“Call me old-fashioned, but I love the idea of an heirloom.” Her eyes flicker. “Show me your favorite design.”
A warmth spreads through me.
I scroll to the design I like best: a curved, sleigh-bed-style crib, mahogany, clean lines.
“I love it,” she says.
“I’ll draw up plans and show you.”
She reaches out and squeezes my arm—a simple touch that hits with the force of something we haven’t lived yet— but will.
Her gaze drifts around the workshop again, taking in the beams I built, the polished wood, the chair I carved. Then her hand slides over the rocking chair’s armrest, fingers following the grooves.
“You’re really good at this,” she says. “I feel like I’m seeing a whole new side of you.”
I swallow hard. “Probably my better side.”
She laughs softly. “I like all the sides.”
I’ve opened up a lot, and I don’t know if she’s aware, but those words stitch me back together.
We stand in silence for a beat before she hitches her thumb over her shoulder. “I gotta run. See you later.”
“Sure. Have fun.”
She holds my gaze a moment longer than necessary, and neither of us looks away.
The workshop falls quiet again, but it’s not the same quiet as before she walked in. This one is charged with heat.
“Right then…” she gives me one last smile. “See ya.”
She turns and leaves.
I plant my hands on the workbench and stare at the empty doorway.
My control has never slipped like this before.
I drag a hand over my jaw, feeling the scrape of stubble under my palm.
This woman is moving things I don’t usually lose track of.
12
My first weekendin Echo Valley, I stayed busy.
Lara and I ate our way through town, binge-watched K-dramas, read in the nook at Pages and Perks, and finally locked in the design for the breast-cancer-charity website now that her funding has come through.
Anything that kept me out of the house.
It wasn’t that I was avoiding Anton. Not exactly.
He didn’t seem to need a chaperone anyway. He gave me space to settle in and spent most of his time back in that shed—probably already sketching plans for the baby’s crib.
I shake my head, half-amused, half-exasperated.
Is he trying to win some imaginaryprize for world’s swooniest man, or does he really move through the world like this?
Now it’s Monday. The station is alive but relaxed—humming fluorescents, the faint whirr of the front-desk printer, the lingering scent of stale coffee that somehow exists in every police department in America.
