Page 39 of Billionaire Lumberjack's Bride

Whiskey stays at his side, prancing along happily, completely oblivious to the scars his owner bears that I can’t seem to look away from. He tried to hide them in the tattoos—that much is glaringly obvious now—but the way the skin puckers and the strange sheen when the sun hits them makes them impossible to miss.

The intricate sea battle across his shoulders looks so real that it seems like if I reached out and touched it, I would feel the spray of the water and the blast of the cannons from each galleon.

“Your tattoos are beautiful.”

I don’t know what possessed me to say it, but it makes him stop mid-stride and peer back at me over his shoulder. He doesn’t say anything, just stares at me for a beat too long to be comfortable. I brace myself for his anger, foranyresponse, really, but after a moment, he simply continues into the barn as if I hadn’t spoken.

Should I be relieved or annoyed?

It seems with Silas Bolton, I never knowhowto feel.

When he first stepped into the room the other day and said I would have to marryhim, a new kind of fear overtook me. Of the huge, angry man I would have to figure out how to live with. But over the last few days, I’ve come to realize he’s just as trapped as I am.

Whatever secrets he holds close to his scarred, muscular chest, he doesn’t want me to know them. And I have no intention of revealing mine, either.

But I’d be lying to myself if I said there wasn’t some sort of attraction.

That flutter in my stomach when he first approached me at that table in his cabin. The way my body came to life when his lips pressed to mine yesterday at the ceremony. The unexpected tiniest hint of disappointment that hit me when he said he had no intention of ever touching me or being a husband to me in anything but name only…

It should have been a relief because I never wanted any of that. Yet, the idea of living my entire life without that kind of intimacy again makes my heart ache in a way I never could have anticipated.

But Silas doesn’t want that.

He doesn’t want me.

This is a business arrangement. Pure and simple. Whatever fleeting attraction I might have toward the confounding man has to stay buried, along with the reason I’m up here.

I have to stop staring at him like I’ve never seen a half-naked man before and concentrate on the task at hand—mainly lending one.

He walks through the open double barn doors and through the long building to another set that leads into one of the animal paddocks. “On the right is the goat pen, the left is Mae, my cow, and Lasher, my horse. The chicken coop is tucked into the far corner, where they’re protected from predators. If you want to be in charge of getting the eggs in the morning, that would be great.”

“We have fresh eggs?”

He nods. “They lay a lot. Sometimes, I’ll bring some to the closest neighbors or into town if I have too many. But with you up here, that might not be an issue anymore. Can you handle feeding the goats, Mae, and Lasher and look after the animal pens, keeping them clean?”

Mucking out shit—that’s what he means…

The closest I’ve ever been to farm animals was at a petting zoo when I was a child. And now, I have to care for them.

I force a smile. “I can learn, if you show me.”

He makes his way over to the goat pen and stops with his hand on the gate. “Make sure this gate is latched at all times. Billy and Bobby like to run and cause trouble. Mildred and Peabody are older and slow, but the twins, you have to keep your eye on them.”

“Billy?” I raised a brow at him. “Billy goat?”

His lips curl into a half-grin barely visible beneath his beard, which now seems a lot like another way for him to hide. “So, I wasn’t that creative…”

Another crack in that armor.

A tiny one.

Each time the man shows any emotion but anger, I’ll have to consider it a win.

He opens the gate and slips inside the pen, allowing me to follow him, and I pull the gate closed, making sure it latches behind me.

Silas meanders to a small shed in the corner. “All their feed is in here. They get fed twice a day. Every morning before nine. If you wait this long to serve them breakfast, they’ll be angry.”

“So, you’re telling me I need to become a morning person?”

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