“Please don’t go. You haven’t finished eating.” She took a deep breath. “Besides, I have something to say to Joe, and—” her words caught in her throat. She dragged in a deep breath, and went on. “You guys helped us when it mattered. You can hear this.”
“I—Joe, I’m sorry. I’ve blamed love for a lot of things that…maybe they started out of love and didn’t turn out right for me, but no one ever used love to hurt me.” She stopped, fishing for words. “I hugged Eric before I came,” she said.
Joe’s friends looked confused, but Joe’s eyes misted.
“He said if something starts in love it doesn’t always end the way you want it to, but love is the best place to start.”
Joe’s friends were sliding out of the booth awkwardly, smiling at her and disappearing. Other guests and a waitress were clearly listening, but for once, she didn’t care.
“If it’s really love, Joe, I’d like to start forever. With you.”
Epilogue
Jody leaned against the fence as Joe maneuvered his truck through the gate with its newly painted sign: Sixty-Three Second Chance Rescue. Joe still teased her about the length of the name, but she refused to waver. Cowboy came back to the fence and slung his head over the top rail and her shoulder, and she laughed.
“Nosy!” she scolded.
Joe slid out but saw her and came her way immediately, leaving their new assistant, Sabrina, to unload the occupant of the trailer.
He wrapped her in a hug and had to turn away from Cowboy’s insistent efforts to separate them with nose pokes..
From the paddock next to Cowboy’s, the big gray gelding stopped grazing and came to the rail to gawk, too.
“Do we have an audience everywhere?” Joe groused, and Jody laughed.
“That’s what you get for giving up too soon—he’s a big baby now and he’s jealous of everyone.”
Joe nodded. “Rub it in. I don’t mind. I didn’t see any way to save him.” He kissed her. “I’m glad I was wrong.”
“Love and time,” she said succinctly. “
“Our first official rescue,” Joe announced, as Sabrina led the chestnut mare toward the barn. “The other sixty-three we just own.”
“Eric’s okay with it now,” Jody noted. “Joe, whose side has twins—yours, or the twins’ father?”
Joe grinned. “Did I mention Derek and Angela are twins?”
“No.” They ambled toward the barn, arms linked. Jody glanced around and spotted Eric, driving his backhoe along in one of the pastures. “Let’s take him out to dinner, Joe. We probably should tell him he’s going to be a grandad.”
Joe stopped and looked down at her, surprised. “Will he be? Not just Eric?”
“Of course not.” Sadness touched her voice briefly. “He’s the only family on my side our kids will ever know.” She smiled as she remembered something. “I sort of slipped this morning and called him ‘dad.’ I think we both were shocked for a minute.”
Joe hugged her. “How did it feel?”
Jody thought about it. “Awkward,” she answered. “But not wrong.”
They walked into the shadowed barn, greeting some of the horses as they as they went.
“So,” Jody repeated, outside the mare’s box. “Sixty-four rescues.”
“No.” Joe shook his head slowly. “Sixty-five.”
“Sixty-three and this one—” She indicated the newcomer.
“Sixty-four and me,” he said softly. He smoothed a hand over Jody’s cheek. “When I told you I didn’t know who I was—I didn’t. You rescued me, too, Jody. All I thought I had left was resentment over being betrayed, over losing a career—you give me everything.”
Words failed her again, as they still often did. It didn’t matter. She wrapped her arms around him and let her heart speak.
The End
Acknowledgements
My sincere thanks to all those who rescue unwanted or abused animals, and post their struggles and stories online. Animal Angels, Inc. reports on and tries to ease the excessive abuse of farm animals sent to slaughter and reports extensively on the cruel end that horses meet when sent to Mexico to the slaughterhouses there. Brighter Days Horse Refuge located in the Texas Hill Country (Pipe Creek) has been saving horses for thirty years. Please support rescue groups when you can—all give far more than they get, and the number and variety of animals helped is amazing.
As always, my beta reader, editor, and conscience is my sister, Victoria M. Potter, who finds time for me always. Thanks, Vicky.
To D’Ann Lindun, whose writing truly captures the men and women of the west, thanks for inviting me along on this ride.
To Melissa Keir, the detail guru and dynamo who never stops—thank you.
And as before, I appreciate my fellow collaborators Allison Merritt, Autumn Piper, and Sara Walter Elwood more than I can say. To have a group that works together so well must be celebrated. Thank you all.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Leslie P. García grew up lost among a crowd of six siblings and a menagerie that included more than twenty horses and ponies, uncounted dogs and cats, possums, raccoons—even a lion and monkeys. Then she moved to Texas, fell in love, was disowned—and embarked on her real adventures, raising 4 children, teaching hundreds, and loving 9 grandkids through forty years of marriage. The fabric of that colorful life has always been writing. In A Love Beyond, Leslie celebrates two of her passions—unusual love stories and the ever present chance at redemption in spite of past mistakes. Leslie loves hearing from readers and can be found all over cyber space, including these places:
Facebook: www.facebook.com/LeslieP.Garcia
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/LesliePGarcia
Website: Return to Rio
Pinterest: Leslie P. Garcia
Amazon Author’s Page: https://authorcentral.amazon.com/gp/books
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