Out on a Limb

“We e-mail. She’s happily married in Oklahoma and has three other kids. They’re almost grown now, too. She’d like for me to come visit, but I just—” Elise caught herself before she shared any more. Why was Cutch so easy to talk to?

“That must be hard,” he empathized.

“It’s complicated,” she agreed, hoping he’d leave it at that.

They ate in silence for a few more minutes until Cutch finished and wiped his mouth, setting his napkin atop his empty plate. “Thank you for the meal. It was delicious. We should be getting on our way. I can wash these dishes while you call the sheriff.”

Elise froze, her last bite of lasagna poised on her fork midway to her mouth. She set it back down on her plate and looked into his eyes. Could she trust this man? Her father would say no. But her heart seemed to think otherwise. “I thought maybe we could wait to call the sheriff until we get out there and see what we’re dealing with.”

Cutch felt relief hit him like the first drops of rain after a long dry spell. Of course, he’d been nervous about what Sheriff Bromley might find on his land and what conclusions those findings would lead the lawman to reach. But more than that, Elise’s words held a promise he’d been too hurt to even hope for. She trusted him, however slightly. She was willing to give him a chance, however small. Her concession soothed his parched soul.

But he couldn’t let her jeopardize her safety on his account. He shook his head. “I can’t ask you to put off calling him. It was selfish of me to voice my fears to you. Go ahead and make the call. Your safety could be at stake.”

Elise finished her last bite of lasagna and offered him a tiny smile. “The sheriff already told me he was busy today. By calling him once we’ve been out there to see what we’re dealing with, we might actually be able to save him time on his investigation. I’m not risking my safety—not at this point. Once we find something for him to look at, then I’ll give him a call.”

“But we already have the coordinates for the location of the ammonia tank.”

“And I already gave you my answer.” She rose and carried their dishes to the sink.

Guilt hit him like a punch to the stomach. Why had he even said anything? Unless Elise had changed dramatically in the eight years since he’d last been involved with her, he knew once she’d made up her mind that she wouldn’t budge. And everything from her body language to the glint in her eyes told him she’d made up her mind.

“If anything happens to you—” he began.

“I’m trusting you to protect me,” she said, her back to him as she ran water to wash their plates. “Now if you don’t mind, there’s a ladder just inside the hangar we were in earlier. If you load that into your truck, we can use it to help us reach my glider.”

Cutch’s shoulders dropped. “Sure thing,” he answered, knowing he’d been dismissed. Reluctantly, he turned and left her behind, wondering if he shouldn’t just call the sheriff on his own. But she’d be furious with him if she felt he’d gone behind her back. Whatever tiny bit of trust she’d placed in him would be lost.

I’m trusting you to protect me. Her words filled his heart with a mixture of joy and dread. He felt honored she’d grant him that responsibility, but at the same time, he wondered if he was really up to the challenge. He couldn’t bear the idea of letting Elise down again.

His mind swirling with all the risks that still lay ahead of them, Cutch headed straight for the hangar without going around the side of the office to see if Leroy’s truck was back, though the time he’d stated for his return had passed a few minutes before. Instead, Cutch hurried inside to fetch the ladder. After the bright Iowa sunshine outside, his eyes took a moment to adjust to the relative darkness of the metal building’s spacious interior.

As his eyes adjusted, he scanned the walls for the ladder Elise had talked about. He saw an aluminum ladder along one wall and headed over, picking it up and hefting it above his shoulder.

Just as Cutch began to turn around, Leroy’s voice boomed through the cavernous room, “Well, I’ll be! Is that a rat or a McCutcheon? I wouldn’t waste a bullet trying to shoot a rat, but I would if that’s a McCutcheon there.” The sound of clicking metal echoed through the hangar. “Drop the ladder, boy.”

FOUR

Something nagged Elise as she finished washing up the dishes—something uncomfortable. She tried to shake the feeling—to tell herself she was just jittery after being shot out of the sky and forced to spend her morning with Cutch. Just thinking about Cutch made her feel off-kilter. But the knot in her stomach couldn’t be so easily explained away.

Feeling distracted by everything on her mind, she finished rinsing their plates, set the clean dishes on angle in the drying rack and carried the soapy sponge over to the table. When the table’s clean surface gleamed up at her, she spun around to return to the sink, and something caught her eye outside the window.

Something red. Her heart jolted, but she told herself it was nothing. Only Leroy’s truck. She’d seen it sitting in that spot a thousand times before. He’d probably step into the office any second. She had the sponge back at the sink and was rinsing it out when the tangible sense of fear hit her. Leroy hadn’t come into the office—which meant he was still outside, or worse yet, in the hangar. With Cutch.

Elise dropped the sponge and ran. She tore around the corner of the hangar and sprinted inside. “Leroy, no!” she shouted, mortified to see her uncle pointing a shotgun at Cutch.

“Caught this varmint trying to steal our ladder,” the big man snarled, not tearing his eyes from his prey.

Cutch glared at them both but remained silent.

Silence was probably a good strategy on his part, Elise decided. She quickly moved to stand between Leroy and Cutch. “It’s okay, Uncle Leroy. I asked him to get the ladder.”

“You asked a McCutcheon to steal our ladder?” Leroy didn’t even lower his gun. “Now that don’t make any sense at all. This boy’s been addling your brain again, child.”

Elise did not appreciate having her uncle talk down to her, even if he’d been right about Cutch before. She also wished he’d put the gun down. Since she’d gone to stand between them, he now had the barrel aimed at her as well as Cutch. “He’s helping me,” she explained slowly. “My glider went down on his land, and he offered to help me retrieve it.”

Leroy lowered the gun slightly, concern softening the anger in his voice. “Your glider went down?”

“Yes. And I’m kind of in a hurry to get it back. It may take us a while, and you know I don’t like to leave it out overnight—dew isn’t good for the body or the engine.” Buckshot was even worse, but she hoped her uncle would let her skip over the longer, more detailed version of the story.

His eyes narrowed, Leroy held his ground. “I don’t like the sound of that. Your glider went down over McCutcheon land—”

“Leroy!” Elise couldn’t let her uncle continue questioning her. If he found out she’d been shot down, he’d never let her leave with Cutch. “It’s okay. I know what I’m doing. But we have to get going, okay?” She met his eyes. “Can you just trust me on this?”

Grumbling, Leroy looked past her to Cutch. “You take and load that ladder, but I expect to get it back by sundown or you’ll wish I’d just shot you!”

Elise had to stop herself from rolling her eyes. Her uncle could be such a throwback sometimes. “Thank you, Uncle Leroy,” she said calmly as she began to follow Cutch out the door.

Leroy caught her arm. “You be careful out there, honey.”

Elise saw the concern in her uncle’s brown eyes and realized he referred to more than just her safety. Leroy was familiar with enough of her history with Cutch to know her heart was in just as much danger as the rest of her. Probably more.

“We’ll be fine,” she assured him with a smile she only wished she felt. Grabbing her portable GPS unit and the storage bag for her glider, she hurried toward Cutch’s truck. Would she be fine? She could only pray she would.

Cutch had to ignore his curiosity about the anhydrous tank he’d seen. Much as he wanted to check out the site they’d spotted from the air, he knew Elise was in a hurry to get her glider out of the trees, and he’d already risked her safety by agreeing to postpone the phone call to the sheriff. He could investigate the drug lab later once she was safely home and unlikely to return.

“Thanks for telling your uncle not to shoot me,” he said after they’d driven in silence for over a mile.

“I didn’t have much choice, did I? If he’d killed you, there’s no way I could have gotten my glider back today.”

Her words came out in a perfectly serious voice, but when Cutch looked over, he thought he caught a hint of a smile. He fought back a grin. “Worse yet, if he’d have wounded me, you might have had to do CPR.” Expecting her to slug him for such a bold comment, he braced himself for the impact of her little fist.

“Nah. I’d have made Leroy do the mouth-to-mouth. He’s the one with the EMT training.” She shot him a look and laughed at the horrified expression he gave her in return.

Cutch tipped his head back and chuckled, too. It felt so good to laugh with Elise, especially after the stress-filled day they’d had so far. “Then I’m glad he didn’t shoot me after all.” He glanced her way. She had her eyes trained out the window, and her slender fingers played nervously with the shoulder strap of her seatbelt. Her laughter had already faded.

Tension settled back over them. He felt it like a thick choking cloud, the same elephant in the room that had always come between them. And though his logical side knew it would always be there—knew they’d never overcome the chasm between them—he couldn’t help praying God would show him the way past all that.

“So, pecans, hmm?” Elise’s question drew him back from his thoughts.

Cutch’s instinct was to clam up. Not even his folks knew what his plans were, and he wasn’t expecting to tell anyone, either, not until he knew if his plans would succeed. Eight years ago, he’d let his guard down with Elise and shared his dream with her. She was the only one besides his younger sister, Ginny, who knew what he’d wanted. Would it be okay to let her know how far he’d come? Sharing went against his secretive nature.

“Yeah,” he replied in a noncommittal voice and kept his eyes focused on the road in front of them.

“Those trees looked pretty old. One of them had a dead branch, as I recall.”

She was baiting him. Cutch warred with what to tell her. Nobody in Holyoake County knew what his plans were—and for good reason. If people thought he was foolish enough to believe in his grandfather’s ruined dream of converting the otherwise infertile hills into a productive pecan farm, they’d never believe he could do an adequate job as county assessor. He was up for reelection again this fall. He could lose his job.

“About sixty years old,” he told her quietly, wondering how he could possibly change the subject without raising her suspicions. Who was he kidding? This was Elise. She already knew enough to be suspicious.