Page 50 of Edge of Forever

“Then let’s go chop wood.”

His jaw unhinged enough for him to let out a breath. “Excuse me?”

“You need to do something with that anger and I don’t want you punching my face in. Or my other guest. She’s a sixty-year-old woman with an oxygen tank.”

Logan tipped his head back and couldn’t help but laugh.

“Chopping wood is good for you. Might hurt those sissy writer hands, but it’ll help.”

“I’ll risk a blister or two.” Anything to get the ball in his gut to dissolve.

Richard jerked his head toward the woods. “This way.”

Logan followed him out. The late afternoon sun wasn’t quite as powerful as earlier. He shook off the chill. A healthy sweat would warm him up soon enough.

The older man veered off onto a path Logan hadn’t been down before. An old red Ford pickup was parked at the base and a pile of logs lay on their sides with a small stack started in the bed of the truck. “I saw you storm into the rec area and figured I should check on you.”

“Sure you just didn’t want a slave?”

He gave a booming laugh. “Wish I was that mercenary.” He got to a large tree stump and picked up the ax sticking out of the base. “I can pay you with a beer.”

“Now that I could go for.”

Richard handed him the ax. “Then let’s see what you got.”

Logan curled his fingers around the handle, the worn wood smooth and warm from the dappled sun.

The older man placed a fat log in front of him. “Let the weight of the ax do the work for you. Just worry about your aim.”

The first swing, he took a chunk off the side of the log. It knocked him off center and made him feel clumsy. A few swings later, he hit the center most of the time, and fifteen minutes later he had a sheen of sweat dampening his shoulders.

Richard stepped back and sipped his beer.

He split wood until there was a pile surrounding him. Richard tried to keep up with him, but the monotonous swing of the ax centered him and he couldn’t seem to stop long enough to do anything but set up another log.

“All right, son. I have enough wood for three weeks now.”

Logan laughed and dragged in a breath. “That’s a helluva workout.”

“And you’re going to feel it tomorrow. How are those hands?”

He looked down at his reddened palms and the scattering of blisters where the handle rubbed. They were grungy from the sawdust and dirt sticking to the bark.

But the anger that had been riding him had eased.

And sometime in there, his chest had eased from boa constrictor tight to manageable. When he looked up, he caught a flash of gray in the dense brown of the woods.

Izzy stood at the top of the rise, her favorite sweater fluttering in the breeze, Fiona at her side. He looked at Richard. “Think I could take that beer now?”

Richard looked up the path. “Time to make up?”

“We’ll see.”

The man flipped open the ancient green Coleman cooler and pulled out a longneck. “You deserve a six pack for the wood you split.”

“You saved me from a migraine that was brewing. I’ll take that any day, sir.”

His lips twitched under the heavy white beard. “Get on up there and kiss and make up.”

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