Page 22 of Grumpy Lumberjack’s Secret

“Nice muscles, by the way,” she said, her eyes drifting to my arms where I’d rolled my sleeves up.

I picked up a small offcut of pine from the desk, a scrap no bigger than my thumb, and tossed it at her. It bounced off her knee and she laughed, the sound tired but real, filling the small office like music.

“Hey! Workplace violence.”

“You’re not an employee.”

“I’m a guest.”

“You’re a trespasser who won’t leave.”

She grinned at me from the chair, and I felt something crack in the wall I kept around myself. Not a big crack. Just enough to let light through.

Danny came back with the soup in a paper bag, looking confused about his life choices, and I set it on the desk in front of her. She opened the container and the smell of Mabel’s chicken noodle filled the office, warm and hearty.

“Eat,” I said, and went back to the yard to check on the blade replacement.

I could see her through the office window while I worked. She ate slowly, savoring it, pausing between bites to watch me through the glass. At one point, I was hauling a beam across the yard, the weight of it balanced on my shoulder, and I caught her watching with an expression that was somewhere between admiration and amusement.

When I came back in to log the afternoon numbers, she was standing by the desk with the soup container empty and a paper napkin in her hand.

“Taste this,” she said, holding out a piece of sourdough bread with a sliver of something on it. “Mabel puts this herb butter on the bread now. It’s so good.”

I took the bite from her fingers. The bread was warm and the butter had rosemary in it and her fingers brushed my lips and I absolutely did not think about that.

“Good?” she asked.

“It’s bread.”

“It’s amazing bread and you know it.”

While I turned to the desk to log the numbers, I felt something on the back of my neck. A towel, soft and damp, pressing against my skin. I went still.

“You’re covered in sweat,” she said from behind me, her voice matter-of-fact. “Hold still.”

She wiped the back of my neck, the sides, across my forehead where she had to go up on her toes to reach. The towel was cool against my heated skin, and her free hand rested on my shoulder for balance. I stood there, pen frozen over the logbook, while this woman gently wiped the sweat from my face like it was the most natural thing in the world.

“There,” she said, stepping back. “Now you look like a person instead of a man who just ran a marathon in a sawmill.”

I looked at her. She was smiling, the tiredness still there but pushed to the edges, held at bay by whatever energy she pulled from these moments. From being here. From being with me.

“Go home,” I said. “Get some sleep.”

“Are you going to call me later? You have my number now. No excuses.”

“You have my number too. You call me.”

“That’s not how it works, grumpy. The man calls.”

“Since when?”

“Since always. It’s a rule.”

“I don’t follow rules.”

“You literally just lectured Josh about break time rules three hours ago.”

I set down the pen. “Go home, Chloe.”