“Certain. Come on. Let’s head in.” He nudged her into the church, watching her from the corner of his eye as they walked into the preschool room.
This was why he couldn’t let things get serious with Harper. People depended on him. Hisfamilydepended on him.
He couldn’t afford to be distracted.
18
Harper smiled at her phone screen. After posting a selfie with her laptop in the bookshop this morning, announcing that she was, in fact, writing her first novel, her notifications were full of excited comments from friends, acquaintances, and strangers alike. As she sat with Bernard on the top step of the cabin’s porch, though, scrolling through her feed, her good mood soon soured.
Kenzie had posted another picture with her new girlfriend, this one of them in a fancy restaurant, with white wine and tapas on the table as Kenzie nestled into the brunette’s ear.
Yuck. Nobody needed to see that. “It should come with an explicit content warning,” she said under her breath.
Of course, Harper had felt cute whenshehad taken a similar shot with Kenzie, and her followers had certainly agreed at the time.
She closed her phone before she could start obsessing, finding that it was much easier than it once had been. She wondered for a brief moment whether Kenzie was as happy as the photographs made her look, then brushed the thought away.
She didn’t care, she realised. Shereallydidn’t care. The pain of rejection still lingered, like a barely-scabbed-over wound. Once, she would have wondered what Kenzie was doing right this second, what she was wearing, who she was talking to, whether she’d visited her mum recently, whether she had any holidays booked, what she’d had for lunch. But it had been a while since she’d really wondered what Kenzie’s life was like now, detached from their history together. Her only thoughts were bitter and fleeting, like shots of cheap tequila. They burned her throat briefly, but she was moving on.
She leaned against the railing, glad when she heard the squeak of the shed door opening and closing to her right. She’d barely seen Fraser since he’d popped into preschool yesterday. She knew he was busy with Eiley’s problems and his own work, but… she’d missed him.
He strolled into view, heading for his chopping block and stilling only for a moment when he realised she was home. “You’re back early.”
“I wrote four chapters today!” she gushed, but her smile faltered. He wasn’t…lookingat her properly, not the way he usually did. Not with lust and desire, or even with curiosity.
“Nice. Well done. If you were planning to work on it some more, I’m about to be chopping some wood, so…”
Well, that felt like a polite way to tell her to buzz off. She frowned, propping her elbows on her knees. “I’m happy to watch. Maybe you’ll serve as some inspiration for the spicier scenes.”
He tore the axe from the block, assessing it as though he’d never seen it before. “Oh, aye? Itisthat sort of book, then?”
“Maybe.” Her voice lilted with seductive mischief, but whatever she’d hoped to summon from him never came. He turned away, focused on his tool.
Had she misread something? They hadn’t been able to keep their hands off one another, and now he would rather gaze longingly at his axe. He positioned the first humongous log with a heavy grunt, muscles taut beneath his shirt. With repetitive, dogged swings that left beads of sweat shining on his brow, he hammered the blade into the wood until it finally cracked open.
“Are you okay?” Harper asked.
He didn’t hear her, instead kicking half of the split log away. Then, he kept chopping through the first, biting his bottom lip. His nostrils flared with the force of his determined breaths, every ounce of energy used to splinter through the wood.
Something was wrong. She tried to remind herself that shealwaysfelt like something was wrong. Secretly, she’d been waiting for Kenzie to dump her since the moment they’d got together, because nothing good lasted and she couldn’t imagine somebody wanting her long-term. It hadn’t been a surprise when Kenzie had confirmed that insecurity.
But this isn’t the same thing. This is casual,she reminded herself. She decided to go inside and make some tea – one for him, in case he decided to pay attention to her.
On the sofa, she opened her laptop, glad when Bernard curled up beside her so she didn’t feel so alone. She should write while she had the time.
But her attention kept returning to the man outside. She was tempted to Google “how to know if a man is giving you the cold shoulder or just really interested in wood”, but that felt silly. She was not doing this. She was easy breezy!
Of course, she tried to write, but no words came, despite them having flowed out of her in torrents this morning. Her hands still ached from all the typing. So, she spent what felt like hours staring at her document until the sky darkened and Fraser finally came inside.
“You really… went to town on those logs,” Harper said quietly.
“Yeah, well, it’s getting cold. People need firewood.”
“How much do you charge, if you don’t mind me asking? I should probably start paying for mine. I always have the fire lit!” She let out an awkward laugh, glad when he perched on the arm of the couch beside her. A good sign.
“I don’t charge the locals for firewood. If people are able to donate a bit of cash to keep me going, they’re welcome to, but with the cost of living going up, I’d rather make sure everybody’s keeping warm for free. It’s the least I can do.”
Her insides turned to hot syrup. He was such a good person, and he said it as though he didn’t even realise it. She tilted her head to look up at him. “That’s a really kind thing to do for people.”
