“Look how close these trees are to the barn,” he said. “They catch on fire, then your barn’s gone—and your whole homestead’s ablaze.”
He looked over to his cabin. “They need to be thinned around my cabin as well. All of that is a safety issue, and then we can use the lumber in any project we want.”
Lenore’s throat closed up again. Her first instinct was to swallow the confession and never let him hear it. Several seconds of silence went by, and he looked over at her.
“What are you thinking?”
She hated that he knew she had something to say and hadn’t said it. She barely knew this man, and yet the connection between them felt as strong as Lenore had experienced with anyone else in her life. To ground herself, she reached out and took his hand in hers. She drew in a deep breath and sighed it all out.
“I’ve never used a chainsaw, Brandon.”
Without missing a beat, he squeezed her hand and said, “Oh, that’s an easy one. I can show you.”
And his simple declaration became a promise. Brandon had just promised that he wasn’t going to leave tonight. He wasn’t going to abandon her because she had no business being a homesteader.
He was going to stay. He would teach her and show her, and together, theywouldrevitalize this piece of land into something she could be proud of—and something that it wanted to be.
“All right,” Brandon finally said. “That’s food, shelter, and water.” He took a step forward and looked past her to their left. “The last thing we really need is power.”
Hope filled Lenore. She once again led Brandon by the hand over toward the solar panels and wheels her daddy had secured from a neighbor years ago.
“The cabins have outlets in them,” he said. “They must’ve had power at some point.”
“Kind of,” Lenore said. “My granddaddy built them on the promise from Three Rivers that they would run the electrical line out here. Then they stopped about three miles from here, maybe four.”
“Huh,” Brandon said. “I wonder if all we need to do is file something with the city.”
Once again, he’d said something that Lenore had literally never thought of, and would never have even considered.
“I can call them,” he said. “Do you know where the closest electrical line is?”
“Coyote Pass,” she said.
Brandon sucked in a breath and turned toward her, his eyes widening.
“What?” she asked. “It’s a ranch northwest of town. They’re pretty big—bigger than my place—and the forest is all that separates us.”
“You’re telling me that on the other side of these trees is Coyote Pass?” A smile grew and grew and grew on his face when she nodded. “One of my best friends owns and lives at Coyote Pass. Alex is hosting a Halloween party tonight, but I’m not going.”
Lenore simply couldn’t believe her luck. The moment she thought that, her mind switched gears. Her hand tightened in Brandon’s as she said, “The Lord really did bring you to me, didn’t He?”
Brandon edged closer to her, releasing her hand and sliding his around her waist, drawing her close and into his side. “Yes, sweetheart,” he whispered as his lips brushed against hertemple, not quite a kiss, but something exciting and intimate all the same. “It sure seems He did.”
10
Brandon wanted to slam the phone into the counter, but that would only break the device, and it was a long drive to town to get a new one. So he gritted his teeth as the woman on the other end continued to babble about the costs associated with stringing the electrical line another three point four miles.
“And then we’d need an easement on the property,” she said. “Ten feet on either side of the line, for maintenance, and?—”
“It’s fine.” Brandon cut her off, hoping his voice didn’t sound too much like a bark. If Dawson had made this phone call, he’d have growled ten minutes ago and hung up on the woman, so maybe Brandon didn’t have anything to worry about.
“Thanks for checking on it for me,” he said, and the words definitely sounded like a growl. He hung up and slid the phone across the counter—the best he could do without breaking it. His shirt felt too tight, and Brandon reached over his head and pulled it by the collar right up and off his body.
“Great,” he muttered as he threw the shirt on the back of the couch and stomped toward his bedroom. “Now you’ve gained weight on top of finding out it’ll cost seventy-fourthousanddollars to run the electrical line to the homestead.” And there was no way anyone could afford to do that—and an easement?
Lenore would never agree to that, even if she had the money to pay for the electrical line.
He scoffed as he stopped in front of his closet.“What a joke.”
