Finders Keepers (9 page)

What in
the hell
was I thinking? I felt like I’d
grown a second consciousness, and the two had declared war on each other. One
part of me knew staying away from Josie was priority number one. The other part
of me, the one I wished I could locate so I could radiate it the hell out,
wanted to be as close to Josie as she’d let me get. Those two agendas didn’t
align. In fact, they couldn’t have been any more at odds. If one didn’t roll
over and die soon, the battle would split me right down the middle.

Threatening both of my subconsiousnesses with a lobotomy if
they didn’t shut up, I made my way toward the bed Josie was already crawling
into. It was a relief when she threw the covers on. I grabbed a pillow and
threw it on the ground. I was just grabbing the blanket draped on the chair
when I heard the bed springs groan.

“What are you doing?” She sat up in bed, watching me like
I’d tripped a wire.

“Going to bed,” I answered with a shrug.

“And the reason you’re throwing pillows and blankets on the
floor is. . .?” Josie and I were not on the same wavelength apparently.

“Because you’ve got the bed, which means I’ve got the
floor.” It was her room, and even if she’d offered me the bed, I wouldn’t let
her sleep on the floor. Truthfully, Josie’s hardwood floor looked pretty damn
close to heaven. It was warm, I had a big fluffy pillow to rest my head on, and
the blanket was the softest thing I’d ever felt.

“Since when did you turn into Mr. Chivalrous?” The
wire-tripping expression deepened before she patted the space on the bed beside
her. “There’s plenty of room. No need to wake up with a stiff neck and back.”

I stared at the empty space. Fuck, if I slept beside her all
night, I’d wake up with something else stiff. “Really, the floor’s good.” I
slid off my hat and set it on her nightstand.

“Oh, please. We’ve already done the worst in this bed, so
you don’t have to worry about that. Just get in and get some sleep already.”

I knew I shouldn’t, but since the invitation had been
extended, I couldn’t say no. Tossing the pillow back onto the bed, I peeled off
a few layers of clothing and crawled in beside her. Josie’s back was to me, but
her shoulders were so stiff I knew she wasn’t asleep. Despite her no-big-deal
attitude, could Josie be just as conscious of me beside her as I was of her
beside me? The journey to that answer was a road I couldn’t take. I already
knew the ending, and I wouldn’t do that to her. I wouldn’t hurt Josie any more
than I already had. She deserved better, and she deserved a million times
better than I could ever give her.

“See? Was that so bad?” she asked, her back still to me.

I slid my hands behind my head and grinned at the ceiling. I
hadn’t been paying attention the last time I was in it, but Josie’s bed was the
most comfortable thing I’d ever been on. “No, Joze, that wasn’t so bad.”

“Told ya.”

My grin stretched wider. “Oh, and you don’t have to worry
about me crawling into your nice clean bed in the same clothes I worked in all
day.”

“Why’s that?”

I positioned the blanket just below my navel. “Because I
sleep naked.”

“What?!” she hissed, twisting around. As soon as she saw my
bare chest, her eyes widened. At least I could still get a rise out of her.
That part of our relationship hadn’t changed. She shrieked and covered her
eyes. By then, I was laughing. I would have been howling if her parents weren’t
a mere floor below us. “Garth, please, for the love of god and Montana, please
put something on. Anything on.”

Josie in her itty-bitty tank top with her hair in a floppy
ponytail and her hands clamped over her eyes . . . It was the funniest, sexiest
sight I’d seen. “Okay, fine. If you’re going to go all prude on me.” Sitting up
just enough, I pretended to get up to grab some clothes, but I was watching her
without blinking.

A couple moments later, her fingers splayed just enough for
me to see her eyes, which meant . . .

I flashed my face in front of hers and winked. “Made you
look.”

Josie’s hands dropped from her eyes and went straight to my
chest. She shoved me hard enough I almost tipped off the bed. “Nice jeans,
asshole.”

I laughed again when she threw herself back down, her back
to me again. “Nice sneaking a peek there, Secret Agent Gibson. Hoping to catch
a glimpse of something?”

Josie gave an irritated sigh. “Shut up, Black.”

“Why would I do that when it’s so much more fun to tease
you?”

“Because you like-slash-love your dick and probably want to
keep it.”

“Hold up. Are you threatening the very piece of anatomy you
were just hoping to sneak a peek at?” I pulled off my socks, left my jeans in
place, and laid back down. Josie had been checking me out. I was back to
grinning at the ceiling.

“My threat’s about to turn into a reality if you don’t zip
it and go to sleep like I thought you were dying to do five minutes ago.”

“Come on, it’s no big deal. It’s perfectly natural to want
to inspect a fine specimen like myself. I’d be happy to give you the whole
show—the full monty—free of charge. But only looking, no touching. Or wait, you
prefer peeking, right?” Our endless banter felt good. It took me back to a
happier time before things had gotten so complicated between us.

“Sleep now or forever hold your peace, Black.” I was working
up my reply when she added, “I mean it.” From her tone, I knew she was done.
She’d hit her bullshit limit.

I’d learned enough to know when to back off. After a few
minutes of silence, I was close to falling asleep when I felt the mattress
quaking. It was so infinitesimal, I was surprised I’d even noticed. When I
glanced at Josie’s back, I understood where it was coming from. She was
shivering. I didn’t think next. I responded.

“You’re shivering.” I scooted up behind her and draped my
arm around her before pulling her close. I couldn’t tell if she was cold. The
only thing I felt was her body pressed into mine.

She didn’t pull away. In fact, she seemed to burrow deeper
into my arms. “Yeah, well, I had to go and save this asshole from freezing to
death.”

I tilted my face into her hair and smiled. “Plus, you’re
wearing lingerie to bed.”

“Plus that.” I heard the smile in her voice.

We didn’t say anything else for a while. We just lay
together until our breathing synced and her shivering stopped. I’d been on that
bed with Josie before in the most intimate way a man and woman could be
together, but I hadn’t felt connected to her the way I did with my arms around
her, both of us mostly clothed. I wasn’t familiar with that kind of intimacy,
but it felt strangely more intimate than sex. I was close to falling asleep,
and I was sure she already must have been, when I whispered, “Better now?”

I wasn’t expecting a response, but the last thing I heard
before letting myself go was a quiet, “Better now.”

I WASN’T A dreamer. Never had been,
never would be. That translated into my sleep state as well. I didn’t dream at
night. Or at least not the kind I remembered when I woke up.

Waking up in Josie’s bed, I remembered so many different
dreams, it didn’t seem possible that much could have run through my brain in
only one night. I wanted to discount the new dream phenomenon with sleeping in
a warm house, in a soft bed, but I couldn’t even bullshit myself into believing
that. I knew what had caused the dreams. Or
who
.

A certain someone who wasn’t curled up beside me like she’d
been all night. Peeling my eyes open, I scanned Josie’s empty room. If it
wasn’t a work day, I wouldn’t have minded throwing the covers over my head and
passing out for a few more hours. I hadn’t slept that great in my whole life. I
hadn’t woken up feeling so good
ever
. That might have had something to
do with not passing out with a heavy dose of whiskey in me, but it also had a
whole lot to do with sleeping beside Josie. Falling asleep beside her was so .
. . peaceful. So easy. Those concepts—peaceful and easy—were terms I wasn’t
familiar with. They were ideas I’d never really thought I wanted to become
familiar with until last night. Until I felt them so strongly I wondered if my
whole life, I’d been doing it wrong.

Unfortunately, a good night’s sleep hadn’t eased my
confusion. If anything, it had only increased. Confusion was the new normal for
me, but one thing I had been able to pinpoint—Josie was somehow connected to it
all. The confusion, the dual consciousnesses warring with one another, the
steady stream of questions, the dry river of answers . . . it all connected to
her somehow.

My life had become one giant cluster-fuck all because of a
woman. I suppose, given my history, that wasn’t so hard to believe. What was
hard to believe was which woman had brought it on. The girl I’d grown up with.
My childhood friend, my adolescent secret obsession, my biggest mistake. That
was a whole lot of screwed up I just wasn’t up to working out without a cup of
coffee in me.

Rolling over, I sat up. My gaze immediately landed on
Josie’s vanity mirror across the room. Not because I was so relentlessly vain I
couldn’t go thirty seconds after waking up without checking myself out—I might
have been a cocky son of a bitch, but vain was a stretch—but because it was
impossible to miss the red lipstick note taking up the whole mirror.

Stay put until I give you the all clear. I’d hate to
spend the summer picking shotgun shell out of your ass.

I couldn’t decide what I liked more: the oozing smart-ass in
Josie’s note or that she’d written it in lipstick on a mirror. Because, you
know, a paper and pen were so inconvenient.

My jeans were still in place—something that was as fortunate
as it was unfortunate—so after grabbing my shirt from the floor, I slid into it
and stood up. How long would I have to wait before Josie deemed it safe for me
to come out? Hopefully soon because my stomach was rumbling something fierce
and Willow Springs was, judging from how high the sun was, expecting me at work
at least three hours ago. Neil was the kind of employer who was quick to
forgive, but I wasn’t. He depended on me, and I didn’t want to repay that by
disappointing him.

“All clear!”

If Josie was yelling at that volume, her parents had to be a
state away. I didn’t need to be invited twice. Hurrying out of the room, I
jogged down the stairs and into the kitchen. Josie finished pouring a couple
cups of coffee before sitting at the table.

She motioned at the chair beside her but couldn’t seem to
look at me. “I made some breakfast. If you’re hungry.” My stomach answered for
me. “Dig in. I wasn’t sure exactly what you’d want, so I made a little bit of
everything.” Josie bit her lip and waved at the spread on the table. I’d been
so preoccupied with staring at her that I hadn’t noticed what was for
breakfast.

“Whoa, Joze. This isn’t breakfast, this is a bloody feast.”
I’d seen that much food at a table before—when I was in the Walkers’ kitchen
and they were feeding twenty hungry cowboys.

“I know, I know. I overdid it. My mom’s a firm believer in
having too much food rather than not enough food, so I suppose I picked up that
from her.”

I came around the table and took a seat. When I was that
close to her, it was hard for me to look her straight on, too. “Too much food is
having leftovers for the next day. This . . . well this is having leftovers
until next year.” Really, there was so much meat on the table, it was a miracle
it hadn’t buckled from the weight. That was just the start. I saw so many
different types of eggs, I couldn’t even identify them all. The pile of
pancakes in the center of the table was a true engineering feat. Fruit, fried
potatoes, pitchers of juice . . . It was a damn breakfast buffet fit for the
cavalry. “Did your parents already eat?”

“They left earlier this morning to run some errands in town.
I made this for you.” She scanned the table again, biting her lip even harder.

“For me?”

“Well, for us.”

I could recall every last kind gesture a person had paid me
in my life—they were that few—and Josie putting together a breakfast like that
for me, for
us
, just secured a top five spot. I was momentarily struck
speechless. “What are we doing just gawking at it then? Let’s dig in.”

I smiled at her, and she returned it. Getting the shy act
from Josie was something I expected about as frequently as her inviting me to
the nail salon. Basically, never. I wasn’t sure how to take it.

I loaded up on fried potatoes and sausage while Josie went
for the pancakes and fruit. After shoveling most of my first serving down,
along with two full cups of coffee, I gave my stomach a break to process. The
food was good, just as solid as the stuff that came out of the Walkers’
kitchen. Josie knew how to cook. When had that happened?

“So . . . how did you sleep?” I gave her the vocal
equivalent of a nudge.

“Not bad,” she answered, lifting a shoulder. At least she’d
thrown on a bathrobe. After last night and her breakfast, I wasn’t sure what I
would do next. Had Josie still been wearing nothing more than glorified
lingerie, the outlook for keeping my hands to myself wasn’t good. Lifting her
gaze to mine, she lifted an eyebrow. “How did you sleep?”

I didn’t even try to dim my grin. “Not bad.”

Josie shook her head and laughed softly. At least we were
past the shy act. I wasn’t sure how to act around shy Josie, but the
part-amused, part-irritated one I’d had a decade and a half of experience with.

“So? Parents? Dad? Shotgun? How long before I can expect it
to be aimed my way?” Last night I’d been too beat to think about what came
next, but after a good night’s sleep and breakfast, I was able to form a string
of clear thoughts.

“Provided you don’t go and steal his daughter’s ‘virtue’
which, hell, you and I know that’s two years too late”—Josie shot me a smirk
before popping a grape in her mouth—“you should be good. I caught them this
morning before they left, explained your situation, and they agreed to let you
stay here for a while. In the guest room.”

I stopped refilling my coffee cup mid-way through. “Wait.
What? Last night was a one-time deal. It was wonderful and amazing and just
what I needed, but it’s not happening again.”

Josie tossed another grape in her mouth. “No need for a
recap. I know I totally rocked your world, baby.” My eyebrows drew together
before she shoved my arm. “Lighten up. Can’t take a joke this early in the
morning?”

Apparently not when Josie was throwing out sexual innuendos
and I was fixated on her mouth. And the grapes she kept popping in there. And
the way she sucked one for a moment before biting into it. Holy shit.
Proverbial cold shower or face slap or something.

“I can take a joke anytime you want to send one my way,
Joze. Bring it.” I had to force myself to stop staring at her mouth because
apparently I was incapable of talking and staring at the same time. “But by
last night being a one-time deal, I didn’t mean that in the obvious fantasy
you’ve created of what happened between us last night. Come on, if we’re making
up fantasies, it was
me
that rocked
your
world.” Josie made a Ha!
sound. “But hating to have to bring our filthy fantasies to an end and face
reality—sleeping in your bed and squatting at your place was a one-night deal.
I wasn’t planning on moving in with you and your parents indefinitely. I’m not
imposing on you all like that. No way.”

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 asshole. 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.