I tried again and missed.
This was supposed to be James’s job!
I tried again, finally hitting the log, but not hard enough.
Again.
Nothing happened other than my arms hurting and my temper boiling. The axe just stuck in the wood as it started to rain heavily, huge droplets falling on my hair and face.
I screamed in frustration.
Yanking the axe from the log, I tried again. I hit the log hard this time, and it fell to the side, still whole.
All of the anger I’d felt since the moment I’d heard that God allowed my beautiful, perfect husband to be taken from me bubbled to the surface then. A murderous rage rushed through me, and I bellowed at the sky, tears streaming down my face.
“I hate you!” I screamed at God, shame and relief washing over me now that I’d finally let Him know how Ifelt about this whole thing. “I hate you!” I broke into sobs, shocked as despair and shame rushed through me at the fact that I’d just screamed at God. But the pain was too much. It was swallowing me whole, and I couldn’t feel the peace of the Holy Spirit like I normally could. It was gone, replaced by all this rage and sadness. “You should have protected him!” I shouted at the sky as I gripped the axe tightly in my fingertips.
“Where were you?” I bellowed, sobbing as I hefted the axe, and one hack after the other, I swung it, just letting it sink into the ground with no real aim, screaming in frustration like a wild lunatic. “Why didn’t you protect him?” I cried, pounding the ground as bits of grass and dirt flew everywhere, and my arms felt like putty. I let all of the rage I’d been holding on to be released through that axe. I screamed and chopped at the dirt until my voice was hoarse, until I heard a twig snap in the woods, and I froze.
My head snapped up, and I locked eyes with…
A cowboy.
A guy in his late twenties, wearing dirty jeans, a flannel shirt, and a brown, worn-out cowboy hat, peered at me from the tree line in the back of my yard. He held a rifle in his hands and looked ready to shoot. He was soaking wet as the rain pelted down on the both of us.
It hit me then that I’d been screaming like a deranged maniac, and he’d probably thought I was being ripped open by a bear.
I dropped the axe, my chest heaving, and he lowered the gun to the ground. His eyes were wide as he stalked forward carefully, his gaze running over my face. I couldn’t even care what I must have looked like—mascara streaks down mycheeks, hair a mess, red-faced, and anger seeping through my pores, no doubt. I just didn’t care.
“You alright, miss?” he asked, his hands out to show me he was no longer holding the gun.
If it were any other day, I’d have been mortified, but not today. Today, I didn’t care about anything. Today, I was just angry, with no room for any other emotions.
I stood taller, wiped the tears and rain from my cheeks, and shook my head. “No. No, I’mnot,” I growled. “My husband was murdered and didn’t chop enough wood before he left me forever. So, no, I’mnotokay.” I said the last part with a venom I didn’t normally have and then stalked off into the house, slamming the back door and then trudging up the stairs to the master.
After kicking off my boots, I stripped off my wet clothes, pulled the covers over me, and broke down into sobs for the billionth time.
At this point, I was sick of crying. But at the same time, it was the only thing that felt real.
The house was bitterly cold that night, so I piled four blankets high over me and finally drifted off. The last thing I thought of was the terrified-looking man holding the shotgun while I chopped at the ground with an axe, screaming like a maniac.
James would have gotten a kick out of that.What a way to meet the neighbors, he would have said.
Chapter Four
Seth
I’d thought the new neighbor was being torn apart by a cougar. She’d screamed, unending, for over a minute. My heart had nearly dropped out of my chest as I grabbed my shotgun and ran towards her house. She was lucky I’d been in the barn late, unloading some hay. But when I’d reached her, it became clear she wasn’t in danger. Not in the traditional sense.
She was screaming, crying, and pounding the ground with an axe like she had a vendetta against it. When I’d asked her if she was okay and she told me, no, that her husband died and left her with no cut wood, my heart fissured. I didn’t even know the woman. I’d seen her one time in church with her husband when they first moved to town. I’d intended to give them a few weeks to settle in before introducing myself. But at that moment, I’d wantedto pull her into my arms and hold her. She was so broken. I could see the wild look in her eye, the one that said she was on the edge of losing it. Or maybe she’d already lost it. The rage poured off of her, and it broke my heart.
By the time I got home, I could barely think straight. I couldn’t get her wide, beautiful, sorrow-filled blue eyes out of my mind. I just wanted to do something to ease the pain. Anything, no matter how small, to make what she was going through a little more manageable. Because I’d been there. I’d been in the depths of that drowning river, and it was not a place I wanted her to go. But I feared she was already there.
Chapter Five
Ella
The next morning, my anger had dissipated a little, and I was ashamed for screaming at God, but I was still bitter about my situation. I awoke chilled to the bone and decided to try the whole “chopping wood” thing again, but when I opened the door to the back porch, I found a freshly cut pile lying on the mat.
