The Cedar Tree (Love Is Not Enough) (4 page)

The rider turned into a slender blonde in a white shirt mounted on a blaze-faced sorrel mare, and then something thudded against his bumper.

The young woman's face registered sudden horror. She screamed. Throwing her leg over her horse, she slid to the ground. He slammed on the brakes, skidding to a stop. The blonde ran across the road in front of him to a still mound of gold fur in the grass. She fell to her knees. He jumped from the cab and ran to her just as she gathered a small dog into her arms.

She raised astonishingly blue eyes, full of tears and glinting with shocked anger. "You killed my dog, you moron," she cried.

"I'm sorry," he exclaimed, gaping down at her delicate, heart shaped face. She was really pretty, even mad. "I didn't see him."

"Well, why not?" she wailed. She pulled the dog to her chest. "He was right there in plain sight."

"I'm…sorry," he stammered, uncharacteristically rattled. He hadn't seen the dog because he'd been looking at her, but he couldn't very well say so. "Here, don't do that, you'll get all bloody."

But she bowed her head over her dog, crying. He stood staring uncertainly down at her glossy hair drawn back in a long ponytail. Wiping out his wad of chew from his lip, he flipped it away then fished his handkerchief from the back pocket of his jeans.

Squatting beside her, he held out the handkerchief. "Here."

She didn't look up. "Go away. Leave me alone."

He scanned the deserted road, a thin grey strand intersecting rocky, cedar dotted pastures. "I can't just leave you here like this. Let me take you home."

She jerked up her head and glared at him, her face wet. "I've seen how you drive. What makes you think I'd go anywhere with you?"

Unused to a reaction like that from a girl, at least not until later, he stared at her. "I'm tryin' to be nice."

"You've been nice enough. If you got any nicer you might run over
me
."

"I told you I didn't see him." He removed his hat to run his hand over his hair in frustration. "If I promise not to run over you, will you let me take you home?"

Her gaze flicked over his bare head. She turned away. "I'll ride my horse."

"Let me take the dog, then."

"I'll carry him."

Squatting there, he studied her dainty profile. She was a stubborn little thing.

He thrust the handkerchief at her again. "Here. Your nose is…er…runnin' a little."

She snatched his handkerchief with one hand and wiped her nose. Thrusting it back at him, she stood, the front of her white shirt covered with blood.

"C'mon. Let me take you home. I feel bad."

Without looking at him, she picked up the dog and carried it toward her mare grazing on the other side of the road. He followed, but stood back while she tried to mount. With the dog in her arms, she couldn't pull herself onto the saddle, so she tried to hoist the body first. She was too short to heave it up far enough. The dog's body slid back into her arms.

He stepped forward and took the dog from her. "This is ridiculous. Get on."

Turning the mare's head to face him, she jumped to get her booted foot in the stirrup. She swung onto the saddle then held out her arms for the bloody mass of fur. He reluctantly handed the dog to her. Their hands brushed together and the contact rushed through him like an unexpected electric shock.

The blonde flushed and jerked away.

He gaped up at her for an instant then he moved his hand to grip the saddle horn. "What's your name?"

"You don't need to know."

He suddenly did need to know. "I might."

"You don't." She nudged her mare into a trot and moved away with the unthinking grace of one raised in the saddle, her silvery ponytail bobbing.

He stared after her then slid into the pickup. By the time he pulled alongside her, she had dropped from a trot to a walk to keep the dog's limp body from bouncing off.

He leaned out the window. "I'm tryin' to find Jon Campbell. Am I on the right road?"

She glanced at him. "Why?"

"My gramps, Gene Howard, told me he has a horse for sale."

She stopped her mare and stared at him as though trying to figure out something. "You're Gil?"

"I see I'm a big disappointment."

She frowned, gesturing at the dog's body. "You just killed the best dog I ever had."

"I really am sorry."

She nudged her mare into a walk.

He idled along with her for a hundred feet. "You never said if I was a big disappointment."

She rolled her eyes. "I'm very disappointed that you killed my dog."

"I mean, other than that."

She stopped the horse again. "You have got to be kidding."

"No."

She shook her head disgustedly and moved on. "Go away."

A moment later, he followed. She was crying again.

"I'd like to make it up to you."

She wiped her eyes on the sleeve of her bloody shirt then glared at him. "Then go up the road there to the end of it and stop following along behind me."

But he didn't pull away. Fifty feet later, he cleared his throat. "Since you know my name, I think I ought to know yours."

"If I tell you, will you leave me alone?"

His reckless grin had never failed to charm. He flashed it at her. "If you'll give me your phone number, too."

Her wet eyes narrowed. "You are so full of yourself. I wouldn't give you my phone number if you were the last man alive."

He paused, a little bewildered by her hostility. "That's pretty cold."

She stopped her mare. "You killed my dog, you idiot," she exclaimed.

He held her gaze. "I really prefer moron."

She gave an offended toss of her head and nudged her mare forward.

He followed. "C'mon. Tell me your name."

Her small chin with its hint of a cleft jutted, and she turned to glare at him. "I'm Katie Campbell, I've already got a boyfriend, and I'm definitely not interested in you, so leave me alone."

He rolled along beside her in silence for a long moment, surprised by the depth of his disappointment. "You sure you don't want me to take the dog?" he asked, finally.

"I've got him."

He reluctantly pulled away. At the end of the graveled road, he found a battered tin mailbox with a terse 'Campbell' painted on the side, faded by the weather of many years. He pulled into the driveway between an old, two-storied ranch house with a wide porch, and a peak-roofed grey barn where a horse stood tied to a hitch rail.

A wiry man bent over the bay gelding's near back hoof, holding it between his knees while he nailed on a horseshoe. Looking up at his approach, the man dropped the hoof. Slowly he straightened, pulling a pained face. He pushed his hat back to wipe his sweating face on the sleeve of his shirt.

"You've got to be Roy Howard's kid. You look just like him." Pulling off his leather gloves, the wiry man poked them into the back pocket of his jeans, extending his rough hand. "Jon Campbell."

The other man was grinning, but there was an edge of…something…in his direct gaze.

He shook the older man's hand. "Gil Howard." The guy almost looked like he had a problem with him, but…how could he? He didn't even know about the dog yet.

"Gene called. Says you're needin' a horse." Jon's tone sounded friendly enough.

He shrugged. "Yeah." He rubbed the gelding's glossy shoulder. "What's his name?"

"My girl names everything around here. She calls him Lucky."

He moved along the horse and ran his hand down Lucky's back leg, lifting his newly shod hoof. The horse made no objection. He dropped it then moved around to the other side.

"I think I met your daughter down the road." He eyed Jon over the horse's back. "Pretty blonde?"

Jon nodded.

"I hit her dog with my truck."

The other man's weathered face reflected dismay. "Kill him?"

"Yeah."

"Where's she at?"

He nodded over his shoulder toward Katie, still a dot on the road down the hill. "She's pretty upset at me. Wouldn't let me carry the dog back."

He finished nailing on Lucky's last shoe himself as Katie walked her horse into the yard. Her dad met her and lifted the dog from before her on the saddle. The two of them exchanged words and Katie angrily jerked her head toward him where he filed the horseshoe nails he'd just clinched onto the hoof. Then she stomped into the house and slammed the screen door. Jon laid the dog's limp form on the opened tailgate of a dusty, black pickup nearby.

He dropped Lucky's hoof and straightened. "You want me to do somethin' with the dog?"

"No. One of the boys'll bury him."

The screen door of the house opened. A gangly boy of about fifteen came out.

"Tim," Jon yelled, "come get Benny and a shovel and take him down to Katie's graveyard." He turned. "She's got a place where she's buried every dead cat, bird, and dog she's ever come across."

He winced. "I'm really sorry about the dog. I just didn't see him."

"He's always been bad to run out in front of vehicles," Jon said with a shrug. "You wantin' to take ol' Lucky for a spin?"

A few minutes later, Lucky moved out at an easy lope across the irrigated green of the home pasture. The horse's long legs covered a lot of ground, ears flicking at the sound of his voice. Sure-footed and eager to please, the big bay climbed through acres of rocky grazing land to the top of a cedar covered hill and then higher still to the elevation where oak brush grew. He grinned at Lucky's aggressive pleasure in working a group of black cattle with a Flying C brand out of the dense thickets.

He allowed the cattle to scatter at a small spring and stopped the horse to let him blow. Fishing in his back pocket for his Skoal can, he took a dip, his gaze on the Campbell place spread out far beneath him.

He shook his head. What a way to introduce himself to the pretty little blonde…Katie. He'd never had that kind of bad luck with a girl before. Well, the thing with Darlene hadn't turned out so good, but he'd never mangled a first impression like that. Katie was younger than the girls he usually went after…might even still be in high school. But something about her almost tempted him to stick around and see what happened. The boyfriend might be a problem, but, then again, maybe not.

He grinned. He'd gotten around boyfriends before.

He rode back into the ranch yard to find Tim Campbell waiting at the hitching rail. The boy had an open, likable face with an engaging grin, a shock of curling dark hair, and hazel eyes like his father.

"Dad had to go help my brothers get the heifers out of his new hay field," Tim said. "What'd you think of Lucky?"

He dismounted with a creak of saddle leather and tossed the reins over the hitching rail. "Why's your dad sellin' him?"

Tim's gaze ran over the fender of his saddle with its declaration of his victory in a saddle-bronc competition tooled into the worn leather.

The boy whistled. "You ride saddle broncs?"

"Not anymore." He loosened the cinches and pulled off the saddle. "I came off one last summer and blew out my knee."

"Rotten luck."

"Yeah."

"Well, there ain't anything wrong with Lucky," Tim said. "Dad just decided we've got too many horses eatin' their heads off." The boy leaned back against the hitch rail and eyed his pickup. "That's a sweet truck. I like it when the suspension's jacked up like that. Makes 'em look cool. It must have cost a lot."

"I won it."

Tim whistled again. "You must've been pretty good."

"Didn't do too bad." He carried his saddle to his truck and flung it over the side.

"It's four wheel drive, too," Tim said. "Is it pretty good in the mud? My brother Dave drives a GMC, too, and it's good, but my brother Karl drives a Ford and it'll get stuck on a cow-pie."

He eyed Tim. "How many brothers you got?"

The boy grinned. "Just the two, but Mom's gonna have a baby, so I may end up with three." Tim handed him a curry comb.

"You just got one sister?"

"Yeah. So you hit on her, huh?"

He turned to the boy with a raised eyebrow. "That what she said?"

"She told Mom you'd hit her dog and then hit on her. That didn't go very good, did it?" Tim grinned. "She was pretty mad."

"It might not have been one of my smoother moves." He grinned wryly and began working on Lucky's sweaty withers with the comb. "She said she's already got a boyfriend."

"Yeah. Lance."

"She serious about him?"

"Who knows with girls?" Tim shrugged. "They're all crazy. Her especially. You gonna move here?"

The screen door opened. He glanced up. Katie walked out in a fresh shirt then her boot heels beat a hollow sounding staccato on the boards as her petite frame moved briskly down the length of the porch. She never looked his way, but she held her back stiff and her chin slightly elevated.

He grinned—she knew he was there.

She descended the steps at the end of the porch and turned the corner.

"I hadn't really made up my mind," he said, his gaze on the place where she had disappeared, "but, yeah. I think I'll stick around."

He handed the curry comb back to Tim. "You can tell your dad I'll take the horse."

Chapter Three

The next morning, a cloud of fine dust hung over the corral full of bawling, white-faced cattle. Gil shifted almost imperceptibly in the saddle, and Lucky obeyed with fluid precision, cutting out a frail-looking little cow from the bunch and driving her into the alley where his grandfather slammed the gate behind her. He eyed the old man from atop Lucky, not very hopeful about this one, either.

"What'd'ya think, Gramps?" he yelled over the bawling cattle. "I doubt she's got a tooth in her head."

His grandfather ran his gaze over the cow's thin frame then he groped in a paper feed sack at his feet for a handful of alfalfa cubes. He offered them through the corral poles. The cow reached out a long, rough tongue and methodically ground the cubes between her gums. The old man scratched her head where the hair sprouted from her poll like a tuft of scraggly white grass.