Page 2 of Lumberjack Bride
I fish out the bag of checkers and dump the pieces onto the board.
Leo laughs. “All right. If you say so.”
“I said so, didn’t I?”
We line up our pieces, all the while glaring at each other across the board. I try hard to make my lips stop twitching with amusement but I’m way too warm and tipsy tonight to pull that off.
After spending Christmas Eve with his family, we drove back home for an evening to ourselves. It’s our first official Christmas here in Jackman Springs, formerly Lover’s Trail, the place where my parents fell in love and pledged their lives to one another.
A quarter of a century later and Leo and I have done the same. We’ve lived here for almost a year now and life, well...
They call it a happily ever after for a reason, right?
I glance across the living room at the tree stump in the corner.
Carter + Olivia.
Leo hiked for miles to find it. My parents’ honeymoon tree. He chopped it down by himself, cleaned it, and — after we moved in — converted it into an end table for his reading corner.
I see it every single day and, every single time, I smile at the heart and letters my father carved into it all those years ago. It’s the last piece of them I have left after they died suddenly last year right before I met Leo.
Leo clears his throat and slides a checker forward from his front row. “Let’s do this,” he says, his amused, pink cheeks puffing out above his trimmed beard. “You ready?”
“To kick your ass?” I shift onto my knees. “Come and get it, wood boy.”
We trade moves quickly, shifting and hopping back and forth on the board. For two chess pros, checkers is — as I said — child’s play. I don’t bother thinking five or six moves ahead like I usually do. Every piece in checkers is the same, every movement and rule the same for each player. Until you reach the other side, of course.
I slam a piece down on his back row, my chest swelling with victory. “Boom!” I shout, slightly startling Pearl in her spot beside us.
Leo rolls his eyes. “Oh, calm down. We just started.”
“Shut up and Queen me, Jackman!” I say before taking a sizeable chug from my wineglass.
He drops a red piece on top of mine. “Okay,” he says.
I glance down at the board to see where he’ll move next but he doesn’t budge.
Finally, I notice that he didn’t drop a second piece on top like I thought he did.
It’s a diamond ring.
I blink and shake my head, thinking that my mind has played some devious trick on me, but it never disappears. It sits there, shining in the firelight like a damn lighthouse.
“Hazel Smith,” Leo begins.
“Holy...” I whisper.
“Will you marry me?”
“Laundry.”
He sits forward. “What?”
“Laundry,” I repeat, setting my empty glass down. “I forgot to switch out the loads earlier today.”
Leo stares at me with wide eyes as I stand up off the floor. “Uh, Hazel...”
I hold up a finger. “I’ll be right back.”