Page 4 of Axe-Rated Lumberjack

I briefly considered sitting down.

Then an idea struck me.

An extremely bad idea.

I looked at my phone.

Folio couldn’t find the male narrator Bridget needed, and approximately thirty yards away stood a man whose voice seemed to have been created specifically for Drake Cinderhide.

There was, admittedly, the minor complication that he might never have heard of audiobooks.

Or dragons.

Or the kind of scenes he’d be expected to perform.

I should have walked over and introduced myself. I should have explained the situation, asked whether he’d be interested, and requested permission to record a short sample.

Instead, I opened the voice-memo app on my phone.

The man was speaking again.

“Make sure everyone’s clear before you move the equipment. I’d rather have the crew home for dinner than explain to somebody’s family why we rushed a job.”

I captured several seconds before my conscience caught up with my desperation.

What was I doing?

I lowered the phone, appalled by my own behavior.

I’d just secretly recorded a stranger having an ordinary conversation at work.

There was no clever justification for that. If somebody had done the same thing to me, I’d have been furious.

Across the road, the man glanced in my direction.

His gaze settled on me for a moment, taking in my wool coat, carefully arranged hair, and the phone clutched awkwardly against my side.

I froze.

He said something to his coworker, then turned back toward the gate.

By the time I found enough courage to consider walking over and apologizing, both men were heading farther along the service road.

I stood beside the railing, feeling like a criminal in sensible shoes.

Then I looked down at my phone.

Eleven seconds.

That was all I’d captured.

Eleven seconds of the most extraordinary male voice I’d ever heard.

I returned to my car and sat behind the wheel, debating what to do.

Deleting the recording would have been the simplest solution. I could drive back to my cottage, tell Bridget nothing, and forget the entire incident.

Except that Sunday’s deadline was still approaching, and the only person I’d heard who might be perfect for Drake had just disappeared behind a locked gate.