Mountain Homecoming (2 page)

Josie took the plate and clasped it in her hands like she held a priceless treasure. For the first time Rani caught a glimpse of fear in Josie's eyes, and the truth struck her. Josie didn't want to leave Cades Cove, but she had no choice.

“I will,” Josie whispered. “I wanted this to be the last thing I packed. After all, you're my best friend.”

Rani burst into tears and threw her arms around Josie. “We're more than best friends. I think of you as the sister I never had.”

“Me too.” Josie pulled back and wiped at the corner of her eyes. “But you know we could really be sisters.”

Josie's words shattered the mood of moments ago and swept all the sadness from Rani's mind. She took a step backward and wagged her finger in Josie's direction. “Oh no. Don't start that again.”

“Why not? George is crazy about you. All he talks about is how he wants to marry you, and you won't give him any encouragement. If you married him, we'd be family. Sisters-in-law.”

Rani couldn't believe they were having this conversation again. “I've told you at least a hundred times that George is a good friend, but I don't love him. Even if I did, I don't think I'd marry him.”

A skeptical expression crossed Josie's face. “What's the matter? Isn't he good looking enough for you?”

Rani's mouth gaped open at the ridiculous suggestion. “Oh, Josie, you know I would never think that. The truth is George is the youngest child in his family, and he's spoiled rotten. If he doesn't get his way, he sulks for days. I wouldn't want a husband that I have to coddle and give in to all the time.”

Josie dropped her gaze to the cake plate she held and wrapped a burlap sack around it before she tucked it in the side of one of the baskets. “I have to admit you're right. As a matter of fact, Ted told me George had an awful argument with his pa the other night. It seems he's upset because he's going to be left behind in the Cove after we leave.”

Rani held up her hands in exasperation. “You see what I mean. George can only see what he wants. He doesn't realize what a great opportunity he has to work with his father on one of the best farms in the Cove.”

“But, Rani, you know he's in love with you. That ought to be enough to make him a good husband.”

“Maybe it would be for somebody else, but not for me. I'm just eighteen years old. I have plenty of time to think about getting married. When I do, it's going to be because I love a man so much my heart aches when I'm away from him.”

Josie turned to Rani and propped her hands on her hips. “Yeah, you've always had those romantic ideas. I think it must come from all those stories about how hard it was for your pa to get your mother to marry him.” She leaned closer to Rani. “Well, for those of us who don't have a great love like that happen in our lives, we have to settle for the next best thing. It's not like there's a lot of men to choose from in the Cove. Being married to George is better than ending up an old maid.”

Rani flinched at Josie's words. She remembered how Josie had cried four years ago when Charlie Simmons left the Cove, bound for California. At the time she'd thought it was because he was Ted's friend. Now she wasn't so sure. “Is that what you did, Josie? You settled for the next best thing?”

Josie's face drained of color, and she put her hand to her throat. “Rani, I didn't mean…”

“What's goin' on in here?”

At the sound of her husband's voice at the back door Josie's body stiffened, and she glanced over her shoulder. Rani's heart lurched at the lack of expression on Josie's face. She might very well have been looking at a stranger who'd come to her door instead of her husband. “I need to check on the baby,” she said, and hurried from the kitchen.

Ted Ferguson frowned and gazed after his wife as she hurried into the next room. His eyes darkened, and the look in his eyes told Rani he longed for something he would never have from Josie. After a moment he took a deep breath and smiled at her. “You two havin' another one of your friendly arguments?”

Rani forced a laugh from her throat and wiped her eyes. “No argument. We're just a little emotional over the two of you leaving the Cove. It seems all my friends are taking off for different places. My family may be the only one left before long.”

Ted shook his head. “Naw, you won't be. They'll have to drag my pa out of the Cove to get him to leave. He says he intends to be buried at the church he's gone to all his life.”

“That's what my pa says too.” Rani picked up the empty basket sitting on the table. “I left you some fried chicken and a fresh loaf of bread that Mama sent. She thought you might get hungry on your way to Townsend tomorrow.”

“She always thinks about other folks. Tell her I'm mighty obliged, and I hope I see her soon.”

“I will.”

Ted followed Rani into the next room where Josie was holding her son. No one spoke for a moment, then Josie swallowed and handed the baby to Ted. “Take care of Jimmy a minute while I walk Rani out.”

As Rani stepped onto the front porch, she glanced down at her dog lying next to the door. She snapped her fingers, and he jumped to his feet. He shook his shaggy body, wagged his tail, and awaited her command. It was so easy to communicate with animals. Give them love, feed them well, and reward them for good behavior, and they'd do anything you asked. Too bad people weren't like that.

Josie had a husband who did all that for her, but today Rani had discovered the secret Josie had kept so well hidden—she would never be able to return Ted's love. Rani didn't want to end up like that.

With a sigh, she reached down and stroked her dog's head. “Good boy, Scout. You did what I said. Now let's go home.”

With Scout at her heels, she and Josie walked to the road that ran in front of the cabin. As they neared the edge of the yard, Rani turned to Josie. “I'm going to miss you.”

“I'm going to miss you too. We're leaving early in the morning. So I guess I won't see you again. I hope you will come visit me in Townsend. We'll make room.”

Rani nodded. “We'll see. You take care of yourself. And Ted and little Jimmy too.”

Josie smiled, but Rani could see the tears she was fighting to control. “Goodbye, Rani.”

Rani started to speak, but the words froze in her throat. She pressed her lips together and hugged her friend before she turned and started the long walk home. Scout trotted along beside her, and she didn't look back. She wanted to, but she didn't think she could stand the sight of Josie watching her walk away.

She glanced down at the dog and smiled. “Well, Scout, it's a two-mile walk home. Do you think you can make it?”

The dog stared up at her and yelped a reply without breaking his stride.

“I think I can too.”

She didn't mind walking. It had always been her way of getting around the Cove, and it gave her time to think. Today she had a lot to mull over. Her discovery about Josie's feelings that she had settled for the next best thing still bothered her. She'd never imagined that Josie might have been in love with someone else.

Now that she thought back to four years ago, she remembered Josie seeming happy all summer. At the time, all she would say was that she'd had her first kiss and was in love. Rani thought it had to be Ted because he had been in love with Josie for years. But it must have been Charlie Simmons, and things hadn't worked out. And soon after Charlie's departure from the Cove, Josie had agreed to marry Ted after putting him off for so long.

Today she had learned the truth. Josie had settled for something—some
one
—she didn't want. How could she have done that? She must have thought she was doing the right thing, but she'd been wrong. And she was wrong about something else. Being an old maid wasn't the worst thing that could happen to a woman. To Rani's way of thinking, being married to someone you didn't love was far worse.

She squared her shoulders, clenched her fists at her side, and looked down at Scout. “I promise you, Scout, I will never settle for second best, even if it means I never get married.”

From the moment he rode into Cades Cove a peace like he hadn't experienced in years came over Matthew Jackson. He pulled his horse to a stop and breathed in the sweet scent of mountain laurel drifting on the air. It smelled like home. He was back where his heart had remained.

Had it really been twenty years since he left the Cove? He closed his eyes and tried to recall every memory of the days following the death of his drunkard father. Even now the thought of the life he, his mother, and his little brother had endured made the old anger he'd tried to bury resurface. With his father drunk most of the time, survival had been hard. But his mother had seen to it that there was always food on the table. Then their lives had taken a turn for the worse when a tavern brawl had ended with his father lying dead of a gunshot wound.

Matthew had been almost ten years old at the time, but overnight he became the man of the family. He'd turned to a newcomer in the Cove, Anna Prentiss. Of course she was Anna Martin now. But to him she'd always be the angel who'd found a place for his family to live and had seen they were taken care of.

He even remembered the last words he'd spoken to her the day they left the Cove. She stood beside the wagon loaded with his family's few belongings, and he'd said, “I'll be back here someday.” And now, thanks to the money he'd saved working for the Little River Company, he had returned with the deed to his old homestead in his pocket.

But would the people of the Cove welcome the return of Luke Jackson's son? His father had been a troublemaker and a bully, not to mention an abuser of his wife and children. The sturdy mountain folks didn't have time for a man who didn't take care of his family. As his mother used to say, people have long memories, and he was sure they could recall every one of his father's misdeeds. Now he was about to see if those memories had labeled him a ne'er-do-well like his father.

He could count on one hand the folks who would welcome him back. Simon and Anna Martin. Granny Lawson. They were the ones who made his childhood bearable, and he could hardly wait to see them. But first things first. He had to go to the place where he was born and fulfill a promise he'd made to his dying mother fifteen years ago.

He'd leaned close to her frail, fever-ridden body to catch her last words spoken in that familiar mountain twang: “When you git back to the Cove, see if'n my mountain laurel bush is still there, the one yore pa planted for me when we was first married.”

After all the heartache his father had put her through, she still held to the memory of the early days of her marriage when she'd been so happy. Even now the thought of how her eyes had sparkled for a moment, reliving a happier time, made him feel as if a hammer had crushed his heart. His mother and little Eli, his brother. Gone too soon.

He cleared his throat and swiped at his eyes. No need to think about those things now. This was homecoming day, but it was different from what he'd dreamed about when he was a boy. He'd come back alone.

Straightening in the saddle, he spurred the horse forward and concentrated on the road twisting through the valley he loved. All around him were the sights and sounds he'd longed for, but he focused on getting home and seeing the place he'd left twenty years ago.

When he pulled the horse to a halt at what had once been the cabin where he'd lived, his heart dropped to the pit of his stomach. It was worse than he'd expected. The skeleton of a cabin sat near the tulip poplar tree he'd climbed as a boy—bigger now than he remembered. The house's roof had long ago succumbed to the forces of nature and had caved in. A few timbers marked the spot where it had once been. Weeds grew across what had once been a yard.

Even in its best days the cabin hadn't been much, but it could have been if his father had concentrated on making a life for his family instead of spending his time in a drunken stupor. The old hatred welled up in his heart, and he whispered the plea he'd prayed every day since he could remember. “God, don't let me be like him. Make me a better man.”

The promise he'd made his mother flashed into his mind, and he climbed down from the horse and tied the reins to a sapling. Taking a deep breath to slow his racing heart, he headed around the side of the house. Had the mountain laurel plant survived the years?