“Who’d you imagine?” Rhys asks.
If he’s said anything else since I got in the groove of pick, picture, split, I haven’t heard him.
I give him a wry smile. “As if you’d get it out of me that easily.”
“I imagine my stepfather.”
I look at the pile of wood left to split.
It’s mostly knotty and gnarled.
And then I look at Rhys, broad and thick, and I hold out the maul. “Need a few whacks? I left you the hard ones.”
He’s been stacking while I’ve been splitting, so there’s not much for me to do besides watch while he takes powerful swings that easily split through the knotted wood.
Watch and get turned on.
Beefy displays of testosterone have never done it for me. Give me an intellectual man who can debate economic policies with me, and I’ll be planning a strategic wedding in my head before I can stop myself, mostly because the lesson ofMerriweather-Browns marry for businesswas drilled into my head so young that it’s instinctive and I have to actively argue back against it now.
But this?
Contemplating where the wood came from, knowing there’s a big wildfire risk in this part of the country, that these logs won’t be fuel for any wildfires, but useful in heating the cabin instead now that we’ve split them down—there’s something magic about that.
And something even more magic about watching Rhys use his power and strength to do the work efficiently and quickly.
Purposefully.
With enough vigor in his swing that I believe he really is picturing his stepfather the same way I was picturing my own father.
He checks his watch, then steps back from the pile. “Gotta check dinner,” he grunts.
“I’ll stack.”
Once again, he looks at me.
Just looks at me, like he wants to ask me who I am again.
I smile. “Princesses can’t stack firewood?”
He shakes his head and turns away. “Stack it fast or your dinner will be cold.”
But even as he says it, he grabs five split logs and tucks them under his arm.
Not to stack.
He carries them inside, me watching his ass and getting warm in the cheeks.
I hustle through stacking wood, and I’m nearly done when I feel the same sensation I had when I left for work yesterday.
Something’s off.
Like, hair-raising, adrenaline-pumping,offoff.
Something snorts nearby in the thick brush with the browning leaves.
I’m facing the wood pile, but I turn slowly, so slowly, certain I’m about to come face-to-face with a mountain lion, when I spot something entirely different.
And holy fuck.
