Page 71 of Grumpy Lumberjack’s Secret

“Conserve water,” I said weakly. “We just used all of it.”

His chest rumbled. Not quite a laugh. But close.

We actually showered after that. He washed my hair with a gentleness that contradicted everything about the last twenty minutes, his rough hands working through the strands with a care that made my eyes sting. I washed his back. Traced the lines my nails had left across his shoulders. He did not flinch. Just stood under the water and let me touch him.

We dried off. Got dressed. Moved through the morning routine with the quiet efficiency of two people who had just shared something that made words unnecessary. I checked on Emma. Still asleep. Sir Chomps-a-Lot had migrated to the pillow, and Emma had one arm thrown over the dinosaur in a protective embrace.

Sawyer was in the kitchen making coffee when I came out. He handed me a cup without being asked, fixed the way I liked it, and the small gesture, the fact that he knew and remembered and did it without thinking, made my chest warm.

“I need to go to the mill,” he said.

The warmth went cold.

“Sawyer.” I set the cup down. “That is dangerous. If Jonathan found the cabin, he could find the mill. He could have people watching. He could be out there right now waiting for you to show up alone.”

“I am not going to hide in this house.”

“I am not asking you to hide. I am asking you to be careful. He hurt you before. The men at the cabin could have…”

“They were not at the cabin. They came when we were gone. That was the point. It was a message. Not an attack.”

“And next time?”

He set his coffee down. Walked to where I was standing and stopped in front of me. Close enough that I had to tilt my head back to see his face. He took my chin in his hand, gently, tilting my face up so our eyes met.

“I am not going to let them hurt me either,” he said. “Because it will worry both of you too much.”

My eyes burned. The way he said it. Not as a promise of invincibility. Not as the bravado of a man who thought he could not be touched. But as a practical consideration. A priority. He would be careful because his pain would cause us pain, and that was a thing he was no longer willing to do.

“Come back safe,” I said.

“I always come back.”

He kissed me. Slow and deep, tasting like coffee and cedar soap, and his hand moved from my chin to the back of my neck and he held me there, held the kiss, until I was dizzy and breathless and the fear in my chest had been replaced, temporarily, by the taste of him.

“Lock the door behind me,” he said. “Do not open it for anyone you do not know. Josh is coming by at nine. Dollie at ten.”

“Sawyer.”

“I mean it, Chloe.”

“I know. I know.” I pressed my palm against his chest, over his heart. Felt it beating, strong and steady, beneath the flannel. “Be careful.”

He covered my hand with his. Held it against his chest for a long moment. Then he let go, grabbed his keys, and walked out the front door.

I locked it behind him. Leaned my forehead against the wood and listened to his truck start, the engine rumbling to life in the quiet morning, and then the crunch of gravel as he pulled away. The sound faded until there was nothing left but silence and the distant sound of birds waking up in the trees.

I stood at the door for a long time. Then I made breakfast for Emma and sat at the kitchen table in a house that was not mine, in a town that was becoming mine, and waited for the man I loved to come home safe the way I would wait every day for the rest of my life if that was what it took.

Because that was the deal. Loving Sawyer Cole meant loving a man who walked toward danger instead of away from it. It meant standing at the door and watching him leave and trusting that he would come back. It meant being brave enough to stay even when staying was the hardest thing.

I could do that.

I had been doing hard things for seven years. I could do one more.

26

SAWYER