Page 63 of Grumpy Lumberjack’s Secret

After breakfast, Emma went to her room to get Sir Chomps-a-Lot situated with the flowers because apparently the dinosaur needed to appreciate the bouquet properly. I cleared the table and started on the dishes.

Chloe was drying. She stood beside me at the sink, our elbows almost touching, and the quiet between us was comfortable in a way that silence had never been for me before.

I stepped behind her. Wrapped my arms around her waist from behind, my chest against her back, my chin resting on top of her head. She leaned into me, her hands still holding the dish towel, and the domesticity of it, standing at the sink with my arms around her, hit me harder than I expected.

“What is your plan for Emma’s school?” I asked.

She was quiet for a moment. I felt her take a breath, the rise and fall of her ribs against my forearms.

“She needs to be enrolled somewhere,” she said. “She has been out of school since we left. I have been teaching her what I can at the cabin, but she needs real classes. A real teacher. Other kids.”

“There is a school in town. Pinewood Elementary. Two miles from here.”

“I know. I looked it up last week.”

“You did?”

“I have been thinking about it. If we are staying, and I think we are staying, then she needs stability. A school. A routine. Friends.”

I tightened my arms around her. She was staying. She thought they were staying. The words settled into me like warmth spreading through cold wood.

“We can go this week,” I said. “Register her. I will come with you.”

“You want to come?”

“She is my daughter. I am coming.”

Chloe turned in my arms. Looked up at me. Her eyes were soft, and the dish towel was still in her hands, and there was a smudge of pancake batter on her cheek that she did not know about.

“You know,” she said, “for a man who hated me showing up at his sawmill, you are doing a very good job of being present.”

“I never hated you showing up.”

“You told me to leave. Multiple times.”

“I was lying. Every single time.”

She smiled. Reached up and pressed her palm against my cheek. I turned my head and kissed her palm, and the small sound she made, a soft exhale that was half surprise and half something deeper, was worth more than anything I had ever built with my hands.

“Pinewood Elementary,” she said. “This week.”

“This week.”

“Together.”

“Together.”

She kissed me. Quick and warm and tasting like maple syrup, and then she turned back to the dishes and I stayed behind her with my arms around her waist and my chin on her head, and we finished the dishes together while Emma sang to her dinosaur in the other room and the music played on.

23

CHLOE

We drove to Ridgewood on a Saturday morning.

The sky was a soft gray, the kind that hinted at rain but never committed, and the mountains on either side of the road were wearing their autumn colors like a painting someone had left out in the weather. Orange and gold and deep red, layered over evergreen, and I watched them pass through the window while Emma chattered in the backseat about what Sawyer’s parents might look like.

“Do you think your papa is tall like you?” Emma asked Sawyer.