Broken Promises (6 page)

Zak arched a brow. "You still look good in tight jeans, but I think I like you better the way you looked when you came to my cabin." He picked more debris from her hair. "You smelled good too, like flowers."

"Jasmine," Tess said. "I didn't know you'd noticed."

"I noticed," Zak said. "I noticed other things too."

"Other tings like what?" she asked, head tipped in curiosity.

"Like how good you look in black." He slipped his hand behind her neck and drew her closer. "And how much I wanted to kiss you then, and now...." His lips moved toward hers.

"Stop!" Tess braced her palms against his chest. "You act as if nothing happened, Zak. You haven't offered any explanation to me why you disappeared seven years ago without saying a word to me before. You were the most important person in my life then, and I thought I was the most important person in yours, and you simply walked away."

"There was more to it than that," Zak said, "but I need some time alone with you to try to explain what was going on back then. Will you give me that time?"

Tess looked at him long and hard, then released a long sigh, and said, "I guess if I want answers I have no choice, as long as you understand that I'm only asking for an explanation, not a relationship. That's the last thing I want right now. Meanwhile, I need to talk to Broderick and Swenson about the latest trees cut and I'd feel better if you were with me when I confronted Jed Swenson. I've dealt with him before, but I'm not sure I want to face him alone in the woods."

"Yeah. I'd feel better if I was along too," Zak said. "I'll meet you at my cabin and we can go from there."

"Curt's back at camp and I need to talk to him first," Tess said, "so give me a few minutes."

Zak nodded and returned to his truck.

When Tess arrived at the compound, she found Curt in the machine shed working on the bulldozer. He repeated to her what he told Zak, that he found Jed Swenson hauling the tree and when he started asking questions, Swenson confronted him. Tess felt uneasy with Curt's attitude, sensing a feud building, and as she headed to the cabins, she wondered if her father had had this many problems running Timber West, or whether she was somehow jinxed.

She met Zak, and they walked up the dirt road that wound through the forest while following the clink and rumble of Jed Swenson's Cat, and found him grading the road. When he saw them approaching, he cut the throttle and waited on the Cat for them to come up to him. Tess looked up, realizing her low vantage point put her at a disadvantage. "Swenson," she said, "would you please step down. I'd like to talk to you about the two trees that were cut earlier."

Swenson looked from Tess to Zak, then he shifted the plug of tobacco to the opposite cheek and climbed down. Looking at Tess, he said, "What about the trees?"

"That's what I want you to tell me," Tess said, determined to listen to Swenson's side of the story in spite of what she believed. "From what I understand, you claim Broderick cut them."

Swenson held her gaze. "That's because he did. He was standing by one of them right after it fell."

Tess folded her arms and looked at Swenson. "Did you hear Broderick's chain saw?"

Swenson shifted his gaze to Zak, then back to Tess, and said, "I was running the Cat and couldn't hear anything.”

"Where, exactly, were you at the time?" Tess asked.

"Over near the hollow," Swenson replied, pointing.

Tess's eyes narrowed. "You just happened to be operating there and saw Curt Broderick?"

Swenson shot a spate of tobacco juice to the ground. "I saw the tree falling and found Broderick standing over it when I got there so I told him to get the hell away from the tree, that it belonged to de Neuville, and he told me to mind my own damn business."

"So you jumped him."

"Hell no. He jumped me."

Tess felt the aggravated beating of her heart. "Was anyone else around?"

"Hell, how should I know. Broderick had me pinned to the ground."

Tess arched a brow. "You don't look like someone who could be easily pinned, Swenson. Are you sure you have the story right?"

"Are you
sayin
' I'm
lyin
'?"

"I'm not saying anything. I'm just trying to find out what happened."

"I told you what happened. Now, you can believe anything you damned well please. I have work to do." He swung up onto the Cat, shoved it in gear, and lowered the blade. When the bulldozer started moving forward, Tess felt Zak's hand on her arm, drawing her out of the way.

"I don't think we're going to get anything more from him," Zak said, watching the bulldozer disappear over a rise. "That's about the same story I got from him earlier."
 

Tess parked her hands on her hips. "Well, I refuse to pay your father for those trees until we get to the bottom of this."

"I'll see if I can get more out of Swenson later," Zak said." Meanwhile, I've opened one of the old trails through the woods. We can go back that way."

As they walked together along the trail, it was eerily like it had once been, and Zak couldn't help thinking that Tess would be aware of it too. She couldn't avoid it. But back then they would have been holding hands, and stopping to hug and kiss before dashing to the grotto where they'd have only a short time alone together. Wanting to take her back to a time when she loved him, he said, "I remember the time you wrapped her arms around a telephone pole and sniffed it and claimed you liked the smell of creosote. Do you still?"

Tess laughed. "Heavens, no. Whatever made you think of that?"

"I guess, being in the woods with you again," Zak said. "We spent a lot of time here. Lots of things you did come to me when I'm on the trails."

"I can't imagine why you'd remember anything I did back then," Tess said, "I was young then, and very silly."

"You were amusing, like a free spirit," Zak said. She also had no inhibitions with him then. Their intimate times together were as natural as walking or talking or eating. She never tried to hide the fact that she liked touching him, and teasing him, and doing intimate things that drove him crazy. She was also in love with him then. And she would be again, he vowed. "On Saturday I'll be climbing a nest tree on the ridge. Pio will be with me and I was hoping you'd come too."

"You said you wanted time alone with me so you could explain what happened," Tess said. "You could hardly do that with your son along."

"I suppose you're right," Zak said. "The problem is, between now and Saturday I'll be tied up at the park until late every night, but if you come with us on Saturday we could talk some, and maybe you could keep an eye on Pio for me when I climb the tree."

Tess looked askance at him. "When did you intend to get together with just the two of us?"

"I figured you could come to my cabin for dinner on Sunday after I drop off Pio with my folks,' Zak said. "I'd have steaks and wine and all the trimmings."

Tess's eyes flared with awareness. "I'm sorry, no," she said. "Things were pretty hot and heavy with us there before, and I don't want a repeat of any of that. Sex was new to me, and you were a normal male in your twenties, and we both had raging hormones, and we fed off of each other. It was all about sex with no substance. It had little to do with anything else."

"I see," Zak said, and wondered if she meant what she said. He had no doubts that he loved her then, and still did. But she was right about the raging hormones. Having sex
was
their focus when they were alone together. But they'd also planned a future, and exchanged vows, and he'd given her a ring. But he'd only been twenty-one at the time, and life hadn't kicked in yet. It did the night her father caught them in the cabin...

"Just so you understand about the cabin," Tess said.

Zak shrugged. "Yeah, I pretty much do now. So, how about you come with us on Saturday and I'll try to sum things up about what happened as best I can. But then, maybe I'm making too much of it since you don't think it had anything to do with love."

Tess looked at him broodingly, and her lips parted, as if she wanted to say something. Then she raised her shoulders in a kind of half shrug, and said, "Maybe Saturday would be okay, but I have to go over the account books in the morning and figure out how to pay for all the equipment repairs and the trees."

"Have you discussed the idea of selling Timber West with your father?" Zak asked. "If he's interested, I'm sure my father's last offer still holds,"

"I've brought it up and he just mumbles something about wanting to be buried there and walks away. He's a stubborn old man who's set in his ways. Change doesn't come easily."

Zak said nothing more, but when they got to his cabin, and before Tess continued down the road to hers, he said, "About Saturday... Pio and I will be by for you around one. We'll also be stopping by the park so I can pick up my climbing gear. Are you okay with that?"

Tess nodded, but as she looked up at him, while standing so close he could take her in his arms and kiss her, it was all Zak could do to keep from doing so, and he wondered how he'd be able to keep his hands off her on Saturday. There was no question, being with her pressed his willpower to the limit. And the fact was, his hormones still raged when he was around her. But at least she agreed to go with him. He'd use the time wisely.

CHAPTER SIX

As Zak pulled his truck off the main road leading to the cabins, he looked askance at Pio, who sat silently staring out the side widow, his face sullen. "OK, son, out with it," Zak said. "You've been moping since we left
Navarre
."

Pio folded his arms. "Does
she
have to come with us?"

"She doesn't have to come," Zak said, "but she's my friend, and she's fun, and she wants to get to know you better."

"I don't like her."

"You don't even know her."

"I still don't like her." Pio planted his lips in a slash.

This wasn't going at all as he'd hoped. Tess had done nothing to cause this kind of reaction from Pio... Unless he'd heard his grandfather say something derogatory. It wouldn't take much. "Did Grandpapa say something about Tess, maybe something unkind?"

"No," Pio snapped, annoyed.

"I'm sorry you feel the way you do," Zak said, "but Tess will be spending the afternoon with us and I expect you to be polite, even if you don't like her."

When they arrived at Tess's cabin, she climbed in the truck and smiled at Pio, and said, "Hi."

Pio moved close Zak, and said, in a dry tone, "Hi," then folded his arms.

Tess glanced over Pio's head at Zak, who said, while attempting to explain away Pio's poor behavior, "He didn't want to come today. He has a kitten at home. But I convinced him his kitten would be waiting when he got back."

Tess glanced down at Pio. "A kitten. How exciting."

Pio looked up at her in disgust.

Zak felt increasingly irritated with Pio, but didn’t know how to handle the situation. He was tempted to scrap the idea of climbing a nest and take Pio back to
Navarre
, but that would be giving into him. But this six-year-old was quickly trying his father's patience.

Eight miles down the road, Zak pulled into the back entrance to
Spencer
Wildlife
Park
, nodding to the guard as they entered. The truck passed through a set of remotely operated gates and into an area where a pride of lions stretched on rocks. Driving through another set of gates, Zak pulled up to a complex of concrete pens under construction. He hopped out of the truck and Pio scooted out his door and followed behind. When Tess joined them, Pio moved to stand some distance away.

For a few minutes Zak stood beside Tess, saying nothing, while looking over a network of pens that would eventually house timber wolves. Then he leaned his elbows on the top of a rail, and said, while gazing at the pens, "You have questions. Go ahead and ask."

"Okay," she said. "So, why did you leave here?"

Zak noticed that she said why did he leave
here
, not why did he leave
her
. From the moment she'd found him slashing through the woods, he'd been biding his time while trying to learn how much she knew about what really happened behind the scenes seven years ago, if she even knew the extent of it. "My father sent me to
France
to learn about wine making," he replied, giving her only half the answer.

"And you met your wife there," Tess said. Not a question, Zak realized, but a statement.

He nodded. "She was the daughter of the owners of the winery."

"And she was Basque." Tess said. Another statement.

Zak knew Tess was waiting for him to confirm what she already suspected, that Basque married Basque. Years before, when they were discussing marriage, he'd told her that the Basque were pretty inflexible about that. But somehow, at twenty-one, the world didn't seem so cut and dried. Life was always ready for change... Except with his father. For him life was very simple. Basque married Basque. Period. "Yeah, she was Basque," he replied.

"Which makes complete sense," Tess said, with a hint of irony. "Your father knew exactly what he was doing when he sent you to work in a winery where there would be an eligible Basque girl to turn your head away from the girl from Baker's Creek. So I guess your brother's right. Your father sets the rules, and you follow."

There was a lot more to it that that. But Zak wasn't about to get into the whole Gib O'Reilly thing until he was alone with Tess. Eyeing the buildup of clouds over the mountains, he said, "We'd better get going. It can get pretty windy at the top of a tree when the weather changes."

After loading the truck with tree-climbing gear, they drove to the ridge behind Timber West and hiked to where the nest tree stood. As they approached the tree, the parent birds began circling and swooping overhead, their sharp cries echoing through the forest. Zak removed coils of rope and other gear from his backpack and prepared to make a lifeline for the climb. Pulling an arrow from his quiver, he threaded it with fishing line and shot it over a high limb of the tree. With careful teasing, the arrow made its way to the ground, pulling the line with it. He tied the line to a rope and pulled the rope up and over the same limb, then hauled it down the other side and secured it to a tree. But before climbing, he crouched in front of Pio, and said, "Stay next to Tess while I'm climbing. I don't want to be worried about you when I'm at the top of the tree."

After Pio gave Zak his word that he would, Zak started up the tree. With stirrups attached to the climbing rope, and spikes fastened to his boots, Zak began his tedious ascent, gradually making his way up the huge tree.

One-hundred and fifty feet above the forest floor, with one foot resting on the stub of a broken branch, and the other spiked into the dry, crumbling bark of the ancient fir, Zak looked up at the underside of the huge nest. There, he took a few minutes to scan the tree tops around him, making a mental note of the location of several old snags thrusting through the canopy of second-growth trees. One in particular, he noted, housed what looked like a deserted nest of considerable size that was probably being used as a perch. He also saw, from the location of the perch, that it could be close to where Tess was logging. He'd check it out later.

As he scanned the surroundings, the pair of eagles began circling above the nest, their shrieks shattering the solemnity of the forest. After adjusting his safety gear to make sure it was secure, he prepared for the most critical stage in the climb, when he'd have to lean back while clinging to the nest, and reach up over the edge to capture the chick. Even with safety gear, one snap of a limb could release the lifeline, sending him plunging through branches that could easily part instead of stopping his fall.

Satisfied that the limb with the lifeline was secure, he propped his other foot on a smaller limb, pausing to maintain his balance, then leaned back far enough to be able to peer over the edge of the nest at the twin chicks. They crouched, looking at him with alarm, their brownish-black plumage rippling in a gust of wind that whisked about. As Zak clung to the nest, the adult birds swooped down to defend their young, passing close to Zak's head. Pulling himself higher, Zak reached across the tangle of interwoven limbs and encircled one of the eaglets with his arm. The young bird gripped with its talons, refusing to relinquish the security of the nest. Zak tugged, but the talons held. He tugged again, and the young bird slackened its grip.

With the chick tucked under his arm, Zak lowered himself to a limb below the nest and carefully placed the bird in a soft canvas backpack, then climbed down to where he could lower the pack by rope to Tess. That done, he grabbed the climbing rope and rappelled down. When he reached the ground, he glanced around, and said, "Where's Pio?"

Tess looked toward the spot where Pio had been standing while she was waiting to receive the eaglet in the canvas bag, and said, "He was here a minute ago. He can't be far."

Alarmed, Zak called for Pio. When he got no response, he ran a short distance and called again. Tess tried to reconstruct what had happened. They'd been standing together, both looking up while Zak retrieved the eaglet. Then she contemplated the mound of climbing gear, noting that something was missing--a rope, a shorter one with a metal safety clip on the end.

Following what looked like a crude trail, she found a spot where the brush was matted down. Her eyes locked on a rope dancing its way up a tree.

"Pio!" she yelled through the forest. "Zak... he's here!"

Zak rushed over, and said, "Pio! Get down here." The rope dropped to the ground and Pio climbed down. Zak grabbed Pio's arm, and said, "I told you to stay by Tess and I expect you to listen when I tell you something, do you understand?"

Pio nodded and Zak released his arm, and Pio scurried over to walk along a downed tree.

When Zak did nothing more, Tess said, "Aren't you going to punish him?"

"I just scolded him,' Zak said. "That's enough."

"Yes, but a little while ago you told him to stay by me and he disobeyed you."

"He's just lost his mother and he's still upset," Zak replied. He went over to where the canvas bag with the eaglet lay, then crouched and began opening the bag to transfer the bird to a waiting crate, seeming to have dismissed the incident with Pio.

Tess had little experience with kids, and it wasn't her place to tell Zak how to handle his son, but she did know about losing a parent at a young age. "Pio's obviously upset about his mother," she said, "but I think he's also testing you and wants to be given bounds. When I lost my mother I was angry. I felt like she didn't have a right to die and leave me like that. Everyone felt sorry for me, and when I misbehaved they did nothing. Yet, I didn't like the way I was behaving, but I thought no one cared enough to stop me. So one day I got on my bike and rode it in the street like I'd been forbidden to do. When my dad saw me, he gave me hell and took my bike away for a month, and that was the first time I felt like anyone cared, and I stopped being angry."

"Pio knows I care," Zak said, while transferring the eaglet to the crate.

"You didn't care enough to punish him when he wandered away and climbed the tree. Next time he might wander farther away to prove his point and you might not find him."

"He's pissed because I brought you along," Zak said. "He's not ready for a new mother and
 
until he is he won't like anyone I'm involved with."

"We're not involved," Tess reminded him.

"We could be," Zak said. "I told you what you wanted to know."

"No, all you told me was that you left to study wines in France and you married a Basque woman right after you got there, which was right after you gave me a promissory ring and vowed to love me forever. That was a very short forever."

"There's more to it than that," Zak said, "but if we're not involved, it doesn't matter." He closed the crate and stood. "We'd better get back," he said. "The vet's coming to check the chick before I send him off." He started gathering equipment, and Tess knew the discussion was over, for now.

As they drove back down the ridge, Zak was quiet, and Tess wondered if he was mulling over what she'd said about setting bounds on Pio, or if it was because she'd insisted that they were not involved. But when they arrived back at her cabin, she learned it was neither.

She had just stepped onto the porch when she saw that Zak had gotten out of the truck and was walking toward her. It was clear he was troubled about something.

"Is there a problem?" she asked.

"Yeah," he replied, "and I wish I could put off telling you, but I can't. When I was at the top of the tree, I spotted an abandoned nest and it looked like it's located close to where you're logging. If it's within six-hundred feet, you'll have to stop."

"You can't be serious," Tess said. "We've logged that area for years and the eagles are still there."

"That doesn't mean they'll stay. It's their habitat, and nesting time's the most critical."

"But it's an empty nest."

"It's a perch."

Tess didn't even want to think about how her father would react to this. "I won't stop logging because of an empty nest," she said. "Besides, there are several other old-growth trees in the area that can be used for perches."

Zak sighed. "Look, there's no point getting into this until I know whether or not you're logging in the primary area."

"Well, I can tell you right now, Dad won't stop logging because of an empty eagle's nest," Tess clipped.

"He might not have a choice," Zak said. "If the nest is in a primary zone he won't be dealing with my father, he'll be dealing with the law."

"Umm, if I'm not mistaken, you, in essence, would be the law in this case because you'd be the one to report it, right?" Tess looked at him and waited.

Zak looked steadily back at her, and replied, "I'd have no choice."

"You'd have the choice of turning your back and walking away," Tess said. "We're only talking about an empty nest used for a perch!"

"Like I said, I don't want to get into this until I know," Zak replied. "Meanwhile, will you be here tomorrow?"

"I don’t know. Why?"

"My parents are coming to pick up Pio, and my father wants to talk to you about the trees and the property line."

Tess looked at Zak in alarm. She'd never met Jean-Pierre de Neuville, and the thought of meeting him was troubling."Is this in the form of a warning?" she asked.