Sawyer gave me his sexy, patented smirk as he pulled the axe out of the target, waltzed it over to me and said, “Top that, girl.”
Our hands collided around the handle of the axe, a delightful shower of sparks erupting where we touched.
“Don’t be too cocky. I canalwayscatch up,” I sassed back.
We both knew that wouldn’t happen. He’d be in the lead all night.
But despite Sawyer’s inevitable win, it was exhilarating being here on Valentine’s Day with my secret crush from a billion years ago, slinging axes so hard the wood on the target splintered.
Sawyer wasexactlywhat I needed to put Brad in perspective.
Somehow Sawyer had gotten even sexier with age. When I’d been a little girl, I wouldn’t have believed that was possible. But now that he was a grown man, he was what me and my girlfriends calledfucktasticallyhot.
And now thatIwas older, I wanted to do more than just write his last name in hearts in my journals.
‘Marissa Reed’ had been written in every one of my school journals approximately one thousand times. As if writing it could will the eventuality into existence.
But I’d given up on those thoughts years ago.
If Sawyer had any interest in me, he would have done something about it by now. I mean, I wasthirty-twoyears old. No longer a young girl infatuated by her older brother’s best friend.
Our ship hadn’t just sailed. It had never left the dock.
None of that meant I couldn’t enjoy tonight, though.
I put the axe down and tugged my sweater over my head, dropping it on our table. Then I picked up the axe and swiveled on my feet. “Prepare to be crushed, Sawyer. This is the throw that will take you down.”
Trying yet another single-handed throw, I aimed, aimed, aimed, and missed.
Not just the bullseye. I’m talking about the whole target!
The axe thunked into the wall about three feet away from the hand-painted bullseye.
Sawyer couldn’t stop himself from laughing as he tugged it out of the wall. “Rissy, I think you need another lesson.”
“A lesson? That sounds good. Teach me how to embed this axe into my missing date’s chest.”
“Oh,no,ma’am. If things are that bad, I better take the axe away from you.”
I laughed and shook my head. “I’m not that bad off. It was just a joke. This was going to be our first time meeting in person. I can’t get too attached to a handful of phone calls and a chat session.”
He furrowed his brow, forgetting the crowded axe house around us. “Why were you crying over him, then? Isn’t that too soon to be in love?”
As if Sawyer only knew. He was theonlyman I’d ever thought I was in love with.
Looking up, up, up into his sexy brown eyes, my voice came out raspy, “I wasn’t crying over Brad. I was crying over what herepresents.”
“And what’s that?”
“The dumpster fire known as my love life.”
Sawyer cocked his head, studying me intently, all his attention on me. “Ouch. I think I can relate to that.”
“You? Has some woman been stomping onyourheart, Sawyer?” That was the remnants of the Timberline Twists still buzzing through my system. Otherwise, Ineverwould have asked anything so bold.
His eyes raked across me, an unexpected storm of emotions visible in them.
In a low, sexy growl he said, “My heart’s been stomped enough times for me to know love isn’t in the cards for me. I don’t get to have the only woman I want.”
