Braddigan's Folly

A hundred disturbing thoughts flitted through Ember Braddigan's mind as she sprinted the distance from the sorority house to the rear of faculty housing. 'Please don't let me get caught, ' she prayed silently. She knew she had no right to ask for Divine assistance; not when she was on her way to steal the coach's underwear Seven years later, now a freelance reporter, Ember is commissioned by her uncle to write a feature layout on a primitive logging camp he bought on a dare. There's only one problem: the logging boss (formerly the basketball coach from Brownsville U.) doesn't want the publicity. And he doesn't want Ember Braddigan) coming to camp and distracting his crew. When Ember arrives in camp, the assistant foreman shows her to her cabin. The cabin walls are bare, save a single shelf above the wood box displaying the cabin's meager homemaking supplies: a tin saucepan, an iron skillet, an antique percolator, tin cups with matching plates and utensils, a box of matches, a soot-streaked oil lantern, a coffee stained hot mitt, a sponge, a threadbare towel and washcloth, and half a bar of Lava soap. "Martha Stewart, eat your heart out." For now, the next item on the agenda was to go to the creek for a pail of water... At the center of the creek, Ember stooped and laid the bucket on its side with the open end facing downstream. With a mighty heave, she lifted the bucket, but the weight of the water pulled her off balance. Flailing wildly, she dropped the pail. Unable to break the fall, she tumbled backward into the icy stream. "Wouldn't it have been simpler to just get your water from the pier like everyone else?" Tall, tanned, and muscular, clad in a doeskin jacket and faded Levi jeans, the sexy logging boss was standing on the stream bank, lounging against a tree. 'Spit.' Here she was, soaked to the skin, dressed in a slicker made for King Kong, and who should appear but a lumberjack that on a scale of one to ten she would have rated a twelve She had wanted her first meeting with the logging foreman to be one that would put him on the defensive. She'd intended to come off as confident and poised. Instead what? She could think of nothing less poised than sitting on her bottom in the middle of a stream... "If you were any sort of gentleman," Ember said stiffly, "you'd help me with the water instead of standing there gawking." Ignoring the barb, the woodsman grinned. "I didn't realize I was gawking. I hadn't expected to see a pinnacle of fashion, sitting on her keister in the middle of a stream Tell me, Miss Braddigan. Do you always dress in rubber, or is this a special occasion?"