BROKEN PROMISES
Patricia Watters
ARMOUR PRESS
BROKEN PROMISES
Copyright 2011 by Patricia Watters
First Edition
Printed in the United States of America
This edition is a revision of a work previously published by Harlequin Books under the title Sweet Promised Land
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author's imagination, or were used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental. All rights reserved. The republication or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic or mechanical or other means, not known of hereafter invented, including xerograpghy, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher. The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without permission of the copyright owner is illegal and punishable by law.
CHAPTER ONE
Tess O'Reilly pulled her Jeep off the red-dirt logging road and came to a halt in front of the trailer that would be her office. For a few minutes she watched the men ambling toward the cook shack, all of them unfamiliar except for Ezra Radley the camp cook, who scurried around the pack, a sack of flour slung over his shoulder.
As the last of the men funneled into the building, she twisted her mane of black hair into a rope and coiled it into a knot on top of her head, then shoved on her hard hat to hold it in place. The men wouldn't welcome a lady boss, but at least she'd look the part.
At the entrance to the cook shack, she paused to listen to the boisterous chatter coming from inside. Then drawing in a long breath to quiet the hammering of her heart, she swept open the door. The guffaws and bellows of the men tapered into silence as eyes raked over her.
Parking her hands on her hips, she started right in. "I'm TJ O'Reilly," she said, using the name she'd always gone by when heading a crew of surly men, "And I'll be taking over for my father. I want to get the equipment moved to the north plateau near the ridge this afternoon and start cutting pole timber on Monday."
A man with hair the color of straw squared his shoulders and said, "Gib's not logging that area until later."
Tess held the man's gaze. "And your name is?"
"Broderick. Curt Broderick."
"You operate the dozer, right?" Tess said.
Curt Broderick looked around at the surprised faces of the men, straightened, and replied, "Uh, that's right."
"Okay, Curt. Gib's not running this operation now, I am, and we will be cutting pole timber there." Although her father wanted to put off logging pole timber until the price inched higher, she made the decision to cut it now for much needed operating capital, otherwise Timber West was apt to fold. And one thing she vowed when she offered to take over her father's failing business. She'd see Timber West back on a firm financial foundation by the time he was ready to return to work.
"We won't be doing anything until we get a tire for the skidder," Curt said, a satisfied smile twisting the corner of his mouth.
Tess looked directly at him. "Just get the rest of the equipment moved. I'll worry about the skidder tire," she said, annoyed that the tire hadn't arrived. Determined that her first day would run like a well-oiled machine, she'd arranged for the huge tire to be delivered earlier in the week. She'd deal with the tire jobber in Baker’s Creek... after she'd finished with these men. "Any other problems?" she asked, scanning the faces of the men before returning to Curt Broderick.
Curt looked at her with undisguised resentment--a woman moving into his turf and telling him what to do. But she'd worked crews of men before, and she'd learned early that spotting the troublemakers and confronting them often earned their respect. Curt Broderick, she suspected, was a man who needed individual attention. "Curt?" she asked. "Any other problems?"
Curt's eyes bored into her, then he shook his head. "No, just the tire."
"All right then," she said, turning from Curt. "Which one of you is Jed Swenson?" She scanned the faces, searching for the big man her father described as woods boss. When she got no response, she looked at Curt. "Didn't Swenson see the notice I posted about this meeting?"
Curt scratched his chin. "Yeah. Maybe he's still in the bunkhouse."
Muffled laughter spread, then died.
Tess propped her hands on her hips. "I don't intend to go looking for Swenson in the bunkhouse. You tell him to be in my office at noon."
"I will if I can find him," Curt said, his tone touched with irony.
"What do you mean, if you can find him?" Tess said. "He is woods boss here, isn't he?"
A man in the back of the room muttered, "You're the boss lady, you should know."
Suppressed chuckles rustled through the group.
"I see," Tess said. Crossing her arms, she studied the amused faces. "Then if you don't find Swenson, we'll start moving equipment without him."
"Gib doesn't work us past noon," a man leaning against the wall challenged.
Tess eyed the man goading her. "What's your name?"
"Dempsey."
"Mr. Dempsey, if you find the hours here too long, maybe a rest would be appropriate."
He eyed her, dubiously. "Rest?"
"Away from here, where the hours aren't so long."
Dempsey straightened up. "Well, sometimes Gib does work us longer."
"I know how Gib O'Reilly runs this camp," Tess said. "I also know he keeps logs on the dock, and they won't get there by quitting at noon."
Dempsey's face flushed and he said nothing, and Tess knew he'd give her no more trouble. She looked from face to face. "Now, does anyone else have any questions?"
"You married?" someone called out. A burst of laughter erupted.
Tess held the gaze of the man who'd spoken, and a hush fell over the room. Looking around at the men again, she said, "Any questions about the job?" Heads swung from side to side, and she continued. "Then in twenty minutes we'll start moving equipment up to the north ridge. Dempsey, you gather the saws and take them up in the pickup. Herring? Is Herring here?"
"Right here."
"You bring the tools, grease units and gas tanks in the small service truck. Curt, you move the Cat. And if anyone sees Swenson, tell him I'll expect him in my office."
"Good luck," someone quipped.
Tess ignored the man and left the cook shack, then stood for a moment to take in the once familiar surroundings. The logging camp seemed the same after seven years, yet somehow different. The silvery boards on the cook shack looked more weathered, the moss on the roof of the woodshed, thicker. Even old Harvey looked older. She stared at the aged truck with TIMBER WEST LOGGING hand painted across its door. It was still parked beside the water tower where it had been when she'd left, but now weeds reached through the grille and thrust from under a hood that remained ajar. She smiled at its crooked mouth. Harvey, as her dad named his truck, was the first piece of equipment he bought when he started Timber West. Loaded high with logs, the old truck brought many a belly laugh as it belched and bucked over the rough roads. The sight of Harvey brought fond memories.
As she walked passed the old splitting stump, she paused to study the hatchwork of ax marks on its wide, flat top, the sight of them bringing back bittersweet memories. It was here she first saw Zak, the year the timber carnival was held at Timber West. That was ten years ago, when she was fourteen and Zak was eighteen, but she still remembered how Zak's lean body glistened beneath the sun as he swung his ax, practicing for the wood-splitting contest. She stood watching, impressed by the play of muscles in his arms. Then she saw th
at he wasn't holding the ax the way her father taught her.
He just propped a log on end, and gripped his ax, ready to swing, when she said, while walking toward him, "Hey, mister, you're holding that ax wrong."
Zak looked at her in amusement and lowered the ax. "My name's not mister," he said, "It's Zakhra Bertsolari de Neuville. Zak."
Even in her thoughts Tess stumbled over the long Basque names, just as she had when she'd tried to pronounce them, finally giving up and saying, "You're either putting me on or that's a very weird name."
Zak threw his head back and laughed. "They're not weird if you're Basque," he said.
At the time, all she knew about the Basque living in Oregon was what she'd learned when her father took her to the Basque community of Navarre for their yearly festival. It had been like stepping into another world. She'd seen old women in long dresses and men wearing berets, many of them not dressed for the festival, but still maintaining their old world culture and dress. And in the hills surrounding Navarre, she'd seen men in baggy pants herding strange looking sheep with patrician noses, and curved horns, and curly wool that hung like blankets.
"Are you from Navarre?" she asked.
"I am," Zak replied, resting the ax on his shoulder.
She remembered how tall he was. She'd even had to shade her face to block the sun, as she looked up at him, and said, "What are you doing around here?"
Zak nodded at the evergreens on the fringes of the logging camp, and replied, "I'm working at the wildlife park down the road. Who are you?"
"TJ O'Reilly," she replied. "My father owns this place."
"Well, TJ O'Reilly," he said, "I suppose you can swing an ax and split dead center."
"Sure," she replied. Adjusting her baseball cap so her hair would stay tucked inside, she took the ax, and said, "Go ahead. Set up a log."
Zak eyed her with amused indulgence, then placed a log on end and stepped back. She focused on the line chalked across the end of the log, raised the ax high overhead, and sent it cracking into the log, splitting it in two.
Zak picked up one of the sections, and said, "Not bad."
Tess looked at him, incensed. "What do you mean, not bad? It's right on the line." She pointed to the chalk line tracing the edge of the split.
"So it is," Zak kidded. Then he gave her a smile that lit up his entire face, and added, "Learn to hold that ax right and maybe you'll pick up some speed." He took the ax from her and held it as before. "You'd better run along now and join your friends," he said, referring to a group of young boys who stood a short distance away, watching them. Tess hadn't given much thought to boys before then. She'd more or less considered herself one of them. But after all these years, she still remembered the effect Zak had on her later that day.
During the pole climbing contest she'd scurried down the pole and was standing with the other contestants--all of them about her age, but all of them boys--as the announcer boomed over the loud speaker, "Well, folks, TJ O'Reilly's done it again." The crowd cheered, Tess raked her hat from her head and tossed it into the air, and her father rushed over and gave her a hug. "I knew you could do it kid," he said. He set her back down and walked off. And she retrieved her hat, twisted her hair into a knot, and plopped the hat on top of her head to hold the knot in place. Then she looked past the retreating figure of her father and saw Zak watching.
With a broad grin on his face, he started toward her. "Learn to swing an ax the way you climb a pole and I'll bow out of the contest," he said. "That was good climbing."
Tess had been vividly aware of Zak's lean face and square jaw, the dark hair springing from under his beret, his soulful gray eyes as he peered down at her. And for the first time in her life, she'd wished she looked more like a woman. She also knew that the flannel shirt tucked inside her jeans and held in place by wide red suspenders hid every vestige of her changing figure.
Zak reached out and took the bill of her hat and lifted it from her head, releasing her hair, then took a lock in his fingers, looked at it thoughtfully, and said, "What's your real name, TJ?"
For an instant she couldn't remember. It was his eyes that caught and held her attention then. Their color fascinated her. She'd never seen eyes that color. Not quite gray and not quite green...
"Let me guess," he said. "Tammy Jo."
"What?"
"Your name."
Focusing on his question, she said, "Well... it's... Theresa Jean. Tess."
"That's a pretty name, Tess. You should use it." He slipped the hat into her hands, smiled and walked away, leaving her staring after him.
Although she and her father stayed in the cabin at the logging camp during the summer, she was always eager to go to town on the chance that she'd run into Zak. But as summer turned into fall she never saw him again, so she assumed he'd returned to Navarre. The next time she saw him was the summer she'd just turned seventeen. Zak's father bought the adjoining property and hired Timber West to log it, and he sent Zak there to burn the piles of limbs and brush left from logging, and to repair the old cabin and outbuildings on the property. While there, Zak hired on with her father to cut and limb. That was also the summer Zak gave her a promissory ring and vowed to always love her, then left...
Tess looked up from the grid of ax marks when she heard her father's truck pulling into the clearing. Drawing in an agitated breath, she marched toward him in long strides, and said, "Dad, what are you doing here?"
"I wanted to be here when you faced the men," Gib O'Reilly replied.
"Damn it, Dad," Tess snapped. "You know you're not supposed to be here,"
Gib straightened. "The doc said I could do things in moderation."
"And you know exactly what he meant by moderation. He specifically told you to stay away from Timber West until after your next checkup."
Gib squared his thin shoulders. "I figured if I'm around the boys won't give you a bad time."
"If they give me a bad time, I'll handle it," Tess said. "I'm not exactly new to this." She thought of the hours she'd worked helping David with their construction business. Even after their three-year marriage ended, when she became Tess O'Reilly again, she'd joined Pacific Coast Construction in Seattle, continuing to work with men.
"You haven't worked with these men," Gib insisted. "You might find you've bit off more than you can chew with Jed Swenson."
"I'm not intimidated by male chauvinism," Tess said, "and from what you've told me that's what I'll be facing with Swenson." She noted the shadows under her father's eyes and the sharp angles of his face and realized how much older he looked since his heart attack. "Please, Dad, just go home and let me handle things here on my own."
Gib's thin lips pressed together in determination. "I need to stop by Carl Yaeger's first and make sure he knows I don't have one foot in the grave. Ezzie said he was here asking questions about the equipment, and I know damn well he'll be pushing to buy us out again."
"This is exactly what the doctor was talking about," Tess said. "You come here and suddenly you've got to see Carl Yaeger and heaven knows what else, when all you're supposed to be concerned with is your heart." She sighed. "Please, Dad, go home. I'll stop by tomorrow and fill you in on everything."
"Damn, you're a stubborn woman," Gib said. "Come hell or high water you're determined to do things on your own, whether it's running this place or running away from home." Saying nothing more, he turned and headed toward his truck.
"Dad?" Tess called after him, feeling a knot in her stomach with his last statement, knowing their old grievance was still there. Her father glanced back and waited.
"Wish me well."
He studied her for a moment, then smiled, and said. "Just don't be too hard on my men."
Tess warmed under his rare smile, but when she saw his truck turn out of sight, the apprehension she'd felt over the past few weeks returned. His heart attack jolted her. Now, she felt a desperate need to restore the relationship they'd once had before it was too late. Leaving her job in Se
attle and returning to Baker’s Creek to take over his logging operation was a start. He'd seemed pleased, and at last, after seven years, they were speaking civilly.
She climbed into her Jeep and headed down the dirt road, and five minutes later, pulled to a halt in front of her cabin. She'd gone directly to the camp from Baker's Creek and hadn't yet settled in. Grabbing her bags of groceries, she stepped onto the porch and opened the front door. The aroma of smoke-suffused stones in the hearth filled the air. Images of evenings spent around crackling fires took her back in time. She could still see her father sitting opposite her at the chess table, eyes intent, shoulders square, his hair peppered in gray but still thick. Then the image gave way to hunched shoulders, and tired eyes, and pallid skin. So much still needed to be said, and there might be so little time.
Curious, she opened the cupboard. The chess set was still there. She and her dad played chess most evenings while at the cabin, and at fourteen, she could play a fair game, occasionally winning. She lifted the box out of the cupboard and set it on the chess table and arranged the pieces, just in case her dad stopped by...
Her practical sense interrupted her reflections. It was almost ten, and she still had to oversee moving the equipment to the ridge before her meeting with Swenson. After putting her groceries away and carrying in her bags of clothes and personal belongings, she pulled the cabin door shut and paused on the porch. Through the woods, the de Neuville cabin lay only a few hundred feet away. Shrugging off disquieting thoughts about the intimacies that had taken place in that cabin, she climbed into the Jeep and started back to the logging camp.
As she drove, her gaze was fixed on the dirt road, but her mind was on Zak. At what point had she realized he wouldn't be back? During her last bitter argument with her father, the week before she ran off and married David? But after a year of waiting for Zak, she'd had enough of her father's harangue about how Zak used her and had no intention of coming back, and David offered an alternative. Marriage, and a life somewhere else. But even that failed. Although they'd worked well together in their construction business, their personal life had been trying, and she knew the marriage would never work because she simply didn't love David. Maybe she'd never gotten over Zak. After seven years, she still wondered where he was, and felt an emptiness.
Broken Promises Page 1
