The Cedar Tree (Love Is Not Enough) (38 page)

He dodged the rein end as both horses plunged around on the slick asphalt. Candy reared. Katie twisted in the saddle and kicked at him. Her boot made solid contact just beneath his injured knee.

"Katie, knock it off," he shouted, snatching at the rein again. "You're gonna get us killed."

The mare stumbled, falling to her knees. Off balance, Katie tumbled sideways. He lunged for her, catching her arm just before she toppled from the horse. With every muscle straining, he hauled her back onto her saddle. Candy heaved to her feet.

Katie wrenched her arm from his grip then slumped in her saddle gasping for air. He brought the horses to a quivering stand, his chest heaving in ragged gasps. With a glance at the empty road behind them, he reached for Candy's other rein and grimly wound them around his saddle horn.

"First of all you little wildcat," he panted, eyeing her downcast face. "I'll break Lance's arms before he takes you on another date. You're not gettin' back together with him unless I'm dead, so…put that in your pipe and smoke it." He fingered a stinging welt on his cheek. "Another thing? Don't ever call me buster again. I'm pretty darn sick of it."

He picked up his reins. Pulling Candy along, he nudged Lucky to a trot with his rowel-less spurs, following the sound of the flock fading into the distance.

A mile later, they turned onto a narrow, dirt road. The sheep followed the sparsely populated ranch road upward through irrigated hay fields, and then into the oak brush. A cool, pine scented breeze from the high country did little to cool his anger—or hers, apparently—as they rode leg to leg.

She maintained an ominous, thin-lipped silence, her hands clenched on her denim-clad thighs. She'd lost her hat sometime during their altercation, and the breeze wafted silky strands of lightning scented ponytail to catch in his whisker stubble or tangle around his shirt snaps. She winced with pain, but wouldn't lean into him to loosen it. He untangled the strands of hair himself, sometimes tucking them behind her ear where he let his fingers linger on her skin, silently taunting her. She always jerked away, slapping at his hand. 

Still silent at noon, she turned up her nose at the sandwich and can of soda he offered her from his saddlebag. Throughout the afternoon, she ignored Dave's mocking comments about her rein-less situation, Tim's hearty laughter, her dad's speculative gaze, and his grandfather's worried look.

At dusk, they entered the aspen grove marking the boundary of the grazing allotment. The weary flock spread across the meadow to graze while Dave turned Sam into the makeshift horse pen near the shepherd's trailer beneath the trees.

Jon dismounted and approached Katie. She didn't look at him.

Her dad thoughtfully studied the stubborn set of her jaw then turned to him. "You loadin' up?"

He eyed her. "You ready to end this?"

All she had to do was relent just a little. Say something. Anything. 

She stared stony-faced toward where an occasional bleat and tinkle of a bell from a bellwether's collar disturbed the dusk beneath the aspens. Ragged lines of melting snow beneath the trees filled the air with the smell of wet earth. A horse whinnied. The trailer gate slammed.

"One of us has to give up," he said. "It ain't gonna be me, so…whenever you're ready."

Her lips tightened. Nothing else.

He breathed deeply of the chilly air. All right. If that was how she wanted it…

"If it's all right with you, sir," he said to Jon, "we'll be along after a while."

Jon eyed Katie's set expression. "Babe?"

She looked down at her hands, but didn't say anything.

Jon gave him a sour look. "I hope you know what you're doin'."

He nodded glumly. That made two of them.

***

"I need to stop," Katie said an hour later, her voice breaking into the darkness and steady clop of hooves on the deserted road.

He halted the horses and dismounted, gritting his teeth against the pain in his knee. Katie stumbled toward the cover of the scrub oak. He tightened Lucky's cinch. Why had he been so stubborn about riding all the way down the mountain? She had to be tired and hungry—he was—but she'd made him so mad he'd forgotten she was hardly bigger than a minute and prone to respiratory complaints. He'd probably make her sick.

He tightened Candy's saddle. What a train wreck. How was he going to fix all that?

Did he even want to?

He couldn't keep living the way he had been the rest of his life. She couldn't, either…she needed somebody who could make her happy. It seemed less likely every day it was him.

Her footsteps sounded behind him. She made a couple of weary attempts to mount, but couldn't get her boot to the stirrup. He lifted her onto the saddle. She sat shivering, her face a pale heart-shape in the dark. He untied his denim jacket from behind his saddle and handed it to her. She hesitated, but then reached for the coat and slipped it on.

Something bigger than a skunk, maybe a badger, rustled through the grass beside the road. Whatever it was, he could deal with it easier than the unnervingly silent female beside him.

"Katie, this don't need to be so hard," he said quietly. "You know it don't."  

Her head drooped. She shifted in the saddle. The leather creaked. That was all.

He sighed. Okay. They'd do it the hard way some more.

In Lone Tree, the horses' metal shoes raised an echoing clatter on the dark street, empty except for a few pickups still parked in front of the bar. He stopped beneath the streetlamp at the payphone. The horses stood quietly. A burst of muffled laughter drifted from inside the bar.

"Want me to call your dad to come get you?"

She didn't raise her head. "You're…leaving me here?" Her voice sounded small and uncertain.

He reached to tip up her chin, forcing her to look at him. "I brought you to this dance and I'll take you home if you can ride it," he said roughly. "I've never done anything to make you think I'd leave you anywhere. Ever."

The streetlight glinted on sudden tears in her eyes. "You left me at Aunt Rachel's."

He stared at her, motionless. "Wait…You didn't want me to?"

Her gaze slid away from his.

"Tell me." His grip on her chin tightened. "I can't read your mind."

Her lips trembled. "You could if you cared about me."

He gaped at her. If he cared…? Could she be serious? "You ran off. I thought I'd ruin your party if—"

"You left with her."

"I didn't wanna change her tire, Katie," he exclaimed. "I just dropped her off and went home. I was with her for maybe five minutes. If you'd stayed with me you would've—"

"Gil, I wanted you to—" She broke off, crying silently.

"What? I would've done it." He leaned toward her. "Tell me."

She wiped her eyes with the heel of her hand. "If you understood me at all, you'd know."

Another burst of laughter sounded from the bar. Probably 3T laughter. Down the street, a dog barked. She sat silent and he still didn't know.

Releasing her chin, he sat back in his saddle in defeat. He was too stupid to figure it out and she wasn't going to tell him. He'd flunked another crazy female psychology test. Big surprise there.

"Can you make another five miles?" he asked stiffly.

She nodded.

He unwound her reins then flipped them over Candy's head to her. On the long climb up the hill outside the sleeping town, she groaned. He glanced back to where she swayed over her saddle horn like a drunk. Turning, he rode Lucky close beside her, circling her shoulders with his arm. She sagged against him without protest. Sometime after midnight, the horses stumbled to a stop in the Campbell yard.

Her legs wouldn't hold her when she slid off her saddle and he caught her, his own body groaning with weariness. He held her to him, breathing in her warmth and softness. She belonged in his arms. They were right like that. Why couldn't she see it? Why'd she want to waste time fighting and—

"Gil?" she whispered against his shirt. Her arms hesitantly encircled his waist. "I don't want to do this anymore."

His heart jolted, but he stared into the darkness over her head. Was it her talking, or exhaustion? What if she felt different in the morning…what would he do then? He didn't have any more cards to play. 

"It's been a long day, Katie," he said, gently disengaging her arms. "I don't think you're in any shape for a big discussion right now." Holding her around the shoulders, he urged her toward the light burning on the porch.

Outside the kitchen door, she turned to him. Engulfed in his jacket, her hair in wild disarray, her eyes seemed too big in her face. "Gil, please."

He wanted nothing more than to take advantage of the soft pleading in her gaze, but he stopped her with his thumb against her lips. "You might change your mind by mornin'." He stroked his fingers across her cheek then dropped his hand. "If you don't, you can let me know."

She hesitated then gave a small nod. The kitchen door closed behind her with a soft click. He stared at the spot where she had disappeared.

Maybe he was crazy, but he didn't want to win while she was dead tired, cold, and miserable. He wanted to win when the sun was shining on her hair and she was smiling at him.

Chapter Twenty-two

Ten days later, oven-like heat radiated from the ring of massive sandstone boulders around the spring at Sunnyside. Sweat soaked Gil's hat, dripped off his nose, and burned the blisters on his palms inside his gloves. His shovel scraped along the bottom of a waist-deep trench, the blade grinding against stone like the grit between his teeth. Behind him, Dave sat with his legs dangling into the ditch, gluing together two joints of plastic water pipe.

He heaved a shovel-full of rocky, powder dry dirt onto the growing mound beside the trench. A motor sounded in the distance. He eagerly turned, but it was only Annie's old Cadillac with rusting, olive-green paint and peeling top that crowned the hill and stopped on the sandstone slab.

He sighed heavily, lifting his hat to wipe his face on his denim shirtsleeve. Not Katie. Still.

Annie opened the car door. Her small son hopped out behind her then ran toward Dave. She followed, wearing a baggy white tee shirt with a faded pink skirt flowing gracefully around her long legs. The sun struck a deep blue gloss on her hair, bound up Navajo fashion with a white strip of cloth. In spite of the ragged clothes she always wore, she really was stunning. Karl needed his head examined for running off. Must be a Campbell thing…not seeing what was right in front of their faces.

"Hey, Joe," Dave exclaimed, laughing.

The boy launched himself and Dave caught him, eyeing Annie over the boy's head. Grinning, he raised his hand, palm out. "How, Girl-who-drive-boat," he said in a gruff tone, mocking her boat-like old car. 

Her teeth flashed white, erasing the usual aloof appearance of her smooth, brown face. She raised her hand. "How, Man-who-make-funny-joke."

She turned her gaze from Dave to where he stood in the ditch. Unhurriedly, she studied him with the veiled but curiously observant look peculiar to her. She nodded in greeting.

He reached for the red water jug at the edge of the ditch. "Doin' okay, Annie?"

She nodded again then turned to Dave who had removed his sweat stained grey Stetson and was pulling his eye patch over his hair, releasing it to her boy's grasping hands. The boy fixed it over his own eye while Dave slipped his dark glasses from his shirt pocket then settled the glasses on his face and smoothed down his hair before he looked up at her.

"What's up, Indun Girl?"

"Your father thought you could use help with Baby."

"Yeah. Baby ain't much help with ditch diggin'." Dave grinned wryly, glancing at him. "I think Uncle Gil's ready to put him in and cover him up. He don't like kids."

"I love kids." He tipped up the jug. The water made a long trail of coolness down his throat. He lowered the jug, grimacing, and wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. "I like how they taste."

Dave gave Annie a knowing grin. A soft dimple appeared in her cheek.

Dave's gaze lingered on her then he flushed and turned away abruptly, nodding toward the kid sleeping on a quilt in a cedar tree's shade. "You wanna wait until the little pest wakes up?"

She nodded, stooping to pick up one of three black and white puppies tumbling around her shabby blue sneakers. Smiling, she held the fuzzy pup against her and pulled herself to a seat on a boulder.

Dave picked up his glue can and resumed the conversation they had been having before Annie's arrival. "The thing is, dude, Rodrigo's givin' me grey hairs and I'm not even twenty yet. One of these days we'll see a big smoke. It'll be him…caught the whole forest on fire."

"What'd'you want me to do about it?" he asked testily. He'd hired seventeen-year-old Rodrigo—another relative from Juan's murky gene pool—to stay with the sheep on the mountain while he and Dave installed the water line. Naturally, it must be his fault Rodrigo was about as much help as a hole in the head. "I won't have Manuel around with his hands all over—"

"How would he even see Katie up there at camp?" Dave shoved away one of the puppies trying to climb onto his lap. "You're paranoid, dude."

Without replying, he dropped into the ditch. He hurled out a shovel-full of stones.

"We should at least find somebody without a mustache," Dave said. "Rodrigo can't leave his little mustache alone long enough to watch the sheep."

He turned. "You're so jealous."

"Dude. I've got a mustache." Dave grasped the puppy and thrust it at Annie's little boy. "I have a mustache don't I, Joe?"

The boy clasped the squirming pup to his chest, peering at the blond fuzz of Dave's whisker stubble. "No," the child said, turning away with the puppy.

He laughed in spite of himself.

Dave grinned sheepishly. "Navajo guys don't have much facial hair, do they, Annie? It's not necessarily the measure of a man."