Autumn Bliss (11 page)

“Good. Oh, and can you edit Holden Prices off the brochure, too? I’ll get some new ones printed out to replace the ones we have around town. If you can send me that, and the list of where you dropped them off, I’ll handle the redistribution.”

She didn’t have the energy to argue. “Sure.”

Janelle stood, then paused by her chair. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” To prove it, she met her boss’s concerned expression with a forced a smile. “Really.”

Janelle surprised her by leaning down to give her a hug. “We want you here, Mallory. I know it’s only been a month, but we love the job you’re doing.”

Emotion clogged her throat. “Thank you.”

“I mean it,” she said as she straightened. “And, for some good news, Mark said the booths are all done. You should go check them out.”

“I will.”

Once she left, Mallory forced emotion out of the way. Her fingers flew over the keyboard as she updated the spreadsheet and brochure, and sent everything attached to an email as promised. Then she packed up her things and left the lodge.

Her gaze swung toward the barns. The thought of going over to see the work the guys had done made her cringe. They all—including her—were putting so much effort into this festival for a good cause, and one asshole had to come and ruin it with his judgmental, clueless suspicions.

Facing anyone at the moment, especially Mark, made her stomach turn. Janelle could claim it wasn’t her fault and that they didn’t blame her, but shame dogged her heels.

Being that she was still without a vehicle, she headed to her cabin on foot. The garage had come out to pick up her car after Shea’s boyfriend Keller had confirmed the alternator had drained her battery. He could’ve jumped it, but since the alternator needed to be working to charge the battery, she still wouldn’t have gotten very far.

Walking turned out to be a good thing. With each step she took, humiliation faded, and anger took its place.

Stupid small town
. The reminder she needed as to why she wanted out had been delivered tenfold.

She strode across the porch and slammed the cabin door hard as she tossed her purse toward the island. Too late, she saw her mug full of cold coffee from the night before still sitting on the counter. When her purse hit it, the cup flew off the other side and shattered. She stalked over to see dark liquid dripping from the cupboards and pooling on the hardwood floor.

Splintered pieces of her favorite mug lay drowning in the mess. Might as well be her life. The weight of the past couple months pressed down. Years wasted with Doug. Losing her job. People looking at her as if she’d done something wrong. Her car. Her pathetic savings account.

So far, she’d managed to hold it all together with a smile. But now that smile was becoming too brittle to contain her swelling fury.

She spun around as the walls of the little cabin closed in on her. The emotions were too immense to be contained and if she didn’t get out, she would explode.

Outside, she turned the opposite direction of the lodge, and instead, marched along the trail that led toward Levi’s cabin. She’d never been this far before. The twin grooved tire tracks didn’t end at his place, but veered off, up into the woods, and she didn’t hesitate to follow them.

By the time she came across a small clearing that was clearly where Levi cut and chopped a lot of the lodge’s wood supply, she was one hundred percent officially
pissed off
.

There was a large ax propped up against a wide, flat stump. It looked like a sledge hammer with one end tapered to a sharpened point. Nearby lay a pile of larger chunks of wood that needed splitting. She walked over and grabbed the ax handle. It was heavy, but she didn’t care as she lifted it and swung it at the stump.

It missed by a couple inches and the weight of it threw her off balance. The side of the steel head banged into her ankle. She gasped as pain radiated up her leg, bringing instant tears.

“Mallory!”

She jumped about a foot, then spun around to see Levi striding up the trail toward her.
Shit
. She couldn’t deal with him right now. Didn’t want him to see her cry. Besides, the way he made her feel only added to her current frustrations.

“Go away,” she called out.

Adjusting her hands on the wooden handle, she turned back to the stump and swung again. This time she hit it, but the weight had rotated the handle in her hand mid-swing. Instead of the sharpened edge hitting the wood, the flat side of the ax bounced off the stump.

The force jarred her arms and shoulders, making her grit her teeth at the sting.

A moment later, Levi was beside her, his large hand reaching for the handle when she would’ve raised it again.

“Stop.”

She shook her head. “I said leave me alone.”

“No.” His tone brooked no argument. “You’re going to hurt yourself.”

Despite the fact her ankle still throbbed where the steel had hit, she ground out, “I’m fine.”

He pulled on the handle, but she grabbed and hung on with both hands. Right now, it was about the only thing keeping her grounded. His hands snugged up against hers as they faced off with the ax held horizontally between them. The warmth of his skin registered through the seething emotions whirling inside her.

“I talked to Mark,” he said quietly, concern and understanding clear in his eyes.

“Good for you,” she snapped.

His gaze narrowed. A small part of her felt bad for taking her anger out on him. The rest of her was humiliated to know that he knew
she
was the reason for Holden’s withdrawal of support for the veterans.

She needed to hit something. Hard.

Holding his gaze without backing down, she silently dared him to take the ax away by force. He could do it easily, and she actually wanted him to force the physical confrontation.

Instead, he gave a brief nod. “Okay. You want to work off some steam, I get it.
I
don’t want to have to rush you to the emergency room, so let me show you the right way to do it and it’s all yours.”

“Fine.” She shoved the handle toward him and let go at the same time.

Arms crossed over her chest, all her weight on one leg, she waited. He transferred the ax to one hand and let it swing down alongside his leg. Then he walked over for a hunk of wood and returned to set it on the stump, cut side up. Once he moved into position, he glanced back to where she stood.

“Hands like this, then swing back, and around, and bring it down so the sharp edge hits the wood in the center.”

In one fluid motion, he did exactly as he described and split the piece of wood clean in half. Facing her, he asked, “Got it?”

“Yeah. I got it.”

His eyebrow arched at her sarcasm, but she didn’t care. It felt good to not care for once. To not pretend like she was okay with the raw deal life had handed her lately. Felt great actually.

He extended the ax and she wrenched it from his grasp. Only he let go at the same time and she stumbled at the unexpected lack of resistance. His lightning fast steadying grip only annoyed her more.

She stepped into position as he placed a log on the stump for her, then stood back slightly, off to her left.

“No. Put your hands like I showed you.”

She’d seen his swing, and the subsequent play of muscles beneath his T-shirt, but prior to that, she’d been focused on him, not the instructions. She moved her hands closer together.

“This isn’t baseball.”

She moved them farther apart.

“I thought you said you got it?” he huffed as he stepped up behind her.

His arms closed around her, his hands sliding down to adjust her grip on the handle as the front of his body came into full contact with her back. She sucked in a surprised breath and smelled nothing but Levi.

From one heartbeat to the next, all her anger and frustration morphed into intense awareness that literally had her trembling in her boots.

He’d gone completely still. His heat seeped through her clothes. After a moment, he cleared his throat and moved her left hand up one inch. “There, try that.”

His rough voice in her ear sent all kinds of delicious tingles tripping along her nerve endings. Yet he didn’t let go or step away.

Heart pounding, she turned her head far enough to see his face. His gaze locked on hers, a gorgeous green full of the desire she’d desperately been trying to ignore.

She twisted in his arms at the same time his head lowered. His mouth took hers in a wild, possessive kiss that weakened her knees and made her grab on for dear life. His head tilted, his tongue stroking deep, setting off tremors inside her body that begged for release.

It’d been so long since she’d been with a man, and even longer still since she’d felt such unleashed passion. As if he were as desperate for her as she was for him.

As she pulled him closer, the handle of the forgotten ax between them bit into her rib-cage. The painful jab made her gasp against his mouth. It also reminded her of what had brought her to this point.

Kissing Levi didn’t change her situation—in fact, it made it worse. He was just the kind of man she’d stay in Pulaski for.

“
No
.”

A hard shove made him stumble back a step. Confusion and surprise and something else she couldn’t identify dulled the vibrant color of his eyes. She ignored the rush of guilt, and grabbed the ax handle with both hands.

Turning back to the stump, she lifted it and swung with everything she had. The first solid
thunk
vibrated through her hard enough to hurt her shoulders and jar her teeth. Still, satisfaction flowed through her. When she attempted to pull it free for another try, it wouldn’t budge.

Levi stepped forward, wrapped his fingers around the smooth handle, and with one swift, downward jab, freed the steel from the wood.

“Swing it again,” he ordered, his voice rough. “Aim for the same spot.”

The second time, she missed by a good four inches, but who the hell cared? She copied his movements, freed the ax by herself, and swung again.

And again.

By the fifth time, she managed to hit one of the other marks dead on, and the piece of wood split about halfway down. When she succeeded in making it two pieces with the next swing, triumph surged.

Without a word, Levi cleared the split wood and placed another round log on the stump. She worked on that one, too. Her arms burned and her lungs heaved with the physical effort to swing the heavy tool up, around and over her head hard enough to bite into the wood with any effectiveness.

At log number seven, her muscles screamed for her to stop. She dragged the ax free, sucked in a breath to prepare for the next swing, then simply could not muster another ounce of energy. Leaning on the handle, laboring to catch her breath, she took stock of the chunks of wood littering the ground around the stump.

“Done?”

She kept her focus on the wood. “Yes.”

“Feel better?”

Surprisingly. “Yes.”

“Good.”

Now that her anger had vanished, her mind went right back to that kiss. Damned if she didn’t want him to do it again. Her heart rate picked up at the thought of turning toward him, stepping forward—

“Remind me to never piss you off.”

The tone of his voice made her pulse skip. Afraid she might miss it, she quickly glanced up to see his lips curved into a smile.

Oh my God
. And he had a dimple.

Chapter 13

Levi’s stomach flip-flopped when Mallory straightened and stared at him, eyes wide. His smile wavered. “What? I was joking.”

She blinked, glanced toward the split wood, then looked back at him again. Or, more accurately, his mouth. A smile tugged the corners of her lips. “That’s been building for a while.”

Her scrutiny had him reimagining that too-brief kiss and wanting to grab her so he could do it again. His hands trembled as he bent to pick up the pieces of wood and toss them into a pile on the opposite side of the logs that still needed to be split. When it was done, he dusted off his hands, and discovered a full smile brightening her face as she watched him.

“What?” he asked with self-conscious exasperation.

“You’ve got a great smile. You should do it more often.”

His heart thumped as he turned away. “Gotta have something to smile about, first.”

“What keeps you from smiling, Levi?”

Now he wanted to set up a log—or twenty—and take the splitting maul from her. Instead, he slowly faced her, hands on his hips, eyes narrowed. She held his gaze, unapologetic for the question. Anxiety tweaked his gut, but he was shocked to realize it was nothing like the usual body-gripping tension.

Evasion was so ingrained, he gave a slight jerk of his head toward the stump. “How about you tell me what led up to this first.”

“That implies you’ll talk second. Will you?”

He shrugged. When he didn’t meet her challenging gaze, she crossed her arms over her chest in that stubborn pose from earlier.

“Why do you care?” he asked.

“Why do you?” she countered.

Because he wanted to find out more about that Doug guy—see if he was the reason she wanted to leave. Talking about her ex might also take his mind off pulling her into his arms again. She’d kissed him back before shoving him away. This time, there’d be no anger involved, just a mutual give and take guaranteed to light him up like a rocket.

He glanced skyward and judged it to be almost five p.m. They had about an hour before dark, so he gestured toward the woods with a sweep of his arm. “Let’s walk.”

She fell into step beside him as they headed deeper into the forest along the four-wheeler trail. Leaves crunched underfoot, and the setting sun cast long shadows through the bare branches above.

The urge to take hold of her hand made him fist his at his side. Thinking better of it, he shoved them into his front pockets. “So, I know Holden Prices was the last straw…what was the first?”

“The first?” She gave a brief laugh. “Oh, good Lord, how far are you planning to walk? We don’t have time to go that far back.”