26. Mason
Chapter twenty-six
“Give it one more.”
Callie hits the trigger on the nail gun, securing the last piece of timber in place. My hands rest on her hips to keep her steady. That’s the excuse I gave her, and she gave me one look that said she knew I just wanted my hands on her.
We move a few paces back to admire our work.
All the external frames for the new lounge room and primary suite are now finished.
It’ll be our last day at the house for a few weeks, so the next team can come in and fit the roof extension, then the subfloor to extend the upstairs bedrooms, plus the external cladding and insulation.
“This is so exciting, seeing it all come together.” Callie grins. “It was just lines on a page, and now it’s real.”
I wrap an arm around her waist as we move through the house to the front porch. Yeah, it’s really fucking real.
The weekend was amazing. I’m counting down the minutes until I can have her alone again, but being in this house only serves to remind me of what happened here last week. If there weren’t a full crew here with us now, I’d be actively pursuing a repeat.
“You won’t recognise it when we come back.” I press a kiss to her temple, and she sucks in a breath, looking around. “We’ll be lining the walls, ready to paint, then all the new boards and tiles go down. You’ll be able to see all your selections come together.”
“Should we be doing that here?”
“Doing what?”
She clamps her hands together, her fingers fidgeting as she stands rooted to the spot. “Being all touchy-feely. I’m still your assistant.”
I hook my fingers into the belt loops on either side of her shorts and pull her into me. “I refuse to hide you like some secret I’m ashamed of.” I press a kiss to the tip of her nose.
She releases a breath, then lays her head against my chest. “I don’t want anyone thinking badly of me, or that I’m using you, or something.
I’m your assistant.” Callie peers around us, but all the guys here today are working out of sight right now.
“I slept with the boss.” She tells me this as if I’m not the boss she is, in fact, sleeping with.
“Lucky boss.” I bob my eyebrows at her, earning a playful slap to my chest. Catching her hand, I press a kiss to her wrist, then hold it against my heart.
“No one here’s going to judge you. With all the time we spend together, I don’t think anyone would be surprised we fell for each other.”
Callie props her chin on my chest, her arms circling my waist, so I wrap mine behind her back, content to stay in this bubble forever.
“You falling for me, Heartthrob?”
“Since the moment I saw you.”
Her cheeks turn pink, and I love it. I reach down, sweeping an arm behind her knees to cradle her against my chest like a princess and carry her to the table and chairs we have set up on the deck.
I settle her on my lap, content to study her features again, even though I have her memorised at this point.
The freckle on her lip and the three gathered under her eye.
Her dark blue eyes, with the almost grey ring around the pupil.
The subtle streaks of gold woven through her brown hair.
I love when she wears her hair loose, allowing my fingers to tangle in the soft strands, but I also love when she wears her little braids, decorating them with her star clips, like my very own dream conjured from the heavens.
She smiles, but I can still sense a shred of doubt lingering close to the surface.
“What?” I ask, gently, coaxing the answer forward.
“I’m happy with everything that’s happening between us,” she says, fiddling with the buttons on my shirt. “I just hope we’re not moving too fast. I don’t have a lot of good experiences with relationships, and I don’t want to mess it up.”
Her words only confirm how much we both want this, even if there’s fear or uncertainty. I don’t think things are moving too fast because it feels like I’ve waited for her forever.
I draw patterns on her back with the tip of my finger as I figure out where to start to reassure her. “Am I moving too fast for you?”
She shrugs. “Just feels too good to be true sometimes.”
I shake my head, leaning forward so my lips hover in front of hers. “Believe it, Callie baby.”
I move in as if I’m going to kiss her, then shift at the last second, kissing her neck instead.
She laughs, so I keep kissing her. Her legs tuck in, and she falls against my chest. Everything smells like caramel and berries, like my Callie, as we sit on the front porch and our future literally gets built around us.
I’m going to sit on this porch with her every day, watching Navie run around on the grass and pick flowers from the garden. Maybe she’ll have some more siblings to play with one day, too.
“What’s happening with custody?”
It’s been a few weeks since I’ve heard Callie mention what’s happening with her ex. I know she’s petitioning for full-time custody of Navie, and that suits me perfectly because I want all their time too.
“Ugh, Derek’s being a pain. He sent back the last order because one line in the paperwork misspelled his name. That got fixed, then he moved and sent it back again, wanting the correct address. He’s purposely drawing it out for no reason other than to irritate me.”
I don’t know why a hint of dread sinks in my stomach. “Has he reached out to you directly?”
She shakes her head. “Nope. He’s just being an arsehole for the sake of it. I dunno. Maybe he’s mad that my life kept moving while his took a shitty turn—of his own making.”
“Hey, Mase.” Andy, one of my carpenters, comes over to us, standing at the bottom of the porch stairs. “Do you have another copy of the window schedule? We’ve got two different sizes listed between three sets of plans.”
“Tristan’s final plan is the correct one,” Callie says, standing from my lap.
“But the manufacturer’s schedule should be here somewhere.
” She searches through the site paperwork in front of us until she finds what she’s looking for.
I love that she’s taken over, treating it like it’s already her house.
She still doesn’t realise everything was made with her in mind. Everything.
“Here you go.” Callie hands Andy the papers from over the railing. “You’re… standing on the bottom step?” she says slowly before looking over her shoulder at me. Uh-oh.
“Ah, yeah?” Andy looks at her, confused.
“I thought it was broken.”
“It was. We fixed it weeks ago.” He shrugs with a chuckle, then disappears around the house.
Callie turns on her heels and stalks towards me, slowly, seductively.
“The step was fixed weeks ago?” She braces her hands on the armrests, leaning into me.
“Wow! Fancy that.” My eyes roam over her beautiful, bare face, and the lips that were made for mine.
“How many times that you lifted me over that step was it actually broken?”
“Just the first time.” I lean in to kiss her, but she pulls away with a smirk.
“So needy for me, Mr Heart.”
“I’m fucking obsessed with you,” I say, gripping her chin in my fingers. “Now kiss me.”
She kisses me, keeping it PG since we’ve got a crew full of guys working around us. I miss when it was just us here on our own. Now that things are progressing between us, we could’ve christened every room. I’m sure I can create some opportunities for us later.
“Shall we read another letter?” I ask.
She nods, then reaches for the tin sitting on the table in front of us, picking the first one in the pile.
We’ve been mostly reading them in date order, apart from scanning them after they were first found to try to find any names that would help us learn more about the owners. But we haven’t found anything so far.
Callie unfolds it, revealing only a short message.
My dearest Florence, Do not surrender yourself to despair yet.
I am steadfast in my plan and shall not stop until I find some means by which we may yet be united.
Though your father has accepted the Pennington boy’s offer of marriage, all is not beyond remedy; there remains ever a thread that we will be together.
I beg you to hold fast but a little longer.
Yours, Greyson.
Callie gasps as I study the name again. Pennington. I grab my phone to send an email. Earlier in the week after hitting a dead end, I decided to hire an investigator. My snooping skills can only go so far, and Callie and I were both desperate to know the end of the story.
Callie pouts as she rereads the words. “I hope they ended up together. The fact that the ring was in the box, and now this letter, is making me nervous.”
“Read the next one,” I urge her.
She shakes her head. “Maybe we should just make up the ending ourselves. If your investigator finds out what happened and it’s not that they lived happily ever after, don’t tell me. Okay? Lie to me and say it all worked out.”
I reach forward for the next letter, reading it first to myself.
My dearest Florence, I am to depart with the morning light, yet I do so not without resolve.
A notion has taken hold of me—one I cannot deem folly, should it grant us even the faintest hope of being together at last. I cannot stand idle whilst this marriage is carried through.
Should fate decide that I must lose you, then let it be known that no other shall ever command my heart as you have done.
My life, in all its breath, is bound wholly and irrevocably to you.
Forgive me for what I must do, and know, I would sooner suffer any consequence than willingly bring you pain; for it has ever been my sole desire to love you with the utmost devotion. Yours, Greyson.
I look up at Callie, and my face alone must give my feelings away.
“What?” she asks. “Is it bad? Don’t tell me. No, do tell me.”
I press the letter to my chest. “Maybe we should wait until my guy’s looked into it more.”
“They live happily ever after, Mason.” I chuckle at the way she commands it.
“Okay,.” I lean forward, letting my lips hover before hers. “They live happily ever after.”