Twelve
The tree covered a whole corner in the living room once the guys had it set up with the Christmas tree skirt around the trunk.
It looked magnificent even before decorations were put on it.
Josie was fascinated by it. Being away from home for several years, this was a totally different experience. The Everetts
were so much fun to be around. Even the cowboys who worked for them were funny and sweet and kindhearted.
And watching JJ enthuse over the decorating of the tree was the most fun of all.
She wondered how many years it had been since he’d had a proper Christmas tree with decorations on it.
Judging by the way his father had been and the very few possessions that JJ had, including not a single pair of boots that didn’t have half the soles off with jeans that looked like they’d come out of a mud pile, they must have been very poor.
But JJ looked a lot older than his years.
He was a sweet kid and considering his recent bereavement he was well adjusted.
He called Heather “Mama Heather,” and he loved being around John.
Well, to give the boy credit he liked rattlesnakes, too.
There was no accounting for taste. In days past, Josie had kept cats for pets.
It was a good thing she didn’t live near John or bring her cats to visit.
Precious would probably have considered them lunch.
Decorating the tree was a family project, despite the assurances that the men in the family would find tasks elsewhere. Everybody
participated. Josie had never seen so many ornaments of so many different kinds. Gold bows and silver bows that reflected
the colored lights draped around the tree. There were ornaments with light and sound featuring cartoon characters and characters
from movies and television shows. Josie’s favorite was an ornament from the movie Moana. It played the title song.
“That was a great movie,” Josie murmured.
“It was,” Heather replied as she noticed Josie’s interest. “Especially the Ocean talking to her at the beginning.”
Josie laughed and her whole face lit up. “It was one of the best movies I ever watched,” she confessed. “I laughed and I cried
all the way through it. The only one I liked as much was Lilo and Stitch, and that was hilarious.”
Heather laughed, too. “Yes, it was. Stitch pretending to be a dog had us in stitches. All three of our kids loved it even though they were adults by then.” She sighed as she hung another ornament.
“I loved it when my kids were little. Then they grew up and one by one they had other interests. Except for John,” she added.
“He loves ranching, He loves little animals. He even enjoys going to cattlemen’s conferences all over the country and going
to various ranches to buy more blood stock. We never thought Tanner would settle down, so we always planned to leave Big Spur
to John. It helps that we have more than one ranch property, so that Tanner and John both have their own, alongside the equipment
company that John owns and manages by himself. But now, John’s grown, too. And here I am with no babies to cuddle.”
She glanced at Josie. She smiled. “You don’t know what a wonderful thing you did for us by bringing JJ here.
He’s the sort of boy any family would be proud of.
I’m truly sorry that he lost his father in such a way.
But I’m so happy that you were there. Otherwise, he might never have come to live with us. ”
“He really is a great kid,” Josie said, smiling. “It broke my heart watching him grieve for his dad. It was a great thing
you and Cole did for him. He’ll be safe and protected and he won’t grow up for a few years.”
“That’s one of the nicest things,” Heather said. “He already loves the ranch, and he follows John everywhere he goes. John
isn’t used to being so admired by young people.”
“Well, he does keep a poisonous snake for a pet,” Josie said under her breath.
Heather burst out laughing. “Oh, shame on you,” she said.
“And what’s this about a poisonous pet?” John asked icily from the doorway.
Josie actually jumped and caught her breath. John gave her a cold smile.
She gathered herself together. “Well, actually,” she said, “I was mentioning that you kept a rattlesnake for a pet.” She gave
him a vacuous smile.
His pale eyes gave her a cold going-over. “If you ever had a pet,” he said, “I’ll bet you ate it.”
Before Heather could fuss, Josie turned to John and just smiled. “Actually,” she said, “I had a pet goat.”
“A pet what?” he inquired.
“A pet goat,” she replied. “One of the government inspectors came by our ranch one day for what he thought was a woman screaming so he called the local sheriff’s office and had them send a deputy out to see about it.
They couldn’t find a screaming woman but when they got to the corral, they found a screaming goat that sounded just like a woman in the throes of terror! ” Everybody laughed.
“That beats our fainting goat story,” Heather laughed.
Josie turned to her, curious. “What about a fainting goat?”
John looked uncomfortable. “Do we really need to talk about that?” he asked his mother.
Josie was very interested. She smiled at Heather. “Do tell,” she said coaxingly.
“Well,” Heather began, “I found a little fainting goat on the side of the road. I didn’t know exactly what it was. So I got
it in the truck—we were in the truck that day—and Cole and I took it to the vet, just to have it checked out. The vet told
us that it was a fainting goat, and we didn’t know what that was. He said we’d find out, and he smiled.
“We didn’t think anything about it. We got home and put the little goat in the corral, where a donkey we had at the time came
close to see about it. The donkey was very sweet and gentle, and it liked other animals. The little goat seemed to like it,
too. Well, we didn’t tell John we’d done it. So John came home from overseeing roundup and walked up to the fence. He jumped
up on the rail, and the noise upset the little goat, who hadn’t expected to see somebody that close or that noisy. And it
fainted. John was scared to death that he killed it. He went rushing into the corral and picked it up. Then he realized what
it was and started laughing. When I came out and found him, we realized that he hadn’t understood what kind of a goat it was
until then. We kept it for years and years. It died of old age about ten years ago.”
“It was a sweet goat,” John agreed, smiling. “Every time I opened the truck door and left the door open, the goat would jump
up into the driver’s seat. It loved to ride.”
“Well, it proves that you at least like some normal pets,” Josie said and smiled sweetly.
Heather pursed her lips and contemplated her son, who began to wear an expression of horror.
“Don’t you dare,” he told his mother, scowling.
“Oh, please,” Josie said, sensing something embarrassing to John.
“We went to a restaurant when John was in his early twenties, and there was this lobster in a tank with its claws taped,”
Heather began.
“Well, the ticket didn’t cost that much,” John argued at once.
“A ticket?” Josie asked. “What kind of ticket?” she added, her eyes meeting John’s.
He glowered at her.
Inspiration hit at once. She gasped. “Don’t tell me!” Josie replied. “You bought the lobster a plane ticket to Maine?”
“Not exactly,” John said. He hesitated. “I bought one of our cowboys a round-trip ticket to Maine. The lobster was a carry-on.”
Heather dissolved in laughter. Josie couldn’t help herself; she did, too. John glared at both of them. “You’d probably watch
the thing boil and eat it in front of the other ones,” he growled at Josie.
“Well, I never saved a lobster,” she admitted. “However, I did once save a snake.” Her face turned red. She hadn’t meant to
say that.
John’s eyebrows went up and he watched her closely. “Okay,” he said, “you have to explain that.”
“I was in . . .” She hesitated because she couldn’t say Washington, DC.
“I was in an eastern state, and there was a guy mowing the lawn. I noticed a black-and-white snake right in the path of the lawn mower and I ran like crazy and picked it up in the nick of time to save it from being sliced and diced. And I’m terrified of snakes,” she added.
“But it didn’t seem to mind being picked up suddenly and it didn’t even try to bite me.
I put it out next to the building where it would be safe.
King snakes are very beneficial, and they eat poisonous snakes,” she murmured.
“The more I thought about it, I decided that I was crazy.”
John actually smiled. “We never kill king snakes. They pay for their keep.”
“Indeed, they do,” she said, and she smiled back. For a space of seconds neither one of them looked away. The look grew intense,
invasive, interested, almost fascinated. One of the cowboys broke the spell, running in the back door.
“John!” he said quickly, as he burst into the living room. “One of the bulls is in the road! He’s gonna get hit!”
John ran for the door with Josie right behind, cautioning Heather to keep JJ inside. It was a quarter of a mile to the highway,
but they ran the length of the paved driveway in record time. The bull, one of Cole’s prize bulls, was just wandering around
in the right lane of the long, two-lane highway with traffic oncoming. John went to the bull while Josie went and immediately
started stopping traffic. They worked together as if they’d done it all their lives. The cowboy watched from the verge, fascinated
at the two enemies becoming a team.
John spoke softly to the bull who turned his head and looked at him. John started walking away and the bull followed like
a pup. John noticed a board had been placed over the grate that usually kept the cattle in. Part of it had caved in the day