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“Oh, sweetie.” Alice patted my knee. “It’s easier if they get it all out. Plus, we get a free show.”
I nodded, taking a gulp of wine. “I figured he’d give me a boring lecture on proper axe maintenance. Not this.”
“He probably planned to. But then he had to show off for you. It’s the Gagnon way. Be grateful Adele isn’t here. She’d be showing them up, and they get all cranky about it. Her trash talk is next level.”
I pulled the blanket tighter around me. “It’s freezing out.”
“They don’t care. They gotta beat their chests like alpha gorillas.”
I sat there, slack-jawed, as Paz chopped log after log, teasing his brothers between swings. Sweat glistened across his chest, and I could not look away from his shoulders.
The slick suit. The perfectly coiffed hair. The sporty car.
It was all a show.
Because underneath all that material shit, this was who he was.
Raw and masculine and competitive, and holy shit, I had to cross my legs to keep the ache in my core from making me dry hump this tree stump.
What was this sorcery? I was a red-blooded woman. I had needs. But this? This show deactivated my ability to think. Right now, I was nothing but a combination of lizard brain and horny cavewoman.
I looked to my left and my right, and sure enough, Hazel and Alice were drooling over their respective men. It was sweet, if not a little annoying. Because they were definitely getting laid tonight. And I was certainly not.
So I’d have to memorize every move. Because being in the proximity of three sexy lumberjacks chopping wood shirtless in the freezing cold while grunting and sweating was like witnessing Halley’s Comet. It required next-level cosmic alignment and a heavy dose of good luck.
I was entranced. By the determination in his eyes and the set of his jaw. And by the contraction of his muscles—even the tiny ones along his ribcage. I’d never wished for a photographic memory before, but right now, I’d give anything to ensure that no inch of hotness could be missed. With any luck, I’d be recounting this story for my drunk old lady friends in the nursing home someday.
And as I sat there, getting tipsy and turned on by my fake boyfriend, I kicked myself for leaving my vibrator back in Portland. Because I wasn’t sure my fingers could cut it after this.
Later that night, I lay in bed, my mind racing with all the work I’d been doing. And then there was the persistent ache in my lady parts after my evening with the lumberjack review.
So I called Liv. I missed her terribly. I hadn’t been up here that long, but she was such an important day-to-day presence in my life.
She picked up on the second ring. “I miss your face,” she said in lieu of a greeting. “You solve the murder yet? I want you to come home.”
“Not yet. Slowly chipping away and gathering info. It’s not quick or glamorous, as you know.”
“Oh, I know. That’s why everything is fast-paced and sexy in my books. Readers would hate the reality of investigative work.”
“Truth.”
“You sound down. What’s bothering you? Do I need to come up there and hurt someone?”
I laughed. I couldn’t ask for a more supportive friend. “Is it possible to die of horniness?” I asked.
This was not a rhetorical question. After my day of arguing with Paz and then being subjected to aMagic Mike–style wood chopping performance, my lady parts were on high alert.
“Probably. But I haven’t researched it. Ooh, maybe for my next book.”
“Okay, then find something nice to wear to my funeral. Because I can’t take it anymore.”
“Don’t be so dramatic. Besides, I write about murder all day. I own plenty of black.”
“No, no.” She clearly was not understanding the direness of my situation. “You’ve gotta slay at my funeral, okay? If I’m dead, then you better be getting laid all the time to celebrate my memory.”
“Are you on drugs right now? You want me to pick up dudes at your funeral?” She was laughing so hard she could barely get the words out.
“Yes!” I yelled, also giggling uncontrollably. “More than one, if possible. Go full why choose to manage your grief.”
