Page 97 of Not Exactly a Small-Town Romance

“She’s off with her future mother-in-law,” I say, propping my feet up on the kitchen table like I can command their space.

“Oh, dear. You sound like that last man I dumped. You sure you’re okay?”

I never said I was okay, but there’s no need to point that out to Jester. “How’s the home front?” I ask. “We had to stave off a call from Desdemona yesterday. I did Kelsey’s work while she rides on a literal horse-drawn cart through a Christmas tree farm.”

“Oh, no. It’s that serious? You know how this script ends.”

“I do.”

“Pooh bear.” His tone is a lament. “Maybe you should come home to Jester. I’ll find you a nice hot starlet to ease your pain.”

“Desdemona has already set me up with Catalina Ferrig.”

“Oh, she’s a firebrand. I’d plow that field if I was into flora and not fauna. You take the flowers. I’ll handle the animals.”

Right. “She hinted at coming back for the soccer scene. She’s worried about the BG we hired since they’re doing the concert film.”

“She mentioned that. I figured you’d have a wrap by then, at least you. If Kelsey’s found her man, maybe she can cut loose.”

Would she? Quit her job for a man she barely knew? My neck flushes with heat as my blood pressure rises. Surely not.

I never intended to lose her for good. Not out of the industry, where she’s so good at what she does. And certainly not in the middle of nowhere.

Damn fortune teller and her road trip.

I keep my voice level for Jester. “I don’t know how it’ll go down, but at least one of us will have to return.”

“Well, I have your backs. Desdemona is none the wiser, and I don’t think we’ll hear much from her until it gets closer.”

I walk to the back door of the kitchen. “Let me know if anything changes.”

“Aye, aye.”

I shove my phone in my pocket. The axe sits on the tree stump. There are a few uncut cross-sections of a tree nearby, more wood than would fit in the fireplace stand.

I push through the door and contemplate the axe. I’ve never cut wood in my life. We sometimes had a fire, but with the year-round warmth of Southern California, a digital flame was far more common.

I lift a block of wood onto the stump. It can’t be that hard. I work out. I can bench-press the equivalent of any woman I’ve carried into a hotel room.

I pick up the axe. It feels good in my hands, hefty and firm.

I lift it over my head and bring it down on the wood with a mighty swing.

The blade bounces off the surface, nearly knocking me sideways.

What the hell?

I examine the wood, wondering if there’s more skill to landing the blow.

I shift the piece so that I’ll hit it at a different angle, then lift the axe again.

This time the axe sinks deeply into the wood.

Okay, then.

But when I try to lift the axe out, it won’t budge.

Shit.

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