Page 16 of Oops I Fell For The Lumberjack Next Door

My boots carry me through her door before my brain can object. The kitchen is warm. She's been running the space heater I dropped off two days ago, and the room smells like coffee and the lavender thing she plugged into the wall near the counter.

"Sit." She points at the kitchen chair.

I sit. She pulls a first aid kit from a box labeled BATHROOM in red marker, opens it on the counter, comes back with antiseptic wipes and bandages. Her hands take my wrist. Turn it over. Gentle. Clinical. But her fingers stay longer than necessary on the inside of my forearm, where the skin is thinner.

She cleans the scratches. Three of them, parallel, shallow. The antiseptic stings. I don't flinch. Her thumb traces along the edge of the deepest one, pressing the bandage down, and her touch lingers. Just lingers. Warm on my skin.

"You spent two hours in the woods calling for Princess Buttercup." Her voice is low. She's still holding my wrist. Still looking at the bandage instead of my face.

"Yep."

"With a flashlight. At midnight."

"Closer to eleven."

"Why."

"Because you love that cat. And you were scared."

Her eyes come up. Brown. Deep. Bright from the tears she's already wiped away. The space between us is small. She's standing, I'm sitting, and her hip is against my knee. My wrist is in her hands. Her thumb has stopped moving but hasn't let go.

"Briggs."

"Yeah."

"I've hated you for fifteen years."

"I know."

"I built my entire college narrative around you being the person who ruined the best thing that ever happened to me."

"I know that too."

"And you just spent two hours climbing a mountain to rescue my cat."

"She's a good cat. Terrible judgment about men, but good instincts about rocks."

Her mouth does the thing. The twitch. Except this time she doesn't kill it. It spreads. A real smile. Small, exhausted, reluctant. Devastating.

"I'm going to kiss you," she says. "And I need you to know that I still haven't forgiven you. And this is probably a terrible idea."

"Probably."

"Are you going to talk me out of it?"

"No."

She leans down. Her mouth touches mine.

Soft. Careful. Testing. Her lips are warm. Bottom lip fuller than the top, pressing against mine with a gentleness that contradicts every sharp word she's thrown at me for the past week. Her hand is still on my wrist. My free hand comes up to the back of her neck. Fingers in her hair. She makes a sound, quiet, barely there, and her mouth opens.

The kiss goes deep. Her tongue touches mine, tentative, then bolder. My hand tightens on her neck, pulling her closer. She steps between my knees, her body pressing against my chest, and I can feel her heartbeat hammering through her shirt.

I stand. One motion. Her head tilts back to keep kissing me, and my hands go to her waist, lifting her. She wraps her arms around my neck. Legs around my hips. The chair scrapes back.

"Bedroom." She says it against my mouth.

Down the hall. The floor I fixed this morning solid under my boots. Her bedroom door is open, the air mattress on the new wood, a reading lamp casting warm light from the floor. I set her down on the edge of the mattress. She pulls me down with her.