Falling in the Rain

Jessica stared at Josh as if he were some alien creature from another planet. Why in the good Lord's name had he done that? And what had she felt when he had? Nothing, something inside her screamed. You felt nothing! Suddenly Josh propped himself up, and smiled widely at her. For the first time in her life, Jess was completely speechless. He had just held her down in the mud, and now he laid there, in the rich dark brown mud, and grinned like a lunatic at her. He didn't hold you down to hurt you or anything, something inside her called. He was laughing, it said, and he thought you were enjoying yourself, too. Besides, he let you go when you said you wanted to be left alone.

True, Jess thought, but that was all she was about to admit.

With out a single word, Jess turned away and walked toward the house, leaving Josh alone in his muddy misery.

Chapter Five

Josh trudged his way up the path toward the house twenty minutes later. After trying to guide Sugar back into her stall and not making it, he decided to simply tie the reigns to the post.

Soon after tying the horse up, Josh walked slowly toward the house. Sloshing as he walked, Josh felt mud in places he didn't even know he had. Wincing, he pushed his leg out to the side and pulled his jeans out from his tender areas. "Much better." He said on a sigh, and started again toward the house. A shower sounded like heaven at that precise moment.

The screen door opened, and Roger walked out, a cup of steaming hot coffee in his hand. Raising an eye brow, Roger looked at his son with curiosity. "Don't even say it." Josh said. "Not a damn word." He said as he climbed the stairs to the porch. He felt the mud crunch as he lifted and bent his legs to climb the stairs. As he walked past his father toward the door, he tossed a glance to the older man.

"I don't think Maria will want your muddy shoes inside," Roger commented.

"Maria?"

"The house keeper that comes three times a week."

"She won't even see me." Josh sounded so confident, Roger didn't want to burst his bubble by saying that Maria was just inside the entry hall.

Roger shaking his head, a smile sliding across his lips. Josh groaned as he pulled the screen door open and stepped a muddy foot inside. "Um, I don't think so." A small feminine voice with a slight Spanish accent said. Turning to his left, he saw a small woman of Mexican decent standing in the middle of the living room. "Take off those muddy shoes, and leave them outside. You can clean them later." Josh turned to the door and exited quickly, letting the screen slam and bounce a few times.

Glancing at his father, he saw the smile had spread to his eyes, as the older man turned away, drinking at the cup of coffee he held. Josh rolled his eyes upward and slipped his shoes off quickly. "I hate to say I told you so. . ."

Josh could hear the laughter in his father's voice. "Yeah, you would." He opened the door, and making sure the woman wasn't in the next room, made a dash toward the bedroom he now occupied, trying not to make any noise as he went up the stairs. Dashing inside the room, he grabbed random clothes from his suitcase, after stripping out of his mud caked clothing, and made a dash for the bathroom adjoining his room.

Opening the door, he entered quickly and locked it behind him. Hearing a soft "ah-hem" behind him, he leaned his head against the door, closing his eyes. Today just wasn't his day. He should never have opened his door when Jess knocked on it this morning. "I thought this was my bathroom." He said more to himself than the person behind him.

"It is, but my father is using our bathroom, so I thought to use this one." At the sound of Jess's annoyed voice, Josh spun around, dropping the clothes he had in his hands to the floor. Jess stood on the other side of the bathroom, practically squished against the wall, staring at him.

When he looked at her clothing, he gulped. Oh Lord, he was in a mess.

Jess wore a pair of jeans, and he assumed nothing else, because she clutched the large blue towel she was using against her chest. Josh knew he was staring at her, but he couldn't seem to tear his gaze away from her. Her shoulders and arms were a golden color, and Josh felt an almost undeniable urge to reach out and touch her.

Jess tilted her head at Josh. He had turned and looked at her, then promptly grabbed the clothing he had dropped in an attempt to cover himself. Wow, Jess thought with a smile. She had been flashed by him twice today. Wonder how many more times she'd see his "bits and pieces" before the days end. You should not be thinking about that, Jessica Marie!-her mind suddenly yelled. Yanking her gaze away from his private area, she looked at his face and realized he was staring at her chest. Sighing Jess spoke, "Sorry, Josh. The bathroom's occupied. Please, get the hell out." she said slowly letting darkness fall over her features.

Realization of her words was an agonizing torture. "What?" Josh asked sounding slightly confused. He had been too busy looking at her chest and imagining what was underneath it to hear her correctly.

"Shall I reiterate?" Jess asked, openly glaring at him now. "Get the hell out. The bathroom is occupied." Josh didn't stand there long enough to hear the second sentence. He opened the door and was half way out of the room when he heard the whipping noise. Quickly, to his astonishment and pain, she had whipped the towel from her hair down from her head and whipped him in the butt with it. He jumped as the door slammed shut behind him.

Spinning around, Josh glared at the door as he rubbed his sore cheek. What the hell was that for? "This isn't over." He grumbled as he turned from the door. He winced when he heard her laugh gaily from behind the door and knew she had heard his vow. "Well. . ." he said at a loss for any other words, " . . .it isn't!" He shouted and turned away from the door and away from the girl who had made his life so complicated so suddenly.

~~~~~~~~~~

"So how was your ride?" Roger asked an hour later, when Josh sauntered down the steps into the living room.

"Interesting." He said and plopped down next to his father on the overstuffed sofa. "One question, and then, I am going to kill you." Josh said, wincing over the action.

Roger chuckled and shook his head. "Shoot," He asked sipping his steaming coffee.

"Why did you tell her I was some great rider when I have never ridden a horse before in my life? Dad, I could have really embarrassed myself!"

"From what Jess said when she came down earlier, I assumed you already did." Roger mumbled before taking another sip of his hot coffee. "I wanted you to impress her." He shrugged. "Nothin' wrong with that."

Josh rolled his eyes. "Great, now you sound like a hick, too, and we've only been here a day." Turning toward his father, Josh began to scold him. "Dad, look, you've got to forget this Josh-has-to-get-married-and-have-kids complex. I'm almost twenty three, not forty. You need to stop trying to throw girls at me or trying to impress them for me."

"Well if you hadn't messed up with Cheryl a few years ago, you'd be married already."

"Cheryl and I are friends Dad," Josh cringed inwardly. If his dad only knew. Cheryl was the queen bitch, and he thanked God every day he didn't have to speak to her again. "We're just friends. Jess and I? We're not even friends; bitter enemies is more on target. So, just stop, okay?"

"Is it so wrong that I want my son to get married someday, and have a couple of kids while I am still around to see them? I didn't think that it was. Maybe, your too selfish to care about anyone but yourself."

"Dad, that's enough." Josh shouted, and stood. "I'm going to take a walk. Try to remember, you have your own life, and I've mine. So, stop it. I am not going to marry anyone, especially Jessica Mills. Is that understood?" Josh turned with out waiting for a response and left the house, letting the front door slam shut behind him.

That meddling old man was going to be the death of him. Ever since Cheryl had broken up with Josh two years ago, he had been all over Josh about getting married and having a lot of kids. No way. He wasn't getting married for years and years. Maybe, not even then. "I'll be married to my work." He said out loud as he rounded the side of the house and headed toward the corral.

"I'm just going to work on my riding skills for me." He told himself. "I don't want to impress anyone." He especially didn't want to impress that stuck up little girl that had given him nothing but misery since he got here.

Chapter Six

Six Weeks Later

"You've got a visitor." Jim Mills stood behind Josh in the barn. Josh turned slowly, and looked at the man who had the most frustrating daughter in the world.

"Me?" Josh asked, lowering the pitchfork he held in his hand to the ground.

"Yeah. It's a woman." Shock was evident on Josh's face.

Tossing the fork to the ground, he looked over at Jed, and nodded toward Jim. "He's got a visitor." Jim supplied for him. He looked back at Josh. "A woman." He said, wiggling his eyebrows suggestively and grinned. Josh shook his head and gestured for Jim to take the lead.

For the past six and a half weeks, Josh had been a ranch "hand" as Jed referred to him. He simply thought of himself as doing chores so his father wouldn't have to worry about them or do them himself. Josh wanted to curse. He and his father hadn't really spoken since the argument about marriage six and a half weeks ago. They maintained polite conversation but nothing more.

Jim had given them speculative glances as he watched their exchanges for the past weeks, regarding each of the two men with respect toward their business. Jess wasn't as subtle. No, she had gone right up to Josh and demanded to know why he was being so "incredibly rude to that poor sweet older man."

"Believe me. If I told you, you would want to strangle that 'sweet older man.' He's a menace, and I will not let him get away with trying to run my life. He has to know I'm a grown man."

Jess gave him an exasperated look. "You don't look so grown to me. You're only twenty one?"

"Nice try. I'm twenty two." Josh had said to her.

"Oh, my bad." Jess rolled her eyes and walked away from him. She hadn't really spoken to him either in the last few weeks. What was he supposed to have said? Oh, by the way, my father thinks you and I should get married and have a lot of children. So, how about it? No, he didn't think so. That wasn't going to happen.

Josh let out a breath as he followed Jim from the barn toward the house. Jess had been almost constantly on his mind lately. It seemed like every time he did something she was there, making fun of him, or making a rude comment about his abilities. When she wasn't there making those comments, he wished she was. Now, where had that come from, he asked himself, as he stepped up on to the porch. Jess was just an annoying child, and so what if she made his heart rate jump ten notches just thinking about her. He was only going to be here another six weeks. It was still longer than he had expected to stay, anyway.

He wouldn't let himself get too attached to anyone here or let them get very attached to him either. He was heading out to a foreign country, a third world country, where military battles raged in the streets of cities, not forests or deserts. Who knew? He could easily get shot, or stabbed for being a foreigner.

"She's in the living room." Jim's voice shook Josh out of his thoughts.

"Yeah, okay." Josh said, and walked past Jim into the living room. A small woman sat in a chair facing the opposite side of the room. The copper color of her hair shone brightly in the sunlight streaming in from a window at her side. She sat with her back to him, her foot lightly tapping on the hardwood floor.

Her hair was slightly familiar, and the tapping only added to the familiarity.

"Can I help you?" Josh said, stepping closer to the chair. The woman jumped out of the chair, to her feet, and spun around to look at him.

Oh, God. No, not God. Holy shit.

A wide smile spread across her face.

"Josh-ie." Her voice was twangy and high pitched.

"Cheryl?" He asked wearily, his voice involuntarily cracking.

"Hi, honey!" she said and stepped forward, throwing herself into his arms and hugging him tightly.

"What in the good Lord's name are you doing here? Aren't you supposed to be in Texas somewhere? What are you doing in Montana?" Josh asked, totally befuddled.

"Well, I heard you were here, so I thought I should come and visit you. My father has a ranch house up here, and I have been staying there for the last week overseeing some things." She hugged him again. "I am just so happy to see you. It's been way too long." She said.

"Yeah," Josh said numbly. "Two years. You know, since we broke up?"

"Well, you shouldn't dwell on the past." She told him in the voice he remembered as entirely too sweet and come hither.

"What are you doing here?"

"I wanted to see you." She insisted as she pulled away from him and looked at him. If Josh believed her, he did a good job of faking his face, and glaring at her with the look that said he didn't believe her.

"Oh, all right. Your father called me."

Rolling his eyes, Josh said, "I figured as much. He's never let me live down the fact that we broke up." Josh shook his head, and sat down on the couch. Leaning forward, he placed his head in his hands and sighed. He was going to get that old man someday. Just wait until he could get that old man alone, with out Jess- Oh, son of a- "You have to leave!" Josh yelled jumping up form the couch and towering over Cheryl.

She shrugged. "I can't." She stated simply.

"Why not?" Josh demanded. He had to get her out of here. If Jess saw him with Cheryl, she'd- no, he wasn't going to think about that. He knew what she would do. "You have to get out."

"Well, I am here for a week so get used to it. There isn't even a plane back to Dallas for another three days. I'm stuck here." Josh shook his head stubbornly. That wasn't going to happen. He had to get her out of there, now. "Why? Have you met someone or something?" Her eyebrow raised at the possibility.

"Look, Cheryl..."

"Who is your friend?"

Josh jumped a foot in the air at the sound of Jess's voice. Spinning around, he saw her face and jumped to the conclusion he had been trying to prevent.

"It's not what it looks like!"

"And, it looks like. .?" Jess asked.

"NOTHING!" Josh shouted. Jess gave him a confused look.

"Um, all right." Jess said, and after giving Cheryl an appraising look, disappeared into the kitchen.

"I suppose that's a yes to my question. Congratulations. She's very pretty." Cheryl said, looking up at him. "I'm tired. I'm going to the room Mr. Mills gave me to stay in." With Cheryl's departure, Josh was alone in the room. Looking at the door Cheryl disappeared into and then to the door Jess disappeared into and yelled loudly.

"AH!!" He let a fraction of the frustration he had pent up, out.

Well damn, he'd need to scream a few hundred more times.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Jess walked slowly into the large kitchen. Glancing around quickly, she was glad there was no one in the room. Walking slowly over to the sink, Jess leaned down, bracing her weight on her forearms and bowed her head. What was going on with her? When she had walked in to the living room to tell Josh that Jed needed him back in the stables as soon as possible, and saw Josh clinging on to some girl, she'd felt. . .she'd felt. . .oh hell, she'd just felt.

What right did she have feeling this way? Josh didn't mean anything to her, so why? She didn't want him, but the thought of that other girl touching him sent red flags of alarm up and down Jess's spine. No, no one else could have him but her, but she didn't want him. Damn it, what was wrong with her? Jess tried to refocus her anger, aiming it directly at Josh. It was all his fault of course. If he hadn't been so, well so Josh, she surely wouldn't feel this way. Would she?

"What the hell. . ." Jess turned when the sound of someone shouting at the top of his lungs echoed through the kitchen. She didn't think twice as she started toward the door, but when she reached for the handle, she pulled her arm back as if she had been burned. No, if Josh was injured or hurt in any way, he could at least crawl to the kitchen if he needed help. He didn't scream in pain anyway.

No, that wasn't a scream of pain like she heard him give a week ago. When Maggie, the old mare that had belonged to her mother, kicked back and nailed Josh clean in the trousers, he had more than yelled in pain. No, he cursed worse than she ever had, and screamed every one of them on the top of his lungs. Jess smiled at the memory of Josh limping around like a cowboy who'd been in the saddle for too long. He'd walked like that until yesterday.

Walking back over to the sink, Jess let her palms slide on to the cold white porcelain, as she watched out the window. It was being abnormally nice for summer. The sky was blue, not a cloud in sight, the wind at a minimum, just a faint breeze every now and again but nothing spectacular. Hell, they hadn't even had a thunderstorm in over four months.

Hearing the front door slam, Jess saw Josh walk across her line of view and head directly for the stables. His stride was long and the way he held his body suggested that he didn't want to talk to anyone or do anything. Well, Jess thought with a grim smile, that is just too damn bad. Racing into the living room Jess grabbed her boots, and only stopped long enough to slide them on to her feet.

A sudden smell caught her attention two seconds before she sneezed. The heavy floral scent nearly sent Jess to her knees. "Damn city women. If Josh wanted one of them, he should have left them in the city. He doesn't have any right inviting them out here." Jess scurried from the room, lest she sneeze again.

When she reached the stables two minutes later, Jess didn't see Josh anywhere inside. Stepping in, the familiar sent of horses and hay filled her nostrils, bringing with it a smile of appreciation. What else could a girl ask for than a father who loved her, a horse farm that was flourishing, and a boy who- wait a minute. A boy who what, Jess? She asked herself.

"I swear to high heaven, if I don't get out of here soon I'll kill someone." Josh's muttering came from Maggie's stall. "You know what I mean, Maggie? I mean you've been here longer than I have so you have to." Jess slowed down and peaked inside the stall. Josh was brushing Maggie, his sweat soaked Stetson rode low on his forehead, displaying a tanned neck with beads of sweat trickling down to his shoulders.

Jess forced herself to swallow. He wasn't wearing his shirt. His back was to her, but every move he made accentuated the muscles he had earned while working for her father. He wasn't the flabby boy he was when he had first arrived there. He was tanned now, not the albino looking thing he was when he had arrived. His back flowed with his muscles. Jess forced herself to exhale. She must of exhaled louder than she thought. Josh turned and peered up at her, his eyes piercing hers.

"Jess." Josh stared in shock at Jess. She stood in the stall doorway chest heaving with each breath she took. She looked mad as a hornet and as appealing as water to a dying man in the desert. He straightened slowly coming to his full height and looked out at her. "What do you need?" Josh was surprised at the harshness of his voice. Forcing himself to relax, he tipped his hat up so he could better see her.

Jess stood there staring at him as if she had never seen him before. Jess stepped into the stall, closing the stall door behind her. Stepping close to him, she stopped with in a foot and a half of him. "Who is she?" Her voice was a whisper. Josh's heart fell, and he dropped his head, before looking back up at her again. Her face was turning a light shade of pink, her eyes taking on a stormy quality.