“Are you bored out of your mind yet?” he asked.
“Far from it. There’s something almost... zen in watching the process.”
“I’m afraid I’m not quite Bob Ross,” he said.
She smiled. “Grow some facial hair and a curly hairdo and you could be.”
“I guess a guy can dream,” he said, which made her smile again.
After all of the resin was poured, he made sure there were no bubbles on the surface.
“I have to let this cure now then add another layer. Some people say it only needs to be tacky, but I like to leave mine overnight.”
They had been there for hours, she realized. It was almost lunchtime. The time had flown by. She rose stiffly from the chair he had set out for her. While she was reluctant to leave, she knew she couldn’t hang out for several hours.
“Thank you,” she said. “It’s as fascinating as I thought it would be.”
He looked over, in the process of turning off the cameras. “Are you hungry? I always find I’m starving after I’ve been focusing for a while on a project. If you want to come up to the house, I can throw something together for lunch.”
“You’ve already opened your workshop for me. You don’t have to feed me, too. I’m the nosy neighbor who won’t leave.”
“I invited you,” he pointed out.
The safe thing would be for her to turn around, walk out of his workshop and head back through the woods toward the cabin.
Was she doomed to spend the rest of her life being safe?
“Sure,” she said, almost defiantly, at least to herself. “Lunch would be good. But I can help make it.”
He smiled, looking dark and gorgeous with a small sprinkle of sawdust in his hair, and she had to shove her hands in her pockets to keep from brushing it away.
Chapter 21
Beckett
He was beginning to find Juniper Connelly entirely too fascinating.
After they walked together to his house, he held the back door open for her. She brushed past him and he caught the teasing scent of her, like tropical flowers with a vanilla undertone.
She was lovely, tall and lean, only a few inches shorter than his own six feet, with blue eyes that flashed with excitement when she was interested in something and a tiny dimple in one cheek that made the occasional intoxicating appearance.
Throw in the air of fragility that brought out all his protective impulses and he was basically a goner.
She had to stay off-limits, he reminded himself. He wasn’t looking for a short-term fling, especially not with a vulnerable woman dealing with a life-changing medical condition.
“Nice place.” She looked around his open-plan living area, with its soaring two-story windows and the river-rock fireplace that dominated one wall.
“Thanks. I like it.”
Beck had done most of the renovation work on the dilapidated cabin that had been here, creating an addition and rebuilding the original structure nearly plank by plank through the first endless year after Soledad died.
It had given him something to do with his grief besides drink and brood and spiral into guilt and pain and self-flagellation.
Somehow, he had created a space he found both soothing and comfortable.
“I’ll admit I’m not a great cook, though I’ve been working on it lately. I did throw together a really good vegetable soup a few days ago that turned out well. I need to eat it or freeze it within the next few days.”
“Sure. Soup sounds good, especially since today is cooler.”
