I had a shit ton of work to do anyway.
I arrived at work and stepped into the office to find Zane and Wyatt already there. The place smelled like coffee and sawdust, which meant they’d both been up early too. “Ready for another day working on the Beast?” I asked as I put my lunch away.
“I updated the plans, again,” Wyatt said, stretching his back from behind a computer in the office, bones cracking like he was twice his age. “So if you want to actually run a chainsaw today, you can get started.”
“A minor miracle,” Zane added, flipping through the pages. “I told Marin, no more changes.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Since when are you the one talking to clients? Isn’t that Layne’s job?” Of all the boisterous guys who worked here, Zane was the quietest.
A bit of color crept into his cheeks. “We all do our part.” He studied the pages before him like they might rescue him from the conversation, so I let it go.
Wyatt wrapped his arm around Zane’s neck and ruffled his hair. “The ghost over here actually talked to a person. Mark it on the calendar.”
Zane batted him away and gave him the finger, expression otherwise unchanged.
Jace came into the office and raised an eyebrow, taking in the scene in one sweep. “Do I have to separate you two?”
“No,Dad,” Wyatt said with a laugh.
Layne poked her nose around the corner of her computer screen. “Never call him that. It’s just weird.”
Wyatt’s grin grew wider. “How aboutDaddythen?”
Layne made a retching sound. “Get out of my office, all of you.”
Wyatt definitely saidyes Momunder his breath as he collected his coat. Either Layne didn’t hear him, or didn’t take the bait.
I grabbed a chainsaw, a measuring tape, and a list of measurements and headed out into the yard, feeling the need to move. I craved that bone-deep physical exhaustion that only this job could provide.
It was cold and bright out, and snow crunched under my boots, and I headed out to select the perfect log for this portion of the project.
The job was fifty percent science, fifty percent art, and one hundred percent dangerous. Logs weighing several thousand pounds, power tools, heavy equipment, dust, noise, and stress from clients who couldn’t make up their goddamned minds were all part of the equation.
For that reason, I needed to focus on the task at hand, andnot on Layne.
By lunchtime, I was more sawdust than a man. The muscles in my forearms and thighs ached, my shoulders burned, and my shirt stuck to my skin with sweat despite the cold weather. The air tasted like pine sap and chainsaw exhaust, the kind of smell that usually grounded me. I’d made some headway on the project, assuming nothing had changed.
I hadn’t seen Zane, Wyatt, or Jace in a while. Hopefully that didn’t mean they were in the office redesigning. More likely, they were in another part of the yard working out some finer details.
I made my way back to the office for lunch and coffee. So much coffee.
“Stop!” Layne yelled as I opened the door, but before I could actually step through it.
I froze. “What?”
She stood up from her desk, hands on her hips. “You can’t come in here like that. You’ll make a mess.”
“I need someone to blow me off, and there was no one else in the yard.”
Her face turned an interesting shade of scarlet, and I was pretty sure mine did too once I realized what I’d said. “The compressed air, I mean.”
She licked her lips, fighting back a laugh. “Go outside. I’ll help you.”
I walked back out to the shop, my heart thumping faster than it had any right to. The cold bit at my damp skin, raising goosebumps along my arms, but I barely noticed. All my attention was locked on her. Layne followed, then grabbed the air compressor hose and turned it on, sending a powerful blast of air at me. Dust exploded off my clothes and into the air.I pressed my lips together and squeezed my eyes shut.
“God, Elias, you are a mess,” she called over the sound of the compressor. “Turn around so I can get your back.”
I could hear Layne giggling as she worked, the sound light and unguarded. It threaded straight through me, settling low in my gut and making it hard to breathe. I focused on the way the air hit me, dust trying to get up my nose, anything to drive the image of her standing so close out of my head.
