Page 11 of Love Me Again

Boone’s scowl sent said fat lip to aching.

“I like her,” Molly said, moving into the kitchen where Grandma was making Christmas cookies.

“Great,” Boone muttered.

Molly sniped a cookie before Grandma noticed, then turned to fix him with dark eyes so like their mother’s. “You know what I think?”

“Didn’t ask. Don’t care.” Boone tried to grab his own cookie, but of course, that was when Grandma looked their way.

And slapped his hand.

Molly smirked. Boone might have pointed out that they were adults. In their twenties and, in Molly’s case, thirties, in fact. But Molly spoke before he could chastise her.

“I think you like her too.”

He wasn’t going to deny it. What wasn’t there to like about Josie? “Well, I did marry her.”

Molly sighed and shook her head. “And left her.”

Boone remained silent on that score.

“Just a big sister warning. Mom’s involved now. So you better know what you really want when it comes to Josie. Because I think you know what Mom wants.”

He tried not to wince but couldn’t help it. His mother involved just made everything messy, and Molly was right. That meant he needed to figure out his own plan. But he needed to understand this better. “How am I supposed to figure out what I want if you won’t even tell me where she is?”

“By figuring yourself out, obviously,” Molly replied. “She’s waiting out the storm, so you’ve got a few days.”

Which wasn’t an answer to where Josie was, except, in a way, it was. If she wasn’t in the house, she had to be somewhere warm and comfortable knowing his mother. The only place he could think of that fit the bill was the foreman’s cabin.

Ben had lived there before he’d married Mom, but he’d been shacked up in the main house ever since the wedding and since Shane was the foreman, no one from the bunkhouse had moved up into the cabin.

“Thanks,” he said to Molly, turning out of the kitchen to head out. She muttered something after him, but he ignored it.

His leg ached as he trudged his way outside and through the snow to the outbuilding that housed one of their snow-friendly UTVs. The engine was still warm, which told him Molly had indeed been out and about, and he was on the right track.

He checked the gas gauge then headed across the snowy road toward the foreman’s cabin. He wasn’t sure what he was going to say when he got there. What he was going to…

He just had to understand what had happened with Paul. Then… Then…

He didn’t know.

He drove across the snow and through the cold and to the cabin. Snow swirled. She’d be stuck here for a few days it looked like. God knew her junker truck couldn’t make it on mountain roads in this weather.

What a strange twist of events.

Grimacing, he strode up to the door. His leg was on fire now. The doctor’s had bandied around words like scar tissue and awkward healing. Another surgery was the only answer. It had taken him a while to accept that.

It sucked, but seeing Josie was a bit like a reminder into that old time when he’d been a lot worse off. At least his back and shoulder had mostly healed okay, even if he’d never have the range of motion he’d once enjoyed.

He inhaled as he came to the door. He still didn’t know what he was doing. Hell, he didn’t know what she was doing, but she was here and so was he.

He knocked on the door.

She answered wrapped in one of his grandmother’s quilts. Colorful purple socks peeked out from the end of the blanket—socks Boone happened to know he’d given to Lindsay for her last birthday.

Josie wrapped up in his family already. Something that had nothing to do with his physical injuries ached in his chest.

She scowled at him. “I guess I should have known your family were also liars when they told me you wouldn’t bother me.”