Finders Keepers

Josie waited a few seconds. Her reply came in the form of an unimpressed face and voice. “Are you done yet?”

“Just getting warmed up if need be.”

“Good for you.” She nodded down the hall. “You’ve got the guest room. If you need anything, let me know.”

I exhaled. “Did you hear anything I just said?”

“Yep. Loud and clear. I’m just choosing to ignore it.”

Two whole minutes of having the Josie I knew back, and I almost missed the shy version. “Josie—”

“Garth. Stop. Yes, I know you’d rather eat your own boot than accept something that even resembles generosity. I know you’d rather freeze your ass off than sleep in a warm house and bed because of your warped views of making sure you’re never in the red in someone’s ledger, but this isn’t open to negotiation. This is me telling you that you’re staying here. Partly because this cold snap is here to stay for the rest of the week, and if you think I’m letting you go back to your truck, you’re insane.” She looked like she had more to say, but after her mouth clamped shut, it didn’t open again.

“And what’s the other part?”

“What do you mean?” She was back to looking everywhere else but at me.

“You said ‘partly,’ which by the laws of parts and wholes, means there’s another ‘partly’ you failed to mention.” I tried not to smile at her apparent discomfort. “So what’s the other part?”

Josie stalled by sipping her juice. Leaning back, I crossed my arms and waited. After a few seconds, she slammed her juice down and groaned. “There is no other part. None. Nada. No. Other. Part. Got it?” Tilting my head closer to her, I tapped my ear. Her reply was another groan and a shove. “You know, I made all of this food in hopes it would keep your mouth and mind occupied so we could sit in peace for a whole five minutes.”

“You mean it wasn’t to get my energy stores high so I could give you another world-rocking night later on?” I was just reaching for the fried eggs when I got my second shove of the morning. A few seconds of silence followed, just long enough for me to be reminded of something. “Hey, Joze, would you mind if I borrowed your phone? I need to call Willow Springs and check in with Neil.”

“I already called him and explained the situation.” Maybe she could explain it to me, because I was still trying to figure out my “situation”. “He said to just take the rest of the day off because he’s cancelled all of the non-essential work until this cold front lifts.”

“Oh . . . okay.” I was at a temporary loss. I wasn’t used to someone else taking care of my business. It was a novel concept for me, like so much lately. “Did he say anything else?”

“I think he was a little upset you pretty much lied to them about where you were staying. I mean, you know Willow Springs has a bunkhouse for a reason, right?”

“Yeah, I do. It’s so the hands who don’t have homes close by have somewhere to hang their hats.” Plus, my pride might have factored into it as well. I wanted to be able to make it on my own—not take up residence in my employer’s bunkhouse.

“Garth, your home burnt to the ground . . .”

“I’ve got a home, all right?” I hadn’t meant to sound so sharp. So hard.

“Where is that exactly?” Josie was used to my regular bouts of acting like an a**hole. They didn’t faze her anymore.

“Joze,” I warned, dropping my fork on the plate. I was done eating if the conversation continued.

“Fine, fine. Home is where the heart is, right?”

“Right.”

“Although I was under the impression you didn’t have a heart,” she mumbled before tossing a grape at me.

“You’re just full of witty comebacks in the morning. I’ve been missing out.” Taking another chug of coffee, I studied Josie from the corner of my eyes. “What about you? Since you’re still here with daddy and mommy dearest, I’m guessing this is where your heart still is.”

Josie shrugged. “I love ranching. All aspects of it. I won’t be happy unless I’m living and working on one, and since dad and mom can’t do it all by themselves and my brother wants nothing to do with it, this is still where my heart and home are.” She shrugged again. “At least until something changes.”

I didn’t need to ask what she meant—I knew. She meant until some rich rancher’s son tossed a ring on her finger. I drained my glass of water to cool me down from the thought of Josie falling in love with and marrying some other guy.

Josie tossed the last grape on her plate into her mouth—thank god—and her expression shifted into something not so light. I knew that face. I needed to get up and bail or grit my teeth and strap in, because Josie didn’t ask roundabout questions or blunt the truth. That was one of the many things I appreciated about her . . . except when it was directed at me.

“Are you ready to tell me why you’ve been living out of your truck for months when you didn’t have to?” She wasn’t easing in with a warm-up question or anything. Straight to game point.

“Partly”—I lifted my finger—“take notes on how a person utilizes the word partly.” And there it was, my first eye roll of the day. “Partly because I like living on my own. Partly because I’ve been sleeping in my truck since I bought it—”

“What you and some nameless Jezebel do on the mattress in the bed of that thing is not considered sleeping.” Cue the peanut gallery. Josie could hang with the best of them.

I continued. “Partly because I don’t like living by someone else’s set of rules. Partly because I don’t like imposing on people. Partly because I kind of like pissing you off.”

Instead of a grape, a wedge of apple slapped against my cheek. “Are you done yet?”

“Joze, I’ve got so many partlys you’ll be old and gray if you sit here listening to them all.”

“Then why don’t you put your parts away before you hurt yourself.”

“Myself likes playing with my parts.” I smiled at her over my cup of coffee.

“That would explain why you spent most of your teenage years cross-eyed. My mom was right, after all. You really do go cross eyed if you masturbate too much.”

“Your mom’s a wise woman.” I drained the rest of my coffee and set the cup down. If I ate any more, I would have to undo the top button of my jeans. But if I was the kind of person who knew their limits, I wouldn’t have drained as many bottles of whiskey as I had and I wouldn’t have an army of women plotting my demise.

“So, because I know you, I understand why you didn’t want to impose on anyone, you’ve been living out of your truck for a while, blah, blah, blah . . . But why didn’t you just go get your own place or something? Rent an apartment or rent a room from one of the old widows out here? I’m sure you’ve been making decent money at Willow Springs.”

I froze for a fraction of a second. “Neil pays me well, but it’s not like I’ve got mountains of money in the bank.”

“What about a mini mountain?” I shook my head. “A molehill?”

I gave another shake. “I believe, at last count, I had a whopping thirteen cents in my account.”

Josie’s forehead lined. “Where the hell has all the money you’ve been making gone?” She wasn’t asking in a rude way; she was just flabbergasted.

I got it, though. I was bringing home solid cash . . . it just didn’t stay put long. I met her gaze and raised a brow in answer.

“Shit, really, Black? You’ve spent that much money on whiskey and women?” I guess she took my lack of response as a confirmation. “Wow. I don’t know whether to applaud you for living it up or have you arrested for grossly irresponsible behavior.”

“Welcome to my predicament.”

Josie stared at the table. “Wow. Just wow.”

“Glad I could wow you this early in the day.”

“There’s a negative and positive form of wow, you know?”

“Yes. Unfortunately I’ve become very familiar with one form, but thanks for the reminder.” Generally, I didn’t care what people thought of me or how I chose to live. For some reason, Josie’s face lined with shock and disappointment hit me like a painful blow to the gut. A change of topic was in order. “How did dear daddy and mommy take it when you told them about me and my predicament?”

Josie picked at her scrambled eggs. “Fine. I basically told them you needed a place to stay, we had a place for you, and that was that.”

“They just agreed to it? No questions asked? No argument?”

“Pretty much. Yep.” Whenever Josie kept her answers short and sweet, she was sugarcoating something. Given she was trying to sell me that her parents just went along with the villain known as Garth Black moving into their house without so much as lifting a finger, she wasn’t just sugarcoating. She was sugarblasting.

“And they thought what about me sleeping here last night? In your room?”

Josie took a sip of her juice and threw me a sideways look. “What are you talking about? Your first night here is tonight. In the guest room.”

“My, oh, my. Did Miss Josie Gibson tell her parents a bold-faced lie? You did go to Sunday school growing up, right? The whole thou shalt not lie to thy parents . . . that’s something they taught, right?” I scooted my chair next to hers and leaned in close until she couldn’t not look me in the eye. I grinned.

She scowled. “Since I lied to save your life since my dad has a shoot-first-ask-questions-second policy about guys being in my bed, I figured someone higher up would give me a pass.” She grabbed the brim of my hat and shook it before popping out of her chair to take her plate to the sink.

“If anyone deserves a pass, it would be you.” I stuffed the last piece of toast in my mouth and carried my plate to the sink. She grabbed a washrag as the sink filled with sudsy water. I turned off the water and blocked her from the sink. “Hey, you cooked. I have clean-up duty. But that starts with getting myself cleaned up, then the kitchen.” I tried not to zero in on the triangle of skin just above her chest that popped out of her bathrobe when she threw her hands on her hips. Tried and failed. “Do you mind if I use your shower? Then I’ll clean up in here, and then I’ve got to head over to Willow Springs. Just to check in and make sure Neil really doesn’t need me today.”

“Be my guest. Just save me some hot water.”

“You could just join me, you know. That way you’d be sure to have hot water, and we’d conserve the world’s most precious resource.”

“You and I both know your idea of the world’s most precious resource might be a liquid, but it isn’t water.”

“Ooo, burn. Nice one.” I held my hand up for a high five, but all she did was flick it.

“Away to the shower with you.” She sniffed the air in my direction. “You reek.”