Page 108 of Grumpy Lumberjack’s Secret

“Dollie is a good person.”

Something in his voice caught my attention. A quality. A steadiness that was different from his usual steadiness, more deliberate, more intentional, like he was controlling something that wanted to break free. I looked at him in the parking lot light. His face was composed. Calm. But his eyes were bright with something that I could not name.

We drove home. The road was dark, the mountains invisible except for their silhouettes blocking the stars, and Sawyer drove with one hand on the wheel and the other on my thigh and the radio off and the silence between us was the comfortable kind.

He opened the cabin door for me.

I stepped inside and stopped.

The cabin was filled with candlelight.

Candles everywhere. On the kitchen counter. On the table. On the windowsills and the bookshelves and the mantel above the fireplace. Dozens of them, all different sizes, their flames dancing and flickering and casting the room in a warm, golden glow that turned the new walls soft and the shadows gentle.

The table was set. Two plates. Two glasses. A bottle of wine. And food, real food, not the reheated leftovers or the competent-but-basic meals that Sawyer usually produced. Roasted salmon. Asparagus. Rice with herbs. A salad with colors that suggested someone had paid attention to presentation.

“You cooked this?” I said.

“Yes.”

“You cooked salmon.”

“I followed the recipe.”

“Since when do you cook salmon?”

“Since today.”

I turned to him. He was standing in the doorway behind me, leaning against the frame, his hands in his pockets, watching me take in the room with an expression that was trying very hard to be casual and was not succeeding even slightly.

“Sawyer Cole,” I said. “What is going on?”

“Sit down.”

“Tell me what is going on.”

“Sit down, Chloe.”

I sat. He sat across from me. We ate. The salmon was good. Better than good. He had clearly spent more than a few minutes on the recipe, and the care he had put into it, this man who had once considered toast an adequate dinner, was visible in every bite.

We talked. About the school. About the mill. About Emma’s latest obsession, which had shifted from dinosaurs to space and now involved requests for a telescope and a trip to NASA. We talked the way we always talked, easily and naturally, the words flowing between us the way they had since the first night she had shown up at his sawmill with cookies and a smile.

When the plates were cleared, Sawyer stood up. He walked around the table to my side. And he dropped to one knee.

My hand went to my mouth.

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small box. Wooden. Hand-carved. The same smooth, precise craftsmanship that went into everything he built, and I recognized it as his work immediately because nobody else made things that felt this warm in your hands.

He opened the box.

The ring was simple. A thin silver band with a single stone, small and clear and catching the candlelight in a way that made it look like it was holding a flame of its own. Not extravagant. Not flashy. Perfect.

“Chloe,” he said. His voice was steady but his hands were not. The box trembled slightly in his fingers, a barely perceptible shake that told me everything about what this moment cost him, this man who had survived war and bullets and loss, trembling over a question he already knew the answer to. “I have spent most of my life alone. I spent years in this cabin telling myself that alone was enough. It was not. You walked into my life and proved that everything I thought I knew about myself was wrong. You and Emma. You made me better. You made me whole. You made me the kind of man who buys flowers and bakes cakes at four in the morning and sits in a tiny chair grading spelling tests.”

I was crying. Of course I was crying. The tears were falling before he finished the first sentence, streaming down my face and dripping off my chin and I did not wipe them away because my hands were shaking too hard.

“Will you marry me?” he said.

“Yes.” The word came out before he finished the question. Before the last syllable had even left his lips. Fast and certain and carrying no hesitation because there was none. There had never been any. From the moment she had dragged him off a sidewalk seven years ago, the answer had always been yes.