Her next words are soft as she takes my hand and squeezes it. “I know you do.”
We step off the porch into afternoon sun. The clearing’s a ten-minute walk through the pines, and I’ve already set up the splitting stump and stacked logs this morning. Been thinking about this all night, imagining her hands on an axe handle, my hands over hers. I got hard every time just thinking about it.
We walk in silence, our boots crunching on pine needles as we walk my property. The air smells like sun-warmed resin and earth, thick enough to taste. Overhead, branches creak in the breeze, and somewhere deeper in the woods, a hawk screams.
My boots know every root and rock on this trail, but Claire’s picking her way careful, watching where she steps. She’s looking around and taking it all in, the towering pines, the way sunlight filters through in scattered beams, the complete absence of anything man-made except the trail I’ve worn over eight years of living here.
I’m hyper-aware of her beside me and how her shirt rides up when she steps over a log, revealing a strip of skin at her lower back. I want to put my mouth there.
“It’s so quiet,” she says finally.
“Uh, yep.” I scratch my beard, trying to clear out my dirty thoughts. “I’m fifteen miles from town. Nearest neighbor’s two miles that way.” I point east. “Most people can’t handle it.”
“And you can?”
“I need it.” The clearing opens up ahead, valley view stretching for miles. The valley drops away in layers, the pine giving way to oak, then farmland patchworked in green and gold, all of it rolling toward the blue haze of distant hills. Up here, the wind hits different, cooler and constant, carrying the smell of wildsage from the canyon below. “After Jenna died, I couldn’t be around people. I left San Antonio and moved back to Indigo Hills. Bought my property and didn’t leave mostly except for work.”
“That sounds lonely.”
“It was.” I stop at the edge of the clearing where my setup waits: axes leaning against the stump, targets marked on trees, logs ready to split. I built this clearing myself five years back, cut down the scrub oak and cleared the deadfall until I had a flat space big enough to work. The grass is trampled where I’ve been splitting wood all summer, sawdust scattered gold across the dirt. Two stumps mark my throwing range, bark stripped where hatchet blades have bitten deep. “But it’s what I needed then. Now?” I look at her. “Now I’m thinking maybe I’ve been alone long enough.”
She doesn’t say anything, just watches me with those green eyes that see too much.
I clear my throat, gesture to the axes. “Alright, Doc. Let’s see what you’ve got.”
“I’ve got zero experience and a healthy fear of sharp objects.”
“Good. Fear keeps you careful.” I pick up the lighter axe, the one I picked specifically for her smaller frame. “This is yours. Feel the weight.”
She takes it, testing the heft. Her grip is wrong immediately—too high on the handle, fingers too tight. I step behind her, wrap my hands over hers, adjust her hold.
“Lower. And relax your grip. You’re strangling it.”
“I’m a surgeon. We have a firm grip.”
“You’re a lumberjack now. Different rules.” I’m close enough to smell her shampoo, something floral that doesn’t belong in the woods but I want to bury my face in anyway. “Loosen up, Claire.”
She does, her body softening against mine. My chest presses her back, her ass pressing against me when she shifts her stance, and I feel the exact moment her breathing changes. I count the rings in the pine stump.Twelve. Thirteen. Fourteen. Anything to keep from turning her around and backing Claire Elliott against the nearest tree.
“Like this?” Her voice is quieter.
“Yep. Just like that.” I guide her arms through the motion, slow. “It’s about leverage, not force. Let the axe do the work.”
We practice the swing a few times, no log yet. Just the motion, her body learning the rhythm. My hands stay on hers, and I tell myself it’s instruction but we both know better.
“Okay.” I step back before I do something stupid. “Try it for real.”
I set a log on the stump. She positions herself, lifts the axe, swings. The blade glances off the side, barely making a dent.
“Terrible.”
“I’d like to see you perform surgery.”
“Fair point.” I grin. “Again.”
She tries five more times. Each swing gets better, but she’s tensing up, overcompensating. On the sixth swing, she connects clean, and the log splits with a satisfying crack. The sound echoes off the trees, sharp and clean. Fresh wood smell explodes into the air, sweet and green, nothing like the aged lumber I’m used to. The two halves tumble off the stump, landing with dull thuds in the grass.
Her face lights up as she bounces on her toes several times. “I did it!” A deep flush spreads down her neck, disappearing under her collar, and I want to follow it with my mouth.
