Page 6 of Her Grumpy Lumberjack

And his eyes.

God, those eyes.

Deep green and intense enough to melt a glacier.

I suck in a breath and give myself a shake. I can’t stand here all daydreaming about Chase; I need to start fixing up my cabin and prove him wrong. But as I look up at it, I start to think Chase might have a point.

“Nope,” I tell myself firmly. “Don’t think like that. You can do this. Let’s show him what this city girl is made of.”

I walk into the cabin for another inspection, finally getting the courage to climb the ladder to the attic. It smells like decaying old wood, and it’s empty aside from leaves and cobwebs. I’m only five feet, but it’s so cramped that I have to stoop as I squint up at the hole in the roof, looking up through the canopy to the sky above. I gulp as I stare at the exposed rafters, which are covered in bright green moss.

Yeesh. It looks even worse up close.

I take a step away from the hole, turning back toward the ladder. Then, suddenly, the world falls away beneath my feet.

“AH!”

My stomach lurches as I sink through the floorboards, the wood crumbling away beneath me. But before I can plummet to the ground below, my ass saves the day. It’s like a cork in a bottle, too big to fit through the hole my legs have made. Now I’m wedged tight, dangling between the two floors, my legs hanging uselessly out of the ceiling while my top half is still in the attic.

Crap.

I try to use my hands to push myself up out of the hole, but the floorboards start to give as soon as I put any weight on them. They’re completely rotted through. The only other option is to try and lower myself to the floor below, but my butt is keeping me stuck.

Just as I start to think about what an embarrassing way this is to die, I hear footsteps running toward me.

“HELP!” I cry.

“Holy shit,” I hear a deep voice say from the floor below.

Chase.

Oh, God. I try not to imagine how I must look right now with my bare legs dangling out of the ceiling, wriggling around like a fish.

“I’m going to get you out!” Chase calls urgently. “Don’t panic.”

There’s an ominous creak, almost like the floorboards are responding. I try not to move, but a second later, the wood supporting my butt disintegrates. With a pitiful squeak, I tumble through the ceiling and straight into Chase’s waiting arms. He holds me close to his chest and rushes out of the cabin as bits of broken wood and debris shower down through the Sienna-shaped hole in the ceiling.

Once we’re outside, Chase sets me down, and I immediately miss the warmth and safety of his arms as he looks me over, his brow furrowed. “Are you hurt?”

If I thought he looked intense before, it’s nothing compared to how he’s looking at me right now.

“Sienna, are you hurt?” he repeats when it takes me a moment to answer.

“No, I’m okay,” I say. I’m breathing hard, my heart still thumping from all the chaos, but I’m not injured. My butt is a little sore from where the broken floor was digging in, but for somebody who just fell through a ceiling, I feel surprisingly okay.

“What about you?” I ask. “Are you okay?

“I’m fine.”

Guilt wells up inside me as he shakes some of the dust from his hair.

“I’m so sorry,” I say, chewing my lip anxiously. “This is all my fault. I shouldn’t have gone up there.”

Chase grunts. “You’re done trying to fix the place up, then?”

“No.” Despite the shame I feel, determination flares up inside me. “I’m not giving up on this cabin. But you were right—there’s no way I can do it alone. I’m going to need some help.” I meet his gaze with a sigh. “You can say ‘I told you so’, by the way. I deserve it.”

He shrugs. “Feels rude to say ‘I told you so’ to somebody who just fell out of a ceiling.”

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