If I had a necktie, this was the moment I would pull it loose from around my neck and gasp for breath. The air on the porch felt stifling. Which was crazy because the house sat on fifty acres of some of the prettiest farmland and rolling hills Eugene had to offer.
* * *
It was Saturday night.
According to my plans, Tessa and I should have been watching a movie together in Salmon right now. A movie date. Darkness and popcorn with Tessa Robbins next to me.
No thank you.
It sounded like a good idea when I bought the tickets. My emotions were a regular ping-pong match.
A summer cold in the form of a scratchy throat and a runny nose, two days earlier, had me calling in sick for our date—the first time all summer one of us had canceled. No matter that I felt almost completely fine now. It was just to be safe. I sniffed for good measure. Yup. Couldn’t be too careful.
It was dark outside the windows of my dad’s dusty shop. I had brought many of my own tools and supplies for the cabinets from Boise, but I used a few things of my dad’s as well. It had taken me about half a day to clean and sweep the floors and move his junk scattered across the concrete to make room for my lumber. I was making cabinets for the storage room in the back of the office as well as two bathrooms. Over the past couple of weeks, I had cut and measured and sanded, producing two long cabinet boxes for the storage room and two small pieces for the bathrooms.
I loved this part of the job. This time of night. It was quiet. Jake had gone home. My parents were in the house, watching a rerun of an old western. Stitch had been asleep for an hour. It was just me out here. I rarely got to make cabinets anymore because we were so busy with other jobs we had to hire it out. I had enough of the right equipment to make them, but not enough of anything for mass production. That was one of the main reasons I told Chase I could do this job in Eugene. The office building was our only focus here, which meant I could do the woodwork.
There was still more to be done, but I had a decent start. At work, we were putting up the doors and trim this week; painting and flooring would go next. I still had plenty of time to finish. I glowered at the stack of maple wood piled on the floor. For some reason, I had ordered extra material. It had been an oversight, an accident. I kept telling myself that, which was probably why I was a mixture of excitement and dread as I pulled out a large sheet and began cutting. I had figured out the dimensions weeks ago. I almost threw the paper away once or twice, but each time, I stopped myself.
I wasn’t a man of grand gestures. This wasn’t the time or the place for any bold statement. We had a bet to win, even though the thought of upgrading from my old F250 had been giving my conscience a run for its money lately.
I swore at myself even as I sanded down the cut wood.
Tessa’s reaction to this might be more than I could take. I stopped once and forced myself to work on the doors for the office cabinets before swearing and starting again.
I could always back out. I didn’t have to give this to her. She had no idea it was coming. No harm, no foul. My mom could probably use it for something. Those were the things I told myself as I glued and nailed and measured. The thought of Tessa’s reaction if I brought this to her both terrified and spurred me on.
I swore again.
The bright-orange glow from the shop windows lit up the night for hours.
23
Tessa
Operation Logan Crack was in full swing.
Jake had said to be subtle, but I felt as subtle as a foghorn in a library. If I moved the fruit tables any closer to the porch, I’d be sitting in his lap. The flirting had come to me much easier than I thought. It had been fun to rile him a little. I had straightened my stupid hair five times in the last two weeks. I had to admit, I did enjoy Logan’s double-take and the goosebumps that flooded my body at his gaze. I couldn’t bake his favorite treats every day, but they made the lineup more often than not. Through all of this, I still wasn’t sure the effect it had on him. He had always been charming, but we were definitely feeling more like friends. He still wasn’t a revolving door of emotions, but we had conversations that were fun and interesting, and more often than not, our nights were spent talking on the porch.
The fruit stand was nearly closed for the day when one more truck pulled into the drive. I grinned as Chad parked and made his way over to me, his beard longer than I remembered.
“Hey, Chad.”
“Hey, Pipsqueak.” He stood in front of my tables, his eyes flitting back and forth between all the produce left for the day.
“This all you have left?”
I raised my eyebrows. “What do you need?”
He let out a sigh and folded his beefy arms across his chest, almost defiantly. “Well, everybody coming into my restaurant has been telling me I need to get your recipe for chocolate cake. Apparently, dry and tasteless isn’t a thing that sells in my restaurant.”
A smile lit across my face. “Oh, really? So, you’re coming tomefor product advice?”
“Don’t make this a thing.”
“A thing?” I propped my feet up on the table. “I’m just curious what the people have said about my baking. The thing you were so disgusted by when I tried to help you a couple months back.”
“Just let me taste something. Do you have any cake?”
