Page 42 of Show Me

She glances over her shoulder. “I’m ten feet away.”

“Doesn’t matter.”

Her brows pull together. “What?”

“Anyone can walk in.” I rub the spot between my neck and shoulders. “Unannounced. When your back is turned, when you’re distracted, when you think you’re alone.”

She studies me. “Like you?”

The corners of my mouth curve upward. “Yeah. Like me.”

She huffs a breath, shaking her head.

“You should lock it.”

“I’m fine.” The response is offhanded, like she hasn’t given it a thought.

“I know you are,” I reply. “That’s not the point.”

She doesn’t answer that. She just turns back to the piglets, adjusting one closer to Delilah. Did she find out who was sending her the gifts? Were they wanted? The thought rests like a boulder in my gut.

I push off the frame and step inside. It looks… better. Still a mess with cabinet doors stacked against the wall, a section of countertop missing, dust coating every surface, but the new framing is square, and the baseboard she installed appears level.

She’s learning.

“You showed up.” Ruby grabs a piece of trim off the floor, lays it across two workhorses, and draws a pencil from the knot at the top of her head. Her auburn hair flutters around her face. There’s a smudge of dust across her cheek that I didn’t notice on the porch.

“You’re working.”

“It’s Sunday.”

“Your kitchen didn’t get the memo.”

She huffs a laugh and shifts back onto her heels, stepping back from her workstation. “I didn’t expect you.”

I didn’t expect me either. I set my toolbox down. “This trim’s cut wrong.”

She squints at it. “It might be.”

I snort, and she laughs. “It is. Now, move.”

She does, brushing past me, her shoulder grazing my arm. The contact is brief. Unintentional. I notice anyway. I measure, recut, set the piece in place. It fits clean.

“Show-off,” she mutters under her breath.

I straighten and puff out my chest. “Expert skills.”

This time, when she laughs, my breath catches in my throat. I ignore it.

We fall into a rhythm, me bracing the wood while she drills the screws. The work settles us into place.

“You busy this week?”

“Always,” I say. “Dad is taking on too much. We’re booked out, paperwork’s a disaster. Been staying late to keep the lights on.”

“That sounds exhausting.”

“It is.”