. Starting
with Christmas/Winter, then moving on to Autumn, check out the first six books
in this bestselling, heartwarming series set in small town Wisconsin. Meet the Rileys, the Walshes,
and best of all, Butch...a.k.a.
Butch. The mischievous
matchmaker makes a cameo in each story—adding a touch of magic to the lives of
everyone he loves, and even those he's just met.
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 easy, 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.
~~~
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Thanks and Happy Reading!
~ Stacey
