Chapter 4: Ruth

My favorite thing to do in the morning, after eating breakfast and enjoying a cup of coffee out on my front porch, is to head across the yard to the edge of the clearing and chop firewood. Chopping and stacking wood is a constant chore. It's also my favorite form of exercise. I don't jog or do Pilates or yoga. I swing an ax.

It's only September, but the weather in this part of the Rockies is unpredictable. We can start the day off warm and sunny and end up with a foot of snow by nightfall. There's no snow in the forecast right now, but it pays to be prepared. And that means I cut, chop, and stack wood almost year around, weather permitting. I've got a lean-to beside the barn where I stack the wood so it can season.

I slip on my leather gloves and pick up the ax. Beside me is a huge pile of logs ready to be split.

I'm doing just that—the splitting part—when I hear the throaty growl of my baby brother's Harley-Davidson climbing my gravel lane.

As he rides into view, I lean the ax against the wood cart and watch him come to a rolling stop beside my Jeep, hop off, and drop the kickstand.

"Shouldn't you be at work?" I ask.

Micah owns the auto repair shop in town. He's a genius mechanic. He can fix nearly anything. He's also a part-time, on-call helicopter pilot who provides air support and evacuations for McIntyre Search and Rescue.

He removes his helmet and hangs it on a handlebar. "Just thought I'd take a break and come say hi," he says as he strolls toward me. "How's it going?"

"It's going." I grab the ax and swing hard, splitting an upright log cleanly in two. The crack reverberates through the clearing, startling a few birds.

"I can do that for you," Micah says as he leans against a tree trunk, his arms crossed over his broad chest.

I chuckle. "Thanks, but I can chop my own wood." I place another log in position and lower the ax, cleaving it in two.

Micah makes quite a picture standing there, dressed in all black—black jeans, black shitkicker boots, and black T-shirt underneath a black leather jacket. Like mine, his long black hair hangs in a single braid down his back.

Our mother was Native American, a member of the Cheyenne Tribe in Montana. She passed when Micah was just a toddler. Our father is Caucasian, born and raised here in Bryce. They met at the University of Colorado Denver, both of them studying architecture. Because we had no connection to the Cheyenne Tribe—our mother was estranged from her family—Micah and I were raised in the white world. And since our dad traveled so often for work, we ended up living here in Bryce with our white grandparents.

"So, why are you really here?" I ask. "And don't tell me it's to chop wood."

He shrugs as he pushes away from the tree. "I met your boyfriend this morning at the diner."

"I wish people would stop calling him that. I don't even know the guy."

Micah shakes his head. "That's not what I hear."

I pick up another log and set it in place. "Who have you been talking to?"

"Jenny, for one."

I laugh as I lower the ax with a loud crack. "Don't believe everything you hear."

"She said you chatted with him at the bar last night."

I shake my head. "I chat with a lot of people. I'm a bartender, Micah. It's in my job description."

"What do you really know about this guy?"

"Not much. Why?"

He frowns. "I don't like him. I think you should steer clear."

"Gee, thanks for the warning." I swing the ax hard. "I hope you didn't come out here just to tell me who I can and can't talk to." He sure as hell knows better than that.

"Just be careful, sis. I think he's hiding something."

"What makes you think that?"

Micah shrugs. "Just trust me on that." After giving me a guilty grin, he hops back on his bike and drives away.

I'm touched that my brother felt it necessary to come here and warn me about Jack Merchant. But I don't need to be told that Jack's trouble. He's got it written all over him. Still, there's something about the guy that intrigues me. Maybe too much.

When I've chopped a sufficient amount of wood for one morning, I stack the newly cut logs under my lean-to. Then I spend a few quiet minutes wandering through the woods and collecting kindling. It's a bit ironic that I, a total introvert, own a business that revolves around people. I need this alone time to recharge my batteries.

Once my outdoor chores are done, I head inside to take a hot shower. After getting dressed, I wash a load of clothes and hang them outside to dry. I stoke the fire in the wood stove and try reading for a while, but my mind is racing, fixating on a certain someone. Finally, desperate for a distraction, I head into town, park behind the bar, and walk down the block to Maggie's.

When I step into the grocery store, I see Maggie standing behind the check-out counter holding her one-year-old baby girl, Claire. "What's going on?" Usually, Maggie and her husband, Owen, take turns running the store while the other one stays home with the baby.

Maggie smiles as she makes goo-goo faces at her daughter. "We received a huge, end-of-season shipment of produce from Jensen Organics Farm today, so Owen came in to unload it for me."

Owen walks through the back door carrying two crates of leafy greens. He nods to me. "Hey, Ruth."

I wave to him. "Hi, Owen."

Maggie was my age when she got pregnant, quite unexpectedly, with Claire. When she and Owen met, she already had two teenage sons from a previous marriage, and she assumed her childbearing days were behind her. Surprise. After a rocky start, she and Owen are happily married now and parenting this precious baby girl together. They share everything equally—work, parenting, household chores. All of it.

Their story almost gives me hope that it's not too late for me. I'm not going to hold my breath, though. Men like Owen don't come around every day.

A man in dusty denim coveralls walks inside carrying a crate of what looks like bunches of kale. "Where do you want these, Maggie?"

"Hold on, Tom, I'll be right there," Maggie says as she hands me Claire. "Would you mind?"

"Of course not," I say as I prop the baby on my hip. I smile down at Claire, who stares up at me, eyes wide. She reaches for the turquoise pendant hanging around my neck. "You like that?"

When she tries to put it in her mouth, I pry it out of her determined little fingers and hand her a stuffed toy elephant sitting on the counter. "How about this instead?"

That seems to do the trick, because she gladly starts chewing on the elephant's trunk.

My ex-husband and I once discussed having kids. We'd actually started trying to conceive when everything unraveled right before my eyes. Chad—my ex—assumed I'd quit working at the bar when I became pregnant. In fact, as soon as we started trying to get pregnant, he suggested I sell the bar since it wasn't a "fitting business" for a wife and mother to run, and that I stay home instead and be a full-time mom.

"Does it even matter to you what I want?" I'd asked him. The tavern was a family business, inherited from my grandfather. It meant the world to me. I'd never sell it.

He'd looked at me like I was crazy. "Ruth, you can't be a bartender if you're pregnant."

"Why not?" I'd asked. "What's the big deal? I'll be serving alcohol, not drinking it."

We'd fought and fought and fought over the idea of me working in the tavern. The weird thing was, he'd never mentioned any of this to me when we were dating, or before we got married. I'd felt utterly gobsmacked.

We stopped trying to get pregnant—well, I stopped trying—because pregnancy had turned into a trap as far as I was concerned. I went back on the pill, and when he found out, he became livid.

A year later, we divorced.

I'd tried dating a few more times after Chad. But every single time, I'd ended up with a guy who resented me for having my own business, resented me for making my own money—making more money in fact than any of them. I don't know what they were looking for in life, but it certainly wasn't me.

I finally stopped trying to find Mr. Right.

"Sorry about that," Maggie says as she returns to the check-out. She holds out her hands to Claire, and Claire practically throws herself at Maggie.

"It's no problem." I smile as I watch Claire pop her thumb in her mouth and lay her head on Maggie's shoulder.

"It's naptime," Maggie says. "Owen will be done helping Tom unload the truck soon, and then he'll take her home and put her to bed."

I reach out to stroke the back of Claire's tiny hand, which is grasping Maggie's shirt. "I should go now," I say past a painful knot in my throat. "I need to restock the bar before we open."

Maggie walks me to the door. "Thanks for stopping by. I'll see you Friday for girls' night out, if not before."

I take my leave and pass by the diner on my way back to the tavern. I catch Jenny's gaze through the windows and wave to her. She waves back as she tries to do three things at once. It's the lunch rush hour, so I won't bother going in. She's got her hands full at the moment.

I walk into the tavern around two—an hour before we open. I like this quiet time in the bar, when it's just me here, at least for a little while. The kitchen staff will arrive soon to do their prep work.

A scheduled weekly delivery truck pulls up to the back door, and I meet the driver outside. While I'm lugging in a couple dozen boxes and cases of everything from beer to paper towels to food ingredients for the kitchen, Tom arrives.

"You want me to do that, Ruth?" he asks, always the gentleman.

"Thanks, but I've got this. Why don't you restock the bar and get the cash register ready?"

By three, I've got everything carried in and distributed properly. Tom turns on the neon OPEN sign in the front window and unlocks the doors.