Page 48 of Grumpy Lumberjack’s Secret

Sawyer was sitting at one end, his bandaged foot propped on the coffee table, a book open in his lap. Emma was curled against his side with Sir Chomps-a-Lot squished between them, and she was looking up at him with the rapturous attention of a child being told the best story of her life. He was reading to her. Not a children’s book, because Sawyer Cole did not own children’s books. He was reading from one of his woodworking manuals, the thick one about joinery techniques, and he was narrating it like it was an adventure novel.

“And then,” he said, his voice low and serious, “the carpenter realized that the dovetail joint was too tight. One millimeter too wide. If he forced it, the wood would crack. If he didn’t fix it, the entire bookshelf would collapse.”

“What did he do?” Emma whispered, gripping Sir Chomps-a-Lot.

“He got his chisel. The sharp one. The one he only uses for emergencies.”

“Like a sword?”

“Exactly like a sword.”

Emma squealed with delight. Sawyer turned the page with the gravity of a man revealing a plot twist. I stood in the doorway and watched them and felt tears slide down my cheeks before I could stop them.

The guilt was a living thing. It breathed. It had weight. It sat on my chest and pressed down and whispered all the things I already knew: that he had missed this. Six years of bedtime stories and morning pancakes and small hands reaching for his. Six years of first words and first steps and the thousand tiny moments that make up a childhood. I had taken that from him. I had run, and I had kept running, and every mile between us had been a mile of moments he would never get back.

I wiped my face with the back of my hand, hard and fast, before either of them noticed.

“Good morning, Mama!” Emma said, spotting me. She bounced off the couch and ran to me, wrapping her arms around my waist. “Uncle Sawyer is reading me about dovetails. They’re like puzzles for wood.”

“That sounds fascinating, baby.” I kissed the top of her head and looked over her at Sawyer. He was watching me. His expression was neutral, guarded, but his eyes held something I couldn’t read. Something that flickered between warmth and distance, like a fire that couldn’t decide if it wanted to burn or go out.

“Are you enjoying time with Uncle Sawyer?” I asked Emma.

“He’s great,” Emma said firmly. “He knows everything about wood. And he said he’s going to build me a dinosaur. A triceratops, Mama. With real horns.”

“Real horns might be a safety concern.”

“Wooden horns, Mama. Keep up.”

I smiled despite the weight in my chest. Emma detached herself and returned to the couch, resuming her position against Sawyer’s side like it was a spot she’d occupied her entire life. The ease of it, the way she tucked herself against him without hesitation, without the careful testing she applied to every other new person, made something inside me ache. She knew. On some level that had nothing to do with facts or explanations, she knew.

I went to the kitchen and started breakfast. Coffee first, because functioning before coffee was a philosophical position I refused to take. Then eggs, toast, the simple routine of a morning that felt anything but simple.

“Sawyer,” I said, carrying his coffee to the couch. “Are you going to shower today?”

He looked at his bandaged foot, then at the crutches leaning against the wall. The logistics of a one-footed man in a shower were not straightforward.

He nodded.

“I’ll help you,” I said. The words came out matter-of-fact, teacher-mode, the voice I used when I was organizing twenty-three children into a fire drill line and could not afford to be anything other than efficient.

“You don’t have to.”

“You can’t stand on one foot in a wet shower. You’ll fall. I’ll fall-proof the situation.”

He looked at me for a beat too long, then nodded again.

After breakfast, I got him to the bathroom. The space was small, utilitarian, exactly what you’d expect from a man who viewed personal grooming as a necessary inconvenience. A shower stall, a sink, a mirror, a towel on a hook. Nothing decorative. Nothing soft. The bathroom of a man who had been living alone for a very long time and had stopped noticing.

I set up the shower stool I’d found in the back of a closet (a remnant from a long-ago injury, I guessed) and tested the water temperature. When I turned back, Sawyer was standing in the doorway, his hands on the hem of his shirt, watching me.

“I can manage from here,” he said.

“I need to make sure you can get in without slipping. Just let me…”

He pulled the shirt over his head.

I turned around so fast I nearly gave myself whiplash.