“I don’t even like hearing that. You know you aren’t a mistake. No one is a mistake. I don’t want to hear you talking about yourself like that. It makes me mad.”
Flo pulled further away from him, her temper gaining control. She pulled in a deep breath, trying to get herself under control. “So you’re saying you don’t want to marry me? I’m not good enough for you now? You decided you don’t want Marian and you don’t want me, either?”
The look on Johnny’s face turned from anger to confusion.
“Flo, what in Heaven’s name are you talking about? I didn’t say that.”
Flo pushed herself from the swing and looked down her nose at him. “I can see I’ve been fooled good.”
He sat forward, a fearful look on his face. “No. You’re wrong. I didn’t… I wasn’t…”
“What? Pretending? You said you were. That’s how it all started. You wanted to make Marian jealous.”
He stood up, holding his hands in the air. “Wait. Flo. I don’t know what’s happening here. I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. I just…”
“You just what? From the beginning, you’ve had no problem pretending you were my beau. You knew it would make Marian jealous. She’d been doing that to you for so long. Well, you got your revenge and now you can just go to her and tell her you’ve changed your mind. Here!” She yanked the ring from her finger, her heart breaking the moment she did it. She tossed it at him, regretting it immediately. He snatched it out of the air, his face devastated.
“I didn’t mean to…”
“I know, Johnny!” Flo exclaimed. “I know!” She ran inside the house, leaving him to call after her. She didn’t want to even see his face. Not for the rest of the night. Maybe if she slept on it, she would feel better in the morning. But either way, she would pack whatever she had at the Mason ranch and head back to her quarters at the Fitzpatrick mansion. Thinking about that brought Mrs. Fitzpatrick to her mind. She could hear the woman’s words in her ears.
You tell him. I know he will say he loves you back. And if he doesn’t right away, he will come to his senses and realize how he feels. I can see it in his eyes. Even my Fitzy can tell and he doesn’t know anything about emotions.
Chapter 33
Johnny stared in shock as the woman he loved ran inside. He looked down at the ring in his hands and then back up at the now closed door, his jaw slack.
He stumbled back toward the swing and then fell back on it, heavily. He leaned forward, holding the ring in one hand, the other wrapped around it as if to keep it safe. He lowered his forehead to his hands, propping his arms up with his elbows on his knees.
He didn’t want it to happen. But when the tears clogged his throat and stung his eyes, he couldn’t help letting them out. He wept for the mistakes he’d made and the decisions that had led him to this point where Flo was so hurt she’d throw the ring knowing how important it was to him. It was his mother’s. If he hadn’t seen the look of regret on her face before she turned away and ran inside, he would have been angry.
But Flo wasn’t angry with him. She was hurt. They were friends. Wasn’t she worried that a relationship would ruin what they had?
He was used to Flo coming out and saying how she felt. Just outright and blunt. That was the way she always was with everything else. It seemed to him that when they were talking, she was making all kinds of excuses to get married.
As long as he’d known her, she’d never shown any indication that she wanted to ever get married. She’d never shown interest in any of the other men in Hot Springs or Austin, when she went there, which was not often.
She’d seemed just as on board with the scheme as he was, even though he knew she didn’t like Marian at all. Maybe she was worried about the land? But he’d already told her he would still help her purchase it. She would probably insist now on paying with her own money and just getting the rest from him. It seemed like what she really wanted to do was pay for it all herself. He was surprised that hadn’t come up.
His tears wrenched through his body. He was confused and angry and hurt. He should have stopped her words with a kiss. He should have grabbed her arm and pulled her back to him, holding her until she gave in to his insistence that he loved her.
But Johnny had never been the forceful type, especially not with women. If he was, he wouldn’t have let Marian do to him what she’d done for the last nearly five years, making him look like such a fool pining for her.
He hesitated to blame Marian for making him look bad, though. If he was smarter, he would have known right away that she didn’t care for him.
His heart was breaking. He didn’t know how to fix the situation.
Johnny stood up, angrily swiping his tears with the back of his hand. He wanted to go in and talk to Flo, but now wasn’t the time. He didn’t know what to say and she wasn’t ready to listen.
He moved across the porch, sliding the ring into his pocket. He went down the steps and headed toward the bunkhouse. He’d put Tiny in there with Alex and Jack until the barn was rebuilt. They wouldn’t get started on that for another week. The lumber was being shipped and it was taking a few weeks to get to them.
He went to the bunkhouse and moved around it to the first window. He looked in. It was pitch dark and he couldn’t see a thing. He let his eyes adjust until he could at least see the outline of the men in their beds and the dog sleeping on the big cushion his father had put there for the large animal.
They all seemed to be sleeping peacefully.
His heart wrenched when he saw Tiny there without his best friend. Kit was such a good dog. He was still so angry about it. But he couldn’t do anything. The men had been taken to jail and as much as he wanted five minutes in a room alone with the bastard that killed his dog, he knew he didn’t have the authority.
Maybe the sheriff would let him have a chance at him if he asked though.
A spark of hope rose up in him, quickly quashed by the thought of Flo, probably inside his ranch in the room his pa had provided for her, crying her pretty eyes out.
He loved her. He should have told her. He should have just told her.
But he didn’t want to force his opinions and feelings on her.
If there was ever a time he wished he had his barn window to retreat to, it was right then. There were other peaceful places to go but none of them gave him the same feeling.
If Flo really wanted to marry him, he could only come to one conclusion. She either wanted to avoid the “break up” news spreading around Hot Springs or she really did love him.
Johnny was sure that she did. They had been friends for too long for there not to be some feelings of love there. But he’d thought it was the friendship kind of love. Not the husband and wife kind of love.
And it probably was, he reasoned with himself. Until he’d brought up this cockamamie scheme to make Marian jealous.
He was angry at himself for the whole thing. Was he even worth a woman like Flo? She was the most generous, the most beautiful, the most respectful, the most honorable…
He could go on and on.
Johnny moved away from the window and headed toward the pasture. The horses were out grazing and the bright moonlight allowed him to see them well. He walked to the double post fence and leaned on the top rail with both arms, gazing out at them.
His tears had stopped but his heart was heavy and his chest was tight.
Could he even bring himself to bow out of this now? Maybe they should just forge ahead and do it. Like she said, they were friends. They were good friends. Maybe she would fall in love with him eventually.
Or did she now?
Flo was a confusing woman, it seemed. He thought he knew her so well. But he was beginning to think there were some things about her, or maybe about all women, that he just didn’t and would never understand.
The night was so cool. He knew it had to be nearing midnight. The moon was just above his head, shining brightly, causing black shadows all around him.
; If it had been a week ago, he would have been wary of his surroundings. He would have been carrying his gun. But now he was comfortable, dressed in soft cotton trousers and a casual shirt. He wasn’t wearing his hat. It was too late at night for that. He didn’t care if anyone saw him without his hat. And he didn’t need protection from the rays of the moon.
He looked up to see how big the moon was. It seemed close, so bright and round. He could see dark spots in the white, which he assumed had to be mountains or bodies of water. He really had no idea what it was like on the moon.
Looking up that way reminded him of a conversation he’d had one night when he and Flo were star-gazing. They’d both “snuck out”, even though they were both adults and could make their own decisions, and met in the field between the Mason ranch and the neighboring one. They laid in the grass for hours gazing up at the sky.
Johnny remembered the blanket he’d laid out for them beforehand had been one of his mother’s favorites. She made it by hand and in two small places, barely visible, she’d embroidered his name and his father’s name.
They’d named the constellations they knew of and talked almost till the sun came up. He remembered how they’d scrambled to get back before anyone noticed the two of them were gone.
“We’ll start such a scandal!” Flo had laughed, giving him a hug before running off toward the Fitzpatricks’ house. That had happened nearly four years ago. The only reason it would have caused a scandal is because at the time Johnny was spending more time with Marian than anyone else in Austin or Hot Springs.
They’d thought it was funny. She didn’t know at the time that Marian was pulling his leg, stringing him along like a puppy on a leash. Neither of them realized they were supposed to be together.
The thought struck him like a lightning bolt.
They were supposed to be together.
Could it really be true? Was she in love with him?
He pulled away from the fence, feeling like he was more of a fool than he’d thought. He’d been so convinced that Marian was the woman he wanted that he hadn’t seen what was happening with Flo.
His idea to make Marian jealous had opened up Flo’s feelings for him the same way it had brought out his feelings for her.
He spun around and stared at the house. Her room was in the back on that side. Her window was on the back of the house and he couldn’t see it from where he was.
Johnny stood there for another minute, trying to figure out what he was going to do. He was sure now. Flo was as in love with him as he was with her. They would marry. They would have a family. They would be happy together as best friends and as husband and wife. For the rest of their lives.
He was going to make sure it happened. He found his feet and started moving across the lawn, passing the bunkhouse and the chow house. His heart was in his throat, his stomach churning nervously. But he had to do it now. He had to do it before he lost his nerve.
As he came around to the back of the house, he could see her lantern was on in her room. She was probably awake.
Johnny was going to tell her he loved her.
Right now.
Tonight.
He would ask her to be his bride. For real this time.
Chapter 34
Flo was startled when something hit her window. Her eyes snapped up and she stared at it. She shot to her feet when something else hit her window. Someone was throwing pebbles.
She moved to the window slowly and cautiously. When she peeked over the edge from far back, she hurried to the window and jerked it up, seeing Johnny standing out there.
“Florence Radcliffe!” he was yelling. She didn’t hear it until she lifted the window. She grasped the sill and leaned out, enjoying the feel of the cool breeze on her face. It lifted her blond hair.
“What in heaven’s name are you doing, Johnny?” she asked, her voice exposing her amusement. She had been feeling so awful.
The first thing she did was throw herself on the bed and cry. Her finger felt cold without the ring on it. She already had an indention because it was just maybe one size too small. She hadn’t cared that her finger might go numb. It could have fallen off. She didn’t want to take his mother’s ring off.
She hadn’t meant to throw it at him the way she did. She knew how precious it was to him.
Flo stared down at him, her heart slamming in her chest. He was like a different man standing down there, bathed in the white moonlight that brought out his handsome features rather than casting dark shadows on his face.
“Flo! We’ve been friends for a long, long time. And I’m not ready to let that go. I don’t want to call it off. Please don’t say you do.”
Flo chewed on her lips, so nervous she could barely breathe. Was he professing his love for her? Did he really want to marry her?
“I don’t want to.” She made herself say the words. She had to be brave. She was brave about everything else.
It felt like her relationship with Johnny, her friendship with him, was so important that she was risking everything. If they started a real courtship and she allowed herself to fall deeply in love with him and his feelings changed, she thought she might just die on the spot of a broken heart.
But she had to take the chance.
She had to.
“Neither do I!” He sounded so delighted that she had to laugh.
“You are a crazy man. What are you trying to say to me right now?”
A light popped on from the bunkhouse. Both of them noticed and turned their eyes toward it.
“I think you’re causing a scene, Mr. Mason,” Flo called out. “Maybe we should talk about this on the porch.”
“Are you willing to come back down and give me the chance to do this the proper way?”
Flo’s heart was singing.
“Oh, I suppose I am.”
The door to the bunkhouse banged open and both Alex and Jack came stumbling out, both looking worn-out. Jack had one suspender strap hanging off his shoulder and was hoisting his pants up with one hand.
They both had confused looks on their faces and their guns in their hands as they came around the building, heading toward Johnny. Tiny ran faster, meeting his master and jumping up for a pat on the head. His tongue was hanging out and he bounced on his paws.
Jack and Alex stopped in place.
Flo could tell they were realizing there was no danger. They could tell because of the way Tiny was acting. If there was danger, he wouldn’t have been trying to play with Johnny.
“Everything good here, boss?” Jack asked.
“Everything is perfect, Jack!” Johnny responded, happily. “I’m gonna get married!”
Jack and Alex both stared at him with blank expressions.
“Yeah…” Jack said. “We already knew that.”
“Yeah, tell us something we didn’t know.” Alex moved his eyes from Johnny to Flo, who was still hanging out her window with an amused look on his face.
Johnny just laughed. He played with the dog while he said, “I’m fine, boys. Go on back to bed. There’s no danger looming now. Everything is great! Perfect!”
“I’ll see you downstairs!” Flo called out.
Johnny grinned up at her, nodding, flopping Tiny’s large head back and forth. She pulled away from the window, reached up and pulled it closed.
True Love Leaves no Doubts: An Inspirational Historical Romance Book Page 20
