Page 11 of Her Obsessed Lumberjack

“You served in the military, too?” I ask.

“Only for a few years. Then I left to become a cop.”

I open my mouth to ask a question, but he stops me, curiosity burning in his face as he says, “I want to hear about you too, Freya. Everything there is to know.”

I bite my lip, shrugging. “Honestly, there isn’t much to tell. I’ve lived in Cherry Hollow all my life. Just a regular girl working at a coffee shop.”

I can’t help noticing how underwhelming it sounds after everything Roman just told me, but he’s looking at me eagerly, like he wants to know more. I tell him about Margot and how we share an apartment. We’ve been living together for a few years now, since we’re both perpetually single.

“How?” Roman asks suddenly.

“How what?”

He frowns. “How is a beautiful girl like you single?”

The way he says it makes me shiver with delight. He says it so bluntly, not like he’s expecting me to thank him for the compliment, but as if it’s simply a matter of fact. I never thought of myself as being particularly beautiful, but when Roman says it as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world, it’s easy to feel like it’s true.

“I…I’m just not the kind of girl guys go for,” I say with a shrug. “A lot of dating seems to be about mind games, playing hard to get, acting cool. That’s just not who I am, and it pushes people away. I can be a little much sometimes, I guess.”

Roman tilts his head, his voice quiet but firm. “I think you’re perfect as you are, Freya. Hell, if someone can’t handle all of you, they don’t deserve any of you.”

His words make my heart swell, and he looks so serious and intense that I can’t help myself. I drop the pumpkin I’mholding and wrap my arms tightly around Roman’s giant frame, breathing in his woodsy scent before hurriedly letting go.

“Thank you,” I tell him, breathing fast. “Nobody has ever said that to me before.”

He touches his chest, where our bodies were pressed together seconds before. Despite his grumpy, stoic expression, there’s a twinkle in his eyes as he says, “You don’t need to thank me. It’s just the truth.”

I beam at him, warmth rushing through my veins. My excitement makes me loud, and I chatter away about Halloween and all my favorite things to do in the fall. But Roman doesn’t seem to mind that I’m babbling. He listens intently, nodding along like everything I say is the most interesting thing he’s ever heard.

“Something I’ve always wanted to do is make my own pumpkin pie,” I say as we continue winding our way through the gourds. “My grandma’s was amazing, but I never got the recipe.”

“I know a thing or two about pumpkin pie,” Roman says, pushing the wheelbarrow ahead of us. My mind goes blank for a minute as I stare at his thick forearms, and it takes me a moment to process what he said.

“You do?”

“I make one for Chloe every year. I can show you how to do it, but we’ll need sweet pumpkins for pie, not decorative ones.”

I follow him to a row of smaller gourds. He lets me choose a couple and bends down to cut them for me, adding them to the wheelbarrow.

“Perfect!” I clap my hands together as I inspect our haul. “Let’s go make pumpkin pie!”

Roman smiles at me slightly. “Want to make it back at your apartment?”

“No, let’s go to your place.”

I’m curious to see where Roman lives, and baking pumpkin pie together will be the perfect opportunity to see his home. There’s so much more I want to know about this rugged lumberjack, and as we head back to his truck, butterflies fill my stomach, dancing inside me like fallen leaves in the wind.

7

ROMAN

“I love these woods,”Freya says, sighing happily as we drive through the swirling fall colors. “They’re so pretty!”

I’m starting to realize that Freya loves most things. She’s full of excitement, easily swept up by it, and it’s sweet as hell to see her chocolate-brown eyes light up like candles. I’m still not sure how I convinced this young beauty to come out with me, but I never want today to end. I haven’t had a single flashback all morning, and my bad memories are being held back, drowned out by Freya’s sweet voice. I love listening to her talk.

When she hugged me, I nearly lost it. My cock is still throbbing beneath my boxers, hard as rock from the memory of her curves pressing against me. I want Freya more than I’ve ever wanted anything. I want to make her mine in every way. But in the back of my mind is a niggling reminder that I’m just a grumpy old man full of baggage and trauma, while Freya is young and sweet as pumpkin pie. The thought hangs over me like a dark cloud, but I do my best to ignore it.

When we pull up outside my cabin a few minutes later, Freya gasps with delight, and I follow her gaze, trying to see my home through her eyes. It’s a modest-sized log cabin with a gable roof and smoke puffing from the chimney. Sugar Creek runsalongside it, filling the clearing with the sound of rushing water. Trees surround my home on all sides, their fiery leaves shaking in the breeze as the scent of wood smoke drifts through the air.

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