Read Broken Promises for Free Online

go through his land, and we know the answer to that."
    "Have you ever had our property surveyed?" Tess asked, jumping at the opportunity to broach the subject of the cut trees.
    "There's no need," Gib replied. "I know where the line runs."
    "How do you know if you've never had it surveyed?" Tess asked. "You could end up accidentally cutting timber off someone else's land. It just seems like a good idea to make sure."
    Gib eyed Tess with mild annoyance. "I'm not going to pay some half-wit to come with his fancy equipment and try to tell me what I already know."
    "Then I'll do it for you," Tess insisted. "We'll get someone out there and find out exactly where the lines are so we won't have to worry."
    "I'm not worried, and I don't want to hear anything more about surveys."
    "If you don't want to hear about it from me, then you'll be hearing from Jean-Pierre de Neuville," Tess said, her voice rising with her frustration, "because he did have a survey done and it shows that the property line runs forty feet from where you think it is."
    Gib refused to reply... his means of ending the discussion. And Tess knew better than to pursue the issue. So she glared at him instead, to which he responded by eating and ignoring her.
    During the silence that stretched between, Aunt Ruth started talking about what was happening in the neighborhood, and Tess knew exactly why. It was Aunt Ruth's long-held means of defusing things. But after Gib finished eating and left to work on his truck, Aunt Ruth said, "He gets more stubborn as he gets older. You might as well save your breath about those trees. How was the cabin? I'd hoped to get out there and scrub it down before you moved in."
    "It was in pretty good shape," Tess replied. "A little sweeping and it was livable."
    Aunt Ruth sighed. "I don't know why your father's holding onto the place. Everything needs painting or fixing. He'll work himself to death out there."
    "He'll die quicker if he sells and does nothing," Tess said. "It would be like admitting to himself that he's old and washed up, and he's not ready for that. And when he does decide to sell, I know he'll hold out until he gets what he thinks the business is worth, whether it is or not."
    "You're right about that," Aunt Ruth agreed. "But it'll be years before the timber industry recovers from the slump. And running the camp's not a life for you."
    "I don't plan to run it forever," Tess said. "But I do want to help get the business out of the red and Dad through this period."
    "Well, I don't like the idea of you staying out there all alone with no one else around," Aunt Ruth said.
    Tess gave Aunt Ruth a confident smile. "The men are just up the road at the bunkhouse."
    "You don't know that much about those men," Aunt Ruth said. "A pretty woman all alone out there can be a real drawing card. I just wish there were more permanent neighbors around. With all the woods there, someone could be hiding out."
    Tess looked at Aunt Ruth, and said, "Zak is next door."
    For a moment Aunt Ruth said nothing. Then her forehead puckered, and she looked at Tess with uncertainty, and said, "Zak de Neuville?"
    Tess nodded. "He's the one who brought up the subject of the survey, and the reason why I asked to have it done. Dad told one of the men to thin the trees along the strip of land between the dirt road and the de Neuville's property, and those trees are not on Timber West land. They're on the de Neuville's property. Four trees have already been cut."
    Aunt Ruth eyed Tess over the rim of her cup. "I'm sure Gib knows what he's doing. Certainly he knows where the property line runs."
    "That's the problem," Tess said. "He thinks he knows, but he's wrong. Zak showed me a survey map. He said his father's threatening to sue us for cutting the trees."
    Aunt Ruth looked directly at Tess and said, in a guarded voice, "Have you been seeing Zak de Neuville again?"
    "No," Tess replied. "Well, yesterday I saw him briefly, when he showed me the survey map, but I'm