I swallowed. “Yeah. Almost back to baseline.” I glanced at Knox. “No more coddling necessary.”
Knox raised an eyebrow. “You’re not out of the woods. You need rest.”
I bristled, but only on the inside. “I’ve been resting for a week.”
Harlow finished his pancakes in two bites, then wiped his mouth on the back of his sleeve. “You should milk it,” he advised. “Once you’re better, they put you to work.”
I smiled. It hurt, but less than before.
Knox’s eyes flicked to my lips, then back up. “You can help in the shop today. Nothing heavy. Sweep, organize the racks.”
My brain immediately replaced “organize the racks” with a vivid image of Knox’s back, broad and bare, glistening in the sawdust-fogged sunlight. I blinked hard and took a sip of orange juice, trying to will my body into calm.
After breakfast, I trailed Knox to the workshop. The place was chaos made sacred—walls lined with tools, slabs of wood stacked in neat verticals, sawdust on every surface like glitter after a parade.
Knox moved through it with absolute confidence, grabbing clamps and sandpaper and a jar of wood glue like it was second nature. I tried to be useful. I swept, sorted the drill bits, even tried to oil the hinge on the back door, but I kept sneaking looks at Knox.
His hands were mesmerizing. Everything about them screamed purpose: strong, blunt fingers with the calluses of a lifetime’s work, veins like rivers, knuckles patched with old scars. I wanted them on me. No, that wasn’t strong enough—I needed them on me.
At one point, he looked up and caught me staring. I froze, broom in hand, mouth half-open. He tilted his head. “You’re doing it again,” he said.
“Doing what?”
“Looking like you’re going to faint.”
“I’m not—” I started, then stopped. “Sorry.”
He wiped his hands on a rag, came over, and took the broom from me. He stood too close, and I could smell him again—sweat and cedar, plus a faint undercurrent of soap. His eyes werebrown, but not flat; there was a fire behind them, banked but alive.
He didn’t move. “You need to eat more. And stop over-thinking every word out of your mouth.”
I tried to laugh, but it came out thin. “That’s a medical impossibility.”
He smiled. It wasn’t much, but it made my chest do that thing where it felt too small for my heart.
“You did good,” he said. “Go sit down. I’ll finish this.”
“But—”
He cut me off. “Go.”
I went, because when Knox McKenzie told you to do something, you did it, and also because my knees were about to buckle.
I sat on an overturned bucket, watching him work. Every movement was exact, efficient. He sanded a piece of maple, wiped it clean, checked the grain against the light, and all the while I imagined those hands mapping my body the same way—rough, then gentle, then rough again.
My face got hot and I pretended to cough to cover it up. I wrapped my arms around myself and tried to think of anything else—photosynthesis, the latest episode of the nature documentary I’d been streaming, the bizarre fact that cows have best friends.
But nothing worked. My brain kept looping back to Knox, to the way his back flexed under the thin t-shirt, to the way he looked at me like I was a puzzle with too many pieces.
Eventually, he finished. He turned, noticed I was still watching, and said, “You need something?”
I shook my head, too quick. “No, sorry. Just—” I gestured helplessly at the shop. “This is really nice.”
He grunted, but the corner of his mouth twitched up. “Most people can’t stand the smell.”
I inhaled deep, letting the shavings and the glue and the musk of him fill my lungs. “I like it.”
He came closer, close enough that I had to tilt my head up to meet his gaze. He smelled even better up close. “If you’re going to keep looking at me like that,” he said, voice low, “you better be prepared for what happens next.”
