Page 59 of Grumpy Lumberjack’s Secret

“When did we agree on that?” I muttered.

“We didn’t. I decided.”

The men laughed. A few of them came over to shake my hand, offering names and congratulations and questions about how on earth I had gotten Sawyer Cole to smile. I told them it was a work in progress.

Sawyer gave us the tour. He showed Emma how the logs came in, how they were cut, how the blades worked. He crouched down beside her and let her touch the bark, explaining the difference between pine and cedar and oak with the same patience and attention he brought to everything he cared about. Emma listened with wide eyes, asking a thousand questions, and Sawyer answered every single one without a hint of impatience.

Then he let her try the hand tools. A small saw, scaled down, the kind used for detail work. He stood behind her, his big hands covering her tiny ones, guiding her through the motion. Her face was intense with concentration, her tongue poking out of the corner of her mouth, and when the small piece of wood came free she held it up like a trophy.

“I made it, Papa!”

“You did.”

“Can I make another one?”

“As many as you want.”

I stood to the side and watched them. My daughter and her father, covered in sawdust, working side by side at a bench that was too tall for her but that Sawyer had adjusted by stacking crates for her to stand on. He was teaching her. Patiently. Carefully. The way a father teaches a daughter something he loves, not because she needs to know it but because he wants to share it with her.

The morning was warm for late autumn. Sawyer had taken off his jacket and was working in just a flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled up, and the physical labor had a sheen of sweat on his forehead, along his neck, at the hollow of his throat. Emma was the same, flushed and damp from the effort and the excitement.

I grabbed a clean cloth from the bench and walked over to them.

“Come here, baby,” I said to Emma, and wiped the sweat from her forehead, her cheeks, the back of her neck. She squirmed but let me do it, bouncing on her toes with the energy of a child who had found her new favorite place in the world.

Then I turned to Sawyer.

He was standing still, watching me, his expression unreadable. I reached up and wiped the cloth across his forehead. Gently. Down his temple. Along the line of his jaw. He did not move. Just stood there, looking down at me with those green eyes while I wiped the sweat from his skin like it was the most natural thing in the world.

When I finished, he caught my wrist. Leaned down. And kissed me. Soft and warm and unhurried, right there in the middle of his sawmill with sawdust in the air and his crew pretending not to watch.

“Thank you, love,” he said against my lips.

I blushed. The heat hit my cheeks instantly, fierce and unstoppable, and I stepped back with the cloth clutched against my chest like a shield.

“Oooooh,” Emma sang from behind us. “Papa kissed Mama. Papa kissed Mama.”

“Eat your snack, Emma,” I said without turning around.

“Papa and Mama sitting in a tree,” Emma continued, undeterred.

“I will take away Sir Chomps-a-Lot.”

Emma went quiet. But I could hear her giggling behind me, and when I finally turned around she was grinning so wide I could see every single one of her missing teeth.

A truck pulled into the lot. Dollie’s truck, the blue one with the dent in the bumper that she refused to fix because she said it gave the vehicle character. Josh was driving, and Dollie hopped out before the engine was even off, her red hair catching the sunlight, her boots crunching on the gravel.

“I heard there was a family introduction happening and nobody invited me,” Dollie called out. “I am offended.”

“You are always invited,” I said. “You just show up whether you are invited or not.”

“That is accurate.”

Josh went to join the crew. Dollie watched Emma for a moment, watched Sawyer crouching beside her at the workbench showing her how to sand the edges of the piece she had cut, and something soft crossed her face.

“Look at that,” she said quietly.

“I know.”