3. Sienna
3
SIENNA
It’s been at least ten minutes since Chase went home, but I’m still struggling to breathe properly. I’ve been standing stock still trying to recover ever since he left.
Holy crap.
Was he definitely real? Maybe something in the mountain air is making me hallucinate. He must have been a figment of my imagination: I dreamed up the biggest, sexiest, grumpiest, most infuriating lumberjack in the world and had a whole conversation with him in the middle of the woods.
That can happen…right?
I look toward the gap in the trees where Chase vanished and feel a crazy urge to run after him. But that’s not the only crazy urge I have when I think of that grumpy lumberjack. The memory of him makes me shudder, and desire pools between my thighs, hot and wet. He was so big. So strong. I’ve always been heavy, but I reckon Chase could lift me above his head with one hand like it was nothing. He could easily scoop me up and take me back to his cabin…back to his bed…
Oh God, what’s happening to me?
I squeeze my legs together, trying to get a hold of myself. I’ve never reacted like this to a man before, probably because Chase is unlike any man I’ve ever met. He’s so different from the boys I went to college with. Not only is he older, but he’s ruggedly masculine and a little bit wild, almost like he was carved from the forest, his abs whittled out of a tree trunk.
And his eyes.
God, those eyes.
Deep green and intense enough to melt a glacier.
I suck in a breath and give myself a shake. I can’t stand here all daydreaming about Chase; I need to start fixing up my cabin and prove him wrong. But as I look up at it, I start to think Chase might have a point.
“Nope,” I tell myself firmly. “Don’t think like that. You can do this. Let’s show him what this city girl is made of.”
I walk into the cabin for another inspection, finally getting the courage to climb the ladder to the attic. It smells like decaying old wood, and it’s empty aside from leaves and cobwebs. I’m only five feet, but it’s so cramped that I have to stoop as I squint up at the hole in the roof, looking up through the canopy to the sky above. I gulp as I stare at the exposed rafters, which are covered in bright green moss.
Yeesh. It looks even worse up close.
I take a step away from the hole, turning back toward the ladder. Then, suddenly, the world falls away beneath my feet.
“AH!”
My stomach lurches as I sink through the floorboards, the wood crumbling away beneath me. But before I can plummet to the ground below, my ass saves the day. It’s like a cork in a bottle, too big to fit through the hole my legs have made. Now I’m wedged tight, dangling between the two floors, my legs hanging uselessly out of the ceiling while my top half is still in the attic.
Crap.
I try to use my hands to push myself up out of the hole, but the floorboards start to give as soon as I put any weight on them. They’re completely rotted through. The only other option is to try and lower myself to the floor below, but my butt is keeping me stuck.
Just as I start to think about what an embarrassing way this is to die, I hear footsteps running toward me.
“HELP!” I cry.
“Holy shit,” I hear a deep voice say from the floor below.
Chase.
Oh, God. I try not to imagine how I must look right now with my bare legs dangling out of the ceiling, wriggling around like a fish.
“I’m going to get you out!” Chase calls urgently. “Don’t panic.”
There’s an ominous creak, almost like the floorboards are responding. I try not to move, but a second later, the wood supporting my butt disintegrates. With a pitiful squeak, I tumble through the ceiling and straight into Chase’s waiting arms. He holds me close to his chest and rushes out of the cabin as bits of broken wood and debris shower down through the Sienna-shaped hole in the ceiling.
Once we’re outside, Chase sets me down, and I immediately miss the warmth and safety of his arms as he looks me over, his brow furrowed. “Are you hurt?”
If I thought he looked intense before, it’s nothing compared to how he’s looking at me right now.
“Sienna, are you hurt?” he repeats when it takes me a moment to answer.
“No, I’m okay,” I say. I’m breathing hard, my heart still thumping from all the chaos, but I’m not injured. My butt is a little sore from where the broken floor was digging in, but for somebody who just fell through a ceiling, I feel surprisingly okay.
“What about you?” I ask. “Are you okay?
“I’m fine.”
Guilt wells up inside me as he shakes some of the dust from his hair.
“I’m so sorry,” I say, chewing my lip anxiously. “This is all my fault. I shouldn’t have gone up there.”
Chase grunts. “You’re done trying to fix the place up, then?”
“No.” Despite the shame I feel, determination flares up inside me. “I’m not giving up on this cabin. But you were right—there’s no way I can do it alone. I’m going to need some help.” I meet his gaze with a sigh. “You can say ‘I told you so’, by the way. I deserve it.”
He shrugs. “Feels rude to say ‘I told you so’ to somebody who just fell out of a ceiling.”
I snort. “Thanks. That’s very gracious of you. I really am sorry, though. I feel awful for putting you in danger.”
“I don’t care about that.” Chase frowns at me. “I care that you put yourself in danger. You nearly gave me a damn heart attack when I heard you scream like that.”
“I’m sorry.”
I swallow hard and look down at my feet, feeling Chase’s eyes on me.
“You don’t need to keep apologizing,” he says firmly. “Just don’t take any more risks like that.”
I look up at my giant rescuer. His face is pinched with worry, not unlike the expression on Megan’s face when I left Denver this morning.
I really need to stop giving people reasons to worry about me.
“Okay, I promise I won’t take any more stupid risks,” I tell him.
“I’ll hold you to that.”
I take a step forward, itching to throw my arms around him, but I hold myself back as I say, “Thank you for catching me, Chase.”
“You’re welcome.”
A thought strikes me as I look back toward my cabin, where a cloud of dust is still swirling around the open front door.
“You got here really fast,” I say, thinking back to the moment I screamed and how quickly Chase arrived.
“I was near the cabin chopping up firewood.”
Something flickers in his eyes when he says it, and I’m almost certain he’s lying.
Was he watching me? Keeping an eye on me while I was in the cabin?
The thought makes me tingle with warmth. There’s something protective about Chase buried beneath his hot, grumpy exterior, and I feel a rush of affection for him.
“Well, I’m glad you were close,” I tell him. “I owe you, Grumpy Forest Man.”
Beneath that thick beard, I swear I can see the faintest hint of a smile. Those green eyes crinkle slightly at the edges, glinting down at me. My chest somersaults, and I suck in a breath, breaking eye contact before Chase can see me blush.
“I better head into Cherry Hollow and find somebody to help,” I say.
“That’s not necessary. I’m going to help you.”
I stare at him. “I…I’m not going to ask you to help me after all this! I owe you, remember? Not the other way around.”
“I’m not offering, Sienna, I’m telling you that I’m going to help. Your cabin’s in bad shape—worse than I thought. I’m not trusting the job to anybody else.”
“But—”
He shakes his head, cutting me off. “You’re not the only one who can be stubborn, city girl. If you really want this cabin fixed, I’m gonna be the one to fix the damn thing.”
I gawk at him, my heart pounding in my eardrums as I look up at his ruggedly handsome face. His jaw is set, brow furrowed with determination.
He’s obviously made up his mind.