Copyright
ISBN 978-1-60260-264-9
Copyright © 2008 by Mary Connealy. All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, is forbidden without the permission of Truly Yours, an imprint of Barbour Publishing, Inc., PO Box 721, Uhrichsville, Ohio 44683.
Scripture taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®. niv®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.
All of the characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to actual events is purely coincidental.
Our mission is to publish and distribute inspirational products offering exceptional value and biblical encouragement to the masses.
One
Emily Johannson hadn’t had a spare minute in a month.
Now, instead of a pleasant walk in the woods to unwind after spring planting, she was going to—she snagged a thick branch off the forest floor—run off some idiot.
A man tugged an ax from the bark of the magnificent tree in the Barretts’ front yard. Muscles rippled under his sweat-soaked white T-shirt all the way to the narrow waistband of his blue jeans as he pulled the blade free. He hoisted the ax again.
Emily couldn’t watch him hack away at that elm another second. She sprinted across the Barretts’ lawn. Reaching him as his ax swung back, she grabbed the ax and jerked, throwing it wide.
The impact twisted him around, tipped him off balance, and dragged him over on top of her.
Emily’s handy club flew as she fell. Her Stetson toppled off her head.
His roar would have knocked her down even if he hadn’t fallen on her. His weight carried her flat onto her back and knocked a grunt out of her. The smell of a hard-working man and the ancient forest soaked into her head.
“Get off me.” Her face, pressed against his chest, muffled the words.
He was already moving, but she gave him a good shove anyway. Sawdust scratched her fingers. His shirt was drenched and her hands slid up his arms and shoulders. For a split second she had her arms around his neck.
Furious brown eyes burned into her blue ones. . .then he rolled sideways and jumped to his feet.
Turning, he glared at her, his corded arms glistening with sweat in the dappled sunlight.
She swallowed hard and tried to forget how nice he smelled. Oh yeah, the ax, her tree. She knew what she was doing again. She shoved the heels of her hands against the ground and stood.
“What are you doing on my property?” he snapped.
She heard anger in his voice as she dusted her backside. But his eyes spoke more of heartache and exhaustion. “Your property? The Barrett place is mine.” It wasn’t hers exactly, but close enough. “Who are you? And why are you hacking away at that beautiful elm tree?”
“How did you find me? Did Sid send you? Well, tell him to forget it.” The man slashed his hand in the air. “I’m done.”
“I don’t know any Sid.” Emily tucked her hands in the back pockets of her Wranglers, studying the varmint who’d invaded her home.
“Then I’ll bet that real estate agent in Denver put you up to this. She’s the only one who knew where I was.” He ran a hand over whisker stubble and groaned. “A woman. . .of course a woman. Why can’t I ever learn?”
“What are you talking about?” She raised her hands in the universal sign of surrender. “I don’t know who you are.”
He stared at her like a prairie rattler had turned up on his doorstep. Reaching for the blue denim shirt he’d shed when his slaughtering of innocent trees had gotten him too hot, he wiped his face with it.
Giving sweet reason a shot, she said, “My name is Emily.” She nodded up the path she’d followed. “I live over the hill.”
Raising his face from the shirt, his cheeks turned an amazing shade of red under what looked like two weeks’ worth of scruffy beard. “How far over the hill?”
“A few hundred yards.” Rats, she was going to have to lock her doors at night; the new neighbor was nuts.
“A few hundred yards? That’s impossible. I was told there were no homes for ten miles. There are no other houses around here.” He jerked his shirt on over his T-shirt so roughly she thought he’d tear the fabric. He stepped right up to her face. “I want some honest answers and I want them right now. How did you track me here?”
She knew she ought to be afraid—a complete stranger, remote location, no way to call for help—but she just couldn’t work up a single shiver of fear for the poor guy. He looked exhausted and sad, thin. . .almost gaunt. He didn’t stink or have the dissipated look of a drunk. No prison pallor. Not even an orange jumpsuit that said State Penitentiary on it. He just wasn’t scary.
She had no trouble holding her ground. “Listen, hotshot. You’re the one who doesn’t belong here. Who are you and what makes you think you live here? And what kind of locoweed chops down an American elm tree?”
He looked up to heaven, as if praying and lodging a complaint at the same time. “I don’t have to answer to anyone about that tree.” He jabbed one finger toward heaven. “I own this land, and I can live any way I want. No one can stop me. And no one had better try.”
As prayers go, Emily thought it needed work.
He glared at her. “I checked the plat maps. I talked to the real estate agent. You do not live a few hundred yards away.”
“Barry Linscott told you no one lived out here?” Now Emily was mad. “Barry pulled a fast one to unload this white elephant on you? He hadn’t oughta done that. The house is a wreck.”
“Barry nothing, there was no Barry.”
“There had to be a Barry. He’s the only real estate agent in Custer County. We don’t call him a real estate agent though. Too snooty. We call him the Guy That Sells Houses.”
“I had a real estate agent out of Denver.”
“That’s right.” Emily snapped her fingers. “You mentioned some woman you can’t ever learn about. You were talking about her, right?”
“Look, lady—”
“It’s Johannson.”
His eyes sharpened. “Johannson is your name? That’s weird. That’s my name.”
“Your name is Johannson? We’re getting close. Any minute now I’m going to know who you are.”
“My name isn’t Johannson. It’s Joe Hanson.”
Dead silence fell over the two of them. Emily squirmed with impatience. Finally, she snapped. “What was the deal, hotshot? Did you get a whack and then the tree got a whack? My name’s not Joe Hanson, it’s Johannson.”
“My name,” he said through gritted teeth, “isn’t Johannson. My name is Joe and my last name is Hanson. And my friends call me Jake. Please don’t bother calling me anything.”
That startled a grin out of Emily. Maybe he wasn’t as stupid as she thought. “Joe Hanson and Johannson. That’s kinda cute.”
“Don’t start monogramming pillowcases for us, sweetheart.”
Her grin faded. “Don’t flatter yourself. The only thing I’d monogram for you is a straitjacket.”
Her new neighbor finished buttoning his shirt in grim silence.
“Why don’t we talk about that tree?” She tipped an index finger toward the elm. That was the point of this, right? That and welcoming him to the neighborhood. She fought back a grin.
“What about the tree?”
“That’s an American elm tree. You can’t cut it down.”
“We are surrounded by thousands of acres of trees. Are they all special or are your initials carved in this one?”
“Don’t you know anything about trees?”
/> “Well, let’s see. . .” He looked at the sky like he was thinking, then turned eyes the color of a chocolate Easter bunny—with rabies—back on Emily. “They burn well.”
“Firewood?” Emily stormed up until their noses almost touched, even though he was about six inches taller than she was. She stood on her tiptoes and he accommodated her efforts to intimidate him by leaning down, vulturelike, to meet her. “You are cutting down this tree for firewood? Are you out of your mind? ”
Jake took a step backward. “Let’s start monogramming those straitjackets right now. I have a broom closet I can lock you in until the jacket’s done. Or maybe you can just grab a broom and fly home.”
“There is nowhere you can lock me”—she poked him in the chest—“and nowhere you can hide if you cut down that tree for firewood.”
“Look, lady—”
“It is Emily. Emily Johannson. Stop calling me lady.”
His jawed was clamped until his lips barely moved. “I won’t call you lady. I’m not under any illusions that you are one. First you roll around on the ground with a total stranger—”
Emily’s indignant gasp stopped him. “It wasn’t my idea. You’re the one who. . .” His expression hardened until the incredibly impolite things she wanted to say stuck in her throat. She sucked in a long breath. “I’m going to try and say one coherent sentence—one calm, rational sentence—’cuz, believe it or not, I’m a calm, rational person. I don’t normally meet a stranger and start right in arguing. So let me say one sentence—”
“Just say it.”
His interruption was so brusque Emily lost her train of thought. “Say what?”
“This sentence you’re promising me. You’ve had three. You haven’t said anything yet.”
“Oh, okay, hotshot, here goes. Have you ever heard of Dutch elm disease?”
“That’s it?” Jake’s arms swung wide. “You get one sentence and that’s it?”
“May I finish?” she asked with exaggerated politeness.
One corner of Jake’s mouth twitched in what Emily thought might be a smile. “At least you’re learning who’s boss. By the way, why don’t you drop the ‘hotshot’ while you’re pretending to behave yourself? Finish your sentence.”
“Answer my question.”
“Question? Was there a question?” Jake ran one hand into his brown hair, sending wood chips flying. “The straightest line between two points is an impossibility with you, isn’t it?”
“Dutch elm disease. Have you heard of it?”
“Yeah, I’ve heard of it—sort of.”
Emily groaned and walked over to the elm tree to inspect the wound. “I should’ve known better than to ask a city boy. Dutch elm disease has killed nearly every American elm tree in this country. This old tree was planted by the Barretts’ parents when they homesteaded in the 1860s. These trees started dying fifty years ago. My place, the Barretts’, and the whole Black Hills lost millions of elm trees. It was a disaster.”
Emily shook her head. “My parents and grandparents talked about all the trees standing dead, their branches naked and raining down for years all through the Custer State Park and the whole Black Hills National Forest that backs our land. For some reason this one survived. It’s the only American elm tree left in these parts. It deserves better than to be hacked down by some Paul Bunyan wannabe for firewood.” She noticed her Stetson on the ground, grabbed it, smacked it on her leg to knock off the dirt, and jammed it on her head.
“Look around you.” Jake made a broad arc with one arm. “This place is lousy with trees. And I’m not going to burn it for firewood. I’m cutting it down because I’m planning to landscape the yard, and it’s in my way.”
Emily, in the middle of adjusting her hat, grabbed the brim so hard she almost ripped it off. “You’d destroy a majestic old tree because it’s in your way?” Emily grabbed her stick, just to let him know she had one.
Jake glanced at the stout branch.
“Well, I say it was here first and you’re in its way. How d’ya like that? And as for landscaping, this house is falling down around your ears. If you were stupid enough to buy the place, landscaping isn’t even in the five-year plan. The flooring is all rotten, especially on the porch. And for heaven’s sake, don’t lean on any railings. They’re just waiting for an excuse to collapse. The roof is shot. The bathrooms are forty years old and never worked that well to begin with. There are broken windows everywhere—”
“Look again.”
After a moment to figure out what he’d said, she turned to really look at the house she had loved for so long. The roof was reshingled. The broken windows were securely boarded. The front steps were reinforced. He’d obviously spent a lot of time and money on it.
She turned back, confused. “When did you do all this?”
“I spent the last two weeks, working eighteen-hour days. How is it you’ve never shown your face until now?”
“You’ve been here for two weeks?” She knew even before he nodded with a single jerk of his chin that this work had taken that long. “It’s spring. I’ve been working in the field from sunrise to after dark.”
“Doing what?”
“Ranching.”
“Ranching? You’re a rancher? Do you have a family over that hill? Let me guess. Your cousin married you when you were twelve. You’ve got eight kids.”
Emily laughed. How long had she been standing here fighting with him? Once she started taking bites out of him, she couldn’t stop. The man was a living, breathing Lay’s potato chip.
“My cousin?” she gasped the words out, laughing. “Eight kids?” She leaned against her precious elm tree, then straightened when Jake chuckled, too. From the rusty sound, she wondered how long it had been since he’d last done it.
“No cousin-husband then? No kids?” He sounded almost neighborly.
“No husband, cousin, or otherwise. I do have a kid. . .sort of.”
The smiled dried off his face so fast Emily figured they were squaring off for round two. Or were they up to round five?
“How can you have a kid ‘sort of’?” His lips formed a stiff, straight line.
“My sister lives with me. I dropped out of college and moved home when my mother died, to take care of my father and little sister. We’ve been alone since Dad died two years ago. Stephie is eight and she’s at school right now.” She saw him relax and wondered what other hornets’ nests were waiting to be stirred.
With a start she looked up at the sky. The sun was getting lower. “I’ve got to be going. School’s about out. I didn’t reckon on having to save this tree when I set out for my walk. You know, now that I think of it, I have heard some sounds from this direction. I’ve been chalking them up to long hours and short sleep.”
“Can you tell the time from looking at the sun?”
“Greenhorn.” She rubbed her hand against the scarred trunk she was leaning on, looking down at the palm-sized chunk he’d hacked out of it. “Before I go, we’ve got to settle things about this tree. Your life really isn’t worth a plugged nickel if you swing that ax again. I’ll do you in, and if you’re the loner you seem to be, no one’ll ever miss you.”
“I’m not a loner.”
“Secrecy about buying this place. No local purchases. You’re a regular hermit, Jake.”
All trace of humor vanished. “Where did you hear all that?”
She’d hit another hornet’s nest. “It’s not what I’ve heard. . .it’s what I haven’t heard. If you’d so much as stepped into a store in Cold Creek, or even driven through town in that thing”—she tilted her head at Jake’s shining black Jeep Cherokee—“I’d have known about it. Cold Creek is tiny. We notice strangers.
“You don’t seem like the hiding-from-the-law type. I’d guess this is a back-to-nature kick or escape from your life. So, you’re a hermit no one knows about ’cept me and that man-hungry real estate agent in Denver.”
“Stop acting like you know me. You don’t.” His jaw clampe
d shut.
Emily grinned. “Now about this tree. . .”
He glanced at her club.
“If you take that stick, it won’t save you. I’m bristling with weapons over yonder.”
“The tree or my life, huh?”
She nodded. “Those are your choices, stranger.”
He shook his head, sighing. “Would you believe that’s the nicest offer I’ve had from a woman in a long time?”
“You think it nice of me to threaten to kill you?” He was loco. She hoped he didn’t call her bluff ’cuz she didn’t have any guns.
“No, I’ve just had some really nasty offers.”
Two
Emily didn’t even want to think about that. “So the tree?”
“The tree lives.” Jake offered her his hand.
She looked at it. “Is a handshake from a city boy playing lumberjack worth anything?”
His lips quirked into a smile.
She took his hand and looked at the sky again, anything but pay attention to his strong fingers surrounding hers. “I gotta go. Stephie’ll be waiting.”
She tried to pull away, but Jake held on until she looked at him. “Can you really tell the time from looking at the sun?”
Emily snorted and reclaimed her hand. “Straight up is noon. Dawn is at six and sunset is at eight. . .about. . .today. Add two minutes a day on each end till the first day of summer, then start subtracting. And don’t forget daylight savings time.” Emily was pretty much winging it. She’d checked the clock in her pickup truck before she’d come for this walk. But the sun told her time was passing. She turned toward the path. Just to be a brat, she held on to her stick.
She’d made it across the Barretts’ yard when Jake caught up. “I agreed to spare the tree. You have to make me some promises.”
She stopped. She didn’t want this guy following her home. “Let’s hear it.”
“First, I want to see where you live. If you’re lying and there’s no house, I’m going to quit being so nice.” He went on past her, toward the woods.
“You mean you can be less nice than this?”
Jake stopped suddenly at the foot of the trail. “This is so obvious it might as well have neon arrows. I can’t believe I’ve never noticed it.”
Clueless Cowboy Page 1