11. CONOR

CHAPTER 11

CONOR

" I t's a great day to split you up." I rub my gloved hands together and grab my Stihl ax, hoisting it on my shoulder as I consider the massive block of wood that took me all morning to saw out of a tree, and then haul to my chopping block. I probably sound like a horror movie villain with the laugh that escapes from my throat, but I'm just excited to use all my strength without restraint.

This is literally my favorite thing to do away from an ice rink ever since retirement. It's a great workout and it also helps me work through whatever is occupying my mind. And right now, it's a certain event I have to pull off with a certain woman.

I plant my boots at a good distance from each other and from the wood, and drop my ax with the power of my entire body. The hilt buries itself with a satisfying thunk and I already see the first crack. With a jerk to the side, I free my axe and repeat the process.

My plan after this is taking a shower to wash off the sawdust, dirt, and sweat from the morning run and the tree felling. Then I'll have the world's biggest breakfast—I have bacon in the oven that is calling my name. Then I'll bundle up the chopped wood and take it to Gramps and some of our neighbors. After that, I'm hitting the town to scout some potential venues if Conrad's Rink doesn't work out. And after that, I'll watch tonight's game that will feature Max's team versus Nate's—should be fun.

Tomorrow is Sunday, so it's not like we'll be able to schedule any visits, but having a finalized list of vendors should help us make all the calls we need starting Monday morning. And once I send it to Sierra, I'll ask her if she wants to get together tomorrow after church to get started on all the manual work this whole thing will require.

I've offered my cottage as headquarters for the operation, since it turns out she lives with her parents. Needless to say, I spent all last night cleaning and making sure the place doesn't look like a frat house.

Besides, it'll be cozier with freshly split wood burning in the fireplace.

After three more hacks, the wood splits in two and I shove one half off so I can work on turning the other one into decent sized logs. The more I split, the easier it gets until I can drop the ax down one handed. I rest the ax against the chopping block and walk around it to haul the other half back on top. It's damn heavy and tears a series of grunts out of me.

"Whew." I make a pause to remove my glasses and pull up the hem of my shirt. The outside is all grimy and so is the shirt's neck area, so all I have left to clear the sweat off my eyes is the inside of my shirt.

A cough echoes around me.

I lift my head.

Am I hallucinating? Why is Sierra Fernandez standing some three yards away from me? And also why is she looking down?—

Oh. Right. Lifted shirt .

"You have abs."

"So have you," I return like a clown. "Everybody has abs."

She snorts and folds her arms. "Well, mine don't look like that."

My lips twitch and I make a show of looking down at my stomach. "You mean other people aren't as hairy?" It's not like I'm covered in a thick carpet of hair, but there's no doubt I'm healthy on the testosterone.

She doesn't respond right away and instead squints, still giving her full focus to my stomach as I wipe my face with my shirt. "Eight? Who the hell has eight abs? And why do you even need all of those?"

"To split wood?" I suggest, finally pulling my shirt down and putting my glasses back on. My muscles complain as I bend down to pick up my ax. "What brings you here this early?"

That said, I get back to work on the last half. I think she tries to talk but gives up against all the noise. This time it takes three good thwacks to split the massive chunk and I make a pause just to gather my breath.

"Well?"

Sierra shuts her mouth tight and blinks fast. There's something in her expression that I like. A lot. It's almost enough to wipe off any trace of exhaustion in my muscle fibers. As if my body were priming me for something I have no business thinking about with my coworker.

"Um." She clears her throat and it makes her cough. "Right. You said we could use your shed to store stuff and I have a loaded truck…"

"Oh, yeah. Let me help you." I bury the ax into the wood and pull off my gloves.

"You should just finish what you're doing."

I pause. "I don't want you to waste your time standing there, though. "

"It's not a waste, trust me." Is it just me, or is her voice raspier? "Watching you is giving me an idea."

There's no way she's hitting on me because basically until a week ago, she hated my guts. So, the only way I can deal with this sudden desire for her to actually hit on me is by joking.

I place one arm across my chest and the other hand to hide my crotch. "Are you objectifying me?"

"What?" The question comes out shrill and her face reddens. "No! I was thinking about ax throwing, you dork."

Well, that's disappointing. I drop my hands and walk over to her, pretending like I'm not a bit hurt.

"What do you mean?"

"We should have a ridiculous booth like throwing an ax to a row of gingerbread cookies."

"That sounds weird enough that I'm sure Richard will love it." Our boots scrunch against the dry gravel. As we head to the driveway, I ask her, "How many axes are we talking about?"

"I guess two if we're pairing everyone up."

"Then I got it covered."

Sierra looks up at me. "I knew you had a lumberjack look but I didn't know you actually were one."

"It's kinda new." I shrug. "I bought this land after retiring because I wanted to be far from all the eyes, and ended up surrounded by trees instead."

"So you decided to kill them?" Her voice is teasing so I don't take it too seriously.

Yet, I still give a serious answer. "Hey, I'll have you know I'm the sole provider of firewood for five families plus myself."

"That's actually cool, not gonna lie."

I put a hand on my chest. "Two compliments in one day? My heart can't take it."

"Two?" She frowns.

"This plus all the admiration to my abs. "

"I wasn't—" She splutters and coughs. "I wasn't admiring them."

"Sure…" I drag the word out and it fades not because I'm done teasing her, but because I've set sight on her truck. "What the hell, woman? Did you cram the whole store in there?"

"Kind of?" She all but skips over to lift one end of the tarp that protected everything from the elements, and it's almost like opening Pandora's box. There's an explosion of tinsel, garland, and some oversized candy canes underneath. "Ta da! I got everything I could and it's not just decorations, there's also crafts stuff. The only thing I couldn't get was that big velcro tree, some asshole bought it before me."

I laugh. "I'm the asshole. It's in my shed."

"Oops." Sierra grins at me.

"Okay so, if you want to start bringing in a few light stuff, the shed's in the back."

"I saw it," she says. "It was behind this lumberjack chopping wood like it's the eighteen hundreds."

I ignore her. "I'm gonna go get some baskets to get all this stuff."

"Roger that." She opens the trunk and hoists herself on it with her arms until she sits on the popped door. I watch in amusement how she swivels around and stands up to push some shopping bags toward the edge. Then she repeats the process going down.

This will take all day if left to her own devices.

Shaking my head, I walk ahead of her to open the shed. I pull up the two rough hewn baskets I use to cart around the wood logs. I'm sure something will fit in them.

Sierra pops her head in, curls falling all over her shoulders. "Is this where you keep all the dead bodies?"

"Sure, if by dead bodies you mean more wood, tools, and hockey equipment," I answer with a deadpanned expression.

"Surprisingly boring for a man cave." She huffs as she puts the shopping bags right beside the massive velcro Christmas tree.

"I don't know what you were expecting and I won't ask." Snorting, I turn around and head back out to her truck. I don't need to do the whole process she executed earlier. Rather than that, I toss the baskets in and just hoist myself up with one hand. Unless Sierra had help, it must've taken her an hour to load all this junk in.

"Huh. Since you're there, just pass me stuff," she says from a distance still.

"Sure." I test a few of the bags and boxes to find the lightest stuff and pass it over to her. While she's on her way to the shed, I grab the heavier stuff and fill up one basket with bags, and haul a box over my shoulder.

I'm pushing everything against a wall in the shed after our second trip, when I hear the noise of an engine. I figure it's not Sierra leaving, since we have more shit to offload. But then I walk over to the driveway and freeze, torn between horror and amusement.

Gramps is getting out of his neighbor's car and spots the lonesome woman right away. "What do we have here? A female in my grandson's property? Are my eyes deceiving me?"

Something like a mewl comes out of my throat. I'd be open to the idea of a black hole swallowing me whole right about now.

"Oh, hi." Sierra leaves the shopping bags on the ground and straightens up. "Grandson, you said?"

"That's right." Gramps offers his hand for Sierra to shake and she returns the gesture. "Conrad Mahoney, but call me Gramps. And that's Frank behind the wheel, my neighbor."

Frank is an even more sour old man than Gramps, and he's glad to ignore the rest of us from his car.

"Lovely to meet you, I'm Sierra Fernandez. I work with your grandson. "

"Just that? A bummer. He's single, you know?"

"Gramps," I bark the word to try to stop him. It doesn't so I hurry the hell up.

"Has been for three years," he keeps saying, "ever since that awful Nikki."

Slowly, Sierra turns to cock an eyebrow at me. "So awful, am I right?"

I finally reach them. After waving my hand at Frank, I turn to the other two. "Gramps, why are you here at this time? Is everything okay at the rink?"

"Very pretty, I'll give her that," the old man says, ignoring me as if I didn't exist. "But a real succubus, if you catch my drift."

Finally, I grab him by the shoulders. "Can we please not talk about Nikki—ever?"

"Bah." He shrugs himself off my hold. "You're always can we not this, can we not that. Let an old man live before life takes him."

I'm whining now. "Gramps. You're killing me here. Is there something wrong?"

He folds his arms. "Nothing wrong. I came to bring you the casserole and cornbread leftovers you were supposed to pick up."

"Crap." I run a hand through my damp hair. "Sorry, Gramps. This week has been so intense working with Sierra that all I could do every night was just come home and crash."

"Just worked?" He looks between us.

Sierra nods with shocking seriousness. "Just worked."

"Boo. When I was your age, I misbehaved some. Enough to get me a son out of it."

"Where are those leftovers?" I take to ignoring him now.

Sierra bursts out laughing. She clutches her belly and lets out a loud, hearty laugh that fills the air with feminine notes. Even Gramps is as enchanted as I am .

That is, until he finds me about to drool and smirks. I duck from his view and open the passenger door of Frank's car to grab two massive containers. The blast of country music inside is all the greeting I get from Gramps's neighbor.

Straightening, I shake my head at my old man. "Gramps, this will feed an army. Did you leave some for yourself?"

"I'm tired of eating it already. Besides, now you can share with Sierra here." He gives an exaggerated wink that makes her chuckle again.

I hope she just thinks he's kidding, because he's not. If I don't separate these two as soon as possible, he's going to start babbling who knows what incriminating pieces of Conor Mahoney trivia to this woman in a misguided attempt to make her fall for me.

"Great, can you please put this in my fridge and go?" I push the containers against his chest. "I'm afraid Sierra and I still have some work to finish so…"

Gramps lowers his voice, which doesn't mean much when he has megaphones for lungs anyway. "Conor, how can you be so filthy when you have female company over? I thought I taught you better."

I can't stand the burning in my face anymore so I give up. "Fine, keep embarrassing me. I'm going to finish chopping wood for all I care." With one last glare at the two of them, I walk back to my chopping block.