Unending Devotion (Michigan Brides #1)(40)

Beneath the brim of his derby, his face was red and chapped from the cold, but his eyes brimmed with a warmth that brought an ache to her throat. His overgrown mustache drooped as much as his shoulders, as if worry had pressed down on him like a felled tree while she was gone.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, wishing she could turn back the clock. If only she’d waited for Oren to take her to Merryville instead of rushing off. At the time, she hadn’t realized her rashness would nearly kill her and bring trouble to everyone else.

“How are you?” he asked, his gruff voice cracking.

“I’m fine—”

“She’s got a fever,” Connell interrupted.

Only then did Oren seem to take in the nature of her predicament. His gaze went first to Connell’s arm around her. His eyes widened at the lace of her camisole peeking above the edge of the blanket where her coat had slipped away. And then he glanced at her dress puddled on the dirt floor where she’d left it.

“What in the hairy hound has gone on here?” Fury flamed to life in his voice and his face.

“It’s not what it looks like.” Connell slipped his arm away from her, leaving her suddenly chilled.

“I’m not blind or stupid.”

“I know things don’t look proper.” Connell held himself rigid. “But you’ve got to believe me when I tell you that nothing happened between us.”

“I think I remember telling you no one touches Lily and lives to tell about it.”

“Then you’ll be happy to know I treated her honorably.”

“You had her sitting in your lap and were devouring her like she was your breakfast, lunch, and supper.”

“Don’t blame Connell,” she said. If anyone deserved a rebuke for the indecency of their situation, she did. She was embarrassed to admit it, but she’d been the one who’d wanted to be close to him, while he’d done all he could to keep an honorable distance from her.

Oren’s thick eyebrows came together in a furious scowl, one that would have scared the wolves away had they made an appearance.

“He saved my life, Oren.” Everything within her rose up to defend Connell. “If it weren’t for him, I’d be frozen like the ice on the river, and I’d be buried under several feet of snow. He did what was necessary to get me warmed back up.”

Stuart cleared his throat, and when she looked up, two more men had ducked inside.

She tugged the edge of the blanket higher until it reached her chin. “Connell’s a good man, and he treated me with the utmost respect.”

Nobody said anything for a long moment, but it was obvious from the way the newcomers shifted their feet and looked everywhere but at her that they had assumed the worst too.

Embarrassment crashed over her, and she sat forward with a burst of desperation. “Connell McCormick did nothing but put his life at risk numerous times to save me.”

When Oren met her gaze, the anger had fizzled and was replaced instead with sadness. “He may have saved your life, but let’s hope to high heaven he didn’t ruin your reputation.”





Chapter

12



“I’m going to make an announcement to the men at flaggins,” Connell said to the foreman of Camp 1.

Herb Nolan didn’t say anything and instead reached for the whiskey bottle filled with coal oil perched on a nearby stump.

Connell absently tapped the flat edge of his ax against the pine next to him, ignoring the growling in his stomach that told him the noon meal was fast approaching. “I’ve finally come up with a way to get us back on track with production.”

Herb squirted a stream of oil onto the long crosscut saw his sawyers were jerking through the kerf. The wobbling blade stuck for only another instant before the few drops of oil did their job. The men resumed their practiced rhythm, the saw swishing back and forth through the felled tree.

Connell’s trained eye measured the tree, checking the ax clips where the tree had been laid off, the places where the trunk would be cut into sections. Each was exactly twenty feet apart, just as he’d expected.

The swampers had already been over the tree, cutting off the limbs, throwing the tops and other waste into a pile. As far as Connell could tell, the log was an upper—a superior grade. Fortunately, about ninety percent of the logs from his three camps were uppers.

Unfortunately, they weren’t getting enough of those logs into town to the main rail. They’d already been struggling with production, but the week of melting had thrown them back even more.

“I’ve had the icer out every night this week.” The foreman stepped away from the sawyers. “I’ve even kept the contraption going during the daytime so we can haul as many logs as possible. The roads have never been smoother—”

“I know you’re working hard,” Connell reassured Herb. “But we’ve got to take advantage of this weather while we have it.”

Herb nodded, but the crinkle across his leathery forehead was only the beginning of the resistance Connell knew he was going to get once he asked the men to start hauling at night. Maybe his announcement would help.

Just then the bugle of the cookee’s nooning horn called to them above the echoes of chopping and sawing. The men straightened their backs and flexed their muscles before slipping back into the coats they’d discarded after becoming overheated from all their exertion.