SARA JUMPED TO HER FEET before Jo realized what was happening. “Oh God. Trace and Eric are fighting.”
“What?” Jo immediately spotted the two brothers near the fountain. Judging by the way Eric was rubbing his jaw, Trace had just landed a punch there.
“Holy crap.” She got up from her chair and hurried down the stairs. Word quickly spread, and people seated at tables jumped to their feet. Those standing moved closer to the twosome, making it difficult for Jo to push her way through the crowd, Sara on her heels.
They emerged into the informal space left around the brothers, and Jo had to duck when Eric took a swing at Trace, who veered to the side, so that the punch nearly hit her instead.
She knew better than to try and calm an angry bull. And there were two of them in this particular pen.
“We better move back and let them have this out,” Jo said, herding Sara a safe distance away.
Trace landed a stomach punch and Sara cried out and covered her face with her hands, causing Jo to cringe. She’d seen her share of ranch fights, but guessed this might be Sara’s first.
“You may want to brace yourself,” she said quietly. “These things can get pretty dirty.”
“What?” Sara was incredulous. “Why doesn’t someone stop them?”
Jo gave her a long look. “Sometimes it’s just better to let them get out whatever they’ve kept bottled up. What’s the point in stopping something that’s already started?” She winced when Eric landed a solid upper cut, causing Trace’s hat to fly off. It fell to the ground behind him and he stumbled backward, crushing it under his boot heel. That seemed to make him madder still.
She cleared her throat. “Unfortunately, I think this particular fight has been a long time coming. So there’s no telling how long it will last.”
“But they could get hurt.”
“Nothing that won’t heal.”
Sara gasped. “You can’t be serious.”
Jo shrugged. “Sorry. That’s just the way of things down here.”
Sara covered her face again at the smack of fist against flesh and bone, and then turned toward the house. “I can’t watch this.”
“I’m sure they’ll break it up soon!” Jo called after her.
But she didn’t make a move to follow. Instead, she crossed her arms and watched the two men unload a lifetime of pent-up resentment. The crowd was cheering and groaning at each hit and miss.
Jo herself had been involved in a couple of scuffles in her life. But that was before the military. She wouldn’t dare invite a physical fight with any of the guys now, partly because she could be charged with premeditated murder if anything bad happened, given her training. Plus she’d seen a lot of action on the front lines and no longer felt the desire for combat, physical or otherwise.
Finally, the brothers seemed to be tiring. The crowd was already beginning to thin, people drifting back to their food and drink. Even the band was returning to the stage.
Any minute now, someone would call for a truce and step in between the two men. If that didn’t work, others would hold them away from each other.
Eric charged Trace one last time and caught him around the waist. He pushed him backward, gaining momentum instead of losing it, until the back of Trace’s legs hit the cement lip of the fountain. All it took from there was a simple shove, and Trace went in with a loud splash.
The crowd cheered as Jo watched with a mixture of horror and amusement.
Eric stalked off in the direction of the house. So much for a handshake and a truce, she thought as she hurried toward Trace. “Show’s over, everyone,” she called. “Go back to what you were doing.”
Reluctantly, the crowd dispersed. Jo stopped at the edge of the fountain, looking down at where Trace lay propped up on his elbows in the shallow water, one of the cherubs pissing on his head. Aside from a cut above his right brow, he didn’t look any the worse for wear. And the water seemed to have cooled him off.
“Aw, Jo, did you come over to help me?” he asked. “I’m flattered, but I think my brother’s more in need of help than I am.”
Jo reached for the hand he stretched in her direction…but rather than coming out, he dragged her in with him.
She gasped as the cool water engulfed her, molding the little bit of fabric that was her dress to her body.
Trace dipped his chin into the water and then spat a stream out, mimicking the fountain above him.
“Have you gone and lost your mind, Armstrong?” she demanded. “Or are you looking for another good licking?”
He laughed, throwing his head back.
And she found herself laughing with him as a few women nearby clapped in approval at the display they made.
Trace pulled her to his side, smoothing down the hem of her dress even though the wet fabric revealed everything.
Thankfully, before Jo could figure out how she was going to get out of the fountain without giving the guests a whole lot more to talk about, Sara darted out with a couple of beach towels.
Jo thanked her and got up and wrapped herself in one.
“Jo?”
She looked up to see Sara’s brows knit together in concern. “A call just came for you. It sounded urgent.”
Who would call the main house for her?
“It was your father. Your mother’s taken ill and has been transported to the hospital…”
TWO HOURS LATER, Jo still didn’t know the details of her mother’s condition. Since her father didn’t have a cell phone, he’d left the number of the hospital with Sara. Jo had called.
“Are you coming, Jo?” he’d asked her, not sounding at all like himself.
“I’m coming, Daddy. I’m on my way. How’s she doing? What happened?”
He didn’t answer and she realized he was listening to someone else speak to him. “I’ve got to go. Your mother’s calling for me…”
Then he’d hung up.
And Jo had run for her pickup without saying anything to anybody.
Now she tightly gripped the steering wheel, her eyes bone dry as she stared at the never-ending stretch of road in front of her. She was purposely trying to ignore the small voice in the back of her head that said she’d known this was coming. She hadn’t known when or how, but it was only a matter of time before her mother’s health completely deteriorated. If she were to face up to the truth, she’d admit that Daisy Mae Atchison had been killing herself for a long, long time. And now her body was granting her wish.
“Stop it,” Jo ordered herself. “Just stop it.”
Anything could have happened. Her mother might have fallen in the bathtub. Or hurt herself in the kitchen. Being in the hospital now might not have anything to do with her overall health.
But the tone of her father’s voice when he’d asked if Jo was coming had sent liquid metal down her spine.
No. This was more serious. It had to be. He wouldn’t have contacted her at the ranch house otherwise.
Such were Jo’s thoughts throughout the long race toward Beaumont. Around and around they went, as she tried to make sense of the situation.
Tried to ascertain blame, which she had to admit rested fully on her shoulders.
While her father might also be to blame, she had always been the no-nonsense one. “The speaker of truth,” her father had once said. But when it came to her mother, Jo had been as silent and as much a contributor to her failing health as her father was.
She finally took the exit for Beaumont, and within minutes parked her truck in a handicap-only spot right up front, running for the doors of the emergency room. Over two hours had passed since she’d spoken to her father, but as far as she was concerned, it had felt like five minutes.
“I need to see a patient, Mrs. Daisy Mae Atchison,” she said to the clerk at the window.
The woman looked her over and then went through the sign-in chart in front of her. It was then that Jo realized she hadn’t changed after her unplanned dunk in the fountain with Trace. Her hair must be a matted mess, her makeup had probably run, and while her dress was dry now, it was wrinkled, and the pin that Sara had fastened was missing, leaving the material agape, revealing her bra.
“Mrs. Atchison has been admitted and has been moved to a regular room,” the clerk said. “You’ll have to go to the other entrance for further information.”
Jo squinted at her. “Are you serious? You can’t give me directions from here?”
“Sorry, ma’am, but I cannot. Now, what you’ll want to do is go back out the way—”
But Jo had already stopped listening. She stalked back outside in her wet boots, looked around wildly, and spotted the sign for the main entrance. She scrubbed her face as she walked, hating that her fingers came away with black smears from the mascara Sara had applied. Jo must look like a serial killer clown about now. Which was fitting. Today could have easily been Halloween for her. The dress, the makeup…they were a costume. Not her. Not the Jo she prided herself on being. So it didn’t surprise her that the costume had fallen apart at the first sign of trouble.
She got her mother’s room number, provided proof that she was, indeed, family, and took the elevator up to the third floor. She immediately spotted her father pacing along a hall. He didn’t see her until she was right in front of him.
“Daddy?” She reached for his hands to halt his movements, and forced him to look at her.
He blinked as if not recognizing her. Then he hugged her tightly. “Oh, thank God you came, Jo.”
“Of course I came,” she said, with guilt pressing down on her. There hadn’t been a question of her coming today, but that hadn’t always been the case. The military had provided the perfect excuse for her not to respond when something happened to her mother. A fall. Complaints of shortness of breath.
But now…
“What happened, Daddy? How is she? Can I see her?”
He looked Jo over. “I think you might want to clean up first.”
Now that she was there, she found she did want to do that. To go in to her mother looking a mess was asking for more trouble than Jo cared for just then.
She asked for directions to the visitors’ restroom and moments later stood in front of a long line of mirrors, alone.
“Hell.”
That’s what she looked like. Her hair might have dried straight, as it usually did, but all the products Sara had applied had made it a ratted mess. Jo tried to finger comb it, but when that didn’t work, she wet it again as best she could and tried again, with minimal success.
Then her gaze went to her face.
Long, thick lines of mascara trailed down her cheeks, and the red lipstick was badly smeared. The eye shadow seemed notably untouched, bright blue against the blended color palette on the rest of her face.
Jo squeezed out a handful of industrial soap and began washing off the awful mask, vowing that she’d never wear makeup again. She was aware of how petty the promise was, but as she scrubbed away, her movements growing ever more frenetic, she couldn’t seem to form a coherent thought to save her life.
There was the impersonal atmosphere of the hospital. The disinfectant smell. Doctors being paged over the intercom.
And just a few doors down, her mother was away from her safe home, outside the circle of protection Jo and her father had always provided, and possibly dying.
Jo’s shoulders shook and her forearms dropped against the lip of the sink, as she gave in to the enormous need to cry…