She breathed a quick prayer for some common sense. With unsteady hands, she cut the pie and set a slice in front of a subdued Jake, who had sunk back into his chair.
“We have a problem.”
He looked up. “What problem is that?”
“You. . .we. . .we have to keep our hands off each other. I don’t believe in it.”
“You don’t believe in letting a man touch your wrist?” He pulled the pie toward him.
“Not a strange man.”
“Am I a stranger, Emily? Haven’t I known you forever?”
She settled into her chair. “It feels like it, doesn’t it? It’s been a very strange day.” She covered her face with her hands, then slid them so she could see him and still keep her burning cheeks covered. “I don’t really know what to do with the ideas I have in my head. It’s all new to me.”
“Believe it or not, it’s new to me, too.”
“I don’t believe it.”
Jake shrugged. “All I know is there seems to be something inevitable about holding you.”
Emily was stunned. “Jake, you don’t even like women.”
“You’re right about that.”
“We’re just going to have to stay away from each other.”
Jake looked down at the pie in front of him. “I’d die.”
“From missing me?” Emily’s heart started pounding.
“I was thinking about starvation.”
And then she was laughing. She reached across the table and pulled the pie plate away from him before he could sink his fork in.“I know. I’ll start trying to change you. That’ll cool you off. And it’ll be easy, too, ’cuz you’re gonna hafta change.”
Jake groaned.
“There, you’re already irritated. Now I’ll list off the things wrong with you.”
“All right, you might be on to something here. Let’s have it. Count off my faults. This is good. It’s working. I already don’t like you anymore.” He raised his eyes to lock on hers. For an instant they flicked down to her lips. “Much.”
Emily swallowed hard. “I didn’t say faults exactly, just stuff you have to change.”
“Let’s just hear it.”
“You have to get hooked up to electricity.”
“No.”
“Good, this is going great. You’re really bugging me. No one lives without electricity if they don’t have to. You’ll figure it out soon enough, but get your stubborn pride and your male ego in the way so it’ll be harder to back down. That way you’ll suffer longer and blame me. That ought to keep you away from me.” She nodded in satisfaction.
“I don’t have a problem with my ego. And I’m not getting electricity. That’s final.”
“This is going great. Next, you have to have a new furnace. The house has an old one, but you need to tear it out and start over from scratch. That’ll mean a bunch of workmen, so everyone will know you’re here.”
“No.”
“Your idea of heating that whole house with firewood is ridiculous. It’s got three floors and eight fireplaces. Do you know how much wood that will take? And it still won’t be warm because chimneys make the house drafty.”
“Barretts built it. They survived the cold.”
“Yeah, but that’s all they did. . .survive.”
“How cold can it get in South Dakota anyway?”
The laugh that escaped Emily was pure derision. “I know you’re not stupid, Jake. So why does stupidity keep coming out of your mouth?”
“Good one.” Jake seemed to approve. “This is getting better all the time. I’ve got a forest full of wood, even without your pet American elm. I can live in the downstairs room with the main fireplace when it’s cold and shut off the upper floors. If I hook up the gas and electric, the whole world will know I’m here. That’s what you really want, isn’t it? It’s killing you not to gossip. Or do Helen and Goober Walton know all about me?”
Shoot, no amount of criticism was going to make her dislike him if she couldn’t stop laughing. “Their names are Helen and Carl Murray, and I did not tell them about you. You won’t even survive the summer. That’s the real reason you need to stay away from me. Because you are playing Little Dope in the Big Woods, and you’ll be out of here as soon as the novelty wears off. Wouldn’t that be a nasty joke on you if the thrill was gone and you woke from your rustic pipe dream and found yourself with the girl next door clinging to you? A girl who has no intention of letting some burned-out house builder become important to her, while he runs around the world playing What Do I Want to Be When I Grow Up?”
“I’m an architect, not a house builder. An architectural engineer to be exact. They’re long words but try to remember. I’m good at it, too. I’m not burned out, I’m simplifying my life. I’m planning to go to work again but on a smaller scale.”
“Right, and I’m not a rancher. I’m in agribusiness and I do domestic engineering as a sideline. You’re worried about dying young, but I’ve got a news flash for you. You’re going to die before the summer’s out. You’ll poison yourself with spoiled food, or you’ll hurt yourself and not have a phone to call 911.”
“I won’t—”
“And quit interrupting me. I’ve got a whole bunch more changes you need to make. We haven’t even scratched the surface.”
“I think I’ve heard enough. It’s having the desired effect.”
“Too bad if it’s enough. We’ve skirted around it all night, but the truth is I’m going to have to tell Stephie about you. She will find you by the end of the week. I might be able to keep her away until then. But school is out Thursday. After that she’ll be around all day every day.”
“I don’t want her over there.”
“You can stop saying that because she will be over there.”
Jake clenched his fists until his knuckles went white. He breathed several quick shallow breaths and then forced his hands open. “Is there a chance she’d be able to keep it a secret?”
She knew the question was a major concession. “Look, I’ll ask her. But she’s eight. She’s an open, honest little girl.”
“A woman, of course.”
Five
She should have been offended by the shot at women, but near as Emily could tell, Jake didn’t like anyone, so it was hard to take it personally.
“She doesn’t see other children too often in the summer. She goes to town with me for groceries and church, but I’ll watch her. I can’t make any promises. But I can promise you she’s going to find out.”
“I know I can’t keep living here a secret. I thought I could, but I didn’t understand the crowd situation.”
This time she had to grin. There were forty people in twenty miles.
“Listen, I don’t just want to hide on a whim. I really need to have some time before I deal with my old job. The last five years I’ve become a troubleshooter, working with natural and man-made disasters all over the world.”
Emily decided to google Hanson and Coltrain later.
“My life is just crisis to crisis. My father’s death was a wake-up call. I hadn’t seen him for ages. He was a lawyer, lived right there in Chicago, but we had nothing to do with each other. I’ve been trying to cut back, but my partner won’t let up. So I left. I disappeared. If they find me, they’ll need me. Lives will be at stake. . .or homes, or the air, or water, or the whole blasted planet. I’ve never been able to figure out how to say no. If they show up here, I’ll go with them.”
“And you’re afraid it will kill you?”
“I know it will kill me. But it’s not so much that I’m afraid I’ll die. It’s that my father never did anything but work. I don’t want to die without living.”
She stopped herself from reaching for his hand.
“So I changed my life. I saw the picture of the Barrett place in a real estate office, and it touched a chord. The slopes on the roof and porches, the balconies on the upstairs windows. . . I love that house.”
“The tower.” She underst
ood the appeal of the old house.
Jake smiled. “The picture seemed like a dream.”
“Like a place where Rapunzel might be imprisoned.”
Jake smiled. “You’re really in love with the place. That’s what you meant when you said, right at first, it was yours. I bought it for a song. How come you didn’t buy it and fix it up?”
Emily shrugged. They were in accord again and that wasn’t what they’d been going for. But she couldn’t pretend she didn’t adore that old house. “You know I’ve never given it a thought. My life just sort of happened to me. I didn’t exactly choose it, although I’m sure things have worked out according to God’s plan for me.”
“God’s plan?”
“Yes, I was full of my own ideas. You know. . .vet school, a career in the city.”
“A veterinarian?”
“Yeah, that was the plan. I had two years of college when my mom’s death pulled me home, and my dad’s death held me. That’s how God meant for it to be. Stephie and I love it here. After Dad died, I was more interested in stability for Stephie than fantasies about a romantic old heap.”
“Romantic, huh?”
Emily shrugged at the impression that word, from Jake’s mouth, made on her. “It’s like a fairy-tale house.”
“It’s definitely unique.”
“Great-grandma Barrett was rumored to be a German aristocrat. Somehow, during a time when this whole area was still barely settled, they built that house with all its elaborate flounces. I’ve hated to see it fall into disrepair. I suppose I could have saved it. Mom and Dad’s life insurance left us pretty secure, but it would have been a waste for just Stephie and me. I can’t believe you want the job now that you’ve seen it. I would have thought the floors would have rotted through.”
“It’s a mess in places, but the foundation is solid.” His smile was self-deprecating. “I responded to the picture and the isolation. And here I am. I’m going to chop wood and eat food cooked over an open fire, breathe clean air, and sleep at night. You can’t imagine how bad I’ve been sleeping for years. But since I’ve been here, doing manual labor instead of wrangling in my head about load-bearing walls, and state-of-the-art earthquake management, and miles of government regulations, and. . .” He fell silent. His eyes dropped to his pie plate. Then he rubbed his whiskery face with one hand.
She didn’t think he’d go on.
“And body counts,” he whispered.
Her breathing stuttered.
He rubbed his open palm over his eyes as if he would wipe away his thoughts. “I’ve been sleeping hard for eight hours a night. It’s wonderful. I like it and I want to stay. If Sid finds me, he’ll manipulate me into leaving. That means no public documents like electric bills. What are we going to do?”
Emily smiled. “I have an answer that’s so simple you’re going to bite my head off.”
“All your answers have that effect on me.”
“I’ve noticed.” She shrugged. “Learn to say no.”
Jake shook his head, scowling. “Great. Thanks, you’ve saved my life.”
“I have. You’re just too stubborn to know it. Learn to say no.” Emily softened her words with a smile. “Learn to laugh. Learn to cry. Enjoy being glad you were born.”
“You call that simple; I call it impossible.”
“Well, you know what they say. . . .”
“Sure, they say big boys don’t cry.”
Emily laughed. “That’s big girls don’t cry and that’s not what I meant. They say women cry, men have heart attacks. Isn’t that what you’re running from? A heart attack?”
“Who says that?” Jake’s eyes widened in horror.
“I can get you started. I’ve got something that will make you cry your eyes out.”
Jake’s eyes narrowed with suspicion.
She slid his pie back in front of him. “Hot apple pie. It’s so delicious it will make you weep like a baby.”
Jake started chuckling deep in his chest and reached for his fork.
“How much laughing do you do?”
“You’ve heard every note of the laughing I’ve done since my father died.”
“Do you miss him? I know I miss my parents.”
“I don’t miss him. His death just gave me a wake-up call.”
In a gesture she knew was pathetic, she tried to substitute food for a negligent father. “Would you like a second piece of pie? You didn’t get much supper.”
“Are you kidding? I was most of the way done with seconds when other. . .um. . .things got in the way.” He looked chagrined. “Sorry, no more of that. We’re doing pretty good, aren’t we?”
“Yeah, pretty good.” She cut him another piece of pie and got ice cream out of the refrigerator without asking if he wanted any. The man didn’t seem to know anything about food anyway. She dropped a generous scoop of it on Jake’s pie and set it in front of him.
“What about Stephie?” She hated to ask.
Jake shrugged. “Ask her to keep it secret. Maybe I can buy some practice time.”
“Practice time?”
“Saying no.” Jake sighed contentedly.
Emily didn’t even bother to serve herself any pie. She was saving of all her strength for pushing her luck. “What about the electricity and gas?”
“No.”
“There’s plenty of roughing it you can do even with electricity.”
“Sid will be on me in a minute. The man is a bulldog.”
“Okay, how about I get the hookups in my name. I could tell them I’m running some cows on your pasture, and I need electricity and gas. I couldn’t put a furnace in, but you can get by without that until winter.”
“It’s not how I want to do it, and if this pie wasn’t so good I’d start fighting with you again.”
“Just think about it. You can live like you are now if I feed you. The water works, doesn’t it?”
“Yes, the windmill on the place keeps the supply tank full, and I’ve got lots of water and good pressure, but it’s cold water, of course.”
“You haven’t had a hot shower in two weeks?”
“Well, the cold ones get you just as clean.”
“But that well water is freezing cold.”
Jake shivered. “Tell me about it.” He went back to his pie.
Six
She served herself a piece of pie just as the sound of a motor drew her attention.
“Someone’s here.” Jake shoved his chair back with a loud scrape and dashed into the other room. Emily ran after him.
He shoved open a window in the living room, unlatched the screen, swung one leg over the ledge, and ducked his head through the opening.
“No, Jake. Not that window. There’s a. . .”
He dropped from sight. Snapping bush mixed with muffled cries of pain.
“Rosebush.” She rushed to the window and saw him limp out of sight into the trees, hoping he remembered about the creek.
Her porch door slammed. “Emily, where are you?” Helen Murray’s voice made her jump away from the window and hurry toward the kitchen. “Stephie got sick and wanted you.”
With what she hoped was supreme calmness, Emily stepped into the kitchen and saw the table, obviously set for two.
“Did you have company for dinner?” Helen asked.
Emily glanced at the living room where Jake had escaped, realized how that would look to Helen, and turned back. She’d promised Jake.
“Uh. . .” Lying was a sin. “Uh. . .”
Helen might be a country woman born and bred, with no education past high school, but that didn’t make her stupid. Her eyes followed the direction Emily’s had a moment before, and Emily knew Helen was thinking something worse than the truth.
Stephie helped ease the situation. “I’m going to throw up.”
Emily dashed after Stephie to the bathroom and began rubbing her little sister’s back as she emptied the contents from her stomach.
“Nick Thompson went home from school sic
k on Wednesday. I suppose it’ll spread to all the kids.” Helen, who’d followed the girls into the bathroom, was minding her own business even though it had to be killing her.
“All your kids will get it now. I’m sorry.” Emily tried to make the apology cover everything.
“I’ve seen the flu before. I know better than to worry about it. Do you need anything before I go? A hand with the dishes?”
Emily kept her eyes fixed on Stephie, ignoring the hint. “I’m fine. We’ll manage. Thanks for bringing her home.” She soaked a cloth with cool water and bathed Stephie’s warm face.
“Are you going to be all right, honey?” Helen asked with maternal gentleness.
“I’m fine,” Stephie said.
“I guess,” Emily answered at the same moment. Emily then realized Helen had been speaking to Stephie.
Then Helen, with a furrow between her eyes, patted Emily’s shoulder. “If you need anything, I’m here.”
Emily nodded. “Thanks. I appreciate that. More than you know. Good night.”
“Good night. Hope you’re feeling better tomorrow, Stephie.” Helen turned away with no answers.
Emily gave her full attention to Stephie. “Let’s get you to bed, honey. Do you feel awful?”
“No, I’m better since I threw up.”
“Did you throw up at the Murrays’, too?” Emily gritted her teeth, dreading the response. She started Stephie toward the bedroom.
“Just once.”
“Did you make it to the bathroom?”
“Sort of.”
Poor Helen.
Emily helped Stephie undress. “Climb into bed.”
“I’m hot.”
Emily slid a nightgown over her little sister’s tangled hair. The fever wasn’t dangerous, but it was enough to make a little girl miserable.
“I hurt.”
“Do you think you can take some medicine?”
“I had some at Lila’s. Please don’t give me any more.” Stephie started to cry and rolled close to Emily kneeling by the bed. “Stay with me.”
Emily sighed and brushed the soft brown hair back from Stephie’s flushed, tear-soaked face.
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