One Real Man by Janette Kenny

Author:Janette Kenny [Kenny, Janette]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Zebra Books
Published: 2014-12-23T00:00:00+00:00

The next morning Josie slipped downstairs before the sun came up. She’d barely slept last night and it was all Gil Yancy’s fault. But even as she said it, she admitted that it was a bald-faced lie.

The quivering and pleased smile she couldn’t erase when she’d left his bed vanished as soon as she’d reached her room. She’d always had needs she hadn’t fully understood, feelings that would gnaw at her some nights when she remembered how she’d melted in Gil’s arms the one time at the Gilded Garter.

Last night he’d showed her what she’d been missing, and the experience was more wondrous than she could’ve imagined. But the strange sense that’d come over her later worried her.

Yes, they’d shared something rare. Something she dreamed she’d never feel. But for her, she wasn’t just scratching an itch, or satisfying her curiosity.

She cared for Gil more than she should. Why, when that outlaw bucked him off, she thought her heart would stop. If he’d died, a part of her would’ve died with him.

Josie heaved a sigh. Was what she was feeling love? She didn’t know, but she wasn’t about to do what she did last night again until she sorted it out in her mind.

The aroma of coffee enveloped her halfway down the stairs. She grabbed the railing, nearly missing a step.

Until Everett became bedfast, he’d always had the coffee going long before she roused from bed. In fact, she’d often wondered if her husband slept much.

Josie hurried down the steps and into the kitchen, uncertain what she’d find. She stopped in the doorway and stared at the back of Gil’s dirty shirt. He stood by the stove, pouring coffee into a cup.

“You’re an early riser.” She fought off a wave of embarrassment as she walked to the sideboard and set to making biscuits. “How do you feel?”

“Fair to middling.”

“Thank you for making coffee.”

“Want some?”

She went still for a heartbeat. Such a simple question and one she’d asked guests hundreds of times. But nobody had ever asked her that. Oh, Everett made the coffee, but he always left her to pour her own.

“That would be nice.”

Josie grimaced, realizing she’d said the same about his loving last night. Mercy, could she be any greener?

She dumped flour on the board and reached for the lard tin, damning the way her hands shook as she mixed the dough. She hoped if she ignored the tingling in her belly, these needy feelings would go away.

“What happened to your folks? Fever take them?”

“A twister.” Josie arranged the biscuits on a tin pan and put them in the oven, relieved to change the subject even if it was to recall something sad. “Pa had a dirt farm outside Randolph, Kansas. He’d fought drought and grasshoppers and held on, but he couldn’t best two tornadoes.”

He let out a low whistle. “You saw it happen?”

“No. My sister and I were at school, but our two brothers were at home helping Pa plant corn. When Lillian and I got home, there was nothing left.

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