“You up for helping?” She shouldn’t rise to the challenge in his eyes, but she really liked him, and that was trouble right there. Despite his outer tough-guy image, he was as deliciously soft as the marshmallows he’d roasted for her that night in her cabin. He was a good man at heart.
She was in real trouble here.
“You bet,” she said, because of course she had to accept his challenge, and she had to think about
something other than sex with Daeg.
He grinned. “You ever use a chain saw before?”
Without waiting for her answer, he produced a pair of safety glasses and leather work gloves. “The new
tools of your trade.”
His big hands carefully adjusted the strap over her head, tucking a loose strand of hair back into her
ponytail.
“No,” she said. “Teach me.”
That was just one more thing she liked about Daeg. You either knew how to do something or you
learned. Can’t didn’t seem to be in his vocabulary. It was that simple.
“This is your kickback zone.” He pointed to the front tip of the serrated chain. “You don’t use this part to cut, okay? You do, and the blade is going to come back at you. Not good.”
She nodded, and he stepped up behind her, his arms coming around her. Heat sizzled through her that
had nothing to do with the summer day and everything to do with the man. One night had definitely not been enough.
“Get a good grip here and make sure you’ve got your thumb wrapped all the way around the handle.”
His hands positioned hers, strong and confident on the chain saw’s grip. It was so not fair that he was so sexy when he was teaching her something. Not when this lesson was supposed to be about safety.
Concentrating would be good.
“How are you fixed for shoes?” He eyed her feet, but she was smart enough to be wearing her sturdy,
sensible boots. They’d survived the storm...well, just barely.
“I’ll do.”
He pointed to some smaller trees scattered over the drive. “Let’s start you on these. Begin at the bottom and move to the top. Branches first and then the trunk.”
He coached her through it, watching carefully as she made her first cuts. To her surprise, they worked
well together. As she limbed the smaller trees, he moved the pieces to the side of the road. The more she cut, the more space he gave her, letting her decide where and how to tackle the branches.
“You got it,” he said eventually. He stepped back and watched her chop another set of branches.
“You’re ready to go pro.”
Forty minutes later, they’d cleared the main area and Daeg was eyeing the leaning tree again. The heat
had his T-shirt sticking to him, clinging to his powerful shoulders like a second skin. When he threw a rope around the tree, the muscles in his arms bunched and she wanted to reach out and caress all that hard steel.
She also needed to get her head examined. He hadn’t shown any interest in making their night in the cabin a repeat, let alone continue with their plan for a summer’s worth of nights.
She should ask him. She was scared.
She focused her attention on the rope instead. “What’s that for?”
“I’m going to make sure the tree lands somewhere other than inside the cabin. Unless you want to put in a new skylight?”
Okay. She was on board with that. She started her cut on the right side of the trunk, facing into the lean, and worked the blade slow and steady under his careful supervision. Soon there was nothing but the whine of the chain saw chewing through the wood and the soft rain of flying chips.
When she stopped and repositioned the chain saw, Daeg nodded approvingly. “There you go. We’re
going to cut her into a V, okay?”
“Got it.” She concentrated on making the second cut. Working with Daeg shouldn’t have been so easy.
They both preferred giving orders, but this felt comfortable, an easy give-and-take that, strangely, had nothing to do with how they’d spent the night of the storm. She liked him, she realized. The blade had
almost made it through the tree.
Her ex had been coming round the motel, pushing hard to get back together, but she’d resisted. Rick
was fundamentally a decent man who had made one terrible mistake. Still, she now understood how he
wasn’t right for her. There was none of this easy camaraderie or trust. So she just wanted to...
Hang on to Daeg. And find a way to make this work.
Hmm...whatever this was. Sex. Romance. A combination of the two. As her eyes met Daeg’s over the
chain saw, she could calculate the odds just fine—and they were low. Maybe too low? She dismissed that; he was worth the risk. She should try a closer, more hands-on approach with him.
In fact, she wanted to try for a relationship with Daeg.
“Daeg—” she said, and his gaze met hers.
The whine of the chain saw changed abruptly, the blade biting through the remaining wood, and the
trunk started to go. Out of time, she backed up, like he’d instructed her, as he pulled hard on the rope. The tree was either heavier than he’d estimated, however, or something else had given, because the tree surged forward, dragging Daeg behind it.
THE TREE MUST have had a core of lead because nothing could have prepared him for the sudden jerk and forward lunge.
The trunk toppled over. The muscles in Daeg’s arms bulged as he fought the pull and burn of the
unexpected weight. He dug in his heels, but the tree was still going, threatening to do his shoulders some serious harm.
No way he’d let go now.
No way to drop it safely.
His mind was racing as he thought of scenarios to shift the weight left or right, anywhere but have it go straight through the roof, but he was fresh out of options. And then there was movement beside him. Dani.
“Get clear,” he roared. He didn’t want her in any danger.
“You have to let go!” she screamed. No. He didn’t let go. Ever. No, he held on as the trunk went down
slowly, dropping loudly through the roof. His boots were almost on the front porch and his chest was
heaving, the muscles in his arms and calves shrieking in protest. As the trunk became stationary again, the weight jerked the last of the rope through his palms, burning them even through his work gloves.
A rumbling moan came from inside the damaged cabin as the tree tore its way through to the floor. He
wrapped an arm around Dani’s waist and led her away. The only thing left to save here was her, because
the cabin was now a total loss.
Not part of the plan.
“Oh, no. That was insane.” She sounded shocked and disbelieving. Yeah. He’d made a huge mess, and
all in the name of helping her. He’d be lucky if she didn’t toss him clear off the property now. His chest was still heaving, his muscles still trembling. The drop was too much, too fast; he should have known better.
“I’m sorry, Dani.” He pulled off the gloves, slapping them on his thigh to shake free the splinters. “I owe you a roof.”
She glared at him. Her eyes said she was furious. He’d replace the roof, no problem. “I’m not worried
about that.” She eyed the carnage. “Much. I know what that costs to replace and what that will do to the insurance. That’s not the issue here. The issue is you. I can’t put a dollar amount on you, okay?”
HE COULD HAVE died.
Right there in front of her and in the blink of an eye. The fear was a visceral reaction, adrenaline
pumping through her body like some kind of sexual rush. She wanted to kill him herself; he didn’t
understand. Watching the tree go down and drag Daeg with it was worse than anything she could have
imagined.
She didn’t want him hurt.
She had feelings for him—and that revelation was about as unwelcome as the tree now resting on the
floor of Cabin Six. Eventually, she’d get the insurance company on the line and they’d send out an adjustor, followed by contractors, and the whole matter would get dealt with and eventually be forgotten.
Unfortunately, there wasn’t a similar service or simple procedure for matters of the heart.
He was supposed to be her hot, sexy distraction from the admittedly low-key weeks of monitoring
Sweet Moon’s front office. Not long ago she hadn’t thought about him at all. Daeg had been her past. Now he was her present and, yes, she confessed, she was starting to imagine a future with him.
She understood all about wanting to fix a problem, but she needed him alive in that future. Not pinned beneath a tree.
She checked him over from head to foot, and apart from some lingering redness on his palms, he
seemed to be all right. A change of mood was called for, she decided.
“So,” she began, taking a step toward him, “what was that about?”
He propped his hands on his hips—lean, sexy hips she’d clung to as he made love to her—and glared
right back at her. “Keeping your roof in one piece.”
“Good job, hotshot.” She gestured toward the wrecked cabin. Not that she really believed he’d missed
the loud crash or the flying debris, but she had a point to make here.
“Yeah, well, I’ve already apologized for that.”
“That’s collateral damage,” she snapped. “I’m not worried about the cabin.”
He leaned closer, getting into her space until she could feel the heat radiating off him. Backing down, though, wasn’t part of her agenda.