Chapter 10
TEN
JESS
By the time I turned down Cartwright’s gravel drive, I’d given myself three different speeches.
This is about the truck.
This is about the business.
This is not about Powell.
None of them did a damn thing to slow the thump of my pulse.
I pulled in beside his truck and killed the engine. “Okay, Jess. You walked through fire. You can walk into a barn.” I ignored the unhelpfully honest voice in my head pointing out that I’d actually collapsed in a fire and had to be hauled out like a sack of flour.
Cold nipped at my cheeks as I crossed to the barn doors. Music floated out—some kind of rock themed Christmas playlist.
Nudging open the doors, I stepped inside and stopped dead.
The last time I’d been here, the truck had looked like a crime scene. Empty, raw, every scorch mark a reminder of what I’d lost.
Now…
Now it looked like a project.
A fresh plywood subfloor had been laid in, along with a new frame for the service window.
New conduit ran in clean lines along the walls.
Little metal boxes framed out where outlets would go.
A breaker panel was mounted in back, its neatly labeled circuits a promise that something would work again.
There was a folding table set up with a toolbox and a mess of wire strippers and screwdrivers like some kind of hardware buffet.
And along the side wall, in tidy stacks and labeled boxes, was proof that my town had lost its damn mind.
Tile. Stainless steel sheets. Wood. Screws. And a whole host of other building supplies I didn’t immediately recognize. I hadn’t even tapped into the GoFundMe yet.
My throat went tight so fast it hurt.
“Morning.”
I jumped. Of course I did. I was apparently destined to always be startled by this man.
Powell stood beside the workbench, one hand braced on it like he’d just leaned back from some task.
For once he wasn’t in Huckleberry Creek FD gear, instead having opted for a henley, worn jeans, and work boots.
His forearms were smudged with dust, and there was a streak of something dark on his cheek, like he’d wiped his face with the back of his hand and missed a spot.
It should not have been attractive.
It was.
“I really am going to put a bell on you.” My voice came out thinner than I wanted. “A cowbell. String of jingle bells. Something.”
He gave a crooked half-smile. “You were zoning out again.”
“Hard not to.” I swept a hand toward the donation pile. “What is all this?”
He followed my gaze. “Donations. People want to help.”
I stared at the supplies like they might disappear if I blinked too hard. “People… actually did this.”
“People love your coffee,” he said simply. “And you.”
The last word slipped out, quiet, like he hadn’t meant to tack it on.
Heat pricked behind my eyes. Absolutely not. I was not going to cry.
I made a sound that might have been a laugh if you were very generous. “They love their caffeine.”
“It’s not just the caffeine.”
I didn’t trust myself to answer, so I took a breath that tasted like sawdust and cold air and forced my attention back to the truck.
“You’ve been busy,” I said.
“Had some help.” He shrugged, casual, but there was pride in the way he glanced at the fresh base wiring. “Meatball and I got almost all the rough-ins done last night. Today is your call. If you want something moved, we move it before we close the walls.”
He said it like it was simple. Like rewiring my future was just another Tuesday.
Because my throat had that I-might-cry tickle again, I cleared it. “Meatball?”
Powell grinned. “Daniel Costello. There was a tripping incident that landed him face-first in a vat of spaghetti.”
“Y’all take your nicknames seriously.” I didn’t want to know what mine might be. I had way too many embarrassing moments in my past.
“Part of the gig. You ready to talk layout?”
I dropped my messenger bag on the nearest clear spot.
“Bossy coffee lady reporting for duty.”
“There she is,” he murmured, and I chose to pretend I didn’t hear the relief in it.
The step up into the truck felt higher without my usual stool.
Being inside again made my chest squeeze, but it wasn’t the hard panic I’d imagined thinking about this last night.
The bare walls gleamed under the work lights.
It still hurt, but now there was scaffolding over the hurt. Lines. Plans. Possibility.
Powell hopped up after me with irritating, athletic ease. The space shrank by half.
“Here.” He handed me a tape measure, the metal already warm from his hand. “You mark where you want everything. I’ll make it happen.”
The words landed deeper than they should have.
I flicked the tape out toward the back wall. “You say that now, but you’ve never seen me in full layout goblin mode.”
“Hit me with it. Worst-case scenario, we have to undo a few screws.”
Worst-case scenario, I let down every wall I’d built between us and drowned in what I’d once almost felt for him.
I focused on numbers instead.
We started at the back corner where the espresso machine would live.
I measured, he marked pencil lines. We argued over inches.
He wanted outlets higher “so you’re not bending over a live plug right next to a water line, Donnegan,” and I wanted them where muscle memory would reach for them at five-thirty in the morning.
“You always lean on this section.” He braced his hand where my old counter edge had been. “You don’t want cords where your hip ends up.”
“You’ve been watching my hip placement?” The question flustered me in ways I didn’t want to think about.
Color climbed into his cheeks. “I’ve been watching your workflow.”
“Uh-huh.” Because it was more comfortable, I smirked and made a note. “We’ll revisit the cords.”
He huffed, but his mouth twitched at the corners.
We moved up the wall, talking through equipment. Grinder here, water filtration there, another plug for the pastry warmer I’d always wanted to add.
“The way it was set up before,” he said, “you always looked like you were one step away from tripping over something.”
“I did not.”
“You did,” he insisted. “You made it look graceful, but I’ve stood at that window enough to know you were dodging landmines back there.”
I shouldn’t have liked that he’d noticed. Not just that he’d been there, but that he’d paid attention.
“It’s controlled chaos. Barista ballet.”
“Then we’re upgrading your stage.” The sincerity in his voice loosened something in me.
I moved down to the service window and snapped the tape out along the lower framing. It slid, metal skidding over metal, and snapped back hard enough to sting.
“Dammit,” I hissed, shaking my fingers.
“Let me.” He stepped in behind me, close enough that I could feel heat radiating off him through my sweater. One hand braced on the wall beside my head; the other covered mine on the tape measure, big and warm, calluses catching lightly on my skin.
“Hold it flat with your thumb here.” His breath brushed the side of my neck. “Like this. Then lock it.”
The scent of him—soap, clean sweat, a faint trace of his detergent—wrapped around me, short circuiting my irritation that he thought I didn’t know how to use a tape measure. My brain went white-noise fuzzy.
“Got it?” he asked.
Absolutely not. “Yeah,” I croaked.
He let go, slowly, fingertips skimming along my knuckles before he stepped back.
The space he left behind was colder than it had any right to be.
We worked for a while in silence—real silence, not the sulky variety.
I called measurements. He marked them, occasionally adding a quiet, practical bit of advice.
Lower here, so you don’t bang your elbow.
Higher there, so you’re not reaching behind hot equipment.
He knew things I hadn’t realized he knew about how I moved in this tiny space, how I stretched and pivoted and shifted my weight.
It was… disconcerting.
It was also useful.
I hated that the two things could co-exist.
We hit our first real stand-off at the milk fridge.
“I want it here.” I tapped the front corner near the service window. “I can pivot, froth, and pour without moving my feet.”
“And block your only exit if something goes wrong,” he countered. “This is your primary path out.”
“This is how flow works.”
“This is how smoke inhalation works,” he said. “The more obstacles between you and the door, the worse your odds.”
The words landed like a slap. For a second, the barn blurred; the ghost of heat pressed against my face, and the remembered flavor of ash crawled up my throat.
He saw it. His expression shifted immediately. “Hey. Hey. Sorry. That was—”
“No.” I swallowed hard. “You’re right. I don’t have to like it, but… you’re right.”
He studied my face, worry carving lines between his brows. “We can take a break.”
I shook my head. “If I stop, I might not start again. Let’s just… move the fridge.”
His hand flexed on the pencil, like he wanted to touch me and didn’t dare. “Okay. We’ll put it here.” He pointed to the side wall. “Same reach. Clearer exit.”
I imagined the movement—turn, pivot, pour—and nodded. “Fine. But if I hate it, I’m blaming you for the next ten Christmas rushes.”
One corner of his mouth quirked. “I’ll accept the consequences.”
The music shifted in the background, sliding from whatever Christmas rock album he’d been playing into a familiar, obnoxiously catchy Christmas pop song. Without thinking, I hummed the chorus under my breath as I wrote in my notebook.
“You are a secret pop girl.” He said it in delighted accusation.
“Shut up.”
“I heard you. Full lyrics.”
“I work in retail coffee,” I said. “These songs are imprinted on my DNA. It doesn’t mean I like them.”
“Sure. Tell yourself that.”
Before I could retort, a loud bray cut him off.
Esmerelda trotted up the ramp like a tiny, determined battering ram, ears perked, eyes bright. She headed straight for Powell, shoved her head into his side, then immediately veered toward me.
“Hey, girl,” I said, as she exhaled hot donkey breath all over my hand. “No treats today, sorry.”
She huffed and shoved harder, effectively leaning her whole weight against my hip. I staggered sideways, bumped into Powell, and ended up half-wedged between them.
He laughed, steadying me with one hand at the small of my back. “She missed you.”
“I’m being crushed by livestock.” The words came out on a startled laugh. It felt strange in my own ears.
His hand was still there, warm and solid through my sweater. He didn’t seem in a hurry to move it. Neither did I.
For a terrifying second, everything in the barn narrowed to a point—the weight of the donkey pinning me in place, the pressure of Powell’s palm against my spine, the awareness of his body inches from mine. The shift of his breath, the rise and fall of his chest.
Then I remembered who he was.
Or who I’d decided he was.
I cleared my throat and gently shoved Esmerelda back enough to breathe. “Okay, Your Majesty, personal space.”
The donkey snorted like I was being unreasonable but eventually flopped down in the middle of the floor with a dramatic sigh.
“You’re just enabling her,” I told Powell.
“Her emotional needs are valid,” he said solemnly.
“She’s a tiny chaos agent.”
“So are you.”
The retort died in my throat because he was smiling at me in that soft, slightly crooked way that made his eyes crinkle at the corners. Like I was… fun. Not just a walking caffeine dispenser or the town’s most high-strung festival volunteer. Me.
I busied myself with my notebook, pretending my face wasn’t burning.
We worked another hour. The barn filled with the sounds of drills and the squeak of pencil on metal, the occasional bray, the constant low thrum of the playlist. Somewhere in there I pushed my sleeves up, and a smear of grease appeared on my forearm.
I didn’t notice until I caught Powell’s gaze snag on it and linger.
“What?” I demanded.
He startled. “Nothing.”
I looked. “Oh. War paint.” I rubbed at it and only made it worse. “Great. I’m going to be scrubbing this off for a week.”
“It looks good on you,” he said.
I looked up sharply.
He did too, eyes wide like he hadn’t meant to say that out loud.
Silence stretched.
Somewhere, Mariah hit a high note in the background.
I swallowed. “You have terrible taste.”
He smiled, but it was a little shaky around the edges. “Maybe.”
We moved around each other in a weird, careful dance after that, hyper-aware of every near-touch. When I stepped past him to get to the breaker panel, my shoulder brushed his chest again. This time, neither of us pretended we weren’t aware it.
My phone chimed in my pocket, making me jump. I checked the screen—Pepper, a reminder about something completely ordinary, like dinner and the real world existed outside this barn.
“I need to get back,” I said. My voice sounded strange to my own ears—hoarse, a little unsteady. “Vendor call in an hour for the Twelve Stops.”
“Right.” He shoved his hands in his pockets, like he didn’t know what else to do with them. “We got a lot done.”
I glanced around. Outlets marked. Wires run. Notes scribbled everywhere. The bones of my future taking shape under work lights and donkey hair.
“We did,” I said. The plural seemed… right. Dangerous, but right. “Thank you.”
The corners of his mouth tipped up. “Same time tomorrow?”
I hesitated.
For the first time in ten years, the automatic no didn’t come.
Instead, there was this humming awareness low in my stomach and the undeniable, treacherous truth that I liked being here with him. I liked the way we worked together, the way he listened, the way he watched me like I mattered.
His gaze dropped, just briefly, to my mouth.
My heart did a slow, heavy roll.
He jerked his eyes back up, guilt flickering across his face like he’d been caught doing something indecent.
Oh.
Oh.
It wasn’t just me.
The floor was a little less solid under my feet.
“Yeah,” I said finally, because my mouth had apparently decided to betray me too. “Same time.”
I climbed down out of the truck, Esmerelda trailing me to the barn doors. Powell walked with us. At the threshold, the cold air hit my sweaty skin and made me shiver.
“Jess,” he said.
I glanced back.
He wasn’t smiling this time. His expression was open, earnest, stripped down in a way I didn’t know what to do with.
“You’re not alone in this,” he said quietly. “No matter what you think. We’ve got you.”
The words landed deeper than anything else that day. I had a sudden, vivid memory of his arms around me, firelight flickering on the edges of my vision, the steady weight of his voice telling me I was okay.
I should have brushed him off. Snapped. Made a joke. Something to shove him back into the “problem to manage” box where he belonged.
Instead I just nodded, because anything else would’ve cracked me open.
“See you tomorrow.” And I escaped before I could do something truly reckless.
Like step into him instead of away.