Page 1 of Wrong Number, Right Grumpy Lumberjack

CHAPTER ONE

WALDEN

The first log of the morning splits clean down the center. Red oak, probably eighty years old, pulled out of a barn in Lovelock that was finally giving up the ghost. Beautiful grain. The kind of wood Caleb Morrow will turn into a dining table some couple in Reno pays four thousand dollars to eat cereal on.

I set the next piece on the mill bed, check the blade tension, pull my ear protection into place. Maple watches from her spot by the shop door, chin on her paws, one brown eye tracking me the way she's done every morning for the past two years. She used to watch Cora like that. Now she's stuck with me.

The saw screams through the oak. Sawdust kicks up in a golden cloud, catching the early light through the shop's east windows. I run six boards before the sun clears the ridge, stack them on the drying rack, sweep the platform. My phone buzzes on the workbench.

Probably Caleb checking on his walnut order. Or my brother, who calls every Tuesday at seven like I'm a welfare check on his calendar.

I pull off my gloves, pick up the phone.

Unknown Number:

I just want you to know that I bought the inappropriate underwear for tonight and I am thinking about you in a deeply unprofessional manner.

I read it three times.

I do not own inappropriate underwear. I am not anyone's tonight. The number is unfamiliar, the area code is Reno, and I'm a forty year old custom sawyer who lives alone with a dog who tolerates me because I'm the one who fills her bowl now.

My thumb hovers over the screen. Common sense says ignore it. Delete it. Go back to the oak.

Me:

Wrong number.

I set the phone down. Pick up my gloves. Get halfway to the mill before it buzzes again.

Unknown Number:

OH GOD

Then, rapid fire.

Unknown Number:

Oh god oh god oh god

I am so sorry

Please delete that

Please tell me you deleted that

I am DYING

This is the worst morning of my entire life and it is 6:47 AM

I stare at the screen. Something twitches at the corner of my mouth. A muscle I haven't used in a while.

Me:

Deleted.

I didn't delete it.

Unknown Number: