The rain turned into a drizzle. The sky was still gray but ahead the clouds were less ominous, and a ray or two of sunshine could be seen.
“You came running over there and found my glasses for me, then you literally took him to the ground. I thought you’d kill him you were hitting him so hard, and he was crying and carrying on worse than me by the time some mothers came and pulled you off him,” Jimmy said.
“The reason I don’t remember is that it wasn’t the only time I whooped Joel Curtis. That just must have been the first time he made me mad.” She wondered what Joel and a child’s fight had to do with her just declaring that she might like Jimmy.
“Well, it was the only time something like that happened to me. Add that in to going home to find my father about dead and then being jerked back into another lifestyle all in one day. And at five years old.”
“Whew! Some bad day, wasn’t it?”
“And the only bright spot in the whole thing was Jodie Cahill because she came to my rescue. I buried you deep in my heart and set you up on a pedestal so high even the angels couldn’t see you.”
She blushed scarlet.
“I made you out to be the perfect woman through the years. I measured everyone I dated by the Jodie Cahill yardstick. Would they walk right up to me and take me to their playgroup even though I was the new skinny kid who wore thick glasses and was so shy and backward I stuttered? Would they fight for me? Needless to say, no one measured up.”
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“Don’t be,” he said.
The rain lessened as they drove through it. He switched the windshield wipers from as fast as they could sweep to intermediate action. A road sign let them know they were only twenty miles from Bay City.
“Anyway to go on, I finally admitted my obsession to Paul. His grandparents liked television rodeo and while he was out there he heard about this new girl who was brave enough to ride bulls. We followed your career from then on. I got to know Sawyer and he kept me posted on what you were doing. Then one day he called and said he was bummed because he couldn’t go on the rounds with you. You know the rest.”
“You stalked me?” she asked.
“I guess I did.”
“I’m not sure I like that. Have you gotten over this crazy infatuation with a person who’s just a figment of your imagination?”
“I got over the infatuation. I keep telling Paul that but he doesn’t believe me.”
“Oh, so that’s why Paul is your therapist? It’s got to do with your obsession.”
“Yes, it does. Like I said I’m over the infatuation.”
She didn’t know whether to demand that he stop the truck and let her walk the rest of the way to Bay City in the rain or to kick him out.
“But I’m not over you,” he whispered.
“What?” She narrowed her eyes.
“From the beginning I’ve been on this trip to get over you. It didn’t work. I’m fighting the same battle you are. With my heart. It knows I’m trying to find things, anything, to dislike and I keep failing and it keeps winning.”
She was struck mute. So much explanation to get to such an abrupt ending. It was enough to boggle her poor little brain.
The rain completely stopped and a beautiful rainbow stretched across the sky. Brilliant reds, yellows, purples, blues all in an arch so perfect that it practically yelled about a pot of gold waiting at the end with a perky little leprechaun sitting on the side.
“So now you know. Are you angry or just grumpy?”
“Neither,” she said. “Stunned is more like it.”
“So what are we going to do about this? I really do like you, Jodie, but we are as different as night and day. You and your cowboy boots. Me with tassels on my expensive leather shoes.”
“You bought boots, and I wore high heels to dinner at your folks,” she reminded him.
“Yes, and we were both uncomfortable in those situations.”
“Guess we don’t have any choice about what to do for the next four weeks. We’ve got thousands of miles to travel. Hotels to stay in. Rides to judge. Articles to write. I suppose we are blessed. We’ve got a month to see if we can get along knowing that we like each other.”
“Cursed is more like it. A month to live together and not do a thing about it. No more kisses either. Not when we’ve admitted this much and will be in such close proximity all these weeks,” he groaned.
“There’s the exit ramp for Bay City,” she pointed. “I didn’t say I was in love with you, James Moses Crowe. I said I liked you and honey, that’s a big thing. It’ll take more than four weeks for me to decide to move it up a tiny notch up the mile-high ladder. Love is all the way to the top. I’ve still got one foot on the ground, so you do the math.”
A grin split his face as he nodded. They’d been together two months and look how far things had gone with them fighting it every step of the way. There was no telling what might happen in the next four weeks.
The smile disappeared. He shivered. Lord, what would happen if they did make it to the top of the ladder? A future with no end with Jodie Cahill? It was both exhilarating because life would be exciting every step of the way with her, and terrifying at the same time. Could he live in Murray County? Would she move to San Antonio?
Tingles slithered through Jodie’s veins as she envisioned that ladder. True, she had one foot on the ground, but it was already begging to be allowed to climb up the ladder. The qualities that she hadn’t liked in Jimmy from the beginning were fading and the ones she did admire were forcing themselves to the front. Like little children screaming and jumping up and down, vying for attention.
Suddenly the tassels on his shoes weren’t any big thing. That he wore pleated slacks and silk shirts wasn’t unappealing. When she shut her eyes to kiss him all those things disappeared anyway and all she saw was Jimmy Crowe, the man with a wonderful heart and soul.
Four weeks would be pure torture. They’d either kill each other or surely fall in love. In their world there seemed to be no gray matter, only pure black as in murder in the first degree or white, as in wedding dresses.
She stiffened her back to keep him from seeing the shiver. Lord, Almighty, she wasn’t ready for that march down the aisle. She had to buy a ranch, prove that she could take care of herself, a million things before she consented to spend the rest of her life with one man.
Chapter Seventeen
True to Mother Nature’s promise, March went out like a lamb. Almost anti-climactic, Jodie thought, as she drove her truck into the yard. In the past four weeks, since that horrible rainstorm when they were headed to Bay City, Texas, they’d traveled to Montgomery, Alabama, for three days; on to Arcadia, Florida, for three more; and then back to Austin, Texas, for a four-day stint before they were off to Fargo, Indiana, for a PRCA Championship Rodeo. Then it was a lazy four-day trip back to Nacogdoches, Texas. From there they went to Lubbock, Texas, and finally just the past two nights she’d judged the Texoma Livestock Show and Rodeo in Sherman, Texas.
If Jimmy was half as tired as she was, he was feeling every aching bone in his body and yearning for hours and hours of rest. According to the speedometer and her mileage chart they’d traveled almost fourteen thousand miles in the past three months.
The lights were out in the house when she turned off the ignition and she was glad. As much as she’d missed her parents this last month, she wasn’t ready to talk to anyone. Not until she had everything straightened out in her heart, which hopefully she would do after a good night’s sleep. One night in her own bed surrounded by familiarity and she’d see things in a much different light, she was sure of it.
Jimmy began to unload his gear while she went inside and opened the garage door so he could get to his Mustang. He backed it out and tossed things haphazardly from the truck to the Mustang’s back seat and trunk.
“So where are we?” he asked.
“Home,” she said.
“You know what I mean, Jodie.”
“Yes, I do, and I don’t know. You planning on staying at the ranch a few days?” From Bay City on they’d skirted around the issue, not killing it outright but leaving it alive for future reference. Future was here and she still didn’t know where they were.
“Right now I am. Mother and Grandmother are having a fit about it. Cathy has called several times to gripe and threaten me because I’m breaking my mother’s heart. According to her, Mother worked her whole life just to get me away from such squalor, and now I’m falling right back into it.”
“How do you feel?”
“I don’t know. I’m too tired to think. I love my family. I do. But I’m not a puppet on a string to dance when they tell me and be put away when they want. I just need weeks and weeks of peace and quiet to sort things out.”
“Me, too. So good night, Jimmy,” she said.
“Good night.” He got into his car and was gone before she retrieved the first of her baggage from the truck.
Once things were unloaded into the living room, she sat down on the sofa without turning on a light. All month she’d looked forward to the time when she’d be back home so she could think straight. Each morning she awoke and counted off another day, telling herself that there was no way she could be objective with him so close all the time. Granny Etta used to say that a woman could get used to hanging if she hung long enough. Jodie figured it was the fact they were together twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week that kept feeding the attraction. If she starved it for a few weeks, it might die in its tracks. Like the mean dog she’d heard about once. It would come to the backyard and growl and the woman of the home would throw food out, thinking that if the ugly dog was full it would go away. Finally, she figured out she was doing things wrong. If she didn’t feed it, the dog would go away. So perhaps if she stopped feeding the attraction to Jimmy, it would simply disappear.
Getting home and having some space between them was what she needed. That and time. After a few months she’d look back and laugh about the trip with its ups and downs—heavy on the latter, please, ma’am.
She inhaled deeply and climbed the stairs to her room where she shucked out of jeans, a rhinestone-studded shirt, underwear, and a belt buckle that glittered in the lights of the opening ceremonies. She ran a deep, warm bath and settled into a mound of bubbles with a sigh. She leaned her head back and shut her eyes and fell asleep only to awaken shivering. The water had gone cold and the bubbles flat. A quick toweling off and she was off to bed, only to have her eyes spring open and refuse to shut.
Jimmy parked the car beside the front porch and fumbled with the unfamiliar lock on the door a full two minutes before he finally got inside the house. It was cold and musty again. He flipped on the living room lights and went straight to the wall thermostat, adjusted the heat and stumbled down the hall to his room. Thank goodness his grandparents had put in electric heat and air and he didn’t have to light the fireplace and wait for warmth.
He fell back on the bed, fully dressed without even taking off his shoes, and shut his eyes. He’d thought the month would never end. Every night when Jodie went to bed he wanted to kiss her goodnight. Every morning he fought the urge to hug her and tell her that he had fallen in love with her. Every minute he reminded himself that although he had a few dollars in the bank and a nice portfolio from his investments from his inheritance from his grandfather, he did not have stability. Before he could offer her his heart he had to have a steady job. Freelance writing wasn’t dependable enough, not in his eyes.
He was glad to be home. Glad to have time and space away from her so he could think rationally. Paul told him repeatedly that all girls looked like angels when you were floating in the clouds and had advised him to either come home or spend several weeks in a place where he couldn’t see Jodie. See if the old adage about being out of sight, out of mind wouldn’t prove true. Maybe it would, but he didn’t think so. The trip to Oklahoma back in January had changed his life and way of thinking. Who would have thought a city boy could find such contentment sharing time and space with a rancher, and in an old frame house on a dirt farm?
Tree frogs and crickets made a mournful noise outside his window. Spring had sprung in the past three months and was about to take its rightful place by pushing winter into the history books. Jimmy rolled over and pulled the drapes back. A full moon lit up the yard like dim daylight. A black and white cat moved a litter of kittens one at a time from somewhere in the front yard—Jimmy guessed under the porch—toward the barn. Five of them—bundles she was protecting from him.
Finally he stood up and removed his shoes (with tassels on them), his slacks and shirt, and slipped into a pair of pajama bottoms. Without a shower or turning back the covers he picked up a hand-crocheted afghan he must’ve liked as a child because it was still across the foot of his bed, wrapped it around his body and laid down to sleep.
It didn’t happen. He tossed and turned, looking several times off to his right to see if Jodie was sleeping in the bed beside him, the one that wasn’t there. The one night of his life when he was finally alone and she still kept him awake. Something wasn’t fair or right in that scenario. He’d just spent months of wishing and aching for time away from her so he could analyze his feelings and what did he do but miss her.
Jodie couldn’t take another minute of the restlessness. It had to be settled and it had to be done that night. No more soft-shoe dancing around things. He could own up to feeling the same way she did or break her heart. Either would be better than the hollow emptiness in her heart.
The bright red numbers on the digital clock beside her bed said it was two-thirty A.M. when she slipped on a pair of gray sweat pants and a flannel work shirt. Fear almost drove her back into the house when she turned the key to start the truck, but she shook it off. He might tell her that he hated the area the minute he walked back inside Ratch’s house, but knowing was better than not knowing. Sleeping with a broken heart would be better than not sleeping at all.
Jimmy saw the lights in the driveway and checked the clock. Who on Earth would be coming to an old farmhouse at this time of the morning? His first thought was that his mother and grandmother, who both knew he’d be going home tonight, had sent Paul or Cathy or a combination of his friends to influence him to come back to Texas. He set his jaw in anger. He was a grown man and had told them all he could make his own decision. He stomped up the hallway and slung open the door just as Jodie started to knock.
“Jodie?” He was amazed to see her standing there.
“Who were you expecting?” she snapped. Good grief, had he called Deanna or another woman? Had he made up his mind to forget all about her and moved on already?
“Certainly not you at this time of the morning. Is something wrong?”
“Yes, it is,” she said. “Are you going to invite me in, or is there someone in there already?”
“Yes, I mean no. Yes, come inside. No, there’s not anyone in here,” he stammered.
“God, that sofa is ugly,” she laughed nervously when she walked through the front door into the living room.
“It’s getting replaced first thing tomorrow morning. You know a good furniture store?”
“Rick’s in Sulphur or you could go to Ardmore where there’s a bigger selection, but I bet Rick would have something you’d like,” she said. Why are we talking about a sofa when there was so much to be said?
“What time do they open?” he asked.
“Nine, I guess.”
“Want to go furniture shopping with me? I’m thinking about a queen-sized bedroom suite and a new refrigerator and stove too.”
“Love to,” she said.
“Is that what you came out here for? To tell me the sofa was ugly?” he asked.
Her courage faltered and she headed toward the door. “I guess it is. Now that I’ve made you aware of that bit of bad news, I’m going home.”
In the time it takes a gnat to blink he grabbed her arm and swung her around. In the next microsecond his lips fo
und hers and the whole last month faded into a blur. Destiny fulfilled its course in life as heartbeat met heartbeat and they admitted they were in love without saying a word.
He broke away but kept her in his arms, inhaling the sweet smell of shampoo in her long brown hair. “I love you, Jodie Cahill. I don’t have a thing to offer you except a ranch that hasn’t seen any improvements in twenty years, a barn full of equipment that’s so old it might not even start, and an ugly sofa.”
She leaned back and looked into those dark green eyes. “Are you proposing to me?”
He nodded. “I am but you won’t be getting much except a man who’s been in love with you for more than twenty years.”
“Yes, I will marry you, James Moses Crowe. I love you too. I came out here to tell you that if you wanted to go back to San Antonio, I’d sell my livestock and go with you if you’d have me.”
“You’d do that for me?”
“Honey, I’d follow you to the end of the world.”
“Tonight I feel like we’ve been there and back. What time does the courthouse open? Think we could get married and get a sofa the same day?”
She laughed. “We’re having a wedding. Not a big one. Just something with friends and family. Maybe at the lodge. Call your mother and grandmother and Cathy. Tell them they will be guests at the lodge for the weekend. Tell Cathy we’ll put her on the ground floor.”
“Do I have to?” he asked.
She nodded. “You got to make peace with them someday. Might as well start off on a clean slate with our marriage.”
“I guess if you’d be willing to go to the ends of the earth I can make one call,” he promised and kissed her again.
The wedding was held two weeks later at the lodge. Jodie wore a white cotton dress with her white cowboy boots. Instead of a veil she chose a new white felt hat with a hatband of illusion caught up in a bow at the back and satin streamers down her back. A bouquet of multicolored wild flowers lay across one arm while the other was looped through her father’s as they descended the staircase together.
To Hope Page 18