Page 4 of Claimed By the Lumberjack

I grunt. “Great.”

“Don’t you want to set the record straight?”

“No.”

The wind kicks up, rustling the pine trees and tugging her hair across her face. She brushes it back, her mouth pressing into a stubborn line.

“Are you always this friendly?”

“Are you always this pushy?”

“Only when someone slams a metaphorical, or literal, door in my face.”

Another crack of wood. She doesn’t flinch. Impressive.

“You should go,” I say. “Before the rain hits.”

She doesn’t move. Just looks at me with those eyes, brown, warm, and sharp. Like she’s already writing this scene in her head, framing me as the brooding mountain recluse with a tragic past and a well-defined six-pack.

“I came all this way,” she says quietly. “The least you could do is give me five minutes.”

I roll my jaw, exhale hard through my nose. “There’s no story here.”

“Then that’s your quote,” she says, and spins on her heel to head back to her car.

But she doesn’t get far. Right as she turns around, the sky cracks open with a rumble that vibrates through the ground and the rain comes down in sheets.

She yelps, ducking her head, sprinting for the car. I wince as her boots slip on the mud, and she catches herself against the hood.

The woman looks like a drowned cat in a fashion ad. Mascara streaked. Hair plastered to her face. That fancy jacket clinging to every inch of her body in a way that absolutely shouldn’t be legal. I swear under my breath and jog after her.

“You shouldn’t drive in this!” I shout over the rain. “The road could wash out.”

“I’ll risk it,” she yells back, fumbling with her keys.

A loud crack echoes through the trees. That’s not thunder. I turn just in time to see the pine tree, massive, old, and heavy with water, fall across the road behind her car with a crash that shakes the ground.

“Shit,” I mutter, and she spins, eyes wide.

“Well, that’s not ideal,” she says.

I shoot her a look. “You’re stuck.”

“No kidding,” she mutters, brushing wet hair from her face. “What are the odds?”

She stares at the tree like she’s trying to will it to vanish. The rain’s only getting heavier, and her boots are already caked in mud. She’s soaked through. Shivering. I can’t leave her out here.

I sigh and jerk my head toward the cabin. “Come on.”

She blinks. “What?”

“You can’t stay out here.”

“I wasn’t planning to build a treehouse.”

I level her with a look.

She groans. “Fine.”

---