Chapter 15
Luke stalked up the hard-packed dirt road, glancing over his shoulder at the car. He’d never seen Rowan like that. He’d gotten one call from her after their fight letting him know she was transferring to the University of Colorado—he’d thought that was the end. She’d given up. Between his anger and his pride, so had he.
She’d never called him after that. Not that he knew of. Things had been crazy right around that time. His debut album hit the top ten on the country charts and he’d been swept up on the rollercoaster of concerts and interviews and publicity appearances. For a while, he reached for her. He’d turn to ask her opinion or make fun of some pretentious executive and it would take a split second before he remembered she wasn’t there anymore. She was supposed to be. It was always supposed to be the two of them. Until it wasn’t.
He reached the cabin and stomped up the wood stairs.
Fuck. He couldn’t get in.
Spinning on his heel, he leaped down to walk back to the car to ask for the lockbox combination.
Rowan pulled into the clearing before he got a few steps. She got out of the car, unlocked the door, and entered the house without saying a word. She kicked off her shoes by the door and went into the bedroom, shutting the door behind her.
It was probably for the best right now. Anything he tried to say would be wrong and make things worse. He took the keys off the hook by the back door and went out back. He opened the shed at the end of the deck and found the generator, but no tools.
He scanned the yard and noticed a larger shed tucked back into the tree line. Inside he found a push lawnmower, a chainsaw, and, if worse came to worst, an axe. Under a shelf at the back of the shed, he discovered a half-full five-gallon gas can and poured it into the chainsaw. Hopefully, it would get him through cutting up the trunk. He grabbed the chainsaw, the axe, and the eye and ear protection he found on a peg and walked around the house to the road.
Back at the tree, he dropped the axe and put on the safety glasses and hearing protection. All he had to do was clear a path wide enough for the car to get through. The chainsaw started easily and cut through the branches at the top of the tree until he could get to the trunk without being slapped in the face by damn overgrown Christmas tree.
The scent of pine and fresh cut wood surrounded him and he fell into a rhythm of trimming and sawing, which let him clear his mind of everything but concentrating on not cutting off his own limbs. He’d forgotten how calming physical labor could be. Lord knew he didn’t have to lift a finger anymore if he didn’t want to.
By the afternoon he’d cut through eight sections of the trunk. The sections were larger than he’d have cut for firewood, but he just needed them small enough that he wouldn’t throw out his back pulling them off the road. It was still sweat-drenching, back-breaking work and his muscles protested under the strain they weren’t used to.
After pulling the last piece out of the way, he sat on one of the cut sections and glanced down at his hands, covered in scratches and sap. He hadn’t thought to find a pair of gloves in the shed. Making a fist, he hissed at the pain. He looked up and stared down the road that would take them out of there and possibly take Rowan out of his life. It was a risk he had to take since keeping her locked in the cabin didn’t seem like a viable option. All he could hope for was that he would be able to break through her shell and convince her to give him a chance.
He pushed up from the tree and picked up the chainsaw and the rest of the things he’d brought down. Hot, sweaty, thirsty, and in desperate need of a shower, he was no closer to figuring out how to get through to Rowan. Somewhere, someway, somehow things had gone to shit between them and he had an uneasy feeling Brett and Bobby John had something to do with it.
He returned everything to the shed the way he found it, then started the generator because he was not going to take another cold shower, no matter how welcome this one might be. For one, he needed the hot water to get the sap off his arms without removing chunks of hair.
Inside there was no sign of Rowan and the bedroom door was still closed. He hesitated with his knuckles poised over the wood, then lowered his hand. Shower, food, then talk.
He turned on the water and stripped, being careful to avoid the cut on his forehead. Taking his shirt into the shower with him, he used the bar soap to wash it as best he could. There was no way he was going to be able to sit in a car for however long it took to get back to civilization smelling himself and he sure as hell wasn’t going to stink Rowan out. There wasn’t much he could do about his jeans, but at least they didn’t reek of B.O.
Rushing through the shower, he toweled off and pulled on his boxers and jeans as his stomach reminded him he needed to eat. He wrung out his shirt and hung it over the curtain rod to dry.
Going to the car, he pulled out the bag with the refrigerated food, a can of soup, and the bread and took them back into the kitchen. Tomato soup and grilled cheese had always been Rowan’s favorite comfort food.
Once more, he hesitated with his hand over the door, then knocked sharply.
“Rowan?”
The handle turned easily and he eased the door open. She lay curled up facing away from him.
Sitting on the edge of the bed next to her hip, he could tell she was awake. “I fixed some dinner.”
“I’m not hungry.” Her tone was soft. Tired.
That worried him more than anger would have. “You need to eat. I got the tree clear.”
Her upper body twisted and she looked at him over her shoulder. “You cleared the tree?”
It was hard to miss the way her eyes flitted to his chest, then snapped back up. “Not all of it. Just enough so the car will fit through.”
“Oh.”
“Do you want to eat?”
“I hadn’t really thought about it.”
