Chapter Twelve
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“I don’t think you’ll do that again,” Amelia said.
As she lay between the crisp, starched sheets of her childhood bed, the sun streaming in a nearby window, Jo gazed at her mother. Her throat felt like she’d swallowed an ashtray, and she stifled the urge to cough, still not wanting to admit what she’d done.
Caught smoking. No one at Two Willows smoked. She was in for it.
“I’m not angry,” her mother went on. “Some lessons you have to learn for yourself. Some infractions have their own punishments.”
“Will I have to stay home from the fair?” she croaked.
Her mother was right; she’d hated the taste of the cigarettes the minute Katie Hemley had handed her one, but she’d gone on smoking it because the other girls had said she couldn’t hang out with them if she didn’t.
“All you Reeds, so high and mighty, barely leaving your ranch,” Katie had said. “If you’re one of us, act like it.”
She’d smoked that cigarette, and she’d smoked three more, even though she realized now everyone else had made their first ones last quite a bit longer. They’d tried to make her sick intentionally. Her mother was right; some transgressions had their own punishments.
Now she’d ruined everything. Her father was coming home from USSOCOM for the weekend and taking them all to the fair. She didn’t want to miss that.
“I’ll never smoke again,” Jo promised. “And I’ll never do anything with those stupid girls again. I’ll stay at home. Forever. I don’t need friends.”
“Just because you chose unwisely once doesn’t mean you should give up on everyone.” Amelia laughed. “I’m sure there are other girls who’ll help you make good choices. And of course you’ll go to the fair. In this family we stick together. No one gets left behind.”
Jo only half heard her. She was looking down at the bed she was tucked into. At the sheets.
Sheets imprinted with hundreds of tiny horses. Sheets she hadn’t slept between since she was eleven.
She wasn’t eleven. She was twenty-one. And her mother—
Her mother was—
Amelia squeezed her hand again. Leaned forward to brush a kiss against Jo’s brow. “Remember, no one gets left behind. I love you. Always.”
“Don’t go,” Jo said. “Mom!” Panic filled her lungs.
“I’ll never be far away. Open your eyes, Jo. It’s time to wake up.”
“Mom—”
Jo opened her eyes. She was lying in bed, between crisp clean sheets, but they were stark white, not dotted with horses. Sitting on the edge of the bed, leaning over, holding her hand, staring down with worried eyes, was Cass, not her mother.
“Mom?” Jo whispered.
Cass’s eyes shone with tears. “I’m sorry, honey. She’s not here.”
Jo tried to sit up, but Cass urged her to stay lying down. “I saw her,” Jo said. “She said—she said she loved me.”
“Of course she loves you. She always will.” Cass smoothed Jo’s hair away from her brow. “We all love you.”
Jo looked around. Pushed up on her elbows. “The fire—”
She hadn’t been smoking. That was an old memory. She’d run to the fire—the stables—the horses—
“What about the others?”
“Lena and Alice are fine. The horses all got out. You saved all of them, Jo. Brian’s furious with himself for being fooled by the men whole stole your house. Alice is in the waiting room. Lena’s at home, of course.”
Of course. One of the Reed women always had to be on the ranch. Even at the worst of times they’d follow Amelia’s precedent. Their mother had made that bargain with God to keep the General safe, and despite everything they’d keep it—for her sake.
Jo collapsed back on her pillow with relief, but it was short-lived. Someone had rescued her. Someone strong. Someone—
She scrambled up again. “Hunter—”
Cass pushed her gently down again, arranged the sheets to cover her. “Hunter’s fine, too. I don’t think you’ll have to wait long to see him.”
“I’m fine,” Hunter growled for the third time and pushed away the oxygen mask the nurse was trying to refasten over his mouth and nose. “I don’t need that and I don’t need to be in bed.”
“Doctor’s orders,” the nurse said sternly. She was obviously losing her patience. “You need to rest, and you need to give your lungs a break. You put them through quite a workout.”
The door opened, and Alice poked her head in. “Jo’s awake. She’s doing just fine. I thought you’d want to know.”
Hunter threw off the covers, lurched out of the bed and was out the door before the nurse could stop him. Hardly aware of the hospital gown flapping where its ties were loose behind him, he strode off down the corridor before Alice yelled after him, “Wrong way, sailor.”
She was grinning when he turned on his heel and moved to follow her, and Hunter relaxed a little. Alice wouldn’t smile if Jo was in any danger. When they got to Jo’s room, he waited for Alice to open the door, then pushed past her and crossed to Jo’s bed. Without a thought for her bumps and bruises, he gathered her up in his arms and kissed her.
“Ouch!” She did her best to kiss him back, wincing and laughing.
Hunter pulled back and tried to be gentler. “I thought I’d lost you. When I saw the flames—heard the horses—”
“Not yet. It’ll take more than a burning stable and a couple of unruly horses to get rid of me.”
She looked pale, though. Her hands and feet were wrapped in gauze and her hair singed. There were bandages on several other parts of her, too. She’d taken such a risk saving the horses. He really could have lost her.
Hunter’s chest tightened, and this time he hugged her far more gently. He couldn’t do without this woman, and it left him breathless to think he might have had to.
How could he have gone on with his life knowing what he’d lost? No woman had ever touched his heart like she had. He didn’t think he could ever feel about someone else the way he felt about Jo.
He had to let her know that right now. Hospital be damned. Maybe it wasn’t the most romantic setting, but he couldn’t wait another moment.
“I don’t want to get rid of you. I want you with me always. I want to share your life. Jo Reed, will you marry me?”
Jo gaped at him, and Hunter couldn’t blame her. His question must seem to her to come out of nowhere. They’d never discussed marriage at all. But the events of the preceding night had cut through any doubts that tangled in his mind. This was the woman he wanted, and he wanted her now. Forever.
“Say yes,” Alice stage-whispered.
Hunter watched Jo’s gaze rest first on Alice and then Cass before coming back to him. “Yes,” she said hoarsely, cleared her throat and tried again. “Yes, I’ll marry you.”
Hunter pulled her into another embrace and never wanted to let her go. “You won’t regret this. I swear.”
Jo pressed her cheek against his. “I’ve never regretted a minute I’ve spent with you.”
Several days later, Hunter and Brian sat across the kitchen table from Cab Johnson at Two Willows. Max had parked himself by Hunter’s feet. Tabitha sat on top of the refrigerator where Alice liked to perch.
“We got lucky,” Cab told them. “We caught the thieves heading for Bozeman. Idiots were still trailing the house. If they’d ditched it, we would’ve never found them. I don’t know if they planned to sell it or wanted it for a garden shed.”
“Who were they?” Hunter demanded.
“Couple of local small-time criminals from Bozeman. They work as bouncers at a club there and hire their muscle out for other, more lucrative jobs, apparently. Not the sharpest tools in the shed, though. They were paid well to provide a distraction while Ramsey set the fire. They were supposed to take their money, head back to Bozeman and lay low for a while. They got greedy. Took one look at that beautiful little house the two of you were building and decided they could probably sell it for a pretty penny if they carted it off. It slowed them down. Took a bit of work but we got them to talk. They spilled everything they knew. Unfortunately, that’s not much.”
“Can’t find good help these days,” Brian said sarcastically.
“That’s my line,” Cab said. “Anyway, they confirmed Ramsey comes from Tennessee. Admitted they took the potshot at your horse to see what kind of defenses you had in place. They said setting fires is Ramsey’s specialty, but it won’t surprise you to find out that Ramsey is an alias. We don’t know who he really is, but I’ve got contacts in Tennessee working on it. We’ll get him and throw him in jail for arson if I’ve got any say in the matter. There’s got to be a reason one of the crime families down there is so interested in Chance Creek, and when we find him, I hope we get an answer to that. Anyway, I don’t think you have to worry about the idiots who tried to steal your house. They’ll show up for court and pay their fines. They don’t want this kind of heat on them.”
“But this is the point where you tell us it’s not over yet,” Brian said tiredly.
“You stole my line again.”
When he had gone, Brian turned to Hunter. “So there’s more trouble coming sooner or later.”
“Most likely.”
“And we’ve got something else to sort out. I got a call from Logan a while back. He’s pretty choked. He said you got sent to USSOCOM for going AWOL from your team. Want to tell me about that? I’ve been holding him back for weeks, although he’s simmered down after the way you saved Jo, but I got to admit, we’re all pretty curious. None of this works unless you’re the kind of man who sticks around.”
“I am the kind of man who sticks around,” Hunter said. “I’d have told you all about it if there wasn’t someone else involved who could get hurt.”
“I think at this point either we trust each other or we don’t,” Brian said.
“I could turn that right back around on you,” Hunter pointed out, then sighed. Brian was right; he couldn’t hold secrets back from these men. “It all started when I was a junior in high school. No, scratch that.” He paused. “Hell, it started before I was born. Guess you could say my mom fell for the wrong man.” Telling his story a second time wasn’t nearly as hard as it had been the first time, and when he was done, Brian nodded.
“Thought it had to be something like that. Not your fault,” he clarified. “I couldn’t have come up with the rest of that story in a hundred years,” he added with a chuckle. “I’m glad to hear you aren’t the type to cut and run at the first sign of trouble. Because I think we’ve got a ways to go.”
“I think so, too.”
“I’ll talk to Logan.”
“Talk to Jack, too, while you’re at it.”
Brian lifted an eyebrow.
“I’m pretty sure he knows most of it,” Hunter said.
Brian chuckled again, ruefully. “Yeah, I’m pretty sure he knows just about everything.”