Page 3 of Lumberjack Bride

“I literally just asked you to marry me.”

“It’ll only take a minute!”

“Can’t it wait?”

A little more panic rises in my chest as I rush down the hall. “But it could get all mildewy!” I shout back across the house.

I reach the laundry room and slide the door open and closed behind me. As I pop the washer lid, I hear it open again and Leo follows me in.

“Hazel.”

I turn knobs. I fumble socks. I do anything but look at him. “I think these will have to go through again...”

“Please drop the clothes and step away from the machine,” he says.

“But it has to get done.”

“On Christmas Eve?”

I let the damp clothing slip back into the washer. “You’re right. A good wife wouldn’t have forgotten about it in the first place...”

He takes a step back and sighs. “Is that what this is about?”

“I can barely even cook!” I cry out.

“Neither can I,” he says with a shrug.

“I don’t even know how to sew! How am I supposed to mend your socks?”

“Hazel, I asked you to be my wife, not travel back in time with me to the 1940s,” he jokes.

I exhale hard with frustration. “I’m serious, Leo.”

“And so am I.” He steps forward and takes my hands. The act calms me almost instantly. “Haze, I don’t expect marriage to you to be any different than the way life already is. I especially don’t expect you to mend my socks.”

“You don’t?” I ask.

“I just want you — as you are right now — with me, hanging out, living nice and quiet lives together, making half-assed meals, and occasionally forgetting to switch out loads of laundry while we fool around by the fireplace...”

He kisses my cheek, his beard tickling my skin.

“That’s all you want?” I ask.

“That’s all I need,” he says. “Well, that and Pearl, naturally.”

I chuckle. “Wouldn’t be the same without her, that’s for sure.”

“And later... if we choose to expand our family, we have plenty of room here for more.”

I smile. “Expand?”

“Yeah,” he says.

“You make it sound so business-like,” I joke. “Like we’re opening a second location in Helena.”

“Well, you know me. I like to be the boss.” He wraps his arms around my waist. “Doesn’t mean I’m not open to the idea of taking on a partner.”

“An equal partner?” I tease.