“Hey, Shutterbug!” Caleb waves at me from across the great room, already dressed in flannel and suspenders like he's auditioning for a maple syrup commercial. “You coming to watch us dominate?”
“Wouldn't miss it.” I grab a muffin from the breakfast spread, mostly to have something to do with my hands. “Someone has to document your humiliation.”
“That's the spirit.” He slings an arm around my shoulders, and for a moment, everything feels normal. Just my idiot brother and me, giving each other grief the way we've done since I was old enough to talk back.
Then Everett walks into the room, and muffin crumbs choose that moment to betray me.
Faded denim hug muscular thighs—thighs I straddled only a few hours ago.
The gray henley pulls across his chest, sleeves shoved to his elbows, hair still damp from a shower.
Gray is officially my new favorite color.
Those Magic Morgan men, damn them.
But he looks… tired.
Dark circles shadowing his eyes, jaw locked tight like he’s holding the whole mountain in his teeth.
Our eyes meet across the room. One heartbeat. Two. Everything we did last night passes between us in a look that feels obscene to have in front of my brother.
“Morgan!” Caleb releases me to grab Everett in one of those aggressive bro-hugs that's part greeting, part wrestling move. “Ready to lose?”
“I've been chopping wood since I could hold an axe.” Everett's voice is steady, easy. Like he didn't have his mouth on my heart six hours ago. “You sure you want to do this?”
“Confident. I like it.” Caleb grins. “Makes it sweeter when I knock you on your ass.”
I slip away while they're posturing, camera in hand, and head for the event area.
The setup for Lumberjack Thunder is actually impressive. Someone—probably Roman, who has an unholy talent for event planning—transformed the clearing behind the lodge into a proper competition zone. Hay bales for seating. A row of chopping blocks with fresh logs. An axe-throwing range marked off with bright orange tape.
Tara's crew catches the angles from pretty much everywhere. You can’t move without tripping over one of her cameramen. Literally.
She's positioned herself near the registration table, clipboard in hand, looking like a general surveying her troops.
“Sierra!” Holly waves me over to where she's sitting with Charlie, Eve, and Dixie, bundled in blankets with thermoses of something that smells suspiciously spiked. “Come freeze your ass off with us.”
“It’s barely thirty degrees. Please tell me we’re freezing our asses off for a good reason.”
“Shirtless Lumberjacks Generate Content,” Charlie says, doing air quotes. “Tara's words. Apparently the social media metrics for 'attractive men doing manual labor in cold weather' are through the roof.”
“Of course they are.” I raise my camera and snap a shot of Roman adjusting his suspenders with entirely too much swagger. “Humanity is doomed.”
The competition starts with wood chopping, and it's exactly as ridiculous as expected. My brothers strip down to undershirts within the first ten minutes—becauseexertion.
I roll my eyes so hard they ache, but the crowd cheers andTara's cameras eat it up.
Everett stays fully clothed, which shouldn't disappoint me as much as it does.
“He's good,” Holly observes, watching Everett split a log with economical precision. “Very... competent.”
“Holly.”
“I'm just saying. The man knows how to handle his wood.”
“I hate you.”
“You love me.” She bumps my shoulder. “Speaking of wood-handling, you look like you didn't sleep.”
