I put on the safety glasses Burl had insisted on and immediately felt like a fraud in costume. The drill’s battery clicked into place with a confidence I envied. I lined a stainless screw on the bit, exhaled, and pressed the trigger.
The drill ate air and then wood, catching suddenly, the torque twisting in my palm. I yelped and almost lost my grip, catching myself with a clatter against the post. The screw went in sideways, mocking, its head stripped.
“Great,” I muttered, heat crawling up my neck. “Perfect. Love it.”
I backed the drill off, tried again at a better angle. The screw skittered like it had somewhere better to be. I cursed softly, aware of how quiet the cove was around us—the slow ocean, a bird calling, my humiliation echoing like a bell.
“Having fun?” a low voice asked from behind me.
I didn’t jump, but my whole body sort of flinched in place, like a startled animal pretending to be a statue. I turned.
Gideon leaned in the porch doorway, shoulder to the frame, arms crossed. Morning had cut him into something even more dangerous: clean, awake, restrained. A plain black T-shirt hugged his chest and the ridges of his stomach. His beard caught the light, throwing more copper than I’d noticed last night. Those eyes—wolf-gray, mercilessly attentive—slid from my face to the drill to the screw sticking out at a rude angle.
“Fun is one word,” I said, pushing sweaty hair off my forehead with the back of my wrist. “I’d pick a different one, but yes. Fun.”
He glanced at the railing. “You’re fighting the grain,” he said mildly, like he was telling me something about the weather. “And the bit’s wrong.”
“I bought the one Burl told me,” I said, defensive because I felt ridiculous.
His mouth twitched like it wanted to be a smile and wasn’t sure he should. “You’re using a Phillips on a star drive.” He nodded at the screw head, the shape plain as a lesson. “Torx. Less cam-out. Saves the cussing for when it counts.”
“I’m not … cussing,” I lied.
“You are,” he said, the amusement warmer now. “But quietly.” He bent, slow enough I could watch every inch of muscle and bone make decisions beneath cotton, and plucked the correct bit from where I’d set it on the steps without realizing. “May I?”
Something in me unclenched that had nothing to do with the railing.
“Please,” I said, the word coming out more breath than sound.
He moved to my side. He fitted the Torx bit, checked the battery with a simple click, then set the drill in my hands again. The weight felt different when he handed it back—like he’d transferred something I couldn’t name.
“Stand here,” he said, stepping behind me. I did. The space around me changed temperature. He didn’t touch me. He didn’t have to. I could feel the heat of him, the press of his presence at my back. “Square your feet. Closer.” I swore my soles moved of their own accord. “Now brace the heel of your hand against the rail, not your wrist.”
“Okay,” I said, and I adjusted. The drill steadied.
“Good,” he murmured, and that single word sank clear down my body. “Set the screw straight. Let the tool do the work. You’re thinking too much.”
“Um hmm,” I said, and realized I was smiling. I lined the screw, breathed in—soap and skin and man—and squeezed the trigger.
The screw bit true, clean and satisfying. The sound of it seating—metal to wood, problem to solution—was indecently good.
“Again,” he said softly.
I did. Another screw, then two more, watching the rail tighten under our hands. Sweat ran down my back; a strand of hair escaped my bun and tickled my neck. I moved to toss it back with my shoulder and his voice slipped into my ear, low and unarguable.
“Don’t stop. I’ve got you.”
His fingers found the nape of my neck, not holding—just a brush to catch the hair and sweep it up, a practical touch that felt like the filthiest thing I’d ever been given. He gathered it in his fist for one long, breathless second, then let it fall against my collar. I finished the screw not because I remembered how, but because he had saiddon’t stopand my body had already decided it liked doing what he told it.
When the rail finally held with the stubborn pride of something saved, we both stepped back. I realized I’d been leaning into him by degrees I hadn’t meant to. He didn’t move away. He stood there, big and unbothered, watching me look at the work we’d done like it was a small miracle.
“You did that,” he said.
“We did that,” I corrected, cheeks hot. “You did the teaching.”
His gaze dipped to my mouth for a fraction that felt eternal. “You learn fast.”
Compliments always bounced off me. This one found a soft place and stayed. I cleared my throat, gestured at the busted section farther down. “Think the epoxy will help there?”
