Bittersweet Promises

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Bittersweet Promises Page 4

by Patricia Watters

"You don't know those men. A pretty woman alone out there can be a drawing card. I just wish there were permanent neighbors in the area. With all the woods around the cabin, someone could be hiding out."

  Tess eyed Ella, and said with uncertainty, "Zak's next door."

  Ella looked at Tess with skepticism. "Zak de Neuville?"

  Tess nodded. "He's the one who brought up the subject of the survey. Dad told one of the men to thin the trees along the strip of land between the dirt road and de Neuville's property, and those trees are clearly on de Neuville's place. Four trees have already been cut."

  Ella peered over the rim of her cup. "I'm sure Gib knows where the property line runs."

  Tess drew in a long breath to quell her frustration. "That's the problem. He thinks he knows, but he's wrong. Zak showed me the survey map. He said his father is threatening to sue us for cutting the trees."

  Ella looked at Tess and said, in a guarded voice, "Have you been seeing Zak again?"

  "No! Well, not that way. After work yesterday I saw him briefly, but only for him to show me the survey map, but I'm not... seeing him."

  "Does your father know he's back?"

  "No."

  "Then you'd better not say anything. It'll just get him riled again."

  Tess said nothing. She knew only too well how riled he'd be.

  ***

  The next day, as Tess pulled up to Zak's cabin to pick him up, she was surprised to find an old car in the process of being restored parked beside Zak's truck. The car's body was covered with gray primer and the rear end was jacked high with oversized tires, and inside, a grouping of beads and feathers hung from the rearview mirror. With mounting curiosity, she stepped onto the porch. But before she could knock, Zak opened the door, and said, "Come on in. Vince was about to leave. You remember my brother?"

  Tess looked beyond Zak at a young man wearing a black leather jacket, faded jeans with holes in them, and dirty sneakers. Where the jacket gaped open, she saw the grotesquely contorted face of a rock star on a tight black T-shirt. Vince's mouth was planted in a slash, and his dark eyes shone with irritation, though she sensed it wasn't aimed at her. "Yes," she replied, trying to assimilate the change from a bright-eyed youth of thirteen to this angry young man of twenty. "It's nice to see you again."

  Vince nodded, and said nothing.

  Tess lowered herself to the couch, and Zak sat in an overstuffed chair across from her, but Vince remained standing. From the somber look on his face, and the frustration on Zak's, Tess suspected they'd been having an argument. She was about to suggest she come back later, when she was distracted by movement and looked toward the hallway to see a young boy rolling a truck into the room. When the boy raised curious eyes to meet her gaze, her lips parted in surprise. It was as if she were peering into Zak's gray-green eyes.

  The boy scrambled over to stand beside Zak, who drew the boy to him, and said to Tess, "This is Peio, my son."

  At first Tess stared blankly at the boy. Then she focused on his features. His young face was topped by a shock of wavy black hair, and in his chin was a small cleft. There was no question. This boy was indeed Zak's son. And the boy's mother, Zak's wife? Where was she?

  Tess gave the boy a nervous smile and said, "Hi."

  The boy didn't smile back. Instead, he looked at Zak and said something in Basque. When Zak nodded, the boy scurried outside. Tess glanced out the window at the boy. He appeared to be about six years old. Which meant, Zak must have either impregnated a woman or married her shortly after he left seven years ago, maybe even impregnated her while making vows to his little logger lady. Which would explain his abrupt disappearance.

  "Father's damn traditions are straight out of another world." Vince said, his heated words punctuating the pounding of Tess's heart. "And I'll tell you another thing. I won't marry a Basque girl just because he's decided I will."

  Zak looked at Tess, and said, "Excuse us a minute." He took Vince's arm and led him onto the porch then pulled the front door shut behind. Although their voices were muffled, Tess could still make out what they were saying.

  "He's a proud man and the old traditions have been right for him," Zak said. "It's only natural he wants the same for you."

  "That's fine for you to say, you're etcheko primu. Firstborn," Vince spat the words. "The ranch and winery will be yours, if you marry a Basque woman and fit into Father's mold, that is."

  Zak sighed. "You know you'll always have a place there."

  "I'd die of boredom in Navarre."

  The long silence that followed was broken by Zak. "You don't have to turn your back on all the values you were taught in order to be your own person."

  "And I don't have to hang around listening to this crap either. I thought at least you'd understand but you're no different from him. You'll continue doing exactly as Father says. Marry a Basque woman, move to Navarre and live his life for him. I hope you enjoy it."

  "I've been where you are, caught between two worlds," Zak said, "but there is a middle ground. You just have to find it and convince Father."

  Vince gave a cynical snort. "Ever try to move a mountain?"

  Zak ignored the remark. "Meanwhile, try not to irritate him."

  "Which means, tell him what he wants to hear. I can't do that."

  "Try. And thanks for bringing Peio along today, even if the visit's short."

  Vince eyed Peio with affection. "There was no way I could get out of it. He had to tell you about the kittens."

  Zak stepped off the porch and crouched in front of Peio. "I'll be anxious to hear what you name your new pal."

  Peio's face brightened. "When can I bring him here?"

  "When he's six weeks old. Meanwhile, I'll come for you next weekend and we'll go find some eagles, maybe do a nest climb. How would you like that?"

  Peio grinned. "I'd like it."

  After Vince left with Peio, Zak returned to the cabin and collected several maps from the kitchen table, and they left in Tess's Jeep. But while they were driving to the airpark, he said to Tess, "I should've told you about Peio. I didn't expect Vince bring him today and I planned to tell you about him later."

  "Doesn't matter. That was a long time ago." Tess was determined to ask no questions about Zak's past, or about the mother of his son.

  Zak looked askance at her. "To answer at least one of your questions, my wife died about four months ago so I have full care of our son."

  Tess's fingers tightened around the wheel. The words, our son, didn't compute. She'd never imagined a son of Zak's not being her son as well. But what was almost as troubling was that Zak, a widower of only four months, had looked appreciatively at her when she came to his cabin to see the survey map, offering her wine and wanting to take her to dinner. Not exactly a grieving widower, so he was obviously not a one-woman man, which was no surprise now. He proved it the summer he vowed to marry her then left without a word to marry another woman.

  So it seems her father was right. Zak used her, and what they had going that summer was nothing more than teenage hormones coupled with Zak's promises of forever, especially during the aftermath of their lovemaking when Zak talked about how it would be for them someday.

  Still, she found herself saying, "It must be difficult for you."

  "It is for Peio," Zak said. "I had no idea how tough it was to be a single parent, shuffling job and family and school, being there when Peio's sick. There's no question, a young child needs a mother. As it is, Peio's with my folks during the week so he can go to the Basque grade school in Navarre, and I go there on weekends. But as soon as school's out, he'll be moving into the cabin with me. We need to make our own adjustments."

  Tess tried to get beyond her bitterness toward Zak by saying, "My father faced the same dilemma when he took over the role of both parents when my mother died. Nothing seemed to go right back then. Meals were terrible, the house was a mess, and neither of us cared, and I had no direction or guidance. Fortunately, Aunt Ella moved in and took over and our lives f
ell into place again." She glanced at Zak. "What you need is an Aunt Ella."

  "It's not about what I need. It's about Peio, and he needs a mother."

  "Then I guess you'd better start looking for a wife, presumably Basque if you don't want to be in trouble with your father." As soon as she said the words, Tess realized she'd sounded catty, and bitter, and when Zak said nothing, she knew that finding a Basque wife was precisely what he intended to do.

  Thirty minutes later, after filing a flight plan, Tess gave the plane its preflight check, taxied to the end of the runway, checked the flaps, and took off. They headed toward Timber West and the ridge where Zak wanted to look for the first nest. Sitting in the small cabin conjured up images from the past when she'd be riding with Zak in his truck and she'd rest her hand on his thigh, or snuggle against his shoulder or give him a kiss on the jaw.

  Zak interrupted her timeworn memories, by saying, "When we locate the nest, dip the wing so I can get a good look inside."

  Tess shifted her thoughts to the panorama below. Within minutes they skimmed over Timber West land. She spotted Zak's cabin and hers, and just beyond a patch of woods was the clearing with the logging camp. "Where should we start looking for the nest?" she asked.

  Zak scanned the forest below. "Among the old-growth trees on the ridge. That area was selectively logged in the fifties. Look for an old snag."

  Tess turned the plane in a wide arc toward the ridge and flew low over the treetops. "There are quite a few old and second-growth trees just above where we're getting ready to cut pole timber," she said. "There's also some on Carl Yaeger's tract. My dad wanted to buy that piece of land a few years back. He could've paid for it with those old trees."

  "That's our biggest problem with the eagle population, harvesting old-growth," Zak said. "If it isn't stopped, there won't be any trees strong enough to support nests."

  "We always leave a lot of good-sized second growth," Tess assured him.

  "Are the trees big enough to support a two-ton nest?"

  Tess looked askance at him. "Aren't you exaggerating?"

  "No. Some older nests are eight feet across and six feet deep. They can easily weigh two tons." Zak sat up straight. "Over there!" He pointed to a massive nest of coarse limbs atop a huge fir. Tess maneuvered the plane near the nest and dipped the wing. "Twins!" he exclaimed. "Looks like the tree's fairly accessible too. Circle once more before we head out. I want to look for perch nests."

  "What are those?" Tess asked, as she guided the plane in a wide arc.

  "Unoccupied nests that eagles use as perches for spotting prey and roosting at night."

  Tess circled the old-growth trees once more, while Zak logged his findings, then they headed east toward McKenzie and Pine Lake. As they slowly gained altitude, Tess felt the exhilaration of flying again. "My biggest regret with my divorce was that David got the plane."

  After a long stretch of silence, Zak commented, "How old were you when you married?"

  "Eighteen." Tess felt some satisfaction that he'd take it that she hadn't sat around waiting for him to return, like the gullible, trusting little fool she'd been. He didn't need to know she'd spent her days pining away while hoping and praying he'd appear one day with a perfectly logical explanation and her world would be right again.

  "Was he from Baker’s Creek?"

  "Seattle. He'd been flying into Baker’s Creek every week to work on a big house he was contracted to build, and we met at the airpark."

  "Where is he now?" Zak asked, while scanning the forest below.

  Tess shrugged. "I don't know. He moved east and I haven't heard from him since. What about you? Where have you been for the past seven years?" She'd had no intention of prying into Zak's past, but the opportunity presented itself, and the question popped out.

  "Mostly France and Washington," Zak replied.

  Tess was surprised he'd been out of the country. She'd always imagined him in Navarre with his parents. "Why France?"

  "My father sent me there to learn about Basque wines." He leaned forward and pointed, "There's McKenzie Lake. Circle a little lower if you can."

  Tess didn't reply because her attention was drawn to the grayish specks flipping against the windscreen. She eased the controls back and the plane leveled off before slowly rising.

  For the moment they cruised smoothly, but while Zak's attention was focused on the thick forest closing in on the valley, Tess scanned the panorama below for other reasons. "That's oil on the windscreen," she said. "We have to land."

  Zak looked at the windscreen and saw the specks. "Land where? There's nothing but forest down there."

  "The ranger station should be just over the ridge. Start looking for Pine Lake. There's a grass airstrip alongside it." Tess focused again on the specks of oil, which now merged together and were moving in grayish streaks up the windscreen. "We've got to get down. Fast!"

  The engine began to sputter. "Good God! The engine's about to cut out!"

  "We can glide in if we can find the airstrip," Tess said. "Just keep looking for the lake. It can't be more than a couple of minutes from here. I hope."

  Squinting through the murky windscreen, Zak scanned the terrain in the distance, and spotting a silvery patch about the same time Tess did, he said, "There's Pine Lake!"

  Tess leaned forward, focusing on the opening in the woods where the lake lay, then through an oil-splattered windscreen she caught sight of the cleared strip that served as a landing field. "Darn that landing strip's short. I hope the wind's right because we won't have a second chance to approach from the other direction. As it is, we'll have to dip in over the tall trees at this end." She banked the plane in a sweeping turn to align with the landing field below, then throttled back, lowered the flaps, and continued to nose the plane down.

  As they dropped toward the runway, she saw a windsock perched atop a tree and realized, with alarm, that they were approaching with the wind. "The wind's wrong for us. We're coming in too fast." She scanned the field for obstructions and studied the trees at each end of the narrow, grassy strip.

  The engine sputtered, cut out and sputtered again.

  She advanced the throttle slightly. "This is going to be a hot landing and it better work the first time because we won't get a second chance," she said, her heart pounding so hard she felt lightheaded. She gripped the wheel. "Okay. Here goes. Put your head in your lap for the landing and be ready to jump out and run in case there’s a fire…"

  CHAPTER 4

  The clearing came up fast, and within seconds they were skimming the tops of the trees. Tess cut the power as the plane plunged toward the airstrip. Peering through a windscreen almost completely obscured by oil, she maneuvered into the clearing and touched down, feeling a jolt as the main gear contacted. Holding her breath, she struggled to ease the controls forward, until the nose wheel touched down. Then throwing all her weight onto the pedals, she applied the brakes. The plane shuddered and bounced over the uneven ground while careening toward a wall of trees at the end of the runway, skidding to a halt at the edge of the clearing, a breath away from the mammoth trees rising before them.

  She sat for a moment, staring into the dense growth, wondering what quirk of fate spared them from plummeting into the impenetrable wall of trees. But as an awareness of how close they'd come began to dawn, adrenaline rushed through her body, her heart began to pound, and she started shaking uncontrollably.

  Zak took her in his arms and held her, and she didn't try to pull away, the feel of him against her seeming to absorb the jarring of her shaking body. But after the shaking and lightheadedness passed, she still didn't pull away. It felt natural to have the side of her face pressed to Zak's chest, and his cheek against the top of her head, and his arms wrapped around her. She closed her eyes and tried to hold onto the memory of what they'd once had, just a little longer.

  "I never thought ground could feel so good," Zak said. When she raised her head to look at him, he smiled. "That little scrap of a fourteen-yea
r-old girl was right. She can fly a plane. You did one hell of a job bringing us down." Then his eyes became dark, his gaze intense, and he lifted her chin with the curve of his knuckle, and slowly moved toward her.

  The door on Tess's side of the plane flew open. "Everybody in here okay?"

  Tess jerked her head back and looked around. "I think so," she said, more unnerved by the near kiss than by what could have happened.

  "You're damn lucky. The whole front of this plane's covered in oil. I'm Ralph Tolsted."

  "Tess O'Reilly," Tess said in a shaky voice. "And this is—"

  "Zak de Neuville." Zak reached around Tess to shake Ralph's hand.

  "You're from the wildlife park," Ralph said to Zak. "I wasn't expecting such a dramatic arrival. That was a nice piece of flying, young lady." He moved aside to let Tess climb down.

  Gripping the wheel to quiet her shaking hands, Tess eased out of the seat and stepped from the plane on weakened legs. When she started to sway, Zak quickly came around the front of the plane and took her arm to steady her, and said, "You okay?"

  Tess nodded. "I will be in a few minutes." After her heart settled, and the ground felt solid, she walked around the front of the plane and stared at it. Oil bathed the windshield and streamed along the sides of the fuselage and under the belly. She raised the engine cowling and peered inside and located the problem. "A broken oil line. Looks like we've lost most of our oil. I hope Dad has a spare hose in the plane because we've got to get back this afternoon." She climbed into the cockpit and searched through the toolbox for a spare hose, and finding none, said in a frantic voice, "I need to get ahold of the airpark and have them fly out here with a hose. I really do need to get back today."

  Ralph gave her arm a pat. "No problem. I'll call from the house. It's only a twenty-minute flight up here." He turned and headed toward a compound of buildings that included a modest house provided by the forest service, and a few minutes later, he returned and announced that the airpark would look into getting the hose and fly it out as soon as they could." Then he turned to Zak, and said, "I got your letter about the chick-transplant program and I've been watching that eyrie over there." He pointed to a huge nest atop an ancient fir. "I looked down from the ridge above, and from what I could tell through the binoculars, there's only one chick."

 

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