Appaloosa Blues (Sisters of Spirit #8) (6 page)

Coming out of her reverie, she found Paca hastening the last few yards to the corrals. One thing about a horse, it carried you safely home even if you slept on the way.

In the barn, Jo stripped off Paca's saddle and bridle, and put antiseptic balm on the wire cuts. One cut on the fetlock proved fairly deep and would take a few days to heal, the rest had just removed hair and a little skin. After giving the mare a quick brush down, she led her outside. Now all she had to do was get inside the house and cleaned up before her grandfather saw her.

As they left the barn, Paca swiftly raised her head, her ears pricked ears toward the old man shuffling towards them, his thin white hair reflecting the moonlight, his tall frame shortened by the years.

Gramps. Guilt pricked Jo's conscience, making her want to hide. He mustn't learn she had been with Adam.

Jo stepped back into the barn and snapped off the lights, breathing a sigh of relief when she saw that the moon's glow—although very bright—still minimized the scratches.

She really shouldn't feel guilty. She had done the right thing for Paca's sake.

But would Gramps understand?

Jo's grandfather approached with an awkward, jerking gait, going as rapidly as possible, his spirit fighting against the physical restrictions of age. He was having to slow down and had not yet learned how to do it.

"Hi, Gramps," she greeted him, cheerfully, throwing her arms around him.

"There you are, Joanna," he said, returning her hug. "You against coming home while the sun's still up?"

"Of course not. I just had to catch up on my riding after being away so many years. You should've expected that. What are you doing, out here?"

"Waitin's easier, outside. You give Paca any oats?"

"No."

"She needs some." He shuffled over to the barn, flipping on the lights. Immediately Jo pulled Paca out of the beam, but it was too late. Her grandfather looked her up and down as he filled the bucket.

"What happened?" he demanded, rejoining her. He held the bucket out and Paca thrust her nose into it. "You look like you had a fight with a wildcat."

CHAPTER FOUR

Jo's mind froze. She couldn't tell her grandfather the truth—the last thing he needed to hear was that she had been with Adam her first day home. "It looks worse than it is. I was careless, got into some wire. Nothing to worry about." Jo hated lies and felt ashamed as she skirted the facts.

"It happens."

"Sure does."

"You're looking skinny," Gramps observed, over the loud munching sounds Paca was making. "Didn't you eat anything at college?"

Jo breathed more easily, happy to be off the subject of where she had been riding. "Of course I did, Gramps. I'm just right, according to all the charts."

"Humph. Charts. Them doctors don't know nothing. You look like you'd blow off the ridge. We'll have to fatten you up a little more this summer."

"Now, Gramps, I'm not a heifer. I don't need the extra weight. You let me take care of myself. You're pretty skinny, too. Why don't you try fattening up yourself?"

"Tell that to the doctor."

According to what her mother had emailed, Gramps couldn't stand the diet the doctor had given him and cheated on it whenever he could. He also forgot to take his medications. The more the rest of the family reminded him, the more he resisted. Her mom had asked her to help him whenever she was home. He would do anything for Jo.

"Are you taking all your pills, Gramps?" she asked.

"Yes. Well...sometimes."

"Do you want me to help you remember them?"  

"No. I can do it," he mumbled.

"Promise? For me?" She knew her "nagging" probably sounded like her grandmother, but it would prompt him to take better care of himself. It always had. "No slacking off? You're supposed to take them all, you know."

He looked down, frowning, but nodded. "I know."

Jo decided not to press him. Perhaps a checklist would help. "It looks like you're getting around okay." Once in a while he needed a cane and it piqued his fierce independence.

"Yes. Doc Elridge says I'm to keep moving. Supposed to help my arthritis." He took one hand off the bucket to rub his back. "Doctors. Just a bunch of old women. Glad to have you home again, dear. Missed you, I did. Karen's too quiet. Won't back-chat me like you do."

Paca finished, so he took the bucket away, carried it back inside, turned out the light and closed the door.

"You remind me of your Grandma, you know," he said as he rejoined Jo. "A real beauty. She made life worth living." He sighed heavily, looking across the road to the mountain ridge that rose beyond the house, its hazy outline dark against the moonlit sky.

Jo knew he was visualizing the woman who had been more than life to him. With the same red-gold hair and tilted nose as her grandmother, Jo was a living memory, a constant reminder of his Anna. That was one of the reasons her parents had urged her to go so far away to school. She hadn't wanted to, but with the scholarship offer, the college in Virginia couldn't be turned down. By adding summer quarters to credits earned in high school, she had finished five years of college in four—a long time away from home.

Time should have done its healing job, but evidently it hadn't. Her memory of Adam certainly hadn't dimmed. If anything, her reactions toward him had magnified in intensity, like a tornado that suddenly springs in front of a storm. Maturity had made his forceful personality stronger and increased his physical appeal.

"You look so much like her, Joanna," Gramps declared, bringing her thoughts back to him. "You even walk like she did."

Jo gave him another affectionate hug. "And I missed you too, Grampa. How about walking to the corral with me?" She linked her arm with the old man and adapted her stride to his. She owed so much to her grandfather, who had spent countless hours with her, teaching her how to ride and later to drive. He'd always taken time to do the little things a child needed done, to answer her questions, to dry her tears.

As they rounded the barn, Jo automatically looked north towards the light pinpointing Adam's new home. According to Karen's texts, Gramps had complained about the "blight" on the neighboring ridge ever since the house was finished last year.

The new location gave the Traherns a better view, but it irritated Gramps because there used to be no houses in sight. Young Ponderosa pines planted around it reduced its impact, and only one light was plainly visible. Jo, hesitated, then mentioned that the trees almost concealed things.

"Uh huh. Thought he could hide from me. He's not so smart. For all his years in college, he doesn't know those trees'll get taller...just be bare trunks soon, all the foliage too high to hide behind." The old man swung his head toward the offending view, body held fiercely erect.

"What do you mean?" asked Jo puzzled. Why would Adam try to hide from her grandfather? What strange notion brought the old man to that conclusion?

"He can't be trusted. Always spying on us from up there, behind his trees." He frowned, then lifted up shaggy white eyebrows, nodding shrewdly.

Was her grandfather's feud with Adam making him paranoid? "This is the first time I've heard of any spying. What makes you think—"

"Nothing...nothing at all."

Unable to hold back a question she'd been wondering about ever since Adam had posed it, she asked, "Gramps, why do you blame Adam—and his family—for what Mr. Trahern did?"

"What? Don't you remember? They didn't stop him. They did nothing to keep him from getting behind the wheel." His breathing deepened and his movements became agitated, alarming Jo. "They knew he couldn't handle alcohol."

"But why single out Adam...especially? He was only seventeen."

"You don't understand. No one understands," he declared, his voice rising in volume, his frame shaking in anger. "He could've taken the keys away. He was just a teenager, but he was big and strong."

Jo nodded, remembering. Gramps was right. They shouldn't have let him drive. His family was as responsible as Ed Trahern for Grandmother Anna's death. Maybe even more...for their judgment wouldn't have been impaired by the alcohol. "You're right," she declared. "Adam should have done something. Anything."

"And then the police messed up the investigation, so it never went to court. Said if she hadn't been driving that little car I’d bought her, she might have lived."

He began to wheeze, trying to get a breath, the noise loud and alarming.

"I understand, Grampa," Jo said, frightened by his breathing pattern. It sounded worse than before she’d left for college. He really must be urged to follow the doctor's orders. It was a good thing she’d come home.

"Yes. You do. You always have. My Joanna." He spoke her name with deep affection and it seemed to calm him. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly, then did it again.

"Are you okay?"

"Yes." He looked closely at her. "Will you do me a favor?"

"Of course."

"By the way, when I was playing checkers at Marv's place, he asked about you. His nephew, Peter Johnson, is staying with him. We thought you two should get together. I said I'd ask."

"Uh...I don't know," she said, stomping down her first reaction to say, "No." Gramps had always pushed her towards anyone who wasn't Adam. He had done it all during her high school years. "What's he like?"

"He's twenty-three, a good-looking chap. Marv thinks a lot of him."

Marv was as conniving as her grandfather. The two were always planning other people's lives. Well, she could play that game, also. "Let's make a deal. You take your medicine and I'll go out with Peter." Right now, she didn't want to go out with anyone, but a date wouldn’t hurt her.

"Saturday night?" he asked.

That soon?
"Sure. Why not?"

"That's my girl," he beamed, proud of her as always. Jo basked in his praise, happy to make him happy.

He pointed to the garden. "Peas are ready to pick."

"Oh...good," she said, used to her grandfather's abrupt subject changes once he got what he wanted. Immediately putting Peter out of her mind, she took a deep breath of the sparkling air, sweet-scented with the aroma of fresh cut alfalfa. "Mmmm...best perfume made doesn't smell as good as that. It's great to be home. I missed Oregon."

"It's good to have you here."

Arching her back, she stretched, hands out-flung in relief. "Seems like I've been imprisoned for years. The worst thing about town is you can't see further than the next door neighbor. I've missed our endless views and long sunsets more than anything else."
And I missed riding to my favorite lookout point...and maybe seeing Adam.

"I know," Gramps agreed, his wrinkled face breaking into an understanding smile. "Cabin fever."

"I hope I can tolerate working in town when I get a job."

"Marry a rancher."

Instantly she pictured Adam as she had last seen him, his handsome face lit with a smile. That could never be. With a pang of regret, she fought to clear the image and finally succeeded. "You're supposed to pick the man, not the occupation, Gramps," she admonished dryly.

"Go for both." He chuckled at her expression, making Jo glad he did not realize what had caused it.

They released Paca in the grassy pasture and walked back to the old two-storied wood-frame house. The only light on was in Karen's room, and Jo grabbed a glass of milk and a slice of bread to eat before climbing up the stairs. Her watch showed it was ten past eleven.

"I'm home, Dad," she called as she reached the top and heard his relieved reply. Now he could sleep.

Twenty minutes later, showered, wrapped in her housecoat, and holding a bottle of antiseptic, she entered her nineteen-year-old sister's room. She needed help reaching the scratches on her back.

From the catwalk-like porch outside his bedroom, Adam watched the lights go on in Jo's room. He sighed with relief, knowing she was safely home, then turned to look out over the broad valley, past the trees tipped with silver moonlight. The moon beams highlighted everything they touched, leaving dark shadows elsewhere.

He could see most of the Grande Rounde valley from his ranch, including the Davies' place. It enabled him to keep track of Jo. A lot of good that did him.

He felt lonely up here, very lonely. He wondered if his brother and mother realized how terribly lonely he was. He had shouldered the weight of their ranch after his father's death, struggling to keep it going, investing in stocks and bonds whenever he could to build a cushion for the future. It had paid off monetarily for him, but that did nothing to ease the loneliness.

He could imagine Jo's grandfather down there in the dark, staring malevolently up at him. Gramps would do anything to keep Jo away from him. Say anything.

Adam shook his head in despair. By now she carried around so much misinformation, it would take a miracle to reach her.

Picking up a pair of strong field glasses, Adam scanned the roads, following a set pattern so as to not miss any. He did not linger upon the two cars parked along an open stretch. He was checking on vans and trucks or any suspicious vehicles. The bright moon made his job easy tonight.

All seemed in order. His sweep crossed the Davies' home and he set the glasses down again, thinking of Jo's lips against his—for such a brief moment. She had gone away to college a girl and come back a woman. More importantly, she was speaking to him again.

He remembered the toss of her head when she said, "I don't belong to you." Well, she might not at the moment, but he was sure going to try to change that.

Using his toe, Adam unfolded a camp chair and positioned it closer to the railing. He picked up the flat bone he kept on the windowsill, sat down in the chair, pulled off his boots and began to stroke them with the bone—a trick his great grandfather had learned from a former cavalry officer. It kept the leather's surface hard and smooth—and gave him an excuse to sit outside in the dark, enjoying the stars.

Adam stroked harder. It was time to shake that old man out of his bitterness. He wasn't sure how to do it, but he knew it had to be done to give Johnny a chance.