Chapter One Hundred Forty
Ruby
The Next Morning
Travis waves as I get out of my car. “Well, look who decided to come back.”
“Miss me?”
“No.” He grins and winks. “But payroll did.”
I laugh despite myself. Crew members call greetings as I walk past. Lewis lifts a hand from the ladder as he prepares to pull a 2x12 off the top of a stack of lumber. “Good to have you back, Ruby.”
“I missed you guys too.”
Travis falls into step beside me. “You look better.”
“I feel better.” Mostly. There are still bouts of morning sickness that last well into the day, but they’re becoming less frequent.
He opens the office door. “Go look at the desk.”
I narrow my eyes. “What did you do?”
“You'll see.”
I step inside and stop. Sticky notes cover everything. The monitor. The filing cabinet. The printer. The coffee maker.
DO NOT TOUCH.
ASK RUBY.
NOT THIS BUTTON.
XAVIER MESSED THIS UP TOO.
A laugh bursts out before I can stop it. “Oh, my God.”
Travis is grinning. “He’s been losing a war against office work since you left.”
The desk is buried beneath paperwork. Invoices. Payroll. Material orders.
“He tried,” Travis says after filling me in on the potential catastrophes that I might have to clean up.
The door opens behind us. Xavier steps inside carrying a clipboard and stops when he sees me.
His eyes sweep over me. Checking. “Hey.”
“Hey.”
For a beat, no one moves until Travis points dramatically at the desk. “She found the sticky notes.”
Xavier’s cheeks tinge red. “I was going to clean those up, and I didn’t add the insulting one about my paper loading skills to the printer.”
I shake my head. “No, you weren’t.”
“Fair.”
A smile slips across my face. Relief flashes across his face.
Mark pokes his head through the doorway. “Boss, where do you want the stack of lumber out back?”
“West property. Keep it covered if the weather turns.”
Mark nods and disappears.
I look back at Xavier. “You really scared off two receptionists?”
“News travels fast in a small town.” He lifts a shoulder, and one corner of the cocky grin that always makes my knees weak pops up. “They were temporary.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
The smile disappears as he rubs the back of his neck. “One of them cried.”
Travis points at him. “He yelled at the printer.”
“I was talking to the printer.”
“The receptionist walked in.”
God, I missed this. Then something catches my eye on my computer. It’s a security camera feed. Of my backyard. The pig pen. The porch.
I arch my brows while giving Xavier a pointed look. “You’ve been checking my cameras?”
“Yeah.”
No excuse. No hesitation.
“Why?”
“To make sure you were okay.”
The simple honesty steals my breath.
Travis clears his throat. “I have somewhere else to be.”
The door snaps shut behind him.
I glance around the office. “You’ve been doing all this yourself?”
“Mostly. And badly.”
“That’s obvious.”
His sexy mouth twitches again, and my knees wobble. “Your notes were threatening me.”
“You earned every one of them.”
“Probably.”
I trail a finger over one.
DO NOT LET XAVIER TOUCH PAYROLL.
“I hear this one is the most accurate.”
“Lies.” He crosses his arms over his chest. “All lies.”
“Let’s hope they are. I don’t want a bunch of men crying to me about being shortchanged on their checks.”
His smile fades into something quieter. “The woman you saw come up to me at Callahan's…. I told her I was taken.”
The words settle low in my chest.
He steps a little closer. His eyes never leave mine. “I meant it.” Nothing about this leaves room to misunderstand him. “I’m not giving up on us, Ruby.”
I believe him, and I’m done pretending that I don’t want him to, so I lean against the edge of the desk and cross my arms. “You’re still terrible at ordering office supplies. We seem to be out of sticky notes.”
For one awful second, silence. Then he laughs. Low. Relieved. “Unbelievably bad.”
“You sent Lewis to the wrong address.”
“Allegedly.”
I meet his gaze. My heart kicks at his smirk. “That’s not an allegation.”
His grin widens, showing a hint of dimples. “I also accidentally ordered pig feed with the concrete.”
“You did not.”
“I did.”
“Why?”
His expression softens. “I guess I got used to taking care of things for you.”
The laughter fades. The words settle between us. Not heavy. Just true.
And for the first time since everything fell apart... Being with him doesn’t feel fragile anymore.
It feels unfinished.