She made a quick stop at the grocery for essential food and cleaning supplies, then headed back to Pine Cottage with the trunk fuller than she had expected and her mind fuller still.
The drive back felt shorter. Familiar, somehow.
When the cottage came into view around the final bend, Meryl slowed without meaning to.
The first time she had driven up that lane, Pine Cottage had looked like the sort of inheritance people hated. Too much work. Too expensive.
Now, for the first time, she found herself looking not only at what was wrong but at what had already changed. The cottage still looked battered, but even with the few repairs they had already made, it no longer looked abandoned.
She pulled up beside the cottage and sat for a moment with the engine running, looking at it.
Not hopeless, Spencer had said.
At the time, she had wanted to believe him because the alternative had been unbearable.
Now, with a trunk full of supplies and Bear Creek no longer feeling quite so alien, she found herself thinking he might actually have been right.
Meryl carried the bags inside one by one, setting them down carefully on the repaired section of the hallway floor.
Then she stood in the middle of the house, surrounded by screws and brackets and coffee, and felt, for the first time since arriving, not overwhelmed.
Not exactly.
Only as though the work ahead might be something she could meet, one list, one room, one day at a time.
The house creaked somewhere overhead, but even that sounded different now. Less like a warning. More like an old place welcoming a new friend.
Chapter Six – Spencer
It had only been a couple of days since Meryl had arrived at Pine Cottage, but to Spencer it felt as if she had always been there, always been part of his life.
Sometimes he had to remind himself it was real.
But then there was the other side of it.
She could be gone as quickly as she had arrived.
Unless you figure out a way to make her stay,his bear reminded him.
Working on it,Spencer said as he got out of his truck and strode toward the house, toolbox in hand.
Meryl was already on the porch when he approached, kneeling beside a stack of lumber with her hair pulled back and a pencil tucked behind her ear. She was marking measurements on a board, her brow furrowed in concentration.
She’s working too hard. She shouldn’t have to do all this herself,his bear grumbled.
She’s not. We’re here for her,Spencer reminded him.
She thinks we’re a contractor. Now, if you told her we were mates, that might change everything.
Spencer ignored his bear as he climbed the newly repaired steps. “Morning.”
Meryl glanced up, and for a brief moment her expression brightened before she schooled it back to business. “Morning.”
“Thought I’d get a head start on the west side of the porch.” He set his toolbox down, noting the dark circles under her eyes. “How long have you been at it?”
“Not long,” she said, though the empty coffee mug suggested otherwise.
Spencer’s bear nudged him.She needs breakfast. Real breakfast, not just coffee.
