Chapter Seven #2
Beside us, the end of a half-set beam on the sawhorses slipped.
We both reached for it at once, but I was already holding a plank.
She grabbed one end. I lunged forward and grabbed the other end so it wouldn’t land on her foot then teetered before steadying myself.
For a moment, we were both holding the same weight, standing too close, breathing too hard over a piece of rough-cut pine.
“You okay?” I asked, placing the two by four down before taking the full weight of the beam from her.
“Yes. You?”
I laid the beam to the side and cracked my neck. “Yeah. For a minute there I thought for sure you’d be in a foot cast for the summer.”
Her eyes darkened again, then she held up her arm, revealing the leather bracelet I’d given her in what felt like another lifetime. “Impossible. Not only am I wearing this, but you’re here. I’m safe.”
My heart started doing that crazy racing thing again. Did Brady know where she’d gotten her talisman from? Did he care? Knowing Brady, he probably did and thought it was a positive sign proving our families could get along.
From across the barn, Kai yelled, “If you two are done flirting with each other, I need this braced!”
Nora choked on a laugh, and I shut my eyes for a brief second.
“Did you hit your head?” I called back. “Because you’re imagining things.”
“I’ll hit your head if you don’t get over here and help me,” he answered.
Nora was laughing as I walked away.
Later, once the roof was shored up, everyone broke for water in the shade behind the barn. Nora sat on Mr. Torres’s tailgate, wiping her forehead. I stood a few feet away, reading the label of a water bottle as if it held the secrets to the universe.
She looked over. “You did good, Holliston.”
“We did,” I answered. “Once you realized that you’re supposed to actually hit the nail, that is.”
She smiled. “Hey, is it my fault they didn’t teach that in college?”
“What’s next for you?” I asked spontaneously.
She blinked a few times quickly. “Next? Like today?”
“No, I mean after we figure out things here. Will you go back to Boston?”
“Oh.” She looked away while answering. “I don’t know yet.”
I should have left it there. I should have walked away and found Kai. Instead, I said the thing I’d been telling myself to keep quiet since Mabel’s. “You won’t have to worry about my dad giving you trouble.”
Her expression changed instantly. “About what?”
I twisted the cap back onto my bottle. “About Brady.”
The silence that followed was so sharp it was practically visible.
I kept going anyway, driven by some masochistic need to be a decent man.
“Bella and Drew changed the whole board. The feud is over, or it should be. I’ll make sure my father understands that.
If you and Brady are—” I swallowed hard.
“Whatever it is you are—my father won’t be a problem. ”
Her lips parted, then closed, then parted again. It would have been funny if it didn’t feel like I was scraping out my own chest with a spoon.
“You . . .” she started.
“You deserve a chance to be with whoever you want, Nora,” I said quietly, my throat closing on her name. “If Brady makes you happy, nobody should stand in the way of that.”
Her face twisted into an expression I couldn’t track. “Hey,” I said, stepping closer. “I mean it. I’ll handle my family.”
“Handle?” She blinked at me like I’d suddenly started speaking a foreign language. A sane man would have stopped. I wasn’t that man.
“I’m not as nice as everyone thinks I am.”
Her eyes rounded.
“Not when it comes to my father. He’s been allowed to treat people badly for too long. That stops now.”
“What do you intend to do?”
“Simply make what is and isn’t going to be tolerated clear. He used to think he could hold my inheritance over my head, but I’ve done well and don’t need it anymore. I might not have as much as he has, but I have more than I need. That changed our dynamic in a good way.”
She nodded. “Leaving really was what you needed.”
“Yes.” A streak of dirt on her upper arm caught my eye. Without thinking, I reached out and brushed it away.
It was one brief pass of skin over warm skin. Nothing. Everything.
The air changed instantly. She went still, and so did I. Heat slammed through me with the force of a physical blow. Her breath caught, and mine did too. My palm burned where I’d touched her.
Wrong. This is so wrong. She’s with Brady.
I dropped my hand. Her eyes searched mine, and for a long second, neither of us spoke.
Then Kai’s voice boomed from the far side of the barn. “Evan! Try to be useful. I need another set of hands!”
I stepped back so fast it was embarrassing. “Yeah,” I said, my voice rougher than intended. “Coming.”
Nora was still staring at me. I couldn’t survive another second of that look, so I gave her a quick smile and backed away. “Everything is going to be okay,” I said. “I’ll make sure of it.”
I turned and walked off before she could say a word. By the time I reached Kai, my pulse was pounding as if I’d run a marathon.
“Problem?” Kai asked, not looking up.
“No.”
He grunted. “You’re acting odd today.”
“You act odd every day.”
He accepted that with a shrug.
I should have been thinking about the roof, or my father, or the fact that Brady would be back in town soon. Instead, all I could see was the stunned look on Nora’s face, and all I could feel was the ghost of her skin against my hand.
I need to get out of this town.
Soon.