Lumber and Lace (Wild Timber Homes: Springwood #1)

Chapter One

Layne

Iguess there’s no such thing as a clean break.

Not when we’d been together as long as Teddy and I had.

I paced back and forth in my living room. Well, my borrowed living room. I was living in a one-room cabin my brother, Jace, had built in the small town of Wildrose Bend outside of Springwood, BC, trying to get my life back together after calling off my wedding.

“The next thing we need to figure out is our car insurance. I’m on yours, you’re on mine. We’ll need to go to the insurance place together to make the change.”

He sighed. “Layne, I understood when you moved your stuff out of the house. I accepted it when you forwarded your mail, but don’t you think this is going a little far?”

I rubbed my temple. “No, it’s not. We split up. Why would you need insurance to drive my car when we aren’t a couple?”

“Babe, come on. We both know this isn’t permanent.”

“I broke up with you on our wedding day. I lost thousands of dollars; we both did. You think I’d do that if I wasn’t sure what I wanted?” I wouldn’t, not with how the guilt was eating at me now.

He laughed.

Actually, laughed.

He was such an arrogant ass. How could I not have seen it before?

I ran my hand over the smooth top of the wooden table my brother had built for this place.

“All couples fight,” he said with a nonchalance that had my blood pressure rising. “Besides, you can’t tell me you prefer working with the lumberjacks instead of in finance. Was your MBA just a waste of money?”

I forced myself to breathe through the anger and the guilt.

Teddy and I had met working for my dad’s finance company.

Dad couldn’t just fire Teddy because he and I broke up, so I’d left.

Teddy seemed to take my silence as an admission and kept going.

“This isn’t you, Layne, you want more than this small-town, redneck shit. ”

Internally screaming.

I had told myself a hundred times that arguing with him got me nowhere, but man, he made it hard some days. As I was about to lay into him, there was a knock at my door.

“Hang on.”

I crossed the smooth wooden floor, and opened the door without looking.

I expected it was either my brother or my best friend, Sloane, coming to check on me.

The two of them were a couple now, so they didn’t surface from the bedroom often, but when they did, it was to hover over me like mother hens.

Surprisingly, it was neither of them.

“Elias, hey.” I stepped back to let all six-plus feet of him walk through my door. The cabin barely felt big enough to hold him. A cold blast of air came in with him, and I slammed the door against it.

He looked the same as always in a thick winter jacket, layered over plaid flannel and jeans, dirt-streaked, and smelling of pine.

He was broad and thick, had the body of a man who was over forty and had probably spent thirty of those years working his ass off at a physical job.

On the other hand, he kept his hair and beard buzzed almost to the skin, and he wore thick-framed, nerdy glasses.

I shouldn’t be noticing those things.

It was too soon after my breakup with Teddy.

I also shouldn’t be noticing because he worked for my brother, Jace, at Wild Timber Homes. I also worked there, managing the office.

“I just need the file for the Beast project. Jace said you had it here,” he said, his voice low, his eyes darting from my face to the phone in my hand.

I nodded, and turned to dig through the paperwork on my table.

“Are you even listening to me, Layne?” I realized I was ignoring Teddy’s voice in my ear.

“I’m tired of listening to the same thing over and over. I just need you to meet me at the insurance place tomorrow morning so we can get this done.”

“We should meet up to talk first.”

I took a deep breath, then another, my eyes landing on Elias as they often had since I started managing Wild Timber two months ago.

As I took him in, an idea hit me. Potentially a really stupid one, but if it got me through this breakup, it would be worth it. “I’m seeing someone new, Teddy.” I blurted it out before I had the chance to talk myself out of it.

Elias jerked his head in my direction, eyes wide behind his glasses.

I mouthed the word HELP in his direction, then put the phone on speaker.

“I don’t believe you,” Teddy said.

“It’s true. I didn’t want to tell you because it’s none of your business, but it’s true.”

Teddy had the nerve to laugh.

Again.

How the hell I had been with this guy for so long without noticing what an absolute tool he was, I had no idea.

“Come on, Layne. I didn’t think you’d stoop low enough to lie to me. We both know we’re going to work this out. You expect me to believe you found someone to replace me in that shithole town you’re pouting in?”

My blood boiled.

He thought I couldn’t do better than him?

I opened my mouth, ready to let him have it, but my phone was plucked from my hand.

Elias flashed me a tight smile. “Meet her at the insurance office when she told you to. Better yet, get there early. Don’t make me ask twice.”

“Who the fuck are you?” I could practically see his trademark sneer.

“I’m the one she upgraded to.” He hit the red button to end the call, and handed me my phone back.

All I could do was stare.

Elias was an easygoing guy. Funny and sweet. Clearly he had another side, and it was the sexiest thing I’d ever seen.

“Thanks,” I said, my voice coming out breathy. I clenched my thighs together as an ache started to form there. I was glad to be rid of Teddy, but a woman had needs. Needs I was very interested in having Elias fulfill.

He gave me a nod and a little smile. “He’s still giving you a hard time, huh? Can’t you just block him?”

I laughed, but there was no real humor in it.

“I wish. Our lives are still tangled together. I’ve gotten almost everything separated without having to see him, but I have three things left to do that we both have to be there in person for.

We both need to sign for the changes to our car insurance, bank accounts, and the lease on our rental place. ”

“Once that’s done, so is he?”

I nodded. “Unfortunately, he’s using my needing to see him as proof to himself that I want him back.” I took a deep breath and sank into a chair. “I thought if he knew I was with someone else, he would drop it. But that only works if he buys my story.”

He flashed me that grin again. “Then we’ll have to really sell it.”