7
“How’s our tag-a-long doing?” Candace walked up to where she and Jess were still eating on the log. Beside her was one of the sawyers, a big handsome guy she hadn’t met yet. Candace put enough sarcasm in her voice that Jill knew she was being teased.
Jess groaned as if wounded to the core and Jill had to fight to suppress a laugh. His constant energy and sense of fun was all that had kept her upright through a brutal night’s work.
“I think I’m now the tag-a-long,” Jess whined like an old man. “Jill doesn’t know the meaning of slow down. Picks up technique faster than any recruit who’s ever crossed our lines.”
“He’s been a great teacher,” Jill put in. His constant fine-tuning, even long after exhaustion had them both staggering, had revealed a drive for excellence that matched her own
