Page 17 of Axe Marks the Spot

“I don’t have a marker.”

Levi whips one out from the top of his cast like a magician pulling a rabbit out of his hat.

“Hottie nurse gave this to me,” he chirps as I take it from him and pull the cap off.

He points to the side of his cast where there’s an LC and a heart drawn in black marker. “Wish she would have put her number, but I didn’t want to get the cops called on me for unwanted advances.”

I bend down to sign right under where the nurse did. Unlike the nurse, I don’t doodle any cute hearts.

I hand the marker back to him and put my hands in my jean pockets, drifting my gaze toward the clock on the wall above the bed. It’s a quarter to five, and last I checked, WhyAmIHere33, aka Lindsey, has not emailed me yet. I didn’t expect her to reply as quickly as she emailed me early this morning, but I’ve been curious all day if she will.

“How much longer till they release you?” I ask.

“Eager to get back to the woods?”

“You forget that I like the woods.”

“I do, too, but the non-woods are nice as well.”

“Back to this again?” I ask. The last thing I want is to rehash our conversation from the tent yesterday. We will only get the same end result.

“Just looking out for you. You know, you could see if you could get that nurse’s number. She said she works in the ER—you could go find her. Hell, I’d go find her, but”—he looks down at his broken leg, then back to me—“I won’t be having that kind of fun for a while. Which means you can have fun for me.”

His tone is hopeful and, dammit to hell, endearing. I don’t know how he does it. Regardless, he’s still on his way to annoying me again.

“Levi, enough,” I warn in my gruff tone.

“Fine, fine. Don’t go find the hot nurse. But I do have a favor to ask you.”

“If it involves giving you sponge baths, the answer is no.”

“But what if I—”

“The answer is still no.”

He chuckles to himself and leans against his pillows. “Okay, fine. But in case you were worried about me, my friend Sven was back in town for the games, so he’s going to stay and help me out. He’s not going to give me sponge baths, but none of that has to do with the favor I was going to ask…” Levi runs a hand over his jaw, blue eyes staring at me.

“What is it?”

“I think I mentioned yesterday that I’m running a summer program for kids?”

My brow furrows, the words he said while lying on the mat yesterday coming back to me. “And?”

“It’s this once-a-week afternoon obstacle course program that has some lumberjack-type games in it. I need a replacement.”

“Okay, and?”

“Don’t act dumb, because I know you’re not. I’m asking you to take over for me.”

A bark of laughter bursts from my lips, and before long, I’m laughing with my entire chest and stomach until the rough sound echoes throughout the small white room. But Levi isn’t laughing.

I pull myself together and cross my arms over my chest. “You can’t be serious.”

“Serious as a preacher on Sunday.”

“What about Hunter or Jimmy?” I ask, mentioning the other loggers here for the summer.

“They can’t.”