Chapter 4
4
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After an awkward silence while I tried to decide how Marilyn had convinced me to let Chloe drive, or why it mattered at all, I hit on a topic that should work for both of us.
"It’s a pity they let the park go," I mentioned as Chloe drove her half-ton toward Ramblin’ Tamblin’s, an abandoned campground at the north end of the island, a little under a mile from the Bordon place. "It's such a great location. "
It was a lovely spot, positioned on a finger of land that jutted out into the lake in its own private mini-peninsula. I assessed the birches and aspens, scattered amongst Douglas firs, Sitka spruce, a few ancient poplars. John was right. Some of these trees needed serious attention, but damn, the area was perfect for camping.
"According to my dad, it’s because the Tamblins expected their sons to take it over when they got too old, but the boys didn’t want any part of it, or Port Paxton, once they graduated. "
"I get that. My brother and two of my sisters couldn’t wait to move away either. They couldn’t stand small-town life." Something in her tone told me she understood the Tamblin kids—had she felt a similar pressure to take over one of her family’s businesses? Was that why she’d come back? "The location does make it a prime target for the big storms we've been getting."
"Climate change." Chloe sighed. "As for the Tamblins, I swear the only upkeep they do now is…"
"When they call us for tree service," I finished, as if we'd planned it.
She laughed. "For the record, Mr. Tamblin didn’t phone you, my dad did.” She stopped talking while she maneuvered her truck around a fallen branch. “Back in 80s, when those huge RVs became popular, he had people begging him to update the campground for them. But it meant updating the electrics and the roads to handle them, along with the sewage system.”
“All of which costs big money and the owner wasn’t willing to part with a cent.” I knew the story; after all, I’d grown up around here too. "That’s shortsighted for a businessman. Nobody wants to rough camp anymore.”
“Including me." Her grin lit up her face and took my breath away.
"I hear you,” I managed to choke out. “That’s why I’m an arborist, not a lumberjack. I couldn’t handle working in those logging camps.” Or clear-cutting land the way the big corporations did these days. I was about to ask her what she did when not helping her father, but Marilyn had mentioned she was about to be out of job, so that might be a touchy point. “How come I haven’t run into you before now? Especially since we do so much work with your father.”
Her smile changed to a frown as if a storm cloud had covered the sun. “As Marilyn said, I just moved back last year and I haven’t had much time to socialize.”
Really touchy subject. As much as I wanted to ask, from where, I decided not to. “I’m surprised your father hasn’t considered buying out the Tamblins and setting it up as his own business. Or finding a buyer for them and pitching himself as the property manager to the new owners.”
“Dad’s got a good head for business, but he knows his limits. Promotion and the new-fangled social media that would be required to establish a new venture isn’t his thing. Even with my business degree, I’d probably be more of a burden on him than a help.” Her lips thinned, and I suspected there was a story there, but her walls were now up and I wasn’t about to poke what could turn out to be a porcupine.
Hundreds of meters before we reached the turn-off, branches littered the road. Chloe steered her vehicle around them without issue—it was an old but seemingly serviceable half-ton and Chloe handled it like a pro.
Our good luck didn't last. When we reached the campground’s main gate, an ancient willow had tipped over and blocked the driveway. The trunk hadn’t split, it had fallen over like a giant had swiped it, tugging its massive root structure and pulled it out from the earth.
"Ah, I hate it when the old trees fall like that," Chloe commented, drawing to a stop.
So did I. “Looks like it’s taken out the gate.”
"Mr. Tamblin's not going to like that," Chloe said. "At least Dad is the one who will have to tell him he needs a new gate. That guy." She shook her head.
“John said he’s a real cheapskate about everything, too.”
“It’s not just that. Mr. Tamblin is one of those stick-in-the-mud old white guys who don’t believe women have the brains to manage a business.”
“Let me guess, he’d question anything you recommended but would agree if it was suggested by a guy.”
“And also demand I lower the price by at least half. I mean, he’d demand a deal from Dad too, but he wouldn’t give you the gears, because you’re a man.”
“Why does your dad let that happen?” I asked. Didn’t he stick up for his daughter?
“He’s just glad to get a break from Tamblin,” Chloe grumbled, “but the shit that man gives me just because I don’t have a dick. Guess I’ll have to crank up my estimate by half so he can think he’s getting one over on the little lady.”
I choked down a laugh as Chloe shoved the gear stick into park a few yards before we got to the gate. There would be no going forward until that tree was out of the way.
We exited our respective doors, and Chloe took the lead. Before we’d stepped off the road, she glanced over her shoulder and pointed at the first obstacle. A water-filled ditch.
"Best way around that is over it," she said.
"We could go back and…" Before I could finish my sentence, she had taken a few running steps and vaulted across.
Now I'd have to do the same. Chloe was tall, so that helped her, and I was taller, so I can step over a lot of things where a shorter person would find a definite obstacle. But she’d made the jump with such ease, and I didn’t want to fall flat on my ass, or worse, my face, and look like a doofus.
I managed the jump without falling into the muck, and hurried after her, enjoying her long strides and how effortlessly she ducked around the branches of the downed willow.
As we got closer, we confirmed the gate was indeed buried beneath the branches of the willow, as was about thirty feet of the fence line.
"Fence, too," I observed. Though what the Tamblins were trying to keep out, I couldn't be sure. Teenagers, I guess.
We carefully clambered over the fence farther along and back down on the other side.
On this side, the woods were thick and darker. “I half expect to find Freddie or Jason lurking in the woods.”
She snorted. “I’ve heard a few stories of some smart-ass teens in masks thinking it’s funny to scare their dates.” A few hundred feet farther in, she said, “It thins out closer to the lake.”
Fallen branches and leaves littered the drive as we trudged toward the water, and the woods opened up every now and then to reveal what were probably former campsites, though now scrub brush filled in the spaces.
Chloe used her chin to gesture toward the yellow brick Victorian house in the middle of the property. The one with its roof split in two thanks to an ancient maple tree that hadn’t survived the storm’s fury. “I can deal with fallen branches, and even fallen trees, but that’s beyond me.”
Beyond me too. Like her, I could remove the trunk and the branches, but the damage it had done to the house? That was someone else’s purview. “The insurance company’s going to have fun with this claim.”
Though considering how cheap the Tamblins were, they might not have bothered to pay for vacancy insurance since they’d moved out. In which case, it would be better to raze the whole lot. Or sell it and let it be someone else’s problem, though a house with a hole in the middle of the roof wouldn’t increase the property value at all.
“Good thing the Tamblins aren’t still living here.” I pulled out my phone to take photos of the damage.
I rounded the building and found a swear word spray painted in bright red over the yellow brick. Several main floor windows had been broken, though from the looks of it, not by the storm but by vandals.
“There are more tags and broken windows on the other side. Dad has to stop by a lot in the spring to kick out high school students who think it’s a great place to party because no one’s around to see them.”
As we inspected the rest of the property, Chloe made notes for her father to report to the owner. An aspen had fallen smack dab in the middle of a larger cabin, turning the cabin’s roof and walls into splinters.
“It used to be the public washroom, showers and laundry center,” Chloe said. “It was already condemned and waiting to be rebuilt when the Tamblins closed up shop. It may have actually been why they decided they were done in the biz.”
“Let’s keep going and see what the rest of the damage is there, and what we can do about it.” I had no doubt Frank Pogue would charge his client for any work his daughter did. I hoped he paid her a fair wage and didn’t expect her to do it out of familial responsibility.
I couldn’t keep my eyes off this woman as she led me around the property, pointing out fallen branches, split trunks. Part of my brain assessed the work we’d be required to do, catalogued the types of trees on the property, and what care they needed, but the most active part of my brain was living down in my jockeys at the moment. I’d never met a woman who barely had to tilt her head to look up at me.
I’d hit six foot by the time I was ten, and was six seven and shaving daily by the time I entered grade nine. Many women, and even some men, unconsciously backed away from me when I approached, even if I was walking along the sidewalk, or in the grocery store aisle. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve never been shy of dates, some girls really like the idea of being with a big guy, but I have always been aware that I intimidate others.
The trouble with dating a woman of average height was that I had to really bend down to kiss them on the lips, or I have to pretty much lift them off their feet. Horizontally, height doesn’t make that much of a difference, but it made grinding against them interesting sometimes since our hips didn’t usually meet up.
But Chloe? Dating her might be like a normal-sized guy dating a normal-sized girl.
It wasn’t only her height that attracted me. It was the way she carried herself with such ease, such confidence. She didn’t seem bothered by the sawdust clinging to her cargo pants, or the smudge of dirt on the knees, or the faint smear of oil on her cheek. I’d noticed it in the truck, so it was probably from when she’d checked her chain saw back at Marilyn’s.
I froze when I realized she was staring at me, puzzlement filling her eyes. Shit, she was waiting for me to respond, but I’d been too busy perving on her to actually listen.
“Sorry, was doing calculations in my head.” Lame, Calhoun, real lame.
“Are you thinking by the hour, the pound, or the tree?”
“We don’t charge by pounds.” More like tons. “It’s by the hour.”
I slowly turned and surveyed the resort, refreshing myself of the amount of work this place would require. “Do you think Tamblin will want us to cut down the damaged trees or trim them back as we deem necessary? And what about the wood?” I gestured toward her chain saw. “You want to cut it down to season as firewood like Mrs. B, or d’you want us to put through the wood chipper?”
She pursed her lips, lips that contained the remnants of a pale-pink lipstick. Lips that I wanted to press mine against to see if they were as soft as they appeared, to discover what she tasted like. What she felt like as she pressed her body against mine.
“What’s the cheapest? Probably me cutting up anything you fell as firewood, eh?”
“Cheaper than us having to haul it away.” For some of these trees, we might see if the local lumberyard might like them. There was a mill down the road that sawed the wood the old-fashioned way, and several local artists loved looking through their stock. Some of these maples might make beautiful furniture if felled and cut properly. Though some of it looked rotten, filled with borer beetles that would do better going through the chipper.
“You could give options on your quote. Don’t overcharge him, because he’s not going to pay top dollar, but don’t underquote him either.”
“Let me run some figures through my system and see what I can come up with. Where do you want me to send the quote? Email or give you a hard copy?” I kept a printer in my truck for those luddites who hadn’t adapted to digital copies yet. Like my boss.
She pulled a business card from one of the pockets on her cargo pants and handed to me. “Send it here. That’s the business email so my father can forward your estimate to the owners.”
“Gotcha.” I fingered the card for a moment before tucking it into my shirt pocket. “Who else are you calling in for an estimate, d’you know?”
She shrugged, an elegant gesture. “Haven’t a clue. But Dad usually calls you guys first, and then a firm up in Peterborough, or if they’re not available, he calls a company from Oshawa to give a quote.” She slowed and lowered her voice as if someone might overhear us. “Between you and me and the gatepost, he prefers not to use either of them because they charge from when they leave their workshop. Which means the mileage adds up and our clients complain.”
When it came down to it, it wouldn’t matter. While I’d quote them a fair price either way, no padding, no shortcuts, John had his own formula that I never had figured out. People around these parts generally paid it because calling in someone from outside the township had added time and distance charges that made it too expensive. Which reminded me of my earlier conversation with John and the offer on his business. What would it mean for the people around here if we weren’t around and they had to call companies from farther away?
Shit. I didn’t want to be thinking about business loans right now, just how I could walk away with Chloe’s personal number instead of just her dad’s business one.
The familiar sound of a truck rattling over the gravel road and stopping not far away told me Nash had probably arrived.
I patted my pocket. “Does that have your phone number on it? Or the company phone number?”
“Company.” She eyed me, almost as if she were gauging her own interest in me. Then she reached into another pocket, and pulled out a pen, took the card out of my pocket and wrote a number on the reverse side. “This is my cell. Give me a call sometime and maybe we could talk about something besides trees.”
“Or I could cut to the chase and ask you out now. Save us both some time.” I hadn’t planned on asking her out immediately, but my brain wasn’t in control of my mouth. Whether it was a stupid move or a smart one, I couldn’t decide.
Her lips quirked up, started to spread into a smile, then stilled. Caution filled her eyes.
Danger, Will Robinson, this one’s been hurt, probably by some asswipe . Don’t follow their example, my brain warned my dick.
“All right,” she said slowly. “Tomorrow night. Seven o’clock. At The Alleys. You know the place?”
“Yeah.”
Then she turned on one heel and walked back to the truck parked on the side of the road. Without looking back.
Some guys think a woman who was interested would steal a look over their shoulder. For me? I interpreted it that Chloe was confident in her decision. Or maybe a little scared that she might second-guess herself if she did look back. After she opened the door to the pick-up and tossed her yellow hardhat and gloves on the seat, she raised her hand and gave me a salute, mouthing, seven. Tomorrow.
I was still grinning from ear to ear when her truck disappeared from sight around the bend in the road. Well, hot damn! I got myself a date!