Page 2 of No Axe to Grind (Ashwood Falls #1)

Tessa

D amn, this chainsaw is heavy.

People brag about chainsaws like they’re some badass tool of empowerment—rev the engine, swing the blade, become the heroine in your own final girl horror story. No one tells you they weigh about the same as a toddler and have all the grace and charm of a rampaging bull.

In hindsight, maybe telling the guy at the hardware store to "give me the biggest one you’ve got" wasn’t my finest moment. But it felt right at the time. Bold. Powerful. Now? It feels like a full-body punishment.

“Why the hell is this thing so damn heavy?” I mutter, slipping on a patch of ice. My faux-fur-lined suede booties—adorable but built for boutique shopping, not snow trekking—skid out from under me. Arms flail, and I manage not to face plant by pure miracle and caffeine.

The surrounding forest is silent except for the crunch of snow underfoot and the occasional creak of tree limbs bowing under the weight of January.

I had to park way back on the side of the road because the old trailhead was too snowed in to risk my Corolla, but I definitely don’t remember trekking this far in during that summer.

Everything looks different when you’re hauling a chainsaw in the freezing cold, powered by your anger like a backpack full of bricks.

Another gust of cold slithers down my coat collar, reminding me why normal people don’t go traipsing into the Alaskan woods at seven in the morning with a gas-powered vendetta.

But I am not normal people.

I am Tessa Renner, recently humiliated, freshly single, and irrationally determined to demolish a heart-shaped carving engraved into a perfectly innocent tree.

I mean, sorry in advance, Mr. Tree. You didn’t ask for any of this.

You were just minding your own chlorophyll business when Kyle and I turned you into a symbol of our doomed romance.

I know it’s up here somewhere—the tree with the initials.

K+T

One stupid letter for him, one stupid letter for me, etched into bark three summers ago during a stupidly romantic hike that ended with a kiss and me thinking I’d found forever.

Spoiler alert: forever ended in an office at the Juneau Community Center last week, complete with my former fiancé’s pants around his ankles and his new "assistant" squealing like she’d won a prize on The Price is Right.

I didn’t even get to throw something dramatic.

I just stood there in the doorway, paralyzed, holding a box of engagement cupcakes like some kind of tragic dessert fairy.

Vanilla with raspberry filling. The frosting piped into delicate little hearts that mocked me with every swirl.

I had spent hours on them, hand-mixing the batter, adjusting the flavor just right, because I wanted them to taste like forever. Instead, they tasted like betrayal.

“What are you doing here? It’s not what it looks like,” he’d said, tripping over the office chair like a cartoon villain caught mid-heist.

“Right. Because when someone is clearly inside someone else, what it looks like is pretty much exactly what it is.”

His belt was undone, his shirt misbuttoned, and he had the audacity to look offended— offended!

—that I didn’t buy his pathetic little line.

The assistant, bless her delusional heart, tried to cover herself with a clipboard like that was going to undo the fact I just saw her bare ass next to his computer.

I didn’t scream. I didn’t cry. I just turned around and walked out.

If I’d stayed one more second, I might’ve used the cupcakes as a weapon.

I blink out of the memory and grip the chainsaw tighter. My fingers are already aching from the cold and weight of this thing, and my coat’s hood keeps falling over my eyes. I shove it back with a huff.

“Find the damn tree. Cut the damn tree down. Then I get coffee,” I tell myself like a deranged lumberjack Snow White.

A bark echoes in the distance, sharp and sudden, bouncing off the trees like a warning shot.

I freeze mid-step, one suede bootie perched awkwardly on a large boulder.

Another bark follows—closer this time—and then a third, louder and more persistent, like someone’s off-leash shepherd just spotted a moose.

My stomach tightens as the realization hits me. Barking could mean dogs. Or it could mean something with more teeth and fewer boundaries. Still, I press forward, squinting into the snow-dappled pines. As long as it’s not wolves or coyotes—or worse, wolves riding coyotes—I’ll be fine. Probably.

My head snaps up. “Please don’t be wolves,” I whisper. “I have a weapon!” I shout into the trees like they care.

Which is technically true. Though at this point the chainsaw is more likely to chew off my foot than defend me.

I push deeper into the woods, scanning trunks, my breath coming in fast little clouds. There are a hundred trees out here. Maybe more. They all look like they belong on a postcard. Which would be great if I weren’t on a revenge mission.

Then I see it. Tucked just off the path, marked by the same crooked branch that snagged my hair that first day, stands the tree. Tall. Solid. Stupidly majestic in the golden morning light. And right there, halfway up the bark, is the scarred outline of a heart with our initials.

K. For Kyle.

T. For too-stupid-to-see-it-coming.

I stare at it, hands shaking. "You absolute bastard," I whisper, raising the chainsaw—then immediately wince.

"Sorry. Not you," I murmur to the tree. "You're a victim in all this.

Collateral damage. Honestly, you probably deserve better than me coming at you with a chainsaw and unresolved emotional baggage, but here we are. "

I pull the cord, and it just sputters.

I frown at it, and glance around like someone might appear out of the trees and offer assistance. No such luck. I'm apparently the only humiliated woman out here trying to chop down a tree.

I awkwardly brace the chainsaw against my knee the way the YouTube guy did, grip the handle, and yank the cord like I’m trying to start a damn lawn mower from hell.

It sputters again, coughs like it has a cold, then dies.

I yank the cord again. Nothing.

I check the switch. It’s on. I think. I twist a knob that might be the choke. Or not. I really should’ve read the manual instead of just watching Chad the Chainsaw Guy explain it in seven minutes and a lot of finger pointing.

“This is what I get for choosing chaos,” I mutter. “Brand new chainsaw, fresh from the box, and I can’t even get it to start. Classic Tessa.”

“Oh, come on, you traitorous piece of shit!” I stomp my foot and nearly fall over again. “All I want to do is see a stump here where there is a tree. Is that too much to ask?”

I finally get it started, and the engine roars to life with a guttural growl that makes me feel like some kind of feral lumber princess.

I blink at it in surprise, clutching the handle like I’ve just harnessed the power of the gods.

Chad the Chainsaw Guy might actually know what he was talking about.

I laugh, a little giddy, a little unhinged.

"Okay. Alright. Let’s do this."

I march over to the base of the tree like a woman possessed, plant my feet, lower the blade to the trunk, and pause dramatically—mostly because I have no idea what I’m doing. Should I be wearing goggles? Should I be yelling 'timber'? Is there a specific side I’m supposed to cut first?

Too late now.

I take one last look at the initials and snarl, "This is for the time you said my lasagna was 'a little bland' in front of your mother."

Then I hack at the base like someone who absolutely, one hundred percent, has no exit strategy for when a full-sized tree decides to fall in any direction it damn well pleases.

“People usually start with smaller projects. Like birdhouses,” a deep voice says behind me.

I shriek like I’ve just seen a ghost—or a yeti—and the chainsaw sputters to a stop, falling straight onto my foot with the grace of a sack of potatoes.

I yelp again, this time less horror-movie and more cartoon-character-stepping-on-a-rake, and hop backward on one leg while clutching my now-throbbing toes.

"Ow ow ow ow! Shit!" I hiss, doing a little snowbank two- step like that’ll make the pain go away. So much for dramatic revenge. I’m out here losing a foot and the moral high ground.

There, towering at the edge of the clearing, is a man. Not just a man—a mountain. Broad shoulders wrapped in flannel, snow-dusted beard, expression somewhere between suspicion and amusement.

Beside him are two dogs. One black, one reddish-brown, both staring at me like I might be rabid.

“What are you doing to my tree? Are you lost?” he asks.

“No,” I say, chest heaving, cheeks flushed, toe still throbbing. “I’m taking down this monument of betrayal. It’s symbolic. Cathartic. And mildly dangerous, apparently.”

His eyebrow lifts, clearly torn between calling the cops or calling a therapist. “Honest.”

I square my shoulders like I haven’t just assaulted my own foot with a chainsaw. “It’s my tree. Well, not technically mine. But metaphorically.”

He glances at the chainsaw. “You planning on cutting the whole thing down?”

I cross my arms. “I was going to, but now I'm thinking better of it. I suppose I'll do just the heart. The tree can live its best life without Kyle and Tessa scarring it forever.”

One of the dogs trots forward, ears perked, and sniffs the chainsaw suspiciously before sneezing. The other follows, circling around me once, tail swishing like I’m something between a squirrel and a cautionary tale.

The man steps closer now, boots crunching softly in the snow. "You okay?" he asks, voice quieter, less amused.

I glance down at the chainsaw, then at my sore foot, then back up at the bearded stranger and his judgmental sidekicks. "Define 'okay,'" I say. "If you're asking if I still have all my limbs and haven't cried yet today—yes. Technically."