Chapter 7
Chapter
Seven
Tabitha
I head into the library early today.
Not as if I can sleep after the night I had with James.
The building is closed for Indigenous Peoples’ Day, so I’m taking advantage of the lack of people.
If I’m not going to get my funding for an expansion, I should start reorganizing and moving some outdated books to storage.
What I find in the children’s annex, though, is a lot of dust and yellow caution tape across the entrance.
Wait…what is happening?
Someone is hammering something.
“Hello?” I call out, with my heart in my throat. Are we being burgled? No, that doesn’t make any sense. Why would a burglar put caution tape up? Ah, but maybe that’s all part of the ruse.
It’s wild what the brain comes up with in a few seconds of confusion.
I push through the tape and enter the room. A cloud of dust explodes, and I cover my mouth. Heading farther into the annex, I find a gaping hole in the wall, and James standing there with a sledgehammer.
I gasp, holding my sweater over my mouth and nose. “James! What is going on?”
He turns to me, and when he takes off his mask, his face is all determination. “I’m making you a reading nook!”
“Have you lost your mind? I didn’t get the funding!”
“You have a private donor.”
I need to sit down, but all the chairs and tables are covered with plastic tarps.
“There’s no way you have permission to do this,” I say.
He shrugs. “Don’t ask for permission. Ask for forgiveness.”
“That’s my line.”
“Huh. I knew I learned it somewhere.”
“Asking forgiveness for giving away used books is one thing. But this…” I wave at the giant hole in my wall.
“I’m messing with you, sweetheart. I talked to the library director. I’m good to go.”
He puts his mask back on, but I go to him and tug it back off. “By private donor, do you mean you?”
“I can neither confirm nor deny where the funding is coming from.”
I can’t feel my knees. I can’t remember how to breathe.
But I do know that I’m letting this moment sear into me.
This is James at his core. This is James, really seeing me, and doing something.
He knows deep down that I have a good idea.
James in jeans and a hard hat is also working for me, to be honest.
“Are you trying to make me fall in love with you, Pierpont?”
“That depends. Are you falling in love with me?”
“Falling for you would be the polite thing to do,” I say, teasing. “After all, only a man who is wildly, irrevocably head over heels for me would pick up a sledgehammer to show me how much he loves me.”
He takes off his hard hat and wipes the sweat with the back of his forearm. The small muscles there bunch, as if taunting me. His whole being, everything about him, dares me to not fall in love.
“Is it love if I wake up and feel so much, so fast, that I want to literally knock down a wall for you?”
I nod, biting my lip.
“Then I love you, Tabitha.”
“I love you, too, James. And thank you.”
“Anything for you.”
Without asking, he pulls me against him and presses his lips to mine in a deep, sustaining kiss that lights up my soul.
“Since when do you own jeans and flannels and hammers and things?” I ask.
“I’m full of mysteries, baby.”
I arch an eyebrow at him. “Are you sure you know what you’re doing here? Like, do you have a construction plan? A contractor’s license?”
He laughs. “Oh, hell no. I’m meeting with the contractor later. I just wanted to bust the walls out myself, like a real HGTV host.”
I toy with the buttons on his shirt. “When does the contractor get here?”
He looks at his phone. “In about two hours.”
Fisting the front of his shirt, I pull him down for another kiss. “Then we have time. My apartment is a block away. Let’s go.”
“Now?”
“Now,” I say. “And bring the hard hat.”