She broke half a dozen eggs into a bowl and dropped the shells down the garbage disposal. “Sarah says we should compost, but I can’t convince Vittorio garbage is worth saving. I hope to start with the fall leaves, the few we actually rake and don’t leave to rot. In a way, that counts as compost.”
At her direction, Jake set china and glasses on the island. Charlie added two tablespoons of water to the eggs.
“My mother always added water,” Jake said. “She told my sisters that adding milk made the eggs rubbery.”
“Your mother’s a wise woman,” Charlie said, and began to beat the eggs with a whisk. “If you’d like wine, there’s some white in the fridge. Otherwise there’s iced tea.”
“Which do you want?”
“Tea.”
“Me, too.” He set about fixing two glasses.
Charlie glanced up at him. Did he really prefer wine but couldn’t ask for it? “I’m sorry, Jake. I didn’t mean to be flip about your mother.”
“No problem. So your husband couldn’t reassimilate,” Jake said. “Now, where have I heard that before.”
“He wanted me to do all the assimilation,” Charlie said. She stripped several green onions, cut them with the kitchen scissors and folded them and the cheese into the eggs. Jake added the mushrooms and watched as she poured the mixture into the hot skillet and swirled it around.
Charlie said, “Steve could always reduce me to tears with his criticism, but that time I didn’t cave. He decided he had to ‘bring his family to heel.’”
“Surely he didn’t actually say that.”
“Want to bet?” She folded the omelet and turned it carefully so that it didn’t break apart. “I was sorry that I threatened Steve’s manhood, and that his daughter no longer idolized him, but I couldn’t fix it.”
“Counseling?”
“Ha. As if. My father may be a psychologist, but Steve believed the same thing a lot of military people do. Seeing a counselor means you can’t control your family. He kept accusing me of being out of control. He was right—only it was his control I was out of. Even his darling Sarah couldn’t do anything to please him. He hated her clothes, her language, the way she decorated her room, her music, her friends. He even resented her computer skills.” She raised her eyebrows. “Plates?”
He set them on the counter beside the eggs and found silverware in a drawer in the island.
“I hope you don’t like your omelet runny.”
“Nope. Looks perfect,” he said. “Smells good, too.”
Working together as smoothly as though they’d done it all their lives, they assembled the meal and ate together at the kitchen counter. Big breakthrough. Now she had ammunition to convince him to join the others at meals.
Charlie knew she’d been running her mouth, but Jake was having the same effect on her that he had on the animals—she trusted him.
“But you were still married when he...”
“Was killed? I couldn’t say the words for weeks after they notified me. We’d agreed to divorce when he came back from his tour. My mother told me before she died that if a man falls out of love with you, he never falls back in.”
“Who could possibly fall out of love with you?” The words sounded like a simple request for information, not a come-on.
She said with studied casualness, “The real question is, why did he fall in love with me in the first place? Want another bagel?” One look at Jake’s face, with his narrowed eyes and tight jaw, and she knew she wasn’t fooling him one little bit. She hadn’t even revealed the depth of her hurt to her father, and here she’d spilled her guts to a man she barely knew. She might as well be made of plastic wrap.
“No, the question is, why did you fall in love with him in the first place.”
She busied herself rinsing the plates and putting them in the dishwasher. “My mother was dead, my father was a zombie and I was seventeen. On my way off to college in the fall. I met him that summer at the pool on post. He was everything my father loathed, so of course I fell madly in love with him. Soldiers were what I knew. I got pregnant so we got married. My father paid for me to attend the local college. They had child care, and I could go to school while Steve did his job, so I could still keep house and be there when he wanted me to be. The first few years were great. We were poor, but we were really happy.”
“What changed that?”
“He discovered that shooting at live targets that shot back was the ultimate high. He’d already started to change when he came back the first time.”
“So had you,” Jake said quietly.
“We’d had such different experiences while he was gone. Then he was deployed again when we’d barely had a chance to get to know one another again. When he came home the second time, it was the beginning of the end for us.
“Nothing measured up to that high for him. Not me, not Sarah, not barbecues in the backyard or swims at the pool. Most of my friends’ husbands never wanted to go back in-country or leave their families again. A number of them got out of the army rather than take the chance, but Steve couldn’t wait to go back. I make him sound like an unfeeling monster. He wasn’t. He was funny and clever, and I think he loved Sarah and me as much as he could, but his eyes were always on the horizon.”
“Men like that defuse bombs, or cave dive, or fight bulls.”
“And most of them leave their families eventually,” Charlie said, “Or don’t marry and procreate in the first place.” She caught her breath and studiously avoided looking at Jake. Everything about him said that he wasn’t a fear junkie like Steve, but he’d been a soldier by choice, and he’d never married or had children. Was she missing the same signals she should have picked up on with Steve? She didn’t think so, but how could she trust her instincts?
“Most of them don’t ride bucking broncos, either,” Jake said.
“I don’t think Hank’s a fear junkie. He’s a glory hound. He wants to win, to shine, to be in the spotlight. If he can find something else that feeds his ego, he’ll glom on to it and be happy again.”
“Your Steve sounds like a war lover. They are a very rare breed. I’ve only known two. They were as dangerous to us as to the enemy.”
She watched Jake slide the two place mats back into the drawer under the island, but his eyes were on her. “We should check on the kittens, and then off to bed.”
She wasn’t ready to take the next step with Jake. All she wanted was her farm and her life with her daughter. Now, she knew the smallest gesture could breach the dam and send her into his arms. Either he’d respond, or he wouldn’t. Whichever, their trainer-student relationship would not recover.
He held out his hand.
What had she just said about dam-breaching? She took a deep breath and took it.
* * *
JAKE HAD NOT been near a woman—except hospital and rehab staff—since he’d been air evacced to Ramstein. Physical pain, loss, guilt and anger didn’t leave room for testosterone. He’d planned to spend what remained of his life alone without dreams, hope, or direction. If he could have managed suspended animation, he’d have given it a shot.
This entire carriage-driving expedition was a last throw of the dice before he settled back into walking the city streets. For months he had felt himself grow dimmer, as though whatever light animated him—call it soul—was blinking out.
Then Charlie walked into his life. He’d been nearly blinded by the sunshine. She glowed with energy and drive. One part of him resented her for pushing him back into life. The other part wanted to grab her and hold on. He wanted to taste her lips, feel her body yield against his, look into those gray-green eyes and see that she wanted him as much as he knew he wanted her. Not gonna happen. She wouldn’t make the first move, and he couldn’t.
She’d opened up to him tonight, and would undoubtedly regret
the things she’d told him tomorrow.
He’d known the life stories of all his men. Made losing them worse. They’d made him a gift of their hopes and dreams. Dreams that had died with them. Could he lean on her strength to pull him back to the world?
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“WEATHER REPORT SAYS thunderstorms again tonight,” Sean said over breakfast. “What’s on the agenda, Charlie?”
“Colin Campbell called this morning. They’re logging about twenty miles from here, and he asked if we wanted to join them. Give you a chance to see what they do and decide if you’d like to try it.”
“I want to come, too,” Mickey said. “I can’t cut down trees yet, but maybe one day...”
“Like that’ll happen.” Hank sneered. “How we gonna manage you? Wheel you in a wheelbarrow and dump you in the poison ivy?”
“If we have to,” Charlie said quietly. She threw Hank a look.
“Let’s see you climb a tree,” Mickey said. “Get high enough so the limb’ll break off, why don’t you? Break both legs in the poison ivy and see how well you walk with steel pins holding them together.”
“Knock it off, you two,” Sean said.
“Mickey, we’ll park your wheelchair up on the road by the truck and the flatbed,” Charlie said. “You can watch the horses bring up the logs and load them. They barely need any supervision. They know their jobs.”
“Do I have to go?” Mary Anne asked. “It’s not like I’m going to do any logging.”
“It’s not just logging,” Charlie said. “It’s setting up the horses and hitching them to the logs. And, yes, you have to come along. This is a good time for one of your long-sleeved shirts, your scarf, a wide-brimmed hat, work gloves, boots and plenty of sun screen and fly spray. There’ll lots of chiggers.”
“Will there be snakes?” Sean asked. “I do not do snakes.”
“Probably. But snakes don’t like horses. The feeling is mutual.”
Charlie stopped Jake on his way upstairs and whispered, “How are the you-know-whats? If I tell the others about the kittens now, what are the odds we’ll be late for our appointment. You up to an open house when we get back? Is Mama Cat freaking out?”
“No so far. She has food she doesn’t have to hunt for, fresh water, a comfortable bed and her little family.”
“I’ll check with our vet when we get back from the logging and ask her how soon we can have her spayed.”
He turned to start up the stairs. “That big tom has already been serenading her from outside the window. So far she’s not interested.”
“Wish we could have him neutered, too,” Charlie said. “We tried one of the humane traps. He took the meat and managed not to spring the trap.”
The group reconvened in the big metal equipment shed that served as a garage for the trucks and a workshop for the tractors and heavy farm equipment.
“Watch out for the grease pit,” Charlie warned.
“My kinda place,” Mary Anne said.
Since part of the appeal of horse logging meant that it was unnecessary to clear a road broad enough for trucks and flatbeds, they found the Campbell equipment pulled into a pasture beside a thick stand of trees.
The two black shire mares tied to the side of the Campbells’ red stock trailer were bigger than any horse the colonel owned except the stallion. Already harnessed for the day’s work, they were contentedly munching hay from nets tied to the side of the trailer.
“Hey, Charlie.” Colin Campbell came around the end of the trailer, wiped his hands down his bib overalls and took hers. “Hey, folks. Come to do some loggin’?” He grinned at Mary Anne, who shrank behind Charlie. “Young lady, you look like you’d make a fine logger.” He turned to Mickey. “Woods we’re in today might be a tad rough for your chair, son, but you can help my brother Miles keep track of the load up here by the road.”
“Yessir,” Mickey said.
“You’ll be by yourself until we bring the first log up to load. Keep well away once we start it rollin’ onto the flatbed. Stay up in front of the truck. If one of the logs gets loose, no chair in the world can outrun it.”
“I’ll be careful.”
Colin nodded and turned to the group. “Miles and Ian’re already down in the woods. Hear that?” The growl of a chain saw set Charlie’s teeth on edge. “Brought down a fine red oak yesterday evening. Have to cut it into sections the length of the flatbed and load it today.” He patted the nearest mare’s broad rump. “This here’s Ellie and that’s Nellie. They’re good old girls. Any of you ever do any logging?”
Sean and Jake both raised their hands.
“Good. Then y’all got some idea what we’re doing. Well, folks, let’s drive Ellie and Nellie on down the hill. Charlie, you want to do the honors?”
“No, indeed. They’re your horses, it’s your business and I have no idea where we’re going.”
“They’ve been down there once today. They know where we’re headed better ’n I do. Give it a shot.”
Hank and Sean untied the mares and backed them away from their hay. They didn’t complain. They knew they’d be well taken care of when the day’s work was done.
“Here you go,” Colin said, and handed the two sets of reins to Charlie. “We already took the chains down to hook up the log. Ground driving ’em down to the log’s the easy part.”
“I have a better idea,” Charlie said. “Jake, how about you take them down? Colin and I will be right with you.”
He looked hard at her and at the reins she held out to him. “No,” he said.
“You’ve plowed behind horses,” Charlie said. “I haven’t. This isn’t much different. Here.” She handed him the reins once more.
He sighed, nodded and took them. She’d made the decision for him. She caught the query in Sean’s expression and gave him a nod and a smile of reassurance. She moved up to the shoulder of the nearside mare. Colin moved to the mare on the far side.
“Come around,” Jake said quietly, and tightened the right rein a fraction. Both mares stepped to the right as neatly as soldiers executing a turn on the parade ground.
Colin raised his eyebrows at Charlie, who winked at him.
Then Jake whistled a single note. The mares walked off side by side down the narrow trail.
“You done this before?” Colin asked.
“Once or twice,” Jake said. “Not recently.”
“You don’t forget how to whistle like that. I can do it. My brother Ian can’t, no matter how hard he tries.”
“How about Miles?” Charlie asked.
“He tries, but he can’t get the language right. He whistles, those ol’ girls is like to go left when he means right. Hangs ’em up in the trees.”
The heavy clay soil had been soaked by the last rain and remained as slippery as glare ice in spots, but the horses didn’t put a foot wrong.
The people, however, slipped and slid their way toward the growl of the chain saw.
Once he had accepted the task of driving the mares, Jake slipped into his role as though he’d not spent a single day off his father’s farm. The horses responded to him the same way every animal Charlie had seen him with responded.
“Hey, y’all,” came a voice from above their heads. Shading her eyes from the sun, Charlie looked up. The horses stopped.
“Up there’s my baby brother Ian,” Colin said.
The head poking out between the leaves of a big maple looked like the reincarnation of the Green Man. His skin seemed to have been made from the same leather as the harness. He hadn’t taken nearly as much care of his face, however. He had way too many teeth for his mouth, resulting in an overbite that would have benefited greatly from braces when he was a child. His teeth might be bucked, but his grin was extra broad and his voice cheerful.
“Come
down outta there,” Colin said, “before you break your fool neck.”
“Got to lop off some of these limbs. We fell this sucker the way she stands, we’re gonna wind up with a deadfall widow maker.”
“You fall, you’ll make your Lucille a widow, and she’ll blame me and make me support your children. Come on down and meet the company.”
Ian lowered his chain saw on a line until Colin could take it, then started down after it. Hearing the disturbance over their heads, the mares huffed and sidled away from the noise. Jake cooed to them to calm them.
When he was fifteen feet from the ground, Ian suddenly shouted, “Oh, shoot!”
The branch he was standing on broke and crashed. He dropped along with it.
Both branch and man landed across the backs of the mares.
Given a choice of fight or flight, they chose flight.
Ian slid sideways to crash onto the ground beside Colin while the branch slid off to the other side.
Charlie dived out of the way. It missed her head by a hair. She rolled toward the safety of the trees as the mares exploded past her.
Jake leaned back against the reins like a water-skier while he and Colin yelled to the horses to whoa. Twenty feet down the trail Jake had the mares nearly under control again when they came to a narrow fork. Before Colin could tell him which path to take, Ellie went left and Nellie went right. In the middle stood a tall sapling.
The trunk hit the chains anchoring the horses to the center pole with a crash that rocked both mares off their front feet and onto their rear ends.
Colin grabbed Nellie’s bridle while Charlie ran down the trail and grabbed Ellie.
“We got ’em,” Colin shouted. “Whoa, you fool horses!”
From Ellie’s shoulder Charlie saw Jake toss the reins to Sean. In a second he was at her side with his arms around her. “Are you hurt?” he asked.
“A few bruises. Thanks, Jake.”
He held her longer than necessary. She was shaking and leaned against him while he ran his hands down her back. “You could have been killed,” he said.
Taking the Reins Page 13
