Chapter 9

The sun was just beginning to crest the horizon when the sound of horses hooves could be heard coming into the open yard around Clara's cabin. No life stirred yet about the place as Cody and Jesse got down out of their saddles and led their horses over to the front porch. The air was still cool but summer was upon them and within an hour the heat of the day would begin to set in at this elevation.

Walking up to her door, Jesse knocked, waited and then knocked again, calling out to his 'neighbor'. "Clara. It's Jesse. You in there?"

Cody stood on the steps of the porch and waited, hands in his jeans pockets. "You have to admit dad, we are a bit early and when she left our place two days ago, she was still pretty worn out from her lesson in log splitting." There was a smirk on Cody's face, thinking about how Jesse had worked Clara in teaching her how to cut wood, split logs and all that was entailed in that kind of hard knocks education his dad was famous for. Jesse always figured that you learned best with a bit of 'hands on' learning. The lesson was much more memorable if you did it rather than just watched it being done.

When no sound came from the cabin, Jesse tried the door and found it unlocked. Opening it slowly, he stepped inside and looked around. From the evidence of the state of things, she had worked late the previous night to finish the ceiling. The smell of fresh drywall compound scented the air and the scaffolding was still in place, several lanterns hanging from it. The tools Matt had let her borrow were gathered up on the floor in a crate, clean and ready to be returned.

Looking up, Cody gave a low whistle. "Wow. Looks nice." Saying nothing else, he walked towards the room he knew Clara was using as her bedroom. The door was half open and upon peeking in, he saw that she was sprawled face first into the cot, sound asleep with her arms hung over the sides. She was dressed in a t-shirt, her lower half covered in a blanket. Her face had speckles of white as well as a bit of drywall dust in her hair from her late night project.

Stepping inside the room, he went over to her. Squatting down next to her, he spoke up. "Clara, wake up."

The response he got was a groan and she shifted her head so she faced away from him.

Reaching out, he touched her shoulder and shook it gently. "Claaa-rrraaa…," he said in a bit of a sing song tone. "Time to get up."

One of the hands hanging over the edge of the cot made a half hearted attempt to slap at him. "Goowwayyy…," came the grumble.

Cody chuckled and stood up, walking out of the room and went over to his dad. "She's not waking up. Even told me to go away."

Jesse raised an eyebrow, "Oh? Well we need her to get up soon if we're going to get her things today…," he said with a slight chuckle. "I'm sure once you get her up and explain it to her, she'll be quite happy about it."

It was Cody's turn to raise an eyebrow, "Oh, so I'm supposed to get her up. Gee, thanks dad," he said with a slightly sarcastic tone to his voice. "How do you propose I do that?"

Jesse shrugged as he headed towards the door to go back outside, "Use your imagination son. I'm sure you'll think of something. But make it quick. Daylight's wasting."

Cody's eyes were wide as he stared after his father. He turned back to look through the bedroom door at Clara sleeping on the camp cot. Moving back into the room he tried once more to get her awake by normal means but was met with the same amount of success as the first time. As he stood there and watched her sleep an idea began to form in his mind.

Making his way out to the kitchen he quickly found what he was looking for and within moments had returned to where she slept. Biting his lip to keep him from chuckling, he thought about how he'd always wanted to do this to Matt but never dared. He just wondered how Clara would react to this and how 'dead' he'd be when all was said and done.

Standing several feet away, he positioned himself so that he could run out the door if he needed to. Calling out to her one last time and still getting no response, he hefted the pan of water by the handle and tipped it out over her head. The cold water poured out, splashing down in a great rush over her head and neck, spraying down over her back.

There was a split second where he heard the sudden intake of air and then a scream of pure surprise was followed by sputtering gasps. Cody watched in amazement as Clara went from sound asleep to fully awake in two seconds as she suddenly scrambled to get off the cot and away from the freezing cold water that had come from the pump in the kitchen.

What he wasn't prepared for was the fact that she was dressed only in a now wet t-shirt and her underwear. She stood on the other side of the cot, chest heaving, her hair soaking wet as she shuddered and as her eyes fell on Cody, they flashed with sudden fury. Cody could only stand there for a moment, caught by the sight of what he was seeing and felt his face suddenly flush a hot burning red.

"CODY! I'm going to KILL YOU!" she screamed as she dove after him.

Unable to take his eyes off of Clara, Cody stumbled backwards towards the door as he dropped the pan, a loud clanging sound echoing in the empty room. Finding himself tongue-tied and unable to even stammer out an apology, he managed to back-peddle through the bedroom door before turning and quickly heading for the front door. As he looked over his shoulder to see if she had followed him, he stumbled when he saw that she had and he turned his head back around just in time to miss hitting the front door that stood half open. Diving around it, he felt the cool morning air hit his flushed cheeks, pretty sure in the knowledge that Clara wouldn't follow him outside dressed as she was. He hit the porch and leapt down the three steps to the ground below just in time to see his father step out from behind the horses. Jesse was carrying a thermos and a paper bag that they had packed with breakfast for Clara.

Cody stopped just short of running into his dad and turned around, his eyes going wide upon seeing Clara come to a halt at the top of her porch steps. From the look in her eyes he wasn't sure of his safety if she got a hold of him at this moment. Looking over his shoulder at his dad he tried to explain, "Well…at least she's awake."

"I can see that son, but I hope you haven't just made an enemy for life either. Women don't take kindly to being doused with freezing cold water in the morning," Jesse said as he raised an eyebrow, looking in Clara's direction.

"Cody! WHAT THE HELL do you think you are doing?" yelled Clara from the porch.

"Getting you up! You wouldn't wake up and we needed you to get up…so we could go get your furniture today," responded Cody, trying not to 'stare' too hard at the scantily clad woman before them and yet unable to keep his eyes off of her.

That brought her up short, "My…what? I don't have any furniture and you know I don't have the money to even buy second-hand." Her voice was still raised in an angry shout but it was laced with a tinge of confusion.

She was shivering and she moved to wrap her arms around her chest and it was about then that she realized as she looked down at herself that she wasn't really fully dressed. With a look of anger and complete embarrassment all rolled into one, she glared up at Cody. Uncrossing her arms, she thrust her fists against her hips. "Get a good look. It might be the last thing you ever see before I kill you…," and with that, turned and stomped back into the cabin muttering something about wanting to castrate teenage boys.

Cody turned to look at Jesse, who raised an eyebrow. "Hey, you told me to use my imagination. I tried to get her up the normal way and she wouldn't budge…so I did what you told me to do," he said as he gestured to where Clara had just been standing, dripping wet.

Jesse let out a little sigh and rubbed his beard. "Come on. The least you could do is give her the coffee and breakfast we made her…then you can clean up the soggy mess you just made," said Jesse as he lightly slapped Cody in the back of the head. "And then you might want to come out and saddle her horse." He loved his son and he guessed he could only be glad that they didn't live in town or he might be fishing Cody out of all sorts of good natured mischief. It was at moments like these that he wondered if maybe Matt was right and Cody would benefit from being around people...then he shook his head and decided he really liked Cody just the way he was, idiot moments and all.

12/21 - I'm still working on Chapter 10 though I've got much more of the story written...I just happened to skip over the next chapter since other parts of it were in my head earlier on and I wanted to get them down before I lost it. But due to holidays and other things it's kind of put a hole in my 'energy' level so I'm struggling to get back into the groove of writing.

I hope you like what you've read so far. If so, please leave me a review. It feeds the muse. Truly it does. Critiques good or bad do too. It helps improve my writing and it is greatly appreciated.