"Yes," he said, without hesitation."You build this the way you're building it, and they'll find it.Word gets around.People talk about the places that make them feel something.You're creating one of those places."
Her hand lifted, then fell back to her side."It scares me how much I want this.How much I'm letting myself believe it could work."
He stepped closer, careful on the uneven floor where subfloor planks met bare earth, and reached for her hand.Her fingers were rough with the day's work, sawdust still caught in the creases of her palm."Wanting something isn't the problem," he said.
"What is?"she asked.
"Letting someone tell you that you don't deserve it," he said."That's the problem.That's what messes people up.And you're not doing that again.Not if I have anything to say about it."
Her fingers slid between his, interlacing, holding on with a strength that surprised him."You say that like you're very sure."
"I am," he said.
They stood in the middle of her half-framed cabin, hands linked, the evening light filtering through the gaps in the framing around them.Outside, Jason hummed something tuneless under his breath as he loaded tools into his truck.Inside, it felt like the world had shrunk down to just this space, just the two of them, just the woman in front of him and the future she was trying to build.
Sabrina took a breath, then another, her shoulders settling."I can see it now," she said quietly."Not just this cabin.The others.Little paths connecting them.People arriving with suitcases full of whatever they're running from and leaving with something lighter in their chest."
He watched her face as she spoke, the way her eyes lit up when she talked about it, the way her whole body seemed to lean toward the vision she was describing.She wasn't just planning a business.She was imagining a kind of healing.
"That's the future I want," she said."Not the one where I sold everything and lived in some beige condo because it looked tidy on paper.Not the one where I let Gavin reduce me to someone small and scared and sorry for existing."
He lifted their joined hands and rested his forehead against hers, close enough to feel the warmth of her breath."Then that's the one you're building.And I'm going to be right here, handing you nails."
Her free hand settled against his chest, right over his heart.His pulse kicked hard beneath her palm, and he didn't try to hide it.
"You really think I can pull this off?"she asked, her voice barely above a whisper.
"I know you can," he said."I've seen you run an inn with one hand while putting out fires with the other, sometimes literally.This is you starting from the ground up with people behind you who actually want you to succeed.That's not a gamble.That's a win waiting to happen."
She closed her eyes for a second, leaning into the contact.When she opened them again, there was less fear there and more of that stubborn, bright thing that had been growing stronger every day since he'd pulled her out of the smoke.
"Colby?"she asked.
"Yeah."
"Thank you for seeing this," she said."For standing in a half-built box with me and calling it a future."
He swallowed against the sudden tightness in his throat, the words pressing up against his ribs like they wanted out."There's nowhere else I'd rather be."
He didn't say the rest out loud.Not yet.That somewhere between the first stake in the ground and this moment standing under a bare header, something in him had shifted.This had started as helping a woman get back on her feet, offering a hand because that's what you did when someone was drowning.Somewhere along the way, without his permission, it had become something else entirely.
He just held her hand, forehead touching hers, and let the bones of the cabin rise around them like the outline of a life he very much wanted to belong to.
Outside, Jason's truck rumbled to life, and the man called out something about seeing them bright and early tomorrow.Neither of them moved to answer.
The copper moon was beginning to rise, just visible through the gaps in the framing, and its light turned everything it touched into something that looked like a promise.
ChapterFourteen
Sabrina stepped over the last string line and into the cabin frame, her hand trailing along a raw stud as if she could will the walls thicker just by touching them.The wood felt rough and warm under her palm, still carrying yesterday's sun, and she let her fingers linger there for a moment before moving deeper inside.
The boards creaked under her boots.Yesterday's footprints and scuffs overlapped in the sawdust like a palimpsest of effort, layers upon layers of work made visible.Colby's prints, heavier on the heel.Jason's, wide and flat.Hers, smaller, tracking back and forth between the doorway and the far wall where she'd held that first section of framing while Jason nailed it into place.
The three of them had stamped a whole new shape into this patch of ground, and for one long, ridiculous second, she half expected the space to hum with it.To vibrate with the accumulated energy of all that hope and sweat and purpose.
Instead, everything felt off.
She frowned and turned in a slow circle, her boots scuffing against the plywood subfloor.
