“I’m not exactly sure what that means, but I’ll take it as a compliment.”
A small smile graces her lips, lighting up her face for the first time today. “It is.”
I take her hand in mine again, squeezing it gently as I push a stray strand of hair behind her ear. “Come on…I want to show you something.”
We wander out of the barn and behind it, up the slope toward my cabin and the secondary, smaller barn there. I slide open the door and her breath catches. “Is this yours?”
I nod as she circles the partially finished rocking chair in the middle of my workshop.
“My God.” Her gaze flicks up to meet mine. “It’s beautiful.”
“It’s not finished yet.”
Because I haven’t been able to do it.
I made some progress the other day when I woke from the nightmare and needed to do something with my hands, but the intervening conversation with Killian had snuffed out my ability to focus on it without all those horrible visions returning.
“What are you going to do with it when it is?” She raises a brow. “Sell it?”
I shake my head. “I’m not sure yet. It’s…complicated.”
An understatement if there ever was one…
Her brow furrows as she trails her fingers over the partially sanded wood. “A chair is complicated?”
I lean back against my workbench. “That one is.”
“Why?”
Crossing my arms over my chest, I watch her as she studies it. Willow’s story isn’t mine to tell, and I don’t want to scare Lucky any more than she already is by telling her what happened here, or who perpetrated it.
“Lots of history in that wood.”
It’s all I say, but she seems to accept it with a nod.
“Well, whoever ends up with it will be very lucky.”
“Come on.” I push off the workbench and hold out my hand. “Let me show you the fire pit.”
“Ooh, that sounds fun.”
I lead her back down the slope toward the far side of the clearing, away from the buildings. “We spend a lot of time out there in the evenings, especially during the summer.”
“Doing what?”
“Drinking, talking, staring up at the stars.”
She glances up at the blue sky just starting to lighten with the coming of morning. “I’ve never seen as many as I did up here last night.”
“I know. It’s like you’re at the center of the galaxy and it’s spread out around you, completely enveloping you.”
Lucky nods, keeping her head tipped back as if she can still see all of them even though they’ve almost all winked out until later tonight. “That’s exactly what it’s like.”
“It makes you feel incredibly small.”
She lowers her gaze to meet mine. “Is that a bad thing?”
I shake my head. “Not really. At times, I wish I could disappear into them.”
