Chapter Eighteen – Spencer
After last night, this morning should be perfect.
It was not.
In fact, it was the opposite of perfect.
Spencer was still in Pine Cottage when the second email came through about Meryl’s incredible job offer, and he knew instantly that things had changed.
He watched Meryl’s face as she read the message on her phone, the way her expression didn’t exactly change but somehow tightened, sharpened at the edges. Her shoulders straightened almost imperceptibly.
“They want me,” she said, keeping her voice controlled, but he knew her well enough by now to hear the excitement she’d tried to conceal. “They really want me.”
Spencer set down the trim piece he’d been measuring. “The design firm?”
“Atelier.” Meryl nodded, scrolling through the message again. “They’re offering a video call tomorrow to discuss details. They say they’re excited about my ‘particular aesthetic sensibility’ and think I’d be a perfect fit for the project lead.”
She’s already pulling away, his bear growled inside him. Look at her. She’s already halfway gone.
Spencer pushed the bear’s panic down. “That’s... impressive. You’re impressive.”
“It’s a big opportunity.” Meryl set her phone down and turned toward the shelving they’d been working on all morning. “We should get this finished.”
The shift in her tone was subtle but unmistakable. Something businesslike had entered her voice, a briskness that hadn’t been there before the email arrived. Spencer recognized it from their first meeting—the efficient, no-nonsense approach of someone who had a timeline to maintain.
“We’ve still got the staining to do after we hang them,” Spencer reminded her.
“Actually,” Meryl said, examining the raw pine shelves leaning against the wall, “I think we can just seal them clear. It’ll be faster, and they’ll still be protected.”
His bear bristled. Yesterday, she wanted them stained to match the doorframes. She was specific about the warm honey color she’d chosen. Now she wants to skip it?
Spencer frowned slightly. “The clear won’t give them the depth we talked about. They’ll look unfinished next to the other woodwork.”
“They’ll be functional,” Meryl replied, already moving toward the wall with the measuring tape. “That’s what matters.”
He watched her measure the wall brackets again, her movements more efficient now, less careful. The gentle precision she’d shown when they’d picked out the salvage pieces had vanished.
Tell her, his bear urged. Tell her she’s your mate. Tell her what she means to us.
Not like this, Spencer thought firmly.
“Let’s hang the first one,” Meryl said, gesturing for him to help position the shelf.
They worked together as they had before, but the rhythm had changed. When Spencer suggested rechecking the level before screwing in the bracket, Meryl shook her head.
“It’s close enough,” she said. “No one’s going to notice a quarter-inch difference.”
We would notice, his bear growled. She would have noticed yesterday.
Spencer held the shelf steady while she attached it. “Taking the extra minute to level it properly isn’t going to slow us down that much.”
“We’ve got a lot to finish,” she countered, already reaching for the screwdriver.
When the first shelf was up, Spencer stepped back to look at it.
The angle was subtle but unmistakable—the shelf tilted slightly downward on the left side.
Not enough to make anything slide off, but enough that it would always catch his eye.
Enough that it would bother her, too, he was certain, once she wasn’t so focused on getting it done.
She’s rushing now, his bear said. She’s cutting corners because she’s already planning her escape.
“The next one should go about sixteen inches above,” Meryl said, already marking the wall without pausing to really consider the spacing.
Spencer stepped closer. “Meryl.”
She looked up, pencil poised against the plaster. “What?”
“The shelf isn’t level.”
Her gaze flicked to the installed shelf, then back to the wall. “It’s fine. It’ll hold books just fine.”
“That’s not the point.” Spencer kept his tone even. “Yesterday you would’ve taken it down and done it again.”
Something flickered across her face—recognition, maybe even guilt—before her expression smoothed again. “Yesterday we weren’t on a tighter schedule.”
“And today we are?”
“Yes.” She turned back to the wall. “I need to get things wrapped up here.”
She didn’t say it was because of the job offer, but she didn’t have to. The words hung in the air between them anyway.
His bear paced anxiously inside him. This is happening too fast. She’s slipping away right in front of us.
Spencer watched as Meryl measured for the next bracket, her movements quick and efficient. Not careless, exactly, but without the care she’d shown before. Without the sense that Pine Cottage deserved her best work.
“What if we do the rest tomorrow?” he suggested. “Give ourselves time to do them right.”
“There’s no reason we can’t finish today,” she said without looking up. “They’re just shelves, Spencer. They don’t need to be perfect.”
Just shelves. They’re not just shelves, his bear snarled.
“What about doing it the way we planned?” Spencer asked.
Meryl looked at the shelves, then at the raw pine leaning against the wall. For a second, something flickered in her face again. Then it was gone.
“Maybe we keep it simpler,” she said. “They’ll still work.”
His bear bristled. Yesterday, she cared about how they would look in the room. Whether the finish would pick up the warmth in the floorboards. Now she just wants them done.
Spencer looked at her steadily. “You didn’t want simple yesterday. You wanted them to feel like they belonged here.”
Meryl folded her arms. “Yesterday I didn’t have a major design firm trying to pin me down for a call.”
There it was.
Not cruel. Not cold. But clear enough.
Spencer glanced at the shelves, at the wall, at the room they had been slowly coaxing into itself piece by piece. Then back at her.
“So now it’s just about getting things finished?”
Her jaw tightened. “Now it’s about being sensible.”
His bear paced restlessly inside him. Sensible!
“Meryl,” Spencer said, quieter now, “this place matters to you. You know it does.”
She looked away first.
“Right now,” she said, “I need to focus on what needs doing.”
Meryl’s phone pinged again from the table. Her eyes darted toward it, and Spencer saw the shift in her posture—the subtle straightening of her spine, the way she seemed to gather herself back into the professional woman who had first arrived at Pine Cottage.
“I should check that,” she said, setting down her pencil.
Spencer watched as she read the message, her expression becoming more resolved with each second. When she looked up again, something had settled behind her eyes.
“They want to move the call up to tomorrow morning,” she said. “They’re eager to get the team in place.”
“And you?” Spencer asked quietly.
“I need to be prepared.” She glanced around the room, at the half-hung shelves, at the trim they’d planned to finish this afternoon. “We should focus on getting the visible things done first. The things that would matter for showing the house.”
Showing the house. The words were like a punch to the gut.
She’s already planning for after. For when she’s gone. Stop her. Tell her, his bear growled, low and distressed.
“Meryl,” Spencer began, his bear pushing the words up through his throat. “There’s something you should know…”
She looked at him, waiting, and the words died on his tongue. Because telling her now, when she was already pulling away, would feel like manipulation. Like trying to hold her with obligation when she wanted to go.
Tell her. Tell her what she means to us, his bear howled in frustration.
“Let me at least fix the shelf,” Spencer said instead, reaching for the level. “We can do it quickly, but we should do it right.”
Meryl hesitated, then nodded, stepping back to give him room. As Spencer carefully loosened the screws and adjusted the bracket, he felt her watching him. Not with the warm attention of before, but with a kind of practical assessment—the gaze of someone calculating time against results.
When he finished, the shelf was perfectly level.
“There,” he said, stepping back. “Now it’s done properly.”
Meryl nodded, but her eyes had already moved on to the next task, the next item to check off her list. “Let’s get the rest up before dinner. We can do the living room trim tomorrow morning before my call.”
Spencer looked at the work in front of him and knew the truth: Meryl was not just thinking about going. She was already trying to turn Pine Cottage back into something she could finish, leave, and stop loving before it cost too much.