Page 111 of The Lumberjack and the City Slicker

When we get off the ride, she slips her hand into mine like it’s the most natural thing in the world.

We stop at a booth, one of those strong man things and I swing the hammer because she asks me to.

“You look good with that hammer in your hand,” she teases and I rill my eyes.

But I do make the bell ring and I win my girl a prize.

And yeah, I feel good about it.

Good about her smile. Her laughter.

The stars in her eyes.

The way she makes me catch my breath every single time I look at her.

And as we walk back through the carnival lights, cotton candy sticky on our fingers and laughter trailing behind us—I realize something.

This doesn’t feel like hiding.

It feels like living.

And for the first time in a long time—I don’t want the night to end.

Chapter 22

Clara

I don’t know where tonight will end.

But I know one thing. I don’t want to spend it alone.

The thought settles in my chest like a quiet truth.

Not dramatic. Not reckless.

Just honest.

We’ve wandered to the darker edge of the carnival again, where the lights blur and the music softens into a hum. I can feel him beside me—solid, steady, warm.

“You’re thinking again, Trouble,” Greyson says, low and knowing.

I glance up at him. “I was just wondering.”

“Wondering what?”

I inhale.

And because I am thirty-five years old and not a lovesick teenager, because I’ve done the cautious thing and the practical thing and the socially acceptable thing, because I’ve already been humiliated and survived it—I decide to be bold.

“Well, I was wondering if I go home with you,” I ask evenly, “will you kick me out before breakfast?”

He stops walking.

Actually stops.

The carnival noise keeps moving around us, but he goes still.

His dark eyes lock onto mine.