A Bridge Unbroken (A Miller's Creek Novel) (12 page)

Dakota tossed the cigarette to the ground. Maybe in addition to making her to-do list, she should also check the area for further signs of a visitor. Although Kane might not have been here, someone had.

The sound of an engine drew her gaze toward the main road. Chance. The cloud of white dust beyond the tree line confirmed it.

She glanced at her list, evenly divided into two columns. One held the work she could do alone, the other what she needed his help with. While he was at work she hammered away at her side of the list--mostly trim work, painting, caulking, cleaning, and flooring. Then every evening when Chance arrived, they'd grabbed a quick bite to eat and tackled the bigger projects. They worked until nine-thirty or ten, at which point Chance left to get sleep before the next day of nursing, while she headed to her old bedroom and makeshift desk to put in four or five hours of writing. Make that attempted writing.

Chance’s pickup came into view, as she thought through her measly writing efforts over the past week. It could be summed up in three words. Major writer’s block. With too much hanging over her head and not enough time to do it, every activity seemed to take extra effort and thought, both of which were in short supply due to decreased sleep.

He parked the pickup and climbed from the cab, leather work gloves in hand.

All week she’d waited for Friday and Saturday to arrive so they could make real progress on the projects she couldn’t handle alone, projects that required extra hands and muscle, like the Beast in the downstairs bathroom.

He approached with his usual quick-paced stride, but minus a smile.

Oh, boy, this should be a fun day. “Hi.” She smiled and tried to infuse her voice with a gaiety she didn’t particularly feel. “You okay?”

“Tired.” Suddenly he frowned, his gaze drawn to the ground, and scuffed at the dirt with the toe of his boot. His lips tightened perceptibly, then he focused stormy gray eyes on her. “You smoke?”

“No.”

An exasperated whoosh of air fell from his mouth, and he stooped to pick up the cigarette butt she’d thrown down a few minutes earlier. “Don’t lie, Dakota. Here's the proof.” He held it up inches from her nose, his eyes daring her to deny it.

She chafed at his attitude and tone. How dare he assume the cigarette belonged to her. Just more of his jumping to conclusions to prove to himself that she wasn’t good enough for him. No way would she speak even one word in defense. If he wanted to be a horse’s rear-end, let him, but she had work to do. With her mouth clamped nail-in-a-coffin tight, she stomped past him toward the house.

He caught up and latched on to her arm. “If it doesn’t belong to you, then whose is it?”

Dakota wriggled free from his grasp and continued her march toward the farmhouse, taking the new porch steps two at a time.

Chance raced around her and blocked her entrance to the house. “Quit running away and answer me!”

Her hurt burst into full-blown rage. “Quit being a bully and I might. For your information, I saw it right before you did. I don’t know who it belongs to.”

His eyes narrowed. “You’re telling the truth?”

Her eyes roved to the bead board of the porch ceiling as she released a sigh. “No, I’m telling you a big fat hairy lie!” She moved around him, into the house, and slammed the door behind her.

A sledge hammer rested against the newel at the base of the staircase. She grabbed it as she passed to give the old cast iron tub another try. The bathroom was a wreck. Literally. She’d spent a large portion of the week demolishing the space. Everything, including the fixtures and sheetrock, had been removed, leaving only the stud walls and a built-in bathtub she’d nicknamed the Beast.

The grungy tub had earned its moniker. Built of cast iron, it was way too heavy to move. The only solution was to hammer it into smaller, more manageable pieces. She’d tried several times during the week, but to no avail.

Now, fueled by her anger, she hoisted the sledge hammer overhead and gave the tub the biggest whack she could muster. To her surprise, a large chunk gave way in one corner.

“Here, let me have that before you break something.” Chance entered and reached for the sledge hammer.

She pulled it from his grasp. “No way. Besides, breaking something is the whole idea. I’ve been hammering on this thing off and on all week. As it turns out, all I needed to get the job done was you here to make false accusations and irritate me. Now get outta my way before I use this thing on you.”

Hands up in the air in surrender, Chance backed out of the room.

Once more she raised the sledge hammer above her head and let it fall. The head clanged against the side of the tub with such force her bones and teeth vibrated. But instead of cracking off another piece of the Beast, the sledge hammer's handle busted.

Chance leaned against the door frame, arms and legs crossed, the familiar 'I-told-you-so' smirk back on his face.

Her anger elevated to maximum boiling point. She couldn’t even run away, because Chance stood between her and freedom. Instead, Dakota slumped to the floor and tossed her end of the broken sledge hammer to the ground. Her back against a bare stud, she pulled her knees to her chest and lowered her head to crossed arms.

Why had she been so excited when Chance made the call to go ahead with J.C.’s plan? The answer came immediately. Hope. It had given her hope of a permanent place to live and write and be happy. It was her own fault. She should’ve realized life just didn’t work that way. How stupid she’d been to think it was even possible. Several more minutes ticked away with neither of them making a sound. Finally she lifted her head.

Chance stood in the same location with the same stance. But his face was different. Cold, hard anger had replaced the prior smirk.

“I’m not sure this is gonna work, Chance.”

His upper lip curled into a sneer. “Like I didn't see that coming. When things get rough, you run away.”

The words hit a little too close to home. She turned her gaze toward the double-paned window they’d installed earlier in the week. Light cascaded through the window, spilling a rectangular pool of bright sunshine at her feet. Yes, she did have a tendency to run away, but so far that had proved to be the best way of dealing with the hand life dealt her. It’s how she’d escaped the lecherous clutches of her mother’s boyfriends. How she’d managed to survive her father’s verbal attacks. Even how she’d avoided further emotional pain from Chance’s exalted opinion of himself and low opinion of her.

“You’re right, it is how I deal with things, but it works for me.”

“Well, not this time, sister.” He moved in like a man on a mission and fell to a seated position beside her. “Trust me, I wanna quit just as badly as you do. This takes up my time, my money, and my effort.”

“Your time and your money and your effort? It's always about you, isn’t it?”

The words obviously caught him off guard. His mouth fell open, and wounded eyes searched hers. Finally he spoke. “Sorry if it comes across that way sometimes.”

“If?” Dakota faced the patch of blue sky just beyond the window. If only she were a bird. “Sometimes?”

No sound came from the lips that in the past had justified his sin while loudly proclaiming hers.

“What? No excuses? No reasons why I’m responsible for not only my bad choices, but yours as well?”

His gray eyes clouded under thunderous dark brows.

“What’s wrong, Chance? You finally noticing the beams in your eyes after all these years of trying to remove the specks in mine?”

Again, no response.

A sigh escaped. “We don’t have time for this, Chance. Let’s talk and get this worked out, or  move on.”

“You want this to work out?” Low and soft, his words knifed to her core. “I kind of got that impression at lunch the other day. Now I’m not so sure.”

She thought through his question and comment, not at all happy about her conclusion. “I do want this to work out, but we’re gonna have to come to a few understandings first.”

“Agreed. First rule. No running away.”

A cynical laugh burst from her mouth. “There you go again with those rules of yours. But, hey, at least you’re voicing them instead of having them in your head and expecting me to live up to them.”

His frown grew even darker, his scars more pronounced. “Is that really how you see me? A self-righteous know-it-all with rules?”

“Yep. That pretty much sums it up.”

“Why didn’t you say something years ago?”

Why indeed? Maybe because it felt too much like taking on his harsh attitude when all she longed for was peace and harmony. “I hate confrontation, Chance. I hate it when people criticize me, so I don’t criticize others. No matter how founded my complaints are.”

“Which explains your tendency to run away, if not physically, then in every other sense of the word.” His tone held boy-like fascination, and his expression softened like he’d finally reached a place of understanding.

“Bingo!” She bonked the tip of his nose with one finger.

To her surprise, he laughed.

To her even bigger surprise, her mouth turned traitor and smiled. Smiled! When all she wanted to do was stay mad at him for the rest of her life.

“You should really do that more often, you know.” Chance nudged her with his left elbow.

“What?”

“Smile. Yours is particularly gorgeous.”

Uh oh. Drawbridge up, alligators released to the moat. She much preferred her anger to vulnerability. She’d even take his false accusations and self-righteous attitude over this softer, more appealing, Chance Johnson. A Chance Johnson who made her want to once more believe he could be trusted.

He turned his head slightly, studying her from his peripheral vision. “What just happened? It’s like a wall went up when I admired your smile.”

Ramrod straight, she sat up, her eyes trained on the Beast. Finally, she faced him again. “Did I mention that I absolutely hate confrontation?”

Chance chuckled and thumped his chest with one palm. “Let me have it. I can take it.” Apparently he thought better of his words, because just as quickly, he raised both hands in a defensive posture. “But not with your fist. Just words.”

“Chicken.”

“Bwock. Bwock.” He stuck his fingertips beneath his arms and flapped imaginary wings.

“Wimp.”

“Oh, c’mon. Is that the best you can do?” His smirky grin was back.

“Okay.” She scooted along the floor until she faced him, knee-to-knee. “Ask and ye shall receive.”

His dark brows climbed up his forehead, but he said nothing.

Dakota carefully chose her words. They came halting and stilted, much like her writing here of late. “Because, of, uh, some things that have happened in the past, my brain interprets comments like the one you just ma—”

“The one about your smile?”

“Yes.”

“Okay. Just wanted to make sure I was following.”

She mentally tried to re-gather lost words which scattered like a herd of deer the minute he uttered a sound. “As I was saying, those kind of comments make me put my guard up.”

“Why? I was just paying you a compliment.”

Dakota skewed her lips to one side, searching for an answer. “In my experience, comments like that always come attached to expectations.”

“Like I’m hitting on you?”

Good. It was out in the open. “Yes. Which brings up the second rule to keep things between us on nothing more than a platonic level.”

“Now look who’s coming up with rules.”

“Okay, so maybe ‘rule’ wasn’t the right word.”

“Semantics.” He yawned. “Let’s just cut to the chase, shall we? So far, we’ve decided no running away and no compliments. Agreed?”

She nodded out of habit.

“Aha!” He held up an index finger. “There’s another thing we need to discuss.”

“What?”

“Your tendency to be agreeable.”

What was wrong with being agreeable? It was just plain old polite. “There’s nothing wrong with being agreeable.”

“Yes there is. You do it to be polite, but I interpret it as your willingness to agree, then you get mad at me for things you’ve already agreed to, and I’m left standing there wondering what just happened.”

She blinked. “Whoa, dude. You seriously need help with those run-on sentences.”

He twisted his head to one side, lips pressed together. “Quit changing the subject, Dakota. I’m serious. Did my run-on sentence make even a little bit of sense?”

“I think I understand what you were trying to say, if that’s what you mean.” Good grief. Now her words sounded as confusing as his.

“Good. A perfect example is this. I don’t think you’re opposed to compliments. I think you’re actually opposed to anything that might infer that I want something other than friendship from you.”

A tiny light dawned. Was he asking for more clarity in her communication with him? Well, why didn’t he just say so in the first place? Oy. This communication thing was gonna be far more complicated than she’d first thought. She brought fingers to massage the growing pain behind her eyes. “Okay, let me see if I have this straight. Rule number one: no running away. Rule number two: Compliments are okay, but only with the stipulation that nothing other than friendship is inferred. Rule number three: Communicate clearly.”