Page 18 of Oops I Fell For The Lumberjack Next Door

"If you make it weird, I'll kick you out."

"Define weird."

"Talking about feelings."

"I don't talk about feelings."

"Good."

I pull her against me. Her back to my chest. My arm over her waist. She fits. Perfectly, immediately, without adjustment. Her body settles against mine, and her breathing evens out within minutes.

I don't sleep. Not yet. My thumb traces her hip bone. Outside, the mountain is dark, quiet. Tinsel is probably asleep on my porch wondering where I am.

Fifteen years. Fifteen years of knowing this woman existed somewhere in the world, hating me for something I couldn't explain, living a life I had no part in. And now she's in my arms, in a cabin I've been watching stay empty for eight years, sleeping on a floor I put in with my own hands.

She stirs. Murmurs something I can't hear. Presses closer.

My phone vibrates in my jeans pocket on the floor. I ignore it. It vibrates again. Twice more.

Careful not to wake her, I reach down. Pull the phone free.

Mom:

Tommy Parker says the new neighbor is divorced. Did you know? Is she settling in? You should invite her to Sunday dinner. Also I'm making pot roast this weekend if you want to bring someone. ANYONE. Just a thought.

Also I noticed her kitchen window faces your property. That's nice. Good sight lines.

I'm not meddling. I'm observing.

I put the phone face down on the floor. Pull Margot closer. Press my mouth against her hair.

Good sight lines. Christ.

The woman in my arms has hated me for fifteen years. Still hasn't forgiven me. Told me so right before she kissed me. Tomorrow, the daylight might bring the walls back up. The grudge might reassemble. She might wake up and decide this was a mistake.

I close my eyes. Sleep comes faster than it has in years.

CHAPTER FIVE

MARGOT

Aweek of Briggs Holloway, and I've become a person I don't recognize.

A person who leaves the side door unlatched on purpose. Who makes extra coffee in the morning knowing he'll be on my step by seven with sawdust on his forearms and some new structural crisis to address. Who falls asleep with her face against a chest that smells like pine sap and wakes up with a hundred and ninety pounds of patient, quiet man wrapped around her.

We haven't talked about what this is. He doesn't ask. I don't offer. He shows up, fixes things, kisses me in the kitchen when the coffee finishes brewing, and stays the night. Every night. My toothbrush next to his at his cabin. His flannel hanging on my door hook. Two lives bleeding into each other across forty feet of pine trees while neither of us names it.

It's terrifying. And good. Both at the same time, in a ratio that keeps shifting.

This morning, he's at the tree farm. Shearing season. He explained the process yesterday while I sat on his porch editing a manuscript, Princess Buttercup on my lap, Tinsel at my feet. How you trim the new growth in late summer to shape the tree for Christmas. How the blade has to be sharp enough that it cuts clean without tearing. How a torn branch invites disease.

He talks about trees the way some men talk about religion. Reverent. Certain.

I'm on the porch with my laptop, three chapters deep in a romance novel that needs serious pacing help, when my phone rings. Portland area code. Which is strange because everyone I know in Portland uses my cell, not this number.

"Hello?"

"Margot. It's Daniel."