Page 2 of Grumpy Lumberjack’s Secret

The word came out broken, cracked right down the middle like a stone split by frost. I stopped.

“No.” His voice was raw, wrecked, and something in it made the hair on my arms stand up despite the cold. “Please hold on. Don’t die. Please.”

I turned back slowly.

He was still on the ground, but his body had curled in on itself, his knees drawing toward his chest like a child in a nightmare. His hands were fisted in his own hair, pulling, and even in the dim light, I could see the wetness on his face.

“Brother, please.” It was barely a whisper now, choked and desperate. “Don’t leave me. Jimmy, please. Stay with me. I’m right here. I’m right here, just hold on.”

My chest cracked open.

Whatever wall I’d been building between myself and this stranger, whatever rational voice in my head had been listing all the reasons to get back in my car and drive away, it all crumbled. Because that sound, that raw, animal grief in his voice, that wasn’t a drunk man rambling. That was a man drowning in something no amount of whiskey could wash away.

I walked back to him and knelt down on the cold sidewalk, not caring that the concrete bit into my knees through my thin pants. Up close, I could see the details I’d missed. The scar that ran along his jaw. The calluses on his hands, thick and rough, the hands of someone who worked with them every day. The way his whole body shook, not from the cold, but from something much deeper.

“Hey,” I said softly, reaching out. I took his face in my hands, both palms against his cheeks, and tilted his head up. His eyes were closed, squeezed shut, and the tears were still coming, silent now. His skin was cold under my fingers. “Hey, it’s okay. You’re okay.”

His eyes opened.

Even red-rimmed and unfocused, they were striking. A shade of green I’d never seen before, dark and deep, like the pine forests that surrounded Pinewood Ridge after a rainstorm. They stared at me without really seeing me, lost somewhere between here and whatever hell his mind had dragged him back to.

“Jimmy,” he whispered.

“I’m not Jimmy,” I said gently. “But I’m here. And you’re freezing, and you’re on a sidewalk, and I’m not leaving you here. So you and I are going to have to figure something out, okay?”

He blinked. Once. Twice. The confusion was thick in his expression, layers of alcohol and grief making everything slow and muddled.

“Where do you live?” I asked. “Can you tell me your address? I’ll drive you home.”

Nothing. His eyes drifted, losing focus again, and his head grew heavier in my hands.

“Okay, that’s a no on the address.” I looked around again, hoping someone, anyone, would materialize to help me. The street remained stubbornly empty. “Great. This is great. This is exactly how I saw my Tuesday night going.”

I couldn’t leave him here. That much was certain. The temperature was dropping, he wasn’t wearing a jacket, and he was in no state to take care of himself. If I walked away and something happened to him, I’d never be able to live with myself. I’d be the woman who let a man freeze to death on a bench because she was too tired and too covered in glitter to help.

“All right, big guy,” I said, shifting to get my arm under his shoulder. “We’re doing this. You’re coming with me. And I want you to know that I am a kindergarten teacher who weighs a hundred and thirty pounds, so if you could contribute even a little bit to the standing-up portion of this evening, I would really appreciate it.”

He didn’t contribute much. Getting him upright was like trying to prop up a fallen tree. The man was solid, all muscle and bone, and he outweighed me by what had to be at least seventy or eighty pounds. I managed to get him to his feet through a combination of determination, leverage, and what I could only describe as sheer stubbornness. He swayed against me, his arm draped heavy across my shoulders, his boots dragging on the pavement as we shuffled toward my car.

“You owe me so big for this,” I panted, adjusting my grip around his waist. “I’m talking cookies. A fruit basket. Maybe a handwritten thank-you note. On nice stationery.”

He mumbled something incoherent and leaned harder into me.

“That’s not a thank you, but I’ll take it as agreement.”

Getting him into the passenger seat was its own special adventure. He was too tall, too broad, and too unconscious to be cooperative. I ended up sort of folding him in, one limb at a time, like trying to fit an oversized suitcase into an undersized trunk. By the time I got his seatbelt on and closed the door, I was sweating despite the cold.

I stood there for a moment, hands on my knees, catching my breath. Then I looked up at the sky, where the first stars were starting to appear above the treeline.

“This is a terrible idea,” I told the stars. “You know that, right?”

The stars, unhelpfully, said nothing.

I got in the driver’s side, started the engine, and glanced over at my passenger. He’d slumped against the window, his breath fogging the glass in slow, rhythmic clouds. In the glow of the dashboard lights, the hard lines of his face had softened. The furrow between his brows had smoothed. He looked younger with his guard down, and sadder, like a man who’d been carrying something heavy for so long that his body had shaped itself around the weight.

“Jimmy,” he murmured one more time, so quiet I almost missed it.

I put the car in drive.