The Cedar Tree (Love Is Not Enough) (27 page)

He and Karl got along well and he respected the younger man's abilities, but over the past weeks, Karl's wind-chapped face had developed grim, hardly recognizable lines. Katie's brother had stepped into their father's role of decision maker and provider without hesitation, but he grew tighter wound each day—like a spring that needed only one more twist to send it rocketing dangerously into space.

The two of them finished unloading the trailer then Karl fed the hay off the back of the pickup while he drove. Afterward, they returned to work dragging the old Massey out of the ruts.

An hour later, he wedged another cedar post in front of the rear tire. He climbed onto the metal tractor seat and wiped his running eyes on the sleeve of his sleet encrusted coat. The wet, icy cold of the metal seat penetrated his coveralls, jeans, and underwear, freezing his rear.

He throttled up the tractor motor. "Hit it again," he yelled over the roar.

In front of him, Karl popped the clutch on a larger John Deere tractor, and belching diesel smoke, the tractor lunged forward. Slowly, the Massey's back tire gained traction on the post. A moment later, it sat outside the churned mud hole.

Karl jumped down from the John Deere's cab then unhooked the muddy log chain from the hitch.

"Let's get some coffee," Karl said, heaving the chain into the back of the pickup with a dull clank.

"I gotta finish feedin' my horses, but thanks."

He slid into his pickup and gunned the motor. The tires spun furiously, coating the sides and windshield of his truck with mud and half-frozen manure. Peering through the foggy curtain of sleet, he fought the steering wheel, fish-tailing along.

Finally, the truck roared through the ruts at the pasture gate and into the ranch yard. Lance's old Buick sat in the drive like it…belonged there.

On the heels of the afternoon's gut wrenching labor, the sight hit him like a blow to his frozen nose.

He eyed the car narrowly then stepped out of his pickup. "I think I will come in for a cup," he said to Karl.

The two of them removed muddy overboots and coveralls on the porch then opened the kitchen door to a wave of warmth filled with the aroma of roast beef from an earlier meal. His stomach growled.

Dave, wearing the black patch over his eye, looked up with a grin from the kitchen table where he sat holding the baby. "Come check this out, dude."

He hung his dripping Stetson on a hook beside the door then crossed to the table to peer down at the kid.

"I told him a joke, and he's smilin'." Caring for the baby had relaxed the bitter lines on Dave's face. "First time he's done that."

He eyed the kid's mouth on the nipple of the bottle, his tiny lips moving in some sort of puppet-like contortion. The baby still looked like one of those red-faced monkeys.

"Ah," he said.

Dave's hazel eye narrowed. "He is."

"What was the joke?"

"Knock, knock."

He grinned. "Who's there?"

"Banana."

"Banana who?"

Dave grinned widely. "Banana split, so ice creamed."

He laughed—the first time in weeks—then clapped Dave's thin shoulder. "Dude. That's bad. You're gonna damage the kid." Still grinning, he moved to lean against the counter near the sink. "I guess it's better than tellin' him one about the cowboy and the barmaid, though. How'y'doin' today?"

Dave shrugged. "Not bad for the shape I'm in." Dave looked at Karl standing at the sink running water into a big percolator. "This formula's not agreein' with him, either, Karl. I think we're gonna have to get a goat. Sister Esther said sometimes babies who can't take formula can drink goat milk."

"I ain't milkin' a goat."

"She said goats'd rather have a girl milk them, anyway. Katie can do it."

A sound from the living room caught his attention. He turned as Katie, dressed in the same dark skirt and sweater she had worn to church earlier, carried a full laundry basket to the sofa. She set it next to Lance. Without looking toward the kitchen, she sat on the other side of it.

Lance fished a towel from the basket and snapped it. Folding it with careful precision, he smiled at her. "I can't remember about the green ones. Upstairs bathroom or downstairs?"

Her hands moving quickly, she worked down the laundry in the basket. "Upstairs." She glanced at him. "You don't need to help with this, Lance."

He shoved up his glasses with his long finger and grinned. "I don't mind."

She glanced toward the kitchen then froze. The color drained from her face.

Hot blood surged from his heart, nearly obscuring his vision with a red haze. All afternoon he'd been outside working his guts out and freezing his butt off to help her family, not merely from the newly discovered goodness of his heart, but because he loved her.

For that?

She wouldn't even look at him, yet Lance could snuggle up with her in the warm house patty-caking with the towels, and she'd actually talk to him? Seriously?

She jerked away her gaze. Lance looked from her to him and back again. He slowly laid the folded towel onto the couch.

His Adam's apple bobbed. "Hey, Gil."

He moved on wooden legs away from the counter to the living room doorway. Leaning his shoulder against the doorframe, he crossed his arms to hide his shaking hands.

"Looks like you'd make somebody a pretty good husband, don't it, Lance?" he asked with his gaze riveted on Katie.

Color flooded her face, but she didn't look up. She fumbled a pair of socks from the basket.

Lance cleared his throat. "I hope—"

"Me, I'm the worst husband material in the world." He paused. "Ain't I, Katie?"

She froze in mid-movement then jerked to her feet. The socks fell unnoticed to the floor. With her ponytail swinging, she quickly crossed the room past her father leaned back asleep in his recliner and through a doorway behind the stairs.

Bristling like a dog with the hair raised up along its spine, he turned back to Lance. The other man met his gaze with a mixture of animosity, pain and desperation, all struggling with embarrassment and a challenge on his nice guy face.

Then, ignoring the other man, he turned and crossed the room in a few strides. A short hallway led to a laundry room where Katie stooped over a mound of dirty clothes.

He stopped in the doorway. "Why's he always here?"

Her hands quit moving. She didn't look up.

Pressure built in his chest like a gas tank ready to explode. "When you used to speak to me, you told me you loved me. I believed you." His words dropped like marbles onto concrete. "Ever since your mom died I've been tryin' to be patient, but I don't know why you're treatin' me this way, and—" he jerked his chin toward the other room—"why do you need
him
to help you through this instead of me?"

Her shoulders sagged. She dropped to her knees, but didn't look up. Her lack of response drove him recklessly on.

"I should've known if you'd lie to your folks you'd lie to me," he said with his lip curling. "Did you ever love me at all?"

Her gaze flew to his, meeting his eyes fully for the first time since the day at her mother's grave. Suddenly, he was staring into caverns of raw pain.

He stepped toward her, his hand outstretched. "Katie, I'm sorry. I didn't mean that."

She scrambled to her feet, backing slowly away from him.

"Katie, please. Just talk to me. What'd I do?"

The washing machine blocked her retreat, but every line of her slight body trembled, brittle and untouchable as frost-etched glass.

He stopped. Dropping his hand, he stood helplessly. Sleet ticked against the window, loud in the silence.

Finally, he forced his stiff lips to move. "I don't care what you think you've got goin' on with him. We're not over. We're never gonna be over. Tell him to back off."

He turned and stalked blindly from the room.

Chapter Sixteen

Later, the canned tamales his grandfather heated for supper tasted like dirty socks. After the meal, Gil sat in his chair beside the stove staring grimly at the wall. Molly dropped her toy at his feet. He ignored her. His grandfather quietly turned the pages of his paper, casting an occasional worried glance at him. An hour later, the phone rang—somebody with an emergency.

His grandfather shrugged into his coat at the door. "You want to ride along, Son?" he asked, his voice much quieter than usual.

"No."

Molly gave up on his playing with her. She jumped onto his lap and did a quick turn, preparing to sleep.

The old man cleared his throat, a deep rumble across the room. "You gonna be all right?"

"Yeah."

"Can I do anything?"

"No."

His grandfather hesitated, but then left.

He leaned back his head, staring at the ceiling. The pain in Katie's eyes…that had been real. He'd made it worse.

But what was he supposed to do? He wasn't pulling a claim on her out of thin air. She'd given it to him when she'd told him she loved him. And wanted them to get married.

Hadn't she?

An hour later, he shrugged out of his shirt. Wadding it into a ball, he flung it at his bedroom wall. He stood rubbing the ache in his arm and shoulder.

Her eyes…

He pulled off his jeans and slid into bed, gasping at the contact of icy sheets on his skin. Molly curled up against his socks.

Katie had loved him. He had the piece of plaster cast he'd saved, the bundle of love letters under his mattress, and the memory of her body in his arms with her lips against his saying the actual words to prove it. Why had he as much as called her a liar?

Warmer now, he rolled over, pulling the covers tighter around his shoulders. He imagined her beside him, her hair spilling over the pillow in the moonlight from the window, filling his senses with the fragrance of lightning. Burying his face in the satin softness, he held her to him, cradling her head against his chest. She cried while she gave him the load she carried, too heavy for her. Then she raised her face. He kissed her, tasting the tears on her lips, gently drawing the sadness from them. She moved closer to him and he forgot the awful misery of the past months in her skin…warm silk in his hands—

He had to stop.

He sat up and swung his legs out of bed to sit with his elbows on his knees, his head in his hands.

How could he have been such an idiot? He'd never wanted to hurt her more. He had to be patient. Give her time to figure everything out. Show her day after day he loved her and he wasn't going anywhere, just like he'd told her.

Yeah. While Lance folded towels, and talked to her, and took her away from him.

Was that what she wanted? It must be. Lance couldn't take her away against her will. Maybe she'd never really left the gangly scarecrow anyway. Never taken back those things she'd said to him.

He tightened his jaw. Okay. If that was the way she wanted it, Lance could have her. He didn't have to put up with that. She wasn't the only fish in the pond and he wasn't married to her…even if she had practically asked him to.

His grandfather had said she didn't know how to play games. That was where the old man had been wrong. All women played games—she was no different. She was a shallow little tease, worse than any female he'd ever known. None of them had ever used him and broken his heart, shredded it, ripped it up like so much trash…

Just like he'd done to Darlene.

He rubbed his hand through his hair. Talk about ironic. He'd spent his life running from emotional need in female eyes. Now, when he'd give anything to see it…nothing.  

He rose and crossed the room to the calendar. Sixteen days left in February, thirty-one in March. Forty-six days until he could…Do what? The same thing he'd done tonight?

With his chest tight, he braced his arms on the wall, his head hanging between them. At his feet, Molly gave a worried whine, scratching at his sock.

"God," he muttered around the painful lump in his throat, "I gotta have some help."

***

The next day, Jim Harris offered a job hauling a load of young bulls to a rancher in California. He snatched at the escape. In Fallon, Nevada, he stopped to fuel the Peterbilt at a truck stop.

Inside, a rack of postcards near the door caught his eye. He rotated the display for several minutes then chose a card with a Nevada sunrise illuminating prickly pear cactus blossoms. Incredible that such dainty blossoms concealed needle-sharp spines. Those barbs, once stabbed into tender flesh, relentlessly wormed deeper and deeper until the festering pain overwhelmed every other sensation…

He braced the card against a teetering beer display and scrawled on the back,
Katie, I'm sorry. I love you.

The middle-aged woman behind the counter eyed him appreciatively then read the card without shame. "Today's Valentine's Day, Hon." She popped her gum. "Couldn't hurt to mention it."

"Thanks," he said gratefully.

He added
Happy Valentine's Day
to the card then handed it back to her. She winked at him, promising to mail it.

He delivered the bulls to a ranch outside Chico then the rancher hired him to haul cattle to a ranch in eastern Oregon. He spent the next week driving back and forth, and on Friday evening, he delivered the last load.

Later, he lay stretched out on a spongy motel bed trying to concentrate on an ESPN surfing competition on the tv, but mostly staring at the telephone across the room. Finally, he rose. Straddling the desk chair, he dialed.

Tim answered. "She's milkin' the goat." He paused. "Wait a minute…she's comin' in."

"Tell her whatever you have to. Just get her on the phone."

Tim hesitated. "Is this about that card you sent her?"

"Why?"

"Geez. What'd you say to her, dude?"

The screen door slammed in the background.

"Just get her on the phone."

Tim covered the receiver. A muffled conversation took place.