Barefoot Brides Read Online Free

still a part of Jo that wondered how Travis felt about her. That wanted some hint of where their relationship was going. If they even had a relationship.
    â€œThe point is, it’s not enough to know what you want, Jo. You have to give some thought to how you can best serve the needs you see around you. What unique gifts do you bring to the table?”
    You tell me. She pressed her lips together to keep herself from fishing for some kind of insight about how Travis felt about her.
    â€œYou have to examine your own motivations. Who are you doing this for? Do you really want to serve others or are you trying to make yourself feel better, serving your own interests?”
    Ouch! That told her a little bit more of what he thought of her than she had reckoned on.
    Jo took a step backward, then looked down to watch the impression of her feet in the wet white sand fill with the incoming tide then disappear as though she had never been there at all.
    She could not think of a more apt metaphor for herself. The girl who has walked in everybody else’s shoes trying to keep them happy for so long that now she no longer even leaves a footprint of her own.
    A bleak heaviness descended over her shoulders and chest. She breathed, but only shallow breaths. She fought back the ridiculous urge to burst out crying.
    She cleared her throat and raised her head. In doing so she caught a glimpse of Moxie’s old truck in the strip of parking spaces along the edge of the beach. That served as a stark reminder of her past, of her family’s past, and what she had drawn from it.
    Cromwell women did not cry.
    Crying was self-indulgent. It did not make things better.
    But then what had Jo ever done in her life that made anything better for anyone?
    She couldn’t think of a single thing.
    She had thought she was doing so when she became a Realtor. Helping people find a home, build toward their dreams. But before long she had been sucked into the cycle of buying and selling and winning awards and being the most sought-after name in the business. It became about flipping houses at higher and higher risk for bigger and bigger profit in order to please her boss. And when the risk got too big? Her boss took the profit and left her in a financial mess that even now she had no idea how to dig out of.
    Be sweet?
    Life so far had neither prepared her nor rewarded her for that.
    She glanced at Moxie waving at someone she knew in the lot, walking with her head as high as any fashion model’s even while wearing a baseball cap, rolled-up pants and flip-flops.
    Be a sister?
    Be the lesser of three sisters was more like it.
    Be substantial?
    A woman that left no footprints for anyone to see, much less follow?
    Be a servant of God?
    She looked at Travis. So many questions. So many things she simply had no answer for.
    Be safe?
    That elusive feeling she had never really known, not as a child, not at her chosen field of work, not in her newest relationship.
    How could she be any of those things, much less all of them? Jo hadn’t even figured out how to be herself.
    Finally she looked Travis in the eye, even as Moxie drew closer, and laid it all out for him as earnestly as she could. “What if I ask myself those questions…and I don’t have the answers?”
    â€œThen you have a lot of work ahead of you finding them,” he told her softly. Another squeeze of her shoulder and a nod to approaching Moxie then he turned and headed back toward the chapel.
    Cromwell women do not cry. Jo straightened her back and turned to meet her younger sister.
    â€œWhere’s he going?”
    â€œI think he’s giving me some…space.”
    â€œOh?” It was only one syllable but Moxie packed a lot of concern in it.
    Jo shook her head. “Apparently I have a lot of work to do.”
    â€œOkay. I’m here to help.” Moxie patted the canvas bag slung over her shoulder the way a gunslinger might lay a hand lightly on his