Josephine (18 page)

“Really?”

“Sure. I know you are an astute woman, so why not invest in a growing enterprise?”

“Is that your only reason?”

“I admit my feelings may be involved somewhat, but my business sense is at play, as well.”

Jo didn’t know what to say except, “Thanks, Adam.”

“You’re welcome.”

And once again, Jo could feel herself being drawn to him. “Suppose it doesn’t work out between us?”

“I’d be hurt, but I wouldn’t let it affect whatever business relationship we may establish.”

Jo found that encouraging. She was just about to ask him what other business opportunities he might wish to pursue after the war when George knocked on the screened door.

“Josephine, may I come in?”

“Of course. How are you, George?”

Jo opened the door and he entered saying, “I’m well. And you?”

“I’m doing well, too.”

George saw Adam then and the two rivals eyed each other. George asked Jo, “May I speak with you privately?”

Jo glanced at Adam, who said, “I’ll wait outside.”

Jo was pleased by his graciousness.

When Adam left, George looked out to make certain Adam wasn’t hanging around just outside the door, then asked again, “It’s good seeing you again, Josephine.”

“Good seeing you again. I’m glad you came by. There’s something I—”

“I’d like to speak first, if I may?”

Jo studied him a moment. He looked uncomfortable. She shrugged. “Go right ahead.”

“I hear Trudy’s intended caught Dred.”

“Yes, he did. Everyone in town is so proud of him.”

“The men over at Mrs. Oswald’s are happy, too.”

Jo didn’t think George had come over to talk about Bert and Dred. “What did you wish to speak with me about?”

George fidgeted a moment, then said, “I got the job.”

“That’s wonderful. Congratulations.”

When he didn’t offer anything more on the subject, Jo peered at him. “George?”

“I’m sorry. I’m—I’m trying to pick my words.”

“Take your time.” Jo didn’t want to rush him because the sooner he declared his intentions toward her, the sooner she would have to tell him his feelings weren’t returned.

George started to speak. “Josephine, you know that you’re one of the most special young ladies I’ve ever had the pleasure to know, and—well.”

Jo asked softly, “Well, what, George?”

“Well, I met a young woman over at the church where I’m going to be working. She’s the secretary there. And, well, she’s real nice. Just as lovely and gracious as you, but where you’re boisterous, she’s quiet. Where you’re adventurous, she’s cautious. We suit well. Much better than you and I will.”

Jo realized that after all her agonizing over this meeting, she was the one being shown the door.

He continued. “I’m sorry if I led you to believe otherwise.”

“That’s quite all right,” Jo told him. Even though this conversation would result in what she’d wanted, this was not the way she’d envisioned it happening. She was admittedly outdone. Happy, but outdone.

George met her eyes. “I’d like us to remain friends. That is, if you care to after this.”

“I think that would be nice,” she said genuinely.

“You’re not angry?”

“No, I’m not angry. I fully understand your thinking. We wouldn’t suit.”

He smiled wanly. “Are you certain?”

“Yes.”

“Good then.”

Silence settled between them.

George said, “Well, I guess I should be going. I start work today.”

“All right. Make sure you bring your sweetheart over for a visit so we can all meet her.”

George nodded. “Sure will.”

He walked to the door. “Thanks, Josephine.”

“You’re welcome. Goodbye, George.”

And he stepped out into the sun.

As Jo stood there, she waited until he rode away before lifting her voice to the heavens and shouting, “Hallelujah!”

Adam had positioned himself on a tree stump situated between the house and Jo’s shop. He had no idea what had taken place between Jo and George, but the smile George had on his face when he rode away, coupled with Jo’s unexpected shout of hallelujah made Adam think she’d accepted the lapdog’s suit, and that Adam’s own chances of making Jo his own were gone.

eighteen

When
Jo saw Adam walking toward the house, she wanted to go after him and let him know what had happened, but her first customer of the day drove up at that same moment, and Jo had no choice but to greet the woman and get to work.

Adam brooded alone in his room most of the morning. When Mrs. Best came up to ask if he wanted lunch, he told her he’d prefer to take it on a tray in his room so as to further rest his ankle. In reality the ankle was well on its way to full recovery, but Adam didn’t want his unhappiness to be seen.

By dinnertime, Adam decided brooding only made him feel worse, and locking himself away in his room accomplished nothing. The sooner he gave Jo his congratulations, the sooner he could get on with his life; a life he had hoped to share with Jo, but George had put an end to that dream.

When Adam saw Jo seated at the table, he plastered a false grin on his face and took a seat.

“Ankle feeling better?” Mrs. Best asked.

“Yes, ma’am. Just needed to rest it.”

Jo passed him the bowl holding the mashed potatoes. “Has it been bothering you today?”

“Yes, a bit.” He took the offered bowl, but avoided looking into her eyes.

“I’d like to talk to you later on, Adam,” Jo said.

“Sure.”

“Mama, Adam says he might want to invest in my business if I decide to make my shop larger.”

“Really?” Cecilia asked.

Adam replied, “Yes, ma’am. Of course, I’d have to see her ledgers first, but she assures me she runs a good solid enterprise.”

Belle nodded. “That she does. She and I talked of finding a larger piece of property that would house my seamstress shop on one side and her hair shop on the other. But we figured all that smoke from her hair irons would ruin my fabrics, so we decided against it.”

Adam thought that made sense. He glanced Jo’s way and the happiness in her eyes made his spirits drop even lower. Convinced George’s news had given her that glow, Adam spent the remainder of the meal trying to conceal his gloom.

Jo could see that Adam had something on his mind and wondered if that ankle of his was giving him more problems than he’d wanted them to know. She didn’t put it past him to be in enough pain to lay himself low again. Maybe once they had their talk he’d tell her the truth about his ankle.

The talk was delayed, however, by the arrival of Barbara Carr. She and Mrs. Best went into the parlor. A few moments later, Jo was called away from washing the dinner dishes to join them.

When Jo entered the parlor, the worry on the faces of the two women made her ask warily, “Is something the matter?”

Mrs. Carr answered, “Yes, Jo. Trudy and Bert have eloped. At least according to this.” And she handed Jo a note.

Trudy’s scrawled writing stared back as Jo read:

Dear Mama,

Bert and I are off to be married. It is what we both want.

Your loving daughter, Trudy

“Oh, my,” Jo whispered. She handed the note back to Mrs. Carr.

Mrs. Best asked, “Did you know anything about this?”

“No, Mama. Not at all.”

Both mothers studied Jo so intently she felt like an ant under a glass magnifier. “I didn’t,” she repeated. “Bert mentioned to me that he planned to move out of his mother’s house, but neither he nor Trudy ever mentioned eloping.” Jo hoped they were all right.

Barbara Carr sighed. “Well, I suppose there’s nothing to do but wait until they surface.”

Mrs. Best agreed. “I suppose so.”

Jo didn’t say a word.

“All right, Jo,” Mrs. Best said, “you can go back to the dishes. Thank you, dear.”

“You’re welcome.”

Mrs. Carr’s voice halted Jo before she could leave, though. “Jo, promise me you’ll let me know if you hear anything.”

Jo nodded. “I will.”

As she finished up the dishes, Jo thought about Trudy. Apparently she and Bert had decided to take their lives into their own hands. Jo couldn’t fault them. They’d done what they felt was necessary, and as their friend she would support them in whatever way she could.

Jo hung up her apron and decided it was now time to talk with Adam. How in the world do you tell a young man you are ready to accept his suit, she wondered? What if she had put him off so long, he’d changed his mind, a small voice inside her head asked.
Then I will be left looking like a fool,
she answered herself, but Jo didn’t let that deter her. She took a page out of Trudy and Bert’s book. It was time to take charge of her heart and her life, so she left the kitchen and went outside to find Adam.

He was seated on her mother’s swing. He gave her a bittersweet smile as she approached.

She asked, “It’s still fairly early. Do you want to go riding with me?”

Adam didn’t really. He simply wanted to hear the bad news about her and George and go back to feeling sorry for himself. “Didn’t you want to talk with me about something?”

“I do, but I have to go and take some food over to Mrs. Donovan’s and I thought we might talk on the ride over.”

Adam’s heart sunk lower. Josephine Best had toppled him from his Casanova throne and turned him into an ordinary mortal. He didn’t need the beauty of the countryside to cushion the blow.

“Adam, is something wrong?”

“No. Can we talk here? My ankle, you know.”

Jo shrugged. “All right. I suppose Mama and I can ride over to Mrs. Donovan’s tomorrow.”

She took a seat on the far side of the swing. The motion of the bench propelled them both for a moment while Jo tried to find the words for what she’d come to say. “The funniest thing happened to me today.”

Adam steeled himself.

“George showed me the door.”

For a moment, Adam wasn’t sure he’d heard her correctly. “Say that again, please.”

“George showed me the door, and if you start teasing me I will sock you in the nose, Adam Morgan.”

Adam was speechless. All day long he’d been laboring under the misconception that his heart was broken, when all the time—He began to laugh. It started as a chuckle. Then as he relived the day and watched himself moping and whining, the chuckle gained strength, and soon Adam was laughing like a child at the circus, not at Jo, but at himself.

Jo punched him in the arm, hard, then flounced off the bench and began striding away. “I told you not to laugh!”

That made him stop. Well, almost. “Jo, come back. You have it all wrong.”

“The only thing I have wrong is that I thought you cared for me, you woodenhead!”

Adam hastened off the bench. “Sweetheart, wait. I’m not laughing at you. I’m laughing at myself.”

The sincerity in his voice, and hearing him call her sweetheart, made Jo stop. She turned back. “Explain.”

When they were facing each other, Adam spent a few silent moments just drinking in all that she was. “Do you know how beautiful you are to me?”

The timbre of his voice made her anger dissolve.

He picked up her hands and then slowly kissed the fingers of each. “Forgive me if I hurt your feelings, but the joke was on me. I was convinced George had won your hand and I’ve been pouting about it all day.”

“What made you think that?”

“The smile he had on his face this morning when he rode away and the hallelujah I heard you shout.”

Jo understood now and she smiled. “So you’ve been tortured by that all day?”

“I have.”

She shook her head with amusement even as her heart sang. “He found someone else.”

“I’m glad.”

“So was I. That was the reason you heard me shouting.”

Adam looked down at her and thought himself the happiest man in the world. “So, your dance card is empty, I take it?”

“It is.”

“May I pencil in my name, then?”

“Yes, you may,” Jo responded with a twinkle in her eye.

Adam hooted, grabbed her around the waist and swung her around. Jo screamed happily, “Put me down, you loon!”

And then he kissed her right there in front of God and all the birds in the trees, and Jo practically swooned with delight.

He asked then, “Is that ride offer still available?”

“It is.”

“Then let’s go.”

“I have to go and tell Mama.”

“All right. I’ll meet you at the barn.”

Under the auspices of doing a good deed, Jo and Adam rode away. They took the main road to Mrs. Donovan’s and grinned at each other the entire way. When their task was done, Mrs. Donovan thanked them sincerely for the foodstuffs, and Jo and Adam headed home. They took the long way so they could enjoy themselves and their newfound happiness.

They were sitting by the river when Jo said, “You know, Adam, I agonized over how I was going to tell George we didn’t suit without hurting him, only to learn he’d set his cap on someone else. I’m still trying to decide whether to be offended or not.”

Adam chuckled. “Fate has a wicked sense of humor sometimes.” He tossed a stone out into the water. “You didn’t want to marry Brooks anyway. The minute he demanded you go shoeless and stay in the kitchen, you would have gone after him with a broom.”

She laughed. “I know. He told me where I was boisterous, she was quiet, and where I was adventurous, she was cautious. I haven’t decided if I’m offended by that, too, or not.”

“I wouldn’t be too hard on him. I’m one of the few men around willing to take on a boisterous and adventurous woman.”

“Who are some of the others?”

“Your father—your brother, Daniel.”

“Hey!” she challenged with mock outrage. Reaching over, she punched him in the bicep. “Are you casting aspersions on the females in my family?”

“Every boisterous and adventurous one of them,” he confessed with a chuckle.

Jo was so glad she’d opened her heart to Adam. In addition to all of his other sterling qualities, he was a great source of fun. “Well, stop it.”

Adam shook his head with amusement. “You have no idea how miserable I’ve been all day.”

“Humility is good for the soul.”

“You sound just like your mother.”

“Thank you,” she replied proudly. “Oh, I didn’t tell you. Trudy and Bert eloped last night.”

“They did!”

“Yep. Mrs. Carr showed me the note.”

“She’s pretty worried, I’ll wager.”

“Yes, she is, but Bert has a good head on his shoulders. I think they’ll be all right.”

“Would you elope with me?”

Jo shrugged. “As long as I didn’t have to live with Mama afterward.”

He found that surprising. “You don’t want to live with your mother?”

“Not forever. I love her, but the house is her house, and I want my own. Belle is content living there, but I’d want a house that had
my
china in the cupboards,
my
silver on the table and
my
vegetable garden outside.” She looked at him seated beside her. “Is that so selfish or wrong?”

He whispered, “No.”

“Good. I mean no disrespect to Mama.”

“I know. Do you think you could live in a hotel?”

The question confused her. “Why would I choose to live in a hotel?”

“Because, my boisterous pest, that’s where I’ll be living. I’m thinking of building one.”

“What? Where?”

He shrugged. “Not sure yet. I want to wait until the war ends before deciding.”

Jo didn’t know what to say. Finally, she asked, “Will there be room for a hairdressing shop?”

“I already have your space incorporated into the design in my head.”

She was more than a bit pleased. “Really?”

“Yep. You don’t have to live in the kitchen to be with me.”

She grinned. “I’m beginning to like this, Adam Morgan.”

He replied with all confidence, “I knew you would.”

Adam then asked something he had been meaning to get clarified. “Isn’t your birthday in January?”

“Yep, the twenty-fifth. Why?”

“Just trying to figure how long we may have to wait before we can marry.”

The words took her breath away. She calmed herself. “I have to be at least eighteen, that I know.”

“So, roughly six months?”

“Yep.”

“Do you think your parents are going to make us wait longer?”

“I don’t know, Adam.” Then she added shyly, “I hope not.”

He grinned. “Me, either.” He reached out and traced a finger down her silken cheek. “Today has turned out to be the best day of my life, Josephine Best.”

“I think it’s been awfully nice, too.”

He gently coaxed her closer until they were no more than a breath apart. When he lowered his head, she closed her eyes. The kiss was so sweet and so tender. He gathered her into his arms and she lifted her lips so the kiss could continue. Jo felt as if she’d been touched by magic. He made her feel treasured. She wanted nothing more than to be held by him in just this way until the seasons changed, but knew her mama was expecting them home. She murmured over her pounding heart, “Mama’s going to come looking for us.…”

His lips left hers to place light, fervent kisses on her jaw, her cheek and little soft ones against her eyelids. “I know, but Lord, you’re lovely…”

Jo thrilled to the sound of his husky declaration. Her whole world seemed to have come alive in response to his kisses. Now she understood how a girl could become overwhelmed and allow a boy to take liberties he shouldn’t. The soaring sensations and rising emotions were so exciting, Jo didn’t want to stop.

They had to, however, and they both knew it. To that end, Adam literally picked Jo up and set her down a few feet away. “Sit over there,” he directed in a firm but soft voice. He fought to calm himself and to catch his breath; she attempted the same. It took them a few minutes.

Adam told her, “Now, let’s get back on those horses. If we don’t, I’m going to kiss you again.”

Jo responded with a knowing smile. “Is that so bad?”

His eyes sparkled. “Yes, because if your mother finds out what we’ve been doing, she’s going to fry me and broil you.”