Page 18 of Recluse Lumberjack Heart
"Arm," I say.
"Healing."
"Let me see."
"It's fine, Harrison."
Harrison. Not Aiden. Three days ago it was Aiden in the rain with her jaw under my thumb.
She takes the clipboard and turns for the barn.
"Paige."
"Yep." Over her shoulder. Still walking.
"You didn't come out to the block."
She stops.
Turns slow. The sun's behind her, coming over the equipment shed, so I'm squinting to read her face. I don't care for what I see when I do. No grin. No half-smile tucked in the corner. Just steady green eyes looking right at me.
"No," she says. "I didn't."
"Your job's to oversee my work."
"And you've been dropping loads before dawn, leaving your records in the box, working the far quadrant where I can't see you." Her chin comes up. "You made yourself real easy to manage from a distance, Harrison."
My jaw locks.
"You told me no with a screen door," she says. "I heard you. So I backed off. That's what adults do."
"I didn't tell you no."
"Aiden."
There it is. Quiet. Not a weapon.
"You pulled your hand off my face and went inside. That's a no. It's fine. But don't stand in this yard looking confused about where I went."
Something goes through me that I can't name. Can't defend against, either. Forty years old and a woman half a foot shorter has me standing in gravel with nothing to say.
She waits. Gives me every second.
I waste them all.
Her mouth does something small. Then she taps the clipboard on her thigh.
"Six hundred board feet. I'll get your ticket."
She's three steps gone when the car comes through the gate.
Silver rental sedan. Riding low on the gravel, tires popping on the wash rock. Nobody drives a rental into this yard. Guests go to the distillery parking. Everyone else has a truck older than my career.
The door opens.
My whole body goes cold.
Blonde hair, done up. White jeans. Sunglasses pushed on top of her head. A face I could draw from memory in the dark, because I have, more times than I'll admit.
