She tried not to think about him, but it was hard when the country was so small, when the roads they traveled seemed to cross every place she went.
In Sioux Falls, Jo approached the door of a haunted house to find a line of salt spread evenly across the windowsill and heavy chunks of rock salt embedded in the doorframe. If she'd been anyone else, she'd never have noticed it; another hunter would've recognized the signs; to her, it spelled out Winchesters Were Here in big letters. She turned and walked away without even knocking.
That bridge burned a long time ago, and she was on her own now.
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Hunters passed through the Roadhouse, and when they did, Jo was there with a beer and a smile. She was always happy to listen when they talked. And they were a lonely breed, most of them happy for a pretty face and an open ear when they could get it. Lee, Jeff, Logan, Gordon, John, Bobby. Young or old, they were grizzled before their time, hunched over their newspapers and books, thirsty and broke.
What they said with their words and their tired expressions, Jo took to heart and saved away for the day she'd be among them, hunting and living on her own. A good hunter was smart and focused, with strong convictions and good peripheral vision. A healthy sense of paranoia didn't hurt either.
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Outside of Kingman she camped in the desert under the huge saguaros, cactuses the size of trees. After a week of hard, dusty work she drew the symbols in the sand and carefully recited the words that would take care of the coyote spirit that'd been attacking hikers and tearing them apart every full moon.
The spirit exploded in a burst of green flame, the Northern Lights over the Arizona desert, lighting the flat land for miles around. Jo stood and watched, hands on her hips and a smile on her face, then she crawled off to sleep for a couple hours before dawn.
She was sore and tired, covered with sweat and sand. Driving back through town on her way to Death Valley, she spotted a sleek '67 Impala parked next to the diner and smiled grimly to herself.
Then she drove right on past, without stopping.
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Learning to hunt wasn't like going to college or tending bar. It was a life or death proposition, and if you went in blind you'd only be making things worse.
On-the-job training was the best kind, and once Jo had hoped to get that with the Winchesters. She'd sat in the Roadhouse and imagined it -- Sam and Dean taking her out on a couple of jobs, showing her the ropes. Once she had her feet, they'd set her on her way but they'd still check in every month or three with a tip or a job. It was a real nice idea, but that was all.
Instead, she'd packed up her old truck with a bag of rock salt in the back, a few guns and shovels and her dad's old knife, and headed out on her own.
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In Tallahassee, she picked up an iron crowbar and found that it fit into her small hands in a nice, comfortable way. It rested on her shoulder as she walked through the swamp in search of unmarked graves, and ghosts scattered like roaches when she swung it at them.
She had to dig up four different bodies, salt and burn four different sets of bones before she found the right one, and the ghost kept coming back.
Jo's arms and back ached for a week after all that digging, but she knew she was building more than muscle.
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When her truck broke down outside Middlebury, she didn't call a mechanic. She didn't have the money, and besides, the cab was full of weapons she had no permits for and no place else to store.
She walked three miles into town and found a book on engine repair in the library. Three miles back to the truck to figure out she needed a new timing belt. Three miles back to town for the part, then back to the truck to install it on the side of the road.
It was twelve miles of walking, but when the engine turned over and rumbled to life, it was a beautiful thing.
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Her luck ran out in Pueblo. The air was thin and clear, the ground flat with the mountains a solid wall to the West. She was working behind the bar in a place called Paco's, mixing fifteen different kinds of margaritas, when she turned around and Dean was there.
"What can I get for ya?" she asked. She'd been researching the sasquatch in this area for months, and she'd be damned if she'd let Dean Winchester push her out of the way with his easy smile and sure hands.
"Well, hello to you too," he said, flashing her that smile and making her hate him a little. Her stomach fluttered, and she hated herself more.
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Jo knew she shouldn't, but she wanted Dean. She wanted to feel his rough hands on her hips, wanted to suck his bottom lip into her mouth and taste it, wanted to bite down on his shoulder when she climaxed.
She had an idea in her mind of what love should be, and it was more than just one-night stands. She wasn't stupid; she knew there were things that just weren't possible with a man like Dean Winchester. Wanting him wasn't something she could stop doing; she'd tried enough to be sure of that.
It was a lot easier to ignore the wanting when he wasn't standing right in front of her, though.
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After last call, she wiped down the bar with a rag and then joined him at the booth at the back. She felt strange: nervous, but comfortable too. Despite the mariachi music and the margaritas, Paco's was just another bar, another stop on the long road she'd been traveling for months.
"Hey stranger," he said with a smile, and his eyes crinkled at the corners, and suddenly he wasn't just the Dean Winchester she'd crossed the country to avoid, to get as far away from as possible. At that moment, he was a friendly face on a lonely road, and she felt her resolve weaken as she sat down.
"Hey yourself," she replied, and when she smiled at him, it was genuine.
After that, it seemed like the easiest thing in the world to talk and laugh and compare notes, sitting side-by-side until closing. And later, it was even easier to walk across the street together, and to let her resolve drop away entirely as he pressed her up against the motel-room door.
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He was asleep beside her when she woke up in the morning. His hair was a mess, and his mouth hung open a little, and he gripped the pillow tight in one clenched fist. She wondered if he ever slept with a knife under there, like she had learned to do when things got rough.
She eased herself out of bed and pulled on her jeans, stuffed her bra in her back pocket, and pulled her shirt on over her head. For a minute, she thought about writing him a note, but she knew what that would get her. Besides, she knew he'd cross her path again, whether she wanted it or not. The only question was where.
When Jo shut the door behind her, Dean was still pretending to sleep. The sun was rising over the Rockies, and the air was nighttime-cold.
She climbed into her truck and headed West. That sasquatch wasn't going to take care of itself.