The Matchmaking Pact, page 13
“Just sandwiches and coffee, Hal,” Josie returned, fixing him with a steady look.
She had never cared for Hal and she was fairly sure the feeling was mutual. Hal had been at any number of parties she had attended as a young girl and every now and then he liked to act as if she hadn’t changed. As if she was the same wild girl she had been back in the day.
Hal dropped into a chair and leaned it back on two legs. “I hear you’re starting a dude ranch on your place?” he asked Silas.
As Silas replied, the talk shifted to work and making a living. Josie found out Silas was in the process of building some cabins on his place but that he was short of lumber, which had all been diverted to work on the town. The ordinary talk served to make her feel more relaxed around Silas.
A few minutes later Klaas came back with his cup and plate. Hal lurched to his feet and patted his stomach. “Great lunch, Josie,” he said. “And good company.”
He waggled his eyebrows at her, then laughed and left.
Silas got up and put his plate on the table. “I’ll probably be picking up Lily right from school today,” he said. “I know she doesn’t want to miss her after-school program, but I can’t stay away from the farm too long.”
“Of course. I understand.” Josie glanced up at him, pleased that she could hold his gaze without even a hint of self-consciousness.
Then he gave her a cautious smile. “I’m really glad I came to work here,” he said, buckling up his carpenter belt. “I think…I think Kelly would approve.”
His easy mention of his wife gave her a glimmer of hope.
“I think she would, too,” Josie said quietly, holding his gaze.
He didn’t look away and she couldn’t.
Then, to her utter surprise, he raised his gloved hand and laid it gently on her shoulder. “Thanks, Josie.” He tightened his grip, his eyes locked on hers.
The air between them seeped away, replaced by unspoken words and questions.
Then he left, leaving her feeling slightly shaken by something as casual as a light touch.
“Soup today?” Silas took a plastic bowl and handed it to Josie.
“It’s cold out. You men need to keep up your strength.” Josie poured a ladle full of the steaming soup into the bowl and added a gentle smile.
He held her gaze a beat longer than necessary and Josie willed herself not to blush or to remember the little moment yesterday. When he’d touched her.
Josie knew at what cost Silas had done that. She knew what he had been fighting.
At this stage of life these small movements were more important than they were when she was a foolish teenager flirting with any male that would pay attention to her.
She wasn’t that girl anymore.
And Silas wasn’t a teenage boy. He was a man who had dealt with pain and loss. A man who most likely didn’t make any overture without a lot of thought and without a lot of consideration.
She poured herself a bowl of soup then sat down in the last empty chair. Right beside Silas.
As she ate, she felt Silas’s eyes on her.
“So, Josie, you still doing that kid thing?” Hal asked, balancing his chair on its two back legs.
“I’m doing the after-school program. Yes.”
“You were always better at the after-school stuff than the school stuff, weren’t you?” Hal laughed at his own lame joke. Josie chose to ignore him.
“You know what they used to call her in school, Silas?”
“I don’t think I’m interested,” Silas said quietly.
Hal rocked his chair back and forth, his gaze flicking between Josie and Silas. “Back then she was ‘Raising Cane.’ And could she ever.”
Don’t let him get to you, Josie reminded herself. He’s rude and obnoxious and you’ve gotten past that.
“Yeah, our Josie here could party with the best of ’em. Actually, she was the best of ’em.” Hal dropped his chair down with a thunk and leaned forward, his soup bowl between his hands. “Remember the time you and Arlan took his truck right down Main Street? You were standing in the back, in the truck box, three sheets to the wind, laughing and yelling. I couldn’t believe you didn’t get arrested.” Hal shook his head as if he still couldn’t believe it. “Or get sick. Yeah, our Josie had quite the enviable constitution. Could party hearty until dawn, then show up at school the next day, fresh as a daisy.” Hal got up and put his soup bowl down. “You tangle with Raising Cane and you’ll get more than you bargained for, Marstow.”
Josie’s face grew hot with mortification.
Why was Hal doing this? What could he possibly stand to gain by dredging up her past?
Josie kept her gaze down as she got to her feet and put the bowl on the table.
The walls closed in on her and her breath tangled in her throat as her past raised its murky head once more. She couldn’t be here. She had to get out.
She stumbled blindly to the door, pushed it open and stepped outside. She leaned against the wall, the wood of the siding pressing into her back.
Was she doomed to have her past thrown up at her again and again? And why in front of Silas?
And why does that matter?
She didn’t want to examine that thought too closely.
The door opened slowly but she didn’t look over to see who it was. If it was Hal, she would go home.
“Hey, there.” The quiet voice beside her made her feel even more self-conscious. “I just came out to see how you’re doing.”
“Raising Cane is just fine, thanks.” She didn’t mean for the bitter note to slip into her voice. And why did she feel her throat thickening with tears? What Hal said she had heard before.
But hearing him say it in front of Silas bothered her more than she cared to analyze.
“Hal talks too much.”
“That’s been established.” Josie hugged herself against the chill from the fall breeze sifting around them, bringing with it the promise of colder weather.
Winter was coming and she was still in High Plains. Not where she imagined herself to be when she was sending out résumés a scant seven months ago. Her dreams and plans had been as tossed about by the tornado as her house had been.
“Don’t let it bother you,” Silas said. “What he was talking about was all in the past. What he was saying, that’s not who you are now.”
Josie dropped her head against the wall. “People in this town have long memories.” She drew in a long, slow breath, willing the tears away. “It’s like no one wants me to forget who I once was.”
Silas kept his gaze ahead. What was going through his mind? He’d had his doubts in the beginning about her ability to take care of his daughter, surely he had even more now? Silas had his own problems, his own ghosts haunting his life. The ghost of his perfect, unsullied wife.
“I guess that’s part of the problem of living in a small town,” Silas said. “The past keeps coming back.”
Josie sighed. “Again and again. I feel like every day I’ve got to atone for something I did to someone, somewhere.”
Silas frowned. “What could you possibly have done to Hal?”
“Go to a party with him, but leave with another guy. Refuse to bootleg for him when I turned twenty-one and he was a few months shy. And assorted other grievances.”
“And you still remember?” Silas’s quiet question had a tinge of reprimand to it. “I think forgetting it would be healthier. Put it behind you. Move on.”
“If I don’t remember, someone else will. And it isn’t so bad to remember. I’ve hurt people. Done some pretty lousy things and, well, I don’t want to make the same mistakes again.”
“This is where I’m getting confused.” Silas crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against the wall beside her. “I remember hearing in church that grace was free. Doesn’t God put our sins behind us once we’ve confessed them?”
“Now you’re preaching to me about God?” Josie’s voice held a touch of irony but at the same time, she felt a surge of hope. The anger wasn’t in his voice anymore. Was he getting over his wife’s death?
Silas shrugged. “I have my grievances with God, but that doesn’t mean you have to.” He turned to her. “And you didn’t answer my question.”
In the distance, the river flowed, the sunlight dancing off the tips of the waves, sending out flashes of light. Life kept going. She knew that and yet…
“To answer your question, yes, God forgives us. And He remembers our sins no more. I know that, but tell that to my grandmother.”
“No,” Silas said, turning to her. “I’m telling it to you. Your grandmother seems to have her own problems, but you shouldn’t make them yours.”
The concern in his voice called to her and as their eyes met and clung, she felt it again. That arc of awareness almost as real as a touch.
“Why does this matter to you, Silas?”
“I’m not sure. Why does it matter to you how I deal with Kelly’s death?”
She couldn’t answer him, either. She just knew she cared about him. And that she was attracted to him.
And that both were dangerous.
But the longing in his gaze negated her sane and sober reasons. The way her heart beat with yearning.
This was foolish. This was wrong.
But the sane part of her mind was extinguished by his closeness, and by the loneliness she’d experienced the past few years. A loneliness she knew she was trying to fill with busyness. With decisions.
Now Silas stood in front of her and she didn’t feel lonely around him. Didn’t feel that panicky sense that nothing was right in her world.
For the first time in years she felt as if the ground below her was firm, as if all the things that had happened the past few months had brought her to this moment.
He moved a bit closer and suddenly his hand was on her waist, hers on his. His face grew unfocused as it drew near.
She closed her eyes, seeking sanity, clinging to reality, not the dream in front of her.
He misses his wife. He hasn’t fully grieved her death. Kelly was perfect.
And Josie wasn’t her.
She pulled away before both of them did something truly foolish. Something both of them would regret.
She had her plans, he had his baggage.
Best leave things as they were.
Chapter Eleven
The day was over.
Silas leaned back in his chair watching the sun slip behind the horizon. He’d been working all evening, trying to get caught up on the ranch work he’d had to put off when he was working in town.
He pulled his hand over his face, his callused palms rasping over the stubble on his face.
And he thought again of that almost-moment between him and Josie. The moment that she, thankfully, cut off.
He blew out his breath and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his dusty blue jeans, his bleary eyes on the darkening sky. What had he been thinking, giving her advice like that. Then, coming so close to kissing her?
The loneliness that sent him out here every night, staring at a sunset he used to share with Kelly, had made him draw nearer to Josie, had made him step over a barrier he had put up when he buried his wife more than two years ago.
Working at the Old Town Hall had tugged at that barrier and resurrected memories, but in the rebuilding, he felt as if he was participating in something important. As if he was given a chance to create new memories.
And it seemed some of those new memories included Josie Cane.
Josie was slowly making herself important to him, moving into a part of his life he hadn’t shared with anyone for two years.
Scary thought.
Yet, when he thought of the conversations they had shared, how she had challenged him and encouraged him, he knew he had found someone whom he could admire.
In spite of how she clung to the past.
The click of a door behind him made him jump.
Lily stood in the doorway, one bare foot covering the other, her hair a tangle of curls.
“I thought I told you to brush your hair before you went to bed,” he said, then immediately regretted his sharp tone. He knew he was just trying to cover up for the feelings swirling through his mind and that, he was sure, were as evident on his face as the sun was in the sky.
Lily simply shrugged his comment aside as of less consequence than a fly buzzing around her head. “Are you lonely, Daddy?” she asked.
Nothing like getting straight to the point.
“I’ve got you, punkin’,” he said, evading her blunt question.
She walked across the wooden deck, her feet whispering over the boards. “But sometimes you need more than me, don’t you?”
“Maybe.” He brushed her unruly hair away from her face. “What’s on your mind, Lily?”
Lily fiddled with the ribbon on the yoke of her nightgown, her fingers folding and unfolding it. “I feel bad that we had supper at Ms. Josie’s place. And we never asked her to come over here.”
“It’s harder for her to come here. And that’s just the way it worked out.”
Why did that seem so long ago? He had traversed a lot of territory since that evening. Had gotten to know Josie in a much different way.
He had gone to dark places and had returned different. Changed, maybe.
“Could she and Alyssa come over here for supper sometime? So we can pay them back?”
He tried to picture it. Couldn’t. “That’s a nice idea, but I don’t think it would work. You know I don’t cook real good.”
“We could have a hot dog roast.”
“I don’t know if they would like that, punkin’.” He thought again of the meal Josie had prepared—and that after a day of working and volunteering wherever she felt she had to help out.
Hot dog roasts were a last-ditch meal for him. Something he threw together at six-thirty when he realized he hadn’t taken any meat out for dinner.
Lily did a slow twirl in her nightgown, as if she enjoyed the way the material flowed around her ankles. The nightgown he didn’t think Lily would like, but Josie had insisted on.
Now as he watched how she ran the ribbon of her nightgown through her fingers, how she fingered the material, he realized Josie had been right and that she knew his own daughter better than he did. The thought was comforting and a bit frightening.
“Alyssa said they never have hot dog roasts,” Lily was saying.
“I’m sure they don’t,” Silas agreed, unsure of what to say to keep her at bay. If he made too much of her request, she would take it as a yes, if he put her off, she would keep going until he either gave in, or got angry.
Lily frowned at him, then leaned on the wooden arm of his chair. “I love you, Daddy.”
Her sudden about-face confused him. He had no idea where she was going, and he supposed that was her plan. However, he had to follow to see where this led. “I love you, too, punkin’.”
“And you know I miss Mommy,” she added, a light hitch to her voice.
“I know, honey.” He stroked her hair, his own sorrow coloring his voice.
Lily sniffed, her head down. “Sometimes I wish I had a mommy again.”
Silas was helpless in the face of her sadness, as he knew he would be. For a moment he wished he had never listened to Josie, had never allowed even one scrap of memory to intrude on the life he and Lily had forged.
Since that night in his daughter’s bedroom, the pain came quicker and yet, each time he gave in, he felt cleansed. Whole. As if each time he lanced a sore and each time it hurt less.
But it still hurt.
“So can Josie and Alyssa come over?” She looked up at him, her eyes wide, her mouth in an exaggerated pout.
Something about her forced-cute expression triggered a comment Josie had made that day when he came to pick up Lily from the after-school program.
Matchmaking?
He couldn’t imagine Lily indulging in something as adult as that. That kind of precociousness was only written into movie scripts with cute young girls as the leads.
Like Lily and Alyssa.
Lily leaned closer, her hands clasped in front of her, her delicate eyebrows scrunched in an expression of pleading, her lower lip quivering just a bit. “Please, Daddy? It would be so fun and I can show Alyssa my kitties and the cows and my secret hideout. She said she doesn’t have her own secret hideout and really wants to see mine.”
Don’t give in, she’s just messing with your head.
But even as he caught his daughter’s hangdog expression, he imagined himself showing Josie around the ranch. He remembered the rapt look on her face when they were driving to Manhattan. How much she enjoyed the wide-open spaces of the fields.
She would love the ranch.
“But Ms. Cane has to find someone to take care of her grandmother. How would she do that?” He was grasping at straws here, but he felt he had to put up some kind of resistance.
“Ms. Josie has lots of friends who can help. Like her friend Ms. Appleton. I heard Ms. Appleton tell Ms. Josie that she thought you were cute. I didn’t hear what Ms. Josie said. Something about little pitchers and big ears.”
Silas’s neck warmed at the thought that Nicki and Josie were discussing him.
“I don’t know, honey.”
“I can ask her, Daddy. Then you don’t have to.” Lily leaned closer. “Please, Daddy. I want to have my friend here.”
Silas shook his head, even as his resolve wavered. Not that he was so resolved. Spending time with Josie wasn’t difficult to imagine. Really.
“Okay.” He drew the world out slowly, to let her know that his concession had been hard-won. “You can ask her. But it won’t be anything fancy. Just hot dogs, remember.” Even as he spoke the words, second thoughts attacked him, but he couldn’t back down now.
“Yippee.” Lily did another twirl, then grabbed Silas around the neck, hugging him tightly. “You’re the bestest daddy,” she said. She planted a noisy kiss on his cheek and pulled back, her eyes boring into his. “We can ask her when we go to church on Sunday.”
