Unexpected Love (White Oak-Mafia #2) (4 page)

He frowned. “I thought a female bear remained in heat for three weeks.”

“She does, but they evidently lose a week locating a female that’s just gone into heat, luring her into the truck, and then bringing her to Iowa.”

“Got it. Twenty thousand… I’ll have to think about it.” By the tone in his voice, she didn’t think he liked her idea. She opened her mouth, but shut it. Even Grams thought it was a waste of money. She turned and walked on. She’d done her best to save Grumpy despite the last car he had tipped and gutted had been hers. It was out of her hands now.

She pointed out another ancient white oak. “We’ll need to visit it another day. Grams is probably worried we’ve been eaten by Grumpy.” She reached out her hand. “Would you like me to carry the chainsaw so you can walk faster?”

He gave her a half-grin. “I’m following you, Tess. If you think we need to walk faster, then do it.”

She picked up her pace but listened to make sure he wasn’t falling behind.

When they arrived at the giant downed tree, Grams was rustling about in its treetop. Tess took the chainsaw from Dr. Castile. “You’ll probably want to join Grams. Ear plugs are in the small top pocket of your vest.” She patted it so he’d know which one.

“You need help?” he asked.

“Nope, but I think by now Grams has found the cause of death.”

Steel made his way up to her grandmother. She had no idea what Grams was looking at, but she was pretty certain he had been about to decide
he
should cut the tree instead of her.

Just in case he changed his mind, she raced to get her helmet and safety glasses on.

***

“Find something?” Steel asked as he maneuvered around fallen the treetop brush.

Helen pointed to a blackened scar on the top of the trunk.

He knelt beside her and inspected the wound. “Looks like lightning, but it’s not recent. See how the bark has been trying to heal over on this side.”

She nodded. “But not on the other side.” She pulled out a two-inch-wide knife and pried the bark off the dead wood.

“Good eye,” he commented. “May I borrow that?”

She chuckled. “Reach behind you with your left hand. Third loop.”

He felt three loops over and found a handle. Pulling it out, he now had his own wicked blade. With it, he uncovered the amount of wood that was dead. Only a foot wide, but it appeared to be running the full length of the tree. “This shouldn’t have killed the tree.”

Helen touched the green leaves they stood in. “It didn’t. But now I know why it took to leaning after a bad storm about four years ago.”

“Why’s that?” he yelled over the racket of the chainsaw.

Helen nodded to Tess. “Let her finish her cut, then I’ll know if I’m right.”

He watched with amazement at how expertly Tess handled her massive chainsaw.  He had yet to see her in anything but long sleeves and pants, but she had to have some serious muscles beneath.

He had intended to handle the cutting, but after carrying the chainsaw for several miles at a running pace, he wasn’t up to it and had no desire to embarrass himself. So he planned to let her try and then lecture her about biting off more than she could handle.

Thank God he waited until after she cut the tree. Otherwise, he’d look like a stupid ass again. Only this time he doubted she’d be laughing about it later.

She cut through the four-foot base like it was butter. The chain had to have kick-backed at least once, but he never saw it. Once she killed the power, they joined her as she studied a four-inch-thick wood slice she’d cut off.

“Do you have lightning marks up there?” she yelled at the top of her voice.

When Grams pointed to her ear, Tess grimaced and removed her earplugs. “Sorry. Do you have lightning scars?”

“Yes, we do,” Helen replied.

Steel studied the rings again. “Happened maybe six years ago?”

“That sounds about right,” Tess said, smiling at him with pride.

He considered pointing out to Helen she’d said four years ago, but decided it really didn’t matter.

Tess wiped the sweat and sawdust from her face. “Well, here’s my theory. Six years ago, lightning hit one side of the tree, creating a small dead zone that went all the way down to the roots.” She pointed to a jagged dead stump on the overturned root system. “With most of the tree intact, it continued to survive. Only it had lost one of its main roots. Then four years ago, we had a really bad storm with tornado warnings going off left and right.”

Helen nodded in agreement.

“Afterward, this tree had a slight tilt.”

“Yes, it did.”

“And it’s been slowly falling ever since because the healthy part of the tree couldn’t counterbalance its initial tilt.” She sighed. “Had we realized what was happening, we could have trimmed branches on the other side and possibly given it the time needed to self-adjust.”

Helen beamed at Steel.

“Grams, why are you smiling. Our failure to act killed this tree!”

Steel spoke. “She’s smiling because she was certain you’d divine exactly what happened.” He moved closer and ran his hand over the clear sign of death on the one side. “Maybe ten out of a thousand forest managers could have followed the progression of events that killed this tree. But not one of them, including myself, would have assessed how this could have been prevented. The rest of us would have blamed the lightning and gone on, destined to make the same mistake if it happened a second time.” He smiled. “You make a far more impressive forest manager than driver, bellhop, or maid.”

He then admired the perfection of her cut. “And I’ve never seen anyone who can saw through this much wood and stay straight in their cut, not once, but twice. If you weren’t already going to be my employee, I’d hire you without hesitation.” He met her gaze. “Clearly, you’re more qualified than I am to manage this forest. While I can’t change the unfairness of that, may I suggest you get credit for the skills you already have? That should knock a year or two off your college schedule, at least.”

Tess had been smiling until his last suggestion. Now she kicked the ground. “Tried that. Since all my time in the woods was not supervised, they wouldn’t even consider it.”

“I’ll put that on my list of things to work out,” he promised. “Along with Grumpy.”

His words earned him a grin.

When Tess pulled out the vials to collect soil samples, Grams gripped her arm. “Let me do that while I wait for Sam. You take Steel on up to your surprise. He deserves a reward for saying so many nice things.” She then smiled at him. “Enjoy yourself, Steel.”

What the hell were they up to? He hoped Tess hadn’t planned a seduction because, honest to God, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to refuse and he’d promised Tom he’d keep matters strictly professional with her.

Steel’s curiosity continued to grow as Tess led him into the wetlands. For half an hour, they sat upon a white oak bench and watched the diverse wildlife through binoculars, neither of them speaking, only the occasional whisper and pointing to some animal.

Maybe this was his surprise. Tom had told him there was more wildlife in this tiny corner of Iowa than there was in the rest of the state. After a while, though, he grew bored with the animals and turned his binoculars toward the hills. “Have you seen any odd lumps on any of those hills?”

Tess grinned. “Why do you ask?”

“Because, according to my research, there were once Paleo-Indian hunters in Northeast Iowa, and this area looks geographically similar to the Harpers Ferry site.”

“We’ll be going up the cliff trail next so let me know if you see anything,” Tess replied with a touch of humor to her tone.

He turned and studied her, but she focused on the birds flying above them. After eyeing her with caution, he returned to evaluating the cliffs for probable sites. “Has an archeologist ever been up there?”

“Nope. Some people asked after they found the mounds on Harper Ferry, but Grams refused. She didn’t want her forest confiscated by the State.”

“They would have paid her for the land.”

“Yes, and razed the forest under the excuse they needed to pay her for the lands.”

Tess’s response seemed a bit paranoid until he remembered they were mafia. The government might be less than fair when reimbursing criminals from bygone eras.

He studied the brown line that cut across the side of the bluff. “Did you cut the trail on the ridge?”

“No. It’s safer than it looks, but I’m not sure I want tourists on it. I can just imagine some little tike running off the edge.”

“I agree. Did Helen cut it?”

Tess chuckled. “No. It was there when she got the land.”

“Were the other trails here?”

“Yes, but most were animal trails.” She rose and put away her binoculars.  “The animals use that trail, too, but they didn’t make it. That was made by humans.”

“Really? Why are you so certain?”

“You’ll see.”

Of that he had no doubt, but honestly, he wanted to know now. By the time he put away his binoculars, she was already thirty feet down the trail. Never in his life had he met people who walked as fast as Tess and Helen. He jogged to catch up, the clanking of his tool belt scaring off the birds.

She turned and placed her finger to her lips. “Quiet like a Paleo-Indian,” she teased.

“You laugh, but I think there are probably burial mounds somewhere in those hills.”

“And what do you plan to do if you find them?”

“Excavate them. They’d be a great draw to make this a premier state park in the Midwest.”

“I agree,” she replied and grinned.

“Tess, you’ve already found some mounds, haven’t you?”

She tried to move up the trail, but he snared her arm. “Tess…”

Facing him, she met his stare. “When I gave Mr. Barkman a tour, I didn’t show him any mounds. It wasn’t a state park then, and the governor at that time was in my father’s pocket, so had they any proof of mounds, they could’ve grabbed all the land under imminent domain laws, then sold my dad back ninety-eight percent of the land which he would have razed for money.”

He could see the worry in her eyes. “That can’t happen now. It’s a state park.”

“But Mr. Barkman could perceive my failure to tell him as a lie of omission. And while I know Meg has conditions in the contract about me being the manager as long as I wish, I’m pretty sure Mr. Barkman could get rid of me if he really wanted to.”

“Tom adores you,” he assured her as he rubbed her arms in an attempt to calm her. “But in the off-chance his feelings might be hurt, I’m willing to take credit for their discovery if you wish.”

She smiled at him. “You did latch on to that ridge trail pretty fast.”

He rubbed his forehead, realizing he’d just been played. “Is that why we’ve been staring at wildlife for the last thirty minutes?”

Her eyes rounded in innocence…too much to be real. “The abundance of wildlife is a big deal!”

He closed his eyes and sighed heavily. “In the future, will you trust me to be on your side?”

Her lack of response surprised and disappointed him. “Or not,” he stated and walked around her, taking the lead.

She didn’t complain about the change in leadership. In fact, she didn’t speak at all as she followed him through the marshland to the ridge.

The trail up was so clean he had no concern of losing his way. But that didn’t stop him for purposely going off-trail when something in the forest caught his eye. The first spot he noticed was about forty feet up. It would require further assessment and soil removal before he could determine if anything of interest was there, so he moved on. The next spot had an oddly flat plateau on the side of the hill, which had clearly been carved out by humans. Too curious to wait, he detoured onto the flat ground. He carefully brushed away the leaves covering small flat boulders placed in a large circle. Without question, this was the site of a village.

Tess smiled at him. “How did you see this? I’ve hiked through here many times and never once saw a thing.”

“Twelve thousand years ago, there probably weren’t any trees here. It’s a great location for a village to settle. They’d have easy access to the river, fish, and game, but by being this high up, no one could sneak up unseen, nor mount any successful attack given the steep, narrow trail. From here they could hurtle spears and rocks down on unwanted visitors.”

He turned and swept his hand across the land before him. “Their village was here.”

Tess sobered. “Does that mean you’ll remove all these trees?”

“To be honest, removing the trees would probably destroy more artifacts than digging around them.”

Tess sighed. “The very young trees have a deep center tap root, so they should be fine. However, digging around will probably kill the two to four-inch trees, so you might as well remove them. The older trees should be able to survive as long as you lift rather than remove the fibrous network of roots that lie about a foot underground. Of course, if you find something, then matters will have to be reassessed. I’m assuming if you don’t find anything, the soil can be replaced?”

He approached her and rubbed his thumb against the deep furrows that creased her forehead. “I will seek your advice every step along the way, but Tess, in the end, I need your agreement that excavating this site is more important than saving these trees.”

She met his eyes. “You have my agreement. But if larger trees die due to your digging, they have the potential to destroy a great deal when they fall, not to mention the danger to your people excavating.”

God, he couldn’t have found a better partner had he custom ordered her.  Truth is he couldn’t have imagined such a treasure. He wanted to thank her with a kiss, but that road, he dared not travel. “Let’s return to the trail and see what else I can find.”

As they made their way farther along the trail, he stopped and studied the ancient tool marks that had cut the wall of the cliff. “This rock may have been softer long ago. Tom says this area was originally formed from blowing sand.”

“I can’t even imagine what it must have been like back then,” she said.

“These hills formed long before humans arrived.”

“But were still soft when the Indians lived here?” Tess asked, an edge of doubt in her voice.

As he stared at the markings, he removed the clip from his hair and ran his hand through his shoulder-length hair. “I’m just throwing out possibilities. Hopefully, we’ll find the tools they used to do this.” His mood sobered and he regathered his hair into the clip. “Another possibility is that this was built by a later era of Paleo-Indians, ones who traded with tribes possessing harder and sharper stones such as Knife River flint from North Dakota.”

He patted his pants pocket. “Damn it, I left my phone at your house. May I borrow yours? I’d like to take a shot of this site.”

She grimaced. “Sorry, I don’t carry my phone when I’m working. But your pack should have a camera. Check your left side, middle pocket.”

He unzipped the pocket and pulled out a slender modern camera. He laughed. “Man, when Helen fits a person out, she does one hell of a job.”

“Comes from years of experience. You’re probably carrying every single item she has ever needed while hiking these woods.”

He rose. “Would you mind if we returned to the village so I can take some pictures?”

“Not at all. I’m carrying lunch, so let me know when you get hungry and we’ll stop and eat. Otherwise, we’ve got a good five hours for you to wander about. I just have to get us back before dusk settles in.”

He smiled. “What? No lights?”

“We both have lights, but trust me. You won’t enjoy sleeping in a tree, and Grumpy hates campfires. He’ll come right into your camp and knock it to pieces.”

“A true Smokey the Bear.”

She laughed. “I hadn’t thought of that, but yeah, he is.”

“I’m assuming since you know this, you’ve camped in these woods?”

She sobered. “Once when I was building a bridge on the north side. Otherwise, I would have wasted six hours going to and from home. Grams warned me I wouldn’t like camping there, and she was right.”

“Because of Grumpy.”

She shrugged and headed down the trail.

Clearly not. He wondered how long, if ever, it would take Tess to trust him.

And could he risk her doing so? The only type of relationship he’d ever had with a woman was a physical one. No, this barrier between them was probably best. She was nice enough to work with but too aloof to pull him into trouble.

***

Tess hurried down the trail, hoping Dr. Castile would forget his question once he was back to his amazing find. The speed in which he located a site that neither she nor Grams had known about impressed her. But he was an archeologist first and foremost, which he’d made perfectly clear when he warned her that the excavation would take priority over the trees on his site.

Logically, she understood his point. They had two hundred thousand acres of trees, but if he was right about the site being a former village, it would be the first known settlement site of the Paleo-Indians. But God, she hoped he found a way to verify that without decimating the plateau.

She had to admit his logic was good. If she’d been a Paleo-Indian, this is precisely where she would have made her home. When she reached the site, she looked for other reasons why Indian Tess would wish to live on this plateau.

The view was breathtaking. Couldn’t be a sad Indian living here. She could imagine the Indian men sitting around a campfire, staring out at the river, discussing where they’d hunt deer in the morning.

The women were probably in their… “Did they have tents or huts?” she asked.

“During the warmer, drier months, I would expect they had huts,” he replied as he knelt and took pictures of weeds.

She joined him. “What are we looking at?”

“Goosefoot.”

She sneezed at the sight of it. “And why does that annoying weed deserve photographic immortality?”

Steel stood and gazed over the site with clear pleasure. “The Paleo-Indians ate its seeds long before corn showed up in their diet. I noticed a great deal of marsh-elder down below. Their presence here indicates we are perhaps looking at Indians from the Woodland era. The grains from both plants are edible and are believed to have been cultivated by the Woodland Paleo-Indians. He pointed to the giant white oak farther back on the plateau. “They would have collected and roasted the white oak acorns as well.”

He was just an adorable package of facts. She smiled at him. “How does a Brit know so much about Iowa?”

He scuffed his boot. “This is not the first job I’ve ever taken in the States. And when Tom floated the possibility of me being the Forest Manager, naturally I researched the history of the area. While I had no idea at the time if Paleo-Indians had lived in your woods, I thought it a possibility. So I told him I was interested.”

“I’m glad you did. I’m enjoying learning new stuff, and I seriously doubt any of the other guys vying for the job would have told me anything.”

The thumping of a helicopter sounded above, causing fear to etch across his face.

“That’s just Sam coming to get the tree,” she yelled over the noise.

He closed his eyes for a moment and then moved out of the clearing and farther into the woods toward a rising hill.

She watched him run off, uncertain what to do. Should she leave him on his own and help Sam with the tree, or stay and ensure he’s okay?

Certain Sam had brought help, she followed the path of disturbed leaves Steel had left. When she reached him, he was staring intensely at a slight indention in the hill.

“A downed tree probably caused that,” she suggested, wondering why he was so fascinated with it.

“Maybe,” he replied and donned his gloves. He then slowly removed many years of leaves. The hole was much larger, deeper, and more horizontal than a tree would make.