Page 8 of Grumpy Lumberjack’s Secret

Dollie held up the tin. “I made you cookies.”

“You made me…” He took the tin, opened it, and his eyes went wide. “Chocolate chip?”

“Your favorite.”

He looked at her like she’d handed him a winning lottery ticket. Then he pulled her into a hug that lifted her off the ground, cookie tin and all, and kissed her on the forehead. She laughed, this bright, bubbling sound that made everyone within earshot look over.

I stood there, holding my purse strap, watching them be adorable and feeling like the world’s most dedicated third wheel. This was my life. Accompanying my best friend to her boyfriend’s workplace so she could deliver baked goods while I stood in sawdust and tried to look like I had a reason to exist.

“Chloe, thank you for coming with her,” Josh said, setting Dollie down but keeping his arm around her. “She’s been talking about bringing cookies all week. I think she was nervous.”

“I was not nervous,” Dollie said, which was a blatant lie.

“She made me drive,” I said. “Because, and I quote, ‘what if I get so nervous I drive into a log pile.’”

Josh laughed. Dollie elbowed me. I grinned.

That’s when I heard it.

“Josh.”

The voice came from behind us, deep and flat, with the kind of authority that didn’t need volume to command attention. It was the verbal equivalent of a door closing, and it made all three of us turn.

He was standing about twenty feet away, near the entrance to the main mill building, and the first thing I registered was that he was big. Not just tall, though he was that too, but solid, built in a way that suggested his body was a tool he used daily and maintained through labor, not a gym. His shoulders were broad, his arms thick beneath a flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled to the elbows, exposing forearms roped with muscle and dusted with sawdust. His dark hair was pushed back from his forehead, and his jaw was set in a line so hard you could have used it as a straightedge.

His eyes landed on Josh. They were green. Dark, deep green, like pine needles after rain.

I knew those eyes.

The recognition hit me like a truck. The sidewalk. The cold night. The man who’d been crying for his brother, whose face I’d held in my hands while he shattered. The man who’d sat at my kitchen table, eating soup and glaring at me like I’d committed a personal offense by existing.

My grumpy stranger.

He hadn’t seen me yet. His focus was locked on Josh, and his expression said he was not pleased.

“It’s still five minutes before your break,” he said, his voice carrying across the yard like it was built for open spaces. “Go back to work.”

Josh’s arm tightened around Dollie, but I could see him deflate a little. “Come on, Sawyer, she just got here. Five minutes.”

Sawyer. His name was Sawyer. I filed that away, a small piece of the puzzle clicking into place.

“Five minutes before your break means you are still on the clock,” Sawyer said. His tone didn’t change. It didn’t need to. It was the kind of tone that was already at its final volume. “Rules don’t adjust because your girlfriend brought snacks.”

Then his eyes shifted.

They moved from Josh to Dollie to me, and I watched the recognition land. It was subtle, barely a flicker. His jaw tightened by a fraction. His shoulders pulled back. But his expression stayed locked down, giving away nothing except a slight narrowing of his eyes that told me he remembered exactly who I was.

“And don’t bring visitors while people are working,” he said, his gaze still on me. “This is a sawmill, not a social club.”

Oh, absolutely not.

Something hot and stubborn flared in my chest. I didn’t know much about this man, but I knew he’d been crying on a sidewalk, and I knew I’d dragged him into my home and fed him soup, and I knew that the last words he’d said to me had been a grudging “thank you” that I’d practically had to pry out of him with a crowbar. And now he was standing here, in his little kingdom of sawdust and machinery, acting like we were trespassing on sacred ground because Dollie wanted to give her boyfriend cookies.

“A bitter grumpy man,” I said.

The words came out before I could stop them. Clear, bright, and ringing across the yard like a bell. Dollie’s hand flew to my arm, her fingers digging in, and I could feel her entire body tense beside me.

Sawyer’s eyes locked onto mine. “What did you just say?”