The Cedar Tree (Love Is Not Enough) (14 page)

"Kate," Jon yelled, trotting past on his big gelding, "let's go."

She lifted the reins.

He kept his hold on the saddle. "Give me a chance."

"I'll think about it." She urged her mare into a trot.

His heart beat almost painfully as he stared after her like a sixteen year old kid with his first serious crush. She disappeared into the heavy veil of snow.

Well, he'd done it. All he could do now was wait in the bucking chute to see if she opened the gate.

Chapter Eight

By midmorning, the cattle plodded through a foot of snow on the roadway, their hides coated with blobs of icy snow that had melted and frozen again. The wiry hairs around Lucky's nose stood out like cat's whiskers of frost. Gil squinted through the dense curtain of blowing snow, hoping for a glimpse of Katie, but he didn't catch up with her until just before noon when the yellow of her slicker materialized where she walked beside Candy, stomping her feet and beating her arms against her sides. 

"Gramps is right behind me," he said. "I'll put Candy in the trailer and you can ride with him for a while. These cows are just playin' follow the leader."

He loaded both horses into the trailer with three miserable looking calves unable to keep up with the herd. Then he draped the slickers over the saddles and made his way to the pickup. He opened the door and Katie looked up from where she hunched over the dash, red hands extended to the heat vent.

"Scoot over," he said.

She glanced at the pile of Thermos bottles and a box of lunch things mounding the middle of the seat. "There's no room."

"Sure there is." He tossed his wet gloves onto the dash next to hers then slid inside, his arm on the seat behind her. Sitting on one hip, he slammed the door behind him.

Frowning, his grandfather eyed him over her head and launched into a fit of coughing.

"Sounds better all the time, Gramps. I told you—"

"I told you somethin' too," the old man wheezed, looking pointedly at Katie's head, "but you ain't payin' a lick of attention, are you?"

"I'm a changed man."

"Not changed enough."

Ignoring his grandfather, he touched his cold fingers to Katie's neck. She jumped with a startled yelp.

He grinned. "Somebody needs to warm my hands up."

"Put them under your armpits." She leaned farther over the heat vent.

"Suit yourself. If Gramps has to amputate 'em with his pocket knife, you'll have only yourself to blame." Struck by a sudden thought, he looked at his grandfather over Katie's head. "Have you ever amputated anybody's hands?"

The old man eyed him dryly. "Not with my pocket knife. I mainly use that for castratin' pigs and slicin' apples…but I could make an exception for you."

He laughed. "I'll pass."

His grandfather shook his head, but reluctantly grinned.

Katie poured soup from one of the thermos bottles and handed it to him. Steam from chicken broth with noodles thawed his nose. The delicious aroma mingled with the odor of wet horse hair, leather, and manure rising from his clothes…and the fragrance of Katie's hair against his shoulder, full of sweet, cold air, and lightning.

His grandfather looked at Katie. "Speakin' of pigs…your dad find his sow yet?"

Taking a swallow of the hot soup, he eased closer to her, casually dropping his arm to her shoulders. She tensed, but didn't move away.

"No," she said, her color unnaturally high. "She's probably hid out by the creek somewhere. She ran off the last time she had babies, too."

"Those little pigs'll be coyote bait down there," his grandfather said.

She nodded. "Dad said I had to go look for her tomorrow."

He kept his arm around her shoulders until he finished his meal, but finally, he had to get out of the truck. She followed, and while she stumbled through the snow toward the trailer, he reached behind the pickup seat for a paper bag.

She unloaded Lucky at the back while he headed for Candy in the front space. Standing between the mare's head and Katie, he slipped off the old bridle, replacing it with the one he'd bought months before. He backed the mare from the trailer onto the snowy road.

Katie stared wide-eyed at the bridle, and then at him. "You kept this?"

"Lucky wouldn't wear it. He thinks it makes him look like a sissy." He grinned crookedly. "If you don't take it this time, he's gonna pawn it. And then he might go shoot himself."

Her eyes smiled, and then she laughed. "Candy likes it. He won't have to shoot himself." She ran her gloved fingers over the black leather. "Are there strings attached to this?"

"Maybe one or two."

She rolled her eyes. "How'd I know that? What are they?"

"Take me with you to hunt the pig tomorrow."

She hesitated.

"C'mon. It'll be fun."

"I don't think my dad would be happy."

"I'll talk to him."

She looked doubtful.

"It's either that or you put on that flowered dress and go out with me. I could see if you're any prettier than you are right now. I'll bet you're not."

She smiled, turning toward Candy. "You're so full of it."

"Not about that. What'll it be?"

"The pig, then." She mounted and gave him a sideways glance. "Maybe."

***

At nine o'clock the next morning, the sun shone on Katie's bright hair bobbing around near the rickety pig pens. He parked his truck near the barn and opened the door to the deafening squeals of a white boar and two smaller sows. Unaware of his presence behind her, Katie poured soured milk and corn from a bucket into a trough. The squeals quieted to greedy smacks and grunts as he stepped close to her, covering her eyes with his hands.

She froze, and then ducked away from him. "Don't do that." Without looking at him, she walked quickly toward the barn carrying the slop bucket.

He hesitated, but then followed her. "Did I scare you?"

"No." She set the bucket inside the barn door. "Somebody…else used to do that all the time." She looked at him. "Are you ready to go?"

"Should I ask your dad?" The look in her eyes was confusing. Completely different from yesterday. Was it guilt? Shame? Defiance, maybe?

"No." She glanced toward the house. "I told him."

Definitely defiance.

She picked up a backpack from the barn floor and slung it over her shoulder, her jaw set. He followed her through a gate into the pasture and onto a muddy cow trail. She set off at a fast walk toward the tree-lined creek, a quarter mile distant.

He cleared his throat. "Didn't go good?"

Her slim shoulders shrugged inside her denim coat. "He doesn't realize I'm not twelve years old anymore."

"Am I that bad?"

She glanced at him. "You just got out of jail."

"Is that his main problem with me?"

"That…and you're not in the church."

"Did you tell him I wanna go to church with you?"

"Yes."

"Didn't help?"

"Not much."

They followed the trail over the hill and out of sight of the house. Her gaze fixed on the fresh caps of snow glaring on the peaks across the valley. The storm of the day before might never have been—the snowfall of the higher elevations had been only rain at the lower altitude of the ranch. Bright sunlight sparkled off the drops of water clinging to every blade of grass in the pasture, and lit a fire in the blazing reds and yellows of the trees along the creek. Her expression relaxed and she breathed deeply of the sharp morning air.

"What's in the backpack?" he asked.

"Lunch."

"This
is
a date." He grinned and took the pack from her, slinging it over his shoulder.

"It's just in case we can't find the pig before lunchtime."

"Will we?"

She gave him a sideways glance, but only smiled.

At the creek, he turned to her. "Which way?"

She peered through the fiery hues of the underbrush. "I know where I found her once before." She pointed. "There's a place up there where some boulders have all fallen together to make a little cave."

He grinned. "Let's don't go there, then."

She hesitated. "There's a place where I go sometimes." She nodded toward the top of the hill on the other side of the creek. "Up there."

"I'm with you."

She turned to cross the creek, jumping from one water-slick stone to another, and then she clambered up grey boulders, some as big as houses, on the other side. At last, she stopped at the edge of a small clearing in the dense brush and trees. Deer had grazed the emerald grass inside it smooth as a lawn.

He leaned over with his hands on his knees, winded. "You come here to hide?"

"Nobody bothers me here." She gave him a shy glance. "Nobody else knows about it."

"Nobody?"

She shook her head.

Nobody else? Did that mean…something?

He followed her to a flat rock in the sun. She sat down and drew up her denim clad knees. He stood with his hands on his hips, looking around the small clearing.

"It's nice." He turned to her. "What'd'you hide from in here?"

She shrugged. "Things." Leaning back on her hands, she raised her gaze to the cloudless depth of blue sky.

He studied the graceful line of her throat and the shining strands of light hair floating about her face. "What happened with you and Lance?" he asked abruptly.

She sat up and crossed her booted feet under her. "He broke up with me." 

He raised his eyebrows. "He broke up with
you
?"

She found a twig on the rock and nervously snapped it into little pieces. "He said I wasn't with him anymore even when I was with him." She met his gaze. "He said it was you."

A breeze stirred the leaves of a tree near the rock, raining a flurry of color down on her. He sat beside her and removed his hat.

Tossing it aside, he raked his fingers through his hair. "Was it?"

"I don't know. After that night up there—" she jerked her chin in the direction of the line camp—"nothing was the same no matter how I tried." She shrugged. "Maybe it is you. I don't want it to be."

"Why?"

"You scare me."

"Scare you?" he asked incredulously. "You've never acted scared of me."

"Dad says you'll hurt me." Her face filled with strain. "Maybe it's true."

He found a twig of his own and broke it into pieces, mixing them with hers. "Nothin's been the same for me, either. I kept thinkin' about all that stuff you said to me. It was all true. I am a selfish jerk, but I never cared what anybody thought of me." He looked at her. "Until I met you."

She studied him, her gaze troubled. "You never cared what God thought of you?"

"No. I didn't know I was supposed to." The sunlight struck a high gloss on her hair, and he slowly reached to remove a golden box elder leaf from her ponytail.  

"Why are you looking at me like that?" she asked.

"I'm wonderin' what it'd be like to kiss you."

She looked away. "Dad said that's the only kind of…stuff you want from me."

He dropped his hand in frustration. "I don't know what I'm doin', Katie. I've never known a girl like you, but I know I can't see me without you anymore. Wherever that takes me, that's where I'm goin'." He lifted her chin to meet her gaze. "That's what I want." 

She studied him intently. Then a smile started in her eyes and she nudged over his pile of sticks.

"Tell me what Gil is short for."

He grinned in relief. "Gilbert."

She giggled.

"I know. Not cool. What's Katie short for?"

"Katherine…"

For the next hour, he sat beside her on the rock, drinking in the movement of light and shadow across her dainty features, craving the smile that accompanied her soft laugh. She would graduate high school in the spring, he had dropped out of college after he lost his baseball scholarship. She liked to read, he liked to play his guitar. She liked George Strait and The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, he liked Van Halen and Lynyrd Skynyrd.

As they talked, the pure blue of her gaze played off his, often shy, sometimes smiling, but completely lacking the grasping neediness he hated. She never mentioned her hair or clothes, although she did admit she hated milking the family cow—it made her arms bigger than practically any of the other girls in her high school or at church.

"You don't have big arms," he said, laughing.

"Yes, I do."

"Let me see."

She shrugged off her coat and rolled up the sleeves of her blue and white checked shirt. He gently squeezed a bicep, warm and smooth—and big for such a small girl.

He raised his eyebrow. "Impressive. You might be able to beat me arm wrestlin'." He removed his brown canvas coat and stretched out on his stomach on the rock, holding out his hand. "Try."

"Tim's the only one of the boys I can beat now," she said, eyeing his hand doubtfully, "and not every time."

He grinned. "He's really strong though."

She rolled her eyes and laughed. Stretching out on the sun-warmed rock, she faced him.

"If I win, I get to hold your hand," he said.

"What if I win?"

"I'll let you hold mine."

She provided more of a challenge than he expected, but he won. He didn't release her hand until noon when she spread the contents of the backpack on the rock. He ate two sandwiches of home-cured ham on thick slices of Becky Campbell's homemade bread, and then Katie tossed him a bag of M&M's. He separated the green candies from the rest.

"Here," he said, holding them out to her. "They're supposed to…er…attract you to me." Green M&M's were supposed to make her want him, but he couldn't very well say that.

She studied him warily from under her lashes.

"C'mon," he said. "Just see if they work."

Smiling, she chose one and ate it. She shook her head.

"Really? Not even a little?"

"No." A smile tugged at the corner of her mouth.

"Here, try the rest of 'em."

He stared intently at her, but when she finished, she shook her head again with the same teasing smile.