Chapter Three
Kelsey
Inviting Marc into my cabin seemed reasonable when we were standing outside discussing damaged wiring. It becomes less reasonable the moment he ducks through my front door and fills the kitchen with all six-foot-something of himself.
Cabin Eight has been my home for three years.
I painted the cabinets a soft cream, refinished the pine table, and replaced the faded curtains with panels the color of the lake just before rain.
The rooms are not large, but they fit me.
Marc does not fit anywhere. His shoulders nearly brush both sides of the doorway, and when he pulls out a chair, the small table looks as if I borrowed it from a child's playhouse.
"You can take off the tool belt," I tell him. "I don't expect the chili to fight back."
He glances down as if he forgot he was wearing it. "Occupational habit."
"Do you sleep in that thing?"
"Buy me breakfast and maybe you'll find out."
I turn toward the stove before he can see the smile I cannot stop.
There is nothing extraordinary about a man flirting with me.
Guests have tried. Delivery drivers have tried.
One extremely persistent plumber tried until I reminded him that his wife runs the front desk at the elementary school and knows my phone number.
Marc does not feel like any of them. He’s … different.
He removes the belt and places it neatly beside his chair. The movement pulls his damp shirt across his back, and I remember the hard planes beneath my hands in the lake. My body responds with enough enthusiasm to make me question whether sitting across from him at a tiny table is a good idea.
It is chili, not foreplay. I repeat that in my mind while I set out bowls, cheese, and the cornbread I baked yesterday. Marc offers to help without reaching around me or pretending he cannot locate the spoons. He carries everything to the table, waits until I sit, and then takes a bite.
His eyes close.
"That bad?" I ask.
"I'm trying to decide whether complimenting you will result in more food or make you suspicious."
"Both."
"Best chili I've had in years."
The pleasure that moves through me is embarrassingly warm. "You can have another bowl."
"Worth the risk."
I eat while Marc describes the testing Nolan will perform tomorrow.
He explains that the visible damage may be limited to one loose connection, although the repeated voltage drop suggests a larger problem.
If the underground conductors were damaged by moisture or movement in the soil, replacement will require a trench along part of the shoreline.
"How much of a trench?" I ask.
"Let's not spend money until we know you need to."
"I need to understand the possibilities."
He nods, accepting the correction. "If the whole run is bad, approximately a hundred and twenty feet. Maybe less if the fault is between two of the secondary points. The conduit route matters. Do you have the original site drawings?"
"Stored in a fireproof box."
"Naturally."
"Now Marc, you say that as if organization is a character flaw."
"I say it as a man who has spent three months waiting for a building owner to locate a drawing he swore was in his truck."
I retrieve the plans from my office nook and spread the copies across the table after we finish eating. Marc situates his chair beside mine. His thigh presses against the outside of mine, warm and solid, while he traces the old conduit route with one blunt fingertip.
"Here." He taps a point between Cabins Five and Six. "This bend is where I'd start looking if the conductor tests bad. Water follows the slope toward the lake, and the old installation notes show two couplings in the same area."
I lean closer. He smells clean despite the lake, something like soap, cotton, and the faint metallic scent of his tools.
My eyes linger on his hand. It is large enough to cover the width of the blueprint, scarred across one knuckle, with short nails and calluses that scrape lightly against the paper.
The thought of those hands on me arrives without warning. I sit back too quickly and bump my water glass, but Marc catches it before it tips.
"Good reflexes," I murmur.
"Getting plenty of practice around you."
"You were the one who tripped."
"You were distracting me."
His gaze holds mine. I should remind him that this is a business dinner. I should put several feet of space between us and ask whether he wants more cornbread. Instead, I remain beside him, my knee against his and every breath drawing his warmth deeper into my small kitchen.
"I was walking," I say.
"Exactly."
The answer is so simple and so unapologetically male that heat unfurls low in my belly.
Marc does not glance away or soften the meaning.
He finds me attractive. He wants me to know it.
That should not feel as powerful as it does, but there is something intoxicating about being looked at by a man who seems incapable of pretending.
I fold the plans carefully. "Why are you in Cady Springs?"
"Work."
"I gathered that from the company card attached to your reservation. What kind of work requires six weeks in a cabin?"
"Commercial renovation on the north side of town. The original contractor walked off after rough-in, and my company was hired to assess the work and finish it. I'm leading the replacement crew."
"Meaning you get to discover everything the previous electrician did wrong."
"If he did it wrong. I don't assume that until I see it. Sometimes a contractor leaves because the owner stopped paying or changed the scope every other day."
His fairness appeals to me almost as much as his hands, and I find myself wanting to know more. "Do you always travel with the crew?"
"Most of the time."
"Where is home?"
Marc leans back, and the leg beside mine moves away. The loss of contact is immediate. "Wherever the current job is."
"That sounds like something printed on a coffee mug for people who don't want to answer the question."
His laugh is a low rumble. "I have an apartment in Denver. It contains a couch, a bed, and several unopened boxes from the apartment before that one."
"Cozy."
"I didn't say it was home."
His words silence my questioning. For an instant, I see something beneath his easy confidence, an emptiness he has become accustomed to rather than one that actively hurts.
Then his gaze moves around my kitchen, taking in the basket of mail, the sweater draped across the back of my chair, and the framed photograph of my parents and me on the dock the summer before I left for college.
"This is home," he says.
"Yes."
There is no hesitation in my answer. Eight Pines exhausts me, frustrates me, and consumes money faster than any reasonable collection of wooden structures should. I love it with the unreasonable devotion usually reserved for children and badly behaved dogs.
"You grew up here?" he asks.
"Close. My parents managed the cabins for the former owner. I spent every summer cleaning grills and delivering extra towels to people who thought checkout times were suggestions. I left for college determined to work in an office with central air and absolutely no pine needles."
"What brought you back?"
"The owner decided to sell. My parents were ready to retire, and I couldn't stand the thought of someone replacing the cabins with one enormous vacation house. I had a business degree, a little savings, and enough confidence to make a banker nervous."
"You bought eight cabins by yourself?"
"With a mortgage large enough to qualify as a ninth."
Admiration warms his eyes. I am accustomed to surprise when people learn that Eight Pines belongs to me. Sometimes it is followed by doubt, as if a woman my size and age could not possibly manage a property without a father, husband, or secret investor hiding behind the office door.
Marc simply looks impressed.
"You saved it," he says.
"I bought it. The saving is ongoing."
His gaze drops to the plans. "We'll find out what you're facing tomorrow."
"We will," I agree, emphasizing the first word.
Marc looks back at me. "You're going to supervise every minute, aren't you?"
"It's my property."
"I wouldn't expect anything else."
He stands and carries our bowls to the sink before I can stop him. I follow, intending to tell him that guests do not wash dishes in my house, but he braces both hands on the counter and turns before I reach him.
The movement brings me within inches of his chest. My breath catches. Marc looks down at me, the heat in his eyes stronger than it was at the table. One of his hands lifts as if he intends to touch my face, then stops halfway.
"I'm going next door," he says.
I should be relieved. "Probably wise."
"Wisdom has nothing to do with it."
"No?"
"I want to kiss you." His gaze moves to my mouth. "But your lights are flickering, you're worried about your business, and I haven't been here long enough to unpack my toothbrush."
"That is an extremely practical list."
"It isn't helping."
I am tempted to close the distance myself. For one suspended second, I imagine pressing my palms to his chest and discovering whether his mouth feels as commanding as the rest of him. Then the lamp over my sink flickers twice. Marc closes his eyes.
"Your property has terrible timing."
"Eight Pines has always been possessive of me."
We step apart and walk outside. He checks the temporary shutdown to make certain nothing has changed, while I stand beside him trying not to wonder what would have happened if the lights had waited another thirty seconds.
When Marc finally crosses the lawn to Cabin Seven, he pauses on his porch.
"Lock your door, Kelsey."
"I always do."
"Good night."
"Good night, Marc."
I go inside, turn the lock, and lean against the door. My home is quiet around me, but I am not. Every nerve beneath my skin seems to be humming.
Marc came to Cady Springs to oversee a major commercial project, not to rescue the wiring at Eight Pines. But at this rate, my cabins may not be the only thing he rewires.