But I couldn’t do that.
I’d fallen under her spell, just like Hopkins had.
I let out a deep, haggard breath. “Okay. That sounds… nice.”
Chapter 15
Poppy
When I’d come up on him earlier he’d been chopping like a madman. Swing after swing.
Even in his thick winter coat, he struck an amazing image.
All I saw wasman.
One thousand percentman.
Corbin was sexy as hell, even though he seemed quite oblivious to that fact.
But he had demons inside of him. Old memories that haunted him still.
When he saw me he’d messed up his swing, and next thing we knew, his axe was stuck in the old, gnarled wood.
Even I knew that oaks were notoriously hard wood. This was no lightweight maple he was trying to cut.
This thing would take two men and a couple of chainsaws half a day to get through.
And he’d been out here single-handedly attacking the thing with an old weathered axe for hours, the wooden handle turned silver with age.
It wouldn’t surprise me if the axe he’d been using was older than both of us.
But then, after he’d fallen backwards into the snow, he’d tugged me into his arms and my whole world had shifted.
Was I falling in love with him?
I was afraid I was.
And what good could come from that? Me, in love with Corbin Wallace? What kind of foolish woman would fall in love with him?
Now we were back at his cabin, and he was on bowl number three of the soup I’d whipped up using scraps from both of our fridges.
The man sure had a serious appetite.
But there was a lot of him to fill up, so it made sense he needed to eat a lot.
Hopkins licked his bowl clean right around the time Corbin lifted his bowl and drank the rest down.
“This is fuckinggood, Poppy.”
“My momma wasn’t much of a cook. And I don’t think my dad turned the stove on once when I was growing up. So I taught myself how to cook using books from the Deer Springs library.”
His eyes clouded over. “I’m sorry you can’t be with them today. They must be worried sick about you.”
I snorted out a laugh. “I doubt that very much, Corbin. My mom lives in Vegas now. She’s on husband number five, if you can imagine that. And my dad’s always been a miserable fuck.”
Corbin’s face shifted, clouding over with emotion. “Sorry to hear that. My parents were good. I always expect that everyone had that growing up. Who’s your daddy?”
“Hank Daniels.”
