Page 5 of Dax (Big Hot Alphas 1)

No, really. Impossible.

And when I ran into Alice the other day and she mentioned that Bailey was coming up again for the weekend—and then invited me to join them for dinner on Friday night, saying something about “the more the merrier”—I knew I was done for.

I understood in that moment that I was helplessly in love with Bailey, and there was no option but to do something about it.

I park the truck in front of the cabin and get out, holding the door open for Bear. After he hops out, I go around to the back of the truck and unload the supplies I just picked up in town—a couple things from the hardware store, a couple cases of canned dog food, a couple bags of groceries. While I carry stuff into the house, Bear runs a circle around the yard and then flops onto his back and starts rolling around.

“Don’t roll in anything nasty, Bear,” I holler at him as I grab the second case of dog food.

After getting stuff put away in the house, I head over to the shop. It’s where I spend the majority of my time. I’ve been making tables for over a decade now, selectively sourcing the wood from the majesty that is the forest around me.

I don’t make the kind of tables I do because they’re trendy or some shit like that, but as luck would have it, they sell. There’s a furniture shop in town that I bring my finished pieces to. That was the reason for the trip into town today—another big ol’ table delivered, one so big it almost didn’t fit in the back of the pickup.

And now that it’s gone, the shop feels too damn empty again.

I put away the supplies I picked up at the hardware store, then stride outside to the area out back where I’ve got a few different stacks of wood waiting to be put to use. I already know which ones I want to use—slabs from a massive cedar tree I felled over a year ago. They’ve been air-drying out here ever since.

I grab one of the slabs, haul it into the shop, set it on my worktable, then go back and get a second one. It’s been a while since I’ve made a bookmatched table, but there’s something about the grain in these pieces of wood that’s just begging to be used like this. When the two mirrored slabs are joined to form a single surface, the effect is going to be something special.

I rip the side of the slabs off with a saw, then feed the slabs across my jointer to clean up the edges. When I get them back on the workbench and push ’em together to check the fit, it’s damn perfect.

This table’s going to be a beaut.

As I apply glue and start clamping the slabs together, my thoughts become dominated once again by Bailey. If I stop for a second and shut my eyes, I can recall in vivid detail how arresting she looked in the firelight that night.

I knew I was stepping into dangerous territory when I leaned in to kiss her.

But I couldn’t stop myself.

And since that moment, my life has felt incomplete without her in it.

What I need to find out, though, is whether she feels the same way.

I tighten the last of the clamps and evaluate the glued-together slabs. There’s nothing more I can do with this tabletop for now. It’ll need to dry overnight before I keep working on it.

I needsomethingelse to do, though. Something to get the rest of this damn unease out of my chest.

I head out of the shop, grab my axe, and spend the next hour splitting logs into firewood. Each swing—each satisfying crack of wood—dissolves some of the tension inside of me.

If she doesn’t feel the same way, she doesn’t feel the same way. You’ll just fucking deal with it.

Daylight is starting to fade when I swing the axe one last time and wedge the blade into the stump. As I head into the house, Bear catches up with me and barks eagerly.

“I know, bud,” I say as I open up a can of dog food and slop it into a bowl. Damn stuff smells like hell, but Bear eats it like it’s candy. “Dinner never comes quickly enough.”

I set down Bear’s bowl for him, then head upstairs to shower off the day’s sweat.

I didn’t thinkit was possible for Bailey to look morebeautiful than when I first met her.

But I was wrong.

So damn wrong.

I’ve just walked into the Cohens’ house. A few minutes before, Alice answered the door, warmly welcomed me in, and lead me down the hallway to their kitchen. And that’s when I saw my sweet girl.

Jesus. Bailey’s eyes are even more mesmerizing than I remember, her smile even more magnetic, her curves even more excruciatingly perfect.

“Hey,” says Bailey, her cheeks slightly flushed as she looks up from getting silverware out of a drawer. “It’s, um…it’s nice to see you again, Dax.”

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