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“I’m going to start by being helpful,” Chris continued. “Right this second. I’ll do something to pay her back for having me here. I’ll cut the lawn.”
He looked around. There was no lawn. It was forest, with a meadow that wasn’t meant to be trimmed. Then his gaze lit on something halfway between the side porch at the lake. An axe wedged in a piece of cut wood.
That’s what neighbor-dude offered to do, wasn’t it? Chop wood for Daphne. She’d refused because she was capable of cutting her own wood. But she was busy dealing with an unexpected guest, so he could do this for her.
Chris had never actually chopped wood. The requirements, though, as he understood them, were threefold. An axe, which was right there. Wood, which was strewn throughout the forest. And a bit of muscle.
He flexed, his biceps popping. “I do believe I have everything I need.”
He swore the dog rolled her blue eyes. Yet she made no move to stop Chris, and he strode past her to find suitable lengths of fallen wood in the forest.
DAPHNE
Daphne breathed deeply as she chopped vegetables, struggling to recover her equilibrium, which would have gone better if she weren’t chopping onions. Tears were streaming down her face, and she wiped her eyes on her shoulder and sniffled.
No tears allowed. No misplaced anger. No awkward annoyance. She’d told Chris that giving him the main bedroom wasn’t about her being pissy, and while that was true, she’d felt pissy at that moment, especially when he’d suggested she play his muse. It made sense to be the caretaker, but part of her had been mulishly digging in to make a point.
She knew the interview was a prime opportunity. New Gotham magazine plus a segment on their show? Just this morning, her editor had emailed her the review that would accompany the article, and it was the equivalent of a full-spread color ad. From a business standpoint, there was zero reason to be pissy. From a writer standpoint, though…
It stung. She hadn’t realized how much until Chris suggested she play his girlfriend. With that came the realization that she’d pandered to the very system she’d railed against.
Editors and agents might take a man’s book more seriously? I’ll submit my book as a man and hire a man to play me while I sleep in the guest room and make his meals. Ha! That’ll show them!
The fact that she’d sold the book as Zane didn’t necessarily prove that playing a man helped. It might have been the different cover letter. It might have been the different attitude she adopted as Zane—the confidence and the ego and sense that she didn’t need to soften her communications with exclamation marks and smiley faces.
None of that was Chris’s fault. She needed to treat him like a guest, not growl at him like an intruder.
Speaking of growling, she should make sure Tika wasn’t bothering Chris. She had no idea what was up with the dog. A little voice whispered that she should heed Tika’s caution. Didn’t people always say that dogs could see through whatever persona a stranger adopted? If a dog didn’t like you, it was a bad sign. Except that Tika’s “bad dude” sense was clearly defective if she tolerated Robbie.
Daphne finished chopping vegetables and went to the front window, knife still in hand. She looked out and—
—the knife dropped, almost skewering her foot. She yanked open the patio door and raced outside.
“Stop!”
Chris froze in place, axe lifted like a baseball bat.
“What the hell are you doing?” she shouted, which was a mistake, clearly prompting him to demonstrate, the axe swinging down—
“Stop!” The word came as a shriek now while Daphne clambered down the steps.
Chris froze.
She lifted her hands. “Do not move. Please.”
She jogged past Tika, who was watching Chris, her tail wagging in anticipation of the bloodshed to come.
“Lower the axe carefully,” she said. “Do not swing it.”
“I’m just cutting up this limb.”
“If you continue on that trajectory, the only limb you will cut is your own.”
She took hold of the axe shaft and placed her hands over his. Then she carefully followed through with the swing, the blade missing the tree piece and stopping an inch from his lower leg.
“Oh,” Chris said. “Huh.”
She took the axe from him. “When’s the last time you chopped wood?”
