Felled By the Lumberjack (Sexy Lumbersnacks #16)

Chapter One

Brody

Icarefully adjusted my position in the too-hard community center chair, and winced as pain lanced through my lower back. This Chamber of Commerce meeting had been going on far too long as it was, and the long-winded mayor showed no signs of shutting up any time soon.

I clenched my teeth, not ready to give up and limp out the door just yet. I ran a business in this town. Granted, I couldn’t actually do the work my company did at the moment thanks to an ill-timed lower back injury, but it still affected my bottom line.

If we already discussed it, then why the hell was he droning on now?

“We received a small grant from the British Columbia Forestry Association, and thought we could use the money to put on a display about forestry in Springwood.”

My ears perked up. I was a tree faller by trade, a job that had been around for a hell of a long time.

I did everything from removing trees that threatened power lines to building wildfire guards to beautifying people’s properties.

Having my business front and center on a display like that could do more for marketing than a year’s worth of radio ads.

“I’ll need a few volunteers to get the display together fast, since this is a last-minute addition.”

I moved to raise my hand, but before I could, there was a shuffle behind me and a clear but quiet voice spoke. “I’ll do it.”

“Thank you, Ms…”

“Hall. Rachel Hall. I’m a sustainability researcher at Springwood Technical Institute.”

I carefully turned in my chair to get a look at the woman speaking.

I could barely turn far enough to really see her.

She had shoulder-length blonde hair falling out of a loose ponytail.

She wore beige khaki pants, a tank top, and a blue button-down shirt left open over top.

Hiking boots covered her feet, a notebook rested in her hand, and a pair of oversized glasses slid down her nose.

I couldn’t help but notice that all the outdoor weekend-hiking clothes she wore were spotless. She gave off Jane Goodall–if-she-never-went-outside vibes.

“Excellent. Thank you, Ms. Hall. Anyone else?”

I stood, forgetting about the bulged disc in my back, and my legs nearly gave out. “I’ll do it,” I said, my voice betraying the pain I’d just caused myself.

Mayor Caldwell frowned.

Okay, so maybe I’d caused a scene at these meetings a few times in the past. I was passionate about what I did, and anything that resulted in more paperwork just pissed me off.

Bureaucratic bullshit.

But no one knew these forests like I did. I turned my back to Mayor Caldwell, and spoke to her instead.

“I’m Brody Brosseau. I own Two Rivers Tree Falling.”

I felt more like a figurehead than a lumberjack these days, since I was stuck behind a desk. Luckily, I have three great guys working for me, Finn, Reid and Caleb, to keep the money rolling in.

“Do you have time to undertake something like this, Mr. Brosseau?” The Mayor asked tentatively. Clearly not wanting me anywhere near his precious event.

Jackass.

“I’ll make the time.”

******

“Do you have plain black coffee, not a cup of whipped cream?” I asked, leaning heavily on the counter as my back screamed at me. The redhead behind the counter at Oh, Beans! Café rolled her eyes.

“I’m sure I can figure it out. Large, I assume?” I nodded.

“And whatever she wants.”

Rachel had just come through the door and blinked a few times before asking the barista for a chamomile tea with honey.

I paid with a crumpled ten-dollar bill, then waited for the drinks.

It was Rachel and I’s first meeting to discuss things, and I was looking forward to it about as much as a chainsaw to the shin.

We stood awkwardly at the counter. I wanted to shift from foot to foot to burn off the nervous energy, but my fucking back was still killing me. The silence stretched, not uncomfortable exactly, but loaded. I think we both knew this meeting could either be very productive or explode.

When the drinks finally hit the counter, I grabbed them, and Rachel and I slid into a booth near the back window.

“I’m surprised you have time for this, since you run your own business,” Rachel said, pulling the lid from her tea and blowing on it.

The move caused the bottom half of her glasses to fog up, and a smile threatened to spread over my face.

She looked kind of cute like that, in an I would rather die, than admit it out loud kind of way.

I cleared my throat. “Yeah, well, I messed up my back. I’m on administrative duty only at the moment, and I’m bored without any trees to climb.”

“Just a little boy who never grew up, huh?”

I would’ve been insulted, except she smiled when she said it, complete with a little scrunch of her nose. This woman was more of a fairy tale character than a human.

“Something like that,” I muttered, sipping my too-hot coffee and burning my mouth in the process. “So you’re the academic here. Where do we start?”

Rachel pulled a notebook from her bag. When she shifted, the vinyl bench squeaked, and our knees bumped under the table.

“Sorry,” she said at the same time I did.

Her cheeks went a little red, and I liked the color it brought to her face. I liked even more that I was the one who put it there.

What the hell was wrong with me today?

I was letting her take the lead and smiling at her like a teenager with a crush.

I’d blame the painkillers I had for my back, except that I refused to take them.

I gave my head an internal shake. The only way this whole thing was worth my time was if it created positive advertising for my business.

If she wanted to make this whole thing about how logging destroys the environment, then it would do the opposite.

“I was thinking the display could be built around a central theme,” she said. “Something accessible but grounded in current research.”

I braced myself. I’d gotten distracted by her, but I needed to remember that she worked in sustainability, and odds were she saw someone who cut down trees as part of the problem. I felt the shift before it fully landed. Whatever she was about to say, she knew I wouldn’t be happy about it.

“Go on.”

“I think we should look at forestry as a whole,” she said. “Past practices versus present understanding.”

There it was.

I took another swallow of coffee and ignored the burn. “So a timeline of all the ways logging screwed things up?”

Her mouth tightened. “That’s not what I said.”

“That’s what people will hear,” I shot back. “You put past practices on a board, and suddenly every guy who’s ever run a saw is the villain.” The words came out sharper than I meant them to. She was easing into the discussion, but I was already in the middle of it, ready to fight.

This wasn’t my first time talking about this topic, okay yelling about this topic, and it wouldn’t be my last. I was Interior Salish, having grown up in Lillooet before I moved to Springwood.

Ignorant people loved to assume because I was indigenous, I was some steward of the land and didn’t want a single tree cut.

Little do they know that my people had selectively removed vegetation for centuries.

Using small controlled fires to prevent big out of control ones.

Rachel leaned back in the booth, studying me over the rim of her glasses. “Forestry has caused damage. That’s not controversial.”

“No,” I argued. “Reckless forestry has. Big difference.” My pulse kicked up, that familiar heat crawling up my spine.

Forestry was an industry on the decline in this province, and I would be damned if my business would go the same way so many sawmills had.

I wasn’t out there clearcutting, or putting profit over the environment.

But I got lumped in with those people all the same.

“Then that’s what we can talk about. I’m not disagreeing with you—”

“No, you’re condescending me.”

She threw her hands up. “How am I being condescending? This is a public display. It needs to educate people.”

“And it should tell the whole story,” I said. “Not just the part where everyone pretends lumberjacks are the bad guys while they heat their homes with fossil fuels and clear forests to build condos.”

“With this topic, we can talk about the history of the area, the impact of the forestry industry—good and bad—climate change; the list goes on. But we only have a week to get this done. We need to drill down to a central topic.”

I forced a breath through my nose, and we glared at each other across the table.

For a moment, I was sure this was where it blew apart.

Where we’d both decide this was a mistake and walk away annoyed, but vindicated.

I was just some blue collar guy who worked with his hands after all, and she was the academic.

Whose point of view would everyone want to hear?

“What do you propose instead?” she asked after a moment. Her voice was steadier now, less defensive, and the question landed differently because of it.

I took a beat to think. I was so used to having to shout my opinion that being asked outright threw me.

“Showing the past makes sense. It’s an event about the town’s history, after all.

But, if we’re going to teach people, we need to teach how things should be done going forward.

Selective harvesting. Regeneration. Show that cutting a tree, and preserving a tree aren’t opposites. ”

She tapped her pen against her notebook, thinking. My anger dulled at the realization that she was actually considering what I’d said. Not waiting to rebut. Not looking for a flaw. Just thinking.

“We can’t pretend that damage hasn’t been done.”

I nodded. “We also can’t pretend our economy can survive if we stop logging entirely.”

She studied me for a moment, her light blue eyes taking me in. The tension didn’t vanish, but it shifted—less like a standoff, more like a shared problem sitting between us on the table. “Deal.”

She reached her hand across the table, and I shook it. Her grip was firm, her hand soft in mine. “This is going to be interesting.”

She snorted. “That’s one word for it.”