Authors: Beverly Jenkins
Josephine (20 page)
“Of course I am. They’re married and we aren’t.”
Jo snuggled close again. “But we will be, and it will be before you know it.”
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
“Promise me you’ll love me until we’re both as old as Old Lady Donovan?”
Jo grinned. “Promise.”
Adam looked down at her and said genuinely, “I love you very much, Jo Best.”
She whispered softly, “I love you, too, Adam Morgan.”
The drive home continued, and they were both content.
epilogue
In
April of 1865 when General Ulysses S. Grant and the Union Army forced General Lee and the Confederacy to surrender, the citizens of the north celebrated the end of the war. Church bells rang from Massachusetts to Kansas, but the celebration soon turned to mourning as news of President Lincoln being shot and killed spread around the world.
With Adam handling the reins, the Best women traveled to Ann Arbor to pay their respects at a memorial service being held by one of the city’s large churches. Everyone for miles around had turned out, it seemed, and the traffic was horrendous, but Adam managed to find a spot to park the wagon not too far away from the church, and the four of them joined the large crowd of all races slowly entering the sanctuary.
Once inside, Jo wondered if she and her family looked as somber and sad as the others in attendance and thought they probably did. Mr. Lincoln had kept the Union together, set in motion the emancipation of three and a half million slaves, and now his life had been snuffed out by the actor John Wilkes Booth.
The memorial was a moving mixture of hymns, testimonials and speeches touting the president’s greatness and strength of character. The finale was an emotional singing of “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” that reduced every man, woman and child to tears.
A few days later, as the country continued to grieve and thousands of Americans lined the route to witness Lincoln’s funeral train make its way from the nation’s capital to his hometown in Illinois, Jo and the citizens of Whittaker set about resuming their normal routines. Jo reopened her shop and Adam began looking over drawings for his hotel, but the gloomy mood was hard to shed.
After dinner as the two young lovers sat side by side on the swing, Jo said, “I never knew one death could inspire so much sadness, Adam.”
“I know. It has hit our people particularly hard because of all he did for us, even if some of it was done reluctantly.”
“But it is done.”
He nodded. “And hopefully not to be undone. Many are worried about the direction President Johnson will take and what it might mean for the newly freed.”
Jo had been following the debate in the newspapers. Some editors were taking a wait-and-see attitude, while others were sounding the alarm and warning that Johnson was in bed with the defeated Confederacy. Jo had no idea what the future might hold, and for the first time in her young life saw clouds on the horizon. She supposed it was because she no longer viewed the world through a child’s eyes and could see the many nuances. She wasn’t sure if she cared for this new maturity.
As if reading her mind, Adam took her hand in his, looked down into her eyes and said, “No matter what comes, we’ll face it together, be it good or bad.”
She squeezed his hand and felt better than she had in days.
Early the next morning, breakfast was interrupted by a knock on the door. Cecilia got up from the table. “I wonder who that could be?”
“Bea, maybe?” Belle answered.
Cecilia went to the door, and when she screamed, Belle, Jo and Adam ran to her aid, but she needed none. There in the doorway stood Mr. Best with his wife in his arms rocking her in a joyous, tearful welcome. Beside them stood Daniel. Belle shrieked and ran to Daniel, who caught her up and held her tight. Once she seemed assured that her husband was alive and well, she moved from him to share a strong hug with her father, who entered next. Jo felt she might burst from so much happiness and looked over at Adam with happy tears blurring her eyes. Then Jeremiah inched his way into the room and Adam gave a shout of surprise as the brothers hastened to embrace for their own long-awaited reunion.
At dinner, Jo looked at the four war veterans. She didn’t know who was happier, but counted herself amongst the happiest. They’d all lost weight, and although they looked less weary than they had upon arrival, exhaustion was clearly reflected in their faces and eyes.
“So, Adam Morgan,” William Best said as Jo set out the dishes of ice cream for dessert, “what makes you think I’ll agree to you marrying my daughter?”
Jo stopped in midreach.
Adam froze as all eyes turned his way. He straightened, looked at Jo for a moment, then replied, “I love her, sir, and plan to do so for as long as I have breath.”
A slightly embarrassed Jo smiled at the soft-spoken declaration and a grinning Jeremiah lifted his coffee cup in tribute.
Daniel asked pointedly, “And how many other ladies have heard you say the same thing?”
“Daniel!” Belle fussed.
“I know him, Belle.”
“But do you know his heart?”
Adam met Daniel’s skeptical gaze coolly and without flinching. “Weren’t you pledged to another when you fell in love with Belle?”
Cecilia hid her smile behind her napkin.
Belle folded her arms. “Well, Daniel, what say you now?”
“I just don’t want my sister hurt.”
William added, “And neither do I.”
Ignoring the fuming Daniel, Adam said to Mr. Best, “Sir, I have already told Jo that if I ever break her heart I’ll cut out my own and hand it to her on a platter. I love her, sir, truly. I will support her, protect her and pledge to be the best example of a husband and a son-in-law you or anyone else has ever seen.”
Mrs. Best said, “If I might interrupt, I will say this. Adam has been nothing but a gentleman to Jo. He’s been respectful to me and to Belle. He’s carried his weight, helped me in ways that have endeared him to me, and if there is a vote, he gets mine.”
Jo came over and gave her a hug. “Thank you, Mama.”
William looked to his daughter. “I suppose you have something to say?”
She replied, “Only if I’m asked, Papa.”
“I’m asking.”
“I love him, Papa. I didn’t take him very seriously at first. He is a Morgan, after all.”
“Hey!” Jeremiah said, taking mock offense.
Everyone smiled, even Daniel.
“And he is still a woodenhead sometimes,” she confessed as she looked into Adam’s eyes, “but I’d like to be Mrs. Woodenhead because I love him, Papa, very much.”
William glanced over at Belle’s father, who gave him a shrug of his shoulders in response.
William sighed. “Okay. I’m willing to say yes.”
Jo ran to him and hugged him for all she was worth. “Thank you, Papa! Thank you!”
He laughed and returned her embrace with all the love he felt for his spirited, unconventional daughter.
Adam looked over at Daniel and stuck out his hand. “Pax?”
Daniel clasped it firmly and nodded. “Welcome to the family.”
On June 1, 1865, Josephine Best, beautifully clad in the flowing white dress made for her by her sister-in-law, Belle, became the lawfully wedded wife of Mr. Adam Morgan. Jeremiah stood up with Adam, and Trudy stood up with Jo.
As Jo held Adam’s hand and looked out at the smiling faces filling the parlor, she knew that regardless of what lay ahead, she would always be Mrs. Adam Morgan, the happiest young woman in the whole wide world. “I love you, woodenhead,” she said to him over the congratulatory applause.
He looked down and grinned. “I love you, too, pest.”
And with that said, the newly married couple led the way into the dining room for the wedding dinner and the start of their life together.
AUTHOR NOTE
Josephine Best made her debut in
Belle,
and she was such a force of nature I knew she had to have her very own book. Although
Josephine
takes place five years later, Jojo still possessed the same spunk and spirit that made her so well loved in
Belle.
I hope you enjoyed her story.
For anyone interested in more on the historical background, please see
We Are Your Sisters: Black Women in the Nineteenth Century,
edited by Dorothy Sterling, and for more on the key role played by African–Americans in the Civil War, please see
Black Abolitionists
by Benjamin Quarles and
The Negro in the Civil War,
also by Benjamin Quarles.
In closing, I’d again like to thank Glenda Howard and Linda Gill at Harlequin/Kimani for their faith and support. Without them, Belle and Josephine would never have been brought back to life. Thanks also to all the readers both young and old who e-mailed me, sent letters and stopped me at signings to let me know how much they wanted the books to be reprinted. I hope you’re pleased—I know I am!
Be blessed.
B
QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION
- How is courtship different now than it was in Jo’s day?
- Do you think Jo would have gone ahead and said yes to George had Adam not come back into her life?
- Besides his good looks, why did Jo find Adam to be a better match?
- Trudy said she loved Bert, yet Dred Reed made her forget that. Why?
- Why was it important for Jo to have her own business?
- Mrs. Best and many of the other women in Jo’s life can be called strong women. Who are some of the strong women in your life, and why do you think they are the way they are?
JOSEPHINE
ISBN: 978-1-4268-2745-7
A Kimani TRU title published by Kimani Press/February 2009
First Published by Avon Books in 2003 as JOSEPHINE AND THE SOLDIER
© 2003 by Beverly Jenkins
All rights reserved. The reproduction, transmission or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without written permission. For permission please contact Kimani Press, Editorial Office, 233 Broadway, New York, NY 10279 U.S.A.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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