Chapter Three

      Emily’s panic was blessedly short-lived. Justin was fine. He assured her of that himself when she found him and Mr. Clancy glaring at the section of wall that had collapsed when the two of them had moved the beam trapping the calf. The old farmer grunted his assurances, too, then added his bulk to Justin’s muscle when Justin started clearing away the new pile of boards.

      The men did, indeed, appear completely unscathed, and for that Emily was most grateful, but it was clear enough that they needed help. Neither of them wanted her wading around in the rubble, though, so she left them to their task and did what she could by chasing down the animal that had bolted from the barn as if its backside were on fire. After staking the calf on a long rope near the hay bales, she headed up to the house with Mrs. Clancy and Anna to make sandwiches and a salad for the Clancys’ dinner in exchange for the use of Mr. Clancy’s little red chain saw and a can of gasoline.

      She had a tree to cut up. She also had a bushel of beans waiting to be canned. With the sun slanting low on the horizon, she didn’t have much of the day left to waste.

      “I’ll take those.”

      Justin’s long shadow overtook hers on the rutted road a moment before she felt his hand close over the handle of the chain saw.

      “Clancy will pick me up in an hour or so and jump my car for me,” he said, leaving her to carry the can with the baby snuggled against her chest like a little papoose. “He said he needs to check his irrigation before he does anything else.”

      He’d wiped off a streak of dirt he’d had on his cheek earlier. But when he fell into step beside her, the saw between them, she noticed an angry red scratch on his arm. “I was going to watch for you. So I could thank you,” she said, not wanting him to think she would let him leave without telling him how she appreciated what he’d done. “You don’t need to carry that for me,” she added. “I can manage.”

      “No thanks necessary. And it’s either carry this back for you or sit here doing nothing until he gets finished. He didn’t seem to need any more help.

      “Actually,” he muttered, as they moved between the rows of corn, “I think it was my help he didn’t want. We were doing fine until he asked what I did for a living. When I told him I was an attorney, he turned as suspicious as the warden of a pen. He thought for sure that I worked for some corporation who bought a farm east of here and that I’d come to check the condition of his crops or something. I had to swear I’d only come here to fish before he’d let me past that cow.” He shook his head, looking as if he weren’t sure if he should be confused or insulted. “I’ve never even heard of the company he was talking about.”

      The furrows in his brow eased only slightly when he hoisted the saw. “You know how to use this thing?”

      If the skeptical way he looked at the useful little device was any indication, he didn’t appear overly familiar with it himself. What struck Emily more was his easy dismissal of her neighbor’s suspecting attitude. He was either terribly forgiving or his hide was as thick as a buffalo’s.

      “I’ve borrowed it before. To cut firewood,” she explained, searching for traces of the arrogance Mrs. Clancy claimed men like him possessed. “It’s much simpler to use than an ax.”

      His glance swept over her face, past the tiny head resting between her breasts and down to her sneakers. “I have a little trouble picturing you swinging an ax.”

      “I had trouble doing it.” Not arrogant, she thought. But definitely bold. “That’s why I borrowed the saw. I’ve added one to my wish list.”

      “Of course you have.” Wincing, he cautiously rotated his left shoulder. “It’s what every woman wants. Flowers. Diamonds. A chain saw. I’ll make a note of that,” he muttered, a cornstalk snapping beneath his weight. “I’ll have women falling at my feet.”

      The hint of sarcasm in his tone automatically stiffened her back. Yet, when she saw the faint smile tug at the corner of his mouth, she realized he wasn’t mocking her as some people had been known to do when she expressed her admittedly simple desires. He was teasing her. From the way he flinched when he edged his left arm back, he also seemed to be rather uncomfortable.

      “You speak as if you don’t have a wife,” she observed, wondering what he’d done to himself.

      “I don’t. I don’t plan to ever have one, either.”

      “Never?”

      Her luminous blue eyes went wide, her expression caught somewhere between amazement and incredulity. Justin wasn’t sure when he’d ever seen anyone look so openly astonished. He wasn’t sure, either, why he’d finally put voice to a conviction that had only solidified in the past year.

      “I can’t see any advantage to it,” he admitted, figuring the bartender syndrome must be at work. He had never confided in one himself. He rarely confided in anyone for that matter. But he could see where it would be easier for a person to admit certain truths to a stranger than to someone he knew. Friends and family had their own expectations, their own agendas.

      “Life is easier with a partner,” she said simply. She gave a shrug, the gesture seeming to say her conclusion was nothing more than a plain fact. Snow was white. Birds had wings. Life was easier with a partner. “I read in Newsweek that studies show men even live longer when they’re married.”

      He met her easy certainty with equal conviction. He’d heard about those studies, too. But he didn’t get a chance to tell her that he’d prefer quality over quantity. He’d pulled his left arm in a little to move his sleeve from his stinging skin. As he did, her hand ceased its soothing motions on the back of the denim carrier and she reached for his arm.

      Curling her fingers a few inches above where he held the saw, she peeked toward his opposite shoulder. “What is it that’s bothering you? Did you hurt yourself back there?”

      Justin’s first reaction was to brush off her question. His second was simply to breathe.

      She’d moved in front of him, setting the can of gas on the drying ground, and lifted the edge of his sleeve. Gingerly, she touched the skin below the abrasion on his biceps. Unguarded interest shadowed her exquisite face. But it was the troubled look in her eyes that hit him like a physical blow. No woman had ever looked at him with such open and honest concern.

      “You are hurt,” she accused softly. “What happened?”

      There were flecks of pale silver in his pewter-gray eyes. Emily noticed them as his glance quietly searched her face. Feeling her heart catch at his scrutiny, she dropped her hand as she swung her glance back to the angry red abrasion emerging below the short sleeve