Page 39 of The Lumberjack and the City Slicker

Not without an agenda.

Not without trying to turn it into flirtation or a joke or a transaction.

He doesn’t soften.

Doesn’t smile.

Doesn’t try to make it cute.

He just looks at me like he means it.

“Anyone who says otherwise can go fuck themselves,” he adds, blunt as a hammer.

I swallow.

My eyes sting and I hate that.

“Wow,” I manage, because “thank you” feels too small and “please don’t make me cry” feels too honest.

He sits back, as if he’s done with the subject.

Like he didn’t just drop a grenade into my carefully managed self-image.

And that’s when I realize something even more unsettling.

This man is not just gruff. He’s real.

The kind of real I drove into a storm to find.

My gaze flicks around the cabin—the wood, the warmth, the quiet. The faint smell of smoke. The subtle marks in the grain here and there that I hadn’t noticed at first because I was too busy trying not to die.

Willow branches.

A burned edge of a sunset motif.

My pulse skips.

Okay, Clara. Play it cool.

Small talk first, maybe.

Don’t go in like a crazed fan girl.

Don’t blurt out ARE YOU THE LUMBERJACK ARTIST like an unhinged person.

So I take a sip of tea to buy time and try for normal.

“This tea is really good,” I say.

He grunts like that’s the highest compliment he expects from a woman who arrived in heels.

“What kind is it?” I ask, leaning into the mundane like it’s a life raft.

He shrugs. “Black tea. Strong.”

“Of course it is,” I murmur, and it comes out sounding like a flirt even though I don’t mean it to.

His eyes flick to mine.