Page 19 of Grumpy Lumberjack’s Secret

“My mom cried when I moved to Pinewood Ridge. My dad drove the moving truck and didn’t say much, which is how I knew he was trying not to cry too. I miss them sometimes so much it feels like a physical ache, like someone reached into my chest and squeezed. But I’m proud of myself. I’m proud that I figured out how to fix a leaking faucet at two in the morning by watching a YouTube video. I’m proud that I can pay my own rent, even if it means eating ramen for the last week of every month. I’m proud that I’m here.”

The room was quiet. The dripping from the gutters had stopped. Somewhere outside, a night bird called, thin and distant.

“Anyway,” I said, pressing my cheek against the top of his head. “That’s my story. Nothing dramatic. No tragedy. Just a girl who wanted to build something on her own and did.” I took a breath. “Let’s sleep.”

I shifted, pulling him down with me so we were lying on the narrow bed, his head still against my chest, my arms still around him. The bed was too small for this, really, his legs hung over the edge and my shoulder was pressed against the wall, but it worked. Somehow, it worked.

“Chloe.” His voice was rough with sleep and everything that had come before it. “Go to your room.”

“I am way too lazy to move.” I yawned for emphasis, which wasn’t entirely manufactured. “Don’t worry. I won’t touch anything. Just sleep.”

He was quiet for a long time. Long enough that I thought he might have actually fallen asleep. Then I felt his arm tighten around my waist, pulling me closer by a fraction, and his breath evened out into the deep, slow rhythm of someone who had finally, reluctantly, let go.

I fell asleep with his heartbeat under my palm.

When I woke, the room was filled with pale morning light. The yellow curtains turned it golden, and tiny dust motes drifted through the air like miniature stars. I was warm, almost too warm, wrapped in the solid heat of a man who was very much awake.

Sawyer was looking at me.

Not the guarded, sideways glances I’d grown used to. This was direct, unfiltered, his green eyes tracing my face with the quiet concentration of someone memorizing something they expected to lose. His head was on the pillow next to mine, close enough that I could count the darker flecks in his irises, and he wasn’t trying to hide that he’d been watching me.

“Did you sleep?” I asked, my voice still husky with morning.

“I did.”

The answer was simple, but the way he said it, like it was remarkable, like sleeping through the night was something that didn’t happen often, made my chest ache.

“Do I look good in the morning?” I asked, because if I didn’t break the intensity with something light, I was going to do something embarrassing, like cry, or tell him I was falling for him, which was the same thing.

He didn’t answer. His eyes stayed on mine, steady and unreadable, and the silence stretched between us like a held note.

I sat up, swinging my legs off the bed and running my fingers through the catastrophe that was my sleep hair. “Fine. Don’t answer. I’ll cook breakfast.”

I stood and padded toward the door, the cold floor biting at my bare feet. I was two steps into the hallway when his voice followed me.

“Yeah. You are beautiful.”

I stopped.

My hand found the doorframe and held on, because my knees had just done something unreliable. The words hung in the air behind me, low and rough and reluctant, like they’d been pulled out of him against his will, like he’d tried to keep them in and they’d escaped anyway.

I didn’t turn around. If I turned around, he’d see my face, and my face would tell him everything, and I wasn’t ready for him to know everything yet.

“Pancakes or eggs?” I asked, and my voice only shook a little.

“Pancakes.”

I walked to the kitchen and gripped the edge of the counter and breathed.

Yeah. You are beautiful.

I made the best pancakes of my entire life.

7

SAWYER

The blade was dull.