond the clouds outside came filtering in with a soft gray tint. A wrought bedstead butted against the north wall, along with a crate that was used as a stand for the kerosene lamp. She didn't see a Bible on it, or any other place in the room. The only other thing was a potbelly stove.