Chapter 12
TWELVE
JESS
By the time I pulled up to the barn, my stomach had performed some kind of Olympic-level gymnastics routine. Not that I’d ever admit that out loud. I was a grown woman, not a teenager showing up for a crush’s study session.
“Professional,” I muttered as I climbed out of the car. “Work. Planning. Do not overthink this.”
The barn doors were cracked open. I heard movement inside—tool clinks, footsteps, and… whistling? Of course he whistled. Powell Ferguson probably woke up whistling. How anyone was that obnoxiously cheerful in the morning without a vat of coffee, I had no idea.
I squared my shoulders and stepped inside.
Powell looked up from a half-assembled cabinet. “Morning, Donnegan.”
He wiped his hands on his jeans and crossed to the workbench. He picked something up and held it like an offering. A Yeti mug. “Brought you coffee.”
I stared at it like it might explode. “You brought me coffee.”
His eyebrows lifted. “Yeah?”
“That’s a bold move.”
“Why?”
I took the mug but didn’t drink yet, letting my suspicion show. “Because you are bringing a barista coffee. It’s like bringing a chef a frozen dinner.”
He flashed a maddeningly confident grin. “Try it.”
I braced myself and took a sip.
Paused. Took another.
It wasn’t Pour Decisions level—but it was good. Surprisingly good.
I lowered the mug. “Okay. I’ll admit it. This is not mud.”
“It’s the beans you gave Moose at Thanksgiving. He polished off the whole bag, so I bought some for the station.”
I blinked. “Huckleberry Creek Fire Department voluntarily spent money on quality coffee? Are you all feverish? Should I check pulses?”
“Keep talking, and I’ll switch you back to the sludge.”
A laugh escaped before I managed to smother it. “I thought all y’all drank was sludge. That’s why you come to the truck.”
“That and the view,” he said.
What he meant by that casual statement hit me three seconds later. Not the scenery. Not the town square.
The view.
Me.
Heat shot straight up my neck. I almost inhaled the coffee. “Right. Great. Moving on.”
He pretended not to notice my fluster, which somehow made it worse. “Ready to get into the Twelve Stops list?”
“Please.” I walked toward the truck, telling myself the flutter in my stomach was hunger. Or caffeine. Or stress. Definitely not the way he kept watching me like I was more interesting than power tools.
Up inside the truck, everything seemed different from last time—still rough, still smelling of sawdust and insulation, but taking shape. Becoming something again instead of a wreck. I could see where they’d assembled the skeleton of the new layout.
He climbed up after me, and the space shrank immediately. A little heat slid under my skin knowing there was nowhere for either of us to go without brushing.
It was fine. Totally fine. I didn’t need oxygen. Or distance. Or—
He braced one hip against the wall. “So I’ve been thinking.”
“Oh no,” I murmured.
He handed me his notebook. It held scribbled notes, time estimates, little diagrams of crowds moving through an imaginary festival route.
Damn it, I had to appreciate that level of thorough organization.
Something low in my chest loosened at the proof he’d spent real time on this.
On my event. On our event. On top of my truck rebuild.
Dangerous territory.
“We need to be sure these activities actually work,” he said. “In real time, with real people.”
“Right.” I flipped to the cocoa flight page. “We’ll need multiple warmers going at once. And I’m pretty sure the trivia questions need to be tiered or we’ll get bottlenecked by the local know-it-alls.”
He leaned closer to see the page. His hand brushed mine—warm, callused. My pulse hiccupped in a little stutter that vibrated all the way down to my toes.
He didn’t move away. “And ornament crafts are going to be a disaster. Have you ever seen a nine-year-old wield glitter glue?”
“Yes. It haunts my dreams.”
“So we need wet wipes. A trash system. Something absorbent.”
“God help us all,” I muttered.
We worked down the list, tossing out ideas, crossing out the ridiculous ones. He wasn’t just competent—he was thoughtful. Practical. Creative in a way I hadn’t expected, throwing out ideas that made me laugh and say no and then write them down anyway.
At one point, he passed me a marker. Our fingers brushed again.
The contact was brief, nothing either of us could call out. But it kept happening. His skin against mine, warm and rough, a little spark every time like static off a wool blanket.
Not an accident.
I kept catching him looking at me. Not lingering too long, but… deliberate awareness. His gaze skimmed my mouth when he thought I wasn’t paying attention, sliding down my throat to where my scarf gaped, snapping back up when my eyes met his.
Every time, something low and traitorous in my body warmed, awareness pooling in all the places I refused to acknowledge.
I tapped the notebook with my pen a little too sharply. “Okay, we’ve narrowed down the slate. But we have no idea how long anything will actually take.”
“That’s what I was thinking.” He shifted closer, shoulder brushing mine. “We need to run a test.”
“A test?”
“A mock version of the stops. Just us. Try a few activities. Time them. See what works.”
My eyebrows shot up. “In the barn?”
He shook his head. “My kitchen.”
And I’d thought the coffee was bold.
“Your kitchen,” I echoed.
“Big island. Plenty of counter space.” A beat. His mouth kicked up at one corner. “I’ll cook.”
My grip tightened on the pen. Heat rolled under my skin, slow and treacherous.
I pictured him moving around a warm kitchen, sleeves shoved up, hands sure on pots and pans, feeding me between trial runs.
Me perched on a barstool, pretending not to watch his forearms flex as he stirred something.
The easy way he took care of people turned directly, disarmingly, on me.
He saw something flicker across my face and looked almost shy. Powell Ferguson. Shy. His lashes dipped, and when he glanced back up, his eyes held a question he apparently wasn’t brave enough to ask out loud.
“We’d get better data.” He nudged the plan back to safety and sanity. “And fewer distractions.”
Yeah. That was hilarious.
I needed this conversation back under control now. “It’s not a date.”
“Of course not.”
“Absolutely not.”
“Obviously.”
Silence stretched as thick and slow as cooling caramel. The kind you could get stuck in if you lingered too long.
I swallowed. My tongue felt too big for my mouth. “Well… you do make excellent pancakes.”
His head tilted, smile slow, smug, and stupidly appealing. His gaze dropped, just for a second, to my mouth. “That a culinary compliment?”
My lips tingled like they’d been touched. Which they absolutely had not.
“Strictly culinary,” I shot back. “Don’t get ideas.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it.”
Liar.
We bent over the list again, refining the details. Our arms brushed once, twice, a dozen times. Every time, a sizzle of awareness snapped up my spine, so sharp it was almost annoying.
I tried to focus on bullet points. On timing.
On crowd flow. My brain, the traitor, kept offering up images of his kitchen instead.
How many chairs. How close we’d sit. Whether he cooked like he did everything else—competent and efficient—or if there were parts of him I hadn’t seen yet.
Messier parts. Rough edges I could get cut on if I wasn’t careful.
At one point, I reached across him to grab the tape measure. He shifted at the same time, and my palm landed flat on his chest.
Warm. Solid. Hard muscles under a thin t-shirt. His heartbeat thudded against my hand once, twice, before either of us moved.
My breath caught.
His did too.
For a single suspended second, the world narrowed to the press of my hand, the rise of his chest, the way his eyes darkened as they locked on mine. There was a question there, wide open.
I yanked my hand back so fast my fingers tingled. “Sorry,” I said. Way too fast. Way too high.
That low, rough voice murmured, “You’re fine.”
We kept working, pretending nothing happened. Failing miserably.
He stood behind me while I marked spacing for the new shelving, one hand braced beside my shoulder, his body lined up along mine without quite touching.
His breath warmed the shell of my ear. Goosebumps chased down my arms, ignoring the fact that I was inside a warmed barn, not standing naked in a snowstorm.
When I asked him to hand me a pencil, he put it directly into my palm, fingers lingering just long enough to make sure I noticed.
I definitely noticed.
My pulse beat against the base of my throat so hard I was half-convinced he saw it.
When I reached across to mark another spot, the world tipped a little under my feet, and his hand settled at my waist to steady me. His palm covered the small of my back, heat soaking through my sweater, fingers spread like he’d done it a thousand times.
I didn’t pull away.
God help me, I leaned into it.
We stood close enough that if either of us turned the wrong way, we’d brush lips. The thought flashed through my mind so vividly my mouth went dry. My throat tightened. My heartbeat tapped hard against my ribs, a fast, insistent drumbeat.
My body knew exactly what it wanted to do with all that proximity.
My brain screamed danger.
“So… tomorrow?” he said.
The words snapped me back. “What?”
“For the trial run. My place.”
Right. That.
I swallowed. My voice wanted to shake. I didn’t let it. “Yes. Tomorrow’s fine.”
He smiled—a real one. Soft around the edges. A smile that did something delicate and devastating in the center of my chest. Like he was pleased, not just about the planning session, but about the fact that I wasn’t running.
Then Esmerelda picked that exact moment to bray loud enough to rattle my teeth, barreling through the barn like she’d been summoned by chaos.
“Esme—no, don’t—girl, watch the—”
Too late. She shoved her head directly under my hand, demanding attention with the subtlety of a toddler.
I staggered into Powell’s chest.
His arm went around me, warm and solid. Familiar in a way it should not have been.
“Easy.” His breath stirred the hair near my temple.
My palms slid against him as I caught my balance, landing high on his chest, right under his collarbone.
Up this close, I saw the darker stubble along his jaw, the tiny scar near his mouth, the flecks of gold in his eyes.
Heat rolled off him like he’d been working hard, clean sweat and sawdust and soap.
My whole body lit up like a Griswold Christmas display.
I should have pulled away.
I didn’t.
Esmerelda nuzzled my hip, unbothered by the emotional meltdown happening above her.
“She’s needy,” I managed. My voice was not normal. Absolutely not normal.
He chuckled, the sound rumbling under my hands. “She likes you.”
“She likes snacks.”
“Same thing.”
I eased away carefully, because if I didn’t, I might not at all. He let his hand fall slowly from my waist, his fingers brushing lightly at the end, like he wasn’t ready to let go.
Neither was I.
“We’ve got enough for today.” His eyes held a gentleness that hadn’t been there in high school. “You look… overwhelmed.”
“I’m fine.”
I wasn’t. My nerves felt like someone had hooked them up to the town’s Christmas lights.
He studied me, seeing more than I wanted him to. That was the problem with Powell—he’d always seen too much. “Tomorrow?”
“Yes.” I clutched my notebook like a life raft. “Tomorrow.”
I started toward the door.
“Jess.”
I turned.
He didn’t smile now. Instead, his expression was open. Every guard I tried to imagine on him was down.
“You’re doing good,” he said quietly. “Really good. And you don’t have to do all of it alone.”
Something fractured inside me. Something small and sharp and lonely that had been bracing for impact for years.
I forced a nod. Speech wasn’t an option.
“See you tomorrow,” he murmured.
My heart thudded in awful, wonderful recognition.
“Yeah. Tomorrow.”
I stepped into the cold air before I did something irreversible.
Like turn around and kiss him.
Because for the first time in a decade, I believed I might actually want to.