Page 23 of Oops I Fell For The Lumberjack Next Door

The farm still works. Trees still need shearing. Irrigation still needs checking. Tinsel still waits by the door every morning, tail going, until he figures out we're not walking through the tree line today. Then he sighs, drops onto his bed, and looks at me with an accusation I deserve.

"I know, buddy."

Each night, I turn the porch light on. Every morning, it's still burning. A waste of electricity, my father would say. But the cabin next door is dark at night, no warm glow from the kitchen window, no shadow moving behind the glass, and the porch light is the only thing I can offer without crossing the line she drew.

Mom called twice. I let it go to voicemail both times. She left messages. The first one was careful, asking if I was all right, saying she noticed the truck hadn't moved. The second one was less careful.

Mom:

Thomas Parker told me the new neighbor looks like she's been crying. Have you done something stupid? Call me back.

I haven't done something stupid. I did the opposite. I gave her space. Let her go. Stood in my kitchen and watched her fold my flannel on her counter, and then I walked home with it over my arm and the words "I'm trying to love you" still warm in my mouth.

I've been trying to love this woman for fifteen years. Three more days of silence won't kill me.

Except it might. Because it's Tuesday afternoon, and I'm sitting in my barn sharpening a blade that's already sharp, watching the tree line, when Margot Hemmings walks out of the pines.

She's in pajamas. Gray sweatpants, a black tank top, bare feet on the pine needles. Hair down, unbrushed. No glasses. She's hugging herself against the cold, and she's walking directly toward my porch with the focused determination of a woman who's had a fight with herself and lost.

Tinsel spots her first. His whole body goes rigid, then his tail starts going. He's off the porch in two bounds, crossing the yard, pressing himself against her legs. She drops one hand to his head without stopping. Scratches behind his ear. Keeps walking.

I stand in the barn doorway. Blade in one hand. Rag in the other.

She stops at the bottom of my porch steps. Looks up at me. Her eyes are red rimmed. She hasn't been sleeping. There's a vulnerability in her face that I've never seen, stripped down past the sharpness, past the grudge, past the armor she's worn since the day I pulled her out of her own porch.

"I was wrong."

Two words. She delivers them the same way I deliver lumber. No preamble. No wrapping.

"About what you said," she continues. "About trying to love me. That wasn't you fixing me. That was you telling me the truth, and I punished you for it because the last two men who said something meaningful to me either lied or didn't mean it. And I'm sorry. I'm really sorry, Briggs."

The blade goes on the workbench. The rag follows. I'm down the steps, standing in front of her on the cold ground, close enough that I can see the goosebumps on her arms.

"Come inside. You're freezing."

"I need to say this first."

"You can say it inside where it's warm."

"If I go inside, I'm going to lose my nerve."

"Then I'll stand here until you're done."

Her mouth trembles. Just once. She steadies it.

"I've been telling a story about you for fifteen years. The story where you're the villain who destroyed the best relationship I ever had. Where you meddled and manipulated and ruined something beautiful because you couldn't stand to see Ryan happy with me. And I've told that story so many times it became part of who I am. My origin story. The chapter where I learned that men can't be trusted."

She swallows. Keeps going.

"Daniel's call rattled me because it reminded me what happens when I build my world around a man. And you were fixing my porch and my pipes and sleeping in my bed, and I panicked. I thought I was doing it again. Losing myself in someone."

"Margot."

"But these past three days, all I've done is sit in that cabin you rebuilt, on the floor you put in, drinking coffee from a mug I only have because your mother brought me a welcome basket, and I've realized something. I didn't lose myself in you. I found myself next to you. There's a difference, and it took me three days of being miserable to figure it out."

She exhales. Shaky. Bare feet on cold ground, arms wrapped tight, standing on my lawn in pajamas on a Tuesday afternoon.

"You said there was more to the story. About college. About Ryan." Her voice drops. "I'm ready to hear it."