Finders Keepers

  Putting that whole concept into actual words wasn’t something I wasn’t up to the task of doing, though, so I went with a short, honest answer. “I didn’t want to be a burden to any of you.” That worked. Short and to the point, just how I liked most everything in life. Save for my johnson.

  Josie snorted. “Yeah, because worrying me sick about you for months wasn’t a burden. Because driving out there to shake some damn sense into you wasn’t a burden. Because being friends with you, Garth, as hard as you like to make it on me, isn’t a goddamned burden.” She wasn’t back to her former anger levels, but being able to flip a switch like that was a rare trait. “Thank you so much for saving me all of the effort and burden.” She didn’t even attempt to hide her sarcasm.

  I couldn’t grasp why she was so upset. Was she mad at herself that I’d pulled one over on her? Maybe. Did she care about me so much the thought of me living out of a truck for months was upsetting? Unlikely. Josie seemed more to tolerate me than actually like me—but what else was there? I couldn’t come up with a whole hell of a lot more.

  “You know, I’ve been working at Willow Springs the entire time, so I’m getting three warm meals, three good warm meals, five to six days a week. I wasn’t starving on my days off, either, so it’s not like I haven’t had a solid meal in three whole months, okay?” I wasn’t sure if explaining my day-to-day life would comfort her or piss her off even more, but I was definitely hoping for the former. “It hasn’t even been all that cold until last night. I had a good sleeping bag, and the cab of my truck is more comfortable than that old egg crate mattress I slept on in the trailer. On the nights Clay actually let me sleep inside instead of out in a lawn chair.”

  I glanced over to gauge her reaction. Her face wasn’t drawn up in angry lines, so I supposed we were making progress. “Even if I had the choice, I’d still take the cab of my truck over the inside of that nasty trailer.” That was the truth. A sad one, perhaps, but factual. “Come on, don’t be mad. It wasn’t bad, okay? It wasn’t the Ritz, but it was a far cry from the worst living conditions I’ve been in. A far cry.”

  Then a tear slid down Josie’s cheek. I would have expected her to shoot lightning bolts out of her eyes before an honest-to-goodness tear. Something kicked to life inside of me then. Something that needed to say or do whatever it took to make her feel better. To make sure a second tear didn’t follow the first. It was all very . . . unfamiliar to me. “Please, Josie, don’t be upset. I wasn’t fighting for my life in horrific conditions, and when the conditions did turn horrifying enough to freeze my toes off, you swooped in to save the day. Everything’s okay, so please—please—stop crying.” I grimaced, anticipating more tears.

  Josie sniffed and wiped her eyes. “I’ve done plenty of it in my lifetime. Crying isn’t going to kill me.”

  “But it might kill me.” I wished I could go back in time and clamp my mouth closed before those five words escaped. Not because they weren’t true—they were—but because of the way Josie’s eyes widened with surprise before her whole expression softened. I’d been trying to calm her down, but not so much that she’d get comfortable enough to lower all her defenses against me. I needed her to keep those defenses up, those walls strong, because as much as I wanted to deny it, my walls had a way of crumbling when Josie was close by. My defenses, my actual ones, skipped off to la-la land when I was with her. That’s why I’d fabricated extra-abrasive defenses with her. It was the only way to protect her from the giant mess I was.

  “Here we are,” Josie announced.

  I had to look out the window to confirm it. That she’d managed to cover miles of country in a handful of minutes seemed humanly impossible. Good thing she had family in the sheriff’s department. Otherwise she’d have enough speeding tickets to wallpaper her bedroom. Gazing at the Gibsons’ barn, I wondered if the cot was still tucked away in the back stall.

  In seventh grade, after Clay had landed more hits on me than usual, I’d hitched a ride to the Gibsons’. I was “running away” for good that time. I’d arrived in the middle of the night, thrown some pebbles against Josie’s window until I woke her up, and without a word, she led me into the barn. She set up a cot with blankets and a pillow for me. She even had a plastic container stocked with a flashlight, snacks, and some comic books, like she’d been expecting me. Since it was summer break, no one missed me, most of all Clay. A few mornings later, Mr. Gibson found me, ordered me to leave, and pretty much said he’d be waiting with a shotgun the next time I decided to move into his barn with his teenage daughter a hundred yards away. Josie had cried that day too, but Mr. Gibson wasn’t swayed by her pleas or her tears. I left that day, never returning to Josie’s place until a couple of years ago. That one night . . .

  In seventh grade, I hadn’t understood why Mr. Gibson wanted as much space between me and his daughter as his shotgun could create, but I figured it out a few years later. He’d figured out sooner than I had that I was no good for his daughter.

  “So”—I glanced out the windshield at the dark house—“your dad?”

  Josie opened her door, and a rush of cold air hit me. “He’s asleep. He successfully got his daughter through her teenage years without her getting knocked up, so he sleeps a lot more soundly. He wouldn’t even hear a herd of cattle run through the dining room.”

  “Does he still sleep with his shotgun under his pillow?”

  Josie smiled at me. “Only when he’s expecting you to show up.”

  “Comforting. Thank you.” I smiled back before forcing myself out of the cab. After all of that warmth, the frigid air almost knocked me over. Hurrying toward the barn, I was stopped halfway there.

  “Where the hell are you going?” Josie stepped in front of me.

  “The barn. Preferably before I freeze my ass off.”

  Her whole face except her eyes was covered up, but hell if those eyes weren’t the most expressive things I’d ever seen. “You’re not sleeping in the barn. It’s probably a whole two degrees warmer than your truck.” Grabbing my arm, she turned me around and steered me toward the house.

  “Hey, two degrees can mean the difference between losing and keeping one’s toes.”

  I wasn’t fighting her, but she didn’t stop tugging on me until we were at the front door. “And seventy-five degrees can mean the difference between chattering yourself awake all night and drifting off into a peaceful sleep.”

  If Josie thought peaceful sleep was an option for me, she was living in a state of disillusionment.

  Putting her mittened hand up to her mouth, she opened the door quietly and slipped inside. I followed her, half expecting to find Mr. Gibson in his favorite chair with his shotgun aimed between my eyes. Like most of the homes around there, the Gibsons’ place was an old farmhouse that they’d done a nice job of keeping up. It was more updated and modern than the Walkers’ home but just as inviting. Well, inviting for anyone who hadn’t been threatened with death if they ever showed their face around it again.

  The guest room was on the main floor, across the hall from Josie’s parents’ bedroom. The old wood floors creaked with every step, and I hoped Josie was right about her dad sleeping heavily. I was just about to take off my boots and continue toward the guest room when Josie shook her head and tugged on my arm again. She wanted me to follow her up the stairs. Only two rooms were on the second floor. One was a bathroom. And another was Josie’s bedroom. The one time I’d been in her bedroom, I managed to sleep with my best friend’s girlfriend. If that was the kind of disaster I could expect from entering Josie’s room, I would not be making a return visit. No. Way.

  Like the wood floors, the steps creaked, and I didn’t stop wincing until we reached the second floor. Josie looked as relieved as I was we’d escaped detection. Keeping her hand wrapped around my arm, she pulled me down the hall, past the bathroom, and stopped outside of her . . . I pulled my arm out of her grasp and shook my head. Hell, no. I wasn’t going back in that room. Not only because of the bad memories
, but because of the good ones, too. That night had been a combination of extreme highs and lows.

  Josie rolled her eyes, opened the door, and managed to grab my arm and pull me inside before I knew what was happening. She flipped on the light and closed the door before I could escape. “Afraid of a girl’s room? It’s not like you’ve never seen one before.”

  That was true. I’d been in my and a dozen other men’s fair share of girl’s rooms. That wasn’t what had me all but breaking out in a cold sweat. I was in Josie Gibson’s bedroom. That wasn’t just another girl’s bedroom. “Yeah, um, why don’t I just take the guest room tonight?” I hitched my thumb over my shoulder as Josie peeled off the layers of winter wear.

  “Sure. Be my guest. But just so you’ve been warned, expect my dad to crawl in beside you in a couple of hours because that’s normally when my mom kicks him out for snoring up a storm.” Josie kicked off her boots and waved me toward the door. “Happy spooning.”

  I pinched the bridge of my nose. “Okay. The barn it is.”

  “Uh-huh. I thought I already made that clear. I didn’t go save you from your truck to let you sleep in the barn.”

  I pinched my nose harder. “Then where do you want me to sleep?” I knew it was a dumb question, but I needed Josie to spell it out for me.

  “Wherever you want, so long as it’s on this side of that door.”

  I silently groaned and let out a string of curses. As miserable as my truck had been, it beat sleeping in Josie’s room by a mile. There was hell, and then there was Josie’s room. It was the last place in the world I wanted to be.

  As rooms go, it wasn’t an offensive one. Her room had a lot of white, lots of windows that let in plenty of light, and it wasn’t overly girly. She still had that picture of Jesse, her, and me taken at the Fourth of July picnic the summer we were ten. Jesse had that stupid smile on his face, like usual. I had a scowly frown on mine, like usual. And Josie . . . well, she wasn’t looking at the camera—she was looking at me. It was the only photo, the only instance, where she’d noticed me when Jesse was close by. I loved that picture.

  So the room itself wasn’t a problem. It was what had happened inside the room. Right there. On that bed. If I wasn’t so damn conflicted, I would have needed a cold shower to calm the memories flashing through my mind.

  “If you want, you can take a shower. Dad and Mom will think it’s me, so you don’t have to worry about that. A hot shower might feel good.” A hint of a smile crawled into position as she opened a dresser drawer. “Popsicle man.”

  “I’m so exhausted I’d probably fall asleep in the shower, so thank you, but I’m just going to pass out if you don’t mind.”

  “I don’t mind.” After pulling a couple things from her drawer, she looked at me and twirled her finger. “Turn around, please.” My forehead lined. She grabbed the hem of her sweater. “I’m exhausted and would like to pass out, too. Being out half the night searching for a certain someone has a way of sapping a girl’s energy. But I don’t sleep in my clothes like some people. Me, I prefer pajamas.”

  Oh, perfect. She was about to change with me a whole ten feet away. The situation just kept getting better and better. Yes, that was a whole heap of sarcasm right there. I swallowed and spun around. I cleared my throat and tried to clear my mind of what was happening behind me. “Some of us lost all their pajamas in a fire.”

  “Oh . . . um . . . do you want to borrow something?” After the fury her voice had held earlier, hearing it soft and quiet was almost as alarming.

  “No, thanks. I don’t think we’re the same size.”

  When a pillow hit the back of my head, I turned around. Changing time must be over if her hands were free to throw a pillow at me. When I saw Josie, my mouth almost fell open. “I thought you said you were changing into pajamas.”

  She glanced down and lifted her arms. “These are pajamas.”

  “Really? Because from a male’s point of view, that’s lingerie. Pajamas are, you know, the flannel, frumpy things that cover lots of skin that old ladies wear.” Shit, I was trying so hard not to check her out, but it was impossible. A man could have held a knife to my throat and told me to stop looking at Josie or die, and I would have been a dead man two seconds later.

  Josie gave me an amused look as she finished tossing the mountain of pillows off of her bed. “I’ll keep that in mind. When I’m an old woman. But right now, I like this kind of pajamas.”

  Yeah, I liked them too.

  Flipping her hair forward, she worked it into a ponytail before flicking off the light switch. “I thought you said you were exhausted. Are you planning on standing there all night?”

  If I got to watch her in my new favorite women’s “pajamas,” then hell yes, I would stand there all night. The lights might have been off, but those windows and that moonlight didn’t exactly make it dark.

  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.”