The Trouble With Josh

by Marilyn Pappano

• ISBN13: 9780373245338
• ISBN10: 0373245335
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2003-04-01
• Publisher: Silhouette

Excerpts

Visit all fifty states: Mississippi, Arkansas, Oklahoma

In the months since she'd almost died, Candace Thompson had made a list of all the things she wanted to do while she still had a chance. It filled six pages on a dog-eared legal pad and wasn't in any particular order, except in her mind. She had crossed off plenty of them - things like Spend a week on the beach and Apologize to Craig , whom she'd dumped her senior year in high school, for the manner in which she'd done it.

There were still plenty to be crossed off - another thirty or forty years' worth, by her reckoning - but the time had come to take care of the number-one priority on the list: Make amends with Natalie .

Nothing like setting her goals too high. It would be easier, she suspected, to sprout wings and fly to the moon, but she had to try. She'd made promises - to God, to the doctors, to herself. She had to do her best to keep them.

It had taken some effort, but she'd finally located her former best friend, living on a ranch outside Hickory Bluff, Oklahoma. She'd had the address and phone number for five months now and had done nothing with them. Forgiveness of this magnitude wasn't something that could be asked for over the phone, and doing it by mail struck her as cowardly - too easy, too impersonal.

Hey, no one had said all the things on the list would be pleasant or fun. Some were supposed to hurt, to require guts and courage and looking people in the eye.

This was definitely one of those.

She'd arrived in Hickory Bluff nearly twenty-four hours earlier, after taking the scenic route from Atlanta, and had spent the time getting settled. In planning the trip, she'd discovered there wasn't a motel in town, but there was an RV park at a lake two miles north. Since she'd recently come into possession of a fairly comfortable motor home, she'd reserved a space, much to the amusement of the campground owner - obviously October wasn't a busy period for them. Once she'd settled in at the park, she sweet-talked a friendly guy named Rick at the nearest car rental agency into delivering a car to her.

And she'd found out exactly where this ranch of Natalie's was. She was all set.

Except that she'd been sitting at this intersection of two dirt roads for more than ten minutes and couldn't bring herself to go on.

Natalie wasn't going to be happy to see her, and Candace couldn't blame her. If the situation were reversed, she would wish Natalie off the face of the earth. It would be a cold day in hell before she would give even scant consideration to forgiving her. Since Natalie was sure to feel the same way, and Candace had come all the way here, maybe she could give herself credit for trying, scratch it off her list and go on to the next goal.

But that would be cheating. No surprise there. She'd been a cheat and a user and a manipulator all her life. No one who truly knew her expected honesty from her.

It was a pathetic excuse for a human being who couldn't be honest with herself.

Drawing a deep breath, she checked the crossroad in both directions, even though not one car had passed in the minutes she'd been sitting there. It took a major effort to press the accelerator down, another major effort to not turn right or left to avoid the destination straight ahead.

She kept her speed down - because she didn't want gravel flying up to damage the rental car, and because Rick the friendly rental agent had gone to some trouble to get her a convertible and she didn't want to show up at Natalie's all dusty. Not because she was trying to delay her arrival at the ranch.

The road ran straight and true with little to see on either side - open grassland and woods, an occasional cluster of buildings. She couldn't imagine Natalie voluntarily settling down someplace like this ... but a lot of her choices had been taken away from her. Her career, her reputation, her relationship with her father - none of it had survived Candace.

Up ahead something appeared in the road. She squinted behind her sunglasses to bring it into focus. Large, shaggy, brown and white - cows. A whole herd of them. Just sort of milling around on the road.

She slowed to a snail's pace, then stopped about ten feet from the nearest bovine. Most of them appeared taller than her low-slung little sports car, and they seemed to have zero interest in her. The ones that were munching grass at the sides of the road continued to munch, and the ones that were just standing around blocking her way continued to stand and block.

She was reaching to tap the horn when a voice from someplace much too close behind her said, "I wouldn't advise honking the horn. They tend to associate that with feed and come running."

As she twisted in the seat to see who'd spoken, a cowboy reined in his very large horse next to the driver's door. He wore jeans, a T-shirt and scruffy boots, along with a cowboy hat that shaded his face. He was dusty and sweaty ... and cute. Very definitely cute. His hair was brown, his eyes the same color and crinkled at the corners. His smile was crooked and so was his nose, and the hands that held the reins were big and powerful.

She had a thing about hands ... and power.

"Sorry about the delay," he went on. "Neighbor's buffalo took down a section of fence, and the dumb animals decided they'd rather eat the grass over here."

She managed what she hoped was a friendly smile. "Well, you know what they say. The grass is always greener on the other side."

"Not that it matters much to the cows." He shifted in the saddle with a creak of leather. "You're not from around here."

"Aw, what gave me away?" The fact that she was lacking that luscious, slow-lazy-day accent of his? Or maybe that she was wearing sandals instead of Justins, a ball cap instead of a Stetson, and linen pants instead of Wranglers?

"Let's start with the fact that I've lived my entire life here and never run into you," he said with a grin. "You wander off the highway and get lost?"

"No. I'm just taking a drive." No doubt, knowing everybody's business was the small-town, country-folk way, but she kept hers to herself. She looked at the cows. "Do you leave them here until they've eaten their fill and wander back to the right side of the fence?"

"No," he drawled, then lifted one hand in a gesture too lazy to be considered a wave.

She turned just as another very cute cowboy on another great big horse came through the trees. He tipped his head in greeting, then began herding the cows over the downed wire and into the pasture, with the help of one of the biggest dogs she'd ever seen. Damn, all the creatures around here were big enough to intimidate her - especially the men.

Understandable, since she hadn't gotten close to one who wasn't wearing a stethoscope around his neck in ... oh, eleven months.

"Don't you need to help?" she asked.

"Nah. The dog does most of the work."

It looked to her as if the cowboy and the dog were sharing the job equally, but she wasn't going to argue. "I guess a dog provides cheap labor on a ranch. He can't ask for a raise, doesn't get drunk and fail to show up for work, can't talk back...."

"Give 'im a little chow, and he's happy," he said with a grin. "Ol' Red there is extra cheap - he belongs to our neighbor, so we don't even have to feed him. He just likes working cattle."

"Red?" she echoed. "He's black as night."

"You noticed." He didn't offer an explanation as the last couple of cows crossed the road. "Well, I guess you can go on your way now."

She glanced ahead and smiled weakly. "I guess I can."

"Enjoy your drive."

"I will." She pulled forward a few feet, then stopped.

"Would you happen to know if there's anyplace around here where I could get a cold beer and a greasy burger for supper tonight?"

(Continues...)

Excerpted from The Trouble With Josh by Marilyn Pappano Copyright © 2003 by Harlequin Enterprises Ltd.
Excerpted by permission. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.