The Cedar Tree (Love Is Not Enough) (8 page)

A deadly race through the deluge of rain and lightning stretched on without end. Lashed by branches and blinded by rain, he used every skill he possessed to keep the horse on its feet in the slick leaves and pine needles littering the rough track.

Without warning, Lucky planted his hooves and skidded through the mud, his lathered haunches collapsing.

He lost his grip and hurtled from the horse, falling heavily onto his shoulder. Instantly, he lunged to his feet while Lucky scrambled upright. The gelding stood splay-legged and shaking…but in front of a small cabin.

He wiped ineffectively at his hair streaming into his eyes and reached for Katie.

"No," she shouted over the roaring storm, refusing to turn loose of the saddle horn. "We have to find Tim."

"His horse'll find this place," he yelled as a strange tingle raised goose-bumps all over his body, lifting the hair on his scalp.

Instantly, a blinding jag of light shook the ground. A pine tree thirty feet from the shack exploded like a bomb. He staggered backward. Katie screamed. Sightless, he made a frantic lunge toward the sound, catching her around the waist just as Lucky bolted from under her.

Her scream turned to one of pain. She buckled beneath him. Swearing, he grabbed for her then tripped and fell over where she sprawled. He rubbed at the lightning streak imprinted on his retinas with his muddy hand.

"Put your arms around my neck," he shouted, gathering her in his arms as his vision returned. He tried to shove to his feet, but he slipped in the mud and fell back to one knee. "Could you relax a little? You feel like a sack of fence posts," he yelled irritably. "Put your arms around my neck like I told you."

"Don't yell at me," she cried with an edge of hysteria. "You're just trying to take advantage of this—"

"I've done a lot of things," he roared, "but takin' advantage of a woman when I might get struck by lightnin' ain't one of 'em."

She burst into tears. He swore under his breath. A flash of lightning, farther away now, lit her face. Sodden strands of hair straggled across her cheeks, scratched by lashing branches and spotted from chunks of mud thrown up from Lucky's flying hooves.

"I've got a bad knee," he said in a quieter tone. "I'll drop you if you don't hang on to me. That's all."

Trembling violently she scraped at the hair in her eyes, leaving a muddy smear. She slid her arms around his neck then aware of every inch of her shivering form, he staggered to the cabin through the mud sucking at his boots and up the two steps to the door.

He groped for the knob. It turned in his hand. Relieved, he shoved the door open with his foot. Peering into the pitchy darkness, he stumbled into the room. A flash of lightning illuminated a bed against the wall to his right. He made for it and rolled her onto the bare mattress.

Turning, he shut the door. In the sudden, calm silence of the room, he stood with his hands on his knees, gasping for air and wiping at his hair in his eyes with his denim shirt sleeve. He hadn't expected to find the line shack empty.

They were in real trouble.

He carefully made his way over the floor toward the cast-iron stove on the wall across from the door. If he couldn't get her warmed up she'd die, and if he couldn't find any matches…

Running his hand up the wall behind the stove, he hit a metal poker hanging from a nail. The poker fell with a clatter. Something scurried over his boot. He jumped then swore and kicked at whatever it was—something big, not just a mouse. Groping along an eye-level ledge, he found where the mice had left their droppings, but his fingers found a match box, too.

He blew out his breath in relief. Striking a match, he lifted it. The flame illuminated the room and a kerosene lamp on a table a few feet away. He picked up the lamp and shook it—almost full.

Soon the lamp's soft glow showed Katie curled on her side on the bare mattress except for her injured leg which stuck out straight and stiff. Jaw clenched, she held her arms around her red tee shirt, shivering violently.

An unfamiliar fear shot through him. Everybody had always said one of his problems was he wasn't scared of nothin'.

But he was scared now.

He used the packrat's nest behind the stove, along with the armful of split pine the line rider had left last October, to start a fire. Within a minute, the pop of pine resin sounded from a building inferno inside the stove.

He stood and set the lamp on an up-ended apple crate on the floor beside the bed. "Let me see your leg."

"I'll be f-fine now the f-fire's going." Her clenched jaw didn't stop her teeth chattering. "Go f-find Tim."

"If he ain't here by the time I get you taken care of, I'll go look for him."

He'd told her Tim would be okay, but he didn't believe it. Ever since his first five-dollar paycheck for riding a wild sheep at a junior rodeo, his job had been to stay on top of livestock. If he had barely ridden Lucky through the storm, how likely was it Tim had stayed on his horse?

The chances of it were slim to none.

If the boy didn't show up soon, he'd have to go out looking for him and God only knew where Lucky was by now.

Worry and pain covered the usual hostility in Katie's deep-set eyes. "Please, Gil."

She had never used his name before. He hesitated. "He'll get here. He's not an idiot."

"Y-yes, he is," she cried. "I m-might have already lost one brother today. I c-can't lose another one."

"He'll be all right, I said." Fear made his voice rougher than he intended. At her accusing look, he sighed. "I'll go look for him in a minute. I promise."

He pulled off her boot. She cried out. Her leg had swelled until the denim of her soaked pants stretched tight below the knee. He reached into his pocket for his knife then slit the seam of her jeans. He flinched at the deep abrasion down her grotesquely bruised and swollen shin, viewing her with new respect.

He gently ran his hand beneath her leg. "Shin bone might be cracked, but I don't think it's broken."

"Of c-course it's not broken. I c-couldn't have walked on it if it was," she gritted. "I just want you to f-find Tim before—"

A shrill, relieved whinny sounded outside on the east side of the cabin. He jerked up his head, listening. A faint whinny answered from the north. He met Katie's eyes.

Her's held sudden hope. "Tim?"

"Has to be."

If it wasn't just his horse.

He crossed to the door and shoved it open against the wind. A horizontal wall of snow hit him, taking his breath away. Familiar with freakish mountain weather since childhood, he had yet to know of a storm with worse timing.

He leaned out the door, searching the blizzard at the edge of the small rectangle of light from the cabin. Lucky whinnied again behind the shack. An answer sounded from the darkness at the edge of the clearing. A moment later, a snow coated horse stepped into his line of vision…with a rider. He slumped with relief.

Tim slid off the horse and stood holding to the saddle for a moment. "Never thought I'd be so glad to see you," the boy shouted.

"Same here." He eyed the boy's yellow slicker. "Come in. Hurry.

Tim stumbled inside. "Geez! It's supposed to be summer—"

"Shuck your slicker and clothes."

Tim stared at him.

"Hurry. We've got to get Katie warmed up and you're the only one with a dry stitch on you."

Tim shrugged out of the slicker. He hung it, dripping, on the nail behind the stove while Tim unsnapped his shirt and shrugged out of it.

"Tee shirt, too."

Tim hesitated then reluctantly pulled his white undershirt over his head, revealing a wiry, goose-fleshed midsection. "My jeans are pretty wet."

He turned to Katie. "Take your shirt off."

She stared up at him as though trying to comprehend. A slow shadow of outrage filled her eyes. "I'd r-rather d-die."

"Could you just once not argue with me?" he said between his teeth. "I'll turn my back." He turned to Tim. "Help her."

Shivering, Tim opened his mouth to protest.

He clutched his head. "God save me from prissy virgins," he roared, at the end of his patience. "What's the matter with you two? Do you want her to die?"

Tim gave him an affronted glance, but crossed to Katie.

He lifted a graniteware coffeepot from the top of the stove where it had started to scorch then knelt to shove the last of the wood into the firebox. Then, careful to keep his head turned away from the bed, he shoved open the door and into the storm.

At the back of the shack next to a pile of split pine, Lucky and Tim's horse stood in the lean-to that usually sheltered the line rider's horses. Jaw clenched against his chattering teeth, he jerked the saddles off the horses and heaved them and the blankets over his back. He staggered to the door of the cabin and dumped the gear on the floor then he headed back for wood.

When he returned, he stumbled inside to drop the pile of wood on the floor near the stove with a crash that shook the cabin. Brushing the bark from his shirt, he backed up to the hot stove and fumbled at the buckles on his chaps, shivering violently.

"She's got my shirts on, but I can't get her pants off," Tim said, his eyes puzzled. "She's not helpin' much. She acts like she's…stupid or somethin'."

He allowed his sodden leather chaps to fall to the floor then crossed to Katie to feel for the pulse beneath her jaw. Too slow. More than that, she had an apathetic attitude about her he found alarming.

"Put some more wood in the stove," he said to Tim. "Get it as hot as you can without burnin' the place down. There's a can of Coke in my saddle bag. Heat it up."

He finished cutting the seam of her wet jeans to the hip then sawed through the waistband, the bare skin of her waist icy against his fingers. Slitting the other side, he grasped the hems and jerked the jeans out from under her, ignoring her cry of pain. He had one glimpse of slender white legs, the insides of her thighs rubbed raw, and then she fumbled down the tail of Tim's shirt. The slicker from the nail behind the stove had mostly dried. He tucked it around her.

The yellow slicker dwarfed her, making her small and defenseless, increasing the pallor of her skin. Tim stood backed up to the stove, his arms crossed against his glaringly white chest.

He turned to the boy. "Don't you think you should pray for her?"

"What?" Tim looked at him, startled.

"Ain't that what you guys do?"

"Yeah, but—"

He jerked his chin toward her. "Do it then."

"Dude." Tim glanced down at his bare chest. "I ain't got a shirt on."

He frowned. "That makes a difference?"

"I don't know. I just…feel weird. You know?"

Impatiently, he jerked the snaps of his wet shirt loose and shrugged out of it. He tossed it to Tim. "Here."

Tim slipped into the shirt and snapped it before he knelt beside the bed.

He bowed his head, too, but kept his gaze on Katie until Tim finished. "How long will it take to work?"

Tim stared at him. "I don't know."

"How long does it usually take? A few minutes? An hour?"

"It just takes how long it takes," Tim said irritably. "I ain't God, dude."

"Well, what do we do, now?"

"Just wait, I guess. I don't usually handle this stuff."

"Me, either," he said dryly. 

Katie's eyelids drooped.

He leaned over to shake her shoulder. "Katie, don't go to sleep."

She swallowed, licking her sun and wind burned lips. "So tired," she mumbled.

He scanned the cabin. "Take that coffee pot out to the spring by the lean-to," he said to Tim. "Scrub it out good and fill it up. And find me a rock about the size of a brick."

Tim picked up the pot and shoved open the door. Another blast of frigid air disturbed the remains of the pack rat's nest, dusting the board floor with snow.

He pulled his lariat free of the heap of saddles and gear and stretched it across the room, fastening it to nails on the opposite walls behind the stove. Then he hung Katie's tee shirt and the saddle blankets to dry. After that, a wooden cabinet on the north wall yielded another pack rat nest and a glass jar half full of coffee…the coffee more welcome than a wallet full of money.

He checked the Coke. Warm enough. He sat on the edge of the bed and slid his arm under her, holding the can to her lips. Her cheek rested softly against his bare shoulder.

"C'mon." The smell of the soda made his stomach growl. "Open up."

She hesitated. "You're hungry, too." Her cheek moved slightly against his shoulder. "And cold."

"I'm okay. Drink."

As she drank, color returned to her pale cheeks. She emptied the can. He laid her back on the striped mattress, stained and filthy. Eyes closed, she lay motionless. Then her lips curved into a faint smile, revealing a glimpse of even, white teeth.

"What's the rock for?" she asked.

He grinned in relief. "It's in case you keep bein' such a giant pain in the butt."

Smiling, she opened her eyes. No anger, disgust, or wariness reflected from the astonishing blue depths.

He hesitated. Then with tenderness he had never known, he brushed a strand of wet hair from her face with his grimy finger. Her eyes drooped shut and she instantly slept, but he sat motionless on the sagging mattress beside her, shaken.

Somewhere between the lightning strike and the smile, he had fallen in love with her.

Chapter Five

Tim hadn't wanted to get in bed with Katie any more than he had wanted to give her his shirts. The boy had relented only after Gil threatened to get in bed with her himself, and now Tim lay snoring like a buzz saw next to her.

Craving the tobacco in his shirt pocket, Gil eyed Tim who was still wearing his shirt. Probably nothing short of a shotgun blast would wake the dumb kid, but he didn't want to risk waking Katie trying to get his Skoal can.

Turning away, he peeled off his wet jeans then flopped them over the makeshift clothesline next to Katie's tee shirt, socks, and the last saddle blanket. The Navajo weave of the blanket was still damp, but he wrapped it around him anyway, twitching his shoulders against the itchy horsehair. He fought a sneeze as he crossed to the door to shake out the blanket. The wind had died down a little, but snow still fell heavily on the six inches already covering the ground.