All night, Jo stirred in her bed and repeated their conversation. Images from their intimate relations circled her mind, and the shame enveloped her. Her crazy mind even considered going to Jack and picking a fight so he might take her over his knee and ignite his passion. But Jo wanted more than a few passionate encounters. She was flesh and blood and heart and soul. And she wanted all those things from Jack.
The advice she'd spoken to Ruby came back to her in the early morning hours: if a man didn't want you, you were better off without him.
But as her mind wandered through all the things that had happened between them since she arrived, her desire to be with Jack filled every cell in her body. She shook her head, as if this would jumble her feelings until they were so mixed up she couldn’t grasp them any more. But it didn’t work. She groaned in her pillow, frustration riddling her mind.
How could one man stir such desire and misery at the same time?
The sound of hooves galloping on the road woke Jo from her restless sleep. It was almost dawn when she'd drifted off. Through her open window, Jo saw Jack pull Snow to a halt, and in one fluid movement, swung his leg over the saddle and dismounted.
"Ruby!" he called into the house.
Jo tied her robe around her waist and ran onto the porch, Ruby close behind. "I just came from Will's. There’s a bad storm. We have to board up the windows and get the animals in the barn."
"What can I do?" Jo asked.
"Pack a basket of food and other provisions." Jack shoved past her into the house.
Jo's mood soured, but her determination rose. "Tommy can do that. Stop being bullheaded and tell me what needs to be done.”
His jaw tensed, but he said, "Pull the wood planks out from the barn. Put them on the wheelbarrow and bring them here. Can you handle that?"
"Of course."
Jo found the slats of wood in an empty stall and piled them onto the wagon. After a half dozen trips back and forth, they were all piled under each window, ready to be nailed down. In the barn, she found two ladders and rested them against the house.
"What are you doing?" Jack asked when he saw her scaling one of the ladders, a board in her hand.
"Securing the house," she said, but when her foot stepped up to the next rung, her shoe caught on her skirt and she slipped.
"Let me do it."
"No." She put the board down and hurried into Jack's room, shuffling through his drawers. She snatched a pair of his trousers and one of his work shirts and quickly changed.
Jack's mouth went slack when he saw her in his clothes.
"What?" she said. "Haven't you ever seen a woman in pants before?"
She dropped nails in one pocket, hooked a hammer on her makeshift rope belt, and climbed the ladder again. Jack took the other ladder and worked on boarding up the windows on the other side of the house, not speaking another word until they were done.
Jo's arms ached and her back screamed in pain, but the adrenaline pushed her forward. The wind was blowing a gale, kicking up buckets and whipping straw around their heads.
"Hurry! We have to get inside." Jack ushered Tommy and a barking Denver into the barn. Ruby ran after them with a pig under each arm.
"The lambs!" Jo yelled. They were still in the pasture.
"Leave them!" Jack heaved the doors shut, leaving a foot open for Jo to enter.
"No! They'll die!" The swollen clouds burst open, and large thick drops soaked Jo in less than a minute. A gust of wind blew, and a crack vibrated the ground. The ladder that led up to the hayloft fell within a foot of where she stood.
"Get inside. Now, Jo!" Jack’s face was red from yelling.
"No!" She ran to the pasture, but Jack was quick and snatched her. Holding her with her arms pinned against her side, he carried her, kicking, back to the barn.
"Let me go!"
He threw her on a pile of hay and rolled the doors shut with a bang, locking them.
"Don't you care about anything?" she screamed, wiping her slick hair from her face.
Thunder cracked the sky and Tommy flew into her arms, and she held him fiercely to her, retreating further into the barn.
Hours passed and the storm was unrelenting. Jo huddled in the corner stall where the calf had been birthed as the storm continued to rage outside. The walls shook, and Jo feared the roof might tear off. Tommy nestled next to her. Even Ruby snuggled in, and Jo wrapped her arms around them both. Jack sat by himself on the other side of the barn.
"How long will it last?" Jo asked.
"The worst of it is usually over quickly, but it can rain for days," Ruby said.
Something slammed into the side of the barn and they jumped. "Can we sing a song?" Tommy asked, his hands covering his ears. "I'm scared."
Jo glanced at Jack.
"Yes," he said. "You can sing, Tommy."
Jo picked two upbeat songs: “Buffalo Gals” and “Oh, Susannah.” Tommy and Ruby knew them both, and Jo nearly fell over when Jack joined in at the last chorus of “Buffalo Gals.”
They played a game of jacks that Tommy had stuffed in his pocket, and Ruby braided Jo's hair to pass the time.
"Are you leaving us?" Tommy asked. "I saw you packed your trunk."
Jo glanced at Jack, but he didn't say anything. In her fury the night before, she’d shoved all her clothes in her trunk. But she had no real intention of leaving.
"Not right now. But if I have to leave, you have your family. And Lucy and Will are close by."
"But it's not the same. It's not a mother."
A lump filled Jo's throat and it stung. She had to fight back the tears. This little boy broke her heart.
"You knew this was probably temporary," she said over the pain.
"I prayed so hard. Isn't God meant to answer our prayers?" he asked.
Jo smiled, tears polling in her eyes. "Sometimes he answers them in other ways."
Tommy squished his small features into a questioning look. "What do you mean?"
"I mean, sometimes there's a reason prayers aren't answered."
"Stop asking so many questions, Tommy," Ruby said. Then she rested her head on Jo's shoulder. "Can you show me how you did my hair that time? James may not like it, but I did. It felt nice having it styled so elegantly. And maybe we could pull out some of Momma's old dresses and mend them. Then I could wear them. Would that be okay, Daddy?"
He was watching the picture of the three of them together; his two kids and Jo. "It'd be cheaper than making new ones, I reckon."
Ruby and Jo exchanged a small look of triumph.
The storm raged on and Tommy fell asleep. By the early afternoon, the animals finally calmed and settled. But it was a false comfort. As evening approached, the wind picked up and howled like wolves in a battle to the death. Tommy awoke and shook in Jo’s arms.
“Papa!” Tommy yelped as a tile ripped from the roof. In an instant, Jack was next to them. He pulled Tommy into his arms. Jo looked at him and asked a silent question, Should we be scared? In response, he gripped her hand.
The animals rustled in their stalls and Ruby went to calm the horses. Rain pelted in from the hole in the roof and they moved to the center of the barn to avoid getting soaked. Something large slammed into the side of the barn, followed by smaller slaps against the wood siding.
“The posts from the fence,” Jack explained. “The storm is ripping it out of the ground.”
Tommy covered his ears. Another tile tore off the roof and Jo tucked into Jack, pure terror taking over. Ruby stayed with the horses as they shifted in their stalls, unsettled.
“Will it ever end?” Jo asked, trying to keep the fear out of her voice for Tommy’s sake, but it shook.
“I’ve got you,” Jack said.
Jo bit her lip and squeezed Jack’s hand tighter.
Half an hour later, the wind died down and the rain let up. When Jack deemed it safe to exit the barn, Jo stepped into the steamy heat and was overcome by the wreckage.
"Oh, Jack," she exclaimed.
The fences were torn to shreds, pieces of them all over the property. Dozens of tiles were ripped from the roof of the house and the barn, blown off by the winds. Ruby's garden was gone. Trees were uprooted all over the property. Boards were torn from the windows, panes broken. And debris covered every inch she could see.
Jack took Snow, whom he’d saddled up earlier, from the barn and climbed on. "I'm going to ride out to the fields."
"Could we really lose the crops?" Jo asked.
"It's happened before. When the winds are that strong, they can tear the fields apart."
Shortly after Jack left, Will galloped down their drive. He stopped in front of Jo, who was cleaning up the debris and putting it into piles to dispose of or reuse if it was salvageable.
"Your farm was hit the worst it looks like,” Will said surveying the damage. “Where's Jack?"
"Checking the fields."
Will gave Jo, in her trousers and work shirt, a curious glance before steering the horse toward the fields.
It had already been an exhausting day, and the sun was nearly down, but the roof had gaps where the tiles had torn off, and if it rained again, it would soak them. Inside the house, Jo was pleased to see there was little damage. Some leaves and debris had blown in and a few items were wet and out of place, but no major damage.
Dragging the ladder back out from the barn, Jo got to work nailing boards over the holes in the roof. Ruby came out in a pair of her father's trousers and climbed up to assist. They worked alongside each other until all the gaps had been patched. There'd be a more extensive repair, but that would have to wait.
In the distance, Jack rode toward them. Snow moved at a sober pace, and Jack’s shoulders were slumped in defeat. Jo ran to the horse and held its reins, craning her neck up at him.
"How are the fields?"
"The corn is fine, but the cotton is ruined." He slid off the saddle.
"Oh, Daddy!" Ruby ran to him and he wrapped her in his arms. She appeared young and vulnerable, punctuating what this meant for their family. "Do we have time to replant?"
"It's late in the season. But we'll try. If not . . ." His voice trailed off with no answer.
"I'm so sorry, Jack." Jo placed her hand on his arm, but he took the reins and walked to the barn with Ruby.
Long after dark, when Tommy was in bed and Ruby sat in the kitchen eating a late snack, Jo stood in the doorway of her room, staring at her packed trunk in the corner.
"Are you leaving, like Tommy said?" Ruby asked, wiping her mouth and scooting her chair back.
"I was angry last night,” Jo said in response to most of her belongings being packed away. “But I won’t leave. Not with all this work. Why? Do you want me to go?"
Ruby shrugged and placed her dish on the counter. Then she walked into Jo's room and sat on the bed.
"I don't know what to think about James anymore." Ruby ran her hand over the knitted throw on Jo's bed, which Jo had pulled out from the hutch when she decorated the home with Jenny's beloved treasures.
“Do you love him?” Jo asked.
Ruby shrugged. “We’ve known each other forever. And we respect each other. Lucy says that’s all you need for a good marriage.”
"Is Lucy happy?" Jo asked.
"I think she's sad." Ruby looked out into the dark night. "I know I was resistant when you first arrived, but you've brought sunshine back into this house, even if Daddy doesn't want to see it."
"I don't know what good that will do after today."
"We'll survive this. We've been through worse," Ruby said.
"You sound so confident," Jo said. And it dawned on Jo that Ruby was right. After Jenny died, it would have fallen on Ruby’s shoulders to help raise the infant and run the house. She was a survivor.
"I sound like you." Ruby smiled. "I only wish Daddy was happy."
"He feels guilty," Jo said.
"Why?"
"To him, being happy means dishonoring your mother's life," Jo said. "He's wrong, but I can't change his mind. And I can't stay here forever. I wouldn't be happy."
"What do you want?" Ruby asked the question that Jo didn’t know the answer to, but she tried.
"My parents loved each other dearly. Mother would sit so close to Father, she'd almost be in his lap. She made him laugh, and he adored her. I want the same. But that kind of love is rare. Maybe I should set my expectations lower."
"Most couples I know are companionable, but I don't see the love they write poems about," Ruby said. "Momma and Daddy had it. And it sounds like your parents found something magical. But most of us aren't as lucky. And maybe that's okay."
"Maybe," Jo said without conviction.
If she believed Jack could open his heart to her, Jo would stay and commit every day to the cause. But Jack wasn’t ready to trust in that kind of love again. And Jo wouldn’t give up her happiness for a dead-end love.