Chapter One
Ruby
I own a farmhouse. That sentence sounds a lot more solid in my head than it does standing in the drywall aisle at Hart Hardware with a shopping cart full of things I’m ninety percent sure don’t belong in the same building, let alone on the same walls.
There are at least six kinds of drywall anchors. Six. Who needs that many options to hang a shelf?
I pick up a box and flip it over, pretending the tiny diagrams make sense. They don’t. The little cartoon man on the back looks confident. I resent him on principle.
The cart beside me is a monument to misplaced optimism. I have three shades of white paint because apparently paint has undertones and responds to light differently, and I don’t know which one will look best with whatever light bulbs I decide to purchase.
Warm. Natural. Cool. Frosted. What have I gotten myself into?
I also have a bundle of trim pieces because they were on sale. And then, there’s a roll of insulation that’s already shedding like a nervous dog, fibers clinging to my long-sleeved shirt and itching at my wrists.
Maybe the house doesn’t need to be warm. People survived winters in log cabins. With quilts. And spite.
It’s not like it’s a real farmhouse, not like the kind that’re in the middle nowhere with open space all around.
My house sits at the edge of town with an acre of land in total.
But when you have a pot-bellied pig for a pet, you kind of need a farmhouse.
Or at least a yard large enough to hold a pen.
And I have more than one pig. There’s Squirt, who thinks he runs the place, Delilah, who’s the diva, and Samson, who can open the gate if I forget to lock it. They all snore louder than most people I know and absolutely refuse to stand in the rain.
“Planning to reinforce a bunker?”
I don’t turn around. I don’t have to. Only one person in Brookhaven sounds that composed while questioning my decisions. Xavier Cole.
Great. My day just got significantly more complicated.
I set the box of anchors into the cart basket with exaggerated care before looking over my shoulder. He’s leaning one hip against a pallet of sheetrock as if he grew there. His flannel shirt stretches across his broad shoulders, several buttons undone to reveal a faded gray T-shirt beneath.
He’s wearing worn jeans and work boots dusted with sawdust. His dark hair is a little too long, like he forgot to get it cut and decided it wasn’t worth the effort, as if he’s not even trying like he doesn’t have to.
He doesn’t. He’s too fucking hot for his own good. And he knows it.
His eyes drop to my cart. One eyebrow lifts. Heat swells in my chest before rising along my neck.
“It’s called being prepared.” I straighten as I turn to face him while trying to ignore the scent of his cologne.
It’s a mix of cedar, musk, and the faint, ever-present hint of whatever wood he’s been working with.
It clings to the air, to my lungs, to every thought I’m trying very hard not to have.
“Are you preparing to put in new sheetrock?”
What? Why would he ask that? I don’t even have sheetrock screws. Anchors? Yes. Sheetrock screws? Not on my list. At least not today. “No.”
“It’s called buying rolled insulation when you aren’t planning to take out the walls.” He tilts his head, looking into my cart as if it’s personally offending him. “Or were you planning to put this,” he points to the pink, shedding dog in my cart, “in the attic?”
“That sounds like a personal attack.”
The corner of his mouth twitches. “You need blow-in insulation if you’re not planning to gut the entire place.”
“Right.” Warmth floods up my neck. Blow-in for the walls. Got it. “Thank you for that piece of advice.”
Should I keep the rolled insulation? Probably. The house is drafty. But where does the blow-in insulation even go? I’m not about to ask Xavier. He already knows I’m in over my head.
“And….” He glances pointedly at the box in the basket. “I’m not sure you know what you’re doing there either.”
“I gathered that when the cartoon man started judging me.”
With a low chuckle, he pushes off the sheetrock and steps closer, reaching past me to grab a different box from the shelf. His arm brushes mine, barely, but my skin notices. Traitor. Heat lingers longer than it should.
“This,” he says, setting the box in my cart, “is what you want if you’re hanging anything heavier than a picture frame.”
The box looks identical to the one I’d grabbed. Of course it does. “And how would I know that?”
“You could ask.”
“I didn’t ask.”
“You didn’t have to.” The smirk on his face makes my eyes narrow. “You were about to hang a shelf with something meant for drywall the thickness of a cereal box.”
I cross my arms. “Some of us don’t spend our lives measuring walls.”
“Some of us don’t want to redo the same job twice.”
The thing is, he’s not being condescending. Just… factual. Which is worse.
A throat clears behind us. Mr. Wilkins, the hardware store clerk, peers over his glasses. “Xavier, you fixin’ to adopt another project?”
“I’m not a project,” I mutter under my breath.
“No,” Xavier says. “You’re not.” There’s something in the way he says it that sounds sincere.
Mr. Wilkins peers over the tops of his glasses. “Second aisle.”
I frown. “For what?”
“Stud finder.”
That seems like overkill. “I don't think I need one.”
“Trust me.” Xavier crosses his arms over his chest, mimicking my pose. “You do.”
“Can't I just knock on the wall?”
Mr. Wilkins chuckles as he heads toward the register. “Sure can. Doesn't mean you'll find anything.”
I hate this town. I love this town. It’s complicated. Brookhaven is the kind of place where everyone remembers who you dated in ninth grade and what you brought to the church potluck.
But they'll also show up with soup when you're sick, a shovel after the first snow, or a trailer when you're moving. It's a place where privacy is almost impossible, but facing life alone is, too.
“I can take care of the rest.”
“I’m sure you can.” He doesn’t move.
My heart kicks once, hard. “Are you going to keep standing there?”
“Probably.”
“Why?”
His eyes flick to the cart again. “Because you’re about to buy enough paint for a house twice the size of yours.”
“They have names,” I say defensively. “Winter Linen. Soft Cloud. Antique Lace.”
“They’re all white.”
“They’re not all white.”
He leans closer, studying the dots of dried paint on the labels, and the same clean, sawdust-laced scent from earlier settles around me again. His shoulder brushes mine, and I hate how much I notice.
“They’re all going to look the same once they’re on the wall.” He leans back, like he’s already settled the argument.
Really? That’s not what the internet said. I’m not going to say that either. “You’re ruining my vision.”
“You don’t have a vision.”
“I have a Pinterest board.”
He huffs a laugh. It’s low and brief, making my stomach flip.
I shove one can of paint toward the back of the cart, settling on Winter Linen. I’ll return the other two to the shelf. And if Winter Linen doesn’t look right, I’ll paint over it. “There. Happy?”
“I’m not invested enough to be happy.”
Lie. He’s been standing here for five minutes. “Then why’re you still here?”
His jaw flexes, like he’s about to say something else, and then thinks better of it. “Because you’re about to spend a lot of money on things you don’t need.”
“I need insulation.”
“You need insulation in the right place.”
“I have a right place.”
“You have a cart.”
His eyebrows raise, something like respect threading through his expression. “I know.”
My fingers twist together. “The house… needs work.”
I hold my lips together to keep from smiling. I will not smile. He’ll think he’s winning.
“I’ll figure it out.” I tuck a strand of hair behind my ear and shift on my feet.
If I’m able to renovate this house, it’ll prove that I’m capable. Resourceful. Not left behind while my friends charge successfully through life.
“Everything needs work.”
We stand there, the humming of fluorescent bulbs overhead, the distant rattle of someone loading lumber, the subtle smell of cut wood settling into the air, the bell over the front door jingling as another customer walks in.
I clear my throat and lick my lips. “So. If I were… hypothetically… going to start with one room, where would you suggest?”
He taps the cart with the toe of his boot. “Kitchen.”
“Why?”
“It’s where you’ll spend the most time.” A beat. “And it’s where the pipes freeze first.”
I don’t have replacing frozen pipes on my Pinterest board. “That’s a horrifying combination.”
“It’s reality.”
“I hate reality.”
“Reality keeps your house standing.”
I glare at him. “Do you ever say anything comforting?”
“No.”
“That sounds about right.”
“Follow me.” He reaches into my cart and pulls out the roll of insulation. “This is for interior walls. You want R-60 for the attic, and we can talk about blow-in insulation later.”
“R-60,” I repeat, like that means something to me. “Got it.”
“You don’t got it.” He stops in front of the insulation aisle and points to the R-60 placard.
“I absolutely got it.” I’m lying.
He studies me another second, then nods toward the front of the store. “I’ve got a job site waiting. You want me to stop by later, look at the place, tell you where to start?”
My heart does another stupid little skip. I ignore it. “I didn’t ask for help.”
“No,” he agrees. “You didn’t.” He starts to turn away, then pauses. “You’re going to need a better plan than a Pinterest board and stubbornness.”
“I’ve made it this far on stubbornness.”
He glances back over his shoulder. “Yeah. You have.”
The bell over the door rings again as he ambles to the checkout, a rope coil carried over one shoulder.
The right insulation. The right anchors. One can of paint.
My chest feels tight in a way that has nothing to do with insulation. I didn’t ask for help, but I didn’t tell him not to come by, either. I still feel where his arm touched mine. Barely anything. Which makes it worse.
I don’t remember when my foolish crush on Xavier started, but it’s never quite ended. And inviting him to my home is asking for trouble. Trouble I don’t need. Trouble I might not survive.
Xavier Cole doesn’t stay. He passes through.