my lip, I accepted the gloves and put them on. Connor showed me how to hold the chainsaw, explained how the trigger worked, and then indicated precisely where to cut. Little by little, we dismantled the tree, breaking it down into smaller pieces.
Connor began pulling the smaller branches away and hauling them toward the center of the pasture. Stacking them up, he started making a brush pile.
“There you go!” He shouted over the roar of the saw, and I couldn’t help but smile. “You’re getting the hang of it.”
The more practiced I got with the chainsaw, the more I found myself enjoying it. Connor left me to it and set to work dousing his pile of branches with gas. He produced a book of matches from his pocket, struck one, and soon we had a brilliant bonfire that would have been perfect for toasting marshmallows.
My muscles ached, and I could feel blisters forming on the tender flesh between my fingers and thumb as the chainsaw got heavier and heavier. Connor must have been reading my body language because when I started feeling worn down, he took over for me. It was bittersweet, because I wanted to prove myself, but at the same time, it was nice that he seemed to care about working me too hard.
I carried on, pulling branches away and adding them to the fire as we got down to the thicker branches and the trunk. Connor explained that the rest of the wood could be used for the fireplace at home and showed me how to stack it while he continued cutting.
An hour or so later, we had completely broken the tree down into manageable pieces. Even though I was thoroughly exhausted, there was still more work to be done.
“Grab a bag of fence forks and the needle-nose pliers out of the toolbox, will you?” He nodded to the trailer behind the four-wheeler.
“Sure.” I jogged back to the quad and opened the toolbox, wondering what on earth a fence fork was.
I knew what needle nose pliers were, so that part was easy. Not seeing anything resembling a fork, I spotted a bag of something that looked more like bits of chain link bent into two-inch V shapes. Scooping it up, I hurried over to the fence where Connor was hammering one of the newer metal posts into the ground.
“I think we can salvage this fence, but I might need to go into town in a couple of days and just go buy a whole new roll.” He grunted as he pulled the warped wire into place against the post. “Hold this here while I fasten the forks, okay?”
Once we’d repaired most of the fence, we stopped to make lunch. Connor had stuck a cooler in the trailer which turned out to have the fixings for ham sandwiches in it, and we sat on the grass and chowed down.
“This has been the most amazing day.” I smiled up at the overcast sky.
“Not what you were expecting?” He gave me that half grin that threatened to melt me into a puddle.
“I don’t know what I was expecting.” Wiping the sweat from my brow, I took a deep breath and realized the weight on my chest wasn’t nearly as heavy. “I think it’s just the first time in ages that I haven’t felt like I needed to be constantly looking over my shoulder.”
“Well, there’s not much chance of someone sneaking up on you in a wide-open space like this.” He stood, brushed the crumbs from his jeans, and moved onto planting the last fence post. “There’s also something to be said for safety in numbers. You’ve been on your own for a while, so I know it might not come naturally for you to trust a stranger. But soon enough, you’ll realize that if anyone wants to get to you, they’ll have to go through me.”
A dormant warmth pulsed in my chest as his eyes met mine, and everything in my body told me that he meant what he said. I’d been around long enough to know how two-faced people can be. Everyone’s after something, and it’s a very rare person who puts all their cards on the table. What Connor was after, I couldn’t be certain, but I knew that I felt safe for the first time in a while, and that it was worth sticking around long enough to find out a little more about him.
By the time we finished stacking firewood, the brush pile had burned down