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through to the clearing where Gunner’s cabin was located. As before, she saw his battered blue pickup truck, the cords of freshly cut wood.
    Only this time, Gunner was standing next to the stacks. He was naked from the waist up, and his muscular body was glistening with sweat as he swung the hatchet and split a piece of wood in two.
    He bent down, picked up the pieces and tossed them onto the pile.
    Then he turned and squinted at Krista as she drove up to within a few feet of where he stood.
    She stopped the car and parked, then turned the ignition off. The car’s engine died and she sat for a moment, watching Gunner’s reaction to seeing her show up like this.
    His expression was unreadable. He grabbed his t-shirt from nearby, and at first, Krista thought he was going to put it back on. Instead, though, he just used it to wipe some of the sweat off his chest.
    She couldn’t help but stare. Gunner King was sex personified. His intricate tribal tattoos spiraled up both biceps and over his sinewy shoulders. He had ripped and sculpted abs, and his jeans were hanging low enough to see the notches of his hips.
    Don’t just sit and stare like a groupie, Krista , she admonished herself. Get out and do what you came here to do.
    So Krista opened the door to her car and forced herself to get out and confront the most dangerous man on the planet.
    “What are you doing here?” he asked, as she got out.
    “I needed to talk to you.”
    He ran a hand through his hair, causing it to spike up, but somehow look that much more alluring. His eyes were wary and mistrusting. For a split second she was sure that he knew the truth. “I don’t see what there is to say,” Gunner told her. He took the hatchet and chopped it into one of the thick hunks of wood next to him, and the hatchet blade stuck there.
    Then Gunner moved away from the wood, walking confidently across the driveway.
    “I wanted to apologize for the interview yesterday,” Krista said.
    “No need to apologize,” Gunner replied, not really looking at her. He grabbed a wheelbarrow and walked it over to the woodpile. “You were doing your job. It is what it is.”
    “But that’s not really true,” Krista said, her hands twisting against one another as she tried to get his attention. “I wasn’t just doing my job.”
    Gunner started tossing pieces of chopped wood into the wheelbarrow, still refusing to look at Krista as they conversed. “Then what were you doing?”
    “I don’t know. I just know that I wasn’t being myself.”
    Finally he glanced up at her. “How so?”
    Just tell him the truth , she thought. Tell him everything. That’s the only way this can ever work.
    But the thought of it was horrifying. She knew he’d send her away, never want to talk to her again. She couldn’t tell him the truth. Not yet.
    “I wasn’t being completely honest when I told you that I approved of your decision,” she said.
    “Yeah, I figured as much, remember?”
    “But as you were talking yesterday, I started to understand a little bit. I started to get it.”
    Gunner threw another piece of wood into the wheelbarrow. His biceps flexed as he effortlessly worked. “What do you get, Krista?” He looked at her again, challenging her with his eyes.
    It was like another electric shock when her eyes met his. She looked quickly away, unable to make eye contact with him and still speak coherently. “I got that this whole thing must be a nightmare for you,” she said. “I realized that everyone just sits around making assumptions about who you are and why you do what you do.”
    “Yeah, it comes with the territory.”
    “But that’s part of why you want to escape from it, right?”
    “No, it’s not.” He chucked another piece of wood into the wheelbarrow. Then he started to walk towards her a few steps. “Why are you really here, Krista? Huh?”
    She couldn’t look away from him as he moved in her direction. She was so desperately attracted to him on so many