Page 42 of Billionaire Lumberjack's Bride

The extra hour and a half of work I do moving, stacking, and rearranging the fresh and already-curing wood in the shed doesn’t do much to relax the tension being around her all day has built up in me. And by the time I’m done, night has fully descended, the stark drop in temperature sending a chill across my exposed skin.

My stomach growls, imagining what Lyla might come up with for dinner. “What do you think she cooked for us tonight, bud?”

Last night’s meal was…superb.

She tried to brush it off as nothing, but she somehow managed to create real food from the scraps of random things I had left in the kitchen. Maybe having her as a “roommate” won’t be so terrible after all.

I trudge up to the cabin and open the door, but no mouthwatering scent hits me tonight. Stepping in, I scan the small space and kitchen, but the stove is off—no pots or pans out. No sign of Lyla.

“Lyla?”

Whiskey rushes past me and around the cabin, searching for her in the bathroom, and comes back, his brow furrowing over his dark eyes.

“Where is she, buddy?”

I step back outside and call her name into the night. “LYLA?”

It echoes through the clearing with no response, then gets swallowed by the surrounding trees and darkness.

Shit.

Dread wraps around my chest as I descend the porch steps and jog over to the barn. I throw open the doors, but there isn’t any sign of her inside.

“Lyla?” My voice startles Lasher in his stall. I walk over and rub his flank to settle him. “Have you seen her?”

He snorts and shakes his head, almost like he can actually understand what I’m asking. But he likely senses my growing anxiety at her disappearance.

I slide open the back doors that lead to the pens and pasture, Whiskey following closely at my side. “Where is she, boy?”

He tilts his head, staring at the goat pen, and I follow his gaze to find three where there should be four.

“Oh, hell…”

Scanning the dark forest along the back fence of their pen, I can almost picture what happened. Billy must have gotten out when Lyla came to feed them…and that damn stubborn woman went after him without calling me for help.

“Fuck.”

I race into the barn and grab a flashlight from my workbench, then hustle back to the forest edge. “Let’s find her, Whiskey.”

He bounds in front of me, leading the way through the thick brush. The flashlight beam illuminates the rugged non-path into the woods she must have taken, given the snapped twigs near my feet.

“LYLA!”

My voice seems to get swallowed up by the towering pines and firs, but I keep calling for her, trudging over fallen trees and dead leaves, trying to track her path through any small evidence she may have inadvertently left.

Tangled limbs try to grab at my booted feet and hold me back, but I break free and push on, sweeping the narrow light beam in front of me.

“LYLA!” The panic rises in my voice each time I call out for her and the farther Whiskey and I move away from the safety of the cabin. “Can you hear me?”

Knowing Billy, he’ll head toward the river, where his favorite flowers grow along the bank. And they could be miles into the forest if he got away from her when she first disappeared to feed them. That determined little shit likely led her away so quickly that she didn’t realize how far she had gone until it was too late.

My chest tightens more the deeper I get into the forest. Every breath I take puffs out in front of me, the icy air biting at my exposed skin since I never bothered putting my shirt back on. Even my jeans and constantly moving can’t protect me from the bitter chill.

She isn’t dressed for this in that T-shirt…

At these temperatures, hypothermia can set in fast, despite how warm it was during the day. With no moon tonight, it’s almost pitch black out here. She won’t be able to see where she’s going, and this forest goes on for hundreds of miles all around us—with steep ravines, creeks, a rushing river, and any number of living things and other dangers ready to take her down.

Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!

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