She glances up as if she can feel my eyes on her. “Is something wrong?”
Shit.
I shake my head. “No, not at all. Just…checking the place out.”
Checking her out.
Because my eyes can’t seem to stay off her.
Whenever we’re in the same room, they magically move in that direction, and it isn’t just the vibrancy of her hair that makes my gaze lock on the mysterious woman. It’s the energy she puts out, like a scalding hot supernova in the vast, cold darkness my life has been lately.
But if I keep staring at her, I’m going to make her more uncomfortable than she already is here under the scrutiny anyone new gets in McBride Mountain.
I bring the ladder over to the wall, set it up, and then pull out what I need to place the anchors for the shelves.
Lucky pushes up from the floor and slowly walks over, then runs her hands across one of the shelves, a small smile pulling at her lips. “These are really beautiful.”
“Thank you.”
Her brows fly up. “Did you make these?”
I nod. “Yeah.”
“Wow.” She examines them more closely. “That’s impressive.”
Now my cheeks heat.
“Thanks, but not really. They’re pretty easy to do; just slabs of wood.”
“No.” She runs her fingers over them lovingly, dipping them into each and every hole and divot natural to the black walnut I used. “Picking the right wood, cutting it perfectly so that it displays all of its natural beauty, making it shine like this; that takes talent.”
I don’t know why her compliment affects me so much, but my eyes start to burn and I have to look away.
The last thing I need is this woman thinking I’m so emotionally unstable that simple words like that will set me off. But I am apparently…when it comes to her.
LUCKY
I step back and survey the final shelf Liam just secured to the wall, trying to visualize how it will look when they’re covered with products, filled with Willow’s hard work, but instead of focusing on my new job, on the reason I’m here, my eyes keep drifting to him.
The way his muscled arms bunch and flex as he moves.
How good his ass looks in those jeans…
Hell…
Liam turns on the ladder and glances at me. “The level says it’s perfect, but it looks good to the eye from back there too?”
I’m not sure I’m the best person to be assisting with this, since I have absolutely no expertise whatsoever when it comes to hanging shelves. Plus, I’ve probably spent more time watching him out of the corner of my eye than I have assisting with anything, but I still search for anything amiss.
The only thing uneven is my heartbeat as I watch him work.
“I think it’s perfect.”
The shelf.
I definitely can’t be thinking about how perfect the man hanging it seems to be—ruggedly handsome, strong, loyal, intelligent, intuitive, and downright hot.
Those are dangerous thoughts. The kind that have gotten me into trouble before. The kind that brought me here in the first place.
