Page 5 of Oops I Fell For The Billionaire Next Door

"I'm aware."

"I have quick-set. It's already mixed with aggregate. You just pour it in the hole, add water, and it sets in thirty minutes."

"I know what quick-set concrete is. I'm a landscape designer."

"Right." Rain is running down my neck. The bag weighs fifty pounds on my shoulder. "Then you know the gravel alone won't hold in this soil type. Not with this much moisture."

Her jaw tightens. The post wobbles. She catches it.

"Just let me set the bag down. You don't have to talk to me. You don't even have to acknowledge I'm here. Just let the concrete do its job."

For a long moment she stares at me through the rain. Water running down her face, dripping off her chin. Her eyes are so dark they're almost black, and the intensity in them makes my chest do something inconvenient.

"Fine. Set it down."

We work without speaking. She holds the post plumb while I pour the quick-set around the base, then she adds water from the garden hose. Twenty minutes. The post is solid. She checks the level three times because she doesn't trust me, or doesn't trust anything she didn't do entirely alone. Both, probably.

"The other two posts are fine." She says it without looking at me. "Just this one had rot at the base."

"Makes sense. South facing gets the most weather."

Now she looks at me. Studies my face with an expression caught between suspicion and curiosity. "You know about post rot?"

"I Googled porch railing repair at two a.m. last week."

"Why?"

"Because yours was broken and I couldn't sleep."

The rain picks up. We're both soaked. Her tank top is plastered to her body, and I'm trying very hard to look at her face because the alternative is noticing the curve of her waist, the fullness of her breasts, the way the wet fabric leaves absolutely nothing to my imagination. My hands are filthy. Concrete dust turned to paste on my fingers. She's got mud up to her elbows.

"You Googled how to fix my porch railing." Not a question.

"I also Googled how to fix a leaky roof, how to increase hot water heater capacity, and what kind of soil amendment works best at this elevation. In case any of that comes up."

"You're researching my problems."

"I'm a problem solver. It's what I do."

She pushes wet braids off her forehead. Something shifts behind her eyes. A crack. Small. Just enough.

"The cactus mug was close. Not the same. But close."

"I know. I'm sorry."

"I used it this morning."

Something warm spreads through my chest. Stupid. A woman used a mug. That's it. But the fact that she kept it, used it, acknowledged it, feels like the first inch of ground gained in a campaign I didn't plan to start.

"Come inside," she says. Pauses. "For coffee. Because we're soaked and you just carried fifty pounds of concrete up my driveway."

Her cabin is small. Warm. Smells like fresh soil from the seedlings on every available surface. The kitchen counter has sketches spread across it. Landscape designs, precise and detailed, with plant labels in neat handwriting. A laptop open to a client proposal. A half-eaten sandwich.

She pours coffee from a French press. The cactus mug goes to me. She drinks from a mason jar.

"You gave me your good mug."

"You earned one coffee in the good mug. Don't get used to it."