“Seriously?”
He lowers my phone. “The internet says you’re going to own half of Manhattan someday.”
“I’ve heard that rumor. Pretty sure my ex-fiancé started it.”
“You don’t want it?”
“I’d take it, and I’d be good at running it all.”
He lifts a brow.
I grip the maul in both hands and face him. “You have dinner in the oven inside.”
“So?”
“So security isn’t your entire personality. You like to cook, and you like to cook food that tastes good too. It’s obviously more to you than a necessary function. Business isn’t my entire personality either. I also adore my sister, and I’ve realized sometime in the past few years that there’s more to a successful life than a business ledger. So I can absolutely rule Manhattan someday, but I willalsomake time to be a kick-ass aunt when Daph has kids, and I’ll make time to walk along the beach and feel the sand between my toes, and I’ll stand on a mountain and laugh at myself when I’m terrible at chopping wood. I want to be a person, not a robot.”
The wind blows through again, carrying a few yellow aspen leaves and the subtle scent of woodsmoke while Rhys studies me.
I get it.
Powerful women get reputations for being completely heartless.
Thank fuck for Daphne, or I probably would be. She inherently understood her own humanity from the time she wasborn, and she taught me mine. I might be older, but she’s wiser in so many ways.
I grab the log and straighten it while Rhys watches, then I line myself up.
Daph talks about a weekend every year back in Athena’s Rest, her home in upstate New York, where she and her best friend, Bea, head out to Bea’s brother’s farm to help him split wood for winter.
Maybe I’ll get good enough that I can participate this year.
Or next.
I don’t know when wood-splitting weekend is. Maybe I’m missing it by being here now.
But I know that when I fling that axe—maul—down on the wood, and it splinters and cracks apart under the strength of my blow, I feel a different kind of power course through me.
It’s primitive and raw and thrilling.
I bounce on my toes and grin at Rhys. “I did it!”
He’s still staring at me like I’m a puzzle. “Good job.”
I barely hear him.
I’m digging into the log pile for another log without many knots.
When I find it, I set it on the chopping block, and I picture my father’s face on the top of the log when I swing the maul down.
Andfuck, it feels good.
So I do it again, picturing my father’s face and all.
And again.
And again, until I’m huffing with the effort, until my arms ache and my eyes are unexpectedly wet.
I pull off my gloves and swipe at my eyes.
