Page 6 of Grumpy Lumberjack’s Secret

“Thank you,” I said.

The smile came back, full force this time, and something in my chest turned over like an engine that hadn’t run in years.

“You’re welcome,” she said. “Try not to pass out on any more sidewalks.”

I walked out.

The cold hit me first, then the light, then the reality of where I was. Her apartment was in one of the older buildings on Maple Street, close enough to downtown that I could see the roof of Murphy’s from the sidewalk. My truck, if it was still where I’d left it, was probably outside the bar.

I walked. The cold air helped clear my head, stripping away the last of the fog until what was left was just the dull ache of the hangover and the sharper ache of the things I’d said in my sleep. Jimmy’s name on my lips. In front of a stranger. The thought made my skin crawl.

Jimmy Cole. My brother. Twenty-six years old and full of a light that made everyone around him brighter. The kind of guy who remembered your birthday, who showed up when you needed someone, who laughed with his whole body and meant every word he said. Two years in Afghanistan had dulled that light. An IED on a road outside Kandahar had put it out for good.

And I’d been the one next to him when it happened. Alive when he wasn’t. Walking when he couldn’t. Breathing in a world that had stopped making sense the moment his stopped.

I shoved the thought down. Down past the hangover, past the guilt, past the voice that sounded like my brother’s saying it should have been you. I buried it in the place where I buried everything, the deep, dark well at the center of me that never ran dry and never got easier to ignore.

My truck was where I’d left it. I drove to the sawmill.

Josh was already there, leaning against the fence with a coffee in each hand and an expression that sat somewhere between concerned and amused.

“Well, look who’s alive,” he said, holding out one of the coffees. “You vanished last night. One minute you were at the bar, next minute, poof. Ghost. I drove past your place, your truck wasn’t there. Called you four times.”

I took the coffee. Black. No sugar. Josh knew. “Just somewhere.”

“Just somewhere,” he repeated, the way he always repeated my non-answers, like if he said them back to me slowly enough, I’d hear how unsatisfying they were and decide to elaborate.

I didn’t elaborate. I drank the coffee and walked toward the mill.

The sawmill had been in operation for forty years before I’d bought it. It was old, stubborn, and prone to breaking down, which made it perfect for me. I understood things that were old and stubborn and broken. The machinery spoke a language I was fluent in: cause and effect, pressure and release, the clean honesty of a blade meeting wood.

I pulled on my gloves and started the morning checks. Blade alignment. Belt tension. The hydraulic system that had been giving us trouble since August. My hands moved automatically, running through the routine the way my lungs moved through air, without conscious thought.

Josh followed me, because Josh always followed me. He was ten years younger, a full head shorter, and possessed the kind of relentless good cheer that should have been annoying but somehow wasn’t. He’d been working the mill for three years, and in that time he’d appointed himself my unofficial keeper, a job I hadn’t asked for and couldn’t seem to fire him from.

“The Henderson order is ready to load,” he said, falling into step beside me. “And the lumber for the Harrison project needs cutting today. Also, Dollie wants me to remind you that you’re invited to her Halloween party next week.”

“No.”

“I told her you’d say that. She said to tell you that refusing a direct invitation from Dollie McKinnon is a federal crime in the state of Colorado.”

“Still no.”

Josh grinned. “Your loss. She’s making those little pumpkin cupcakes.”

I cranked the tension adjuster on the main belt and felt it catch. The mill hummed to life around us, the deep, resonant vibration that settled into your bones and stayed there. I could feel it in my teeth, in my chest, in the soles of my boots. This was the sound I understood. The sound that asked nothing of me except to keep it running.

The rest of the morning was work. Real work, the kind that made your muscles ache and your mind go quiet. I ran the main saw, feeding logs through the blade with the steady rhythm that came from years of practice. The sawdust flew in golden arcs. The wood split clean and true. I lost myself in it the way I always did, in the noise and the motion and the simple, brutal satisfaction of turning something raw into something useful.

But somewhere underneath the machinery, underneath the routine, something kept surfacing. A kitchen that smelled like vanilla. A pair of blue eyes that didn’t flinch. A hand on my arm, small but certain.

Where’s my thank you?

I fed another log into the saw and pushed harder.

3

CHLOE